Report from a trip to China

In China, we hear rhymes at every turn: 14 dynasties (although it depends on how you count), 4 capitals of the ancient world (Xi'An, Rome, Athens and Cairo), 6 ancient capitals of China, 4 great inventions of the Tang dynasty (paper, gunpowder, printing press and compass)... The Chinese like rhymes, and each one shows that they are the best. Can China be the best place for a vacation? Active people will be happy, inquisitive people will find more questions than answers, and seekers of culinary experiences will discover new flavors. The Chinese would add their own reasons for pride to this list: a great dance show, fast and affordable trains and dynamic cities. The Chinese list other advantages than tourists from the West, and during our trips to China To both of these points of view we added our own.

China – in the kingdom of the dragon and the phoenix

CHINA - Beijing, Pingyao, Xi'an, Yangshuo, Shanghai
During your trip to China you will learn why the dragon is a symbol of happiness and goodness, and the phoenix – of virtue and grace!

China surprises at every turn, because we still know little about it. Western researchers have not had the opportunity to conduct systematic research, China has its own scientists. Access to knowledge is protected by censorship. On a bookshelf, a work by Marco Polo written in the 8th century stands next to an illegal, pirated reprint of the Lonely Planet guide. The impressions of a European about China from XNUMX centuries ago can be read legally, but those of contemporary people cannot. In many countries, the cover of the family saga "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China" contains information that over a billion people will not read this book, because China does not allow its publication. Most Chinese people do not know about this and do not bother about it. We also do not even know how much more there is to discover in China. Thanks to this, travelers will find wonders there that they do not expect.

Expectations vs. reality

I had expected crowds, chaos and hustle and bustle, but I ended up in a village where the power went out after a storm and in the evening you could see dew glistening on the rice fields on the mountain slopes to the horizon. I was going trekking in one of the reserves in Sichuan, where red pandas live, and the train to this region covered a distance comparable to the distance from Krakow to Amsterdam faster than the Krakow to Gdansk route. I thought it must be overwhelming: space and vastness, crowd and power. What I saw was mainly variety and the breaking of every expectation, each subsequent observation contradicting the previous one. Thanks to the huge variety journey to Chin you can spend it actively, learning about the culture, enjoying the cuisine, or combining all of these methods. The high-speed train connections were opened just a few months ago and mass tourists have not yet discovered them, so moving around the vastness of China is as easy as traveling by train in Europe. There are still many places where locals rarely meet tourists with Western features, so we are treated with curiosity, respect, caution, which quickly turn into cordiality. The small community observes the newcomer and reciprocates his behavior, even if there is no talk, because no one in the village understands the translator on the phone.

Chengdu Panda Park

Picturesque landscapes in Xingping

Panoramic view of the Longji rice terraces

Nature in China

Although relatively few Chinese monuments have survived to this day, here and there wild nature has survived. We see the same mountains that inspired artists 3000 years ago. In Chinese culture, the patterns and canons of beauty have not changed for centuries: one way of painting peach branches, considered perfect, was repeated for centuries. Most of the paintings have been destroyed, but we still have mountains.

A peak that we would call photogenic today is Mount Tabai. The highest peak in eastern China symbolically divides the north and south of the country. The narrow isthmus between the rock walls was called the Tiger's Mouth in ancient times. Bandits have probably always been waiting for merchant caravans here. Today, there are no hiking trails here other than the old trade roads, tourists have a cable car. This is not a place for trekking, you can look for a haven here. There are no people and no animals either, or maybe you can't see them? A giant panda would be invisible in this scenery, here its fur would be camouflage.

Giant Panda: Evolution's Giggle

Pandas have a digestive tract adapted mainly to eating bamboo, which provides them with so little energy that they do not move unnecessarily. They suddenly fall asleep in the least expected places, in strange positions, as if they had fainted. A slow, 120-kilo panda can climb high up a thin tree, using an appendage resembling a sixth finger and long claws. They can hurt each other, including each other. They have a strong territorial instinct, so the gentle bears released in the reserve fight among themselves. There are no such large protected areas in China for pandas to increase their wild population naturally. In fact, we have already exterminated pandas: if released into the wild, they will fight for space until there are too few of them left for the species to survive. Fortunately, the panda has the status of a symbol, the Chinese government gives out live mascots like symbolic gifts in the past, indicating generosity and good relations.

Pandas are popular and they are cute and cuddly. In Chengdu, at the giant panda research center, tourists respond enthusiastically. And newborn pandas resemble rats, are almost bald and a few inches tall. Then their fur turns pink, as if the frolicking bear cub itself were not endearing enough. Internet stories about cuddling pandas full-time as the best job in the world suddenly sound plausible. Pandas do indeed cuddle, sniff, maybe even tickle, and seek each other out. Descriptions of each animal hang in the enclosures: one rescued from poachers is still skittish, another likes to eat and always longingly looks for its keeper with a meal and comes bounding at the sight. The keepers seem to have fun not only cuddling the pandas but also writing such descriptions. Education is conducted unobtrusively, for those who are willing: every half hour there is a lecture on pandas, once in Chinese, once in English, and every hour a crowd gathers, and tourists actually listen and ask questions.

Dragon's Back Rice Terraces - Picturesque Longji

Not only wildlife reserves are protected, some national parks protect the landscape of cultivated fields, such as historic rice terraces. The first fields were marked out in the 13th century, and eventually covered the surrounding hills. The mountain ranges stretching to the horizon with their even, flat fields create one of the most amazing views in all of China, magically called the Dragonback Rice Terraces. In the rice fields, you can learn about culture understood as a way of life.

On the rice terraces, contour lines are unnecessary; on a satellite image, the field boundaries would suffice as a measure of the height difference. Apparently, the signal is disrupted and satellite photos are not allowed over China. Map applications are crazy and inaccurate, and the given walking time does not take into account the terrain. It is as if the time of ascent to Turbacz was given based on a route measured flat. The paths are paved with flat stones, farmers made their work easier. They often turn into steps, and in the fog, additionally into a skating rink. The trails for tourists are a bit wider than those for farmers. Farmers have been walking on the paths for centuries, tourists for a few or a dozen years. In the village, the path disappears, leads to the yard, to the neighbor's, and we discover the meanders ourselves. A different minority lives in each village in the region. We meet people who speak neither English nor Chinese. The guesthouse is run by a family. When it got cold, they invite us to their table, a special piece of furniture with traditional heating. In the village, a solution to a sudden change in weather was developed centuries ago. We don't need language to communicate. The inhabitants used to grow rice, now they often work on building a hotel or a viewpoint. It is possible that in a few years it will be even easier for tourists here, but what about ethnic minorities then?

Xi'An

Terracotta Army

Xi'An – Everlasting Regret. Photo credit: trip.com

The first capital – Xi'An

In the 37rd century BC, the first ruler united China, took the title of emperor, left behind the Great Wall of China, the Terracotta Army, and peace. Xi'An was the first capital of a unified China and, as befits a city of such importance, it was conquered and destroyed many times. At its peak, the defensive walls were 13 km in circumference. The current, preserved ones are 17 km long. In the Middle Ages, there was no way to breach them, so mainly the gates were attacked. The Drum Tower and the Bell Tower were used to measure the time of day and inform whether it was time to sleep or work. It is hard not to associate this with Krakow in the XNUMXth century. I am in a place where old solutions from my city were used XNUMX centuries earlier.

Terracotta Army – one of China's greatest attractions

There are attractions for which the descriptions "one of a kind, unique in the world" are not an exaggeration. When several soldiers from the Terracotta Army were presented in London, the museum sold out, which usually does not happen at exhibitions of old sculpture. They say that there are only two slogans that can draw such crowds to British museums: the Terracotta Army and the Titanic.

The Terracotta Army amazes with its scale, antiquity and scope: we look and still do not know how it was possible that so long ago, such effort, such organization? Today it is a challenge for conservators and museum workers, it is not known how to show, exhibit and preserve such a work. The guide shows an undiscovered place and says that there are soldiers there too. We turn up our noses in disbelief, but he says that he was here in the 70s, when the complex was opened to visitors, and saw it with his own eyes. The sculptures were buried again, wondering how to restore them? Today, the mangled pieces of terracotta are scanned in a 3D program that shows how to divide the mixed puzzle and how to put the soldiers together. It is unimaginable that the emperor's burial chamber is many kilometers away. Legends say that a moat of mercury was supposed to flow around the coffin, and additional security was provided by self-shooting crossbows, in addition to 8000 terracotta soldiers equipped with sharp weapons. It sounds like a fairy tale, but elevated levels of mercury and remains of crossbows were discovered in the soil. The soldiers were buried without access to oxygen, so when they were dug up, the weapons were still sharp. Some ask the guide why the deceased would need such an army? The group discusses, the guide talks about life after death, and I think about propaganda. If 700 people work on your tomb, everyone knows about you, everyone has heard of you, your fame grows, and your subjects have something to do. The soldiers are individualized, even though they were mass-produced: there were separate factories for arms, legs, torsos. Only each face was finished separately, on replicated patterns. The archers kneel and you can see the patterns on the soles of their shoes. We are all delighted, although Western tourists show it more.

A spectacle like the opening of the Beijing Olympics

In each city there is a performance choreographed by someone working at the Olympics in Beijing. This advertising stunt may be true. The dance performances at those games involved thousands of people, perfect synchronization, wonderful ballet and a blaze of colors, and were widely commented on around the world. This is what the Chinese want to brag about, and they are the best at it. They have the resources, factories for all kinds of costumes and materials, crowds of dancers, and the traditions of Peking opera. In Europe, such performances are called high-budget. In Xi'An, an open-air show called "Everlasting Regret" was based on a poem, which in turn was based on historical events, but it lasted practically without words, only colors and dance mattered. The stage was closed by a wing of the summer palace, and behind it rose the slope of a mountain. At one point, a decorative moon was lit on the slope, and after a moment the entire mountain was illuminated by lamps as stars, and several hundred people in the audience sighed with delight. After the choreography in the water, I wondered if the fire would be real too? It was. Everyone reacted equally lively to the water dance, fireworks and sparklers. You can't direct the sighs and shouts, and even they were perfectly synchronized. The routines using feather wings, masks, leaves and fans were as far from classical ballet as they were from contemporary ballet, although they drew on both of these sources. The dancer's skirt turned into rainbow rays, and the light was an element of the scenography, choreography and the dancer. The costumes flashed, the decorations shone and each element precisely influenced the others. There were only a few soloists in this huge undertaking. At the same time, in three different parts of the stage, which were actually wings of the palace, three identically dressed couples of the emperor and his concubine danced. No dancer could achieve the status of a star or prima ballerina. As if no one was to be distinguished. The power of the scale was enormous, there were over a hundred dancers, the audience several times more, and at the end the lady from the service showed how to applaud.

Shangri-La

Fishing village and Bill Clinton's Visit Museum

Cruise to Yangshuo

Plastic Monuments – Shangri-La

Sightseeing with Chinese tourists is an experience in itself. The Chinese usually go on organized tours from work and only in their province. Shangri-La is Pan Thaddeus, Hobbiton and a Potemkin village in one: they built a set for a 4th-century poem. The Taoist poet described a utopia. We sailed through a village with a peach orchard covered in artificial flowers, extras beat the ground with hoes and others danced. The Chinese woman next to me crossed herself as the boat entered a cave. Maybe she needed a religious gesture to give vent to her emotions, and that was the only one she knew. To survive this soberly, you have to fit into the convention, so I had a great time dancing in a circle with Chinese women to a Chinese song, accepting refreshments and competing for a colorful ball. It's a supermarket for tourists, Disneyland. The Chinese have no other monuments, the last ones were wiped out during the "cultural revolution". Today, some need for culture, experience, is satisfied in ShangRi-La. There are no other monuments in the provinces, so Chinese tourists are shown viewpoints, and Western tourists look for experiences and adventures.

Bill Clinton's Fishing Village and Visit Museum

In 1998, Bill Clinton visited a fisherman's house in Yucun, a fishing village from the Ming Dynasty. Since then, the fisherman has had a shrine to Bill Clinton's visit in his house. The easiest way to get there is by river, we walked through the mountains, on a sheep path, and within a few hours we met only one woman with a cart and a Unesco obelisk stuck in the bushes. In the orange orchards, someone played wordless music from a portable radio at full volume, so that it would reach every one of the several people working in the large area of ​​idyllic mountains. A man approached us in front of the village. We didn't know where he had come from: he wasn't working in the orchard, he wasn't resting. We only understood the name of the village, nodded and followed him. We laughed that it would be better to go with him than to let him run to the village and announce the arrival of tourists. Then his phone rang. I had really forgotten about phones and thought that they were calling each other like they used to. He meandered and led us to a proper western bathroom, and then to his house, converted into a museum, with faded photos, souvenirs to buy, and laminated cards with English inscriptions. He had set up a stall with trinkets for tourists in the corner of the room where he slept. Nearby, in the memorial room, there was a portrait of a doctor who had visited the village in 1921. When we were leaving, there was a padlock hanging on the door of a fisherman's house. He ran out onto this road to meet us and bring us here, someone had warned him that we were coming. We wouldn't have found this nook on our own. He is an ordinary fisherman: he has a raft made of plastic pipes with an engine, which he uses to catch fish and sometimes take tourists. He also has his own legend: Bill Clinton once visited his house.

Does anyone in the government still remember this fisherman from Yucun? Certainly not, because China is looking into the future not only with its thoughts.

Progress in China

Sometimes it seems that the Middle Ages are still going on in China, that for many people nothing has changed for generations, that the achievements of civilization have passed them by. On the street, on a folding chair, an old man reads his hand. He looks no different from an ordinary passer-by, but several people are waiting in line to see him. In the chemist's, there are two Western medicines and a whole lot of ointments with active substances from insects, reptiles and plants. Among the rice terraces, in wooden houses without nails, marked as the oldest in the village and open to the public, entire multi-generational families live. Progress looks like plastic buckets swinging on the koromysl instead of buckets. When I think about the contemporary Chinese province, when I travel by train, the screen displays information that we are currently moving at a speed of 305 km/h. The Chinese have immediately moved from cash to paying by phone. Every taxi driver and every stallholder has a QR code for payment, without it they would have to close down their business because it would go out of business. Two years ago Xi'An had 9 million inhabitants, this year it exceeded 12 million. Entire housing estates the size of Krakow are being built at once, simultaneously, at the same time. There are 15 places marked as meeting points at one train station. If there were fewer, it would be even harder to find them. You can jump from a narrow path between rice terraces to a smooth, concrete highway in an hour. Now is a good time to go to Chin: Many facilities have already been prepared, and outside the cities there are not many tourists yet.

Chengdu and People's Park

Beijing – Tiananmen Square

Famen Temple

Chengdu on the Silk Road

Chengdu is the first city in China on the Silk Road, as seen from Europe. It has a history probably older than writing, and certainly older than silk. A history as old as the road, as old as travel, as old as the inability to sit still. My list of delights in Chengdu is long, including ambition, scope, vestiges of the past, Sichuan cuisine, distinctiveness, urban planning based on an old palace, an international hotel right next to the local market, space, easy public transport, pandas and reserves within a weekend.

Chengdu's city park, People's Park, is indeed a community park, regardless of the political connotation of its name. The first park in Chengdu was established in 1911 based on the English/American park model, with a lake, pavilions, and various decorative sections. Free admission was unique in China, as there was no tradition of urban greenery or providing beautiful, well-kept recreational areas for the common people. The emperor had palaces the size of cities, and people had houses at most. In 1913, an obelisk was erected in the park to commemorate the defenders of the Sichuan Railway. During World War II, the Japanese bombed this innocent civilian place. The park was rebuilt, adding a monument to these victims and changing its name to People's Park. We did not see a single Western face. Every corner of the park resonates with a different sound. Plastic stools surround an improvised stage. The audience will listen to a performance by an elderly man in a white American admiral's uniform, women in colorful ball gowns, and others in folk costumes. An orchestra of out-of-tune instruments is doing its best. Around the bend and behind the trees, two women in different folk costumes are practicing a dance routine. They are spontaneously joined by a dozen or so people and a few dozen gawkers. In the next square, elderly women are practicing aerobics to Western music, and behind a few pavilions, numerous couples are dancing the rumba to a Chinese song. I read about these dances in the stories of a contemporary Chinese writer, and now I am in the very center of this world. A crowd of men stands above one bench. They let me pass until I see a mah-jong board spread out. They comment, make suggestions, suggest moves, and forget that I am watching them. Women are sitting a little further away, playing bridge. I have seen more card games here than I have in my entire life. Sesame has opened: I thought I knew many card games for several people – they know more in this park. Advertisements are fluttering around these elderly women, hung up like laundry. We laugh that it's Gumtree and translate one of them. A smile falls from our lips as we translate the content. These are matrimonial ads, dry and painfully specific: height, year of birth, good health, stable job, both parents retired, will meet a partner with a comparable life situation to a long-term relationship, and underneath there is a phone number to the parents. One ad by a guy contains information - a proverb that a potential partner cannot be "as ugly as a horse or a sheep" and a phone number to the mother, to the potential mother-in-law, who is probably sitting somewhere here, in this park. People born in the 70s and 80s of the XNUMXth century look for partners through paper ads. More modern methods have not worked, there is no Tinder here, and loneliness is just as bad in every system, so the residents of Chengdu go to their park.

In the city museum, the exhibition about the history of the city ends in 1949, when the republic was proclaimed and a new era began. There are only a few boards in English for general orientation. I visit the museum without words and without knowledge, it is a completely new experience for me. The shadow theatre occupies two floors. Openwork paper cutouts stretched on a metal and wood structure arouse delight in their transience. I admire the mastery and still cannot imagine the performance, because only puppets and decorations are shown, and the instruments locked in display cases do not play. The museum is accessible, free, without tickets - we pay with a photo of our face, biometric data.

China under control

Tourists may be bothered by constant surveillance. In China, there are cameras everywhere, police everywhere. Passport scanning is standard, especially if you want to enter Tian'Anmen Square. For Western tourists, even the common, indispensable Wechat application has an incomplete version. We don't know what we don't have access to - just as the Chinese don't know how Facebook, WhatsApp, free media work. A social program of full control will come into effect in 2020. Social points will be needed to send a child to a better school, buy a train ticket to another province, they will give privileges or prevent action. A short pilot program has shown that people are delighted: peace is visible immediately, while the restriction of freedom can only be noticed after a longer period of time. Points will be deducted for fines and arrears in fees, but also for religious practices. The entire society has been asked to observe and inform.

Famen Temple: Totalitarian Architecture

This self-censorship, this sense of control, quickly spreads, and I also don’t tell everything when journalists ask me about the Famen Temple. Compared to this colossus, Licheń is a modest, village church. In Europe, the question “can architecture be totalitarian?” can be suspended in the air when looking at the Olympic stadium in Berlin or the Centennial Hall in Wrocław. This temple looks as if it was cast in concrete just yesterday and is ready for the peak of the Chinese tourist season: huge space, wide avenues of gigantic gilded sculptures, superhuman, overwhelming scale, and all this in a country where from 2020 there will be minus points for practicing religion.

In Famen, a relic of the index finger of the Buddha's left hand and several fake relics are kept. They also placed these fakes on altars and today some people still kneel before the altar with a fake. Neither the guide nor the translator know the answers to the inquisitive questions of Western tourists, so the group is developing more and more interesting ideas and theories. As far as I know, Buddhist monks are supposed to undergo purification if a woman touches them, and here they are pushing themselves against me, and sitting at the altar, scrolling through their phones. Before the dinner ceremony, we were given a brochure in Chinese about gestures: how to ask for more, how to refuse, how to show respect for prayer. Surprised, I still look exotic, so I was asked to say "a few words for the media."

No one asked me a question, they just stuck their lenses in. The guy in front of me expressed general appreciation. Squinting in the full sunlight reflected off the gold and concrete, I said quite a lot about the impressive scale of the complex, about the temple’s shape resembling hands protecting something precious, and I expressed my hope that next time I came, they would prepare a brochure in English for me and the tourists to whom I would tell about this place. What did they translate? I don’t know and I won’t find out. Journalists are not allowed to share any materials with me. They want our interest, confirmed by our faces. We are sincerely interested, although mainly through associations with the architecture of the Lomonosov University in Moscow and other buildings from the group of Stalin’s Seven Sisters.

Chinese cuisine

China in Five Flavors – What to Try During a Trip to China?

Dinner at the Famen Temple was served as if it were the simplest, most enormous canteen. The monks feed several hundred people and don’t use many spices, so they know how to bring out the true flavor of vegetables, mushrooms, and grains. They’ve probably been cooking just a few of the same simple dishes for over 20 centuries, so they’ve had time to find the best ways. Of the four main types of Chinese cuisine, Szechuan dishes are our favorite. For centuries, Szechuan was the granary of China, a rich, fertile province. After the first bite of Szechuan duck, you want to spit, after the second, you want to die, and after the third, you can’t tear yourself away. Your lips go numb, your tongue turns purple. We bite into something delicious and, using sign language, ask for another bowl of boiling water to wash it down. I understand now, that’s why the saleswoman at the market was surprised when I bought a few handfuls of Szechuan peppercorns, since one crushed grain is enough to season a large pot. I brought pepper for people to whom I will tell about my impressions, because until they try it, they will not believe in its taste. Pepper and recipes are easy to bring as a souvenir from a trip to China.

A Trip to China – Through My Own Eyes

We meet Chinese people in glass skyscrapers in big cities, at regional universities, in some Vietnamese and Philippine resorts. Meanwhile, most Chinese people are not allowed to leave China, moving to another province requires collecting official stamps, and vacations are a tour of places officially selected from above. China is talked about a lot, but paradoxically we know little about it. We hear about this country mainly in the context of economy, geopolitics and individual freedom, but how does this translate into everyday life? A Chinese person from an ethnic minority does not think about the market economy, he just buys bottles of drinks in his village, packs them into a basket on his back and carries them to the mountains. Under a bamboo shelter where farmers ate rice at noon, he waits for thirsty tourists. He will not communicate with them in any language – he does not have to, because thirst and tiredness are universal.

Hong Kong & Bohol

PHILIPPINES, CHINA - Hong Kong, Bohol (Panglao) To start with, we suggest a trip to Hong Kong, the capital of world finance, a fascinating combination of East and West, where memories of the colonial past are hidden in the shadow of mighty skyscrapers.

Every tourist adds their own arguments to the list of “why it’s worth going on a trip to China.” For me, the greatest joy in travel comes from discovering things that weren’t on the plan. In China, it’s easy to change your path a bit, and there’s often a contrast waiting around the bend. It’s worth seeing the changes with your own eyes, even if the image is selective.