Hangzhou with a local

And not just any local! The lovely Qing, my classmate at Pitt. Hangzhou is her hometown, and it used to be part of her job to show people her city. So I knew I was in good hands. I had visited Hangzhou for a couple days in March 2009, but it was rainy and difficult to get around. Hangzhou is a big city, but it’s not as tourist-friendly with public transportation or pedestrian options as other Chinese cities. This time, with Qing as my guide, I had an air-conditioned car to protect me from the 95 degree heat and blazing sun. For me, the second time in Hangzhou was a charm.

classmates at the Hangzhou Wetlands Park

I felt welcome as soon as I got to Hangzhou. When I got to the baggage claim area, I noticed a lot of people pointing and whispering. But this time, they weren’t pointing at me! I weren’t sure who they were looking at, so I just forgot about it. But as we approached the public area of the airport, I saw even more commotion. Hundreds of people with posters, flowers and flashing cameras were chanting something. The closer I got to the door, the louder they got. Eventually I noticed that the girl walking directly next to me was wearing huge sunglasses and surrounded by body guards (body guards in China are not the same size as body guards in America). I was standing next to one of the most famous female singers in the country. The cameras flashed and the crowd moved in as we walked through the door, so I’m hoping I am on some Chinese gossip blogs as the sleepy, sloppy looking American walking next to their pop princess.

the escalator: a modern twist on a Chinese temple

From the airport we went straight to the main attraction of the city. Hangzhou is famous for its West Lake (Xi Hu) which has been the setting of many paintings, poems, stories and songs. Qing first took me to the huge pagoda at the lake, site of a famous love story featuring a snake, her man husband, and a battle of sea creatures. Chinese literature never lets me down! Neither does the level of familiarity the average Chinese has with these stories. They heard them as children, read about them in school, and now they see them depicted on television. The amount of poems and stories Chinese kids have to memorize is mind-blowing, and it may explain why the Chinese have so much love and pride for their history.

green, green Hangzhou

happy buddha in a magical rock

Another perk of having a Hangzhou native as my guide was learning about local cuisine. Chinese food is extremely diverse from province to province, city to city, so Qing made sure to give me a taste of Hangzhou seafood, dumplings, and dessert. Without Qing, I would have never known that Hangzhou cuisine is much sweeter and less spicy than the rest of China. I ate shrimp dumplings that felt like silk, homemade breakfast at her grandmother’s home, and eel, jellyfish and frog eggs with her extended family. If you ever find yourself in Hangzhou, order the steamed papaya with frog eggs and honey. Trust me.

lotus growing in West Lake

My second day in Hangzhou was spent at the Wetlands Park, an area where non-Chinese rarely visit. All of the tours are in Chinese, and the main attraction of the place is that it was the site of a well-known romantic comedy. I’ll try to get the comedy with English subtitles; Qing promises me that it really is a good flick. Anyway, the wetlands were really cool because it’s basically a group of islands where people lived as fishermen and silk producers. As the area modernized, most of the people left their island homes for the urban space. But some people still live there, completely isolated from the rest of Hangzhou. The only way to get around the wetlands is by boat. Tourists go there to take a boat ride and learn about what life was like 200 years ago in the wetlands. I was particularly impressed with the boats turned into dining room tables and the pygmy ducks, which I unfortunately did not get a proper photo of.

view of the wetlands from the temple

old, almost-forgotten Mao painting in a photo gallery in the wetlands

With my limited Chinese and the challenge of the Hangzhou dialect, I didn’t get to really converse with all of Qing’s family that I met. But nonetheless, they made me feel extremely welcome and encouraged me to return as soon as I can. Even though my visit to Hangzhou was so short, it reminded me how valuable it is to spend time with people in their homes, with their families, seeing what it is that keeps them coming back.

at the train station. next stop: Shanghai!

The three H’s of Vietnam

We’re currently stuck in Vietnam for a lot longer than we thought we would be, waiting for our Chinese visas.  A few people have already made some bad jokes about Americans being stuck in Vietnam, so if you thought of that, don’t feel bad.  Instead of whining about how awful visa regulations are and how much money we have to give to the Chinese government, I’ll talk about the two cities we went to before Hanoi: Hoi An and Hue.

After our two-day beach break, we traveled north to Hoi An, a small town with lots of influence from the Japanese and Chinese centuries ago.  The town is a UNESCO World Heritage site, meaning the old streets and buildings are well-preserved.  Unfortunately, just because the structures are preserved doesn’t mean their uses are.  As adorable as the town is, most of its purpose today is selling silk lamps and conical hats to tourists, as opposed to its importance as a port city years ago.  Two of my favorite things we saw there were the Japanese covered bridge and the Cantonese Assembly Hall.

When they started building the Japanese bridge it was the year of the dog, and when they finished it was the year of the monkey. So dog and monkey statues guard either end of the bridge.

The assembly hall was filled with incredible Chinese painted wood carvings as well as these hanging incense cones with prayers written on papers in the middle.

The most popular thing to buy in Hoi An is custom-made clothing.  Since that doesn’t fit in with my tight budget or in my small backpack, I resisted.  And believe me…it was hard!  They make absolutely gorgeous stuff, and I would love having something made perfectly for me.  Next time!  After Hoi An, we took a short bus to Hue (pronounced like “hway”), a bigger city further north on the central coast.  I really like Hue and would love to go back there.  It seems like a really happy place to live.  Not to big, but definately vibrant and beautiful.  The city used to be the capital, so there is a huge wall around the old city, and nearby down the river there are many tombs of kings.  We went on a boat tour down the Perfume River to visit some tombs and pagodas.

At the Minh Mang tomb there are pagodas surrounded by moats, with huge expanses of land leading up to his stone tomb. (We weren't allowed anywhere near the tomb)

Walking around the old city walls of Hue, we had one of those magical moments that you cannot plan.  Walking by a few cyclo drivers (bikes with little seats on the front to take people around short distances), I heard one of them say “Hello! You are a funny woman!”  As this is not the normal call from drivers, I turned and smiled.  He was laughing at my shirt, which said “Beer Lao” on the front.  He then came over to talk to us about the Citadel and the Forbidden Purple City, which we were approaching.  During our conversation, he told us about his time in a Buddhist Pagoda when he was young.  When his dad died in the war and he was forced to live in a market with his mother, he decided to go study in a temple at age 11.  He studied under Thich Nhat Hanh, an important Buddhist figure who I had read about long ago.  I then opened up our Lonely Planet guide book to show Jon the entry about Thich Nhat Hanh, and there we saw a reference to one of his students who is now a cyclo driver.  Jon pointed to the name in the book and asked our new friend if that was him: Tran Van Thinh.  It was!

I wish you could have seen the excitement on this man’s face.  He could not believe that his name, number and email were in a book recommending him as a tour guide for the pagoda he studied in when he was a child.  He showed a bunch of his friends who were around, and then he wrote down all the author’s names to try to figure out how they decided to put him in the book.  He kept saying to us, “I am so lucky to meet you. You show me I am in a book! I will never forget you!”  He insisted on taking us on a ride around the walled city, showing us the beauty of Hue through his eyes.  We waved to his wife selling soup on the street.  We drove by his plot of government land where he had built his own bamboo house.  At one point in the ride, he told me that he knew Jon was a good man because “In his eyes I can see he has a warm heart.”

Me with Tran right after he found out that his name is in a book!

Spending time in Hoi An and Hue gave us a great break from all the big cities we have been to over the past few weeks.  We took our final overnight bus ride in Vietnam last night to go from Hue to Hanoi.  On the trip, we met a really nice couple from Minnesota who had been traveling for 10 months!  They are some of the only people we have really talked to meaningfully, as most of the people we meet on our trip are as bad as high school girls on spring break in Florida.  Needless to say, we miss all our friends back home!