Part 2: Silk Road

PREVIOUS WEEK IN REVIEW… (listening to: King Tubby)

Tuesday
Our Final Exam format was revealed, and CHI 201 portfolio due. Not too stressed about the course any longer now that all major projects are turned in; Final looks manageable especially since it’s all I have to focus on.
Had the most delicious BaoZi for breakfast this morning—shredded carrot w/egg & potato.
Most surprising thing about Chinese cuisine this trip has been the often and exceptional use of eggs.
Past few days have been such a blur that I don’t remember much more about them in retrospect.
Our new art teacher, Dr. Beningson, arranged for us to visit an art exhibit called “Reason’s Clue” at Lin & Keng Gallery, and talk to two of the artists participating in the show. Zhang Hongtu, a gray spry Chinese man who paints post-impressionist versions of ancient Chinese paintings, adn Michael Cherney, an American photographer who moved to Beijing for the picture-taking and art scene. He takes 35mm of historical Chinese sights, plays with them using modern techniques in the darkroom, then puts the best of the best shots into archaic-style Buddhist prayer scrolls. Other cool displays were some ironic bronze works in the back--copies of cave wall carvings with Wii remotes worked in, metal statues of Disney characters entangled in Krishna-style multi-armed Hindu tantric poses. The theme of the exhibit (and Chinese contemporary art in general) is the combining of new and old in unexpected ways to try and get a rise out of the audience.

Wednesday
Class and 2:00 study session were my focal points of the day, especially studying for the Speaking portion of the final. It’s a dialogue with another person in the class (luckily for me, my partner gets the best grades in 201-level, even though she’s only 16) about the experiences we’ve had in Beijing these 6 weeks, our general impressions of China, and plans for the future. Not a terribly hard topic but my grasp of writing and grammar is much better than my listening/speaking skills. Ugh 4+ hours of in-class Chinese study, at least for part of the morning we watched Kung-Fu Panda to improve listening comprehension. It was a nice break even if the movie was mediocre.
Felt restless after class so I took a walk around the back of the school to find a street I’d always been able to see off the balcony but never visited. It was actually covered with some really incredible yet simple street art. Just spray paint or rollers on a brick wall, but still impressive in a cute deco way. I always forget Beijing rule #1: have a camera on you at all times.
Afterwards, before I had even put my stuff away in my room, I ran into Melissa, Kyle & Dan, and as they were all super busy the next couple days with packing and other Part 2 preparations, they wanted to make a final quickie trip to the indie teahouse. Of course I was down, regardless of study needs—it was only 7ish, still had the whole night.
Well, we spent about three hours there, tasting new teas and finding out about our tea ladie’s life. It turns out she actually used to work on a tea farm in a Southern province. Literally, as a field hand. Then she and her family took this knowledge of tea and moved to Beijing to open this little shop. She encouraged us to try as many blends as possible: new strains of Pu’er and Oolong, as well as lemon and Red teas. She also inducted us in the subtle art of tea combinations, which we had already been experimenting with. AN expensive, fine-grain Black mixed specially with crysthanthimum, light, bold, complicated, like a coffee. I’ve got a great idea already for back in the States, orange rinds with Pu’er (Pu’orange).
Anyway, we got lost in the black hole of tea, and ended up spending more than anticipated (I dropped 400 yuan). Also we didn’t get back until 10:30. Luckily one restaurant was still open, a tiny Korean joint downstairs, so we grabbed dinner and I went up to study before bed.

Thursday
Crammed a little the morning before, which was interrupted by our toilet breaking an hour before the test. So I had to run down to the front desk and manage to explain the situation in Chinese, luckily they were up to fix it in half an hour and Wes & I made it to class on time.
Aced the Final itself. That’s right, folks, A in the class. Thursday was a day to celebrate, but first squeezed in a trip to the bank with Wes and Dave to make a just-in-case traveler’s check exchange. On our walk back we meandered and explored the streets looking for hilarious t-shirts, finding nothing.
Celebration started with our Goodbye Banquet that evening. We invited all the on-campus Grad teachers from every Chinese level on the trip and gave them presents after dinner. I gave ours some of the tea I’d just bought, partially just so I wouldn’t have to pack it the next day haha. Some students had also prepared speeches, one made a powerpoint of pictures from the trip, and there was a live musical performance by our ragtag band of new instruments, Peking Pita. We had only practiced for 15 minutes though, in fact the 15 minutes preceding the banquet. Still, it was a passable cover of Grizzly Bear’s “The Knife,” and everyone just had fun with it.

Thursday Night
As stated earlier, Thurdsay was a night to celebrate. All the classes had finished studies, and we were ready to blow off some steam. All night. At the clubs.
We danced all night, kiddos, and I don’t regret it for a second. It was two big groups, ours of about 14 and another with around 10 that went elsewhere. We started the night at a place called Cargo, that had always appealed to us but the weekend covers keeping us at bay. Took advantage of the weekday free entry and grooved to house and techno amongst mist and bubbles. Dominated the dance floor and were the only white kids in the club of a few hundred.
Then checked out another place with a bigger, simpler dance floor that mostly played Hip-hop and remixes. Music and atmosphere were far better at the first place but the dancing better here. Altogether we were movin’ for over 5 hours, having dance-offs with Chinese homies and taking over stages.
Got back a shade before 5 for a shade of sleep.
Friday
…but had to wake up 8:45 to start packing and taking care of last-minute trip business. After all this was done in the evening, Dan/Dave/Hao/Ryan/Kyle/Wes/I hit up off-campus JiaoZi King for our final Beijing dinner. Plate of egg/shrimp/mushroom, order of whisked egg whites/aged tofu. 好吃极了！
Came back and rallied some others to see a different night market than before, one we heard was better than the other. However, we heard incorrectly—it was just a street of restaurants, and we’d all already eaten. So we wandered around and wasted time and money on taxis and never got anywhere except tired. Wanted to play late-night poker on our last night in Beijing but decided instead to grab what little sleep we could. Had to wake up at 4, it was already midnight, and my voice was already out. I’m done.

PART TWO BEGINS

Airplane ride
I have all my life to sleep and only a few days in Urumqi and less than three weeks left in China.
Middle seat means limited view, but what I did see was gorgeous. Metropolitan MidEast/Persian feel to Urumqi’s panoramic sky view, vast stretches of colliding sand-desert simmering toward an omnipotent jutting purple mountain range, the peaks cutting open the clouds and bleeding snow at high elevation.

{7/12/08 1:30 P.M.}
Urumqi. Our tour guide is named Benjamin and looks Mongolian but the races are so mixed here it’s hard to tell. He’s got an austere face and plain speech and is telling the more-than-half-asleep bus about ancient Mongolian language. Culture/architecture/street corners here are a bizarre mix of Near East/Mongol/Han peoples with heavy Russian proximity and tourism influence.
Urumqi. The current temperature is 90+ degrees and arid…as if I could escape the Phoenix summer.
Urumqi. My first impression of the city…reserved curiosity. Is it a place to find yourself or lose yourself or just to visit for a couple of days? Am I gonna wax Kerouac or wane Quixote, or be a tourist instead? Currently feeling: raw. Got some sleep on the plane but feel dehydrated—my voice is cutting out and throat raspy. Nothing hurts or feels sick but I may be a little run down. Sleeping is for bus rides and after China, after all.
Urumqi. Food is delicious, if lunch is any indication, but not much of an appetite today to take advantage. Served mantou (steamed chewy bread roll—looks and tastes almost like a balled up unsalted pretzel), mutton kabobs, crazy good veggies dishes (primarily corn and broccoli) among many other dishes. There will be so short supply of food on this trip: Pang Laoshi always orders way too much even for massive tables of teenagers, and she’ll be taking us out often.

Urumqi. We’re going to a mummy museum before we even check in to the hotel. I can tell we’re gonna be so busy this glorious Part 2. The plan today is to check in to hotel and hit two cultural sites, and we just got off the plane and it’s already 3:15. Sometime in the next three days is 天山(TianShan, “Heaven Mountain”), arguably the most beloved peak of China’s many mtn. ranges. Knowing me the way I do I’ll hike the hell outta it too and be even more tuckered out. But I have the rest of my life to sleep and right now I’m in Urumqi.
How about you, eh? You going to a Mummy Museum anytime soon?
Well, not exclusively mummies. It’s called XinJiang Semi-Autonomous Museum, and it had a very anthropological feel. A lot of ancient relics and artifacts on display, excavated pots and ceremonial rugs and the like, as well as a few mummies.
I think I had an out-of-body experience looking at one of the mummies. I just so happened to burp as I looked at her face, and thought, is that all that makes me different than this museum display? Is there anything left after the loss of bodily function? Am I anything more than my ability to burp? Actually that train of thought sounds stupid now but held profound meaning at the time.
Great exhibit on rugs also. Boring to most, ye, but not to me. The designs are so meticulous and gorgeous and the fabric so beautifully colored and woven. Basically a combination of Islamic uses and designs (prayer rugs, Persian-style ascetics, Middle East images and patterns) with the materials and production methods of the Far East (Chinese silk and sheep wool, giant hand-spinners). The gift shop had a woman actively creating a giant, 10’ x 20’ rug. So incredible that single stitches with individual colors can eventually mature into something so mind-blowing and otherworldly.
The museum mostly focused on the dozens of different races and ethnicities that have occupied the XinJiang Province region in history, and how conquest of major powers over these indigenous peoples has influence local culture. The whole situation strikes me similarly to that of Native Americans back home, from the desert landscape to Anazazi-style buildings to the loss of social identity and consolidation of tribes by invaders (namely Mongols and Han Chinese). Ask a native of XinJiang and they’re not Chinese, and Urumqi isn’t China. Only the modern border lines say that.
This blend of cultures is far more eclectic and convoluted that I had imagined. The folk customs of local peoples like Tajik, Uygur, Daur, trying to maintain identity, while Muslim/Middle East culture and also indigenous Kazaks fused early on, Buddhism and its 2000-year old travel along the Silk Road (this area basically led to the spread of Buddhism throughout the Far East), and the more recent dichotomy of Han and Mongol tradition all mix together, sometimes insolubly. Top that off with the surprising addition of Russian influence, mostly due to proximity and perhaps role in tourism/economy. What a marvelous, interesting place.

7/15/08, 10:45 a.m.

{currently listening to Tapes’n’Tapes}
Check out and head out before 8:15, we barelt knew thee Grand Turpan.
Three huge cultural excursions today, should equal a lot of fun, some revelation; a lot of bus, some droopy eyelids; magnificent more than anything. Very much the feeling of a turning-point sort of day.
I had been over my that lil’ sore throat mini-cold but local dust has re-aggravated it, almost half the group is in the same boat though. Luckily, I still have my Honeysuckle Tablets and good immune system.
First stop: 高城 (GaoCheng), an ancient capitol trading city alongside the Silk Road. This place makes me want to be an archeologist. It’s the Anazazzi-esque ruins of 高城, crumbling brick structures and husked-out identities and treading on the lives and once-bled heartbeats of a reality that’s become extinct, extinct but I can still see it and walk through their eyes and out through their irises. Oval-topped Taoist structures, massive vertebrae of the town’s central Islam Mosque, the tunnels with carved-out cave homes, holes really, underneath the hard beige dirt with vast stretches of sand dunes stately like titanic cobras and Fire Mountain with its blazing red clays beyond.
What a time for my camera batteries to crap out.
Oh well. That’s not what matters. It’s not the petty internal concerns like meeting a touristy picture quota of studiously penning an auto-biography of my travels in China, cranking out memories like cogs.
I’ll always remember GaoCheng and what it meant to me, and the entrance bazaar with its low-quality scarves I didn’t buy, and the too-bumpy bus and heat and my hand fan.
I’ve also been to the Caves of 1000 Buddhas today, and also stop at NW China’s most important Muslim minorette on our way to a Kazak village/grape orchard. Then late tonight I’ll take my first train ever, a night train.
Dealt with internal struggles and helped others with their external ones
And I’ll always remember what it meant to me, so I’m going to put back into the communal Life-glow that circulates in all our social interactions and pours experiences into all of us, doesn’t let us stagnate. When and if I write on the night train late, it’ll be creative. I refuse to log today down in a journal because I want to live it.

7/16/08…8:45 p.m.

All aboard, Night Train from Urumqi to DunHuang.
What a bizarre experience, and a good one. We waited for about an hour in this fancy luxury lounge before boarding. Each “room” was more like an indent in a long hallway three bunk beds on each side, and a small fold-out table in-between. I was top, Dan middle, and Wes bottom on our side of the room, and it was a good time. But we were all pretty tired and exited to be travelling on something with an actual place to lie down, so we took full advantage and read/slept moreso than celebrate.
Lame train toybox mus-ac woke me up a shade before eight, had to kill three more bus hours by hanging out with friends and window watching. The Gobi never looks inviting, but the landscape is constantly changing, every ten minutes a different shade of desert, barren or parched or sublime, until we roll into irrigated oasis of DunHuang, population 60,000, size six square kilometers.
Checked into our (fancy, yet again) hotel, fueled up on a quick, delectable, too-big lunch and headed to MoGao.
MoGao. The real site of “1000 Buddha caves.” These are miniature prayer temples carved out of mountain faces, called “stupas,” filled with elaborate painted designs on the roof and walls, a curved ceiling with a square door in the top, made to represent the worshippers’ ascension into Enlightenment by focused prayer on the statues within.
Each of these caves was built via a sponsor, who in exchange for funding the production of the worship area, were given “Buddha credits.” No joke. Like monopoly holy money, you could either use it for your own eternal benefit or put the spiritual “credit” back into the community or transfer it to others through various rituals. Very much the feel of Catholics counting rosary beads or pledging 10%!o(MISSING)f income to your mosque. Buying your way to Paradise, worldly paths to transcendence. The designs were so beautiful, each square foot with thousands of designs to look at, thousands of man hours and dedication, the concentration, the commitment, it’s astonishing and overwhelming and forces you to into introversion and decide what matters most to you and why.
We visited maybe a dozen of the open-to-public sites; my favorite stupa was #61, a huge cave with all the spiritual sites of China painted as a patronage map across the wall. You get lost for what seems like hours, looking at every one of the thousands of little detail in each of the thousands of feet of art. Simple designs of warriors fighting demons inside the Forbidden City, complex murals of bohdissaphas (enlightened ones who have chosen to stay on Earth and help others rather than ascend and become Buddhas), the diversity and level of dedication that this particular cave must have taken is mind-boggling. You don’t have to agree with the beliefs of these ancient monks to appreciate their creation. I was also blown away by stupa 46, which had small but uniquely-designed Indian statuettes, the giant and famous Buddha of 96, chubby and golden and over 200 feet tall and just so large that your entire field of vision is absorbed by its knee…the sleeping Buddha, languorous and at peace and about to pass into Heaven, with followers alternately laughing and crying…the whole site was just so many feats of dedication and miraculously preserved works of art, it was almost too much to assimilate, even in five hours.
There was a lot of human drama, though, too much. Dr. Benningson wanted to show us more temples and Buddha caves, but security and secrecy have been increasing on a yearly basis at MoGao. Now most of the rooms are closed off on a daily basis, and you have to have a site-hired tour guide with you to enter the caves that are open. And the number of 1000 Buddha caves a group can visit in a day has been limited to ten. And all this had been changed since Benningson had been here last and she didn’t take kindly to it.
She spent more time than she was supposed to explaining the rooms, dishing out random tidbits of knowledge and textbook blurbs while other groups waited antsy and angsty, never stopped clashing with the site tour guide, and our kids were all getting sick of it.
My problem is that I can identify myself with everyone’s point of view and she just thought she was giving us the best educational experience possible and ya know ya know ya know
What I wanted to do tonight was read J.D. Salinger and do creative writing about some deep sociological shit but instead I forced myself to journalogue my this trip again because I was afraid I would forget after it was over, and now It’s midnight and I’m too tired to remember all the deep introspective thoughts I had while at MoGao and the things about myself that I did take away I don’t care to share right now.
So the rest will be really quick. We came back to the hotel and Pang’s feeling much better. Oh yeah Pang’s had a wicked, completely floored-ya’ fever for the past day or two, missing all of yesterday and today’s excursions and practically bedridden on the night train. But she’s better now and so are a lot of us.
This place has internet so most of us dicked around on computers for a bit before hitting the local night market. It was a little touristy for us but we found a great ice cream vendor stand right outside and I’m still operating off the sugar rush of a red bean blended ice smoothie. Hearty as hell, cowboy soup of desserts. There are some things about Turpan I’ll write down tomorrow too because I honestly don’t want to forget them and tomorrow will also be about the most fun day in the history of the trip and my life. I’m so exited. I’ll journal that down for the record books for sure.
But as for tonight I’m pretty sick of this journal. It cost me a chapter of a novel, or a short story, or maybe even just a little bit of myself bled lovingly onto paper. So I’m gonna read Salinger like I wanted to all along and then go to sleep.

7/17/08
Woke up with a wicked upset stomach, almost didn’t go down to breakfast because the thought of food was nauseating but I tried a few bites of toast and some OJ and managed okay. Took a couple tea eggs and an apricot to go just in case appetite hits later.
But anyway, more importantly, time to go. To where you ask?
Gobi Desert, y’all!
Uh, yeah, we rode camels. The whole group put on their bandanas or hats, posed for pictures, rented some ridiculous orange booties to keep the sand out from our shoes, and hopped on our desert rides. It was an awesome uphill 25-minute meander atop my camel, who was a bit antsy and kept trying to pass Wendy and her camel in front of me. The whole group of us joined the caravan of other tourists traversing the Gobi like wannabe Lawrence of Arabia, mounted on our two-humped camels and holding 4-maga-pixil cameras like sabers.
The sand dunes are surprisingly smooth/tall—the Gobi is the best place in the world to space out and think what it would be like to stumble upon unknown lands. What would it have been like to explore this place stranded riding camels for days
At the end of the ride, you can pay 15元 to climb to the top of one of the largest dunes, using stairs built by the opportunistic natives, and then ride a box down and have your picture taken like a log ride. However, they underestimated how frugal and adventuresome Dave, Dan & I are. We set out to climb the 200-foot sand mountain on our own, without stairs. This was deceptively hard, maybe even harder than the Great Wall hike. It’s not like a mountain covered with some sand: It’s a mountain of sand. There is nothing solid underneath. It’s over two hundred feet of 75-degree vertical angle quicksand, and we conquered it, even if we had to get down on all fours and literally crawl up towards the end.
The view from up there was worth it, worth anything. No wonder people see mirages in the Gobi.
Both merciless and gorgeous. Hopeless, inspiring.
Then instead of the box ride, as we had to ticket, we were on our own again, and started running back down. This was, in contrast to the way up, extremely easy and fun, going in leaps and bounds like moonwalkers in our orange space boots.
The camel ride continued, traipsing on a downward trail now as the arid heat begins to beat down harder. Although the descent was a hilarious bobble-head blast, I was getting a bit of heat stroke at this point, as the dune hike was not complimenting my morning uneasiness well. But we all persevered and rode our camels to the end of the road—an “oasis” (cheesy temple and man-made lake) built 20 years ago. Didn’t even walk up to it—a tourist trap in every sense of the term. I’m here for the dunes for the Gobi.
We bolt back to the hotel to wash up & check out before hotel can charge us for an extra day. The shower chippered me up and eases that heat stroke, and I was ready for the 5-hr bus ride to Jiayuguan. Interesting Gangsu Province factoids—it’s shaped like a doggy bone, and full of military bases (tour guide said most of the country’s rocket scientists live here). Make a stop for a traditional Muslim Hui minority-style lunch. Not bad, some sautéed chicken & cauliflower, some long grain rice, good but didn’t knock my socks off.
Besides, the whole group is a bit under the weather. We’re a sickly crew, we are. Mostly sore throats and coughs, more than a few head colds, mine and a couple other 辣肚子(“spicy stomach,” Chinese slang for “the runs”), a mild allergic reaction, a hives breakout, and even a sprained ankle. A genius from our group tried to jump a flight of stairs at Heaven Mountain, and 天山don’t take no crap from no one.
Everyone’s pretty tired from the travel and constant itinerary and group activity, etc. It’s a great way to bond/acquaint ourselves , but also a great way to spread germs it seems. It’s funny that generally, the people who’ve been most liable to come down with something are alternately the people who live off potato chips and video games (no immune system) and those of us who lived health-conscious & spry back stateside…sudden lack of iron/fiber/calcium? Sudden increase in MSG and pollution? No sleep? Who knows, who cares?
No excursion this night in Jiayuguan, just a nice much-needed break. Some of us went to a local pharmacy with the teachers to get magic herbal Eastern medicines, apparently. I described my symptoms and was diagnosed with Chinese stomach flu by the worker there, who prescribed pills and some liquid that smells and tastes like the Black Plague. The procedure for the coughers—Pang tells them to cough for the pharmacist, and depending on the way it sounds, she’d immediately lead them all off to different types of prescriptions. Acoustic diagnosis, we’ll see how well this all works.
Most kids take advantage of free night to go out to the town square or watch movies together on laptops, but I figured it would be better to crash with some aspirin instead, although watching Beijing Bicycle with Dan, Hao & Wes was tempting. But my Sparklehorse-induced deep sleep was so needed and sooo delicious.

7/18/08
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We drove just outside Jiayuguan to visit the Great Wall Fort, the back Mongolian end of he Wall, called “Dragon’s Tail.” This site is 33,500 square meters, and the highest point of the Wall at 17m tall. Built by the Ming, finished by Qing dynasty (1368-1644). Ah, all the fun factoids a tour guide provides.
And we have a hilarious tour guide for this leg of the trip, a native to the area named Adam. He giggles constantly at his own jokes and is the jolliest little chap I’ve ever seen. “It’s called the tail, but us here think of it as…the Front of the Wall!” (jollily giggles).
Pang Laoshi bought me some sunglasses before heading in. They make me look like Thurston Moore. Look out, China.
Coolest things about the design here are the fortress traps, where the Chinese would let invaders partially into the fort, funneling the troops into a square room within. Then they ensnare them by cutting off the only exit and raining arrows from the 50-foot walls above. And now…tourists can try it too! Only 1 元per shot at a straw dummy, and headshots are free! Most of the group threw some cash at this Renaissance Fair-style tourist trap but I passed, as much as I love propelling sharp objects from longbows.
The whole site is mostly rebuilt, but the architecture is still impressive. Most attention-grabbing to me, though, was the courtyard and the flowers inside (see pix).
Our tour guide regaled us with what he called his “magic stories,” basically just typical tour guide background stories, but somehow made magic by his hilarious laugh. The group loves this guy. There’s the story of the Imperial Theater, which has pictures of the “Peeping Monk” painted on, a Buddhist who fell in love with a princess but was too ashamed to do anything but look at her through her window. And there was the one-brick story-- a random, extra brick has been sitting on one of the ledges of the Great Wall for ages, and the legend goes that a famous mathmetitician was asked to calculate how many bricks would be needed to build Dragon’s Tail. He was told the number in a dream, and was accurate except for one extra brick. The king was still furious at any error, because the scientist had promised with his life to be 100%!a(MISSING)ccurate. When the king demanded an explanation, the math guy replied, my dream said you’ll need the extra brick after you’re conquered to start rebuilding.
Anyway, then we stopped by the museum on-site, which was kind of interesting I guess. I was a little distracted by how crappy Chinese batteries are to be too exited.
Next we visited another part of the Great Wall a little farther down, the mountainous area where the Hanging Gardens used to be. We drove through some unimpressive landscape to reach it, this trailing end, this final ligament of one of man’s greatest self-made wonders. We climbed up the spindly steps, up this steep kilometer to the top terrace. Looking in each direction from up here gives you a 4-part perspective—黑山（Black Mountain）on one side, rolling black hills right next to us on the left, Jiayuguan City skyline in the opposite distance (sparse and factory-bleak, the town’s economy hinges on the Great Wall Fort it’s next to and named after), and the Gobi expanses besides. This little terrace wasn’t satisfying, though, so we explored the nearby landscape like hill children, expanding our understanding by reverting to nature-innocuousness.
The places so big & quiet they really keep you honest and strip inner thoughts of self-deception. Poised laizze-faire on a rock face the breeze the hills the obsidian
Now looking at the city streets so honest and rust-stained out the cleanly tour bus window
Everybody always wants to take a shower
I’m not here to learn Chinese anymore
The cliffs 黑cutting making you admit things to yourself . And once all that has passed, you can just enjoy the breeze and the truth, and be quiet and love to sit and watch.

7/19/08 8:50 a.m.

Everyone got a little downtime in hotel before the train last night; group had some chatters, some bar-hoppers, some shoppers, some loungers (like myself). Caitlin, a master pianist, jumped on the motel lobby ivories and dished out some Hungarian Classical for everyone, she was genius.
Then, although late-night hotel dinners aren’t usually noteworthy, this one of our better meals in a while—whisked egg w/black mushroom, grilled duck wrapped in aluminum foil served under flaming coals, then unwrapped and doled out by waitress.
A little more lobby time (did some reading & writing) before going to the station. This night train pretty similar to the others, I was top bunk again, took some aspirin again before bed, out like a light.
The 6:30 wake-up and our mass groggy exodus to the bathrooms to wash up and brush teeth was hectic as usual. Augmented in my case, though…anyone else ever have explosive diarrhea on a Chinese night train?
Anyway, new city, Lanzhou, pop. 3.1 million, new tour guide, Lily, really into her job but her voice is high-pitched and kind of gets on my nerves. Met the tour director, too, who’s only notable because his self-chosen English name is “Best.” A common motif of every tour guide seems to be that much meaning is lost, and much hilarity gained, in translation.
Background on Lanzhou city…capitol of Ganzhou Province, part of the Hexi Corridor of the Silk Road. Established 200 BC during Han dynasty, now has a small but influential Muslim minority and one of China’s four major mosques. Lanzhou is big and tall, but small and dense and dirty.
River Gorge…!! Our first excursion in the area. A dammed up canyon of water (sign of Chinese development) that we ripped through on speedboats for 45 minutes. Zooming through the natural corridor the spectacular Earth-gash, Yellow River spraying fitfully at either side, indignant, but don’t worry, water, we’re appreciative, just reckless. Cliffs, hills, the plants on precipice, artistic foreground to the stark impermeable image of cumulous and cerulean sky.
We skim the River at high speeds en route to see Maitrea (future Buddha in Indian beliefs) carved somewhere deep in the valleys of Longqing Gorge. This Buddhist effigy, tall and broad and stately, etched everywhere during famines and the bad bad times, his power over the future worshipped after lustily, people always paying homage to those who can promise better times ahead.
Walking through the mini, stream-carved canyon that is Bing-Ling Grotto, guided past hundreds of mini-statues, mini-stupas, rock carvings teasing us and telling us the Maitrea is near. And then, 100-feet tall and carved deep from the Earth, staring at you from all angles and stone eyes not letting anything on.
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7/20/08 10:20 p.m.
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Typical wake-up-call/breakfast/bus morning ritual, head off on long bus ride up through Sun-Moon Mountain. One of the five major mountains in China, very near the Tibetan border, with an elevation of over 13,000 feet and the wind should be blowin’. Wish I hadn’t forgotten my sweatshirt in Beijing.
Lily told us some “joke stories” on the bus ride, which in China tour guide-ese means slightly mistranslated anecdotes with Bill Clinton punchlines. Some students threw in their own bad jokes on the bus microphone as I put on my headphones and read Flow My Tears.
Just stopped along the way at a small hilltop temple. Not sure of the historical significance but this is the site of ’08 Olympic bicycle race, and the landscape preceeded artificially by Beijing ’08 windpuppet propaganda and naturally by lazy fields of pure yellow canola flower fields trickling patiently uphill to the bogotas, where we were hassled by wind chill and Tibetan vendors. However the yaks were worth a look, yes, up-close I viddied the long-french-vanilla-haired yaks. I petted a baby yak for the first time. Tibetan vendors hassling me to wear a pink indigenous coat for a fee, prayer slips of every color blowing around in high elevation like confetti, another surreal moment.
Bus trucks along to 青海Lake, a huge and cold, salt-water natural wonder at an elevation of 3,500meters. How does that happen? A body of water so big it’s impossible to even see halfway across, so wide it engulfs the horizon and periphery, purely salt-water, completely flat, and halfway up one of the tallest mountains in Asia? It doesn’t make sense to me but nothing here does.
Like tourist attractions and roadside pitstops charging for bathroom use lately. ‘Sup with that?! Yeah, yeah, the fee’s never more than 1元, and what’s and extra dime to me, but still. Dan and I, Robert & Henry (two of the more amiable CHI300 students) have been protesting by going ‘round back and peeing on the outside of charging establishments.
Fun facts: apparently in Chinese folklore, there’s a dragon monster that lives deep inside QingHai Lake, 差不多一样Loch Ness Monster. There’s also a famous island which we were also unable to see, as much as I hunted for the Dragon. It’s okay. I will be back. I will vanquish thee, dragon.
On our way back we visited a Tibetan Sky Burial site. Ancient Tibetan ritual was to stratify the death rituals of deceased based on glory of their life, meaning you either got an earth or water burial, etc. there were five types. The most desired was a Sky Burial: The dead was placed on a platform atop a hill, the path to the top winding, littered with prayer papers, and had to be walked clockwise. Near the platform at the top are places to burn incense and hang prayer tapestries.
The most interesting part of the platform site though, is the death ritual itself. The hero’s body and organs were fragranced with sugars and spices to attract eagles. <> The laid-out body is preyed on by the eagles, the intestines pulled out and up as the eagle flies away, symbolizing the hero’s ascension into the sky and afterlife. The locals were very friendly, giving us information and letting us walk around the site for free. Unfortunately it had started raining cold, I was still in my summer clothes, and my camera batteries were dying again (Chinese AA’s are crap), so I had to retire to the bus early.
Returned to our posh hotel for some R&R, then to dinner. I was feeling better and thought maybe the medicine itself was acting as a detox so I didn’t take it beforehand. Also I’d basically only eaten grains & starches all day so I ate basically just meats and veggies in mild sauces. But my stomach is still too weak for the additives in restaurant foods (salts, sugars, oils, MSG), because last night was maybe the most sickly so far. Did okay for our hour walk-around through downtown XiQing (which was very boring and rainy), but came to room with wicked body fever and borderline dysentery. Something needs to stop, here, and it’s not the weight loss. I’ve lost about 2 kg in 3.5 days, which is drastic and even fairly dangerous for someone my size. Over 4%!o(MISSING)f body weight shat out in half a week is bad, and tomorrow I need to concentrate on myself a little and figure out a plan to get better, as much as I’d rather focus 100%!o(MISSING)n the trip and pure existential experience around me.

7/21/08, 9:30 a.m., on bus
<>

Talked to teachers about it, and they’re not offended if I try just not eating the group meal dishes for a couple days, sticking to fruits, breads, the trail mixes I’ve made along the way, etc with the rest of my medicine. Also bummed a couple of Cliff Builder’s bars off of Ernie, Melissa’s husband, who has joined us for the Silk Road portion. He’s a great guy and I get along with him very well—we always seem to drift off the beaten path in similar ways on excursions, getting lost in our own experiences and taking pictures all the way.
After a ridiculous half-hour logjam at check-out (our group always seems to have problems with forgetting to pay for laundry services or getting makeup on towels, sleep through wake-up call etc,etc, and the little problems in several rooms add up to a big delay in getting out of the hotel and on the road to our destinations. Haha, all I can do is not be part of the problem—was early this morning, and refreshed after nine hours of sleep last night (maybe my longest span of rest this trip).
Heading to Xi-Ning’s Taer Monastery for the afternoon, then a Tibetan ornament shop, then bus back to Langzhou just in time for our night train to Xi-An. Yeah, 3-hour bus rides are not fun when you know a 9-10hr train ride will immediately follow. Oh well, that’s the bane of a travel abroad tour. At least the night trains are kinda fun, if sardine-esque…zooming 100mph in a bunk bed to the most historically rich ancient Chinese city is nothing to complain to earnestly about.
Except we are such a sickly crew, the most sickly in the trip’s history according to Pang Laoshi. A couple more people are starting to feel nauseous now, and I feel partially to blame. David couldn’t hold his lunch on the bus yesterday, throwing up in his seat, and now can barely even hold down water. He’s flat-out missed the past two meals. It’s hard to tell if he’s caught something new or just getting rocked harder by my stomach flu, but either way, Dave’s the kid here who least deserves this level of shittiness.

“your smile is scary/’cuz there’s nothing inside/and I think you’ve gone crazy/’cuz you’re eating the wrapper/but you’ve thrown out the candy/and I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you”
--Pony Up!

On a higher note, Taer was pretty interesting and very surreal. Open areas with scattered temples and halls, a tour guide navigated us through crowds and reconstruction to the sites we had time for. Most interesting aspects were the spinning prayer wheels outside each, tapestries of bohdissaphas along every wall, and the leagues of patrons performing their spiritual rituals over and over again. Going down first to the knees, then on all fours, then their forehead touching the ground, then a slow arm-sweep back into the first position to start all over, 100000 times altogether required as proof of devotion.
The biggest temple was the Golden Hall, which lived up to its name, I suppose. The walls and Buddha inside were gilded. Tibetan Buddhism is an odd combination of utter religious dedication, blind faith, and strange inverted opulence. The latent materialism really bothers me, but the shows of devotion at Taer were moving. The monk in Temple 2 who beat the same beat on his drum over and over again, recanting prayers under his breath from a scroll in front of him as he hammers, hammers, hammers, his heartbeat on display. Or the sculptures in the final temple, gigantic intricate flower petals and dioramas of the afterlife, carved entirely from yak’s butter. Of course it melts eventually; the art must be recreated once a year. It takes such a toll on the monks that they develop permanent crippling arthritis.
It’s just hard to imagine putting that amount of devotion into something like yak’s butter carvings, from a Western perspective. But then again, maybe a Tibetan could never fathom painting their body silver and black and screaming their brains out at a Raiders game.

7/23/08

People are still dropping like flies. Hao slept all day yesterday and has a recurring toothache, Dan’s throat has gone to hell, an art girl has a headache enough to make her bed-ridden, and Adrian, our champion eater, had no appetite all day yesterday and threw up like crazy this morning.
I’m feeling a little better but definitely not perfect. Self-diagnosis: either in the local food wreaking havoc or the fact that I’ve been adsentmindedly using local tap water to brush my teeth. Either way, it doesn’t feel like the germ/bug/flu symptoms most of the sickies seem to have. Walked across the street to the pharmacy yesterday (in Xi’An, 西安,now, recap coming up) and was able to describe my symptom(s) in Chinese…diagnosis has been described as “辣肚子,” or “spicy stomach.” They prescribed some new pills, and I feel pretty happy about being independent/competent enough in a new language and foreign country to get a prescription on my own. Pang Laoshi, bless her heart, is running around with herbal Eastern treatments for everyone, but it’s about time I just go the local internet café after our outings today (which are many and exiting), hit up WebMD, and figure things out for myself. Can’t rely on others to solve my own problems all life, after all.
Yesterday, the night train arrived in 西安(translates to “Peace in the West”) around 7:15 a.m. A worldwide cultural hub, the historical capitol of China, Silk Road Emperor, Xi’An.
On the train I played some Hold’em with Wes, Dan, Hao, John , and Brandon . The six of us were sharing a cramped cell, so why not? It was down to four when the announced lights out, we played “last hand wins,” and my pocket 3’s held haha.
Pang Laoshi ran around the train distributing cough drops and gave me some soybean porridge, easy-to-hold-down protein. She’s a dynamic, and therefore at times polarizing, personality, and (too?) tough on kids, but she really cares for us, and her core really is matronly compassion.
Grabbed some shoddy bus sleep then got up early to beat the hectic morning train toothbrushing—learned from my 20-minute wait in line last time.
The Xi’An hotel is 20 stories high, the 20th being a rotating restaurant. It wasn’t spinning when we arrived but our heads were when we saw the all-encompassing western-style breakfast buffet. Most kids went rabid, digging into the made-to-order omelets or bacon and French toast and yogurt and even hash browns proper. I myself ran rampant with the OJ, bananas, cereal, and chicken sausage. Lordy, how I’ve missed you, corn flakes w/sliced fruit on top…
Over-stuffed, our group lazily drifted to our first destination, Great Goose Bogota. It was built on the spot where a group of monks were praying for meat to complete their feast in honor of the Buddha. According to legend, the lead goose from a flock flying overhead dropped dead at their feet. The monks took this as a message admonishing their selfish desires, and profoundly affected by the fallen animal, started the vegetarian sect of Buddhism. They build the Great Goose Bogota on this spot, a 200-foot prayer tower with spiral wooden staircase winding centrally all the way to the top, ringed with windows and meticulous centrifocal décor. An impressive stone-brown titan, trying its best to stretch though the crowds & touch the Buddha Palm.
The front entrance of the site has a lioness sculpture with a cub on her back: This atypical touch to a typical design makes the statue a tourist attraction, and the lucky/touristy thing to do is to rub the baby cub (which was corroding from being touched so much over the years) and tell everyone back home about it, like I just did.
The rest of the grounds are calming, verdant, condoling flower gardens. Encircling the tower and settling my mind w/peaceful chakras. All sorts of nonsensical spiritual shit afoot. At these cultural sites, I always find myself just taking pictures of flowers.
Unfortunately, the Bogota itself was closed for renovation. No climbing the wooden steps, no gorgeous view from the top, no glory. Also we were only there about 50 minutes, which is so frustrating. We were at some stupid tourist trap gift shop for at least that long yesterday in XiNing. Tour guides rushin’ us through by practical, time-allotment itinerary, like class blocks. Not by feel or where we want to spend the bulk of our time, wondering and etching some sort of extended personal memories
But that’s just the nature of a group tour trip like this I suppose. The sights, the drum and bell towers, the zodiac imagery, all still incredible and imprinted in my mind.
Next we went to a rural Farmer’s style museum/shop. There’s a (not-coincidentally) large number of these on the tour-guided portions of his trip. Places that display some specialty craft of the area, tell you a brief little artisanship synopsis, then lead you to the next room where, surprise!, there’s goods for sale. A little insulting, really, because my guess is that the travel agencies get a kickback from including these places in the tours.
This place was alright, though, because the art was good and we took part in a free group calligraphy demonstration. Paintings of gold serpentine dragons, seasonal motifs, languorous cherry blossoms, all beautiful and out of my price range. A decent stop, but not really able to keep my attention for 90 full minutes, not after Great Goose. The bulk of my time would have been much better spent there.
After delicious 小吃, or “small foods,” (hors d’oeurves-style indigenous to area) dinner, our stunningly handsome guide Jackie (self-named after Jackie Chan and a Chinese pop singer) offered to take us to see the town.
But first, some notes about Jackie. He sings. Often. The pop songs of his namesake. He has many ways of distracting us from boredom on the bus that they must teach in tour guide school…math games using a deck of cards, Chinese schoolyard hand games (rock-paper-scissors sort of time-killers), and so on. Also, he has great English, best of any guide so far, except for one charming mispronunciation…his “a” sound. For example, Jackie told us our first destination today was the “Grate Goose Chiner Buddher Bagoter.” And, more than anything else, Jackie knows the nightlife, baby.
He took about 20 of us to get massages last night, to one of those real legitimate parlors. Never been before, but this trip is all about trying new things, right? It was about $12 American, 80 minutes, and full-body.
And oh, so relaxing. She decompressed areas I didn’t even know were pressure points. Worked the feet and shoulders most, which is where I was most sore (although we’re all sore all over from 12 days of sleeping on buses and trains). Stuck us in group rooms, which seemed odd, but after the first tendon tug you’re so melted into your robe and foot bath that it doesn’t even matter where you are. The masseuses were astonished I spoke Chinese that they tried to start a conversation, were soon disappointed in my lack of skills, and were quiet for 75 minutes. Although, funny story: Wes’s masseuse leaned over to mine and said something, thinking we wouldn’t understand, but I picked out enough to know they were discussing someone’s attractiveness and inquired. My masseuse laughed and said “She thinks you’re handsome.” I was caught off-guard, to be sure, and dismissed the compliment. Then, Dan’s masseuse chimed in from across the room, and unbeknownst to her I could also understand her saying, “I think he’s more pretty than handsome.”
Oh well. A guy in another room got his face compared to a “watermelon seed,” I’ll take “pretty” over that any day haha.
Afterwards Jackie took us to this odd nightlife district of Xi’An, a whole street filled only with coffee bars, dive joints, and live music. Hung out with Wes, Dan, Kyle & Ryan, hopping from place to place and checking out the live music. One place had a band whose frontman was also the doorman and was playing Bon Jovi covers. We moved on to another joint, a much cooler one, more the feel of places I used to go in America like Coffee Plantation and Rhythm Room. The band there was a two-piece guitar and synth, putting together pretty groovy riffs. But most groovy of all was the kitten in the sound system: there was actually a little white & black cat curled up asleep above the speakers and under the keyboards, just chillin’ and keepin’ the place cool. We stayed here until sometime between midnight and 1, then headed back to rest up for the busy day ahead. On the taxi ride back, I noticed one more charming and funny thing about Xi-An—their traffic lights are timed (so when the light turns green, lighted numbers starting ticking down from overhead to let you know how long until red, starting at around 72 seconds haha).

7:24 p.m. <>
Zoom to today and the Han Dynasty Tombs. Like a mini-Terracotta, like an appetizer to the place I most want to visit in all of China. And I want another, bigger taste after this one. Dozens of pits filled with (usually toppled) forms of foot-tall clas eunuchs, accompanying Emperor Wu into the afterlife. Jars, armor, replicas of everything a king might need buried deep in the Earth’s belly for a trip to the open arms of Heaven…Perfectly-preserved procession of animals (dogs, pigs, horses, cattle)…Chariot impressions, rotted away but the memory remains…
And then we watched this lame, semi-didactic, fully boring hologram museum video about Emperor Wu and his queen, with flat narration and cheesy costumed scenes.
I wanted to explore the rest of the grounds, the grassy mounded tombs besides of Emperors, Empresses, princes and concubines, Wu’s deliverance platform standing a little soft-focus and high on the hilltop. But ya know we had to rush off, after all.
Next museum we visited after the Mausoleum was the Provincial History Museum, which was also cool to walk around, but had a little of the “same old, same old” feel to it after so many cultural group outings these past 8 weeks. Or rather, I don’t know an interesting way to explain it to anyone. There were some cool pots, old weapons, statues, relics from a bunch of Chinese dynasties. I looked at them—they held my interest. It was a well-put together history museum, but Yan-Ling was fo’ sho’ the archaeology buff’s dream, and I’m still kinda focused on that.
Lunch looked damn good but, ya know, “spicy stomach,” so I played it safe and passed. Afterwards there was an optional excursion to ride bikes along the Xi-An wall, which runs a square border along the historic center of town. It’s a tall imposing brick behemoth that was used for protecting supplies and garrisoning troops. So peculiar to see a metro city with this feudal war relic squatting proudly in the middle of downtown. A square fort with curved battalion corners and arrow holes at intervals for archery protection of Silk Road lifeblood.
And we had the option of biking it. Oh yes. Rent a bicycle and ride it along the whole top of the 西安city wall. Uh, lemme think…hell yeah.
I’m surprised more people didn’t come to the same conclusion. Only 8 others chose the ride as I did—Dan, Dave, Hao, Ryan, Melissa, Katie (cool girl who just joined up for the Silk Road portion of the program), Brandon, and his girlfriend Ivy. All the others either wanted to shop or crash in the hotel…but we wanted to ride.
The rental bikes turned out to be rusty as hell, and it was 100 minutes of hot humid summer movement, but it was still an un-replicable incredible experience and we made it work. We navigated the potholes, choppy brick terrain, mini-bogotas, fortress walls, and up & down sloped fortress corners like a biker gang, chatting and racing or just enjoying the sights. There’s actual activity on the inside of the wall—it’s the Muslim corridor of Xi’An, full of tall aging apartment complexes, blemished but beautiful city streets, pockmarked markets. The city within the city, looking at it makes me dreamy, and I wonder what life is like for the people inside the box as I ride above and past a McDonald’s, the golden arches of inner Xi’An.
Then I snap back to reality when we realize Ryan, Brandon & Ivy are too far behind to even see. Turns out Ryan’s chest cold got the best of him and he burst into a coughing fit, while Brandon & Ivy’s tandem bike got busted. It was so old that the back tire spokes just broke, snapped off on a bump, basically just fell apart. So we had to alternate three people carrying the two-seater the rest of the way to where we rented them, another person walk the unused bikes of the holders, and two others speed ahead to the drop-off spot and let the employees know what happened. Luckily we were able to surmount the language barrier and get our deposit back—sure as hell wasn’t their fault the bike was so rusty it fell apart. So yeah, a bit of sourness in the ending, but overall the Xi’An Wall bicycle ride was just another one of those China experiences that would’ve been flat-out stupid to miss.
Ugh tired of this drowsy Morrissey <>
Finished up the day by going to Carrefour (French multi-story supermarket mega-store next to our hotel) with Dan, Wes & Dave. Tried to find crazy Chinglish shirts and bootleg DVD’s but no luck here. Besides a little kid’s book that was on sale (and I hope will improve my Chinese reading comprehension) and hand sanitizing wipes, my only successes were on the grocery floor. Got some crackers and OJ for tonight (skipping the group meal again tonight until I know if food is the root of my upset stomach), and ramen noodles for upcoming 14-hour night train. Instant ramen bowls are actually super popular here, even more than in America.
Tried to use some Tide powder to wash my clothes in the tub, to sidestep the ambitious hotel washing fees. Xi’An was about my only chance to wash them myself, too. However, the drain in the tub couldn’t close all the way, and so the tub wouldn’t fill up all the way, so I couldn’t come close to washing my clothes all the way. Well, they’ve made it this far. There’s only 5 or 6 days left. I can make it the rest of the way home with the clothes on my back, literally. Hopefully everyone else doesn’t mind too much.
Capped off the night by checking out the local internet café, which here in China constitutes a huge room filled with rows and rows of hardcore RPG gamers. I mostly just wanted to check email and WebMD, and the guys I went with all checked up on their Facebook accounts first, but after that we figured what the hell and settled in for a couple hours of Counterstrike and Diablo II. It was the first and only time I’d played video games since coming to China—it felt weird after two months without, and I really didn’t miss it that much. Still, it was a good wind-down after one of our most jam-packed days yet.

7/24/08

Absolutely momentous day—Terracotta.
Terracotta
I went, I saw the Clay Army. And I have no words to explain it. I’m drawing a blank on the whole day, retrospectively one of my favorite days ever. Maybe that’s why I can’t describe it, maybe I just don’t want to patronize the memories by putting them to words.
I saw the expansive never-ending Terracotta army and it made me want to bury myself with them forever.
I went into the heart of Xi’An, through the city walls I rode the day before, into Muslim district. I saw one of the oldest mosques in China, at the very heart of the heart of the heart of the Silk Road, and it beat slowly for me, slow like a tortoise or a continent.
I walked the streets of inner Xi’An after, floating through the street markets and vendors and hagglers and hustlers and bustlers, floated into the perfect present, gifts I never expected to find, some strangely perfect thing that will make some strangely perfect loved one overjoyed. Just like these streets and this trip—pockmarked, bootlegged, strange, yet overjoyed.
I know for sure what my upset stomach is—traveller’s flu. And I know for sure what I’m gonna do about it—stop listening to other people’s advice and finally just try to fix it how I think is best. Wes found some Pepto-Bismol in his luggage yesterday, so I’m going to put myself through a 24-hour period of nothing but the little pink chewable tablets, a few wheat crackers & water. Try to get over being sick like we do in good ol’ America, no more Black Death-tasting herbal stuff that somebody else told me to use. I’m fixing it myself, and if in 24 hours I’m not better, I’ll find a doctor (with or without a teacher’s approval), because it’s been over a week now, and that’s too long.
All of today’s paragraphs start with “I”. 7/24 was a day of self-actualization, a day for myself, and I’m not quite sure how to write about it. May not make for great travel journallage, but this is the most honest entry I could’ve laid out, and today I’m finally honest and independent and assertive and myself.

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Part 2: Silk Road

PREVIOUS WEEK IN REVIEW… (listening to: King Tubby)

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