Advertisement
Published: February 12th 2008
A spine-compressing 2.5 hour mini-bus ride delivered us several inches shorter to the little village of Damenglong, 5 physical kilometers and 20 road kilometers from the Burmese border in southern Yunnan province. The bone-rattling ride snaked through tiny minority farming villages, sadly, on a pock-marked, dirt road inundated with road construction crews and heavy equipment. Once again we observed the classic dichotomy of quant village preservation versus economic advancement seen throughout China…it appears even the far reaches of China are now being paved, Internet cafed, and decorated with white concrete buildings adorned with neon. Fortunately, development is still rather light here, however, should the border crossing with Burma open up, one can only speculate the rate of growth and the resultant loss of local culture.
Damenglong, one of the larger villages in the area, has yet to be overwhelmed with development, and, smaller villages surrounding it are almost devoid of the symbols of new China. Damenglong was an interesting little village with one main road, capped on both ends with Buddhist temples atop large hills. Inside the village, you could see a mixture of minorities differentiated by dress, facial features and/or other customs (like Lahu women who shave part of
their head), however, Dai seemed to dominate and Han Chinese made up a recognizable portion of the population as well. “Restaurants” no longer had menus and were basically just family-runned stalls serving up dishes we had a hard time recognizing. We were able to suss out the contents of one dish via lengthy pantomime with the vendor…pig brains wrapped in a banana leaf. This particular dish, along with the fact that most restaurants seemed rather saturated with pork, we ended up chowing on noodles for our entire stay. In the evenings, fruit vendors gave way to BBQ stalls that grilled up “everything-on-a-stick”, and kids ran around testing out their firecrackers in preparation for the upcoming Lunar New Year. Overall, Damenglong had an incredibly relaxed atmosphere, and was a good spot to wander around aimlessly without being pursued by overzealous vendors, or run-over by wheeled vehicles darting in all directions at once.
Our first day in the Damenglong area was decidedly quiet as Rozy was battling an instance of traveller’s diarrhea and was not up for a lengthy hike in tropical climates. Day 2 saw us considerably more adventurous as we set out in search of various temples and ways
of life in surrounding villages. We were not sharp enough to heed warnings and pick up maps in Jinghong, nor did we have the desire for someone to leash us around, so, we were flying rather blind, walking dirt roads towards signs of civilization. After some lengthy and dusty hikes along the road we bussed in on, we found a couple of small towns with people to harass and temples to poke around in. Unfortunately, we can’t tell you where we were, which minorities we saw, or the significance of the temples, however, we did have a blast happening upon the unexpected. One nice village lady pointed us in the direction of the local temple and gave us a smile that would make any rap star jealous. Her grill was supa dope and bling’ed to the max, each tooth individually capped in what appeared to be gold. To complement her mouth of gold, this woman (roughly 50 years of age?) sported long black hair that hung well below her waistline and a bamboo basket backpack to tote around veggies and the sort. She had a striking look about her, and I held up my camera as if to ask her
for her photo, however, she shyly declined and quickly vacated the reach of my camera. We also came in contact with a whole monastery of monk boys who were sweeping and washing the floor of the monastery….we played the “hello” game with them for about 15 minutes while we rested and ate mandarins and some small green fruit under the shade of a nearby palm tree. The temples we explored were very peaceful, if a bit unkempt, and a nice break from the temples clustered in the larger cities with their gaudy entrance tickets, surging crowds, edgy monks, and obligatory souvenir stands. In retrospect, we probably should have spent a bit more time in this part of the country and pushed even further to the edges to better connect with a relatively unspoiled and untouched part of China that seems rather difficult to find elsewhere.
On to other topics…in traveling around China, we have had some brilliant encounters with the Chinese version of English. Ever colourful and always confusing, the Chinese brand of English is not only semi-informative but also guarantees to make you giggle. We encountered some excellent signage in Beijing, par example,
“Self-Taking” was tacked up outside
of the shared bathrooms for both men and women. We took this to mean that the facilities inside the shared bathroom area (sink, toilet and shower) are self-service and nobody will assist you in completing tasks therein. A sign posted on stone stairs leading up to a temple read
“Slip Carefully”, a simple message presumably designed to ensure its reader injures themselves in a careful manner. Some interesting guidance on the back of one of our entrance tickets in Xian read “No smoking while visiting the ancient architectures, without polluting the environment”, so, if you can ensure your smoking will pollute the environment, then smoking is permissible.
However, the best Chinglish we have encountered so far, was stamped on our packaged snack foods purchased in Damenglong. It read,
” Take the infinite and beautiful and new food of your beautiful taste. vogue health to feel.” I really had no clue what this message was getting at, but I appreciated much awaited recognition of my aforementioned beautiful taste and felt compelled to purchase the biscuits. Unfortunately, the biscuits were not quite as beautiful as my taste was, along with being 4 months beyond their expiration date, and I’m pretty sure my
vogue health suffered because of them.
Lodging…we have run the gamut of budget to mid-range hotels/hostels as we have tramped around China. Our cheapest hotel to date has been right here in good ol Damenglong…just 50 yuan/night (only US$6.96). Even with a US dollar that is barely worth its weight in paper, you can catch a cheap night sleep in China! Seven bucks won’t buy you a night at the St. Regis, but, it will get you a private room with a private bathroom, TV, aircon/heat, and a little toiletry set that includes all the essentials one may need for an evening. I’m currently building a toothbrush collection that will be featured in a future blog so please stay tuned for exciting details on managing your dental hygiene whilst traveling in China.
Television channels in China, for some strange reason, seem to broadcast shows predominately in Mandarin with the exception of our beloved CCTV9. CCTV9 is unabashedly the “only English-language news channel in China”, however, from our experience, it is the only English-language channel (news or otherwise). CCTV9 features poignant shows like “Culture Express”, “Sports China”, and “World News” (which also includes the segment “World Weather”). World News
(and its tag-along segment World Weather) is excellent if you are interested in finding out about what is going on in China. Thirty-minute shows feature reporters such as Wang MangMang who don’t waste time with investigatory journalism, but rather, cut right to the government official source to present to the wide-eyed audience a version of the truth truly more palatable than the actual truth…I like to refer to it as 'harmonious news reporting'.
World Weather concludes with temperature forecasts for all major Chinese cities along with six other major world cities, providing a rich view of the meteorological happenings around the globe. Sports China is exactly what it implies…a Chinese grammar lesson given by some toolbag white guy centered on conversational situations at an improvised sports news office. If this doesn’t sound like an engaging show, then, congratulations, you still have a pulse. If you happen to make it through the entire show you are sure to blessed with a deeper understanding of at least five nuances of Mandarin which are sure to impress the guests at your next dinner party.
Culture Express is about the most entertaining show we have seen on CCTV9. It basically amounts to
MY DEBUT NOVEL AVAILABLE NOW!
Visit me at www.danielshortell.com for purchase information.a sales pitch for various minority villages throughout China. The format is typically goes like this…an extremely energetic Asian-American in his/her early 20s goes to a village and points out all of the features that makes the local culture unique…they participate in local customs to their own amusement while plastic smiles and scattered applause egg them on. The show provides excellent insight into what travel to the particular region would be like if you happened to be a bit of an a-hole and were traveling with a camera crew.
STATISTICS
- Flights taken = 2
- Intercity trains rides taken = 6
- Intercity bus rides taken = 19
- Times lost = 5
- Total instances of diarrhea = 3
- Total number of requests for pictures with Daniel = 2
- Total megabytes of pictures taken = 7,900
Advertisement
Tot: 0.095s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0587s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
Love this blog post! And, 'forward view of healthy vogue by brushtoothing with Chinese exceptional.' Uh... or, looking forward to the toothbrush post. Love ya, miss ya guys- T