The Cry of 'Lao Wai'

This past weekend was National Day here in China, so I had my first chance to get out of Chongqing city for a few days. Some students invited me to Yong Chuan and Dazu. Both are areas within Chongqing province, and they were fantastic.

Get ready, this is going to be a big post. It will include a list, many pictures, a few stories and emotion. Lots of emotion. Let me begin with a list of observations and thoughts from the weekend:

-If I didn’t know that my name was Seamus, I would swear that it was Lao Wai. This is the Chinese word for foreigner. I hear it occasionally in Chongqing proper, but when one ventures a bit further out of town the frequency of hearing Lao Wai increases exponentially by distance from the city.

-Sometimes when you hear people having a conversation you think that they are having a heated argument. That is up until you hear an actual argument. That shit jumps up a notch or two. Intense.

-Getting out of Chongqing gave me a very different perspective on China than I had been developing over the past 5 weeks. For a minute I was beginning to believe that China was a loud, dirty, vibrant, and asphyxiating place. Turns out this is only the city I live in. That would be like summing up the USA through a description of 1970’s NYC. How short sighted of me.

-I try to avoid lumping people together or saying that the people of a given nation all look the same, but there is undeniably a certain type of people who do. This is the ubiquitous grandma at random neighborhood restaurants. She is tiny, ancient looking, smiling, typically wearing more traditional garb than is common, slightly hunched, slow moving, and very curious about the Lao Wai sitting at the restaurant.

-On that note sometimes the Chinese people do this to me. I was told by a bus driver (interpreted by my students) over the weekend  that I look like Obama’s brother. Now THAT is how you generalize the looks of a nationality.

-At tourist destinations across the world people buy cheap, plastic, Chinese made crap; including in China.

-People who do extreme sports are soft. Come to China and take a crowded tour bus up into the mountains during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. That is extreme. People in the States talk about how crazy drivers in different places are: Mass-holes, NYC cabbies, etc. These drivers are but kitty-cats compared to the tiger that is the Chinese driver.

-More on buses: capacity is not as quantitative is as it is in the US. For example, an elevator: 12 people or 2000 lbs. Chinese bus capacity is simply a question of physics. Is there space for another person? Yes: not at capacity. No: at capacity. Easy.

-Excuse me as I slip into the parlance of my junior high years for a moment: driving through on a mountain road through a bamboo forest in the mist is some pretty dope shit.

-Amongst friends, Chinese people are incredibly generous. I don’t mean just towards me as the guest, but the way the students shared everything was interesting to watch. If one person opened some sort of snack or treat, they would take a little and then immediately pass it around the group, no matter how many people. Every time.

-The motorcyclists that wear cheap plastic construction helmets with no chin straps might as well be wearing yarmulkes for protection.

-The level of interest in Lao Wai in China is such that a 5 year old girl who has sick coming out her mouth and nose while riding a bus, will not break eye contact with a foreigner. That is dedication to curiosity.

-Two simple experiences that left me smiling: eating a big meal of their favorite foods with my students on National Day as fireworks were going off outside, and riding in a minivan taxi with the nine students, the driver, and myself through the rain in rural China.

One brief anecdote and then onto pictures: Last night we shared a minivan taxi with a few others from Yong Chuan through the rain and holiday traffic on the way back to Chongqing. Bitching and moaning aside, there are certain advantages to being the Lao Wai and the Lao Shi (teacher), so I was riding shotgun. I travel by bus and walk the streets every day, so I am accustomed with the obsession of the Chinese driver with their horn (I bet Freud would have had and interesting, but ultimately flawed theory on this behavior). But other Chinese drivers paled in comparison to this man and his preternatural horn honking ability. The frequency and ferocity with which he hit that horn was something to be both feared and respected.

When we first got in I was slightly worn out from the weekend, and the incessant honking was pissing me off. After a half hour it became laughable; as in, I was laughing out loud. After one hour it began to remind me of another travelling partner I once had. A few years ago I was on an overnight train through Italy and one of my cabin mates was an old fella who snored nothing like I had ever heard. Ribcage rattling stuff. I had to assume he was Italy’s finest snorer, and probably snored for Italy in the World Championships. Well my driver in Chongqing province undoubtedly honked for China. This son of a bitch was good. Very good.

Similar to the snorer, I had to assume that the driver honked not out of any desire to indicate his location on the road or vent his frustrations with other drivers, but rather because it was an involuntary physical reaction. Some compulsion that led him to arbitrarily hit the horn. Fascinating.

On to pictures with a few captions beneath for context. As always, you can click on them to expand.

The crew. Some are my students. Others are their classmates. All really fun kids.

Some of the carvings from Dazu. It is a World Heritage Site with rock carvings spanning mostly the 9th-12th century CE. Truly amazing stuff. Some are massive as you will see with a bit of perspective in other pics.

As previously stated, some are massive.

In all the hustle and commotion of the place, at one point I tried to imagine what it was like when some Buddhists in the 10th century were creating these things. Pretty impressive.

A tree growing around some rocks with a pagoda in the background. Worthy of a picture, I believe.

When in Dazu, do as the Dazuians (Dazunese, Dazulanders?).

Peacock King and his minions.

Fierce guardians worthy of a posting.

A huge wall of statues tucked away in a dark corner.

When in Dazu, do as the Dazuites (Dazuopians, Dazuish?). Damnit.

A few of the Thousand Hands.

These guys were some of my favorites. Big, ugly warriors.

A few of the Bodhisattvas that were were praying to a Buddha in the middle of a cave. As I was snapping some pictures some monks walked through chanting and praying to the different statues. I declined to snap a pic lest they curse me. That's what Buddhist monks do, right?

I'm a panda.

I never need an excuse to post foggy mountain tops.

Seriously.

I can go all day.

Just to prove I was there.

My new method of dealing with Lao Wai-azzi.

I found out that night that Chinese girls are thoroughly impressed by men with yo-yo skills, and this guy had said skills in spades.

Hard at work.

Furtive lovers in the bamboo. The other students were dying at this picture.

Mei Mei, or 'little sister'. Another thing that was interesting to witness was how quickly and affectionately people sometimes take to each other here. This little girl was the daughter of the hotel owner, and within minutes she was sitting on laps and being primped by the girls in our group. I noticed the same affection amongst some of the students in our group who didn't know each other before the trip. There is a seemingly 'in or out' mentality when it comes to relationships here, and once you are in you apparently are fully part of ones group. As an older guy, she called me uncle (again, I found this out through student interpretation). She had a series of questions for me, such as: "Uncle, why is your nose so long?", and "Uncle, why is your skin so good?" She thoroughly amused the girls in the group. Also, at 8 years old she was knocking out triple digit addition without breaking a sweat. I was impressed.

It is pretty difficult for them to take pictures without chucking deuces.

Posted up on a millennium old statue. With a pose and demeanor like that, I can only assume that he is texting his women.

This was on the back of a car in Yong Chuan, China. A village (as one of my students erroneously, or perhaps not, referred to it as) of almost 500,000 people. I've never seen one of these in Minnesota, let alone the middle of China. That was crazy.