The real China

Da Tong is famous for the Hanging Monastery (Wu Tai Shan), and it was was supposed to be doable in one day. "No need to spend the night as it's only a seven hour train ride from Beijing," everyone said, "plus the food is really bad". So I think 'ok short weekend trip" and only prepare clothing and stuff for two days MAX. Who woulda thought. We leave Beijing Friday night, and not until we're on the bus to the Hanging Monastery Saturday morning, do I look at my Lonely Planet guide for the first time.

"Oooo! A small, secluded monastic village and Lama Temples nestled in the mountain ranges of Wu Tai Shan..." yada yada yada. We both agreed that we just HAD to go there.

There's only ONE bus on Saturday that goes to Wu Tai Shan and we, of course, missed it. We had to spend the night in this dirty, dumpy, coal-mining town. It had snowed, however, and a normally dingy town is magically transformed into a beautiful wintery-white wonderland by the first falls of powder (not exactly snowboarding material but hey, it made our night interesting). Oh, did I mention $4 each for a fairly warm (although the heater 'somehow' got turned off in the middle of the night) and surprisingly clean room.

Bus #1, Random Town #1, Sunday morning
After an hour of haggling and declining offers of 400 yuan rides, we finally find the right public bus, only to have our hopes crushed when the bus wouldn't start. Prospects are looking EXTREMELY dim when a fairly good-looking Chinese guy (there are some) brings us to another bus and we are, amazingly, on our way.

Bus #2, Random Town #2, Sunday afternoon
Old Chinese lady and driver pick us up off the side of the road while we were wandering randomly, considering our bleak options and shopping for wool-knit pants. It was REALLY COLD. After several hours of driving in the frigid cold, our bus (it's night time now, around 7 p.m.) decides to break down. I decided that night that there is a god after all because after 30 minutes of tinckering and sounds of a choking motor, the motor starts to purr. I was never so blessedly overjoyed in my life.

Monastic Village
It's suspect whether or not we actually saw the Hanging Monastery, but at least we did see a monastic village in the mountains, over FIFTEEN hours away from Beijing. In the surrounding temples, we bai-bai (kow tow) to Buddha, burned incense and asked Buddha to grant our wishes. We talk to soft-spoken monks from Mongolia, Tibet, and Szechuan province.

We meet a funny couple also touring the monastic villages. The man is Taiwanese and woman is a well-dressed, probably rich, mainland Chinese. They treat us to lunch (our best meal all weekend) and entertain us with antics and arguments about Taiwan and China, whose government is more corrupt, is Taiwan a real country etc.

Bus #3, from monastic village to Random Town #3 (on our way home to Beijing).
I miss class on Monday and freak the hell out of my roommate, friends and teacher because they thought I "got lost" (typical Chinese overbearing parenting). But the good news is I get to see what the Chinese country side is like - poor farmers and peasants living in traditional hu tong-style "housing" (more like brick shacks) and open air "bathrooms" (two wooden boards lain across a huge ditch, you stand on the boards and do your duty, lovely experience I might add :0) Of course, if you're a guy, you don't even bother with these board-and-ditch set-ups, you just go wherever and whenever you feel like it.

The real China...

CHINESE FROM AMERICA
Locals think all Americans are blond and blue-eyed folk. I am confronted with the same problem many times - whether or not to say I'm a Chinese from America.

If I did, they might try to charge us more money for the ride or accomodations, because they think all Americans are rich. They also have this "you owe us" mentality towards overseas Chinese.

If I didn't, they would think I was a foreigner and charge us more - what you call a LOSE-LOSE situation. Sometimes, people are more partial if you are Chinese and can speak fairly fluently, even if you're not from the mainland.

BARGAINING
It took a day and a half to get to the monastic village, and only after three buses (public and private) and wheelin' and dealin' with each of the drivers over the fare. THAT, I am now convinced, is the quintessential key to survival in China - the ability to bargain with the Chinese and avoid being cheated, or at least feel like you got a good bargain even if you probably still got swindled.

Asking "how and when to get where we want to go" is a more difficult problem than you might think, and we get the run-around whenever we ask about train and bus schedules. Most locals are very hospitable, but ONLY if you are giving them money (i.e. eating at their restaurant OR riding in their bus)

And of course, every person answers with his or her own agenda in mind. "How can I persuade these two foreigners that Wu Tai Shan is too cold and not worth going to so that they'll stay the night at my hotel?" OR "How can I fool these two foreigners into riding my bus even though it doesn't go where they want to and the bus that they want is coming soon?" OR "How can I swindle these two foreigners 250 yuan to take them to a place that's NOT their final destination, even when there's public buses that'll bring them there for 15 yuan?" You get the idea.

Our tactic was to take the average of say, 10 to 15 different replies, knocking out the two most extreme replies (top and bottom) in order to avoid a shift in our bell curve.

PROPOGANDA - everywhere you look, painted in big, red letters on the brick walls of houses and random buildings. "It's better to have only one child." "Education and knowledge of modern technology are the key to superiority over other countries" yada yada yada. Each village also has its own "government" headquarters - just like in the Communist heyday when party members would appoint cadres to govern local affairs and carry out orders from the central government.

BUS RIDES can get long, pee-breaks are infrequent, and whoa to the unfortunate soul who happens to cross in the line of fire. We spend many hours riding with the local country folk - mainly male, dirty, smelly, smoking like crazy, peasant farmers that speak a dialect of Chinese that sounds Arabic. They stare at us and we stare at them.