20th October 2010

Ni Hao Guiyang!!

We are now in Guiyang, Guizhou, south west China, our home for the next year. Flying in to land we were amazed by the scenery. There were mountains everywhere and it looked more like Brazil than China.... had our 12 year old pilot taken a detour??? Nope... we were in Guiyang. Rich was convinced that our plane was going to crash into a mountain... although we came freakishly close we landed safetly and were promptly met by our new boss David and more surprisingly... our luggage. Our £19 holdalls had made it half way across the world without a scratch. Our new boss Dave and a chinese driver got us to our apartment on Qian Ling Dong Lu (bar street to the westerners.... literally because there are a gazillion bars). I felt a little scared as Dave led us through some dodgy looking alleyways. We passed some rooms with some old beds in and a couple of men standing outside... just as I was thinking the worst Dave said "don't worry, it's not a brothel". That was a start I suppose. Some more dodgy alleyways and we entered a dark building. Some lightbulbs pinged on as we walked up the stairs, however not when we got to our landing. I used my phone to help Dave get our door open. When we got in I had mixed feelings, the apartment was huuuuge but it was also filthy.... like properly rank, and i am most definitley not a clean freak! Luckily enough Dave had convinced them to buy us a new bed so we have a sparkly new bed and a pretty awesome wardrobe that I would probably actually choose. Fire safety apparently really isn't a concern here in China as there are sort of bars on all of the windows to keep burglars out, but that will also keep you in whilst you are burnt to death. There aren't any fire alarms either so they don't give you a chance to run. Wish us luck aye! After putting our luggage down, Dave took us straight out for welcome dinner and drinks. Our first meal in Guiyang was barbecue, chinese style. We had kebabs of unknown meat, rawish potato on sticks and some green vegetable things. Also tried tofu but quickly gave it up as it smelt like manky old feet. The food was good but part of me sort of missed my special fried rice from my local takeaway.....weird. Me and Rich were pretty bemused by our surroundings. Rich later confided that he felt like we were in a ghetto in India. I would say that was slightly exaggerated but the poverty and general uncleanliness of the place was a lot more severe than we had anticipated. One thing that we can't quite get used to is people spitting in the streets. The fact that children (well... babies) don't wear nappies is also a little strange to us. They have holes in the trousers and when they need to do their business their parents just help them squat on the side of the street. So basically, we were suffering from a little bit of culture shock. We did however meet with our new colleagues for drinks and the way that they were completely comfortable in the surroundings made me realise that I will get used to being here... eventually. Having met some other westerners I went back to the apartment feeling nervous, scared and excited all at the same time. When Rich and I got in we spent about an hour trying to make our new bed comfortable as the chinese mattresses are like wood. As we have a 2 bedroom apartment with two beds we put all of the linen on one bed and managed to get to sleep.

Monday morning we had a nice lay in as the jet lag had finally set in. We then decided to head to the local park, Qian Ling Park, in the mountains as it was something that we had been looking forward to seeing here. We got spectacularly lost but after ringing Dave, going back on ourselves about five times and being stared at by a million baffled Guiyang people we finally made it to the park. It did look pretty impressive and thankfully as it is a touristy spot there were some signs in english. We paid 5rmb (50p) each to get into the park and decided just to go in the direction of the majority of people... our main objective being to see the wild monkeys (although it won't be next time- will explain later). Me and Rich, fat westerners, unused to being at 1000 ft above sea level, puffed and panted our way up the five bazillion trillion steps. We saw our first wild monkey pretty early on and was amazed by the size of it, it was the size of a two year old child... we were thinking they were going to be the size of kittens and hard to spot- wrong!!!! That particular monkey just minded its own business so we carried on. We saw a sign to a zoo so we decided to head up there thinking that it was the main zoo in Guiyang. After another bazillion trillion steps, very sweaty we made it to a weird fair ground where you could win toys that looked like my Sammy bear who is 22 years old and battered. There were also camels just sitting there.... didn't look too happy, but considerably happier than the animals that we encountered later on. This is where this journal takes an angry turn. Now, the chinese, and other asian populations are not exactly famous for their kindness to animals, but what Rich and I encountered was cruelty. Every part of us wanted to leave but we had to see the extent of the cruelty. The chinese would probably argue that what we saw was not cruelty in any sense of the word and point to the laughing people and excited children as proof. However, these people were happy and excited clearly because they know no better. They were probably raised to view animals either as food or sources of entertainment. I did not find dying, crying camels, starving bears and white tigers so bored that they were pacing round and round their tiny prisons in any way entertaining. Rich and I could only stomach about 10 minutes and left feeling pretty helpless and almost like we wanted to go home. As animal lovers it was difficult knowing that the people we are going to be living with for a year can be that cruel... but it is just another culture issue that we are going to have to get over. Pretty depressing sorry, but don't worry, I am about to share an amusing story... and yes, it involves the bloody monkeys. Walking back down the mountain we saw a rebel monkey attack a small child, all because he fancied stealing some of the little boys snacks. An old lady screamed at the monkey and it seemed to cower and bow it's hard in shame. Thinking that I had clearly encountered a monkey whisperer I forgot about the rebel monkey and concentrated on the 5 or 6 monkeys that were now running towards us. Instead of thinking "s***... there is a group of hungry looking monkeys as big as 2 year olds running towards me" I was thinking, "woooww....this is going to make an awesome video" (turns out it didn't as I am a rubbish camera woman). Anyways, I finally realised that I should be concerned when all the local people ran away (as had Rich) and I was left standing on my own. So... I legged it but as I did the rebel monkey (yep...him again) decided to full on attack me. He got all up in my face.... standing on his back legs and showing me his teeth. At this point all that was going through my head was "fuuuuuck, I haven't had my rabies vaccine". I soon realised that the monkey was after my orange juice so I tried to swing it round to my other hand but this just pissed rebel monkey off some more and he got even closer. I heard lots of laughter and realised that the scream inside my head had not been in my head after all- the shame! All the locals were looking at me clearly enjoying the stupid foreigner going head to head with a monkey. I didn't give up and managed to get away with my orange juice still belonging to me. Stupid thing is, I threw that juice away 20 minutes later as it was minute maid and I can't read "with juicy bits" in Chinese.... fail! On the way back to the apartment we found Dico's, a cheaper chinese version of KFC. We thought we had made a successful order which involved pointing at a menu and paying. What we ordered was a chicken burger and fries for rich and a chicken leg and breast meal for me... what we got was just a chicken burger and a chicken leg. However, it was for the bargain price of 50p.... China does have it's perks. I somehow managed to get us back to the apartment alive. Our intentions were to relax but we just couldn't because of the filth in the place so we headed out to find Walmart for some cleaning supplies. After an hour of being really really lost we gave up and went to the supermarket at the end of our street. We had wanted to go to Walmart as we figured that it would have some english signs. The supermarket we went to... did not. We left with some pretty random items and were a little baffled from being harrassed by a lady who worked in the supermarket. She had first approached Rich to tell him in Chinese that he needed a shave and to wash his hair (we figured this out through sign language). After insulting him she continued to follow us around, replacing every item that we chose with ones that she thought were better. She ignored our desperate ting bu dongs (we don't understand) and spoke to us our whole way round the supermarket in Chinese. Not all the chinese are like that though.... I just think she was a complete nutter. We made it home, had a good clean, watched some DVD's we had bought uber cheap whilst searching for Walmart and went to bed feeling slightly more settled- until I was rudely disturbed by a cockroach, but I will save that for next time.

Zheijien