Guilin. Living In A Guanxi Paradise.

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  Guilin, China
Sunday, March 27, 2005

China is in such a hurry to modernise, that its becoming apparent that my 2003 Lonely Planet may as well be written on papyrus. Bus stations in China are usually a mass of moving humanity. The bus station in Nanning was pretty much a ghost town, except for one ticket seller. Her English vocab was 10 times better than everyone else around town (meaning she knew 10 words), but still there was a lot of pointing and repeating of words while I was trying to order a ticket to travel to Guilin.

I was under ther impression that the bus was to leave at that spot. She was under the impression that I could understand Chinese. Thus when I returned to the bus station an hour later with my luggage (well before the bus was due to leave), I was somewhat surprised when she started yelling abuse at me. It didn't take long for me to work out that the bus ticket I had purchased, was for a bus that left somewhere across town at the new Nanning bus station. Actually across town was an understatement. The ticket seller threw me on a public bus, said something to the driver, and I was off. Destination unknown. After a good 20 minutes we arrived in outer suburbia Nanning, where I was directed off the bus, and then corralled onto the correct bus, for the 4 hour journey to Guilin.

I had been told by an English speaking local in Nanning, that Guilin was a place of "many foreigners, many people speak English!", and to be brutally honest, I needed to have a conversation. In English. With an English speaker. A real one. Not much to ask I guess, I just wanted a conversation beyond three words and hand movements. Hence to my dismay when arriving in Guilin, the taxi driver didn't speak a word of English, and we proceeded to drive around town, lost. It appears my hotel of choice no longer actually exists, even though it was listed as "clean and friendly". A better description could have been "gone, kaput, ain't there". After three tries at finding a suitable place where I thought a hotel should have been, I gave up on the taxi and simply got out and started walking. Luggage and all.

Guilin is similar in look to Nanning. New buildings, new shops, new everything popping up before your eyes. The difference here is that the city and surrounds have 200 metre high mountain randomly scattered amongst the rest of the landscape, which is dead flat. Its almost bizarre, yet extraordinarily picturesque.

I was wandering around the city after dinner in a nice area, when a local woman walked up to me and said "hello, massage". For a second I thought I had actually gone back to Thailand. I said no, to which she replied, "Sex?". I still said no. Hmmm, maybe China isn't behind the times - they have hookers so they must be up with the ways of the world.

After hiking up and down a couple of Guilin's mini-mountains, I headed out to 'Seven Star Park'. The park contains a few unusual aspects which do tend to sum up the slightly left-of-centre ways of the Chinese. The park includes a small Zoo, with two main attractions...

Mei Mei is a 37 year Panda. Mei Mei appears to be enjoying the effects of old age, and too much valium. You see, Mei Mei doesn't move. At all. I had to actually concentrate to watch to see if Mei Mei's chest cavity was rising, looking for some form of indication that Mei Mei hadn't stopped breathing some time last decade and no one had noticed. Thankfully the tell tale signs were there that indeed, Mei Mei is still with us.

The Zoo also has a cage of about 5 by 5 metres, with an enormous Asian Tiger in it. Its a giant one. You can walk right up to the edge of the cage, and peer through the three inch diameter holes right up close. Doing the maths, I reckon that at least one claw could take your eye out if the Tiger was accurate. But that doesn't seem to concern the Chinese. A closer inspection of the cage revealed that for $15 I could have my photo taken with the Tiger, in the cage. Alas the attendant wasn't there - perhaps he'd been eaten? Further inspection revealed a door to the cage, precariously held closed by a three inch nail through a hole, and no lock. Anyone, and I mean anyone, could simply take out the nail, open the cage door, and let loose a three hundred pound Asian Tiger. But that doesn't seem to concern the Chinese either.

After two weeks of not having a complete English conversation, I was starting to go stir-crazy. You do end up having conversations with yourself, or mumbling sentences under your breath at people talking to you in Chinese, when you know they know that you can't understand them and you know you know that you can't understand them. Understand? See what I mean? Slightly mad?

Thankfully I met Jenny. Jenny is a student from Boston in the US, currently travelling alone in China, but heading to Xian to be trained in the ancient Chinese art of beating the living suitcase out of your opponent. Alas I don't know its actual name, but I do know that from the sound of it there are few rules. Oh and its going to be an Olympic sport. Jenny and I had a lively English conversation (thank god) on the frustrations of being a solo traveller in China. She described it best - its like being in the film 'Lost In Translation'. Those who have seen the film will understand that indeed I myself am now Bill Murray, not Adrian Murray. I may breakout into Bryan Ferry's "More Than This" at any moment.

The perils of the solo male traveller really aren't at the same level of the solo female traveller. When in Yangshao, Jenny was somewhat harrassed by a local male. Actually assault is a better word, as he basically went the grope. He picked the wrong girl. At his third attempt at whatever it was he was attempting to do with his hands on her person, she promptly whacked him one, um twice, moving the left side of his jaw somewhere over near his right earhole. Respect to the girl I say.

While in Guilin I've been exposed to some fantastic Chinese-isms. The Chinese to English menu translations are always a treat. They tend to be as literal as you can get, or simply incorrect. These three are my favourites:

Cantaloupe juice - unfortunately they had included a 'u' where the first 'a' should have been.
Fried Cockscomb - let's hope its not a silent 'b'. Giving the literal translation method a go, I can only assume that they meant the floppy bit on top of a roosters head, fried.
Fried Pig Penis - no two ways about it. The ultimate sin for jewish lesbians I guess.

I made the trek out to Reed Flute Cave, about 5k's from the centre of town. It seems that all of the mini-mountains around Guilin are hollow, as there are caves everywhere. Reed Flute Cave is the biggest by far, winding around underground for almost a kilometre. Its like being in an old episode of 'Journey To The Centre Of The Earth'. Most of the major stalagtites and stalacmites are majestically lit up with multi-colored fluoro globes, and descriptive signs of what the locals 'see' when they look at them. For instance, one of the images pointed out was "Centipede Running Away From Magic Mirror". Now I looked as hard as I could, concentrating in a manner similar to how one looks at those '3D magic pictures' in the Weekend Magazine of the Age newspaper, and all I could see was stalagtites and stalacmites all over the place. It appears that centuries of Opium use, or decades of MSG consumption, have greatly effected the Chinese view of limestone.

After having a bite to eat with Jenny before we headed off in different directions in China, we caught part of the greatest interpretive dance show I have ever seen in my life. We wandered by a nightclub, and the show became simply too hard to walk past. Now some of you may know that over-the-top interpretive dance is one of my favourite things in the world, in terms of artistic expression that needs to have the piss taken out of it. And this particular show was nothing short of sensational. Hair flicks, heel kicks, rushes across the stage with arms in the air, guys with flowing pyjama pant-suits, girls in split dresses and sequins. This was bad cabaret from decades ago, at its finest. They had it going on on so many levels, with entertainment from so long ago. In Guilin, it seems that tonight they're gonna party like its 1969.....





RIP Hester.

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