From Hunan Province to picture-perfect Yangshou
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2004
1
76
157
Trip End
Jul 20, 2012
Yangshou,
China
Friday, May 5, 2006
Henyan - Dumpling Family Business
. Cheng Ling had written in Chinese how to get to the bus station. I showed this to a lady who was also waiting to catch the bus into town and she put me on the right bus. I made it to the train station from where the buses to Yangshou leave. The fare is between Y10 and Y12 and it takes about 1 hour to Yangshou. Here, I am staying with my HC host and manager of the Zhuoyue English College, Johnnson. I stay in the students's dorm and share a room with Emily who is from West China. I like the atmosphere of the college, everyone is so helpful and easy going. I am also started taking Chinese lessons, 2 hours a day for 4 days. So far, I am making progress with vocabulary but my pronunciation is pretty much at level zero, which means in everyday Chinese life nobody will understand me. To help with my adaption to Chinese life, I am reading Polly Evans "Fried Eggs with Chopsticks". Reading her trails and tribulations in China not only makes me laugh but helps me to prepare for what there is to come in the Middle Kingdom. She describes what I have noticed the first day I got to China as ..." here I was, in a communist country, but in a city that seems to be exuberantly embracing capitalism in the form of tourism, department stores and American fast-food franchises, while being serenaded by a tune in which Andrew Lloyd Webber meets Peronism." Or, "eating a fried egg with chopsticks bears small-scale similarities to the greater trials of travelling around China as a foreigner. It is frustrating and frequently ludicrous
Henyan - Dumpling Family Business2
. Sometimes it is funny. Small takes take infinitely longer than they ought. You look ridiculous, often. But in the end, pride shattered, patience tried and seemingly against all odds, you do in fact arrive. And then somebody comes along smiling and points out an easier route you should have taken".Since China is the birth place of Tai Chi, I decided to check out the West Street Tai Chi Training Center.
I talked to Master Wang Zhi Ping and a female instructor whose name i forgot. They invited me to check out the 4PM class and ask questions to the current students. Asked I did and watching them I did (whenever I wasn't distracted by the three dogs who stay at the training center). So, I decided that Tai Chi would be the perfect balance for my wild and impatient life. I took my first class on Thursday and enjoyed it very much. There are 24 movements and from what I have heard from the students these movements get increasingly difficult. I decided to take classes for 5 days, 2 hours every day, just to get an idea of Tai Chi. If money would not be a question, I would take 4 hours a day, 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.
Next week, I will take my Tai Chi classes in the morning and then get on the bike and explore the country side
Henyan - Jeff and Cheng Ling
. Due to the vacation week, the town is chock full of people and prices for everything, including bike rentals, are sky high. This week, I just explored the town a bit which has a healthy population of foreigners who are either teaching in one of the many language schools or who are just passing through and got stuck here for a while. This place would definitely be one of my choices for teaching English. I also explored some of the local markets, inlcuding a meat and vegetable market. Chinese people eat everything and anything that moves. So this market offers live chickens ans ducks, live fish, frogs, turtels and more. Here, one can see how all the chickens and poultry are plucked, boiled and cleaned. It was filthy and feathers were stuck everywhere. The vendors are selling EVERY part of the animals. One of the teachers told me that there is another market where they sell dog meat. I declined his offer of visiting this market. 
