Yan'an: Desert Village

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So I got a night train from Xi'an to Yan'an. It takes about 7 hours, on the train, but I didn't have a return ticket because it was full on the way back to Xi'an for the next night. I went to the train station at about 10.30pm, and was feeling the effects of last nights free drinks. Xi'an station was disgusting, with fruit and vegetable peelings and sunflower seeds everywhere all over the floor, which didn't help with the hangover. The fruit had started to putrify in the heat, so instead of sweeping it up, the cleaner was having to spread sand all over the floor to dry it first, and then sweep up the gunky sand/fruit mix. Which she seemed unwilling to strain herself and actually do. Lazy bitch. A pervy guy got up from his seat and came and sat next to me, so I moved and went and sat next to a nice Texan boy I saw. He was teaching English here. We established that one of us was probably James Bond in disguise (him because he only had a tiny little bag, was going to Urumqi where the Muslims are rioting, and because the reason he was in China was a secret; or me, because of my uncanny ability to get free stuff from people (and Universities) and wanting to go to a revolutionary site) but weren't sure which.

I arrived in Yan'an at about 6.30am. Once again, I forgot that I was in desert country, and even though it was bright blue skies (nice to see the sky for a change) and bright sunshine, in the shade it was absolutely freezing, and I had to almost run around just to get my body to a reasonable temperature. All the Chinese people were looking at me like I was mental, wearing denim shorts, flip flops and a thin jacket while they were wrapped up in UGG boots and winter coats. Yan'an isn't very popular with foreign tourists, and is really small. It has about 300,000 people which is smaller than Hull, and in China, is barely a village. It has about 100 white tourists a year, but plenty of Red ones. Chinese people go here because there are some caves where Chairman Mao and his mates used to live while they were establishing the Chinese Communist Party, back in the good old, bad old days. This is also why I was here. And to see how small town China is, and whether its different to the huge cities, which are where I'm spending most of my time. It looks a bit like Colombia because even though it's desert, its really green and has houses built into the hills. The city is also set between two mountains, like Bogota and has two rivers running through it.

I didn't want to get stuck in this one horse town, so I decided to buy my ticket back to Xi'an when I arrived, at 6.30am. The woman in the office was a bitch and wouldn't even try to understand my Chinese. (Even though I know what I was saying was perfect Shanghai Chinese and I'd bought tickets with it before) Fortunately a nice girl behind me spoke some English and helped me buy a ticket. The only one I could get was for the next night, so would have to spend the night in a hotel. I was a bit discombobulated because it was so early and I was so cold, so I got a taxi and asked him to take me to a cheap hotel. The cheapest he could find was only 50Y (five quid) but that was by the hour, which I wasn't so keen on. There was another one which was 500Y (fifty quid) which I didn't want to pay but went in and had a look at anyway. While waiting in reception, I saw an old Chinese man (GeGe means older brother in Chinese) and (I think) his younger brother (DiDi means little brother) having a fight. Chinese people are scary when they fight because they don't show emotion on their face and I don't know what they're saying. GeGe was really short and kept headbutting DiDi's chest. The wives just stood and watched, (impassively) until the hotel staff realised it was gonna escalate into something big and pulled them apart and took DiDi outside. There was still lots of shouting, which was a bit much for me at 8am, so I told the staff I would come back later to pay for the room, and was going to eat something. While I was looking for food, I remembered that you can get a bus to Xi'an.

After lots of walking, which was okay because it was still freezing and it warmed me up, I found the bus station and bought a ticket for later that day back to Xi'an which only takes four hours. Had lots of complications returning my train ticket because I'd just bought it, but they took it eventually when I went all Chinese on their ass, and stared blankly at them, repeating the same thing over and over (in English) getting louder and louder, and blocking other people in the queue. Oh yeah!! By then, it was about 10am, and I'd spent almost four hours messing around, doing something that could have taken ten minutes if I'd been properly awake. So I decided to hot foot it to the caves that I'd actually come to see.

The caves were pretty cool, but again, like Datong, not very cave like. These were made out of hill sides, but the inside of the caves had been plastered, so it did just look like little houses that I would have been quite happy to live in for a while. (With more suitable clothing and an electric blanket) I think this modernisation had been done after Mao moved out, because he only lived there a short while in the 1940s, before he went to live in his Palace with all his virgins. (Mao thought that having sex with endless numbers of virgins would keep him young and stop him dying. He also didn't brush his teeth, he drank tea for breakfast and then rubbed his gums with the leaves and ate them. Healthy, eh? I wonder if this blog'll get censored by the government?) The windows were really cool and had little communist stars on the decoration. The beds were made of stone, and did not look comfy. The doorways in between the caves were so low, that even some of the Chinese people had to bend their heads to get through. I had to crouch down a fair way, and at one point almost got stuck between the caves because of some Chinese people who were THAT desperate to see Mao's bed.

At some of the attractions I've been to, I've seen costume rental places (at The World,there were lots of Chinese men and women dressed as civil war soldiers & Elizabethan women-in the same pictures) but here, there were tons of little kids dressed up as proletariat revolutionaries, and little Mao outfits. The kids got their pictures taken while saluting, generally in front of pictures of Mao, or while they were pretending to shoot people. It was fun to see, but a little odd to really see how much Chinese people still revere Mao, who was according to the rest of the world, a bit of a bugger. There were some photos and caves belonging to other people as well, but everyone was really only here for the Mao cave. There was also the table where Mao had given an interview to an American lady and said that "all reactionaries are paper tigers." which is a really famous quote. Kruschev said that the Soviet Union, as a paper tiger, had nucleur teeth, which I think is funny. Or as funny as a threat of nucleur war can be.

The caves were cool, and only cost 10p too. So I decided to go to the other Revolutionary site which was also free, and quite close. I really had to pee by this point, and went to the toilet at the entrance of the second Revolutionary site. This toilet was the worst one I've been in while here in China, which is saying something! There were squatters and Western style which would have been good, but I don't think the cleaner knew how to go about cleaning a western style loo, and so, just didn't bother. I really had to pee, but I had to take a few minutes to go stand outside and actually work up the courage to go back inside and risk touching the walls or anything at all and pee. After nuking my hands with anti-bacterial lotion (thanks Kate!) I decided to not go into the second site, out of protest against the toilets. Even if it was only 1Y, I didn't want my money going to any kind of establishment with those kind of toilets. That's my revolution!

I hung around a bit longer, and actually really liked Yan'an. It was small, and I walked from one end to the other about three times. It was really dusty as well, but most people were very friendly. A small girl (about 13) and her friends, followed me for about ten minutes and then came running up to me and asked (in great English) if I was a teacher. When I said no, they all thought this was the best thing ever, and got really embarassed and ran away again. Lots of little boys on bikes shouted hello, as did a fair few adults in cars. It was nice to have people smile at me for a change, although one old lady did back away from me in the street like I was about to mug her for her bag of bloody oranges. She was very small though. (I definitely could have taken her, if I had wanted those oranges) It got really warm toward the middle of the day, and it was great. I sat and wrote some postcards, and burnt the end of my nose because I was wearing shades. I went in three small shops looking for snacks, and was told I was beautiful by the old lady owner in each of them. One of the old ladies actualy made me wait while she went and got her son to introduce to me, who wasn't bad looking, but spoke less English than the 80 year old woman did, what a first date that would've been. A taxi driver told me I was tall (true) and should be playing basketball (not true). By the time I realised what he was miming, and meant basketball, he was talking about something else, and I randomly shouted Michael Jordan at him. He didn't seem to know who that was, and I don't know any other basketball players or words about basketball except celt, so that conversation kind of fizzled out.

I got the bus back to Xi'an a bit early, and every seat was full. I had to sit on the back row, which was stifling, and sweat like a beast. There was a crazy film about kung fu, magic spells to make people fall in love, a magazine editor, great coffee, three weddings and a really accident prone couple. It was insane, but pretty funny considering I had no idea what was going on. I managed to get back to the hostel in Xi'an, who'd had ten cancellations that day, so they had a bed for me. Me and Jacie hung out and ate pizza. My feet were the dirtiest they've ever been in my entire life because of all the dust in Yan'an, and I was asleep by ten.

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