Dan's 2004 China trip — 18 provinces in four months. Click on the map for stories from a particular location.
From Haoyi Village to the New York Daily News
My friend Liu Yi, who I profiled during the Shanxi Province leg of my 2004 trip through China, was featured in an article entitled “America, meet your rivals” in the August 9, 2005 edition of the New York Daily News. Here is Yi’s part of the story:
Liu Yi, 25Studying to be a professor
In Liu Yi’s hometown of Haoyi in central China, virtually all teenagers go to work in factories, construction, coal mines or the family farm. So there’s not much point in dreaming of becoming a college professor.
In fact, since the 1949 Communist takeover of the country, only 100 people from Haoyi have gone to college, Liu said.
But Liu said his parents insisted he stick with his studies. He traveled 1,000 miles west (sic) to the relative luxury of Shanghai University (although undergrad dorm rooms don’t have heat, hot water or air conditioning).
With a newly awarded master’s degree in history, Liu will now pursue a Ph.D., which should eventually land him a job as a professor. He’ll likely earn $4,500 a year.
Liu celebrated his degree with beers and a feast at a restaurant crowded with students. The six-course meal for four, including spicy greenfish soup and fried tofu with sweet and sour sauce, came to a mere $17.
Liu took 30 seconds to search for the right words, in English, to describe what life might have been like if his family hadn’t sacrificed for his education.
“If not, you are a farmer in the countryside. You get a very bad life. I can’t enjoy that,” he said, adding with a chuckle, “I’m not a good farmer.”
The story is part of a five-day series by Daily News Deputy National Editor Scott Wenger, to whom I intoduced Yi while Wenger was in Shanghai last month. I also helped Wenger hook up with a translator — my friend Johnson Zhang — and if any of you have stumbled upon this page in search information on how to find a professional Shanghai-based English-speaking translator (I think they use the term “fixer” in the biz), contact me and I can put you in touch with Johnson. Many people who meet him, foreigner and Chinese, assume Johnson is American. His English is that good … and he’s never stepped foot outside of China.
By the way, the “founder of the Shanghai Diaries Web site” was quoted in the New York Daily News on Sunday and Monday. What a windbag!
08.11.2005, 5:07 PM · Diary, Shanxi · Comments (1)
The Trip: Gadgets get graded
It was during the last stop of The Trip — the 18th of 18 provinces. I dropped my phone. It fell apart. And someone said it: “Dan, you and Electronics don’t really mix, do you?”
It never used to be this way. Electronics and I used to get along quite well, actually. We hung out together. We talked on the phone. Electronics was on my IM buddy list.
But then I decided to go on this trip — and something happened. We drifted apart. At first, I’d hear from Electronics every now and then. Maybe an email or an SMS. But then all I got were group emails. And then nothing. By the sixth week of the trip, Electronics had totally turned on me.
My wireless internet stopped working in Beijing. My mobile phone left me in Changchun. My camera ran out on me in Yunnan. By Gansu, even my loyal iBook — who flew to Lanzhou for a 10-day rendez-vous — wouldn’t look at me. (It still won’t … and I’m typing this at a Shanghai internet bar … and the guy next to me just spit on the hardwood floor.)
So, here they are! Reviews of the gadgets I took on The Trip!
12.04.2004, 11:44 AM · The Trip · Comments (21)
An ‘Aggressive American Wolf’ in Dandong
Smiles and laughter … with North Korea next door
DANDONG, Liaoning — The children were North Korean. But their smiles were universal. They really appeared to be enjoying themselves, splashing around in the Yalu River, sitting out in the sun. What kid in the world wouldn’t? It was a beautiful day.
I sat in a boat a couple dozen meters away — North Korea doesn’t like it when foreigners get much closer — and took photos. Now I could show my friends and family back in the States: See, North Koreans smile, too.
They also wave. Waving and smiling, the kids motioned for me to come join them. For what, I had no idea. Was this some kind of a joke?
My boat cruised slowly beside the banks of North Korea and left the waving children in its wake. I and the other tourists on the boat — all Chinese — continued to peer into perhaps the most secretive and isolated country in the world. And, you know what? It looked a lot like rural China. Shouldn’t come as a surprise — China was just 300 meters and one invisible boundary line away.
10.13.2004, 10:25 AM · Liaoning, Stories, The Trip · Comments (13)
Shenyang: The truth flows with the wine
The story the government didn’t want to be told
SHENYANG, Liaoning — I expected Mr. Shi to be waiting for me at the train station with a cold beer in one hand and an itinerary in the other. In the weeks leading up to my departure from Shanghai, and during my first month of traveling, he had been by far the most attentive and persistent of my contacts along the route.
He sent long emails and presented a detailed plan of attack for visiting the dozens of attractions Shenyang had to offer (even though every Chinese person I questioned leading up to my arrival in Shenyang had trouble naming one thing worth seeing in the city). He called me weekly, sometimes more often than that, his deep voice checking up on my current whereabouts and my estimated date of arrival in Shenyang. He wanted to make sure he was at the train station to greet me.
In Beijing, I finally had an answer for Mr. Shi. I would arrive on Saturday — at 2 a.m. I felt bad, but there were no other options.
“Mr. Shi,” I said to him over the phone, “we would be happy to get a hotel room that night. You could just meet us in the morning.”
“Nonsense,” his voice boomed back at me. “Saturday morning is still Friday night to us. It’s time to play. We will drink beer while we wait for you. It will be a party.”
There are stereotypes about dong bei ren, people from northeastern China: They are a hard-drinking lot — chuggers of both beer and bai jiu — and they are so amazingly gracious it makes you feel guilty. I can confirm both of these stereotypes to be accurate.
09.24.2004, 1:45 PM · Liaoning, Stories, The Trip · Comments (20)
Beijing: I hear it’s a nice place
BEIJING — I’m not going to write much about Beijing. Because, frankly, I didn’t do much in Beijing. I treated my six days in China’s capital as a vacation from traveling through China. And, the mere fact that I could do a thing like that — the concept initially sounds rather absurd — should tell you that Beijing bears little resemblance to the rest of the country that it governs. It is a foreign city to almost anyone, Chinese or non-Chinese, who visits it. And, as China remodels — no, revamps — its centerpiece city in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing may soon feel foreign to Beijingers themselves, if that hasn’t happened already.
So yes, I walked the Great Wall, and it was indeed “great.” I entered the Forbidden City, and it was crowded. I wandered some traditional hutong neighborhoods, and they were still standing. According to a recent report, Beijing was home to more than 7,000 hutongs in 1949. In the late 1980s, only 3,900 remained. Recently, with the radical pre-Olympic restructuring, they have been disappearing at an alarming rate — more than 600 a year. Soon Beijing may be the Great Wall and the Forbidden City … and a modernish city that no one recognizes.
But a modernish city isn’t a bad place to escape for a while when you’ve been traveling through a third-worldish country. And I made the most of it, eating non-Chinese food whenever possible. It’s strange that the foods that would upset my stomach in America — actually, foods that I would never touch in America, like McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, and their ilk — are the ones I have relied upon to settle my often unstable insides during this trip.
09.15.2004, 4:51 PM · Beijing, The Trip · Comments (2)
Beds, bathhouses and the Gobi Desert
BAOTOU, Inner Mongolia — My former student Diamond is particularly pleasant. She has a round face, a big smile and eyes that twinkle as though she is always thinking of something very amusing. She is one of the sweetest people I know.
When I sent Diamond a text message reminding her that I would not be arriving at her Baotou home alone, she immediately replied with this: “Excuse me Dan could you please tell me the sex of your traveling companion?”
I told her it was Johnson. Diamond, aka Chen Wen Yi, remembered him from my class and said she was excited to see him again. And I thought everything was fine. I didn’t realize this revelation sent Diamond into a tizzy.
You see, Diamond, 20, and her mother share a small two-bedroom flat. In fact, Diamond warned me via text message that her place was a “slum. :)” (she ends all of her messages with a smiley face). But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Johnson was a man.
Diamond could sleep on her bed. Her mom could sleep on the couch in the living room — she often does this anyway. But that only left one double bed. And somewhere in her schooling, Diamond read a report that said a foreign man would never share a bed with another man — and if he did, he was surely a homosexual.
Diamond, evidently, did not want to turn her English teacher into a homosexual.
“So I dare not ask you to do this,” she explained later.
09.07.2004, 3:46 PM · Inner Mongolia, The Trip · Comments (14)
Inner Mongolia: Finding God in the grasslands
ER YANG BO VILLAGE, Inner Mongolia — I spent a good chunk of a week in Inner Mongolia — and I met not one person of Mongolian descent. I did meet three Roman Catholics, however. And thus, after one month on the road in this officially atheist country, my curiously lengthy list of religious run-ins grew a little bit longer.
This was in Er Yang Bo — population less than 100 — an increasingly touristed farming village in the central part of Inner Mongolia, the autonomous (in name only) region that covers a long swath of land in northern China, stretching from the northwest to the northeast and bordering eight other provinces or autonomous regions, Mongolia and Russia.
More than 85 percent of Inner Mongolia’s population is Han Chinese, and tourists who visit the region in search of Mongolians or signs of a traditional Mongolian way of life often leave disappointed. But, while post-1949 Inner Mongolia may be somewhat culturally barren, its rolling and wide-open landscape is beautiful — a wonderful place to get lost for a while and escape a sultry Chinese summer.
09.02.2004, 10:45 PM · Inner Mongolia, The Trip · Comments (5)
Haoyi Village: ‘There were more blue skies 10 years ago’
HAOYI, Shanxi — The electricity goes out almost every day in tiny Haoyi village. It’s the sad irony of China’s economic boom: The province that fuels much of the country’s growth and modernization often can’t afford to fuel itself.
Haoyi village, with 4,000 shy and skeptical inhabitants, is an odd, isolated place surrounded by corn fields and coal mines. It is located an hour north of Linfen in southern Shanxi, a gritty, blue-collar province famous for coal, power generation, metal refining and other heavy industries. Called the “Coal Warehouse of China,” Shanxi is responsible for as much as one-third of China’s annual coal output, according to some reports.
Yet, Shanxi remains one of the poorest provinces in the country. In June, the average urban household had a monthly income of RMB 649 ($79), according to official government statistics. Rural Shanxi families earned an average of RMB 900 ($110) — total — for the first six months of 2004.
08.27.2004, 1:05 AM · Shanxi, Stories, The Trip · Comments (15)
In Xi’an, house painters hit the streets to peddle their wares
XI’AN, Shaanxi — They arrive by the dozen, hundreds of them, every morning, pedaling eagerly to the corner of Feng Gao Xi Lu and Xi Er Huan Lu, looking something like hobo jousters, wooden poles topped with paint rollers strapped like lances to their rundown bicycles. They are ready to do battle for a day’s work. Because work for these men is never guaranteed.
When people need day laborers in the midwestern Chinese city of Xi’an, they don’t look in the Yellow Pages or classifieds, they head to a local street corner like this one, where workers will literally fight for the opportunity to earn RMB 50 ($6) a day.
08.24.2004, 12:38 AM · Shaanxi, Stories, The Trip · Comments (7)
Chewing the fat in Xi’an
Featuring: clay soldiers, shirtless men, secret noodles, lots of meat — and the drinking-and-driving poster boy
XI’AN, Shaanxi — Xi’an is one of the world’s oldest cities, with ancient city walls, cherished cultural monuments and world-renowned archaeological sites. My first stop there was the five-star Sheraton Hotel. My next stop was an internet bar. Funny that while on a four-month tour of China, often the last thing I feel like doing is touring. Traveling can be tiring.
Xi’an, a city in need of a good scrubbing, was the first destination on this trip I feel I can safely describe as seedy. The long stares I had grown accustomed to were now sideways glances. And I felt I was always one wrong move away from being ripped off. If Shanghai is a businessman in a fake designer suit, Xi’an is a used car salesman, all sly smiles, sweaty palms and false handshakes.
Of course, the same could be said of several Chinese cities that cater to a steady flow of foreign tourists, pockets bulging with cameras and cash. And, thanks to the Army of Terracotta Warriors, considered the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century, Xi’an ranks up there with Beijing and Shanghai as a “must-see” destination in China. I had spent much of the previous two weeks hiding out in small, unassuming locales — places where the idea of having a foreign visitor is, well, completely foreign to most people — so my arrival in any “important” city like Xi’an would have felt like a slap in the face … especially after more than 20 hours of traveling.
08.17.2004, 11:58 PM · Shaanxi, The Trip · Comments (14)
The student and soldier have the initiatives
And other dam stories
YICHANG, Hubei — I was not supposed to go to Yichang. I was supposed to go to a small village in Chongqing to stay with my student Ekin and his family. (And the first thing I was going to do was ask him where the hell Ekin came from.) But just two days before I was supposed to leave, Ekin sent the following text message to my phone:
Dan,this is ekin. I am sorry that I can not introduce my hometown to you this time,my uncle ask me to beijing for something and i will go the day after tomorrow
So I took out my map, found Fenghuang — my location at the time — and Xi’an — which was supposed to come after Chongqing — and looked at what was in between. I settled on Yichang, which I thought appeared almost equidistant between the two — it is not, I later discovered — and is home to the Three Gorges Dam project, the largest hydroelectric dam in the world and the cause of a great deal of controversy over the past 15 years or so.
This was also an experiment of sorts. I was traveling alone, as usual, and I knew no one in Yichang. How difficult could it be?
08.12.2004, 8:48 PM · Hubei, The Trip · Comments (9)
Ancient Fenghuang: And a river runs through it
Also: The other Great Wall … and one wonderful wall of water
FENGHUANG, Hunan — Here’s something you should never say — or think — while traveling in rural China: “Oh good. Looks like we’ll have the bus to ourselves on this ride.” Because even if the bus is empty at 7:18 a.m. and your scheduled departure time is 7:20 a.m., other passengers will come. They always come. In bunches. All at once. Out of nowhere. Carrying roosters and crying babies and buckets filled with eggs.
Run out of seats? No problem. Put these plastic stools in the aisle. Run out of those? Stand right here. But please try not to step on the roosters, the crying babies or the buckets filled with eggs.
If the last-second rush doesn’t occur before your scheduled departure, it doesn’t really matter. Because the bus will wait for the rush. Could be 10 minutes, could be 20. The bus isn’t leaving until it’s well beyond full. Times printed on the tickets — if you are at the bus terminal that actually gives tickets — are only guidelines, suggestions, the way things would happen in a perfect world.
And this, my friends, is not a perfect world. This is western Hunan Province in southern China. This is the trip from Jishou to Fenghuang. And soon the teenage girl sitting in the seat in front of you will be puking out the window. And you’ll be breathing through your mouth, hoping that none of the vomit flying out of the bus finds a way to fly back in.
08.10.2004, 6:07 PM · Hunan, The Trip · Comments (6)
I am a Chinese tourist (and I love Mao)
SHAOSHAN, Hunan — To most outsiders, one contradiction in Chinese society stands high above the rest: The people’s adoration of Chairman Mao. Ask a Westerner about Mao Zedong and you’ll hear about more than 20 million dead and the dismal failure of the Great Leap Forward. You’ll hear about millions more dead and the draconian Big Brother policies of the Cultural Revolution. Ask a Chinese about Mao and you’ll hear about a great leader. You’ll hear about the founding father of modern China.
The official word around China is that Mao was 70 percent right and 30 percent wrong. We can — and should — quibble about that ratio. But, whatever the wrong portion is, the youth of China seem to know or care little about its details. And many who lived through the wrongs have somehow forgotten, been “re-educated” or just keep their thoughts to themselves. Sometimes you’ll hear indirect references — like my Chinese instructor lamenting the fact that the government forced her to stop studying English back in the 1960s — but never does anyone come right out and blame Mao. That would be blasphemous.
Mao has assumed a sainthood of sorts. To speak ill of him is unimaginable. It is sacrilege.
A trip to Shaoshan, Mao’s hometown in Hunan, has become a pilgrimage for many Chinese. In the 1960s such trips were “encouraged,” and the government had a paved road and railway line built to connect the small village with Changsha, Hunan’s capital. Now, folks flock to the site voluntarily. Got to pay your respects to the supremely beloved Chairman Mao.
I decided the best way to visit Shaoshan would be the way most Chinese visit Shaoshan (or any other tourist attraction, for that matter) … I joined a Chinese tour group.
08.05.2004, 10:21 PM · Hunan, The Trip · Comments (11)
Fireworks factories, coal mines and cute little puppies
HENGSHUI, Jiangxi — “I don’t understand why so many people just want to stay in the village. They don’t want change. They don’t want a better life.”
Eighteen-year-old Miao Jiao — Jo, as I know her — is in limbo, hovering between two different worlds, two different eras. She attends college in Shanghai, an ever-changing city of nearly 20 million that buzzes like one giant neon light bulb. Her hometown is Hengshui, population 4,000, a tiny village in western Jiangxi Province, where the Miao family is one of the lucky ones — they have electricity. She said when she is in Hengshui, she misses Shanghai. When she is in Shanghai, she misses Hengshui.
If you live in Hengshui, you probably either work on a farm, in a coal mine, at a fireworks factory — or you don’t work at all. Until last year, Jo’s father, Miao Chang Xin, worked in sales for one of the many small local coal mines. But like so many small local coal mines in Jiangxi, Mr. Miao’s was mismanaged and went out of business. Now Miao, who had worked at the mine for more than 20 years, is jobless. At 43, Jo fears her father is too old to find steady work. He currently passes time at home making parts for a local fireworks factory on a small hand-operated machine. They pay him RMB 30 — $2.75 — a day.
07.31.2004, 4:39 PM · Jiangxi, Stories, The Trip · Comments (15)
Hengfeng Town: ‘It’s different in China’
HENGFENG, Jiangxi — According to the Jiangxi Statistical Yearbook and State Statistical Bureau, the southeastern province of Jiangxi — which boasts the largest gold, silver, copper, plutonium, uranium, lead and zinc resources in China — has an average annual household income of RMB 4678, just a tad shy of $600 a year. But according to my former student Gerry (Hong Min) and his friends, that figure seems a bit off. It should be a about $120 lower.
Traveling from Hangzhou to northeast Jiangxi’s Hengfeng, a small town of 100,000 or 200,000 — no one seems to know — the great divide that exists in China becomes quite clear. As John Edwards might say, there are two Chinas. Three, if you want to put Shanghai in a category all by itself.
“Do you like hot food?” Gerry asked me as one of his uncles drove us to Hengfeng from the Shangrao train station. “My mother was worried you may not like spicy food.”
07.28.2004, 4:50 PM · Jiangxi, Stories, The Trip · Comments (6)
The Trip continues
Since Dan is still unable to access the internet, he has requested that I, the Shanghai Diaries news editor, post a quick update to let everyone know he is alive and well.
The trip continues and Dan is currently in Hengshui, a very small village in western Jiangxi province. After a 6+ hour train ride last night, he was met by his former student, Jo, whose uncle drove them from Pingxiang into the actual village around 50 kilometers away. Estimated time of arrival in Hengshui: 1 a.m.
Despite a late arrival last night, the day started early and Jo has already taken Dan exploring through local coal mines and fireworks factories. Dan claims to have some interesting photos from his first day in Hengshui as well as some he has yet to post from Shangrao. You can also look forward to a new 2,400 word story which will be posted as soon as he finds a way to get to the internet.
Hopefully these delays in new story/photo postings don’t happen too frequently. But internet access in rural China is at times less than reliable. Thanks for your patience, and keep checking back for new stories and photos from Dan’s cross-country journey.
07.27.2004, 2:23 PM · The Trip · Comments (1)
Train No. 2249: Hangzhou to Shangrao
ON A TRAIN, Zhejiang/Jiangxi — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.”
The scene at the Hangzhou train station has always reminded me of these famous words. For a major transportation hub, thousands of people sure seem to be going nowhere. They sit on the pavement, on luggage, on each other. Just waiting. Those with tickets step right over them.
My seven-hour, RMB 49 ($6) train ride from Hangzhou to Shangrao was comfortable enough. The lady who sold me my ticket said the train was air-conditioned, and at times during the trip it seemed as if it actually was. And I had a seat, which is not guaranteed along such routes. The trip went by rather quickly.
I imagine the same was true for my car companions, whose attention was occupied, almost constantly, with watching me. There were the usual looks, stares and whispers, and more than one person shouted “Hello.” But it wasn’t until I took out my Pocket PC to do some writing that the crowd gathered, peering over my shoulder. My every click was followed by a dozen curious eyes. I decided against taking out the foldable keyboard for fear that one of my admirers might faint.
07.24.2004, 5:00 PM · Jiangxi, The Trip · Comments (8)
Greetings from the only foreigner for miles
TIANTAI, Zhejiang — On a Tongbai Mountain hiking trail on Wednesday, three Chinese teenagers were headed in my direction. One smiled with what appeared to be relief when he saw me. He held up a camera and walked toward me.
“Sure,” I thought. “I’ll help them out. I’ll take a picture of the three of them together.”
I took the camera from his hand and motioned for the three of them to stand side by side. But the boy took the camera back, handed it to his friend, and stood next to me with his hand rested on my shoulder. This photo was going to be of us. I should have known.
07.23.2004, 1:07 PM · The Trip, Zhejiang · Comments (4)
My green tea is better than your green tea
HANGZHOU, Zhejiang — Hangzhou is one of the top tourist destinations in China, so on Tuesday Arthur and I played the role of tourists. We took a short bus ride to Mei Jia Wu, or Mei Family Village, a peaceful place full of white buildings, rolling green hills and tea plants — lots of tea plants. Mei Village’s sole reason of existence is the production of Longjin, or Dragon Well, tea, which the people of Mei Village not surprisingly say is the best green tea in all of China. And most tourists who visit Mei Village come for two reasons: to drink tea and buy tea. You see them arrive on their tour buses … and then you see them leave on their tour buses. No one seems to stay long: drink, buy, leave.
Well, Arthur and I didn’t arrive on a tour bus. We took public transportation, for a grand total of RMB 6, or around 75 cents. And instead of drinking tea immediately, we went directly to the source — the tea leaves themselves. We spotted a dirt path that meandered off from the main road and into the neatly planted rows of tea bushes that lined the hillside. We hiked to the top of a hill and were rewarded with a nice view of the village. You’ve got to work up a thirst before it’s tea-drinking time.
07.21.2004, 5:39 PM · The Trip, Zhejiang · Comments (6)
And on the first day … he sat on a soft seat
HANGZHOU, Zhejiang — I hesitated shutting the door to my apartment today, because I knew I wouldn’t be opening it again until October — at the earliest. All the constants, all the comforts of my less-foreign-every-day existence in Shanghai were locked inside. I couldn’t hesitate for long, however. I was already behind schedule. With the months of build up — and delays — this trip had, you would think if anything I would be too prepared. No, not me. I was running around at the last minute looking for bottles of hand sanitizer and spools of dental floss, things not easily found in the wilds of China, or some neighborhoods in Shanghai for that matter.
But I’m not roughing it … yet. Far from it, actually. Sure, I broke a sweat walking from my apartment to the metro station, past the gourmet food shop, past the Starbucks. But when it’s mid-July in Shanghai, you break a sweat walking anywhere — even if you don’t have all of your belongings for the next four months strapped to your back.
07.20.2004, 1:34 AM · The Trip, Zhejiang · Comments (2)
The Trip: Why the hell should you give me money?
Dan answers the questions of a reader confused by the PayPal button in the upper-right-hand corner of this webpage …
So what exactly is The Trip?
For approximately four months, starting July 19, I will travel across China. From the road, I will try to update this website with words and images as often as possible, hopefully daily. (I’m bringing along a geekload of gadgets to ensure I stay as connected as humanly possible.)
This will be real-time writing, a travel essay for the internet age. Neither writer nor reader know what will happen next. It’s going to be an adventure — and I want as many people to tag along as possible.
For more information, go here: trip.shanghaidiaries.com.
OK. That’s all well and good, but it still kind of sounds like you are just delaying joining the rest of us in the real world. Why should I give you money? Why should I help support your life of leisure?
I don’t expect you to give me money.
07.18.2004, 4:21 PM · The Trip · Comments (6)
The Trip: Gadgets Galore
I’m not a geek. I promise. I just want this trip project done right.
Anyone can travel cross country. Anyone can write about a cross-country trip.
But I want to write — a lot — during the trip. I want the reader to join me while I spend three, four, maybe five months meandering around one of the world’s most misunderstood countries. Another day on the road, another story from the road. And plenty of photos.
Maybe they’re out there, but I haven’t seen many projects like this on the internet. Not of the frequency and duration I am planning, at least. And definitely not in China. (Although I do believe it will actually be easier to pull something like this off in China than many other countries, even the U.S. In China, internet bars are found in the oddest and most obscure places. And Chinese mobile phone coverage is the most comprehensive I’ve ever seen.)
Still, I’m bringing with me a wide assortment of gadgets, things I think will make the project better and, in some cases, feasible. I’m listing the main ones below for your perusal. You know, the more I look at this, it just seems like an open letter to criminals: “Rob me!” I doubt, however, the average Chinese criminal spends much time reading weblogs … in English. But, on the off chance that a thief is reading this, I should have you know that one the gadgets listed below is really A BOMB! So, go ahead, try your luck.
In order to carry all of these tools, I actually had to go out and buy a pair of shorts, ones with plenty of pockets.
Hmmm. Maybe I am a geek. I don’t know: Check out the list, and you tell me.
07.17.2004, 11:52 AM · The Trip · Comments (9)
The Trip: Passport? Check. Visa? Check. Plan? Um, sort of.
OK. I’ve got all my documents in hand — passport, residence permit, alien employment permit — and they all seem pretty legit. Lots of red stamps. And, in China, red stamps are all you need.
So, I think I can say, without much hesitation, that the much-talked-about trip will finally get underway on Monday … and could be coming to a city near you soon! (If you live in China.)
Due to the delay, however, I think it is best if I revamp my original plans a bit. The course of this trip is partly being dictated by where I have contacts, people willing to take me in and show me around and answer some questions. And some of my contacts are students. If I would stick to my original plan, they would be back at school by the time I arrive at their hometown.
So the course has changed a little, but the aim has not: I will still be traveling all over China.
07.17.2004, 12:00 AM · The Trip · Comments (3)
The Trip: Visa problems delay journey two weeks
Click map for larger, animated version>>>>>>>>
Some of you may be wondering what I am doing up at this hour. Perhaps you think I should be getting some rest, because, after all, I am starting a big cross-country journey of China on July 1. And, well, technically it’s July 1.
But I probably wouldn’t get very far without my passport. And some “visa consultant” named Magic has my passport right now. You see, my visa was set to expire on August 30, and I was planning on being somewhere in remote Sichuan at that point. And I’m pretty sure they don’t issue visas there.
So, I had to extend my visa before the trip began. And this process is turning out to be a time-consuming one. I have a Z visa, a working visa, issued to me because of my status as a “Foreign Expert” with Shanghai University. But I no longer work for Shanghai University (I am still coming to terms with the loss of my “expert” status) and, actually, I no longer work for anyone. Freelance writer is just a nice way of saying unemployed.
This caused a problem. No valid contract with a Chinese company equals no more Z visa. I learned this just around a week or two ago. I had figured I could get my visa extended … somehow. You know, grease the right wheels, spread some guanxi. But evidently the Z stands for “zilch” — I had zero good options. My only choices were to get another job — very quickly, and to a company that didn’t mind the fact that I would be out of town until October — or to leave the country, negate my Z visa, and apply for another kind of visa. And receiving a new visa is no sure thing these days for a US citizen. Other countries are ratcheting up the restrictions on Americans in retaliation for all the shit we’re pulling on their people.
Anyway, long story short — and I am being purposefully vague here — I do not have to leave the country, my job title is still Freelance Writer and I should have my new Z visa within 10 working days. There is a good story here, but I will likely wait until I no longer live in China to tell it.
So, the trip will definitely happen. Just hit a little snag. The first of many, I presume.
So the new tentative start date is sometime in mid-July. I will no longer set definite dates for anything. This is China, after all.
NOTE: I am still looking for contacts all over China. Click on the link for the map up above, and e-mail me if you would like to help. See you on the road! (Well, in a little while.)
07.01.2004, 2:19 AM · The Trip · Comments (1)
The Trip: The details so far
Click map for larger, animated version>>>>>>>>
What: I am planning a cross-country trip of China this summer. I will leave from Shanghai, head northeast toward Heilongjiang and then make my way southwest, eventually ending up in Tibet. I will be traveling primarily by train and bus, whatever is cheapest. I will be stopping in many places and writing many stories and taking many photos for my website along the way.
I will also be doing my best to stay off the beaten trail. I want to go places not many tourists go, see things not many tourists see, meet people not many tourists meet. I’d like to give my readers a glimpse of the “real China” … whatever that may be. So although I will visit some of the famous spots, a lot of my trip will hopefully be spent in cities and villages few tourists ever visit. I’m hitting up my former students at Shanghai University and contacts I’ve made through my website to be my hosts and guides when I stop in their parts of China.
I think this project has a lot of potential. It’s going to be a weird and wild adventure. I encourage you to stop by this website often so you can join me on my journey.
Also, be on the lookout for a brand new design for this website. It will launch sometime before The Trip.
06.08.2004, 7:20 PM · The Trip · Comments (3)
A traveling man in need of a plan
i’m planning a cross-country trip of china this summer … wanna help out? ok, here’s the plan:
well, that’s the problem. i don’t really have a plan. i know i want to start somewhere in the far northeast, perhaps near the north korean border. i know i want to end in tibet, somewhere pretty damn close to mount everest. and i know i want to write and blog from the road (or trail or rail or river) as much as possible.
04.13.2004, 1:35 AM · The Trip, Travel · Comments (7)
