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Last week was the “Dragon Boat Festival” in China. I won’t be showing you any photos of dragon boat races here because I --along with thousands if not millions of Chinese people, as well as foreign tourists and residents-- left Shanghai for a long weekend. I chose to go to the Guilin area of Guangxi province in southern China, where I stayed in Yangshuo and Ping’an. How nice it was to see green vegetation, rivers and mountains again!. Although I love living in Shanghai, you do suffer from the pollution and lack of “nature” in such a sprawling metropolis.
The Dragon Boat Festival was outlawed in mainland China by the communist government after 1949 but was re-established in 2008. According to my Taiwanese friends, it’s not as much celebrated on mainland China as in Taiwan or Hong Kong. Consequently, for many Shanghanese, rather than watching dragon boat races, it’s more of an occasion to get away from the city for a few days. Most Chinese schools and many Chinese firms only had a 3-day weekend (they had Thursday and Friday off, but had to make it up by working on Sunday), whereas the French School of Shanghai where I teach
gave us 4 full days.
For those interested in the origin of Chinese holidays, Wikipedia states that many Chinese believe that the festival commemorates the death of poet Qu Yuan (c. 340 BC - 278 BC), who, after being accused of treason, drowned himself on the fifth day of the fifth month.
It is said that the local people, who admired him, threw food into the river to feed the fish so that they would not eat Qu Yuan's body. This is said to be the origin of zongzi, the glutinous, filled rice balls wrapped in corn leaves that are made and eaten during the days of the Festival. The local people were also said to have paddled out on boats, either to scare the fish away or to retrieve his body, hence the origin of dragon boat racing. The Festival is also considered a time for warding off evil and disease.
My departure was somewhat comic. I worked till 3 PM on Wednesday and was scheduled to leave from Hongqiao airport (which is to the west of the center of Shanghai and down the road from my school) for Guilin at 5:30 PM; but when I
got to the airport, I discovered that I’d forgotten my passport back at my apartment in the center of the city, and the airlines wouldn’t let me check in with just a photocopy. However, they were willing to put me on a different airline with a flight leaving from Pudong Airport at 7PM, so I rushed back to my place by taxi to pick up my passport and then took the subway and the German-built Maglev train out to Pudong airport (about 50 .kms to the east of the downtown area), only to arrive 5 minutes late for check-in. So back I trod to my apartment via the Maglev and subway. Spent the night at “home”, and then flew to Guilin the next day at 8 am from Hongqiao airport, this time with no mishap.
Sitting next to me on the plane was a very nice young Chinese couple (Jason and Jessie) from Shanghai, who’d lived and worked in the U.S. We agreed to share a taxi to Yangshuo, where we arrived about noon on Thursday, May 28. I’d booked a room at the Riverside Retreat, a family-run bed and breakfast up on hill overlooking Yangshuo and the karst
peaks of the Li River valley.
This place was indeed a “retreat” from the hustle and bustle of Yangshuo, which is no longer a quiet country town. It has been discovered and developed by Chinese people from all over the country, and so now boasts numerous cement-block hotels, restaurants and shops. The famous West Street on Friday and Saturday was packed with people who’d come to admire the beautiful countryside but also to go shopping!
Despite the crowds and the development, I really enjoyed my stay in Yangshuo. At my hotel, I met a very nice Indian couple living in Shanghai, and we chatted on the hotel’s terrace and had dinner together one night in town. To get to Yangshuo from my “retreat”, I’d walk down a path through rice fields and a small village, and then take a 5-minute ride on a rustic wooden “ferry (that cost 10 RMB, or 10 cents) across the Li River over to the town. If you’ve seen the film “The Painted Veil”, you’ll recognize the karst peaks in the river on the photos.
The site of Yangshuo is certainly beautiful, as is Ping’an, a 600-year-old mountain village set among terraced
rice fields, where I traveled three days later by local buses from Yangshuo. The village is inhabited by Zhuang, Yao and Dong people, and the sights there were fantastic. Unfortunately, however, my camera gave out (despite being fixed at the photographer’s market in Shanghai several weeks earlier), so most of the photos I took there were spoilt. Please forgive the quality of some of the ones I’ve posted.
Jason, the young Chinese man I met on the plane, reminded me of a saying I've heard about the complexity of China and how difficult it is to grasp: Stay in China a few weeks, and you could write a book. Stay a few months, and you could probably write an article. Stay a few years, and you could undoubtedly only write a few lines!
I can’t believe I’ll be leaving Shanghai in 3 weeks! As Jason, the young Chinese man I met on the plane, mentioned to me: "Stay in China a few weeks, and you can write a book. A few months, and you'll be able to write an article. But stay for a year or more, and you'll only be able to write a few words!"
Just as China and Chinese culture are vast and complex, so is the city of Shanghai. It's been a wonderful experience, and there are a lot of things I’ll miss. (See my list below.) But I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer: first a week’s trip to Bal on July 3, then 10 days in Paris (back on July 11), followed on July 22 by a trip to California, Denver, Portland, Seattle, and Glacier National Park in Montana.. Hope to see some of you along the way.
In the meantime, and before I report again from Bali, here’s a list of things I’ve appreciated about living in Shanghai:
• The smiles and friendliness of the Chinese people
• My little friends in the Koala Room of the orphanage where I’ve volunteered
• My comfortable apartment and my neighborhood (the French Concession)
- Shanghai's safe streets
• My colleagues and my 6th and 7th grade students at the French School
• Activities & friends at the American Women’s Club, the Cercle Francophone, InterNations & the Royal Asiatic Society
- My Monday-night writing group
• Literary events at the Glamour Bar (M on the Bund)
• Interesting historical
walking tours and talks
- Anti-stress, aromatic oil, 90-minute long full-body massages at affordable prices (about 17 euros)
• The sports club (esp. the swimming pool and squash court) behind my apt. complex
• So many cheap and plentiful taxis
- The "no-tipping" policy in China
• The variety of restaurants and jazz clubs (both Chinese and international)
• Travel possibilities within China and the rest of Asia
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Piper
non-member comment
Wow!
What wonderful photos and love your descriptions! What a great time you seem to be having! So glad to be on your "blog" list. Piper