Kunming_Dali_Lijiang_I am bliss, In Yunnan you can breath in summer

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Kunming is a city with too many cars, which means a lot of traffic all the time. There are hundreds of vehicles trying to avoid the multiple road constructions that happened to be everywhere. How I know this? Because I did not have any hostel reservation, thinking I would be able to manage to go directly to Dali by train. I took a taxi to 3 different places until I have found a room for the night!



I tried many interesting fruits once I left my bad in a private room. I liked the one that looks brown with a flower in the top, you peel and inside there is a big grape with a hard seed. But also the local passion fruit that they offer it with a little spoon. Unfortunately the restaurants where closed at the time I needed to have dinner. I end up having a cold rice noodle with some interesting stuff on it…I was too hungry to be picky, but it did not look nice nor a whole food specialty…



I bought a new book in Shangai before I left to Guilin. It took me a while to find the bookstore. Did I have already tell you this? Anyway, not many options to Chinese author in English to read here. I found an interesting title called, The Vangrants after I spent several minutes in the 7^th floor of the bookstore that looks like the Barnes and Noble in a Chinese version. This means they have a floor for Political Science and Marxist theory books, one floor for food, massage and Chinese medicine, and so on, puzzles, music, and all sorts of curiosities. Not much in English yet, only English as a second language books.<span> The Vangrants is an amazing book. It is also talks about the genocides in this country and the difficult times with all the atrocities during the Cultural Revolution. I am in the middle of it.<span> It is sad, very sad.<span> But also it is a lot of fun for me to enter to their culture thru their eyes, their mind and their metaphor. There are things that can only come from a Chinese mind. I wonder if Latin-American authors have this virtue as well but I do not realize or see because I am immerse on this culture.<span> This book makes me laugh as the Brothers one. There are hilarious ideas. Chinese imagination, mixed with historic events and sad facts creates an amazing source of literature. I wish there where more for me to read here, and for sure there are many stories to be told, and many movies to be made about these things…I read about Wang<span> Zhonglei, a filmmaker that has a big entertainment empire here willing to do a local Disney, with many entertainment parks in the city of Suzho. Well, this is not the type of movies I will want to watch from China...I guess he does not really care; I am not an average audience. But he said he will try to export more movies from China to the world…There is a western that will help him to promote this abroad. A former advertiser that many years ago opens an ad agency in Shangai and now he has another empire. His firm calls DMG, his name is Dan Mintz, and he are not only doing advertising, but he is investing in content to export everywhere. I doubt they will make Brothers or Vangrand movies, they would probably are thinking about Panda 2, 3, 4, 5, …Kung Fu 16, 17, 18, and so on…who knows maybe I can enter to some focus group here and raise my voice with my preferences…



I took 2 buses and got to the bus west station to Dali. After 3 hours ride, I got finally to a place I planned to stay for 2 nights.<span> Dali is a small town. It is very touristic place.<span> There is even a street called The Foreign street, where the locals goes to take pictures about our type of stores as if an American where in NY or San Francisco in China town! The village is in between a big lake and mountains of mineral water. It has 3 pagodas to visit and some village around that offer daily market events.<span> An old wall surrounds the town and everything looks nice and well preserved. The place is full of stores all of them offering almost the same things to catch tourist money, they do not have the concept of differentiation here either. <span> I walked around the wall. I had my 5 minutes of being a celebrity and I took many pictures with old tourist men that smiled showing his miserable dark and crooked teeth.



I came back to the hostel and did all my laundry, which means put almost all my clothing in the machine! (Unlucky for me the next day was a rainy morning day and I need to wait a lot to get my cloth dry!) A couple from Israel force me to practice my Hebrew with them.<span> The guy was a Los Autenticos Decadentes fun and it was hilarious listen to him sing : Porque yo no quiero trabajar, no quiero ir a estudiar, no me quiero casar…. With his Hebrew accents while we witness many rats crossing us in the way to the restaurant. They wanted to go to a Muslim place noodles.<span> We split; I can not stand more noodles. I eat in the street, vegetable barbecue, a classic for me at this point…After that we went to a local bar, where American crew where playing the guitar. The Israelies play a game of guessing stupid numbers with dices, the only point of this was to get drunk. I did not participate…those are the moments that having 40 made me feel old…But I tried the narguila, which I enjoy a lot. It is like smoking an apple. I do not why but they order and apple narguila.



Dali has the best bakery I found in china so far. It is from a German old lady. It is called 88 bakery. They have fresh baguettes, chibatas, and all sorts of bread with nuts. They also have cheeses and prosciutto, salami, etc. Something very-very hard to find around here. I become their best custom. Their breakfast is amazing and their coffee a true privilege.



I read the newspaper there a lot as well. The news about Raul Castro visiting China and Vietnam for inspiration about their communist successes shocked me a little bit. As much as I am here, and as much I get to know how things works here, as more disappointed I am about it. Many more things to tell, that I keep them for me for a while…I am still processing all the leanings I got here. But let me tell you, there is a song, Volver from Liliana Felipe that say in Spanish, tengo miedo de volverme derechista, well, there I am sometimes here. Scary! On the newspaper on the plane there was a news about the flexibility on international adoption, and there in the bakery two days after, a big news about a mafia of illegal adoption and babies trafficking that was found by the police somewhere in the middle of the country…Coincidence or not was the same day Videla and company where judge for this type of crimes <span> 30 years earliest in Argentina…



In Lijiang I sightseeing the tourist old town full of stores and local tourist. Overwhelmed the amount of people until it started to rain. Andres keep saying he liked a lot. I enjyed here, but Lijiang is to China what Antigua to Guatemala, and old well preserve turistic place. Not much real china to see here. I went to the hostel. There I met an American woman with her 5 years old adopted Chinese child. She said she would try to come each 5 years so her daughter will get her root and a sense of origin here. It was nice to see them eating potato chips. The kid was speaking in perfect English to the waitress that did not understand any world, and just giggled. <span> I wanted to ask how was her process of adoption here, or share the stories of selling babies, kidnapping them from the State here, the mafias, etc, but I felt it was not appropriate. I just looked at her and smiled when she put ketchup to her kid fries.



Tomorrow I need to get up early, I will do a 6-hour trekking in the Tiger Lee something in the way to Shangri La.<span> Shangri La, my last point in this two-month internal journey. I wish I would find my Shangri La there, or somewhere soon.

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