Recent moments and conversations have made me question
whether my Chinese experience has been complete. Nanjing, the city where I
reside, is essentially a globalized metropolis with most of the comforts and
conveniences of back home complete with Subway Sandwich shops, grocery stores
where I can buy Starbucks ice cream, and a new fancy French style bakery chain selling
bagels right in my neighborhood. Admittedly, I have fallen prey to these new
ventures and as a result am apt to forget on some days that I even live in China.
Also becoming more prevalent in Nanjing as well as other wealthy Chinese cities
such as Beijing and Shanghai are the shocking and ostentatious displays of
wealth. It hit me hard in February after returning from a vacation in the third
world surroundings of Laos to the glitzy streets of these Chinese cities where
fancy BMW convertibles and Hummers roar by at high speeds. Gucci, Versace,
Louis Vuitton and Coach stores take up entire city blocks while beautifully
dressed women hurry by in their Manolo Blahnik heels chatting on their iPhone
5s.
Hustle and bustle in front of one of the Apple stores in Shanghai
Our local Louis Vuitton store in Nanjing
I think before and even after living for some time in China,
I have had a romantic notion in my head of how China should really be. Somehow,
a China developing at breakneck speed with its people fully embracing and
emulating trends and lifestyles of the West, is not how I imagined it. Now that
I have been entrenched in this modern, affluent side of China, I at times overlook
that there is another, very different China out there that I have
witnessed only briefly on previous trips but have mostly been missing. So when
my friend Cyrus asked if I would like to travel to Guizhou, a far away, poor
province in Southern China that I had never even heard of, to visit a new women’s hospital, I accepted. I hoped that the trip would be
an adventure (it was), would be a crash immersion session in Chinese (it was),
and that I would see a unique part of China vastly different from my wealthy
corner of Nanjing (I did).
A rural town in Guizhou Province
An isolated province tucked in south central China, Guizhou
is rich in natural resources. Where we traveled in the western part of the
province, karst mountains and jagged formations made up the surrounding
landscape both in the cities and the countryside. The mountains provided a beautiful
backdrop until seeing them being excavated for coal mining or the building of
new city developments. Thanks to its coal supply, Guizhou also exports
electricity to richer nearby provinces such as Guandong, home province of
wealthy, booming cities Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Indeed, Guizhou is quite poor
and underdeveloped in contrast to Chinese provinces on the East coast and those
provinces to which it supplies energy.
The view of Liupanshui
Our trip to Guizhou brought us to Liupanshui, a secluded
city 270 km from the nearest airport in Guiyang, Guizhou. Looking out to a
hazy, smoggy sky from my hotel room, I took in the surrounding view of the
city. Only built in 1978, the city’s skyline donned ugly, drab, plain looking
buildings on my left view and half demolished buildings and rubble amidst
semi-quarried hills on the right. On the streets, dirty children ran loose and
had the large dirt piles and rubble as their playgrounds. Yet, integrated among
these third world living conditions were also the occasional marks of progress
and indications of the city trying to slowly fight its way into a higher
economic niveau. Newly paved sidewalks were lined with freshly planted shrubs
and baby trees to provide a more pleasant, residential feel. Classy, apartment
buildings with balconies and manicured gardened courtyards surrounded the women’s hospital we
attended. The hospital itself had state of the art surgery wards equipped with
the latest technologies.
Also, in contrast to Nanjing and other more developed and
wealthier Chinese cities, there were refreshingly very little outside commercial
interests and influences in Liupanshui- thanks probably to the fact that it is
so secluded. Where were the large, garish shopping malls? The Starbucks,
McDonalds and fancy English language schools called Baby MBA that will promise
to get your 4 year old into Harvard? The billboards advertising the perfect
diamond engagement ring? All of these signs of modernity and “progress” seemed
to be missing from the streets of Liupanshui. Perhaps in due time those type of
places will slowly start to creep into Liupanshui as well. Cyrus spotted a KFC
and we noticed a few people with iPhone 5s- both telltale signs that changes
are indeed a coming. But for now, Liupanshui seems relatively untouched by
large, outside, foreign influences.
But with all of its apparent steps in progress and its slow
acquisition of new riches, who in Liupanshui and the surrounding Guizhou
countryside will be able to benefit from them? Will the average Jane or Joe be
able to afford the top medical services provided at the women’s hospital we visited? Cyrus offered that many families, including poorer ones, will toil,
work hard and save for years so that their expectant mothers can have the best
care for when their one child, therefore their sole future hope, is born. Even
well into the countryside, miles away from Liupanshui, we saw road signs and
posters for the hospital, indicating that it was
indeed trying to cater to the poorer rural folks.
In spite of people perhaps saving for their offspring’s
future, it seems it may be difficult for many residents in rural Guizhou and
even in urban Guizhou settings to afford decent medical care, education,
housing and transportation. Data reveals how hard it might be for many Guizhou
residents to make ends meet compared to their counterparts in wealthier, urban,
developed provinces in China. In 2011, for example, Guizhou ranked LAST in
China for its per capita GDP of 10,258 RMB (1,502 USD). Comparatively, in
Jiangsu Province, the province in China with the highest per capita GDP and
where I live, the per capita GDP was 52,448 yuan (US$7,945).
Sunday market day
Data aside, scenes driving through the countryside on the
270 km stretch between Liupanshui and Guiyang also exposed a whole other China
where people still live simpler lives, living off the land and its resources. Caught
in the early afternoon traffic of Sunday market day, we witnessed farmers
selling their own produce on the street; middle-aged sun-wrinkled men herding
fat pink pigs into a truck to be taken to market; freshly killed meat being
sold by the butcher on the side of the road; and even large chunks of Guizhou
coal being sold in a family’s store front. Transformed to Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth, I witnessed in the far
off distance farmers plowing with oxen in their fields. Family grave plots on
the hills next to the highway revealed communities who found their homes on the
same land of their ancestors several generations back. These communities have
clung to and carried on the long standing traditions and methods of livelihood
of their ancestors.
Got coal?
Returning from my weekend trip to Guizhou to the modern
comforts of my home in Nanjing, I congratulated myself for finally witnessing
the “real” China. But what an unfair judgement to bestow on either Guizhou or
Nanjing! While it’s true I briefly witnessed firsthand the gap in income and
lifestyles between rural and urban Chinese communities; wealthy east Coast
provinces and an isolated, poor, undeveloped province, this does not mean that
either side represents the “real” China. In order to fully understand the
“real” China today, I’ve learned that it encompasses all of these sides- rich
and poor; glitzy and rugged; urban and rural; developed too quickly and left
behind in the dust of 100 hundred years ago. I have tasted both and found
desirable aspects of both.The real
challenge lies ahead for China and how it can continue to build its economy so
that more people can reap its rewards; how it can develop and progress without
depleting its resources and without destroying its rural landscapes as well as
the livelihood and age old traditions of its inhabitants.
Two contrasting images of vehicles. Two very different faces of China.
In Laos, the land of tranquil scenes along the Mekong River,
ancient Buddhist and Hindu ruins, fragrant frangipani, and friendly children
waving and calling out “Sabaidee!” (“Hello” in local lingo), transport and travel
can be an eye-opening and adventurous cultural experience in itself. It can
come in several different forms of both land and water vessels including buses;
sawng theaws, pick-up trucks with
seats fitted along the length of the truck beds that travel to nearby regional
locations (and usually managed by a family); tuk tuks or jumbos with seats
fitted around a motorcycle frame and for local destinations in a city; motorcycles;
bicycles; and your own two legs.
With two and a half weeks to explore Laos, my partner Nick and
I started off from Laos’s capitol city, Vientiane and then headed south. We
decided to break the trip up into several increments, limiting bus travel to no
more than four hours a day. Even then, some trips ended up being six to eight
hours. We learned that this is a normal occurrence in Laos as travel happens on
“Lao time”. The three best things to bring along on such a journey are bottled
water, toilet paper and patience.
Buses can come in both the VIP form and the “public” bus
form. I suppose the VIP buses in Laos evolved for the mostly foreign tourists
who may not desire to be squeezed into tight, hot, un-air-conditioned spaces
for hours on end. If I’m not mistaken, we were primarily on the non-VIP form
which definitely added some color to our travels. Settling into our seats,
sometimes next to each other and sometimes apart depending on seat availability,
the bus’s TV screen then flashed and blared out the trip’s on-board
entertainment of Lao and Thai music videos and variety shows as well as 1920’s Charlie
Chaplin films (who seems to be all the rage in Laos, even 90 years later!). Our
fellow travel companions on the bus journeys are some other foreign travelers
but mostly Laotians- young families traveling with their little ones; single
men traveling from one work site to another; mothers or grandmothers traveling
with a child; as well as the occasional Buddhist monk. I was bemused by the
attire of most of the local travelers- long jeans or woven sarongs covering the
legs and even thick faux leather jackets. This is clothing I would find
entirely hot and uncomfortable for a cramped bus with no air-conditioning. Nevertheless,
such attire may likely be dictated by conservative and traditional Buddhist
culture.
Upon departure, a bus typically coasts slowly out of a town,
honking its horn to draw attention from additional prospective passengers from
the side of the road. More and more passengers file on, occupying all remaining
seats. The bus attendant, usually a boy of about 12 or 13, directs newly
arrived passengers to sit on make-shift seats of plastic stools in the aisle. Certain
etiquette seems to rule seating arrangements among Laotian travelers. During
one of our bus journeys, a monk hopped on board an already full bus. What then
ensued was something like a game of musical chairs- seat reshuffling and
rearrangements until the monk had a seat and a displaced young man found
himself downgraded to a plastic seat in the aisle. Similar arrangements were
made for a grandmother and a young girl who boarded at the side of the road
from a rural village.
Passengers filling up the aisle on plastic stools.
During the course of a bus journey, a bus may make several pit
stops for food and calls of nature.Sometimes the buses stop at small roadside restaurants with basic
toilets in the back. I was impressed with the total cleanliness of the toilets
which are basic porcelain squat toilets enclosed in tin shacks and supplied with
a bucket full of water with a pail which one then uses to rinse out the toilet
following its use. Other rest stops are sometimes just fields along the side of
the road. We women folk have to walk back out of view and behind some trees or
brush. The long, woven sarong skirt that many a Laotian woman wears typically
goes to her ankles and is a practical and useful cover for roadside calls of
nature if she can’t find shelter behind a tree or bush. Pit stops are short and
brief and anyone hoping to finish a cigarette will find a horn blasting in his
ears to beckon him back on or be left behind.
Roadside pit stop
Some dusty road stops
will find female vendors rushing out of the woodwork to swarm onto and next to
the bus to sell snacks and drinks to the peckish and thirsty travelers. Depending
on the region, they might sell bottled water, sliced mango, barbequed and
skewered chicken, cooked eggs on a stick, or dried fish. They all seem to be
chanting the same thing as they clamor to get the attention of prospective
customers. They too sometimes get shooed off the bus as the irritable driver
begins to push off and the vendors are left in the dust chasing after the embarking
bus.
Roadside vendors
Many Laotians rely on the use of buses and sawng thaews
for transporting not only themselves but also for transporting goods and necessities
for their homes and businesses. All buses and sawng thaews are rigged
with large racks on top for transporting suitcases, large sacks of rice and
animal feed, washing machines, bicycles and even motor cycles. At one stop along the side of the road, two of
the bus attendants seemed to effortlessly heave a motorcycle to the top of the
bus for further transport.
A shadow of a motorcycle being lifted onto the rooftop of the bus.
How can you tell?
It’s an unwritten code that some transport vehicles,
especially sawng thaews, may
leave when they’re sufficiently packed and are only there to help you and your
goods get from point A to point B. Comfort is not a priority but this doesn’t
seem to be an issue for many locals. On one of our short sawng thaew
journeys, we crammed into the back with twenty rice sacks covering the floor
and the other passengers complacently squeezing their way around the traveling
goods. Before the start of the journey, I exclaimed to Nick, “Cool, this will
be a fun adventure!” Twenty minutes later
sitting in the idle vessel, in the hot, dusty parking lot of the market station
(and waiting for what?), I was already whinging. Meanwhile, squeezing and
packing into tight, cramped and stuffy vehicles seemed to be an art form for the
local travelers sharing the ride. Looking up at the back of the t-shirt of the
boy sitting on the rice sack in front of me, I had to chuckle to myself as I
read the strange albeit fitting English expression that was thrown together on his
t-shirt. It read, “Y’all ain’t from
round here..is Yall?”
Trying to get comfortable in my travel surroundings.
Crammed into a sawng thaew.
Our travel in Laos also included some river crossings across
the Nam Ngum (a tributary of the Mekong) and the infamous Mekong itself. One of
the crossings across the Mekong found us on a cramped minibus. We watched with
a little dismay as our bus eased onto what seemed like an already overloaded
and overburdened, worn plywood ferry boat. Sitting in the back of the bus
behind other passengers occupying foldout chairs, we eyed the width of the back
window we were sitting next to and made escape plans in our head if the boat
should either sink or our minibus should roll off the back into the depths of
the Mekong. As visions came into my head of my mother reading two days later a
small excerpt on the side of page 11 in her local morning paper, “Small Ferry Craft
in Laos Sinks”, I quickly realized that I was of course exaggerating the precariousness of the five minute ferry crossing in my head. We safely made it
across and were in good hands all along. Such occurrences are helping me be not
only more patient but are also helping me learn not to press the panic
button so early, as I often do.
Crossing the Mekong.
What was more significant during these various trips in
Laos? The trips themselves or the destinations the different vessels brought us
to? I would say they were on par.
Traveling by bus, sawng thaew, and a wobbly ferry may not be for
everyone but I think my trip to Laos and the glimpse I got into the world down
there would not have been complete without these experiences.
For further reading:
During our trip we ran into a young woman from Canada who is traveling through Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam by bicycle! I was really inspired and impressed with her unique journey and how her transportation mode is taking her way off the beaten track. Read and see for yourself about her journey!
In spite of people perhaps saving for their offspring’s
future, it seems it may be difficult for many residents in rural Guizhou and
even in urban Guizhou settings to afford decent medical care, education,
housing and transportation. Data reveals how hard it might be for many Guizhou
residents to make ends meet compared to their counterparts in wealthier, urban,
developed provinces in China. In 2011, for example, Guizhou ranked LAST in
China for its per capita GDP of 10,258 RMB (1,502 USD). Comparatively, in
Jiangsu Province, the province in China with the highest per capita GDP and
where I live, the per capita GDP was 52,448 yuan (US$7,945). 
Data aside, scenes driving through the countryside on the
270 km stretch between Liupanshui and Guiyang also exposed a whole other China
where people still live simpler lives, living off the land and its resources. Caught
in the early afternoon traffic of Sunday market day, we witnessed farmers
selling their own produce on the street; middle-aged sun-wrinkled men herding
fat pink pigs into a truck to be taken to market; freshly killed meat being
sold by the butcher on the side of the road; and even large chunks of Guizhou
coal being sold in a family’s store front. Transformed to Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth, I witnessed in the far
off distance farmers plowing with oxen in their fields. Family grave plots on
the hills next to the highway revealed communities who found their homes on the
same land of their ancestors several generations back. These communities have
clung to and carried on the long standing traditions and methods of livelihood
of their ancestors.
Returning from my weekend trip to Guizhou to the modern
comforts of my home in Nanjing, I congratulated myself for finally witnessing
the “real” China. But what an unfair judgement to bestow on either Guizhou or
Nanjing! While it’s true I briefly witnessed firsthand the gap in income and
lifestyles between rural and urban Chinese communities; wealthy east Coast
provinces and an isolated, poor, undeveloped province, this does not mean that
either side represents the “real” China. In order to fully understand the
“real” China today, I’ve learned that it encompasses all of these sides- rich
and poor; glitzy and rugged; urban and rural; developed too quickly and left
behind in the dust of 100 hundred years ago. I have tasted both and found
desirable aspects of both. The real
challenge lies ahead for China and how it can continue to build its economy so
that more people can reap its rewards; how it can develop and progress without
depleting its resources and without destroying its rural landscapes as well as
the livelihood and age old traditions of its inhabitants.
