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Published: November 3rd 2009
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monkey we saw on the mountain...i didn't know northern china had monkeys I haven’t written a blog for a while so I have a couple things to write about. First of all, two weekends ago our group trip to the mountain and our experience making American breakfast in China. I’m also going to talk about last weekend, Friday we went to Xidan (shee-dan) and Saturday my Rural Economics class visited a village and I went with some friends to an acrobatics show.
Two Fridays ago we didn’t do much; we stayed in and watched a movie because the next day we had to get up to climb a mountain. We left for the mountain at 10am; it was about an hour and a half from Beijing. The mountain is called Fangshan. There isn’t much to write about the actual mountain. When we began our trek, we saw a monkey on the side of the road. I didn’t even know they had wild monkeys in northern China, but apparently they do! I have some pictures of it posted. The hike wasn’t too bad up the mountain, there were some crazy steep stairs that I have pictures of but they were almost easier to climb than the steep inclines without stairs. At the top
there were a few small stands with things to buy. I bought a bracelet that ended up breaking in 2 days, but it only cost like 15 cents so I guess I can’t expect too much. We didn’t want to climb down the other side of the mountain after a sweaty Chinese man told us we were crazy if we were going down where he just went up. There were cable cars that ran down the side of the mountain, they looked really sketchy, but we decided to risk it, how bad could it be? It turns out cable cars can be VERY scary. It was okay at first, the ground was at least within sight. After a couple minutes we noticed the cars in front of us were disappearing. There was a HUGE cliff and as the cable went over the cliff the cars went straight down, dangling hundreds of feet over jagged rock. I have pictures but it doesn’t do it justice. Lihau and I aren’t afraid of heights but it was still crazy. Monica and Howie were in another car and neither of them like heights, so they were very happy when the time came to get
out of the car. While on the car we saw a sheep herder with his flock of sheep, walking down the side of a cliff! I don’t know how they managed to not fall but it was very impressive. I tried to take pictures but it was hard enough to see in person, let alone capture in a picture.
Once we got off the car we were at the destination the group would meet at, but we had more than an hour before our meeting time. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so there wasn’t much to do. We walked down the road but only found a couple small farms, some older women selling nuts and random hand-made things, and a couple small restaurants. We went into one of the restaurants and ordered some dumplings and dabing, which is a big flakey type of bread. The woman there cooked the food fresh and let us watch her, it was really cool. It was delicious and very inexpensive as usual. After eating, most the group was at the meeting spot. We got on the buses and went to eat. The food we ate with the program was
not very good, we were thankful for our venture into the town for dabing and dumplings earlier. After eating we went back to the dorms.
The next morning (Sunday) we planned to make American breakfast at Zach’s apartment. We bought eggs, bacon, potatoes, pancakes, juice, syrup, ketchup, fruit, donuts, bagels. There were 7 of us so there was a lot of food. Monica did most of the cooking because she’s awesome, and because the kitchen can’t hold much more than one or two people. It took a long time to cook that much food with such a small kitchen but at around 1 we ate our breakfast. I was most excited about the potatoes, which were delicious. It was a fun Sunday and it was good to eat some American food. After breakfast we went back to the dorms because we had a lot of homework as usual on a Sunday afternoon.
Not much happened last week until Friday. Friday afternoon we went to Xidan. Xidan is like a big shopping area, but unlike the areas we had been before; Xidan is not geared towards tourists. There are outdoor markets and indoor markets and after walking around for
hours we probably only seen 3 or 4 non-Chinese people. The Chinese idea of fashion is hard to explain, but now I know where they get the crazy things they wear, a lot of which includes shirts with Chinglish saying. The sayings looks like they are in English, but only make sense about half the time. This makes me wonder if the shirts with Chinese or Japanese characters on them in the US really mean anything. Xidan was really fun for Lihau and I because we are very entertained by watching Chinese people. Unlike the silk market, Xidan sales girls don’t speak much English. I bought a scarf and had to barter all in Chinese. Another good thing about Xidan is they don’t start at such ridiculous prices. The girl started at 50 yuan and I got it down to 30 yuan, whereas the silk market would probably start at 150 yuan and get down to maybe 30, probably more. I know enough simple Chinese where I can joke around with the sales girls a little bit and that usually gets them to lower the price a little, without the usual Chinese hostility that occurs when bartering. Lihau bought a
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donkeys! hat that says “加油中国” which means ‘let’s go China!’ it’s a common cheer here, and I have been wearing that hat almost ever since Friday, people seem to get a kick out of seeing a big white guy wearing that hat.
After shopping we went to dinner at a very fancy Italian place. They had set meals and we all got one, 4 courses of yumminess. I had pumpkin soup, seafood salad, seafood spaghetti and some bread. It only cost about 11 dollars which is definitely expensive for China, but I’m guessing something like that in America would cost much more. It was an expensive day in Xidan, but it was a great experience. The only bad part about it was that no one remembered to bring their cameras. I’m sure I’ll go back again and I will be sure to remember mine next time. We took the subway back to school and went to bed early, because Howie and I had a field trip the next day.
I got up early Saturday and met my Rural Economics class in front of our dorm at 8am. We were off to a small mountain village in the outskirts of
Beijing. I studied Chinese on the way and learned many new words. We got there in about an hour and a half and jumped off the bus. To our surprise they had a small exercise area even out here in the village. After talking with the village “manager” she told us it was part of a large government project in Beijing. They had built small recreational areas, paved roads, and brought water and electricity to all villages around Beijing. The improvements were part of a big redistribution of wealth plan that used the extra tax money that comes out of Beijing to improve the villages on the outskirts of the city. Most of the morning was spent walking around the village and then up the mountain. Each family has a few small plots of land scattered across the mountainous area, usually some plots are better for farming and some might be just rocky or too steep, that way one family isn’t stuck with a cliff while another has a huge flat field. We met an old man cutting corn stalks that was 80 years old; hopefully I can get some pictures of him from Howie. The most common things they
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will fed one an apple grew were dates and persimmons, both are very cheap and most of their income actually comes from multiple types of government transfers. We ate lunch there, and it included some things I had never tried in China, it was pretty good. After lunch we went back to campus. After a quick nap it was time to go to the Chinese acrobat show.
I don’t have too much to say about the Chinese acrobat show, but it was awesome! It was a lot like Cirque du Soleil except there were a lot more performers. It also only cost 80 RMB, which is just over $10, a much better price than Cirque du Soleil. They did all kinds of crazy and impressive things, as far as entertaining tourism; I’d say this is the best way to spend a couple hours if you have a free night next time you’re in Beijing. At one point there was one bicycle with 12 girls balancing on it, crazy.
That’s all I got for now, I’m going to write about my trip to Guang Zhou next, it will probably be up by the time anyone sees this one.
Peace and God Bless
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lihaugodden
Lihau Godden
加油中国！
I want my hat back. and where are the pictures?