Field Trip

Last Friday Dr. Kang, JoAnn, two other students, and I left on the 6:45 AM train for the Chinese countryside. The purpose of our trip was to expose JoAnn and me to a Chinese lifestyle other than what we had witnessed in Beijing.

We arrived at a small village just before noon. I’m still not exactly sure where we were, but I know we stayed in Beijing’s province. The town was situated in a mountain valley, right next to a broad, beautiful river. From the train station we walked down 341 stairs (yeah, I counted…) to the house where we were spending the weekend. It was a charming little place, and actually built to house visitors and tourists. So there were plenty of extra beds (actually softer than the one in my dorm), hot showers, and western toilets. JoAnn and I were braced to spend the weekend sleeping on the dirt floor of a hut without any showers, if necessary to get a true experience, but Dr. Kang insisted on finding us more comfortable accommodations.

Anyway, we spent the afternoon in the garden hoeing and picking vegetables for dinner. While everyone else was hanging out watching TV, JoAnn and I snuck into the kitchen to see if our non-English speaking hostess needed help with the cooking. Although we were probably just slowing her down, she humored us by letting us chop the meat and vegetables with huge butcher cleaver-like knives. We must not have messed up too bad, because dinner was quite delicious.

Saturday morning we woke up at 5 and headed to the nearby portion of the Great Wall. The experience was completely different from that of Badaling. For one thing, there was actually clear weather, so I could take in the magnificent views! Also, this area was much less reconstructed, so one had to use a lot more caution to scale the crumbling steps. A few times we even had to skirt around the wall itself, where the path was impassable. Because it’s a spot for the more adventurous sightseer (and because it was 6:30 in the morning) there were very few people there. We’d run into someone maybe every twenty minutes or so. A welcome change from the suffocating crowds of Badaling.

We hiked most of the morning, and were dripping in sweat by the end of it. After lunch back in the village, the plan was to sleep away the afternoon. JoAnn and I tried, but were unable to nap for very long and quickly bored by Chinese television. So we decided to explore the village a little more. It was quite a change to be in such a rural place after seven weeks in Beijing, but we were by no means in one of the poorest parts of China. There was a local grocery store, solar panels for the streetlights, and a few people (including our hostess) with very nice houses. On the other hand, there were many with extremely modest housing – dirt floors, no running water, and perhaps one or two rooms. It was another prime example of how China is a motley collision of modern technology and ancient customs, and the gaping differences in standards of living.

Back at our “home” JoAnn and I helped with dinner again – this time dumplings! Jiao zi might be my favorite food that I’ve tried here, and I can’t wait to cook them at home.

In the evening there was a celebration at the village’s “playground” – a small square with two basketball hoops and a few pieces of exercise equipment. A group of visiting college students were putting on a promotion (as far as I could gather) for the Olympic games. Contests of various kinds were being held and ’08 Olympics merchandise being handed out as prizes. One student named David, who had invited us, was in charge of recording everything on his video camera. He insisted on filming JoAnn and I signing our names on the banner, and conducting short interviews with us on our views of China (though I doubt we could be heard over all the noise).

We were also dragged over to a group of children who were drawing pictures of the Great Wall and the Olympic mascots and told to add our own artistic creation. Feeling rather intimidated by the marker masterpieces around us, we scrapped together drawing which was promptly posted on the wall. It looked a little pathetic but, we each received a package of Olympic mascot keychains for our efforts.

We also participated in the jump rope contest (quite embarrassing) and tried to play hacky sack (even more embarrassing). My favorite part of the evening was when drums were brought out and a few of the village women began doing traditional Chinese dances.

Sunday morning we left early again to do more hiking at what I would describe as the equivalent of a national park. We spent a couple hours viewing the woods and waterfalls, which were beautiful. However, I think our Chinese friends were more enthusiastic about the visit, since it was obviously famous to them, and JoAnn and I had already seen similar formations in North America.

In addition, though it had only been two days, it felt like much longer, and we were all anxious to get back to Beijing. We caught the 3:08 train and JoAnn and I watched Chinese movies on Dr. Kang’s computer until the battery died. It took about five hours to reach Beijing and I was thoroughly glad to see my cozy dorm room.

Pictures of the trip (along with some others I’ve been sitting on for awhile) will be on flickr imminently.