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Shades of Red on the Yellow Mountain

/ Jim Sojourner / Leave a comment

Holidays being what they are, I wasn’t able to get a bus out of Hangzhou until three hours after the first one left, which crimped my plans for climbing Huangshan.

Rising out of the Anhui bamboo forests, the Huangshan range is known for its jagged and jutting granite peaks thrusting more than 1,800 meters out of a sea of clouds into the blue. The mountain, which translates as Yellow Mountain in English, inspired an entire school of Chinese painting. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the peak has held renown in China for more than 2000 years, and some of its 10,000 steps are said to have been constructed as long as 1,500 years ago. Today it’s one of the most popular tourism sites in China and, being located just a few hours from Hangzhou, I got it into my head to climb it.

The only problem was, given those 10,000 steps, Huangshan isn’t the easiest climb. And since I wanted to summit before sunset, my three-hour delay, coupled with one of China’s ubiquitous traffic jams, was jamming up my plans.

There are two main routes up the mountain – well three if you count the three different cable cars, which I don’t – a 15-kilometer climb among some of the mountains most well-known geologic features or a 7.5-kilometer climb up the east side. I’d planned on the long route, but given my time constraints, I decided on Option 2. Still, by the time I’d bought my ticket and taken the shuttle to the base, it was already 3 p.m.

My guidebook says the climb takes 2.5 hours. The sun starts to set at 5:30 p.m. I was going to have to run.

So I did. Taking steps two at a time and dappling the stones with my sweat, I hoofed the four-mile climb in an hour and a half, shrugging off the shouts of “Look, look! Running foreigner!” and even stopping to snap some pictures and make some new friends, two of which mentioned they’d each make an excellent girlfriend. I declined.

And then I was at the top.

I’d packed a borrowed tent with plans to camp at the summit, but I had no sleeping bag and no pad, only a light down jacket and a pair of gym shorts. Two days before, I read that the temperatures were dropping to the high 30s some nights, so I’d booked a room at the White Goose Hotel at the summit at the last minute, figuring it would be better to pay outrageous prices than spend the night freezing on a block of concrete.

I hiked one more set of stairs and found the place, then checked in to my bunk in the hotel basement. Nice enough for a night, though not for 70 bucks.

The White Goose Hotel, complete with campsites.

The White Goose Hotel, complete with campsites. I did dodge a bullet indeed.

Then it was off for the sunset.

By the time I reached Guangming Peak, the second highest of Huangshan’s spires, nearly every piece of ground was supporting at least a body and a half. I scrambled around, climbing trees, balancing on fence posts – sometimes with the help of my new friends – snapping whatever pictures I could. Below, wisps of haze went red, then purpled as they embraced the rolling hills which gently shaded the sun as dusk turned to night. Behind, the rock faces caught the last light before they, too, faded into the gloom.

Sunset from Guangming Peak.
I’m hardly alone on Guangming Peak trying to catch the days last rays.
Sunset of Anhui’s rolling mountains.
Fellow Shutterbugs on Guangming

As I walked back to the hotel, I realized I’d made my second big mistake: Food. I didn’t have any, I hadn’t eaten any, and there didn’t seem to be any.

I bought a pack of cookies for four dollars, and went to find my bed, tripping all the way over the darkened stairs.

Turned out, sometime in between checking in and taking pictures, someone else had taken it. And every other bed in my basement room. That wasn’t all: By this time, beds had appeared in all the hallways and all the lobbies. Outside on the basketball court, nearly 100 tents were packed side to side in a scene that was being repeated all over the mountain, wherever tents were allowed. Where they weren’t, police were chasing off would-be sleepers.

I realized I might be in trouble.

I went up to the service desk. She drug me back down and the questioning began. We went through everyone’s receipts. After much denial, it turned out a middle-aged man tucked in to his spectacles had taken my bed in confusion.

“We can switch, OK?” he pleaded. “Ok?”

Ok.

The attendant showed me to my new room. I had the corner bunk. Pushed together with some other bunks. Shared with other people. At least it would be warm, I thought.

I followed the attendant back upstairs, where I started a pretty typical conversation: “Where are you from? How old are you? Where do you live? You’re Chinese is so good … blah blah blah.” Then, it took a weird turn.

“So,” all three young women behind the desk turned to look at me.

“Do you think Chinese girls are pretty? Do you think they’re prettier than American girls? Are Chongqing girls or Anhui girls prettier? What about Shandong girls?”

“Are you married?”

“Do you want to be?” one of them practically shrieked.

I hadn’t noticed that a crowd had gathered. It erupted in cackles. My ears flushed. I dissembled.

“Yeah, Beijing is pretty far away,” she said.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, looking at my feet and wishing beer didn’t cost 20 yuan a can.

After a half hour of conversation with this person and that, the lights at last went out. I went downstairs to find a room of snoring men. I clambered into bed with them, snuggled up, and tried to sleep.

My alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. Sunrise at 5:40, and I had a couple of kilometers to cover in the meantime. I grabbed my bag, and lurched into the dark.

Down, up, down again, more up, passing crowds of people on the half-lighted steps along the summit paths. In no time, my hat, gloves, and sweatshirt came off. Wherever I got, 1000 people had gotten first. I tried to force my way up to the cliff edges to get a clear look. Nothing. As the clouds started to brighten, I lucked upon a security guard opening a gate to a previously closed peak. The rusty gate creaked open, and I darted up the steps. Fifth one on the top, with prime position. Finally. More shades of red, this time the morning. Below, the cloud sea lapped at the lower peaks, and early rays silhouetted the pinnacles in pinks.

In less than 12 hours, I’d seen the sun fall and rise on the slopes of Huangshan.

But I had miles to go.

My plan for the day was to hike the West Sea Canyon, regarded by many as the most beautiful hike in the park, then to slide down the West Steps that I’d shunned the day before.

I’d picked a sunrise peak in close proximity to the West Sea Canyon entrance just for that reason. As soon as the sky blued, I was through the gate and onto the steps, built hanging onto the side of the cliff with 1,000 meters of air below. Across the canyon, the famed Huangshan rocks burst with of gnarled pines clinging to their faces like beard patches on a high school boy. For three kilometers I looped around the spires and down the hanging stairs, through tunnels, over pines and across broken bridges, swooning with bits of vertigo where the railing disappeared and the path edges slipped into abyss.

When I say cling, I mean the steps cling.
The West Sea is also famous for its pines hanging off the rock faces.
Look closely and you’ll see the stairs winding down from the top of the right-most spire to the bottom of the canyon.
The West Sea Canyon is also a great place to catch the late sunrise.
And wind around the rocks.
The Fairy Bridge, thankfully unbroken, is one of Huangshan’s most famous.
The views from the top of the West Sea Canyon.

About halfway down the winding staircases, though, I realized I’d made my third classic mistake: I’d brought half a bottle of water my last three cookies. Surely there was a store at the bottom.

Indeed, there was. Only, it was staffed by a pair of small dogs which, instead of offering me succor, chased me out of the storefront, yipping and howling at my heels. As I faced the upward stairs stomach rumbling, mouth parched, I knew it was going to be a long five kilometers back up, views of the sun-sloshed granite notwithstanding.

My nemeses.

My nemeses.

I didn’t know just how long it would really be.

Through my whole hike in the West Sea Canyon, I saw maybe two dozen people. That changed.

As I staggered up the last of the steps, nearly fainting and vomiting both for lack of hydration and energy, I nearly fainted and vomited again. I’d finally found what everyone had warned me about: The Horde.

I spent the next four hours “hiking” in line, shuffling up and down steps, shoving by in frustration when gaps appeared only to run into the next person’s back. Where I could manage, I ran through the underbrush, dodging angry police and even People’s Liberation Army soldiers who were trying to keep order and stop runners like me. I tried following a stick-stick porter whose bamboo load-bearing pole kept the crowds away but eventually lost him to the masses.

At one junction approaching my planned decent-route, after jamming myself into the crowd China-style, I stood without moving for nearly 10 minutes in the then-baking sun as I stared aghast at the red-and-yellow-capped snake of tour groups that coiled around the mountain past what appeared to be a man-carried chair that had fallen off the mountain side, and then coiled around again out of sight.

No way. No way. I shook my head. And shook it some more.

No way out, indeed. Yes, this is the summit.

No way out, indeed. Yes, this is the summit.

For a moment I considered hurling myself after the chair into the void and into sweet release from panic. Then I ducked the line, instead, smacked a woman with my bag, and went back the other way. Only to find more jams. In vain, I searched this way and that with trembling legs frantic to find an alternate route down the mountain. Everywhere was more of the same. Lines in every direction. There was no way out. I was trapped on the mountain with a million other people. There was no way out.

Well there was one: The way I came. And I could only pray it would be better.

It wasn’t by much. For another 7.5 kilometers I smashed my way through children, tripped old women, and stumbled over groups of men sauntering back and forth across the steep and narrow stairs – all the while seeing my last shades of red and trying not to scream or punch or simply kill myself on the mountain side.

Well, I didn’t. But it was a close call.

Beer in a bag

/ Jim Sojourner / Leave a comment

The first thing to know about Qingdao is that they serve beer in a bag. Like the kind of bag inside which you’d take a fish home from a pet store.

Nearly every corner store, market, and restaurant – even some hotels, it looked like – has lurking in its doorway a keg or two or three of Qingdao’s most famous export: Tsingdao Beer. Because foremost, Qingdao is a beer city. A German beer city. In China. And they serve beer in a bag.

Stop your car! Buy some beer in a bag!

Stop your car! Buy some beer in a bag!

Nestled on the Shandong Province coastline, Qingdao today is a city of about three million people and small for The Middle Kingdom.  It always has been. For centuries it existed as a fishing village and strategic port, exporting salt instead of beer. The beer came in 1903, just six years after Kaiser Wilhelm II set his mind to turning Qingdao into a little Germany in Asia, wresting control of its strategic seaward batteries in 1897 and signing a 99-year lease on the territory. With the Tsingdao Brewery came electric lights, the railroad, and many of the Bavarian-style buildings whose red-tiled roofs still line the gently rolling hills looking out over the bay and make the city a sharp break from China normal.

Despite the castle-like mansion the German governor built in those then-empty hills, the German dream didn’t last. Qingdao was the site of the only World War One battle fought in Asia, a standoff between the cutoff German garrison under orders to hold out as long as it could and a sleek new fleet of Japanese warships eager to prove their mettle. A months-long joint British-Japanese naval bombardment brought the city under Japanese control in 1914. The Rising Sun was rewarded with a strengthened grip over Northern China at the Treaty of Versaille in 1919, sparking the May 4th Movement, a massive student protest movement which would spread across China, which is where a young Mao Zedong would cut his teeth, and which is credited today as the seeds of the later-day communist faction. Although the city was returned to the Chinese in 1922, the Japanese would retake it in the Sino-Japanese theater of World War Two and hold it until their surrender.

The brewery, however, didn’t go away, first being absorbed by the Japanese brewers of Asahi and Kirin, then reverting to Chinese control later in the century. Today it’s modern, still holds with German brewing purity law and known all over the world, its label emblazoned with the Huilan Pavilion that sits in the waters of Qingdao’s harbor off the shore of its old town and the edge of an always-packed pier.

Despite the crowding, the pier is one of Qingdao’s many pleasant walks, especially on a clear day as the sun sets when a stroller can watch the lights pop onto the German architecture lining the Oceanside street while the megasized container ships ply the waters heading out of the container port down the coast. And Qingdao is full of pleasant walks:

Walks past the endless little seafood restaurants serving up fresh seafood picked – by you – from tanks in front of the restaurant. When you pick a fish or octopus, the staff will beat it to death on the ground in front of you. We tried the clams at three different restaurants. Dabbed in garlic infused oil and topped with hot peppers, they were all delicious … for clams.

Clams. I don't they they beat these to death before the cook them. But they do add peppers.

Clams. I don’t they they beat these to death before the cook them. But they do add peppers.

Walks through the leafy avenues of European-style houses now filled with coffee shops and restaurants and residences.

A Chinese police station.

A Chinese police station.

Walks under the turrets of St. Michael’s catholic cathedral – the capping crosses of which were buried during the Cultural Revolution by locals in the nearby hills to keep them safe and found by accident during construction work in the early aughts – and the old protestant church stocked to the gills with Chinese bibles and song books for the Chinese hordes, locals and tourists alike, to flip through.

For those who prefer to play 007 missionary and milk their congregations for greenbacks, though, I’m sure there are some house churches to skulk around, too. It’s all very hush-hush, I hear.

St. Michael’s sits on a hill above the old town.
Qingdao’s protestant church.
Nobody tell the Chinese! There’re bibles in this church!

Walks along the boardwalk under central business district’s glass and steel towers and past May 4th Square and the now-dark torch overlooking the waters which hosted the 2008 Olympics’ sailing event.

Qingdao's CBD and the May 4th Square overlook the Olympic sailing venue.

Qingdao’s CBD and the May 4th Square overlook the Olympic sailing venue.

Walks through aristocratic halls of the governor’s mansion which hosted military men Germanic and Japanese alike and their families.

The first governor was sacked for the exorbitant cost of his palace, which overlooks the bay from a hilltop.

The first governor was sacked for the exorbitant cost of his palace, which overlooks the bay from a hilltop.

Walks across the decks of retired Chinese destroyers and past the rusting parts of jets, anti-aircraft guns, missiles, and mines at the naval museum. All of the exhibits on China’s naval development were in Chinese. A shame. I’d have loved to learn the “facts”.

Walks through lines of old brewing equipment explaining the history of Qingdao’s most famous export, and past the endless kegs of that export. The original 1903 buildings are still standing and house a museum of the brewery’s fascinating history. Outside is Qingdao’s “Beer Street”, a collection of all-the-same seafood restaurants offering the standard fare plus on tap the unfiltered and stout versions of Tsingdao beer, which are difficult to find anywhere else in the world

Tsingdao brewery vase.
Since 1903. Once marketed as a “health drink”.
Unfiltered beer at the brewery taproom.
Beer street dinner.

Walks under the late-night blaze of neon lights in the back alleys of Qingdao’s food street where those so inclined can buy fried crabs on a stick; ice cream crepe; scorpions; shrimp dumplings; all variety of fish, clams, and prawns; fire-seared squid; and of course, beer bags with a straw.

Beer bags are a good way to reduce your inhibitions for practicing your Chinese. They are also a good way to reduce your inhibitions for prodding live scorpions with your pointer finger.

Spinning the squid.
Pick your seafood.
Holiday-time food street.
Crabs.

Walks over boulder-strewn slopes of Laoshan Mountain, on the south side of Qingdao. It took a sickening cab drive to get there, but the mountain park is a sprawling and enchanting collection of naked stone, seaward views, and millennia-old Taoist temples. China’s first Emperor, Qin Shihuang, even ascended the slopes seeking immortality and in the fifth century, the pilgrim Faxian landed on its shores in a return from India bearing the first Buddhist scriptures to enter China. All along the routes winding through the rocks are teahouses and snack shops where you can stop and take in the slopes and the sea over a cup of green tea. Chinese ingenuity shows up here, too, as the shopkeepers have all diverted the river with little plastic pipes and created mini waterfalls cascading gently downward from one bowl of fruits or drinks to the next keeping everything cold by letting gravity do the lifting.

Mt. Laoshan.
Resting at a Laoshan temple. The sea is back there behind the marine layer (Credit: Jordyn Dahl).
Tea on Mt. Laoshan (Credit: Jordyn Dahl).

Walks through the bright blue-tiled gate to one of China’s first Taoist temples, Taisqing Palace, sheltered hulking, leafy Ginko trees and by the rocky slopes of the rolling mountains above. For atmosphere, as well as beauty, this temple ranked among my favorite. It seems the temple is also in the process of constructing and monumentally sized monument – Lao Tze himself – to glower out at the crusty, wooden fishing boats bobbing in the sea, circling their nets around the catch under the afternoon sun.

Blue tiles are rare. The Taiqing Palace gate has them, and scenery to boot.
Fishermen in the water and out.
Monks meditating beneath the boulders at Taiqing Palace.

Walks under the white walls of the lighthouse that sits on Little Qingdao island. The lighthouse was destroyed during the Japanese bombardment in WW1 but was rebuilt to look out over Qingdao’s old town and keep ships clear of its shores.

The Little Qingdao lighthouse watches over the harbor and the seawall protects it.

The Little Qingdao lighthouse watches over the harbor and the seawall protects it.

Walks through the Qingdao Eastern Bear Park, where you can see hundreds of Asiatic Black Bears laying atop of one another. They can be fed with peanuts, while they hop up and down begging for a treat. Then you can watch grim-faced trainers lead bears around by a chain leash and tap them with sticks until the ride bicycles, walk on balls, walk a tightrope, juggle fire, and more. This place was utterly weird and utterly depressing, even if the view of the aquamarine ocean was lovely and even if we did get a VIP tour from one of the grizzled trainers who told us all about the different bears and asked us about America. When I asked him why two of the bears were fighting he shrugged and said “I don’t know. They just hate.”

Begging bears.
No, no, no.
Asiatic Black Bear.
Bear spinning fire.
Bearing riding a bicycle.
Bear walking a tightrope with an ocean in back.
Welcome to China. And the bear park.

Walks along the yellow sand of Old Stone Man beach, past the touts begging you to go on a boat ride on their speedboat moored just strides of the swimming beach. With the sea on one side and the mountains on the other and Qingdao’s modern skyline splitting the difference, this beach really was pretty nice.

Old Stone Man beach.

Old Stone Man beach.

In three days, we did a lot of walking, but that’s pretty standard for us. And if it’s not clear, I came away impressed with Qingdao. It’s skies are clear, it’s old buildings gorgeous, and it’s modern streets clean. It’s got stunning mountains on one side, stunning ocean on the other.

Plus they serve beer in a bag.

Chengdu Day 1

/ Jim Sojourner / Leave a comment

I’ve put off writing about Chengdu (成都) because I don’t really know what to say about it without inducing boredom.

That’s not because Chengdu is boring. It’s because the best parts are like the humid fog that rises out of the Sichuan’s mountain forests and mixes with the humid smog that rises of its drab concreate forests: languid, hazy, smelly, and not at all what you expected. Lonely Planet has it right. By all means Chengdu should be a miserable place. Actually, it’s pretty lovely. It’s just hard to see why.

So instead of writing some kind of terrible Chengdu opus in which we could wander blindly and lost, then, I’m just going to break it into a few little chunks and call it good. Those Panda’s I promised at the start will finally arrive. Soon.

For starters, Jordyn and I have wanted to visit Chengdu since we started looking for jobs in China. One of our early job offers was teaching children for EF in Chengdu. We read plenty about it. It sounded like our kind of place. Surrounded by mountains. Laid back. Full of tea house culture. Ancient culture. The home of the Pandas.

It isn’t anything like we thought. But it is, too.

We took a short walk to the city square the first morning, getting a good look at the resident Mao statute and the uncheckpointed square nevertheless guarded by dogs and Segways and armor trucks. We got some coffee at McDonald’s. Globalization has its benefits.

Chairman Mao welcomes you to Chengdu's central square.

Chairman Mao welcomes you to Chengdu’s central square.

But our first real goal was to get the ancient history of Chengdu out of the way. Forty kilometers outside of Chengdu is the Sanxingdui archeological site believed to have been a major Bronze Age city and the center of a kingdom that flourished in Sichuan for more than 1000 years. Artifacts from the Kingdom of Shu indicate that isolated from the rest of China by the mountains which surround the Sichuan Basin, the Shu developed a unique and distinct culture until it was conquered by the Qin in 316 B.C. and integrated it into what would become the Middle Kingdom.

Another also distinct Shu site was discovered in 2001 in the Chengdu city limits during real estate development. Called the Jinsha Site, this second ancient city represented the final era in Sanxingdui’s cultural evolution as the political capital relocated to what is now Chengdu. A new museum was built around the still-active dig, which has uncovered jade, weapons, tools, ivory, and some beautifully advanced iron and gold work.

This gold mask is one of the Jinsha Site's most impressive treasures.

This gold mask is one of the Jinsha Site’s most impressive treasures.

Plus on the way to the museum we got our first introduction to roosters tied with leashes to trees like dogs. We would see a lot more of these.

More of these.

More of these.

In the afternoon, we wandered around the Wenshu Temple neighborhood.

Wenshu Monastary is Chengdu’s oldest, founded during the Tang Dynasty sometime around the 7th century. It was torched during the wars of the Ming Dynasty, then rebuilt in its current form during the Qing.

Wenshu was our first encounter with the sweeping eaves style of architecture that dominates in Sichuan and diverges considerably from the Beijing style. The sprawling temple itself was crowd- and incense- and monk-filled in the usual style, nothing particularly unique but still pretty and peaceful.

Even children burn incense in the big burners at Wenshu Monastery.
Contemplating the Dharma in a monkey suit.
Monks at Wenshu
Wenshu’s flying eaves.

We struck up a conversation with a group of old men who wanted to take some pictures with us. They tried to teach us something about Buddhism, but the dialect made understanding near impossible until a tiny septuagenarian with long, thin hair, no teeth and a great James Hong impression told them to cut it out. He talked to us in superb English about America instead. He’d never been but knew all about it. He still wanted to go to California someday. Then we all snapped some pictures and went our separate ways.

In the park outside of the walls, the old men gathered with their caged birds, hung on lines between the trees. The birds squawked and squealed at the wind while their owners shaded in a pagoda squawked and squealed at their card game.

After the temple, we walked the reconstructed “old” streets nearby, watching the food and ware hawkers ply their trade. There were nut vendors, meat vendors, bamboo juice vendors, calligraphy vendors, and even “Panda IKEA.”

Korean-style tofu outside of Wenshu.
Stamping calligraphy outside of Wenshu.
Meat and spices outside of Wenshu.
Bringing bamboo juice to the masses.

The highpoint of our first day in Chengdu, though, was Wenshu’s vegetarian restaurant. The sleek wood and white dining room tended to by monks and nuns featured a 5-dollar, all-you-can-eat, all-vegetarian buffet with choices of more than 25 different dishes. Salads, soups, pastas, breads, casseroles, and deserts of all types with more kinds of vegetables and beans and tofu than I’ve ever seen. And perhaps the tastiest I’ve ever eaten.

Culinary enlightenment?

Wenshu's vegetarian restaurant.

Wenshu’s vegetarian restaurant.