'Wildlife is not food' proclaimed the sign in the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base.
That could pretty much sum up a journey into China's western Sichuan Province. Apparently it is claimed to be the wild west and I wasn't disappointed as I did happen to see some guys with cowboy hats.
Sichuan is home to the panda, spicy food and gawking local tourists.
The first stop was Chengdu – a city of ten million people yet still managing to have nothing going on. Oh there was something going on, the display of white goods in the lobby of my hotel. Fridges, washing machines, you know, white stuff. I don't know if there was a convention going on or not (as this is China you can't be sure of such things) but one day there was a hotel lobby and the next there was a showroom.
Chengdu is also the place for tea houses. Main streets, back streets, by the river, in the temples, amongst the trees, or even amongst the white goods. There'd be one in the panda enclosure if there could be but as you can't snack on the wildlife there's really no point.
Probably due to these tea houses it's a very social city but from what I could tell social for those over the age of forty. As a matter of fact, within the entire city it appeared there was nobody younger than forty and older than eighteen. Actually, I think I saw 3 of them; a very small gang who had not been in on the mass youth(ish) evacuation order. Maybe they just weren't cool enough to follow all the others to opportunities anywhere else but here.
Another thing about the tea houses was that they have always been the home to gossip and as Sichuan has always been populated by hard nuts the government didn't like the idea of these hard nuts getting together and planning hard nut plans of resistance. So for a long time they were closed down. When I first read about them I pictured quaint cafe-like places but the ones I saw were pretty much whatever kind of seats with whatever kinds of tables with whatever kinds of cups being topped up with probably cheap (remember folks you get what you pay for) tea.
A day in and I couldn't wait to get out of there.
The destination, Emei Shan: a mountain sprinkled with Buddist monasteries and temples. I was informed by the overly friendly girl in the hotel that it would take one and a half hours to get there by bus.
Three hours later the bus arrived at Emei Shan.
Baoguo Village was at the base of the mountain and consisted of a quiet street lined with dull looking concrete blocks on one side and a creek lined with Chinese style buildings on the other. On this quiet street busses shattering the silence with their blaring air horns. On this quiet street there are no reasons to beep but that doesn't stop them all from doing it just the same.
This was HQ for zillions of Chinese tourists and a couple of westerners, all possessing the sole aim of scaling the mountain.
Common sense would generally tell you that the journey up a mountain would be tough so hiking gear may come in handy. However China being China, nothing is truly hard core, well, not when it involves a location that caters to Chinese tourists. Because I discovered that Chinese tourists like to hike mountains with business shoes and heels.
In true Chinese fashion there was a paved walkway over the entire mountain. There was no deviation or variation obviously – just stay on the path. It's not to say it was easy as if were going to have a path you would need stairs to climb up a mountain, actually you need a lot of them.
Near the bottom you had company, and a lot of it at that, wherever you went. They would travel at their own pace, which was pretty much akin to that of someone who had lost the use of their legs and was making their way as best they could.
However, what constantly reminded me that I was still in China was that there was somewhere to eat every couple of metres.
I also discovered that Chinese tourist sites like to have signs instructing people on how to behave. This is nothing new in this country as there is a concerted effort to 'improve' everyone's behaviour in the lead up to the Olympics. You see them on the streets of Shanghai encouraging you to wait for the traffic lights to change but I really didn't think I'd be seeing signs in men's toilet in the middle of a forest half way up a mountain. 'You are sophisticated people so please step up to the urinal' or some words to that effect, which left me with the mental image of men having a go from the other end of the room because that's what they thought they should do.
At the peak we were rewarded by a towering statue of a Bodhisattva, which was impressive as the sun broke out of the mists, bounced off the gold statue and blinded me. Three storey golden statues tend to have that effect. But for me the fact I was surrounded by greenery was what made it all worth while. I had forgotten how much I missed it, where the closest I get to trees in Shanghai is the one outside my apartment complex – the tree the local dogs and children like to wee on.
Nearby Emei Shan was the town, well, a village really as there was only 4.5 million here, of Leshan. This place is famous for it's Buddha that, everyone is proud to tell you, is the largest standing Buddha in the world. Technically, it was sitting but I don't want to get involved in technicalities.
As you work your way through the park that houses the Buddha, you read by way of introduction, a plaque that proudly states the meaning behind this man-made wonder. Or you would think. The English version of the inscription at the Buddha contained something along the lines of: Some guy from the United Nations commented that the Big Buddha was a great as Egypt's Sphinx. Not these words exactly of course but the sentiment was there, especially the 'some guy' bit. I kid you not.
It took one hour for the line of tourists to scale down the stairs from the Buddha's head to his feet (well, he is the Big Buddha after all). It was like shuffling past the Mona Lisa, so your moment with a decent view doesn't last and you're too busy aiming your camera anyway. As a result the only real moments you have with the Buddha are through your your view finder, desperate in the crowd to clear off a shot without a living soul in the picture. As a result it ends up being a somewhat impersonal experience.
Well, the whole place is impersonal really. It's kind of like Buddhaland as you wander around an enclosed park with overly tarted up temples and classical Chinese music issuing from plastic rocks.
As soon as you venture into a local tourist destination that may not be the obvious ones westerns end up visiting, you inevitably end up having to deal with a different type of Chinese. Living in Shanghai you can forget that this present version of China (China 3.0 as it were and let me add here that it's still more than a little buggy) has not been open for a long time. So there are a great number of Chinese who are not so familiar with foreigners of any variety. Foreigners are just as fascinating to many of them as any cultural heritage site might be and most often than not will want to have a photo taken with you. If they happen to score both you and the buddha well, that's just double whammy.
A typical encounter happened while I was eating. A man stood over me, just staring. He took his seat with his family and continued to stare. He asked where I was from while he stared. I pretended not to understand, which resulted in him staring some more. He offered me a beer and a stare. I refused, aware that I was probably insulting him, so that earned me a stare. He then offered me a cigarette while staring at me some more.
By then I had had enough of playing the bonus attraction tourist attraction for way too many people. Pandas, monkeys, me – all the same thing.
So it was with relief when I finally returned to the concreteness and stinky wee-stained trees of Shanghai where I can be ignored and can eat the wildlife if I want to.
