Authentic Chinese Life Part II

Here is the second part of the trip:

Our first meal in the the small town of Fuding was not what we had hoped for.  Since there were no restaurants in the area, we had no choice but to eat at the hotel restaurant.  After close to 20 hours of traveling, we were all ready for a nice meal. 

Besides the 15 waiters and waitresses, the restaurant was entirely empty.  We walked in and asked for a menu.  A waitress pointed to the fish, crabs, and shrimp swimming around behind us.  We spent a few minutes looking for a kosher fish, but were only able to find a piece of filet.  I thought the skin looked strange and decided not to eat it.  It turns out the “kosher fish” was actually a huge stingray.  For those that aren’t aware, Stingrays are not very kosher.

After a crazy bus ride, we finally arrived to the mountain the next day.  The mountain was beautiful and quite a hike. 
Some interesting things about the mountain:
1) Cucumbers were sold as snacks and were available all around the mountain.  (I wish cucumbers were more available as snacks in the West)
2) On one side of the mountain there was only one trail.  This meant that once we walked in one direction, we would have to walk for over an hour just to get back.  Unfortunately, that one trail was a bad combination of very narrow caves and very many tourists. 
3) People could pay to be taken up the mountain in a chair on a man’s back.  The whole thing reminded me of Old China, and I was surprised the government still allows it to go on.  Just think about it for a second.  Poor people carrying rich people up a mountain.  On their backs.  Mao and the early Communists came to power specifically to change those type of situations.

The next morning we traveled to a nearby island.  Since the area is not very developed, taxis are usually people who have cars and are willing to drive someone around.  For example, we would be approached by a man in a truck and jump in after we agreed on a price.  After we got to the dock, we took a boat to the island that last about 45 minutes.  The island was not very developed; it had 2 inns and 2 restaurants.  Conveniently, our inn was part inn and part restaurant.  However, it was hard to tell which part was the inn and which the restaurant.  For example, the inn “lobby” was located in the middle of the kitchen.  As a result, we had several customers knock on our door expecting to be seated and have their orders taken.  

Our inn was called “Seafood Inn.”  It’s restaurant had no menu and people were in shock when I asked about vegetarian dishes.  After explaining for 20 minutes that I am vegetarian and can’t eat meat, we sat down and waited for the food.  The inn owner thought that I wasn’t eating meat because it was too expensive, so as a sign of a goodwill he added sliced pork to our dish.  I didn’t want to embarrass the owner, so as a sign of goodwill I ate white rice for lunch. 

The island was full of mountains, and we took a bus up the mountain after lunch.  While the scenery was phenomenal, I would have felt much safer if we weren’t on a one-lane road.  Our bus had to move when another bus was coming down, and the bus driver moved us off the road towards a cliff.  After 10 minutes of panic, the bus finally dropped us off in front of a beautiful lake and we roamed the area for a few hours.  We found a Buddhist temple/vegetarian restaurant hidden on the mountain, and we decided to eat there.  The temple had a very homey feel.  Several women that must have been grandmothers cooked us 8 dishes.  I was so impressed by the food that I volunteered to help peel bamboo.  Customers walking in were greeted by a random white guy peeling bamboo with a group of 60 year-old women. 

As soon as we got back to our inn, the owner explained that the inn had no hot water and we would have to shower somewhere else.  Following in the tradition of Chinese hospitality, the owner took us to his home so we could shower.  This was very symbolic of the people we encountered, as almost everyone seemed very warm and welcoming.  Complete strangers would invite us for meals as soon as I they saw that we spoke Chinese.  It felt as if people were proud to meet foreigners.  We took a rickshaw when we arrived in Wenzhou, and the driver made sure everyone knew that his passengers were Americans.  He even took a longer way so he could impress his coworkers.

Once we got back from the island, we couldn’t find any bus to take us back.  So, we decided to ride in the back of a truck filled with locals.  The truck dropped us in a very small rural town.  Even tough we were the only foreigners everywhere we went, we never felt any hostility until we arrived to this small town.  I was looking for a restroom and no one would even acknowledge that I was talking.  People would literally walk right past me and avoid eye contact.  It was as if no one wanted anything to do with me.  The friendliest residents were the kids, and even they asked me if I knew that I was a Laowai (foreigner). 

This is what China must have felt like 30 or 40 years ago.  I can’t believe that a place so hostile to foreigners can still exist right on the coast.  People were ignoring me when I asked about a bathroom in Chinese.  If we stopped at a place about an hour further, I would be ignoring Chinese salesmen yelling in English (Watch, bags, shoes, DVD, etc).  It seems that some areas were left out of the economic reforms and development.  While I have been to poor places in China before, this was my first time to see a place that was obviously resisting change and foreign influence.