Chinese Cities That You Have Never Heard Of, And Neither Had I: Part 2

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Jiujiang: The City of My Dreams

I like cities with quirky charms; places with intriguing subtleties. Places where the little green man at road crossings doesn’t just idly stand around but instead runs (not walks, runs) across. Furthermore, the green men in Jiujiang run faster and faster as the end of their time in the spotlight approaches finally ending up in a full on sprint that puts elite sportsmen to shame. When you cross the road here you don’t consider walking slowly, the green man demands that you do as he does: get across as fast as you can. This is because the Jiujiang driving philosophy is that “time waits for no man, and neither do buses”. Even when the pedestrian light is green there is an almost 100%!c(MISSING)hance of a car plowing through your personal space.

Jiujiang is a city where everyone looks to be either 14 and goth or 50 and confused as to why their children are goth (not quite that bad, but fashions here seem to be determined by the seven western posters that are above one intersection), where western songs like “Lemon Tree” can be covered with Chinese words replacing all but the title lyric without anyone batting an eyelash (as far as I could tell the translation was “My love is a Lemon Tree. Try and get a copy of the song, it’s a laugh). The port of Jiujiang is unimaginatively shaped like a cruise liner, a full size cruise liner, which I guess is not surprising considering the town sits on the equally unimaginatively named “Long River” (Yangtze for those the western world). This is a town where the word coffee will be responded too with full enthusiasm, a fast response, a quick pouring, and finally the presentation of something closely resembling a lollipop.

The town lacks anything even remotely resembling a tourist attraction and warrants only the briefest mention in any guidebook, and then only as a suggested place to sleep which is cheaper than the hotels at nearby Lushan, yet I have found Jiujiang to be without a doubt one of the most interesting cities in China. Why? Probably because I’m losing the plot but also because it’s different and intriguing. It’s easy to travel here, all the required facilities can be found with ease (I was practically mugged by women trying to sell me cheap as chips accommodation) and the place is clean and comfortable. Also, it has at least two tourist attractions: a large lake with a fantastic pagoda, and the Yangtze which is truly a remarkable river (big, really really big, and a much cleaner colour than the Mekong).

The Two Faces of Lushan

Lushan is an anomaly; one of those things that defy all reason but sit there in the world anyway. What is special about Lushan, and thereby is the cause of its tourist existence, is that it is a small mountain range which strikes out of the Yangtze river basin and climbs to about 1400m somewhat instantaneously. Being in the middle of a basin this fact makes Lushan special, unique and thus desirable. Also, being within easy reach of Shanghai made Lushan an ideal location for the summer retreats of foreigners working in the region. So, not surprisingly, a community of high class colonial villas sprang up there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Following the colonial construction on Lushan the villas changed hands, somewhat following the political fortunes of China as a whole, so that fairly well all of the buildings at one point in time housed famous Chinese figures. Chiang Kai Shek had a monstrously proportioned villa, Mao had a somewhat out of place villa built (it is the only one which looks as though it was built in a 1950's style), Deng Xiao Ping owned a rather humble abode, and a dozen other politicians also left their marks. The famous Lushan conference of the Chinese Communist Party in 1959 was held in these mountains (as the obvious name would suggest) and the whole settlement appears to be intrinsically linked with the fortunes of Chinese politics (and politicians, one guy suspiciously disappeared after a conference here).

Arriving in Lushan I was unaware of anything, neither the geographical anomalies nor the architecture was visible thanks to a thick layer of fog. From my viewpoint I was going to spend a day in the relative comfort of the cool mountain air (which would have been refreshing were it not for fumes from a thousand tour buses belching past me on the road) while not seeing anything in particular that did not come from my imagination. But then, as I walked down the road towards the main settlement the mist parted across the valley and I could see before me something truly beautiful.

Appearing through the mist were two things: one was a small town nestled in the saddle between two slowly rolling peaks which contained a completely alien collection of buildings. No Chinese city looks like the one I was looking at, there were no concrete monstrosities, no neon lights blaring out the horrible letters the spell Karaoke Television, no ugly towers and no dirty slums. In their place was a quiet little town of red roofs and stone walls. The second sight which so caught my eye was the edge of the mountain, the precipice as it was, where the land slid away with shocking rapidity down into a endless misty valley. The edge of the world was punctuated by outcrops of rocks, pretty as they tore from the green hills towards the sky neglecting several constricts of gravity as they went.

As I entered the town I found that I had not yet seen a thing. The pre-movie entertainment had been great but the feature film was going to be on another level entirely. From the start of the settlement the hillside slowly drifts downwards through a series of verdantly green valley towards a couple of lakes. Eventually the valleys split into two distinct sides with a precipitous gorge running between them. On the eastward side of the split lies the colonial settlements, the English concession as it was known, where the old stone buildings can be found. This is the first face of Lushan, the first side of it's dual personality.

Row upon row of houses, a century old if they are a day, lie calmly along three parallel streets. Churches, the houses of missionaries, the villas of merchants, the abodes of generals; all of these stand by side in equality. Each building is unique, fulfilling the stylish desires of the elitist residents that payed for construction. English, French, American, German, Danish, Dutch and a ludicrous supply of other styles are arranged beside one another as if in a museum exhibit. Walking along the roads (only one I admit I didn't have time for it all) I passed from one serene view to another, enjoying the cool air and the shade of the thick trees which covered each and every path with ease.

Because of the beautiful buildings and the wonderfully unusual setting, Lushan has become something of an artist's haven. Busloads of students were sharing the town with me; at every turn I would find dozens of them sitting on the grass with their pens and sketch books out. Paint, pencil, pen and pastel, all forms were there in prolifery. Jealousy struck me when I saw that the artists could produce infinitely more beautiful portrayals than my meager camera: they could remove power lines and Chinese tourists from the final product, two things which define photography in this country.

The second side, or face, of Lushan is in total contrast. It has nothing to do with buildings so I split my tour into two: morning in town, afternoon on a sheer cliff face. From the town a path leads to the western side of the mountain range. In fact, the path runs along the very precipitous edge of the precipice. There I stood, on a rock outcrop high above the world, the bottom of the valley, the vast plains of Jiangxi and the Yangtze river stretched below me. A sheer drop of multitudinous meters, perhaps 500 of them, was all that stood within two steps of me. Behind me hundreds of tourists fought to get the best view and the ultimate photograph: hardly ideal safety conditions. To put it lightly, the view from the side of Lushan is like looking down on the world from an aeroplane. The height is staggering, the view amazing, the rocks inverting, and the misty ethereal clouds enticing. I stood alone on some rocks, trying to take in the view from yet another imaginatively named pinnacle.

At the height of one pinnacle, named after a dragon or some such, I found the ultimate in tourist gimmicks: you could get your picture taken in exactly the same pose as Chairman Mao once did. A photo of the venerable leader was on display, sitting in his wicker chair on the rock with the valley behind him, and a replica chair was available on the exact spot in readiness for a plethora of posterior. What struck me most though was that I had seen the photo before. Or more precisely, I had seen the original photo of Mao in the chair only he wasn't sitting on top of a cliff in Lushan, he was instead sitting in a rather non-cliff-like living room. Not even the portrait of their most beloved leader is safe from Photoshop and tourist trapping. At least this one wasn't aimed at taking exorbitant amounts of money from westerners alone.

Later I managed to walk down a slightly more obscure path so as to avoid the throngs of tourists (there was a carnival ride to take lazy people around the supposedly "boring" section that I was traversing) and I was able to see unadulterated forest the way it is supposed to be, only with the occasional view of eternity stretching away from another cliff face. Pagodas, temples, carved rocks, all of these were hidden away. Centuries old places built to worship the gods from what is clearly their playground (a tablet written by the last Song Emperor himself rests atop one peak).

Lushan is a beautiful place for many reasons, and I left the mountain reluctantly (and in an exhausted state of metal over-stimulation and whimsical humour: see last journal). Despite the overly thick hordes of Chinese tourists, their belching buses and the feeling that "alone" will never exist in this country, Lushan remains the beautiful retreat that the colonial rich dreamed of.

Dinner one Night

Hunger overtook me, not unexpectedly mind you, that was after all why I had come all the way to the center of the city, so I looked at my options. The western-styled pizzas from earlier were still stuck in my head, I had been craving a good pizza for nigh on a week, but I wanted to give the local cuisine a chance. I spied a few options nearby but only one really took my fancy. The strings of canteen operated Chinese fast food joints may have surprised me with a cut-price duck a la orange, but I doubted it. Instead headed towards a restaurant named “Scent of Fish” because it sounded mildly erotic, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to prove that possibility wrong or right but it was worth a look. Upon closer inspection I found that the signs actually read “Scent Offish” which, despite being considerably more comical, was definitively unappealing.

That left me with the pizza. However, in hindsight I would (and do) say luckily, I passed a small family run restaurant and somehow got sucked into it. Ordering my usual random set (conversation goes like this: “I want a meat dish that you like and a vegetable dish that you like”, “Well sir, I like all the expensive things of course”, “Do you like cheap ones”, “These are good”, “Ok, whatever”) I was shocked, appalled, disgusted and overwhelmingly ecstatic to find that I got two dishes that absolutely demand description; painfully long and verbose description.

Just kidding.

The first dish was my favourite: fried Chinese Eggplant, this time somehow managing to also have pork in it (huh?). The second was an improved version of that fantastic dish I had in Shangrao two days earlier: Cummin beef, only this time it lacked the pinky colouring, looked decidedly like beef and black bean, and was served sizzling on a platter. Here was a dilemma; I was faced with two dishes that fought against each other to win my stomach (equivalent to the heart in usual humans). On my right was my all time favourite, on my left the new challenger: a dish so perfectly seasoned (garlic and cummin), so delectably sauced, so tenderly cooked to tenderness, and so ultimately delicious. It was decided easily, I have a new favourite dish. Unfortunately this means that the province of Jiangxi is now officially the holder of the greatest Chinese cuisine, a fact which may prevent my leaving.

The beer here is no good though, that should be enough to make me move on sometime next year.

Leaving the restaurant, I returned to my overly thoughtful state (I had been thinking ludicrous random thoughts all evening) and decided that I was so overly stuffed full of food that I was in danger of explosion should I eat anything else. I pondered on what I would look like after such an event, the options being a Jackson Pollock or the guy from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, and after a while I realised with some shock that I was absent mindedly perusing the menu of an ice-cream parlour.

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Photos

Lushan in the Mist
First glimpse of Lushan.

Mao's Villa
Not very colonial.

Mao's Bed
Untouched from when he last lived there. Creepy.

Comments

[bruno]

great blogs
great blogs, keep'em coming