This Time To Guangxi - Part 1

Preface:

I had not set out to write about my travels in China this time, but events that occurred prompted me to share this account of my recent trip to Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Most of the photographs are culled from the various websites promoting Guilin and Guangxi. They do more justice to the scenic places than I possibly can with my point and shoot instamatic.

Dec 21

This morning I abandoned Sasha and my wheelchair bound mother, in that order, to the care of my wife, and flew to Guangzhou. From Guangzhou I took a connecting flight to Guilin, in China reputed to be the most beautiful place under the heavens 桂林山水甲天下. It was near 4 oclock when I arrived at the hotel, my well trusted Home Inn. Reaching the hotel was not without frustration. The airport bus dropped me off at a busy intersection of the city, and the driver told those of us who alighted that the train station was just around the corner. My hotel was supposed to be right across the train station. As usual there were lots of transport touts at the drop-off point, but I ignored them all and went about my own way. As I was walking in the direction of the station a guy on motorbike, also touting fares, called out to say that the station is a 20 minute walk away. That planted an element of doubt in me, so I crossed the road to hail a cab.

“Can you send me to the train station. My hotel, the Rujia, is right across the station” said I.

“On vacation? I can send you to a nicer and cheaper hotel.”. The taxi driver’s opening gambit.

“No thanks. I already have a reservation at the Rujia” I said.

“ The Rujia is a small hotel and it can be rather noisy around the station.” he persisted.

“No thanks, please send me to the Rujial”

“OK, you’re here”

Incredibly the hotel was only a hundred meters away from where I hailed the cab. That s.o.b. of a driver could have told me so, but he chose not to. The fare? 8 yuan. One dollar seventy Singapore.

I took a stroll around the hotel, got my bearings and checked out the possible makan places. It was too late for a day tour of the city so I booked one for the night. There were a couple of night tours to choose from. The hotel receptionist recommended that I do the ‘Two rivers and four lakes tour’ of the city that night as the weather for the following day would be wet and cold.

Come nightfall I took a taxi to the Wenchang Pier boarding ramp for the tour. There was another hassle on the cab. This time the driver wanted to drive me to buy tickets for the tour at an agency. I said it won’t be necessary, as I will be getting them at the Pier itself.

“They don’t sell tickets at the Pier” he lied.

“That’s okay with me. If they don’t I will just walk around the area.” I wizened.

Guilin is a tourist city, and of course its cab drivers are fare savvy, even resorting to disinformation to clinch some extra income through commissions. So be it. I have no problems with that, except that I do not want to be inconvenienced.

Just as I was paying for my ticket at the Pier office, a fifty-ish woman rushed up and offered to sell me her ticket, at a lower price, she claimed. I pretended not to understand her and begun to speak to her in English.To my surprise she answered in reasonably good English. She said something about her father not being able to come and she had to give up his ticket. She even volunteered to intepret the on-board commentary for me. Who knows. I have been made used of before. Years ago in Shanghai a Beijing woman wanted to exchange her husband’s clothing coupon for cash. When she couldn’t do that she then needed someone to model for her husband’s clothing entitlement. That was where I played my part. It was definitely some scam to make money, and when I was no longer of use, I was summarily dismissed by a light flick of her wrist. 去!去!去! Go! Go! Go! How demeaning! I well remember the look on that woman’s face. So this time round I stood my ground. No deal! That really puzzled her. She couldn’t understand why I was not willing to help her, just buy over her ticket. Like I said, I do not wish to be inconvenienced. By now I have already formed an opinion of this place. It is full of crooks and hasslers!

The tour of the city by boat was rather interesting, not unlike the canal tour of Amsterdam, except that the seating on the boat was badly designed and extremely uncomfortable. Also it would have been helpful if I could at least listen to the tour commentary but for the din created by my fellow riders’ incessant chatter. They never stopped talking, mostly in their incomprehensible regional dialects, continuously competing with the guide’s commentary over the loudspeakers.

On land, Guilin’s two rivers and four lakes are interconnected by a system of well tended and picturesque parks. It would be nice to wander around on foot had the weather been kinder. On water, an intricate system of locks enable waterborne craft to be transfered from one river system to the other. The city’s planners have done a good job in preserving Guilin’s river and lake façade, keeping at bay those unsightly and downright ugly high rise buildings, like those I have seen in Hangzhou. Kudos to the city planners!

回家

Acknowledgement:

For my initial attempt writing in Chinese I wish to thank Pastor Kenny Chee for his confidence in me. If not for his encouragement I would not have found the courage to put my thoughts down in a second language. Pastor Kenny is a blogger himself. His postings, mostly on religious matters, are a lot more thought provoking. You can follow them at:

http://www.blogpastor.net

回家

第一次踏上中国国土是在1988年的四月初旬。我带着年迈的父亲一起回到他久违的故乡。对我父亲来说他此行是‘回家’，而不是 ‘回乡’。虽在狮城立足了60年之久，在他的心中依然是怀着‘家在祖国’的概念，可见他对故土的思念是多么地浓烈和渴望。

是年离邓小平所领导的改革开放已有十年之久。年庚37的我，是当一名空勤机械师，随着喷射客机在空中驰骋。中国的民航业仍是处于对外开放的初期，所以新航还没有开往中国大陆的航班，我也没有到访中国大陆的机缘。有一次偶然地与一名英籍机长合乘 组，交谈中获知他和太太刚从中国畅游回来，还叙述了他们旅途上的经过。我对他说我父亲是出生于中国南方的农村，来新已有六十年的光景，至今未有机会返回故土，再及双目失明，年岁已高，行动有碍。各种籍口说完之后，机长瞪了我一眼。他带着谴责和劝勉的口吻简单地对我说，假如我为儿子的不带他去，他可能今生也没有

机会了。

听了机长的忠告，反省了半天，结果一个月后我带着父亲母亲和她一位姊妹启程回乡。是年父亲78岁，已是个白发苍苍的老翁，可是他归心似箭，带着轻盈的脚步，就像拥有他19岁时离乡的体力般，踏上回乡之路。

当年我们是乘坐飞机经香港过境。那是他毕生以来第一次乘坐飞机，心情紧张兴奋。翌日转搭快捷渡轮到位于珠江口的珠海市码头。途中虽然遇上多种的不便，可是父亲没有怨言，默默地承受了路途上的艰难。

我曾两度在中国国土上有过非寻常的心灵感受。首次就是当时第一步跨上中国领土的霎那，其次是数年后乘渡轮漫过长江水，这两次我都有过一份难以解说的情怀。当时一股莫名奇妙的激情涌到了心头上。我领略到我的根源就是出自于这一片神州大地，这一道滔滔长流的江水。

我父亲的老家是位于广东省中山市古镇镇古一村。离珠海港大约40公里左右，还距有

一段路程。在亲戚们热情的陪接下，上了简陋的小巴，缓缓地驶向目的地古镇。中山市的原名为香山县。1925年为了纪念同县翠亨村出生的国父孙中山先生而更名为是也，先县而后市。父亲的记忆仍是异常清晰的。所有途经的大小乡镇，如石岐，曹步，小榄等他一一记得清清楚楚。可惜父亲未能亲眼目睹当年珠江三角洲迅速的发展建设。这里是全中国工业发达得最快的区域。多条宽阔的道路，多座横跨江河的新桥梁都在兴建中，与十年前文革期间相比是繁荣昌盛得多了。

来到了古镇下榻的宾馆。那是一座五层楼高的楼房。我们恰恰被安顿在四楼的阁间，房费每晚30元，相等于新币10块钱。房内的设施简陋，卫生间又频频漏水，马桶像好几年没刷过似地，环境设备差得很。它只有一个好处，就是离父亲的老家不远，步行五至十分钟就可到达。

在村里父亲唯一的亲属是他一名堂弟。这些年来他家里的大小事也就是这位堂弟以零希的信件告知。我记得每逢有家书寄来都引起我父母之间的不愉快。信中往往提及修补祖屋的相干事。话说到底无非是要父亲急寄一笔修补费回去。那时我们家穷，父亲只当一名跑街的小贩，收入微薄，而要维持一家八口已是件困顿的事。记得母亲的唠叨，自家的茅屋漏得不勘也没钱去补，哪里还有资格顾及于哪个乡下的老房子呢！

带着父亲由陋巷逐步向他的故居走去，路经一片栽种着蕹菜的池塘，塘底仍有泉水连连冒渗出来。父亲跟我说他年幼时经常在那儿洗澡玩乐，还说池里所种出来的

蕹菜特别香甜爽脆。水塘对则就是咱苏家祠堂，简陋不堪，长年无人修管。祠堂旁边就是我父亲朝暮思念的老家了。

老家现任的住户是一门远房的亲戚。进屋之后我父亲站在门槛的内则，肃立良久，瞻望着远处，似乎有说不出的万语千言。我看到他这种神情也不禁为他心寒。

父亲到了堂叔的家，一番寒暄过后，第一项重要的事情就是问及他母亲真正的死因。我父亲曾经对我说过奶奶是在日据时期去世的。当时她身边一个至亲也没有。父亲一直都默默地惦念着他母亲是否缺粮而饿死的。对这件事他内疚了四十多年，也一直耿耿于怀，成为他心理上一个重负。堂叔与其他亲信都一致确认奶奶是得了一场重病后而死的。无疑地，她的病与死也很可能是缺乏营养滋补而导致的。

亲戚家里的环境布置使我联想起成长时的一些小环节。小时候带引着父亲去他朋友的家里聚合，在那儿往往看到几位长辈相约在一起。他们经常以我听得半懂的古镇话大声交谈，说东话西。过

了这些年，这一幕情景又重现在我的跟前。就像那老朋友的家一样，堂叔家里也备有罕见的一杆大竹管水烟，听他说这种抽烟的方法是凉性的抽法，不会导致喉咙干渴或体衡过热。堂叔家大厅还贴满了明星月历海报，挂上陈旧的生活写照，这一切都引发起我对往日的回忆。

回乡的期间刚巧是清明时节，乡亲们已安排好父亲隔天上山去祭祖.是日场面气派可观，游子还乡，供香烛，奉烧猪，燃鞭炮 。祭祖过后还摆了酒席宴请乡亲们吃喝一顿。亲友们当时在议论，数年前祖坟要挖迁，当挖掘太公的古墓时，发现其骷髅的双眼孔已被树根钻透。他们大致上都论定我父亲之所以双目失明，根由在此。

这几天在乡里我一直都没有好好地吃过一顿饭。每逢在堂叔家里用餐时我都觉得很困顿。堂叔家前院围放着几头猪，时而阵阵熏天难闻的猪粪味被风吹进客厅里，到了吃饭的时候特别难耐。每顿饭都有鱼肉上桌，人数很齐，大人一桌，小孩们一桌。我父亲吃得特别称心，因为他再次尝到了久违的家乡菜。我对乡亲们吃饭时座上的举止很不习惯。他们嘴里嚼过的碎骨头不是吐在桌上就是直接地吐到家里的地板上。我估计堂叔家里那几只小猫肯定乐极了。

有一天一名堂兄领着我，踏着自行车到镇外附近的农村巡游一周。四月初正是庄稼插

秧的季节。农家门出动了全体成员协助插秧这一项辛苦繁杂的工作。且看农家老少们个个身处于水膝深的稻田里，有的忙着择分稻苗，有的忙着把幼苗转插到沃土上。有些农耕子弟还乘着小舟在田里协助插秧，气派异常。

除了稻田，这里淡水鱼塘星罗棋布，到处皆是。不久前养鱼企业属于大队，现都已私营化。我族下也有好几家是经营这门行业的。挣来的收入虽不多也算足够维持生计。

游览农畜地之后堂兄便带我到一条命名西江的江边。那里有一座破旧的渡头。据说当年父亲就是由这里乘着小舟沿江出到大海，经澳门然后从香港转乘大船南下去到南洋。父亲曾说过他是以‘卖猪仔’的方式来到南洋的，就是说乘船的费用到了南洋要当一个时期的苦力，以劳力代还。我心里为他诉叹，那是一段多么艰苦的历程啊！在离渡头不远，正兴建着由日本资助的横跨西江连接到江门市的一座大桥。

这五天来我除了没吃好饭，连觉也没睡好。原因是蚊子太猖獗了。房里虽然有备着蚊帐，可是一打开来用时一股袭鼻的尿腥味从帐里散发出来。再说这五天里我没有正常的如厕过，村里和宾馆的卫生间实在太可怕了。这几天父亲反而吃得饱睡得好，连每天爬上四层的梯级他也不觉得一点累。

在离开古镇的当天，艳阳高照，亲友们都齐来送行。父亲兴高地对他们说希望来年可以与我大哥一起回乡一趟。话别情长，出发的时间即到了，我情不自禁地对父亲说了一句:‘爸，我们回家了！’

Going Home

Text written on 11 May 1988

For my father, China had always been home. He never spoke of visiting, but only ‘going home’, to China. This was his first trip to China, in fact his first trip anywhere outside Singapore since he left his poverty stricken village some sixty years ago. Today he is seventy-eight, and had been totally blind for the last thirty years.

My father’s village is Guzhen 古镇 in Zhongshan county 中山县 some eighty kilometres southwest of Guangzhou. The county used to be known as Xiangshan 香山, but had been changed to its present name in honour of Dr Sun Yat Sen, the founder of Republican China. He was born in another village not far from my father’s.

When I first stepped onto Chinese soil I was almost overcome with emotion, something which took me quite by surprise. I was more concerned with putting up with the inconvenience of looking after my father, the standard of hygiene and the acceptability of the food to realise that in a way I have come searching for my deeper roots.

To go to Guzhen we took the hydrofoil from Hong Kong to Zhuhai, one of China’s four Special Economic Zones. This is just next to Macau at the mouth of the Pearl River. From there it was another three-hour jalopy bus ride to our destination. Along the way I saw many signs of economic ‘recovery’. In the little towns we passed, shops were bustling with people and goods, and new factories and roads were being built. Gainful construction-based activity were very much in evidence. I said ‘gainful’ because, according to a relative it had not been like this. During the Great Proletarian Revolution, menial labour was accorded the utmost respect. To accord oneself of this honour one had to do ‘work’ often by transporting, by the ubiquitous bamboo pole, a pile of rocks from one location to another.

My father has an amazing memory. As he could not see, we had to tell him the area we were passing through or in, and he would recall them with crystal clarity. Of course, things don’t change very much in China, rural China at least. And the people – his relatives, neighbours and childhood friends, he remembered them all. My father and I were walking along the street one day when an old man, a year younger than my father I was to find out later, walked up to us and identified himself. Immediately my father was able to place him – they played together as kids.

Being illiterate my father never wrote, and when it was absolutely necessary, through a letter-writer somewhere in Chinatown. When his children grew up they were never quite fluent in Chinese, leave alone writing letters for him to China. It thus seemed all the more amazing to me that he remembered so much.

One burden was to be lifted from his shoulders after all these years. He finally know for sure that his mother did not die of hunger during the Japanese occupation. He had always thought so, and had suffered guilt for it, but according to relatives she died after a bout of fever – malnutrition related, I presumed nevertheless.

Guzhen is not as bad as I had expected. I recalled that during my childhood

days, letters from China invariably include a request for food, money or old clothes, if not all three. Today many consumer goods are readily available. One can go down the street and

buy a can of Coke and a roll of Kodak film. I was warned however not to expect the same in other parts of China.

Because of its proximity to Hong Kong – RTVHK broadcasts can be received clearly twenty-four hours a day – it is in a better position to benefit from its capitalist cousin. Wages are twice the national average, (so is the inflation rate) and menial labour comes from out of state.

We changed our money on the black market. One hundred Singapore dollars fetched two hundred and eighty six yuan renminbi. Official rate was only about half that. A good sumptuous dinner at an upbeat restaurant, with lots of Tsingtao Beer thrown in, cost only S$14 for two – and that too considered expensive by the locals.

During my stay I was shown the river where my father boarded the barge to Macau from whence he transferred onto a steamer to colonial Singapore. The passage cost him a princely 15 Straits Settlement dollars, and since he had no money then, he went on the ‘go first, pay later’ scheme. Perhaps some day I will retrace part of his journey with my wife and daughter.

I also visited some of the most scenic countryside there is. The area is generally low-lying and very prone to floods. Fish-rearing ponds dot the area, and canals are important thoroughfares. Dikes, flanked by swaying palm fronds, doubled as roads.

During my father’s time the principal farming activity was rearing silkworms. Today it is replaced by fish-farming. That’s where the money is. Some of my relatives are involved in it, and they do it now as a private undertaking. Rice fields abound. I was there at the time of spring transplanting and large families were out in full force. Most were bent in knee-deep water but some do it in style – by boat.

On the subject of large families, although the official policy restrict the Chinese to one child per family it is not uncommon to see families with two or more children in Guzhen. Officials are quite forgiving, particularly if the couple have a string of daughters. Quite a few of my relatives have had to flee from the authorities after the birth of their second child, otherwise they would be ‘arrested’ and made to undergo enforced sterilisation. They return only when the heat is off. Many expressed surprise at my stop at one policy – and a daughter at that too!

Greedy relatives are often the bane of many a returning overseas Chinese. I have heard stories of returnees being stripped of everything except the clothes they’re wearing. Fortunately it did not happen to us, partly because the closest relatives we have are my father’s sister’s grandchildren, and they’re doing not too badly.

Two events were to remind me distinctly of my childhood. One morning I was awakened by a very loud ferocious voice. Looking down from my fourth storey hotel window I saw a farmer verbally abusing his ten-year old son in the Guzhen dialect. For a brief moment, I could see myself as a ten-year old standing before my father with his saliva spray all over me, the object of his anger.

The other occasion was when I brought him for his first meeting with our relatives in their home. The environment was so much like thirty years ago when I led him to his friends’ home. There was the inevitable Chinese calendar, the faded photographs of family members which took pride of place, and the family bamboo pipe for smoking. Above all I remembered them conversing in their own dialect which I only half understood.

The most trying time for me had to be mealtimes with my relatives. Although I keep reminding myself that what they had to offer is the best they have, I hardly ate. It is more their table manners, or the lack of it, that puts me off.. Their living room floor deserved a lot more respect. Spitting was commonplace. Chewed bones invariably made their way from mouth to floor. For them it was the most natural thing to do. Honestly, there were times when, heaven forbid if my ancestors were to find out, I actually longed for a hamburger at MacDonald’s!

I was rather relieved when time came for us to leave. I had not eaten nor slept well – the mosquitoes made sure of that. Neither did I exercise my bowels all the five days I was there. The state of the toilets were shocking, even those of the hotel we were in. At the same time I could not help feeling a tinge of sadness in leaving behind relatives who, by our standards, are so deprived of many things. I couldn’t help thinking that I could be one of them if my father hadn’t made the move back then. It involuntarily came forth from my lips when we finally boarded the bus: “Pa, we’re going home!”

Text written on 11 May 1988

My Father : Twenty Years On

My father was born in 1911, the year of the Pig. It was also the year of the Chinese Revolution that swept away centuries of dynastic rule. China became a Republic, but for the next few decades she suffered utter chaos. Born to a poor peasant family my father left his poverty stricken village in Guzhen 古镇, in Southern China for Nanyang 南洋, the South Seas, of which colonial Singapore was a part. He was nineteen, jobless and hungry. Almost sixty years later, gray and blind, he took his one and only journey back to his birthplace. It was in 1988, just ten years after the liberalising market reforms by Deng Xiaoping. He had not expected to return to his home village again in his life time.

I was a Flight Engineer at the time. One day I flew with a certain Barry Newman, a British expatriate whom I have only just met. Captain Newman related how much he and his wife enjoyed their vacation in China a week earlier. I told him my father was born in China, and that he would dearly love to visit his birthplace, but due to his handicap it would be difficult. Captain Newman looked at me askance. I could almost read his reproachful mind. "What kind of son are you? Can’t you see there is not much time left?” He encouraged me to do the right thing. We went. My father died on October 16, a few months after he accomplished his heart’s desire.

At the time of that first visit, economic conditions in my father’s village were slowly getting better. Our relatives were doing relatively well. At least they didn’t go hungry, like the lean years of the recent past. Fast forward to the present, November 2008, twenty years later. I paid a return visit with my wife Madeline, and two other interested friends. I took them to see my father’s old dwelling, which still exist in the old part of town. We stayed at a luxurious hotel in the new quarter, where most foreigners stayed when visiting. In the last twenty years Guzhen had become the lighting capital of China. The Chinese within the country and foreign buyers from all over the world come here to negotiate and order lights in bulk of any type, grade and design. Entire streets are lined with nothing but lighting shops, and in the surrounding communities assembly lines churn out these orders. All these, together with numerous other industries in the region, have exacted a heavy toll on the environment. Acute air pollution is now a grave problem.

My relatives are doing well. The next generation has taken over, better educated and more attuned to the outside world. Most are involved in the lighting industry, some in domestic and foreign sales, and others in production. One is a director of a large lighting firm and another owns a couple of production houses. It is all

very different from when my father and I last visited.

I have kept a copy of the travel narrative Going Home I wrote twenty years ago. I will post it next, in toto, unedited from its original. This is my way of preserving the memory of my father. My daughter Joy, and my nephews and nieces can at least have some idea of their roots, if they care enough to want to find out, especially when they get older.

A Trip to Yinchuan, Ningxia China Part 3

10 Oct 2008

I used up the last coffee sachet this morning. I should have packed the equivalent number of coffee sachets as I have the number of trip days.
But there’s always KFC to fall back on, and they are open for breakfast at seven. I checked it out last night when having dinner there. For those who thumb their noses at KFC, let me say that I have always enjoyed their much more tender and juicy chicken compared to those back home in Singapore. They do their chicken right, as their much vaunted slogan goes.

I signed up for a local tour which will take me to the Sand Dunes Lake 沙湖, the Helan Rock Carvings 贺兰山岩画 and the Xixia Royal Mausoleum 西夏皇陵. It is going to take the entire day and cost 378 yuan without meals.

Promptly at seven I received a text message on my mobile, from my guide for today, that she will meet me at the hotel lobby in fifteen minutes. Ms Rong is her name, the ideogram 戎 belonging in the ranks of the tiny minority as far as surnames are concerned. Ironically it meant barbarian. Ms Rong is no barbarian. She’s twentyish, has average looks, dress simply and possess a temperament ideally suited for her chosen vocation.

Two other persons joined the tour from my hotel. I thought they were a couple, but later found, to my relief for the young man, that they merely work for the same danwei, work unit. The use of that term usually meant that the enterprise is state owned. The pushy young woman was from Chongqing Municipality, a mega city of 32 million on the Yangtze, created during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. I don’t like her very much. She behaved in a rather haughty manner, once deeming it fit to openly correct this Southerner’s less than perfect Putonghua. The young man, a local university graduate who spoke impeccable Putonghua, was merely showing her around. His home is in Dawukou 大吴口, a provincial town to the north. It owes its existence to coal power. His parents migrated here from the central plains in 1965 when the coal industry first fired up.

Next to be picked up is a well heeled young couple from Qinghai, with their adorable four-year old daughter. That makes a total of six of us, excluding the guide and driver, in a seven-seater minibus. It does seem off season for tourists.

First stop for the day - Shahu, or the Sand Dunes Lake. From the brochures it offers much the same desert recreational activities as Shapotou, with one major addition. Bird watching. Every spring thousands of migratory cranes, swans and various avian types roost and breed here among the tall and thick rushes.

Before the sand dunes, our little four-year old has to go.
“马上就到了”, “We’ll be there in no time”, says the driver, trying to avoid an unscheduled stop.
I have always been wary of that term 马上, literally meaning ‘on horseback’. The catch here is that it may not necessarily be a fast horse, which means our little girl may have to wait for just a little while longer or a lot longer. She’s got to go, and we had better stop, and we did stop. Poor girl. I know exactly how she must have felt.
There is another expression I am similarly wary about.
几步路.
“How far away is it?” one might ask.
“几步路”, a few steps away, which can literally mean what is said, or a long long way to go. I have been taken in by those words before.

There are plenty of visitors to the Sand Dunes Lake despite being off-season. As the Chinese idiom goes: 人山人海, people mountain people sea. They come from all parts of China, the wealthier from Shanghai and Guangzhou, their poorer cousins from Shanxi and Henan. We piled onto a huge open sided flat bottom ferry and set off leisurely among the rushes of the lake. Many tall structures can be found serving as hides among the slender reeds, but there was not a single bird of the feathered variety to be seen. However we were repeatedly assured by our guide that there will indeed be huge flocks of them in the spring. For now, we will just have to rely on our imagination.

On the other side of the massive lake are the sand dunes. Here is what the tourists have come for. Fun in the desert. There are rides on the twin-hump Bactrian camels, slides down the steep inclines, or a spin on motorised dune buggies, which in my opinion does great damage to the harsh but yet delicate desert environment. For 100 yuan I took a 7 minute ride on a motorised glider, 100 metres above the lake’s surface. I must confess that by doing so I have been equally guilty of contributing to the deteriorating desert environment. I am sorry. For those less inclined there are photo opportunities with massive sand replicas of the Great Wall and the Eight Fairies as backdrop.

Lunch in the outlying areas always poses a problem for me. To eat or not to eat. The Shahu fish head banquet is a supposed must-have delicacy here, so says our guide. Not for me though. The colour of the lake did little to allay my suspicions about the level of pollution. The young family, being Muslims chose to eat at a halal restaurant. I settled at a fast food outlet, careful to order from the menu a simple bowl of vegetarian noodles with tofu.

After lunch our bus takes us on an arduous ride to the Art Gallery amidst the Helan Mountains. The road passes through many grimy and soot laden towns and villages. This here is coal country. The road itself is in urgent need for repair, and I am not the least surprised that funds for such have already been disbursed. One can only speculate on the whereabouts of all that coal money.

The ancient rock carvings of the Helan Mountains have been dated to 1000 years through 10000 years. They have been recognised by Unesco’s World Heritage Foundation, no less, as a veritable treasure trove of ancient art works. Close to the foot of the mountain range and higher up on the sheer cliff faces are thousands of carved motifs depicting various aspects of life and death. Scenes of hunting, copulation, warfare and veneration rituals are plentiful. Other symbols include reproductive organs, palm prints and various animals, both wild and domesticated. Most prominent among these is the symbol of the Sun God, 30 metres above ground level, on the vertical face of a cliff. It is oval in shape, with linear spokes radiating from huge bulging eyes. The most recent carvings will have to be at least a thousand years old. That can easily be dated by the accompanying Xixia script which is decipherable to experts, though we were warned that the picture carvings are not necessarily contemporaneous with the script. Other than the rock carvings we were occasionally entreated to an appearance of the rare Helan mountain goat, a species close to extinction. This whole area reminds me of the ravines of Alice Springs in Australia. Instead of wallabies we have the mountain goats here. And aside from the guide’s commentary, the silence is similarly deafening.

No self respecting tour in China is complete without a visit to some commercial concern. Thus despite the relative late hour, and a major attraction left to visit, our bus pulled into a wolfberry farm. It is more a place selling all sorts of wolfberry products than a farm. It did have a tiny patch of the fruit bearing shrub located at the rear, providing the tourist a live sample of both fruit and tree.

The Chinese name for the wolfberry is gouqi 枸杞, and the Ningxia gouqi is reputed to be the best in the country. Buyers from all over China descend here to purchase the best of the best. This tiny red berry is touted in Chinese herbal medicine as having many health enhancing properties, top of which is 明眼 ‘brightening the eyes’, followed by养颜 ‘retaining one’s youthful looks’. My wife has been cooking with gouqi for ages and still we need glasses, and soon, a facelift. The entire gouqi plant has great medicinal value it was claimed. Besides the berry, the leaves, the roots and the bark all have their uses in Chinese medicinal folklore. The Qinghai couple bought something, if only some preserved fruit mixed with gouqi, which they passed around. I took one and thought it tasted a little bitter at first bite.

The last stop is the highlight of the day for me. This is what I have come to Ningxia for! We arrived late at the gates of the fifty square kilometre Mausoleum. It was already four in the afternoon. On either side of the entrance run majestic red painted walls of more recent vintage. Four gigantic Xixia ideograms, two on each side, stood out in bright gold. They look like Chinese, but they are not. They belong to the only other mono-syllabic ideographic script that mankind has ever devised. Translated, they read ‘大白高国’ literally, ‘Great White Tall Country’.

First we were ushered to the Museum and taken on a trip back into Xixia history. The account of their existence was painstakingly pieced together only in recent years by dedicated scholars of the Xixia from all over the world, including many academics from the West, chiefly the Russians.

The Xixia people were a race called the Tanguts, distant cousins of the present day Tibetans. At the end of the 10th century they managed to secure large tracts of land on both sides of the Helan Mountains and established their little kingdom which they called externally as Xixia Guo and internally as Da Bai Gao Guo. Their system of governance was highly Sinicised, and eventually a new form of writing was evolved from the Chinese written script. One of their major cities was the afore-mentioned Karakhoto northwest of the Helan, and their Imperial Mausoleum on the eastern foothills.

The site of their Mausoleum is said to possess excellent fengshui. Behind it is the formidable Helan, and in front of it the mighty life sustaining Yellow River. To this venerated location was attributed the continued prosperity of their tiny kingdom for 190 years amidst such strident powers as the Khitan Liao, Tungus Jin and Han Song. But it could not withstand the mighty onslaught of the Mongols, led by the greatest conqueror of all times, Genghis Khan.

Genghis himself was said to have harboured intense hatred for the Tanguts. They had time and again broken pledges made to him. They deliberately fail to provide flanking attacks on his enemies, promised to him on his campaigns west. On five occasions Genghis mounted punitive action against the Tanguts but failed. On the last but one he was thrown off his horse, which had stepped on one of those notoriously lethal tiny metal spikes sown by the defenders for this very purpose. Genghis was mortally wounded. On his deathbed, in the summer of 1227AD, he ordered the beheading of the surrendering Xixia king, the systematic extermination of its population, and most importantly, the surgical destruction of the Mausoleum complex divine spirit, lingqi 灵气 by severing the dragon pulse 龙脉 of each of its nine tombs. That, according to Mongol belief, will ensure that the Xixia people never rise again, leave alone prosper. No wonder the burial place of Genghis Khan was kept a secret at the time of his death, and is still a mystery to this day!

I stood in silent contemplation, in front of the number three earth mound. It is the largest in the complex of nine, collectively dubbed the pyramids of China. It was said to belong to the founder of the kingdom, Emperor Li Yuanhao 李元昊, the numbers one and two tombs belonging to his grandfather and father respectively. The wind has died down, and the sun dipped below the Helan Ranges in front of me. This thirty-something metre high denuded mound of earth, with a ground diameter even wider, was once adorned with ornate royal carvings which counted in the ranks of the finest. It was pillaged and burnt to the ground by the rampaging Mongols, and through the ages, its secret entrance found, and its invaluable contents robbed.

The destruction of Xixia is so complete that erstwhile little is known of its history. On Koslov’s mission to Karakhoto he had managed to excavate, apart from that double headed Bodhisattva, crates of historical documents in the Xixia script. Now the plight of these heroic peoples have come to light. This genocide is yet another sad chapter in the sorry history of humankind.


11 Oct 2008

It continues to be a fine cool day today, as indeed my entire stay in Ningxia has so far turned out. Ms Rong the tour guide has tipped me off regarding the two yuan bus service. It depots at the doorstep of my day’s destination, the Islamic Cultural Centre in Yongning 永宁 a town about 15 kilometres away. But first, I must have my morning fix. My walk to the Nanmen station KFC takes me through a bustling morning street market, which puts our own Tekka much to shame.

There are many varieties of fruits and vegetables on sale. I’m not so sure about the fish and meats as I usually shun that section because of the smell. Everything here goes by the jin, one jin being equivalent to 500 gm, slightly heavier than the pound. I don’t think anyone here needs to go hungry. Food seems so plentiful and so affordable by comparison. I really envy the range of choices afforded the local people. The bright colours of the sugar beet, wolfberry, cherry tomatoes, mandarins, eggplant, chillies and many others all make for an interesting portrait. I snapped away happily at the displayed goods and nobody seemed to mind, as long as their faces are not directly photographed.

I should sooner get used to the idea of others giving up their seats for me. It happened again this morning. I was on the packed local bus heading for the Ningxia Hui Cultural Village when this forty-ish man tapped me on the shoulder. I wasn’t sure if it was his seat that he gave up, but he did indicate to me that there was a seat available just behind me, and I could see that he was preventing others from taking it. It kind of makes you feel old, but to reject would make him lose face, so what the heck!

The Cultural Village complex occupies a large area, about five times the size of own Sultan Mosque. It has a huge forecourt, Tiananmen style, where the faithful gather on holy days, and a museum inside tracing the origins of Islam in China. The buildings are constructed in the modern Arab style, quite unlike the typical older mosques in China, which are generally modelled after Chinese temples. This one has, among others, four grand gold plated onion domes topping each corner pillar of the complex, much like those found in the Middle East.

After paying the entrance fee of 30 yuan I was greeted at the grand entrance by a guide dressed conservatively, complete with headscarf and sleeves up to her wrists.
“A-salam aleikhem!” she greeted. Peace be upon you.
“Aleikhem salam!” I returned the greeting. She was taken aback, not expecting an answer.

Just past the grand entrance there was an exhibition hall showcasing, of all things, the Kuwaiti Royal Palace and a scale replica of a Kuwaiti dhow. That instantly led me to speculate on the likelihood of the Kingdom’s sponsorship of the complex. The Arabs’ coffers are full these days and what would a fistful of yuan be to them. However the Chinese government itself is extremely wary of money from the Arabs, fearful that these may be channelled to fund extremist causes among their Muslim minority.

Together with a small group of other visitors we were led through the museum exhibits. We were shown that the Islamic faith primarily entered China from the two Silk Routes, the older land route via the Tarim Basin oases in the 8th century, and the later sea route via the port of Zaiton, or modern day Quanzhou 泉州 in Fujian Province, in the 14th century. Today, out of the 55 minority groups, ten embrace the muslim faith. Almost all live exclusively in the far northwestern provinces of Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia, and a sizable population in Yunnan, from whose ranks emerged the famous Ming navigator Admiral Cheng Ho. Their total head count in China range from 30 million to 90 million, 2.3% to 6.9% of the Chinese population, depending on whose figures you believe.

One interesting piece of information gleaned from the museum led me to refer to my Chinese history texts. In the year 751AD the mighty Tang army which until then had considerable influence in Central Asia was defeated by the Arabs on the banks of the Talas River in modern day Kazakhstan. From then on, to this day Central Asia fell under the influence of the Arabs, and by extension, Islam, instead of the Chinese. A check on the date revealed that it was during the reign of Tang Xuanzong 唐玄宗 the emperor who was infamously recorded in history as being so infatuated by his favourite concubine Yang Guifei 杨贵妃, to the neglect of running his empire. He was thirty six years older than her, and she, fashionally plump I might add, was initially bethrothed to his son.

At the Museum I met a friendly middle aged local surnamed Zhang who kindly attended to my some of my queries. He was there to accompany his colleague from another part of China and could tell that I was a foreigner. This same Mr Zhang who cared to admit to drinking alchohol despite his Islamic faith was so helpful as to arrange my next visit, which was to the remnants of the Great Wall. He made a quick telephone call to the local tourist board and spoke to its chief, checking for the best and nearest location for me to visit. Obviously this man is well connected. He even offered me his driver, to take me to the wall, but I declined. He subsequently negotiated with a taxi driver to take me there and back for 100 yuan.

I arrived at the Ming Wall at Shuidongkou 水洞沟 in the late afternoon. Again as at the Mausoleum, the wind has died down and the temperature rapidly falling. Everyone else had left. I could just about feel the sense of desolation often expressed by those posted to frontier garrisons. There were many. Fan Zhongyan 范仲淹 of the Northern Song came to mind. He wrote a poem when commanding a garrison very near here. It count as one of my favourites:

塞下秋来风景异，衡阳雁去无留意。
四面边声连角起。
千嶂里，长烟落日孤城闭。

浊酒一杯家万里，燕然未勒归无计。
羌管悠悠霜满地。
人不寐，将军白发征夫泪。

I have often contended that the best of English translation could not possibly do justice to the worst of Chinese poems. I can only say that while recalling the poem I empathise deeply with the writer. It brings a chill to my heart and tears to my eyes.


12 Oct 2008

The bus from Yinchuan to Lanzhou takes a little under six hours.
When I reached Lanzhou I made a beeline for my favourite eatery Master Huang 黄师傅. Here I must introduce briefly Lanzhou’s internationally famous snack Lanzhou la mian 兰州拉面. You buy a ticket at the cashier, take it to the noodle chef and tell him the kind of noodles you want. He will then hand-pull the dough right before you. According to local folklore you can tell the social status of a person by the kind of noodles he or she prefers. The women like theirs extra slim, the scholars thin, soldiers like theirs flat and broad, and labourers prefer theirs thick and so on. There are various terms for it, er xi, mao xi or jiuyezi, 二细, 毛细, 韭叶子, a whole culture to eating lamian, or as the Japanese say, ramen.

My favourite is the extra slim ones, never mind if that undermines my gender. I asked them not to add the often fatty cubes of beef, but to heap lots of chilli oil, coriander leaves and spring onions on my noodles. I thought the crunchy translucent slices were cucumbers at first, but they were actually fresh radish. It cost only 3 yuan 50 fen for a large bowl of noodles. Gluttony got the better of me. I had two, plus a boiled egg. I never saw an egg with a bigger yolk. In retrospect I wonder if it was a real egg.

The other Lanzhou dish I wish to describe is mian pian 面片. It consists of tiny pasta squares cooked in a casserole of minced mutton, lots of tangy tomatoes, capsicum, spring onions, chillies and coriander leaves, with rice vinegar as an optional yet necessary condiment. You eat it with a spoon, and it tasted superb!

There is also shui jiao, at Daniang’s 大娘水饺 a chain restaurant serving all manner of boiled dumplings with meat or vegetables or combined, eaten with minced garlic, chilli oil and rice vinegar. It is not a typical food of the northwest region, but like the KFCs and McDonalds it had spread inland from the east. The restaurant is mostly packed with out of state tourists or workers. I saw some of the most vain women here; preening themselves before their hand held mirrors in between mouthfuls of their shui jiao, and lording over their poorer fuwuyuan cousins. Here are the real McCoys, the xiaojies , transplanted city girls working in the nearby karaoke bars and dance halls.

Whenever in Lanzhou I never fail to take a stroll along the Yellow River Esplanade. This is the city’s largest green lung, providing its residents at best, a limited respite from the air and noise pollution synonymous with all Chinese cities. Pockets of citizenry do their own thing here. There’s one of chess enthusiasts, another of cards, and even one of mahjong players. My favourite area is the performance corner near the pavillion. During the day there is always a troupe here staging the local Gansu and Shaanxi variety of opera called qinqiang 秦腔. It usually attract large crowds, mostly the retired elderly and the peasantry from the outlying districts. Qinqiang is one of the more robust forms of Chinese opera, the martial style of singing and the accompanying music rousing the audience’s spirit. The story line often revolves around past military triumph and defeat, heroes and villians, glory and shame.

Another crowd pleaser are the singers of Qinghai folk songs 青海民歌. It is usually performed as a duet, by members of the opposite sex. There is no accompanying music, but the singing follows a repetative score. After a while I find myself humming along to it. The lyrics are in the Qinghai dialect and the singers are ever so good, projecting their clear voices as if over the plateaus and plains of cloudless Qinghai itself. Most are love songs, with plenty of romantic, even salacious, banter and the audiences loved it, erupting with laughter from time to time. I didn’t understand a single word, but I enjoyed every single moment of it.

Tomorrow I shall be leaving for Guangzhou. As the flight leaves early in the morning I have checked in at a hotel close to the airport bus terminus. This big hotel, just outside Lanzhou University, is nothing to write home about, to say the least. In fact I have already forgotten its name.


13 Oct 2008

Just my luck. It rained again here in Guangzhou when I arrived in the early afternoon. It is still raining, and getting heavier it seemed, though not as heavy as last week.

This morning I left the hotel at 0530, and caught the first airport bus. The flight from Lanzhou to Guangzhou, again via Xian, was all quite uneventful, except that I had the luck to sit next to a guy and his brother, who are obvious ethnic minorities. They are Dongxiangs 东乡族, one of the ten minority groups I mentioned earlier that embraced Islam. Their language is similar to Mongolian and they can trace their ancestors to Genghis Khan’s hordes. They live in Linxia 临夏, near Lanzhou, and are on their way to Guangzhou for business. I wasted no time in showing them my July 1980 National Geograhic map of Chinese minorities. He studied it with great interest and offered me additional information on the other ethnic groups in the area.

On the same flight was a small group of about twenty elderly German tourists. In all likelihood they have come from Dunhuang, a town on the Silk Road or Seidenstrasse, the original German term coined by Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen. Lanzhou is often the starting point for those Dunhuang Caves which house the world’s largest collection of ancient Buddhist wall art.

Here in the rainy city I paid a visit to Peoples’ Park. Despite the light rain it was full of people, as the name suggests. The park occupies an entire block, very near to Beijing Road, the centre for Guangzhou shopping. The park grounds are well maintained despite the masses. Mature trees provide lots of shade, affording some respite to sojourners like me in this often hot and humid city. As in the Lanzhou park there are people doing their own thingy. Al fresco ballroom dancing is extremely popular. Others indulge in light activity like badminton, or simply forming a circle and kicking a shuttle around 踢毽子, what older Singaporeans remember as chapteh. At another corner a young man strums on his guitar, singing familiar Cantonese ballads to willing listeners. Attracting quite a crowd was the Cantonese opera section.. The singers are amateurs, ordinary folk enjoying themselves. They were really good. Regretfully we don’t see much of these spontaneity on our own shores.

I had planned to go to the Esplanade along the Pearl River, but cancelled it because of the rain which was getting heavier. Perhaps on my next visit with my wife. It was getting very uncomfortable out there, the first time I feel the humidity after so many days in the dry and cool northwest. Tomorrow I leave for home.



PS: For the benefit of the non-Chinese reader I will try to convey the gist of, and the emotions embodied in, Fan Zhongyan’s poem. It is a pleasure to point out the perfectly balanced form as presented in the number of words in each stanza. When read in Chinese, there is a rythmatic cadence to its structure. I readily conceed that my amateurish translation does little justice to its beauty and stature.

塞下秋来风景异，衡阳雁去无留意。
四面边声连角起。
千嶂里，长烟落日孤城闭。

The frontier scene changes with the arrival of autumn, the migrating geese overhead has no intention of staying
On all sides rose the sound of the enemies’ horn
Amongst these hills, a lonely garrison stands, gates shut as the sun sets.

浊酒一杯家万里，燕然未勒归无计。
羌管悠悠霜满地。
人不寐，将军白发征夫泪。

Downing a cup of crude wine I long for home far away, there are no plans to return as victory is not yet at hand
The barbarians’ flute fills the air, the ground laden with frost
No one sleeps, the Generals worried sick, the conscipts weep with yearning.