Poetic Consumption

We all love Chinglish, but nothing beats menus that have been translated for the western diner that still need to be translated. Or, you can just go with the most poetic option. Here are a few I've encountered.

- Dance of the Dragon and Phoenix
- Walnut Flowers from Jiuzaigou Valley
- Golden Fish in Turbulent Sea
- Rose Garden
- Life Long Good Partnership
- Half Moon Reflected in a Murky Pond

Don't they sound delicious! Menus are not the only areas graced with such license. I stumbled across a packet of potato chips under the guise, Lonely God. I took 10 packets.

Then there was the 'plain' packet of Sweet Potato Chips that I was shown by some traveler's in Chengdu. The mouth wateringly titled - Sweet Potato Fucks. On the back of the packet, under Ingredients it stated: Sweet Potato Fucks Sugar.

How to annoy people in hostels or practicing Chinese instruments

I wanted to buy some Chinese instruments whilst I was here. In Shanghai I managed to stumble across The Traditional Instrument Factory where I hung around and pestered the guy who fronted the shop until he succumb and showed me some basic techniques for 2 instruments. I am now the proud (remind me of that after a day of lugging them around with my backpack)owner of 2 stringed instruments. The Er-Hu and the Liuqin.

The Er-Hu is known as the 2 stringed violin. It is appropriate for deep tragedy and for the momentum of an avalanche. How could I resist!

The Liuqin is like a small lute or a mandolin with 4 strings and has a willow leaf shaped body (which is the actual translation for Liuqin). It was originally used in folk songs (known in some provinces as sad songs) and operas.

Is immanent success on the horizon for Constantly Immersed In Pain?

Shangers & Mash (or Hom less in Shanghai)

Before I reached Shanghai, I had great aspirations. I was going to meet Mat and we were going to have a weekend on ze town. Due to circumstances in his control, he wiped me (joke). Anyway, this left me with the dilemma of being mentally and enthusiastically prepared for a 'big' weekend but if I couldn't find the people to reciprocate then it would be a disaster. I was even contemplating cutting my time short as I'd heard mixed reports.

Fortunately, I can now report that it was a success. I checked into the groovy Captain's hotel/hostel were backpackers and business people mingle in amongst a sea shanty theme (they love themes). It has a bar which faces onto the business side of the river's skyline. It's all neon and flashing lights. All the skyscrapers are hovering around being the tallest in the world. That seems to be aim. One hotel has the highest everything in the world - bar, nightclub and pool. I made it to the bar on the 87th floor.

Navigation in Shanghai, well China, is like nothing else. Street names change on the same street for no apparent reason and all the taxi drivers are illiterate (better find a computer soon that has a spell check before I paste this one) as they've come from the villages to make their fortunes.

The guide books have everything written in Pinyin (a way of writing Chinese by using the Roman alphabet). Nobody seems to use or understand this. The Shanghai tourism board (who I will be writing too) released a series of glossy pamphlets with things to do, entirely in English. On my first night out, I was carrying around their guide to Shanghai bars. It listed over 70 with arrows pointing to a map of the city. This was about as useful to a Shanghai Taxi driver as a seatbelt. What this did accomplish was being dropped off at random locations that were no where near where we wanted to be. This entailed quite a bit of street walking (see section on streets changing names). Oh, and not only do the names change but the numbers will sometimes overlap, whereby one building will have 2 sets of numbers and 2 street names. Welcome to China...

Thought that I was getting good at this Vegan thing until...

It is very daunting going into a restaurant and not being able to decipher anything on the menu. Especially with my diet. I was getting a bit cocky as I'd had a good run with meals (surprise, surprise) I normally point at dishes on the tables of other diners. I like this as it's not considered rude and you can cruise the tables and sus out the meals. I then accompany this with my rant:

"I am a vegetarian" - "I do not eat pork" (pork seems to come under another category) - "Do not cook with meat stock" - and "Make it free of animal produce". This is what I attempt to communicate via my phrase book before every meal.

So, there I was in Xian, I big trendy city. They have adverts in English (well Chinglish at least) and Chinese. They are the gateway to the Entombed Terracotta Warriors (aka mucho tourists), so I thought it may be easy to get my point across. They've fed a lot of whiteys.

I walk past a little restaurant which has many staff wearing matching uniforms. The Chinese use McDonalds as their aspiration for supreme food service. I open my Mandarin phrasebook and ask for rice - I'm told no. I look around and only see noodles on the tables. I ask for noodles. I'm told yes. I then choose 2 ingredients which I assumed would be cooked with the noodles - spinach and tofu. I then wait for my order. Firstly, came the biggest plate of spinach known to man. But it was beautiful. Cold but with sliced chillies and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. I gathered at this point that I would know be getting 3 separate meals. Next came the noodles, plain in a bowl. That's ok, I can mix them altogether myself. Then, like a throwback to a 70's birthday party came a strange mound - simialar to a meringue with a raspberry sauce. The smell was somewhat hideous - not at all like raspberry sauce. It was then I realised I was looking at the regional delicacy (as I'd read about it) ........ Tofu soaked in pigs blood.

Secondary De Ja Vu

The last time I had a De ja Vu /premonition was in India in '96. I opened the French door of my room in Udipur to acknowledge the morning as we had arrived here late the night before. The building's facade and surrounding landscape was familiar. I remembered this scene from a dream although the country was unknown. I also knew that if I was to walk to my left I would see particular buildings and a certain landscape. This happened in Xian.. I was trying to locate my hostel for the first time. I turned a corner. Suddenly I was struck with the imposing city wall on a slight angle and immediately knew what I would see when I reached the guesthouse. And I did. Martin advised that this indicates that I am in the correct place at the correct time..

Oh Busdriver where are you now?

Yes, off to an early morning start -was woken at 5.30 to have a leisurely cup of tea with an American guy I met in Beijing who seems to be following my path. He arrived at the guest house as I was leaving. My first experience with the Chinese bus service wasn't as pleasurable as my train experience. The bus doesn't actually pull into Pin Yao - old preserved town, so I'm bundled into a cab and driven to the freeway where I am to wait for the bus and then flag it down. The freeway also seems to be a morning hot spot for the Chinese to exercise. This proved entertaining as I had 1 guy jumping up and down continuously whilst focusing on a small bush?! Yes, that's what I thought. As the traffic is quite sporadic at this time of the morning, some of them even walk whilst stretching on the actual freeway. Anyway, the bus arrives, pulls over and I clamber on board. Simple so far. Suddenly it seems that the door won't shut so the next 20 mins is spent with the bus driver and co banging at the mechanisms with hammers and tightening screws etc. Once they are satisfied that they've fixed the problem we head off. The scenery is quite incredible. I view this through the 2 big cracks in the windscreen. We pass miles and miles fields and scatterings of cave dwellings. Kind of like Goreme in Turkey. Suddenly, our bus passes a broken down bus on the other side of the freeway from the same transport company. What eventuates is that all the passengers on my bus (all 4 of us) are kicked off the bus with our luggage whilst the bus drives away to find a turn off to get on the other side to pick up the passengers from the other bus. Phew! Anyway, so here I am sitting on the side of the road waiting for another bus that is heading to Xian to stop for us. Many buses pass but they don't seem to be heading to our destination. Finally after about an hour into waiting, like a mirage, a blue shit heap appears in the horizon. The bus pulls over and there is some communication with the driver and the conductor of our bus. Money is exchanged and I'm once again bundled onto a bus. This bus is full to the brim. People are actually standing in the aisle. Great! The trip will take about another 4 hours from this point. Not to worry, I am escorted to the dodgey seat next to the driver so I have a birdseye view of the traffic he is about to crash into and I get the horn right in my ear for the remainder of the journey. Anyway, I made it...

Ping Yao

Spent another day wandering round this beautiful town. It is such an incredible place. You are left to your devices as no one hassles you. There is such a mix of old and new. In the sense that there is a lot of preserved sights but there is also a lot of dilapidation. At times I have a feeling that I could be in the desert of Morocco or at least somewhere in the Middle East due to the sandstone colours of the surrounding city wall and the roof tops. It's dusty too and windy. It really is the cold here. Looked at the weather for the closest major town to where I am and it got down to -10 degrees yesterday! See, I wasn't just moaning. What this means is that I can't really venture west anymore. I am not physically equipped for such temperature. I feel that I might be catching a cold (moaning). Tomorrow I will head south - another early bus ride at 6am, to the city of Xian.