Dongbei - a real yurt

The taxidriver was supposed to pick me up at 9am, but he forgot or slept in or something. We ended up starting at 10. We were friends, because of dinner the night before and our conversations, but we hadn't talked about price for the day's driving. I didn't think we were close enough friends yet to warrant a day of free driving. When he got there, the taxi also had his brother-in-law (a doctor, I'd met him the night before) and a friend visiting from out of town (who I didn't recognize).

The price he told me was 200 kuai. I think that's pretty standard, it was the same I'd gotten from another driver I'd flagged down randomly the night before and asked just for reference. I wasn't getting the rock bottom, but at least he wasn't trying to screw me. We started by checking out the Kerulen river, famous according to my guides for being the childhood stomping grounds of Ghengis Khan. It was pretty tame, more of a canal or big creek, but there was a block of granite with the name of the river on it so I got a picture.

Next was the big deal, the real authentic yurt that I had been hoping to see. I'd thought the night before that this guy had a friend that lived in one so he could take me there, but it turns out that wasn' t the case. We just started driving out on the highway until we spotted a yurt off in the distance, then started off-roading the low-riding, beater taxi in that direction. The taxi sounded like a coke can with a bb inside as we bounced over the rough ground, but none of the other three in the car seemed to notice.

The grasslands, viewed as a whole, are a sea of pale green fading away into nothing as far as you can see. I could see now that what appeared to be a fairly thick carpet of grass was in fact small clumps semi-dry grass and weeds with plenty of bare dirt filling in the gaps. I was told that the grasslands were even more dry than usual because of a drought that had been going for the last few years. From a distance, a yurt is just a pointy silhouette breaking the monotony of the unchanging horizon. As we came closer, I realized that it was still pretty much a pointy silhouette on the horizon. It blows my mind to think that people can live like that, a speck clinging to the earth with nothing in sight for miles around, the only protection from the elements a 20-foot diameter tent. In addition to the yurt, the residents had set up fence panels to make a round-pen, presumably for horse work, or maybe isolating their sheep at times. Other signs of residence included a cart resting lopsidedly nearby, a pile of dung for fuel, and a unique stove contraption. Be sure to check the pictures because this stuff is cool.

We were greeted by a leathery faced Mongolian guy who was working outside at the stove. A young guy who looked to be about my age was also present. The older guy looked like he'd been living outside for a very long time, the lines on his face deeply set and his body thin and wiry. I have to admit I was intimidated. This guy was not the same as the other Mongolians I'd met, like the taxi driver and his brother in law. They were used to the relatively normal and easy life in town. They did not spend all of their time riding, cooking, and caring for over 1000 head of sheep. I only saw him smile a couple times the whole time we were there. The younger guy was also really intimidating. He often avoided looking at me, but when he did he would stare at me for extended periods, not revealing much in the way of emotion. My friendly smiles and nods were answered by a slight head motion and lipcurl. Or I might have imagined those. He seemed to be sizing me up, and I can only imagine what he must have been thinking. "What's this idiot American doing out here - is his life so easy that he can travel to the other side of the world to stare at us like exhibits in a museum?" "He looks soft...he wouldn't last a day tending the sheep." Who knows, it could have been more benign thoughts, but my own fears of how I was being viewed were reflected in that level stare.

It didn't help that they were speaking Mongolian the whole time. Apparently they can understand some Chinese, but can't really speak it, whereas the Mongolians from town are completely bilingual. Maybe if I'd been able to talk directly to them I could have figured out what they were thinking, but as it was I had to settle for whatever my driver decided to tell me.

I don't remember the guy my age smiling at all, and the older guy only once. That was when I was trying to ride the horse. Without my saying anything to him, the taxi driver spoke with the Mongolian, then said, "do you want to ride his horse?". I eyed the horse uneasily, then asked "how is the horse?". "His horse is amazing!" The taxi driver said with a smile that was a bit mischievous. I wasn't sure what "amazing" meant, but I could guess. This was no kids horse. This was a working horse, used in long days of herding by the tough Mongolians. With reservation, I agreed to give it a try as long as the Mongolian kept holding the lead rope.

The first time I got close, walking slowly with my hand outstretched, the horse shied away abruptly but was quickly calmed by his master. The second time he backed away again, and got a firmer jerk on the rope and an angry word. "I'd better not..." I said, feeling I'd been given a clear sign, but their hand motions indicated to give it another shot. This time I was able to reach the horse, put a hand on the saddle, foot in the stirrup, and hop up. Miraculously, there was only minimal movement on the part of the horse. A photo was quickly snapped, and I began to dismount. I was halfway out of the saddle when the horse made a sudden sideways motion, resulting in my ungraceful dismount and hasty retreat. No harm done, but it was obvious I'd been a little shaken. Apparently that's where Mongolian humor lies because when I looked his way the old Mongolian's weathered face was creased in a big grin.

The inside of the yurt was small but cozy. It had two beds, a small counter unit, a knee high table, several stools, and various photos and other items lining the walls. The walls and roof were framed with wood. The wall frame sections were built just like those collapsible child safety gates, with diagonal rods connected by pins to allow pivoting and shrinkage. The roof was wooden rafter rods every few inches stretching from the top of the wall panels to the roof peak. Heavy canvas was draped over all of this framing, making it invisible from the outside. There was also canvas covering the floor. They can take it apart and put it back together in two hours, pretty amazing when you're talking about your house.

We ate soup with noodles and dried lamb that they had started making as soon as we arrived. Simple, but not bad at all. I didn't get sick from it either, something I was concerned about after seeing the flies covering the food on the counter - check out the picture if you can find it among all the others. I got to watch the older guy roll out the dough and chop it up into long noodles. The taxi driver told me he was doing this specially because we came, normally there's another kind of noodles that's less labor intensive. I felt bad for interrupting their day, but kept being told that's just their culture and it was no big deal.

Seeing the yurt was the most authentic experience I had those two weeks. Even if that's the only thing I'd done the whole time traveling, going would have been worth it.

Location, Location, Location

I've just thought of something. Before I came to China, I had no concept whatsoever of what was actually inside it. I just had this vague idea of the shape on the map. I'm assuming a lot of you are the same, and I'm sure the place names in my blog are pretty much meaningless. I'm going to try to put some perspective on the situation by throwing a map out there so you can see where I'm actually at.

The red spots are where I stayed at least one night. Check out a bit bigger version of the map here. Once you go there, to enlarge the map, hover your mouse over the picture in one spot until a button appears in the lower right corner of the map. It will have four arrows pointing out towards the corners. Click it and the map should get bigger.

Dongbei - Hailar (lamb spine, cow knee) and Xiqi

The next morning we got on the train early for Hailar. That's the biggest city in the northern section of Inner Mongolia, so that's where the trains all end up. My eventual goal was Manzhouli, which I'd read about in a travel book as an alternative to the big city destinations. The ride was 12 hours, and you couldn't pre-order sleeper tickets, they had to be upgraded from hard seats once on the train. Lao Gao worked some magic to get one of the guys working at the station to let us onto the platform early, and we coasted into the sleepers ahead of the mad rush on the ticket booth that came minutes later.

I didn't see much of Hailar. We stepped off the train and got a hotel that was right next to the station. We went for a real hotel hoping for showers, and dished out some big money, about $10 each. Seems cheap, but it was 18 times more expensive than the previous night's lodging. The room was luxurious compared to the cheap place, but the showers were a bust with only about couple minutes of hot water. We'd met a couple on the train, a 28-year-old guy who dressed like a pimp (totally normal by standards here) and his wife, a uniquely beautiful woman because of a Russian a few generations back in her family tree. The pimp offered to treat us to dinner, so that night I got to try a couple of new dishes almost as exciting as dog - knee of cow and spinal cord of lamb. I thought the taste of both was unremarkable, but that didn't make them boring.

Cow knee was served in bite sized chunks. It was slippery and gelatinous, deforming under pressure before allowing the teeth to slide through. It was comparable to extremely thick jello, unattainably thick using conventional methods - you have to go straight for the knees to get that stuff. The lamb spine had a little meat clinging to it that required vigorous, up close lip and teeth work to remove, but the real treat was the noodle-like gray matter exposed when the spine was gripped with both hands and snapped in two. Nothing brings out the inner animal like firmly gripping a spinal cord, breaking it like a piece of kindling, and slurping out the marrow.

The next morning Lao Gao and I parted ways when I hopped the 7am train to Manzhouli. The train ride was supposedly three and a half hours, but it was noon before I arrived. Manzhouli was very disappointing, not fitting it's advertised small town billing. I got off the train and walked through once, noting the huge shopping district with tons of Russians who had crossed over. Manzhouli is one of two cities in China which has a railroad connection with Russia. Since Harbin is a big city, Harbin has Russians, and I'll be in Harbin all year, it didn't take long to figure out I wasn't staying long in Manzhouli. When I found the bus station there was a bus to Xin Baer Youqi, or just Xiqi (west flag, pronounced "sheechee"), leaving in 15 minutes. I took it. That's the great thing about traveling alone - total flexibility to change plans and act on impulse.

I knew I'd made the right choice as I watched the hectic city scene melt into the wide open grasslands which are the trademark of Inner Mongolia. We'd only been going for 15 minutes whan a guy staggered to the front of the bus and spoke with the driver. The bus stopped, allowing the guy to stumble outside and urinate about 5 feet from the door. As he made his way back down the aisle, the driver laughed and said loudly, "Next time don't drink so much beer!" Everyone was chuckling as we continued on towards Xiqi.

As I got of the bus I was greeted by a guy advertising a room for the night. That's always my first task when I arrive somewhere new so I went with him. He said 30 kuai, I said 25, and that's what we ended up agreeing to for the night, a little over $3. We also chatted and he seemed nice enough. He was a member of the Mongolian minority group, spoke Mongolian with his wife and Chinese with me. The room was a part of the guy's house, or maybe the guy lived in one of the rooms of his business. I don't really know what to call that kind of situation, but it's common around here. It's definitely not a hotel or motel, maybe closer to a hostel, but that's not it either. Here it's called a ludian, so I'll just use that.

I told him I was interested in going out into the grasslands and checking out the scenery and points of interest, also going to one of the "yurts", a tent-like structure that's been the traditional home of roaming Mongolians since before the time of Ghengis Khan. Today, there are two kinds of yurts: little groupings of them, surrounded by flags, that are for tourists to go see, maybe ride a horse, have a meal, and stay the night; and then the solitary ones you can see out on the horizon as you cruise by on the bus, barely visible, isolated, and the actual homes of Mongolian sheepherders year-round. After a quick discussion about basketball (the Chinese national team was getting creamed, but Yao Ming cool as ever), his son (ultimate dream: America, Harvard University), and my being his first American, my landlord told me about a museum of Mongolian history nearby and also said he could connect me with someone to take me out in the grasslands the next day and help me find what I was looking for. I thanked him and headed for the museum.

Since my Chinese reading comprehension is still basically at the level of "I suck", I asked the guys working in the empty museum if they could give me a quick overview. I was startled when they were reluctant, preferring to slouch and smoke around the doorway. I had this image of people working in museums being passionate intellectuals, eager for the chance to explain their expertise to anyone showing interest, but that was not the case here. One guy grudgingly agreed, muttering "it's ok, it's my job" when I told him I didn't mean to bother him. My tour guide was neither passionate nor knowledgeable, having to carefully examine the signs himself before he could tell me what we were looking at. I saw some cool traditional clothing and tools, learned that this area has camels (cool!), and then when the guide left got out my dictionary and tried to make my way through a story on one of the plaques. It turned out to be about how Ghenghis Khan's 11th-generation-back grandmother rode a horse well, had 5 sons who ended up starting Ghengis Khan's clan, and had Xiqi blood in their veins. I was a little disappointed by the lack of hard facts and historical significance my half hour of dictionary work had yielded.

The first building I passed outside the museum was a gradeschool with a bunch of kids outside playing. I heard them all whispering as I walked by, then one little girl ran up behind me and said in unusually clear English "Hi, what's your name?". I get "Hello" from tons of people, but kids aren't usually so bold, and this one actually made it all the way to "what's your name". I was impressed, so I turned around and said "My name's Andy. What's yours?" She squealed and stammered, so I switched to Chinese and got her English name, Linda. I was her first real life American, and she ran off only to return with a notebook and asked me to write in it. I'd just finished writing my English name, Chinese name, and "American", when all the other kids who'd been standing by so silently were also waving notebooks in my face and yelling excitedly. Feeling like Michael Jordan trying to get into the locker room after his last game, I set my bag down on the sidewalk, took a seat next to it, and started writing the same thing over and over again for about 30 kids. I had Linda snap a picture of the mob. Everyone wanted to be the one to use the camera, but I gave her preference since she'd been the first to speak up.

After the mob died away, Linda and a few others lingered and walked with me. Linda was begging me to come meet her family and eat dinner with them, but I was pretty uneasy about being invited to dinner by a 10 year old. Wouldn't her family think it was awfully strange to have their daughter come home with some white guy? Don't they teach their kids here not to talk to strangers? However, her house ended up being on the way back, her dad outside tinkering with the car, so I stopped and talked. I was soon invited inside for dinner as promised.

This was my first time inside a "normal" Chinese dwelling. The exterior was brick with red adobe style tile roofing. The road outside was dirt, and dirty. Inside, the walls were spiderwebbed with cracks, the floor plan odd, and the space small. This was especially true when I found that there were 4-6 adults and 2-3 kids living there (I'm still a little unclear about who was visiting and who lived there). However, it was clean and the couches were comfortable. I ate scrambled eggs with tomatoes and stir-fried potato strips, simple and tasty. We chatted, and it turned out that Linda's dad was a taxi driver who could take me out to do my activities the next day. They were also part of the Mongolian minority, and he assured me he could take me to a "real" yurt, not one of the fake ones set up for travelers.

Returning to the ludian, I informed the owner that I didn't need his connection after all since I'd made arrangements of my own for the next day. The same guy who'd been so friendly and chatty earlier seemed sullen and put off by this news. He was also slurring a little bit but I couldn't tell if he'd been drinking or it was just Mongolian-accented Chinese. I decided to ignore it and hurried out to an internet cafe. I was gone for several hours, and when I got back my friend had definitely been drinking more. He followed me into my room, sat down with me, and proceeded to "explain" a few things to me. One, in Mongolian culture, all you have is your word, and I'd broken mine (we'd had no agreement, he just offered to connect me with his friend); two, he'd given me the room for 25 kuai because he'd liked me, in spite of the fact that the room next door was going for 50 kuai (then he should have held out for more, right?); and three, he studied some form of kung fu. I didn't recognize the vocabulary on this one, but he was able to get the point across by punching the air several times, with enough emotion behind the punches to make me nervous. I decided that this was not the time to argue technicalities on our "agreement", so I told him I was sorry and stopped talking. For the next 20 minutes or so, he poured his heart out to me. I didn't always understand what he was saying, but also didn't want to antagonize him so I got by with grunts and understanding looks. His tone went from tense and agressive (arm waving, looking around), to explanatory and earnest (scooted closer, rested his hand on my shoulder, eyes locked), to apologetic and pathetic (scooted until our knees were touching, holding my hand). After I was pretty sure he wasn't going to break my face, it was actually interesting to hear this outpouring of his true emotions. Even if the logic wasn't clicking, I was fairly certain these feelings were genuine. I definitely learned a few things. When earlier he'd talked about his son's dream to go to Harvard and how difficult it would be to attain, I had symathized with him and said I hoped it would happen. Now I know he was resentful of me for being American and having opportunities available which for his son were essentially pipe dreams. He was also resentful of me for bargaining for the room when he felt like I had unlimited money from our bountiful America.

When he finally left, I was shaken up. I should have packed my stuff and left right then, but I was just happy he was gone so I stayed the night. The next morning he was apologetic and even tried inviting me to dinner. I got out of there pretty quick, but his apology confirmed that he'd been speaking from the heart the night before. Instead of saying, wow, I really screwed up last night, I don't know what I was thinking, he said "I'm twice your age, I should know better than to get mad at you when your just a kid. You don't understand things yet." Condescension is annoying no matter where you are or who it's from.

Dongbei, the next episode - dog meat and bai jui

Ok so from Beiji cun, the next place I planned to go was Manzhouli. Like Beiji cun it's on the border with Russia but Manzhouli is in Inner Mongolia, and the railroad actually passes through into Russia there. Unfortunately there was no easy direct train so and I'm actualy still in transit. Here it is so far.

I took the bus back to Mohe county the next day and looked into getting to Manzhouli. It turns out the best way was to bus it south for the first leg to a place called Mangui, where there's a train that will go most of the way to Manzhouli stopping at a place called Hailar. I'd just missed the bus that day so I stayed another night in Mohe, paying for my own dinner for a change. I took it easy and stayed indoors because it ended up raining like crazy. I stayed in the same little room as last time, this time no roommate though. Still only $2.50. I love it.

The next day, I hopped the bus to Mangui. We started off on a paved road, then moved to a dirt one. At first I assumed we were taking a shortcut to the highway, but soon realized that this was the highway. For the Whitakers to compare, the road quality was about like the dirt roads up at the Ranch, but not so twisty. Three and a half hours later we'd arrived in Mangui, but not before I'd made my next friend. I swear, it's an endless stream of these people who think they need to take care of me. This guy is a little better though, we're still traveling together actually. I call him Lao Gao, Lao means old and Gao is his last name. Believe it or not, that's respectful over here. He's about 60 years old, wears glasses, dresses well and like many other Chinese always looks well groomed even though we're traveling. He's from southern China and I think that's why he's a little easier to stomach than my first roommate or the owner of the bus. He doesn't try to make all my decisions for me and he doesn't try to pay for everything, but he does worry about my safety and me getting ripped off for being a foreigner. He's said several times that I'm just a kid, and he needs to look out for me so my parents won't worry.

On the bus to Mangui we'd just happened to sit next to each other. He was also going to Hailar and told me that there was no train until the next morning. We agreed to find a place together in Mangui and split the cost. When we got there he did the looking for the room, and it's a good thing because I broke my record for cheapest lodging yet. 5 kuai for my half of the room, that's like $0.60. Ah, China.

Mangui is a town, bigger than the place I'd come from but still just a speck in the wilderness that is China's Dongbei. I'd say the population was about 10,000, on the same scale as an Ellensburg. The great majority of buildings were delapidated and paintless, resulting in a depressing grey cast to the neighborhood. However, the gardens which abound in all such places in China definitely livened things up with their vibrant greens and yellow sunflower patches sprinkled throughout.

Room booked, I took off to climb the hill with stairs to a pagoda I'd seen from the bus on the way in. It was good excercise and a nice veiw, but the stairs were concrete and the pagoda made of cheap metal plating. The paint was new and fairly bright but obviously would fade before long like many other cheaply built Chinese structures. I also found it ironic and symbolic that the pagoda was almost at the top of the hill, but not quite. The place of honor at the top where the stairs really terminated was the new tv broadcasting tower and accompanying buildings. China just isn't what it was a few thousand years ago.

Later I went to dinner by myself. I picked a little restaraunt randomly, one of many in town. After sitting down and ordering some stew, four guys at another table waved me over to talk. I sat down with them and soon they offered to treat me to dinner, as happens frequently around here. I protested, but as usual it was no use. I didn't realize what they were treating me to until they lifted a chunk of meat out of the pot boiling in the middle of the table (a common way to eat around here), set it on my plate, and said "Don't be polite! Eat!". Seeing the size of the ribs sticking out of the meat I suddenly had a bad feeling. It had been a joke with us Americans all semester. Dog meat! We'd see the signs around, have a chuckle, and avoid them like the plague. Literally, some restaraunts are named "Dog meat restaraunt". This place had a different name, but even before I asked I knew the answer. "Yeah it's dog. The best kind! very tasty! Eat up, our treat!". There's a first time for everything, and after all I'm in China so I shrugged and dug in. I wish I could say it was gross, but actually it was pretty flavorful, distinct from beef or pork but not in a disgusting way. I think they could sense my hesitation from the way I extended my lips fully and nibbled the meat, rather than robustly stuffing the entire rib in my mouth and sucking it clean.

"What's wrong? Don't like it?"

"Oh no, it's just that this is my first time eating dog..."

That's when I felt a warm furry body brush past my legs and saw man's best friend heading for the door. "So is he for dinner tomorrow?" I asked. "Oh no, he's too small." Indicated about 2 feet with his hands. "We eat the BIG ones!", fully extending his arms. This was greeted with a round of hearty laughter, which I joined after a second. The whole situation really was hilarious. "The little ones are just for fun," he continued. I got the picture. "So some are for fun...and some are for dinner?" I asked. "That's right!" he said, and another round of loud laughter. I had definitely learned something new from the people of Mangui. Some dogs are for fun, and some are for dinner.

Their laughter was defintely helped along by their alcohol consumption on the night. Four bottles of Bai jiu, "white alcohol", sat nearly empty on the table. Bai jiu is a staple in China, I'm told especially in the Dongbei area. I tried it once before at a bar, just half a shot or so. The stuff is absolutely ridiculous. I'm not calling myself an expert here, but I've had shots before, some good and some not so good. This stuff is terrible. When I tasted it the first time at the bar, the bartender told me that Dongbei people can drink a whole bottle or more at one sitting and I'd laughed in disbelief as I fought the urge to vomit from my sip. Here was my proof: Four Donbei people, four near empty bottles.

I told them this story, and they laughed and nodded. I'd already told them I wouldn't drink it, so they ordered beer for me (and them once they'd polished off their first bottles). The Chinese drink both bai jiu and beer out of small glasses, I'd say two and a half or three shots worth of liquid. I had my glass of beer, and they had theirs of bai jiu. I had yet to take a drink, so one raised his glass, half full of bai jui. "Gan bei!" he shouted, the order to finish what you've got in your cup. I watched in disbelief as he downed more than a shot of bai jui and slammed his glass down on the table. When I finished, I told him I was amazed by the Donbei abilities. He laughed and got a twinkle in his eye. He refilled my glass, and then filled his own with bai jui, this time to the brim. Again he raised it with a shout of "Gan bei!". My jaw dropped as the bai jui disappeared with one toss of his head. It's difficult to put down so much of any liquid in one lump. It takes me three good gulps to get a glass that size down. This time he had a slight reaction, shaking his head and squeezing a tear from one eye before smiling at me and laughing. at my raised eyebrows.

You'd think these guys were done drinking after all that. At least I did. Two of them had to leave, but two stayed with me as I ate and they continued to drink beer with me. I figured it would be one bottle and done, but oh no. Those two guys matched me glass for glass until I was fairly drunk too. When we were done I'd had about two and a half bottles, one Chinese bottle being two American size bottles. I'm a lightweight, but they don't mess around here.

When I went back to the room I was sharing with Lao Gao, he and the owner of the house were both worried about me even though it was only 8:30. They'd actually gone out looking for me, worried something had happened. We'd had no plans to meet at a particular time, they'd just been...worried. I reassured them with more smiling and shoulder patting than I would have a couple hours before, then fell asleep thinking I had more parents in China than I had since leaving for college. A new set every place I go! Every time it happens, I worry about some con artist doing it just to get me away from my money and passport, and I never really trust anyone until we part ways. So far so good. Ah, China.

Dongbei day #3 - Mushrooms

The first thing you notice when you go into Beiji cun is the mushrooms. They're outside every building in the process of drying, covering old newspapers, sheets of carboard, whatever happens to be handy for mushroom drying. There's obviously been a lot of work done by the locals to pick so many mushrooms. Asking around, I found out that a half kilogram of dried mushrooms sells for 40 kuai. Evidently, that makes them worth picking because they were everywhere. I remembered on the bus ride up, we had made a stop on the side of the road to pick up a couple of mushroom pickers with baskets overflowing. Apparently the mushrooms can be picked anywhere around Beiji cun, especially in the woods.

The first day there, in that hurried lunch with Ma Jainbo, we had a plate and they were delicious. I think they're Shiitake mushrooms, at least most of them. There are a few different kinds, but the locals called them all the same thing so I'm not sure. Later that day, I looked at the mushrooms drying in the street, looked at the woods surrounding Beiji cun, and decided I wanted to go mushroom picking.

The next day, I hopped on the bus back to Mohe, but this time I would be getting off with the mushroom pickers. The owner of the bus and room I was staying in also went with us to "protect" me, in yet another gesture of hospitality. Hospitality is a good thing, but so is a nice warm blanket until someone's using it to cut of your air supply. I can't seem to go a day here without someone new taking me under their wing, buying me things, accompanying me places, speaking for me, and making suggestions that are difficult to refuse. At times I wish I couldn't speak the language so I'd be free to just smile, nod, and walk away.

However, the mushroom picking was really great. I'd bought a mosquito hat and a cheap pair of shoes on the advice of some of the veteran pickers. The shoes saved my expensive American ones from getting dirty, and in the end the mosquito hat was also a really good idea, for obvious reasons. It was nice just to get out in the woods after being in Harbin for so long. There's nothing like getting a reminder that there's nature outside of all the traffic, classrooms, and tour bus television sets. We had about 4 hours, and just started hiking into the woods from the road. We all had big baskets like I'd seen the day before, and I was soon on the way to filling it. The mushrooms were not too tough to find. I'd walk for a few minutes, scanning the ground, and then find a patch of them usually by a stump or log. There were also red berries that we could eat. I think I should know their English name but I don't. The plants were very short and blanketed the ground in some places. The berres looked like huckleberries or blueberries but they were red, and tart. Not bad.

One section of forest had the most enormous ant hills I've ever seen. I think I've said it before, the woods in this area are a whole lot like the ones in the pacific northwest, a mix of evergreen and deciduous trees and a lot of other familiar sights. The ants were also familiar. I remember the ant hill out behind the pond at the Ranch. When we were little, the cousins all thought it was huge and we'd go out and poke it and run away. I think it really was pretty big, maybe three or four feet tall. Not compared to these Chinese ant hills. The biggest one was over my head, maybe six feet and a few inches, and as big around as it was tall. That was the biggest, but it wasn't the only one. I'd say I saw between ten and fifteen of these enormous things, all over 5 feet tall. That's not to mention the other little guys. Unfortunately, the ant hill section was also the best mushrom section so we ended up staying there quite a while. Let me tell you, it was a little scary to walk, along scanning the ground intently for mushrooms, then look up and see that the huge form in my peripheral vision wasn't a tree at all but a writhing mound of biting insects. They were red ants, the same as we have back home, so at least I knew they weren't going to really attack and kill me like those rainforest ants I've seen on TV. All the same, it wasn't fun to find them crawling from the mushrooms onto my hands, unhappy to have their territory invaded.

By the time the bus came back through and picked us up I'd filled my basket. The others with me had filled their much larger baskets along with their hats and bags. At first I consoled myself by thinking that they were veteran mushroom pickers and just had more experience, but it turns out that it was the bus owner's second time picking and the other woman's third. I guess the more experienced pickers were the ones that had gone right when we'd gone left. I never found out how much they'd picked, and it's a good thing because I'd definitely just be even more humiliated.

That night, which is actually last night, the bus owner treated me and a few others staying in his small hotel to dinner. This is where Chinese and Americans really differ. In America I can see a local making friends with a traveler, maybe treating him to a few beers and a meal or two - maybe - but the guy running your travel services is NEVER going to give you free dinner when he could make a few more bucks. I feel smothered all the time by the hospitality over here, but the generosity is truly awe-inspiring. The dinner he cooked included our fresh mushrooms, and they were even more delicious than the ones I'd eaten the day before.

donbei day #2, part 2

Continued from previous post...

The first thing when we got into Beiji cun was to check out the river. It's called the Heilongjiang, or Black Dragon River, and it shares its name with this province. It's also the division between Russia and China. Of course there were the usual entrepreneurs lurking at the riverbank, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. There were only a few guys offering boat rides and a lone reindeer for picture taking purposes. At first it was strange to see a reindeer, but then I remembered that this place is the coldest in China in the winter. After taking a picture with the reindeer, definitely out of place in the heat of summer but couldn't pass it up for 20 cents, we proceeded down to the river and started bargaining for the cheapest boat possible. By the time we hopped in I paid less than $4, down from $8 or so. Now that I've written the US dollar amounts our bargaining looks wimpy, but at the time it felt great to get them down from 60 kuai to 30.

Sitting in the little motor boat, wind whipping across my face, I relaxed. I'd been feeling a little stressed all day by my new friend, the really annoying bus ride, the urgent travel pace, but now all that was gone. I was free to realize the humor and coolness of the moment: I was staring at China and Russia at the same time. I'd randomly had my picture taken with a reindeer. On top of that, when I asked if we could land on the Russia side, just for a second, they said there were spotters in the woods just waiting to catch and shoot people who tried. I was doubtful about the shooting part but it's not good to take chances. I guess people can get a little touchy about national boundaries.

My new friend Ma Jianbo left with the same rushed pace of Chinese travel. He decided to buy me one last meal at 12:20, knowing the bus was leaving at 12:30. Believe it or not, we managed to order and eat rice, a mushroom stir fry, eggs, and a couple big bottles of beer in that time. It wasn't exactly your usual lunch eating pace, but hey you do what circumstances demand. When the bus started pulling out into the street he calmly asked for the bill, then walked outside and waved his wallet wildly at the bus to indicate the situation and make them wait.

As soon as I saw the river and heard it was cleaner than most, I knew I had to take a swim. It's a tradition/challenge in our family to swim in all kinds of situations and water temperatures, and this was definitely too rich to pass up. When we went sailing with Grandpa Fred on the Zodiac, Sam and I dunked in the ocean every day regardless of weather and water temperature. With the Perkins at the base of Mount Stuart, with the cousins in the Yakima and many other places, this tradition had to be introduced to China. I stripped down to my shorts at my room and made the long walk down to the river, bare chest a gleaming white beacon all the way. At the river, I was again met with the mix of chinese travelers and locals peddling boat rides. I asked one of the boat drivers if I could swim and how deep it was, and he said sure, indicating neck level at the end of the dock. The guy he was taking to, from Beijing, seemed really concerned for me, first telling me it was too cold and then asking me if I could swim. Rivers can be dangerous and cold, but I can swim and I could tell this spot was not going to be a problem. It's a big river and it wasn't moving fast. I reassured him, then started walking the plank - literally, since their docks are just single boards resting on posts sticking out 20 feet into the river. The Beijing guy had quited down, but then had second thoughts when I reached the halfway point. He started shouting at me "Don't do it!", adding a level of drama that the situation really didn't deserve. His shouts and my bare white skin had attracted the attention of all assembled, so here I was walking a plank into the Black Dragon River with a man yelling "Don't do it" and a crowd of 40 or 50 Chinese onlookers watching intently. I yelled back at the guy "Don't worry!", then jumped. It's a good thing I decided not to dive because the guy had been wrong about neck level. The water was up to my belly button, and I landed hard because I hadn't been expecting it. Not exactly the graceful entry I'd been hoping for with so many people watching, but I think they'd all just been worried I'd die on impact because as soon as I hit, the guy stopped yelling and there was a smattering of applause along with a collective sigh of relief. I think a lot of Chinese people can't swim, so they're much more afraid of water than I'm used to. I know in America, jumping off of a dock into slow moving water and landing awkwardly gets laughs, not a sigh of relief. You've got to jump off something very high or into something very cold to get any reaction back home.

Later in the evening I went for a walk. Beiji cun is turning into a tourist destination, but it's not too far along and the original community of peasants is still the largest group. I walked away from the street that' the most developed with hotels and immediately was on dirt roads with fences and gardens on both sides. When I stopped to admire some flowers at one fence, an old man emerged and offered me a piece of corn on the cob. I accepted and sat down to talk with him. Our conversation was simple, about how good the corn tasted and how nice his flowers were. He seemed extremely proud of both. His corn really was much better than anything I'd had in Harbin from the street vendors. It was nice just to have a conversation with a random Chinese person, using what I've been working on all summer. After a minute his granddaughter emerged, a little girl about 8 or 9 year old, and I asked her if she knew any english. That's a good way to draw kids out around here because they almost all know a little, and parents are all really proud when I tell them their kid's english is good. She was no exception, and after a little coaxing (she didn't remember how to say hello) I got a "goodbye" out of her. I told her and her grandpa how good her pronunciation was. She told me her Chinese name, I forget it now, and asked me how it translated to English. Of course you can't just translate names, but I asked her if she wanted me to make up an English name for her. She said yes, so I thought about it and settled on Samantha because it sounded a little like her Chinse name. She was super excited and asked me to say it over and over, repeating it every time. It was incrdibly cute hearing this little chinese girl carefully enunciate "Samee-antha", showing the big gap in her front teeth every time. After a while she ran inside and got a pen and paper so I could write it down. Her grandpa was absolutely beaming through all of this. I took several pictures of and with them before moving on. I forgot my camera cord so the pictures and tons more I've been taking will be up on the yahoo album before too long. For anyone who hasn't seen the link, the yahoo album can be reached from the links at the end of every blog post.

The next point of interest on my walk was an older couple pitchforking loose hay from their trailer to their yard. I stopped and watched, thinking this was America not too long ago. I seem to remember Dad telling me about working with loose hay when he was a kid, so when they stopped pitchforking I told them about it. We chatted a little and then I asked permission to take some pictures of them at work. It was beautifully simple, this task that was something out of the past to me but so much a part of their everyday lives.

The last interesting thing on my walk was a couple of kids playing soccer. I stopped to watch and the little boy, I'd say 6 years old, took one look at me and gave me a big karate punch to the stomach. It reminded me of something Scott would do not too long ago, but I don't think he'd be so bold as to try it on a foreigner. Karate punches are good ice-breakers, so I started kicking the ball with them and asking the older girl, 14 years old, about school and soccer. She was playing to pass the time while her goats grazed in the courtyard behind us. That's when I noticed we were standing in the arched entry of the "计划生育中心". That's like "Family Planning Center". I've read that in these rural places, the "Family Planing Center" is more or less an abortion clinic. I was playing soccer and watching goats graze in the courtyard of the local abortion clinic. I'm not absolutely sure that's what it was, and I don't know how to say abortion in Chinese. Even if I did, I wasn't about to ask a couple of kids about it. I did ask the girl if it was a hospital, and she said yes, so that makes me think my suspicions were correct. What a day.

dongbei day #2, part 1

I think I just found heaven and it's the northernmost point in China. Or maybe it's just traveling around by myself doing whatever I want. I don't know where to start with today so I'm just going to go from waking up because that's the most logical.

Woke up in the nice little room I shared with my new Chinese friend. Smiled when I remembered paying only $2.50 US for it. We got up, and I was again reminded that when a Chinese guy makes a new friend, he makes a new FRIEND. Not only were we accidental roommates, he had bought me dinner, alcohol, my time in the internet bar, breakfast the next morning (VERY tasty baozi, sort of big dumplings, these with beef), and then he decided to accompany me to the smaller Mohe that's the northernmost point in China. Of course, my radar was up because I was thinking, this guy must just want to get me away from my bag, then he and the bag are out of here. I guarded my stuff carefully, but I'll give away the ending - he didn't steal anything - so I don't tarnish his name by continually talking about my secret skeptical thoughts. There, now I can keep talking about him like the typical, welcoming, friendly, and annoying dongbei guy that he is.

So he decided to come with me to Mohe. First, let me say that I think I sorted out the Mohe name confusion. There is a county of Mohe, and the county seat is called Mohe. That's where the train stopped. Then, there used to be like a tiny town of Mohe which was the northernmost settlement in China. The Chinese, ever entrepreneurs, decided to rename the town Beiji cun. That literally means "Extremely northern town". (I hesitate to say "literally" because I know Lu Laoshi is reading this and think, hey that's not THE literal translation). The renaming obviously was for tourist purposes but it confused the crap out of me, more so because I found one map which clearly showed Mohe cun and Beiji cun as two different places. I was thinking all the way here on the bus, wouldn't it be a great joke if the Chinese thought this other place was more convenient to bring all the tourists so they just named it "Extremely northern town" and pretend Mohe cun doesn't exist...luckily the name change was confirmed by some farmers I talked to here, and I'm pretty sure they have no reason to lie.

Let me start that last paragraph again. So he decided to come to Mohe with me. We ate together, went and bought me a map of Heilongjiang province at the bookstore, climbed the little hill in the Mohe county park that had a nice view of the city and pretty flowers. The city is obviously in the process of beautification, like much of the rest of China, but this place was farther along than most. There was a lot of newness, bright colors, and cleanliness, which are all great except they unfailingly mean lots of Chinese tourists. After that it was time to hit the bus station. There was an advertised hour's ride (a little different than the 4 hours the van guy had told me the day before trying to convince me to use his convenient service) to Beiji cun, which morphed into an hour in a half as we made one stop to wait for people, two stops that I'm unclear about but I think were bathroom breaks, and one stop to pick up some mushroom gatherers with baskets overflowing. Typical. Also typical, but extra annoying, was the TV at the front of our bus. It was playing a common style of Chinese comedy routine, I think it's traditional, which involves very shrill tones of voice at loud volumes. Let me first acknowledge that those performers are amazing and have skill I'll never match. Then, let me say they're REALLY annoying, especially when the volume is WAY too loud and the bus is passing through some of the most beautiful countryside I've seen yet. Nearly all eyes, and ALL ears, were trained on the television, when obviously the thing to do was soak up the nature as well as can be done from the wrong side of a moving bus. My opinion of my new friend - by the way his name is Ma Jianbo - improved when I noticed that he was one of the few watching the scenery go by instead of the scrunched up face of the shrieking comedian.

The situation improved as soon as we got to Beiji cun. I found out I'd be able to lose my new friend - he ended up being a good guy but still annoying - after only a few hours. He still had business to attend to in Mohe county, so he wanted to take the usual route of Chinese travel -as fast and efficient as possible.

Time out for an example from yesterday. When I got off the train at Mohe, there was another guy with me in the van to Mohe. He was traveling and was excited by the prospect that I might want to split the cost of the van to Mohe (which I ended up deciding against, thankfully). At first I was undecided, so I accompanied him to the park. He was fat and sweating a little as he quickly disembarked and we strolled quickly together through the nice but not atypical wooded area. I was taking it easy, enjoying our chat about where I was studying, his teaching job, when he stopped and asked a group of walkers, "is the rest of this park the same as this?". When they said yes, he told me, ah, we've seen it, let's go. No point walking in a park when you already know what it's probably going to look like. That prompted a discussion of why he was in a hurry. Turns out he only had a few days off from his job and he was doing a little "power travel" - my words, obviously - and getting in as many sights as possible. When I made the decision not to go to Beiji cun in the van and the persuasive energies of the driver were turned to the more difficult task of convincing the other guy alone to pay the full price, I saw him agonizing over the decision. He ran a hand over his balding head and scrunched up his face with the pain of deciding between being thrifty and cramming one more sight into his short trip (he didn't have time to take the bus the next day). Thriftyness and fast travel, 2 of the most important qualities of the Chinese. How could he possibly make that decision? I never found out because I was already walking away to find a room for the night, the comfortable weight of my backpack a nice change from the weight of stress and urgency heavy in their bickering and the man's sweating face.

Time in, back to today. Thankfully, my new friend also wanted to take this route by taking the bus back to Mohe the same day he got here. That meant a couple hours of urgent efficient travel with him, then I would be left to my own devices for the rest of the day.

And the internet bar is closing, so to be continued, or not if tomorrow's adventures are better than today's...dang, I didn't even get to the good parts.

dongbei day #1

Wow I don' t even know where to start. I wrote quite a bit in my journal on the train, I'm going to put it on here eventually but right now I don't have it with me so I'll just have to start with after I got here.

I stepped off the train and asked someone where I could buy a bus ticket. I'd arrived in Mohe, but this still wasn't the Mohe I was looking for, the northernmost spot in China. Actually, I still don't understand the distinction...I think this must be like the county of Mohe (they all say this is "Mohe xian" but I don't really know what "xian" means), and then there's a smaller place also called Mohe. It just so happens that the guy I asked was ferrying people from the train station to the town center in a van for 2 kaui, so I hopped in. He took me and a few other people to the park. I explained my situation and he offered to take me to the other Mohe, he called it "Mohe cun" or "Beiji cun", and cun has something to do with farms and the countryside, so I assume this place is going to be more rural. He was going to take me and another guy there for 150 kuai, 75 each, but I decided to wait for tomorrow and the bus because that'll be cheaper. Even though he said it'll take 4 hours I'm not in a hurry. I'm really glad I decided to wait because tonight's been a blast.

From the park, I started to wander. Mohe, this Mohe, is surprisingly well developed. It's very clean, and all the buildings are modern. Apparently I came at a time when there's convention or something in town because the first two places I checked at didn' have any rooms available. The third place also had no vacancies, but a guy who was already there offered to share his room which had 2 beds. They were really reluctant to let me stay because I'm a foreigner. Around here, the foreigners are supposed to stay at the expensive places and there are penalties for the little hotels if they let foreigners stay there. Luckily, I managed to convince them that the other hotels were booked full, with the help of my new roommate. I ended up paying 20 kuai for the room, 5 kuai more than the starting price to help convince them to let me stay there. It was still insanely cheap, considering the other places would have been anywhere from 1 to a few hundred kuai. My room is small, very clean, and comfortable, with a tv and 2 beds. My roommate is also very cool. We went out to eat together, with him picking up the tab as happens almost every time I eat with chinese people. Somehow, the occasion always calls for treating the foreigner to dinner, and never for the foreigner treating the locals. I have to say, it works out well for me but I feel like once I get the hang of making Chinese let me pay for dinner, I'll have really made some progress understanding the culture. Besides, dinners are super cheap as far as I'm concerned, but sort of expensive for them. I feel like I should be the one to pay some of the time. They're always unwilling to spit the tab evenly like any sane American would do. Right now, I'm sitting in the internet bar with the roommate digesting dumplings, scrambled eggs with pork chunks, nameless green vegetable with garlic, pressed tofu rings, and a couple of huge bottles of beer that always accompany getting treated to dinner. These dongbei people can seriously drink, but it always gets me a little funny.

The roommate is a valve salesman from Harbin. We came in on the same train, but he was in the hard seats and I was in the sleepers. I think he's really tired because the train was 20 hours. I on the other hand am not tired at all, since I was in the sleepers and there's not much to do on a train except sleep, read, and write. I'll just have to go back to the hotel and read for a while. I hear the bus to the real Mohe leaves tomorrow morning at 9:00, so I'll have to rise and shine a little earlier than I'd like. Tomorrow when I get to the real Mohe, I'll have to find an internet bar and transcribe the stuff I wrote on the train...right now, back to the hotel.

long time no blog

Wow, it's been a while since I've given a real update...there's so much that's been going on there's just no way it's all getting up here. You'll all just have to hunt me down and pick my brain when I get back if you want to know more.

Currently: the semester's over, my computer's broken, tomorrow I'm leaving a tour of China's dongbei, I'm the only American left in the dorm, I got lost jogging today...and that's just what spills out without significant thought.

Testing went well...it was a blur as we realized that the summer was coming to an end and rushed to spend as much time as we could together when we should have been studying for finals. The language pledge cracked and then fell apart in the last few days as we made the decision to actually talk to each other a little before we were never going to see each other again. I think it was a good thing. It hurts a little to break the pledge, but there were some cool people here who I'd been dying to talk to all summer. Next semester will bring a mostly new crop of students who we can renew the pledge with and continue the march of language improvement and expression suppression. Most noteworthy testing moment: adding fractions on the blackboard in front of no less than four teachers, and fairly sure I was doing it wrong because explaining common denominators in Chinese adds a whole new level of difficulty to the process.

I haven't updated the blog in a long time first because I was busy, and then because my computer broke. It had been overheating and shutting down occasionally, as mom and dad know from our interrupted phone calls. Then, it began to shut down by itself a few minutes after I turned it on. Since the warranty just expired, I went online and found that the overheating is a fairly common problem with my laptop model, and some people had success with cleaning the fan. Choosing the optimistic path and ignoring the fact that the problem had moved beyond simple overheating, I chose to open the laptop and clean out the fan. Instead of fixing the problem, when it was back in one piece the screen wouldn't turn on at all, although I hadn't touched any of the connections in that area. I gave up my ambitions of fixing the computer myself and it's now with a buddy of one of the chinese roommates who is supposedly a whiz. He's going to let me know if he can fix it tomorrow, but I'm thinking the heat might have caused irreparable damage to expensive pieces. I know the buddy is legit because of the numerous, very cheap, certainly not legal, brand new computers for sale in his dingy apartment. I walked up the flight of filthy concrete stairs; passed the exposed pipes, unidentifiable odors, and empty living room; entered the office with surprisingly quality furnishings including sofa, desk, chair, and shelving packed with computers; saw the chair occupied by a young, shirtless chinese guy energetically pecking at the keyboard; thought wow, I've finally arrived. This is China, authentic and modern. I have to admit I'm a bit worried about the safety of my computer. I don't doubt the guy is fairly knowledgeable, but it like that's the kind of operation capable of moving suddenly and without notice. At least I know it's been in the same place for a month or so because a fellow CET student bought a computer there earlier this summer.

Tomorrow I leave for my solo tour of northeastern China, or the dongbei as they like to say. Actually I'm just planning on going to a couple places. The first is called Mohe. It's the northernmost city in China and also holds the record for coldest recorded temperature in the country at -52 point something degrees Celsius. I hear that in four or five months it's going to be seeing lot's of -40 degree days with 22 hours of darkness and some spectacular northern lights shows. Unfortunately I'm not hardcore enough to go there under those conditions but I still think it's cool and I want to check it out. Next I'm going to head over to Inner Mongolia, the province next door to Heilongjiang (where I'm at now, and also where Mohe sits). I'm starting at the city called Manzhouli, like Mohe right on the border of Russia. The Mongolian grasslands are supposed to be spectacular and still green at this time of year. I might have to hunt them down because I'm told that they're smaller every year. Supposedly livestock and civilization are imposing on the traditional stomping grounds of the roving Mongolian herders. I've got plenty of time to look around so maybe I'll get lucky and bump into some of them. If I get bored of that before my time's up I might go visit my new roommate Jin Chao in his hometown before I go back to Harbin.

I'm the only one from the program left in Harbin right now. Everyone else took off for Beijing so I went down to the train station and saw them off yesterday evening. The dorm's a lot more quiet without everyone but some of the roommates are still around. I'll probably hang out with them tonight, maybe watch a little chinese tv or read.

The story of getting lost jogging today will have to wait. The outer door of my dorm building is locked at midnight and it's 11:30 now. The guy who sleeps by the door is so grumpy when you have to wake him up...why can't they just be like America and give us keys? I'm still going to have to walk back from the internet cafe (dang computer) so to be continued...

korean drinking game

Last night I went with a few others to a Korean guy's birthday party. Let me tell you, the Koreans seriously know how to have fun drinking. The game defies description but it involved hand waving and head turning, elimination by rock paper scissors, and 15 guys trash talking in korean before collapsing into laughter. They were really welcoming. There were only 2 white people in the room, me and a girl from the program, and they just taught us how to play and we were part of the gang, yelling and trying to psych the other guy into throwing rock.