zài jiàn China

Sunday 31st October

As we are now nearing the end of our first China foray and as with Russia, I would like to make note of a few individual observations here that hopefully capture some of the essence of china.

China makes a profound impact on all who pass through it and given a
lifetime it would still be impossible to sample all that this country
has to offer, yet alone integrate fully into it's culture.

Everything about the country is truly foreign to mere tourists such as
ourselves, yet we cannot help but find ourselves warming greatly to both it's way of life as well as it's community spirit. The people we have encountered during our brief visit have been overly accommodating with a desire to understand as much about us as we are eager to learn about them.

There is an overwhelming sense of national pride and with good reason
too, this is a country that is making leaps and bounds into global
dominance of nearly every industry. People seem to have real purpose
and although the wages do not compare to that of its western
counterparts, people appear to take pride in their jobs and seem genuinely committed to providing a good service.

So anyway without further delay here are a few points on this amazing country:

1. Nostrils: be prepared to have them put through their paces.
Although I had been forewarned prior to my visit, nothing had truly
prepared me for the overwhelming array of smells that one has to
endure during the course of an average day. Ranging from the hunger
inducing culinary aromas that are to be found on nearly every street
corner through to the less pleasant nasal burning stench of the public
lavatories. I am not sure that one truly ever gets accustomed to these
and several times a day you are stopped in your tracks as some new
nose feast hits your senses like a slap around the face.

2. Dental hygiene, or lack thereof: I had confidently been informed
that the UK has the worst reputation for dental hygiene in the world
(thanks mostly to Austin Powers I presume). However let me put that
record straight right now, never in all of my days have I seen such a
distinct lack of pearly whites than there is here in china. I used to think that travel photographers were in some way gifted at capturing people with distinctly ghastly teeth, grinning from cavity to cavity. Now however I know the truth, they simply take a photo of anyone that
smiles here thats over the age of 60.

3. Trains: there seems to be a running joke with the travel
authorities to see how many people they can wedge into each carriage
which is a feat in itself as the tickets are so bloody difficult to
buy in the first place. We have savoured the spectrum of seating
options that china has to offer from soft sleepers through to standing
only and I can say with conviction that nobody does it quite like
China. Any destination that offers seats also offers a standing
option, this means that there are usually twice as many people in
these carriages than was originally intended. It's like a giant game
of musical chairs, if you get up for a toilet break you return to find
your chair inhabited by an entire family intent on staying put. Try as
you might to move them this is generally futile and your only option
is to wait until the next poor shmuck who needs to relieve themselves
and dive into their preheated hard seat. This goes on for the duration
of the journey (sometimes over multiple days) until everyone has been
inconvenienced at least once and the only person smiling at the end is
the old landy with the colostomy bag.

4. Signs: The Chinese see a "no smoking" sign as a personal challenge
to see who can smoke the most whilst loitering in front of it. This
also applies to "no photos", "no eating" and I presume "no loitering"
too although this last one is unconfirmed. Whilst I won't dwell on this
as it is already pretty well documented, the English translations on
some of the signage are often highly comical and I can't help thinking
that someone somewhere did this just for a giggle.

5. Food: Nothing appears to be off limits for the chinese pallet and during our trip we have encountered such culinary delights as live scorpians and spiders through to pigs brain soup and fried snake. The local food is also unbelieveably cheap in comparison to the various western restaurants that have sprung up everywhere, often enabling all three of us to eat and drink for less than £5. Portion sizes range from gargantuan to unbelievable and I fail to understand how so many of the locals manage to maintain their skeletal physiques.

Today is our last full day in China as we will be jumping aboard a sleeper bus through to Hanoi this evening, a journey that will probably provide little sleep but hopefully plenty of entertainment.