Cinderella unshod

I am a lumbering stranger in Lilliput.

Tonight I went out to buy some winter stuff – a non-slip pair of shoes so that I don’t skid into any more walls, a couple of long sleeved vests and some cozy pajamas.

This is shoe heaven – stylish, beautifully made, a vast range of colours and heels.  The street to one side of the university is lined with shoe-shops.

Between them, there are racks of delicate, lacy thermal vests and long johns in beautiful shades and various designs, outside at least a dozen shops, which also sell fleecy pajamas .

So what did I come back with?

No shoes. My feet are a UK size 6.  That’s not huge – at least not in the UK.  Here I might as well be a yeti.

I picked up several pairs of covetable ankle boots – in green suede or soft black leather and crepe soled.  One assistant at least went through the motions of going to look for a pair in my size.  The others just shrugged – and one girl gazed at my feet – elegantly clad in purple striped socks – in open horror.

The shop was full of students trying on fabulous boots, impossibly high heeled shoes and glitzy flats. Tiny girls with tiny feet.

When I rifled through the hangers of vests – the sales girl looked optimistic.  She selected a black lace ensemble and tugged the top like a concertina to show how much it stretched. Not far enough.  As for the long johns –  my arms would probably burst the seams, let alone my legs.

Every shop I checked, everything was one size.  Miniscule.

The buzz word here in fashion is “cute”.  The girls don’t seem to aim for sexy or elegant.  They want sweet.  They trip along the street, in short, short short pastel pleated chiffon frocks, frou frou skirts, fluffy pink jumpers embellished with cartoons of kittens and rabbits with a few extra sequined flowers, scattered over their fragile frames.

But I didn’t come back empty handed.  Oh no. Be grateful this is print only.  I am typing away snug in my latest purchase.

I’m in the living room, with CNN showing a report about the London Fashion Awards.  Stella McCartney is minimalist as ever in strapless black, Cara Delavigne is apparently “trending” in metallic green.  And I’m in my new, grey jersey XL men’s pajamas, complete with fly.

The last lotus

The final baby-pink blossom disappeared a couple of weeks ago. The clusters of grey-green leaves are withering.

So the lotus ponds and canals that wind around the campus are all being cleared, ready for winter.

The weather has cooled although it’s still warm enough that on a Sunday afternoon the many green spaces are dotted with smooching students.

They’ve been doing mid-term exams so it’s also a good time for a quick assessment on “teacher’s” progress.

Physical Exercise: C.  After a terrible start, some improvement.  Not fallen off her bike (at least not on campus) since week 1.  Avoided a repeat of the spectacular and painful skid across a wet corridor, slamming into the wall.  Learnt – the hard way – not to walk backwards across a raised lecture podium – even though the students enjoyed it enormously.  

Geography: A.  Two highly successful field trips although the logistics were a little haphazard.  (see Holiday Hell, Horror of Harry, Mountains of Karst Concrete, Wet Weekend, Falls and Rip Offs, Falls of a Different Sort)

History: B+  Made some effort to avoid “awkward” topics like disputed islands.  Unfortunate that analysis of current world events includes such emphasis on popular uprisings against repressive regimes.

Chinese Language: D  No comment, in any tongue.

Biology:  B+ Made friends with small beige lizard that’s become a flat-mate.  Very effective use of lethal blue powder has eliminated most cockroaches.  Also learnt to turn on light for night time trips to the loo as crunching underfoot the occasional nocturnal survivor is not a nice experience.

Domestic Science: B- Early intentions to eat healthily crumbled thanks to her unerring ability to find Snickers Bars in every corner of the world.

 

Come Spring – the ponds will be a mosaic of pink, yellow and white blossom and I will set off on the first leg of the Isabella trail……………………….

 

Falls of a different kind

Of the four options for a bike ride from the hotel, the Happiness Trail appealed most.

It was 13.7 kilometers – the Hero Trail was too long at 20.5 km – the circular route crossed the Ming Shi River twice and took in seven villages.

And it started oh, so well. For the most part the narrow road was concrete, running between fields of high bamboo on one side and lime green paddy fields on the other.   

At Longgan Village that changed.  The pastoral scene turned into a huge building site with monster diggers, lorries and tractors.  Their deep, wide wheel tracks criss-crossed the path, turning it from concrete back to red earth.

Within yards what was left of the path liquified into the kind of mire that the local water buffalo love and bikes do not. The front wheel stuck.  The bike slewed sideways.  Very gently, I fell off into the mud.

There was no point getting back on the bike.  For the next hundred yards I trudged along looking like I’d just played 90 minutes of rugby on a wet, winter’s morning on a bad pitch in the UK.  My right arm and leg, side and half my back were totally encrusted.  My sandals couldn’t be seen at all.  I just had mud-clumps for feet.

Fortunately at that point an almighty downpour began.  The slashing rain sluiced off some of the mess and redistributed the rest of it over the last clean patches of my clothing.

It stopped raining just as a solid path re-appeared, running alongside a stream.  So I stopped to swish my sandals semi-clean, scrape the mud out of the pedals and brakes and generally sort myself out.

Amazingly within 5 minutes the sun was out, I was dry, although covered in a rather strange reddish brown powdery residue, and peddling on. 

It’s harvest time.  The fields are full – of mainly women – cutting neat bundles of the green rice stalks – the paddy.  Those are left to dry and then collected for threshing.

It’s timeless and beautiful.

The backdrop is stunning but the villages here aren’t pretty.

They’re a functional cluster of white blocks.  Chickens, ducks and the occasional dog roam around.   Children play with whatever they can find…..a broken length of pipe, a discarded wheel, clambering up and down piles of empty plastic bottles and wicker baskets.  

The women who aren’t in the fields are usually sitting on low stools stripping bamboo, sifting grain, mixing and kneading the evening meal.  

After Watun Village the path began sloping upwards, back towards the main road.

Thanks to my unexpected double-dousing in mud and rain the ride took two hours. I  had been thinking of tagging on another short trail but decided on more water instead.  A hot shower.  A swim in the pool.  A soak in the hot tub.

And despite everything, the Happiness Trail was well named.

Falls and rip-offs

The first day of my long weekend away went so smoothly – until about 3.30pm.

When problems struck, I was helped on my way – yet again – by a smiling soldier from the People’s Liberation Army.  (see Holiday Hell)  And by 7pm I was in hot-tub  heaven.  (not with the soldier)

The plan was to visit Detian Falls, on the border between China and Vietnam, the largest waterfall in Asia.  Unlike my last manic trip out of town, this time I got a local bus to the terminal within minutes, the long distance bus was only half full and I munched on the locally-grown short, stubby, sweet bananas and stared happily out of the window over the next six hours, as the wondrous limestone “karst” peaks began to emerge from a thick, white sky.

The first sight of the falls is astonishing.  Under a zig-zag of hills, several cascades of water burst out from high on the thickly wooded hillside, plunging into a shallow section of the milky-green river.   That’s Vietnam.

The real glory of the falls belongs to China – a triple-layered, curved curtain of sparkling white water that pools, gushes and bounces off the mossy rocks .

A slippery walk down a steep path brings you to the river’s edge and the inevitable organised boat trip. From the other bank small bamboo rafts come alongside with women selling cheap Vietnamese cigarettes.

“Their” side is much quieter.  It doesn’t look as if there’s much tourism -just a handful of people standing by a stone marker reminding them which country they’re in.

Our raft edges into the spray, the two boatmen punting so hard on the poles that they’re almost lying on the deck before we escape the swirl and float back into the calm mid-stream.

Feel the spray….breathtaking Detian Falls

The boat drops us on the China bank.  There are stairs cut into the rock, alongside the falls, leading up to various viewing platforms.  Each view is glorious.

Finally you emerge on the top road, which I thought might be a boring walk back to the entrance.

 In fact every few yards there was another astonishing glimpse through the trees.  And one “confused” tree.

Among the Oleander, Osmanthus, Cherry,Mimosa and Hibiscus that line the walk back – all labelled – there’s an Acacia tree, native to Taiwan.  So this poor tree – with its roots in China – is “homesick” according to the sign – obviously yearning for that renegade territory to return to the Motherland.

I emerged back on the little square of shops and restaurants, with a huge car park in the middle full of tour coaches and private vehicles. It was about 3.30 – plenty of time to catch a local bus to Ming Shi, where I was treating myself to two nights in a luxury resort, recommended by one of my colleagues.

Except there were no buses.  The square was emptying rapidly as all the Chinese visitors piled into their comfortable transport and headed home. Within minutes I was virtually the only person left standing between the deserted souvenir stalls.

A group of men in different uniforms was lounging in front of an information office – manned by no-one.  My three words of Chinese have grown into more like a dozen and I can manage, “I’m going to Ming Shi, where is the bus?”

No bus, was the answer.  Finished.

“How far is Ming Shi?”, I said pointing at my feet.  They laughed.

“Shuolong, 15 kilometers.  Then Ming Shi 25 kilometers more”

A young soldier in PLA fatigues gestured at a white van – the driver asleep, his girlfriend playing games on her phone.  “Shuolong”, he said.

He walked me over to the van and discussed something with the driver.  The good news was they were going to Shulong and the fare was 5 kwei – 50 pence.  The bad news was they wouldn’t leave until the van was full.  And no one else was in sight.

The soldier sat in the van with me.

“Where are you from?”, he asked in Chinese.

That’s another of my mastered phrases………”wo shi ying guo ren” – (I am England country person)

“Ah, perfect country”, he replied in English.

“ma ma hu hu” (so far my favourite Chinese expression – it means “so so”), I replied, “wo ai zhung guo” (I love China).

We pieced together that he was based in Shuolong, had a girlfriend, hoped to get married next year, liked American movies and pizza.

Still no other passengers arrived.  So the soldier gently hassled the driver and persuaded him to set off.  “In Shuolong, you get taxi”, he said, as he waved me off.

Twenty minutes later, in Shuolong, I bartered with a cab driver to take me on to Ming Shi.  He wanted 150 kwei – 15 quid!  We agreed on 100.

He set off up a steep mountain road then to my great concern turned off the tarmac   into what appeared to be a quarry.  We ploughed through the red mud heading for an enormous concrete tunnel – except it wasn’t yet a tunnel – just a massive tube sitting in an expanse of churned up ground.

Lone women.  Fading light.  Unknown driver.   Middle of nowhere. Great!

I started breathing again when I saw a motorbike emerging out of the gloom at the far end of the tunnel.  And I was even more relieved when the rider was a cop.  He stopped to chat to my driver.  I worked out – assumed – hoped – prayed that we were just on a very new stretch of road, by-passing the old road we’d turned off.

A few minutes later came the intensely reassuring sight of the original road rejoining us.

After 40 minutes the driver pulled into a turning, under a huge sign for my hotel.  It appeared to be an entrance to a “scenic site”.  There was a ticket office but no hotel.  Two young tour guides came over.  The driver got out and opened my door.

“Where’s the hotel?”.

“150 kwei”, he said.

After the two girls intervened it became clear he wanted his original price to take me the rest of the way.  If he’d been smarter he’d have stopped half way through the dark, scary tunnel, when I’d have paid almost anything.

As it was he’d stopped only a couple of kilometers short.

“How far is the hotel?”, I asked the girls.

“30 minutes walk”

I paid the man 100 kwei, he spat on the ground, got back in his car and drove off at high speed.

After a very pleasant stroll along the road , past rice fields, a river and stunning scenery  – exactly 30 minutes later I walked through the impressive gates of the Ming Shi Mountain Retreat.

It was everything my colleague had promised.  Luxury.  A very short time after that I was in the pool, followed by a hot tub and planning the rest of the weekend……………

(which like today would have moments of pure delight, total panic and a very muddy surprise……………..blog to follow)         

A heavenly wet weekend

….just back from being drenched with spray from a waterfall straddling two countries

…….a dip in a swimming pool overlooked by mountains

……a soak in a hot tub alongside a river

.…..an unexpected mud bath while cycling past fields of twenty shades of green

……washing off the mud in the torrential downpour of rain

…..a hot shower before….

….  another swim in the pool

Will blog during the week with details……………..

Busted!

Even the most tech-savvy students can be caught out by their own gadgets.

Most of them have a translation app on their phones and they’re allowed to check vocab during lectures – as long as it’s the right vocab.

This morning – half way through the class analysing a BBC world news podcast – a second, very mechanical voice suddenly boomed out over the newsreader.

“VO – LUP -TU- US – Voluptuous”

I glared across at the student, who scrabbled desperately to turn his phone off. But not fast enough to stop the helpful voice repeating

“VO – LUP – TU – US – Voluptuous”

Give the lad an A for initiative – although he’d probably prefer a D.

A little language is a dangerous thing

First lesson in “survival Chinese” yesterday – painful.

First attempt to use my “Chinese” today – disaster.

I’ve got by for the last two months on “ni hao” – hello – and xie xie – thank you.  Along with lots of gestures,grimaces (my “pathetic, old woman, lost” is especially good) and the fact that almost every shopkeeper has a big calculator on which they punch out the price to show you.

But I’ve been blind, deaf and dumb – I can’t read, understand or communicate.  For a journalist that’s terrifying.  I need my antennae to function, even in a limited fashion, if I’m to understand anything about this amazing country.

And of course it’s shameful to be somewhere and not make any attempt to speak the language.  So I finally booked myself in with the delightful woman who’s taught several of the Westerners on campus.  Some of them have been here many years and speak fantastically good Chinese and even mastered some of the other local languages – like Zhuang.

My aspirations are modest.  I need enough language to navigate through daily life and later on get myself safely round China, following Isabella along the Yangzte delta. ( see previous blog!)

90 brain- boggling minutes later I’d discovered that Chinese grammar – at least at my “basic idiot” level – appears much simpler than I feared.  There are no articles – definite or otherwise. There’s no distinction between he, she and it.  Verbs don’t change through I, you, he, we etc

The killer is the pronunciation – all four sing-song up, down, down and up, flat – tones of it.

I ended the lesson exhausted – not just mentally – my arms ached from waving them around like a deranged conductor, trying to force the right “tune” out of my reluctant larynx

ma – rising tone – (numb) my enthusiastic hand sweeps up and almost whacks my teacher

ma – emphatic down tone –  (don’t) – a short, angled downward karate chop

ma ma – flat flat – (Mama – obviously!)  sideways chop  chop

ma – big u shape sweep – (horse)

Actually hand gestures are big here…………..the Chinese use them for numbers alongside the verbal version.  So I’ve also learnt 1-10 in finger-speak.

Some are obvious – a thumb for one, a V-sign for two.  Three is the OK-ring of thumb and first finger with the other three fingers pointing up.

It’s Number Nine that could get you into a lot of trouble.  It appears to be dangerously close  to the universal sign for “You’ve got a small dick!”.

So I was set my homework.  To use two phrases – “how much is it?” and “what’s that” – in the local fruit and veg. market.  And to write down as many of the answers as I could understand.

zhe shi shen me?  I muttered to myself as I walked alongside the lotus pond between my flat and the market.  zhe shi shen me?  ( this is what?)

duoshao qian?  – flat tone  – down and up – rising – one hand flapping –  mutter,mutter. (how much is it?)

OK – I thought I’d try one of the fruit sellers first.  Actually I did want to know what something was – it looks like a large red hand-grenade with green “triggers”  all over it.  Yummy!

zhe shi shen me?  I said (I think  that’s what I said)

“uh?” he leaned across the stall

I tried again.  Same reaction.

Third time lucky.  zhe shi shen me?

He held out his hands in puzzlement.

I bought a “hand grenade”.

duoshao qian?  He shook his head and showed me the price on the calculator.

As I was putting the mystery fruit into my bag, he said

“Do you want any apples?” – in very good English…………………..