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Published: October 21st 2008
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Playing Cards
Not sure what game this is, but they seems to be enjoying it. My last day in Guizhou Province was an exhausting one. I was up at 7am and went downstairs determined to get the most out of the free breakfast my expensive hotel offered. It was horrible. I walked away hungry. The cheap life is the better life, I think. I was quite proud of myself with the following day, 8 months ago I probably would not have been able to get myself to Zhijin Caves and back again, but now I can get by. The day involved more or less 10 hours getting to and from the Caves (mini bus 30min, bus 3hr30min, rickshaw 10min, van 1hr, and back again. I got back to Anshun at about 9pm, rushed to the train station, and got on a 11 hour train at about midnight. I had a bunk for the first time in ages (no hardseat available) and so I slept very, very well.
This train took me on to Kunming. Kunming is extremely metropolitan, and so far has not stood out to me in any particular way.
I travel extremely light compared to other travelers. However, one of the things that I insisted on bringing along on this leg of
Random park shot
Kunming can be quite beautiful my trip was my running shoes. They are strapped onto the top of my bag. It is extremely easy to get out of shape when travelling long term. There is no gym, no real opportunity for regular sports, you walk around alot, but you also spend an inordinate amount of time on trains. Your eating is less regular as well, especially when travelling alone. When I first started traveling I weighed 90kg, I was not fat. After four months of travelling around cold Eastern Europe I weighed 81kg. I'm much skinnier now, though I have leveled out to a more standard 83kg. In any case, when I left Shanghai, I wanted to make running in the mornings an almost religious routine. This started off OK, but then I got to Chengdu. Chengdu is not particularly runner friendly with lots of big streets and crosswalks and pollution, then I went and drank beer for a week in Qingdao. Needless to say I haven't really ran in about a month.
Kunming is a cleaner city, and there are small park areas lining some of the rivers that they have. So the past couple of mornings I have been going for runs.
One of my favourite things about Chinese cities is the parks (ah, at last we get to the point of the blog.)
Now when I say "park", I want you to forget about the big parks you get in cities in the west. Forget Hyde Park, Forget Central Park, forget big wide open grassy spaces and large trees. Chinese parks are more... cluttered. They are usually quite small, (bigger one have a small entry fee) and they are always a complex maze of stone paved pathways that never seem to come to a dead-end. Plant life quite often is natural rather than planted, and there is usually some water feature, whether it be a river or lake, the path ways often open up to larger paved areas sometimes with a tea house on the side. The best thing about these parks is that they are EXTREMELY popular, primarily with the older generation.
I go out running this morning, i'm a bit late, its about 9am and the pavements are far too busy for my liking, but soon enough I turn into the line of park areas by the river near my hostel. Its a saturday, so there is
Do a little DANCE!!!
make a little love! get down tonight! YEAH! get down tonight! YEAH!
THe group dance exercise sessions more activity then normal. There are the big groups of old ladies and men doing taichi, then there are the groups of ladies lined up as though they are doing Taichi, but instead they are bogeying to a small radio performing a simple and funny looking coreographed dance in near-synchronisation. I slow down as I ease past them, not wanting to get smacked in the face. Next up are the sports fans. Badminton is the most popular sport here, but there are also a couple of ping pong tables. Dodging the badminton rackets, I jog into a teahouse clearing, this is a place for the less atheltically inclined. A haze of ciggarette smoke wafts past me in the morning air which is also filled with the sound of CLACK CLACK CLACKETY CLACK, the signature sound of intense games of mazhong being played (for money). Other tables are filled with men playing cards, I notice a couple of Du Di Zhu games in progress as well as a card game I am not familiar with, and also games of chinese chess. The Ladies playing mazhong look like they are about to leap out of their chairs as they lean forward attentively
River in Kunming
Kunming can be quite beautiful.... while almost unconciously chatting away about the local gossip. In perfect contrast, the men look like they intend to be there all day, either leisurely leaning back in their charis or hunched over like they have actually grown to be part of the chair. I jog on.
This all is nothing new to me. But today, I am in for a surprise. Today I guess is the pet-bird convention day. An area of the park with particularily lush foliage is filled with the loud chirping of small birds, the trees are in fact lined with their small wooden cages (all identical), and the proud owners are all seated about not really doing anything, just talking. I estimate maybe 60 cages or more in this small area of park. I wonder for a second how they organise themselves, perhaps it is a weekly event. I cross the river and head back on the opposite side, its time to start the day.
The parks also come alive in the evening. Old couples come out in mass and dance old style waltzes to a small stereo system or kids come out in their rollerblades. I remember the first time I saw
the evening time waltz session, it was in a park near my apartment in Shanghai. There were maybe 50 couples waltzing around to the music coming out of an old boom-box, it was ridiculously romantic watching these old couple enjoying each other's company. It just seemed to be in such stark contract to the modern, western, metropolitan city of Shanghai rising up all around them. The
change these couples must have experienced in their lives. These are people that were probably born before the communist party came to power, they would have
lived through the cultural revolution and the 5 year plan, they would have seen the changes the country went through with reform and opening up, and in the past 20 years, the change must have been simply
unbelievable. Yet here they were: heathy, happy, still together, coming together on a thursday night to dance a dance that has not changed, to music that also has stayed the same, holding the same hands they would've held 50 years ago as they cavort across a small park in the most modern city in China. For a while, the year is forgotten
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