"Christmas in China...Chengdu"

23rd December (Day Eighteen)

I got up fairly early today so that I would be able to buy a ticket for the evening train to Chéngdú, which is in the Sichuãn province. I had no particular reason for going to Chéngdú, it is just on the way to Hong Kong, and is conveniently placed so that I will be able to travel overnight and therefore maximize the amount of day-time available to go sight-seeing. One thing that I knew about the Sichuãn region was that the giant pandas originate from here, and also it’s the home of hot Chinese cooking.

Once at the train station I came across some more Europeans who were also up at the crack of dawn to ensure their place on the overnight train, most came from Holland and Denmark. Fredrick came as well to get a ticket as it looks like he and I are sort of travelling together for the time being, which is OK as we can share the price of hotel rooms and taxi’s.

As it was almost Christmas, the station was very busy and as usual there was the ’red tape’ that the Chinese appear to be the masters of. There was only one person who could sell the foreigners tickets and she was busy selling the Chinese tickets so we had to grin and bear it! Once she had opened the window for non-Chinese she was then very rude to us as we asked for middle beds on the hard sleeper train. I do not think this attitude is anything to do with us being foreign, it is just the Chinese way, so I parted with my Y120 (£12.00) and departed the station.

Beijing had been a nice place to visit however, under the quaint exterior it was just the capital city of a large country, whereas this was the real China that I had come to see, were the people appear to be living just as they had for decades with most of them still wearing their Red Army uniforms, traditional blue jacket and trousers and a blue cap. Outside the station was quite a sad sight as they do not have anything like the level of health care that we have in the West, I happened to see a handicapped child who was obviously in distress, but being ignored by everyone. The child could not bend his legs at the knee joint and was ’shuffling’ along crying out in Chinese, his clothes were very dirty and obviously soiled where he had been to the lavatory, or rather had not, (if you see what I mean). I hoped that his mother or father were not too far away but I imagine that in this country a child, (even if a boy) who is handicapped in some way would not be as welcomed as a healthy one. A case of the strongest survive I feared.

For the rest of the day, Fedrick, Rick Erick and I walked for miles around the streets, just watching everyone going about their daily routines. Everywhere we went people shouted out "Nî Hâo" which in English means hello, they were all are very friendly towards us although a lot of them stared. I’ve got used to that now and just smile and say hello, they are usually shocked to find out that you can speak, (or that’s the impression they give) and often try to start a conversation with me. I was glad that I had the L.P. phrase book with me, I could almost hold a conversation in Chinese by pointing to various questions, then they would then have the book to look up anappropriate answer and point it out to me, so I could read the English translation. It was fairly slow but it meant that I actually met the everyday Chinese person, and that is what I came for.

Around the city centre are the city walls where we walked to get a ’birds eye view’ of the city. It was very good as it was possible, using the telescope that I purchased on the trans-Siberian train, to spy on the people and enjoy watching them. It was fascinating as their way of life is just so different. Walking along the walls, we came across a performance of Chinese opera where the crowds had gathered to listen as they played their musical instruments. To the untrained ear it sounded like someone ’bashing’ hell out of a drum and someone trying to saw a violin in half, but I’m sure, judging by the applause they received, they were actually quite good.

Dinner was reasonable although it was a bit of a ’let down’. The L.P. guide told us of an excellent restaurant to visit so as the book is always very helpful in these matters, we headed there. The food was nice, I had hot fish, (mild) pork, rice and a beer and altogether it only came to Y15 (£1.50), the problem was the place had no atmosphere and I felt afterwards that we could have found a better place just  by looking around ourselves.

At 4.30pm we got the train to Chéngdú and almost as soon as the train had left was settled in, and headed off for a walk to see who I could see. I did not even get into the next carriage as I bumped into nineteen Chinese students at the other end of ours and soon got chatting to them. What was more amazing I had a chat with Ronald Regan, (not the Ronald Regan ex-president of the USA but Ronald Regan the Chinese student!). What they tend to do is ’adopt’ a Western name which they call their English name, and of course they retain their Chinese name. But what is funny is that they don’t pick an ordinary name, they always pick a name of someone famous or someone they idolise. During the entire trip I bumped into the actor, Clint Eastward and Elvis Presley! Its all quite amusing to us but to them it is their English name and they are proud of it. The students were all studying various languages and when they have finished they will become guides for the state and will take tourists around or be ambassadors for their country, rather like the guide I had at the Great Wall a few days back. They could not choose which language they had to learn, they were told which one by the authorities.

I suppose this way they have just the right amount of each language rather than too many English speaking and not enough Japanese ones, or something like that. Some of them could speak Japanese (as well as Chinese of course), and others could speak only French or another European languages so the evening was very amusing as we had to translate between two or three different languages at any one time to hold a conversation.

I spent most of the evening sitting with a girl called Hanna (her Western name), who was really nice to chat with although it was obvious right from the start that she was very naive about life and relationships. It was an excellent opportunity for me to discover what life in China is actually like, although I have to admit that when Hanna asked me questions, it was hard to be totally forthcoming with my answers as I never wanted to appear that I was bragging that we had a better life in the West. For a start their wages are pitiful and although their cost of living is lower and their life style is not so demanding, they would not be able to comprehend that my daily income was equivalent to their monthly salary!, I just evaded many of the answers. Hanna told me that she would like to travel one day and she asked me all the question she could think of about every country I had visited. We had a really nice time together, her sense of humour was great! By 10.00pm we had a party in full swing and there was plenty of beer and vodka about, but the Chinese girls never touched a single drop, apparently it is something that Chinese girls just do not do and they were very shocked and surprised to learn that girls in the West drink alcohol, again it is something that I just take for granted, but it is not something within the Chinese culture. I tried asking Hanna why they never drank alcohol and her answer was "because we don’t", I could not argue with that really. The party went on well past midnight by which time I had headed for my bed to get some sleep.

24th December (Day Nineteen)

Sichuãn Province.

This is the largest province In China with a Population to match, more than one hundred million people. In the eastern section there is the densest rural population on Earth, while the region to the West remains scarcely populated, those who live there are mainly Tibetans.

Roughly the size of France, Sichuãn has very rich natural resources, and with its wild mountain ranges and fast flowing rivers, it has kept relatively isolated until the present era. Today much of the western fringes still very remote. The Capital is Chéngdú and the largest city is Chóngqìnig, which is also the port for the ferry journey down the Yangtze river. The remote mountains of Sichuãn are the natural habitat of the giant panda, which, despite Chinas one thousand one hundred and seventy four species of bird, four hundred and twenty species of mammals and five hundred species of reptiles, is the only animal people of the West automatically associate with China. This is probably due to the Chinese fondness of giving them away as presents to foreign governments!! One of the current most important people in China come from this province, the President Deng Xiaoping.

It was Christmas Eve today, I had not really thought too much about where I would be or what I might be doing on Christmas Day itself, partly because there was no sign of the Chinese celebrating Christmas due to their religion.

After I got myself out of bed at 8.30am, I went down the carriage to see Hanna, Ting Ling and the others that I had met the previous night. They had Western views on Christmas and invited me to their hotel tomorrow night to spend Christmas with them, which I thought was very nice of them. Outside the train the countryside was very fertile and lush, it was obvious that we were getting further south although the temperature was still nothing to write home about, still it was starting to look more like the China I had expected to see. The train arrived at Chéngdú railway station an hour late at 12.00 midday, when it was time to say goodbye to Rick and Erick as they were going on to other parts of China, and thought they would be on the train all day tomorrow Christmas Day). So I got my back-pack on my back and left the train when suddenly I heard someone shout, "Neil"! I could not believe my ears as the last thing you expect is to meet someone that you know in a country like this. Anyway it was Amy, who was on the Trans-Siberian train with me, what a coincidence! Usually I go for a walk along he train to see if there are any other Westerners on board, but last night I never got further than my carriage when I met the Chinese crowd, hence I had no idea Amy could have been on the train.

After a short chat we decided to go to the Jiatong Hotel which sounded fairly cheap and cheerful with the beds only seventy five pence per night, the cheapest place yet! We got onto the bus and headed for the hotel. On arrival at the Jiatong we discovered that there was no heating in the rooms, and it was absolutely freezing. The main cause for coldness of the room was that some of the glass in the windows was broken and there was no carpet on the floor, just bare concrete. What could I expect for just seventy five pence per night? The hotel in general was alright for the money, or at least the room was but the toilets were a different matter! Maybe I have a fixation with Chinese loo’s but this one was the most bizarre yet as there was nothing to divide the toilet from the one next door except for a small brick wall about three feet tall high. Consequently this meant that when you had to use the toilet for a ’number two’, there was absolutely no privacy from any one else in there with you It was very hard at first, but when you have to go, you have to go!

At 3.15pm I telephoned Michelle who was very surprised to hear from me as I had told her that I would ring her next on Christmas day. I was really missing her and it was getting increasingly harder to talk to her on the telephone and tell her just how much I miss her. I think the best situation would have been for her to be there with me, then it would have been possible to just relax and not worry about her and what she was getting up to!

I had a nice surprise back at the Hotel as the lads that I had met at Xi’an had arrived, all nine of them. So it now looked like Christmas day would be OK after all. We decided we should all go out and have a proper celebration. The L.P. guide had recommended a small restaurant called, ’Mr.Lees’ who, surprisingly, was also the owner. He had, according to the L.P. guide, the ability to arrange anything that you required and, for a small booking fee, would buy your railway tickets at Chinese prices and so make a saving for the traveller. We all arrived at his restaurant and just sat around outside watching the world go by and taking some pictures of the locals. After telling him that we wanted to celebrate Christmas, he suggested that we go to a Sichuãn duck restaurant to eat and then he suggested a bar where he knew a lot of Westerners would be tonight as all the ex-pat community always went there. The duck restaurant was nice except for the fact it was freezing inside due to the fact they refuse to close the door, (they said that people would think they were shut) this was despite the fact that the whole of one wall was glass. The Chinese certainly have strange ideas!

After the meal we went to the pub where I’m ashamed to confess, I ended up hopelessly drunk ’out of my head’, (well it was Christmas). Most of the people appeared to be ’Yuppie’ Chinese and there was various sorts of Chinese entertainment with the most double jointed girl I have ever seen performing on a stage. The positions that she could get her body into was unbelievable, to this day I’m still impressed with her.

There was a great deal of singing and dancing as well as some ’good old’ western entertainment, a drinking competition! It was won by a French guy who amazingly could down a litre of beer in just FOUR seconds!!!

I met a really nice Canadian girl whose father was a local diplomat, she was here for the Christmas holidays to visit him. Her name was Mai Lee and she was half caste, and turned out to be a really interesting person. She joined us for some Tequila which every one was slamming back, that’s how I got so intoxicated!

The night went really well and about 2.00am I staggered home to the hotel to get some sleep, although finding the hotel in my drunken state proved to be the hardest challenge to date.

25th December (Day Twenty) Christmas Day

I woke up at 8.00am and was almost immediately sick although I did manage to get to the toilet first! I could not believe the hang-over that I had, it must have been the Tequila that we had been drinking, I guess that I’m just not used to spirits.

At 1.00pm, Amy, Fredrick and I went over to Mr.Lee’s to meet up with the other Europeans. The plan was to go to a Chinese opera which Mr.Lee had said would be very good, although we were a little bit unsure if his idea of a good time was the same as ours. Anyway we never got to find out as the opera was cancelled, so with nothing else planned, seven of us headed off to the famous Chéngdú zoo to see the giant pandas. The Sichuãn province is famous for the giant pandas that they have bred in the zoo, so we were all expecting to see a zoo that would fit the reputation that we had heard, but we were to be very disappointed with what we saw. To start with the entry fee into the zoo was five Jiao (½p) but we were all in agreement that we would have rather paid £10 to see the animals kept in better conditions. The pandas looked happy enough and there was a film crew there filming them, so I suppose they had lots of attention at the time we saw them. The story around the rest of the animals was not the same at all, one part of the zoo was a sort of ’pets corner’ where there was a selection of animals all with their cages next to one another. One of the cages housed a bear which was far too large for the cage, the poor thing could only just stand up and the floor of the cage was made of iron bars which meant that he had to continually balance to stop himself from falling through the bars. His claws were very long which was an obvious indication that he had not had much exercise to keep them trim. I found it very hard to see everything as it just upset me, I wondered how long the bear was kept in the cage during the day? I kept trying to convince myself that as soon as the zoo closed for the evening, the bear would be let out to roam free until tomorrow when it would be locked up again for the visitors, however, I was not so sure that would happen! It was the same for the lions, puma’s, monkeys and just about everything else we saw, it was very sad there and not really the sort of thing that one would do on a ’happy’ day like Christmas Day, but I was glad that I had seen it as it brings home to me that I am in China, and when it come to animals they are a very cruel race.

For the rest off the day we walked around the town and watched the Chinese going about their daily business. I sat in Mr. Lee’s restaurant and took candid photographs of the people as they walked and cycled by, some of them turned out really well and I’ve had them enlarged. I had tried to ring Michelle quite a few time but there was no answer, she was going to her Sister’s for Christmas dinner and I had not got that number so all I could do was keep trying to ring her at home in the hope that I would be able to talk to her and wish her happy Christmas. I managed to ring my mother and father and have a chat with them which was good. Darren (my nephew) had chicken pox but apart from that everyone was fine!

We all went to a restaurant for a ’Christmas’ dinner Chinese style, I do not think anyone actually expected turkey so we had crispy fried duck instead! Mr.Lee came with us and because of his influence in the town we were able to eat at a very good price. It is quite amusing really, the price that we had to pay for a meal was usually only a couple of pounds, a bargain by U.K. prices, but were always looking for a bargain and trying to eat as cheap as possible. The meal was not too bad although the door to the restaurant was left open all the time as the staff told us, (through Mr.Lee) that if they closed the door, people would think that they are closed for business, so, as a consequence, it was bloody freezing! (Just the same as yesterday!). After dinner we headed back to the hotel where they had a ’disco’, or at least the Chinese equivalent. It was quite amusing to see them waltzing to Bruce Springsteen! Very funny to observe. We all had to stop ourselves laughing out loud at the Chinese, (something that would not be very polite to do in their country). When they dance together, they hold their partners as if they are in a ’Come-dancing’ competition and their facial expressions are very serious the whole time that they are dancing. One guy that I was talking to asked me if I was a keen dancer, and if so, I should go ahead and ask a girl if she would like to dance. Very politely I said I might later!

I met a Chinese girl who spoke fairly good English and I ended up talking to her for much of the evening. It was much the same as when I talked to Hanna on the train only yesterday, she was very sweet but very naive about life and the way things are, but I suppose that is because it is just the different customs and beliefs that we have.

After spending a few hours at the hotel party some of us went back to one of the bedrooms and had a little party of our own, although the main reason was so that some of them could smoke a few ’joints’ in private, everyone except me that is, as it is now twenty days since I’ve had a cigarette and I’m not going to start again now!

Did not get too drunk tonight (for a change) missing Michelle!

Read Neils complete adventure here.