Sichuan and Honk

Asia » China
August 4th 2010

Published: August 4th 2010

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Aaardvark

Delboy meets Billy-Bob

Love it

Of cuddly pandas, fiery nosh and glacial check-ins

Note: For those of you who are in touch with me regularly, fear not: your sanity is quite sound, as far as I’m aware. It’s just that my blogs are always a few weeks behind, because typing more than 100 words or so a day is way too much like hard work, and hard work is A Bad Thing. So when I say something like ‘I’m in Hong Kong’, I probably ain’t anymore. Just so you know.

So anyway. After Yunnan, in the south of China, it was another day or so in Chongqing, the regional hub that was once part of Sichuan, and then off to Sichuan proper.

Noms

The must-try dish in Chongqing and Sichuan is the famous Sichuanese hotpot. Despite the name (and Sichuanese cuisine’s fiery reputation), it’s only moderately spicey.

It’s basically a bucket of hot oil laced with peppercorns and chilli peppers, into which you dip all manner of things, meat fondue-style.

This being China, there were all sorts of unfamiliar bits of animal anatomy on the menu.

Welcome to Chongqing

It'll all be different in a few years

Not being hot on organ meat, pig knuckles or chitlings, I opted instead for some quails’ eggs (these taste exactly like chicken eggs, by the way), some spring onion, pork meatballs, rice noodles, marinated beef strips and of course two kinds of dumplings, China’s killer app. Plus a whole bunch of other stuff which I forget. I basically ate the world, and the world tasted delicious.

Fortunately, my hostel was all downhill from the hotpot place (Chong is very hilly), so I simply rolled back down, incapable of any other means of locomotion.

Sichuan

Chongqing, to the east of Sichuan, used to be part of Sichuan province, but the control freaks in Beijing put the area under direct rule so they could settle Han Chinese there more easily, apparently. Chinesers aren’t big on diversity.

The obvious place to start in Sichuan proper, and the hub for the whole province, is the capital, Chengdu, famous for its panda research centre-cum-tourist park.

Pandas

Call me a total tourist, but I just had to go and see the pandas. I just wuvs the widdle animals,

Chongqing

Windy back streets and tenements

me. (Or not so widdle in this case.)

Though I did see a tiny one that was born just yesterday (literally I mean); très cute. I tried to sneak it into my pocket to take home with me, but security caught me.

On the minivan ride over there, I met Emma? Who was from Massachusetts? And she’s one of those people? Who talk like everything’s a question?

And the weirdest thing happened: the moment it started really jarring on my ears, she turned round and said, “Am I bothering you?”

My first thought was: How did you know? I hadn’t mentioned anything. I mean, I may be Dutch, but even I’m not that rude.

But it turned out she meant the way she was leaning against my seat, something I hadn’t even noticed.

Anyway, the tour through the panda park was a joke. The guide meant well I think, but there was no commentary because she didn’t speak much English.

This one beautiful Israeli girl* asked the tour guide, “So is everything here bamboo?”
“Yes,” the tour guide answered.
“This one too?” inquired the Israeli girl, pointing at a tree that didn’t look

Chongqing

Tenement

very bambooey.
“No, is different tree.”
“Oh. And these?”
“No, no bamboo.”
“And this one?” I put in.
“No.”

Asians, famously, have a very flexible concept of the word ‘yes’.

I later read that the park contains nearly 400 kinds of tree.

And so we reached the first panda enclosure. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m less patient than most people: I zoom through museums like greased lightning with my MTV-generation attention span.

But 20 minutes to look at five pandae just lying there is ridiculous by anyone’s standards, honestly.

The foxen in the henhice

Later, having FINALLY moved on, and after 15 or 20 minutes of looking at a bunch of red pandae (the famous ones’ smaller ginger cousins, also known as firefoxes), I went to the toilet.

When I got back, my tour group had disappeared. Celestials don’t do head counts, something I’d learnt in America on the Fung Wah bus (see earlier blogs).

Bit of a blessing in disguise though: I took the opportunity to go exploring at my own pace.

when life hands you lemons, throw them back at it

*I’m beginning to spot a

Chongqing

Again with the really really girlie doll-like 'babes'

pattern here. Are all Israeli girls yum?

There was this rumour going round that they let you hug the pandas, which turned out not to be true.

I totally would have, though. I’m not worried: with my beer gut, they would have been unlikely to mistake me for their natural prey, a stick of bamboo.

Aaahhh

Back in my hostel in Chengdu, I noted to my delight that the tune the door mechanism makes when I swipe my key card happens to be the same as the first few notes of the road scenes in one of my favourite PC games from the 80s: Police Quest. Never fails to make me smile with fond memories, that. (I’m easily pleased.)

Amazing hostel by the way; top marks. It’s called The Loft, if you’re ever in Chengdu.

Not least because of the air-conditioned dorms. A knighthood for whoever invented aircon, I swear. It’s gorgeous walking in from the hot, sweaty street into the lovely coolth when you get back to the hostel.

Sometimes, when I’m walking around outside, I linger in banks, even if I don’t need any money

Motorbike

No styling, no flash design, just the bike. Love it.

or anything, just for the aircon. Plus they have free drinking water. Result!

Politics

In a country where everything’s changing fast (mostly due to being bulldozed over), stereotypes left standing are as thin on the ground as any buildings over twenty years old.

I mentioned the image of roads full of bicycles before. Another thing I noticed that’s not really true anymore is Chinesers’ supposed reluctance to discuss politics. Once you find one that speaks passable English (no easy task), they’re for the most part quite willing to tell you that:

1. Taiwan is part of China.
2. On evidence to the contrary, see rule 1.
3. Tibet is part of China.
4. Tibetans are lovely people; very interesting ancient culture with all sorts of wonderful ethnic handicrafts and all that rot. And they’re delighted to be PART OF CHINA. WHICH THEY ARE. AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE AND THEY’RE THRILLED BECAUSE CHINA INVESTS WAY MORE MONEY THERE THAN IN MOST OTHER PROVINCES AND ANY DISSENT IS JUST EVIL WESTERN PROPAGANDA. ANY QUESTIONS?!!

They also feel very strongly that America should stop its bullying tactics, which

My mate Mao

include preventing China from bullying Taiwan, and leave China free to bully other countries in the region, which it has a legitimate historical right to.

Americans pay twice what other Westerners pay to get a China visa.

Onward Ho

The check-in process at Chengdu Airport is a picture of simplicity and efficiency.

The man behind the counter simply gets up occasionally, walks up and down the check-in area, touches a few —to all appearances randomly selected— bags for no apparent reason, disappears for a while, checks someone’s passport, disappears again, walks over to a different counter for reasons best known to himself, moseys back, checks someone else’s passport, disappears again. The whole process is wrapped up in six hours flat.

It sets my mood for the whole flight.

Those smug little signs in aircraft toilets bother me. “As a courtesy to the next passenger, may we suggest you use a paper towel to wipe the wash basin.” Good grief. How anal do you have to be to be bothered by a few drops of water in the sink?

And what’s with this ‘restroom’ business? What kind of

Luck the visits urban! Rain does not not stop!

a word is that? I’m not going in there to rest; I’m going in there to shit. Call it a shitroom. Or at least just call it what it is: a frickin’ toilet. What are you, six years old? ‘Passenger make whoopsie’?

In the Philippines (on which more later), having inherited the love of pseudonym from their American colonial masters, they call it a ‘comfort room’. This term at least bears some sort of resemblance to the truth: not taking a dump can get very uncomfortable after a while, as I’ve learnt on many an eight-hour chicken-bus journey.

Anyway, Honk.

All citizens are free to agree with the Party

And so it’s on to Hong Kong.

It’s great to be able to go on Facebook again after two weeks of the great firewall of China. The commies don’t like anything they can’t control, so they simply block half the websites out there.

Like using a bazooka to kill a mosquito really, but what can you do.

Hong Kong is kinda-sorta part of China. In theory, it’s part of the motherland, but everything’s different here,

Chinesers in a restaurant

down to the electricity sockets (British-style huge-ass three-prong fuckers), the money, and they even drive on the left.

One of the many cool things about Hong Kong is that they have the world’s longest escalator. I’d read about it, assuming it was inside one of their many temples to Mammon, the ubiquitous shopping malls.

But it’s actually outside, right there on the street. It carries you up the steep hillside of western Hong Kong Island, no superfluous decadent luxury in the July heat. Except in the morning, when it takes commuters down to the central business district, imaginatively called Central, reversing back uphill in the afternoon.

I rode it of course (it’s free), and it was kinda fun.

Though not a patch on the tram. The old tramway up the hillside, not too far from the escalator, stems from the 1930s, and they’ve left the whole look-and-feel: wooden benches, leather straps on the windows, etc.

The same is true, incidentally, for the Buenos Aires underground (built, like most of Argentina’s infrastructure, by the British*), a place I visited a few years ago. But with the exception that in Honk it’s a gimmick to draw tourist

Motorbike

Yet another strange Chinese-made bike in Chengdu

dollars, whereas in BA it’s due to a lack of any kind of maintenance since the 1930s.

But what a tourist draw. It somehow takes you up a 90-degree cliff face (I’m exaggerating, but only slightly), offering jaw-dropping views of the city, especially at night. And at the top, if you can somehow squirm your way past the hordes of tourists having their picture taken against the stunning backdrop, the view is unbelievable.

*The Buenos Aires underground, like that of Madrid, was built by the British, and to this day, trains in both cities ride on the left, in contrast to all other traffic.

Singapore

Next on my itinerary was what I always thought was Hong Kong’s big rival, Singapore. But the locals don’t seem to be aware of any rivalry. Just goes to show you: never believe the Western press. They’ll be discovering WMDs here next.

I do think the locals are a bit unfair calling the town ‘Singabore’ though. I visited an old flame, and one of the first things she asked me was, “So, you bored yet?”

I dunno, maybe if you live in this neat, well-ordered town, there’s some truth

Hella-China

Old ladies playing Mah-jong in the park

to the idea that the Lion City snoozes more than it roars, just like real lions. But I found it a cool place to spend a couple of days in.

Singapore is open weekdays from 9am to 5pm, and 9am to 4pm on weekends and holidays.

MRT

Staff at Singapore’s MRT (underground metro railway) speak good English and can answer all your queries, as long as you make sure that it’s one of the dozen or so QUESTIONS THAT PASSENGERS ALWAYS ASK.

If it’s anything more complicated, you get the famous Asian ‘yes’. This can mean:

1. Yes
2. No
3. Maybe
4. I don’t know
5. I don’t understand
6. What do you want from me?

Here's an example.

Me: “Hi, I’m in Singapore for two days. Is it worth getting a CEPAS card?”
MRT info desk chick: “You want CEPAS card?”
Me: “Well, I’m not sure. Is it worth getting one for just two days?”
MRT info desk chick: “How long you in Singapore?”

And so on.

I pick up a free city map.

Me: “Does this map have an MRT map on

Savage panda poised to attack

it as well?”
MRT info desk chick: “Yes.” She hands me a separate MRT map, because the answer was No, you see.

Raffles woz ere

To get to Singapore's famous Raffles Hotel, all you do is go down Raffles way, then left at Raffles Landing Site, past Raffles street, then left at Raffles House, down Raffles Street and Raffles Avenue, then take a right at Raffles Place and it’s on your right.

They’re not very original in this town.

So on that note, I soon found myself in the Raffles Hotel’s famous Long Bar, sipping a Singapore sling and chucking monkey nut shells on the floor like a million tourists before me. Great fun though.

Raffles Hotel is great. It’s a beautiful building with lots of teak, and proper old-school turbaned Sikh staff opening limo doors, that kind of thing.

Even in my camo shorts and flip-flops, I feel like a total colonial oppressor. I have to restrain myself from yelling something really colonial like ‘Chop chop, sling wallah!’ at one of the staff.

Can I help you, Sir? What do you mean, no?

Another panda

Staff at the Singapore Visitors' Centre on famous Orchard Road are relentlessly helpful. The moment you step in, you’re ambushed by an earnest staff member.

I needed a map, so my designated helpful staff member helpfully grabbed one and proceeded to scribble all over it, indicating the location of a number of tourist sights I’d already seen, and the MRT lines going there.

Singapore is a small place, and you get the lay of the land quickly enough, so she was telling me stuff I already knew (and hadn’t asked).

She just wouldn’t stop talking.

Still, she was being so earnestly helpful, I just couldn’t bring myself to say something sarky.

There really is no nice way to ask someone to stop talking, something I’ve learnt many years ago.

And so on

On which note: that’s all from me for now. Manila next, my little Singapore slings. Stay tuned.

Additional photos below

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