Man Man Zou

On being blocked:

All blogspot and typepad sites are blocked. Google news is blocked, BBC news is blocked, BUT, the Taipei Times newspaper is not blocked! That’s a typically ‘green/pro-Taiwan independence’ newspaper. You can read editorials on there all about how China needs to smarten up, and it’s not blocked. No other photoblog sites that I visit, except my own, are blocked. Some people might think it’s because of the content, but I honestly think that it’s because my site is hosted with powweb.com, a very large webhosting company. If someone from China finds an offending site, they can just block the entire ip domain from that host, wiping out hundreds of random sites from the eyes of the Chinese.

I spent a long time trying to get around this, with little success. I’m surprised it’s difficult to get around the “Great Firewall of China”, most laws in China (ie: no religion, no porno, all traffic laws, etc…) are easily breakable without anyone even batting an eye.

First I tried using anonymouse.org. It was a little slow, and often didn’t work because it was blocked. I couldn’t make comments, or log into my admin for my site.

Then we got Mark’s brother, Joe, to give us access to his home computer through ssh, so we could try to surf the net off his computer. His ftp address was at homelinux.net, which is also blocked by China. Typing in his real ip address finally gave us access to his computer, but all we had was a text browser, which I suppose is usable if you have more patience than I do.

Then recently I found proxify.com, which works quite well, but I still can’t log in to my admin, unless I pay $20 for a 6-month membership- not a bad deal if I were living in China long-term.

So there are possibilities, I just thought it would have been easier.

On being a foreigner:

The stares are getting more and more intense each day, as we’re not quite on the backpacker track at the moment (we’re in Zunyi).

In Taiwan, the stares usually turned into smiles (except from the grumpy old men). Here, unfortunately, they don’t. They either get more and more intense, or turn into (a somewhat mean) snicker. It’s not that pleasant having people laugh at us everywhere we go. I suppose typing this today doesn’t help, as Zunyi (a communist city of 4 million) has definitely been the worst to us. The last city we were in, Kaili, had a lot of stares as well, but definitely more smiles than here. Stares + smiles = good. Stares + evil laughs = two solemn travelers.

In tourist areas, it’s fine because the Chinese are used to seeing foreigners. But now it’s been a few days since we’ve spotted a whitey.

We’ve spent this whole time in villages, until yesterday when we got to the city of Kaili, and today, in Zunyi. Most of the people in the villages were somewhat used to seeing foreigners, no one was bothered by our presence, and most were quite friendly.

On costs:

I don’t actually know the exchange rate- I haven’t seen it anywhere. I’m guessing it’s 1USD = 8 or 9 Yuan.

We’re using the Lonely Planet, and I’ve been cursing it since we arrived in China. We have a brand new copy- it came out last month- but it’s already quite out of date. Also, many travelers have complained that LP has moved away from budget travel, and is now focusing more on the top-end of the scale for hotels and restaurants. I couldn’t agree more. In the past, I found it handy for the cheap hotels listings in SE Asia. But so far in China, we’ve only used one hotel listed in LP. We have found all our hotels at a fraction of the price of the cheapest that are listed in the budget section. For example, in Kaili, we paid RMB 30 for our hotel room (with TV and private bathroom), while the cheapest one (with no TV or bathroom) listed in LP was more than RMB 100. It’s annoying because there are still many budget backpackers interested in finding the cheapest place available.

China has been much cheaper than expected (since LP lists expensive hotels). We’re not going crazy cheap, but we’re pretty budget-conscious. The most we’ve paid for a hotel so far was RMB 60. Meals are very cheap (today’s delicious hand-pulled noodles were RMB 2.5), though I can’t often eat at the stalls because there’s not much for vegetarians. Transportation varies a lot (we paid RMB 7 for a 5-hour bus ride in Guizhou province, RMB 40 for a 3-hour ride in Guizhou province, and RMB 250 for a 10-hour sleeper bus ride in Guangdong province).

We’ve only taken one tour- a night tour watching cormorant fishing- but other than that we’ve saved a lot of money by doing things on our own. We just keep reminding ourselves that buses go everywhere. If we want to go to a remote village, chances are so do the villagers, so there will be transportation of some sort. It’s difficult taking photos while on a tour, which is another reason why we don’t take tours.

On Communication:

I can’t thank myself enough for taking Chinese lessons for 9 months. I can’t imagine traveling here without being able to speak Chinese. Many people do it though, I just don’t really know how they get by.

Still, I often find myself in a would-be conversation with someone, and I can’t pick up a single word. Chances are they’re using local dialect, but who knows.

On Travelers:

The couples, the small groups of humorous guys, the ‘too cool for words’ solo travelers, the clingy solo travelers, the hippies, the paranoids…

Obviously, meeting other travelers is a big part of traveling. Hanging with the locals is supposed to be the ‘real’ way of traveling, but I can only get so far with my Chinese, and so far we haven’t met too many who are interested in us. I’m not exactly a social butterfly, but I like to at least attempt a conversation with the fellow travelers I meet. It’s definitely hit and miss (we’ve met some real idiots), but like past travels, we’ve met some pretty awesome people.

I like the English, since they keep me entertained with their sarcastic sense of humor. People from around my hometown (such as the Pacific Northwest of the states, or the Vancouver area) are always a match since we’re so, well, the same I haven’t come across any Canadians yet though). I always make fun of the French behind their back (for no apparent reason, it’s just my ignorance I guess), but that’s not really how I feel.

We met a really interesting French couple and talked with them for hours at one of the villages we were at. They were a professor-student married couple (so fitting with the ‘romantic’ stereotype of France). The guy is starting a new job soon- as the Minister of Religion for France (!) That made for a lot of conversation, since France is always in the news with their many issues on religion. The girl is doing her phd in China, on Chinese migration to France. She’s the only other foreigner who I’ve met so far in China who could speak Chinese. They were very cool.

The other thing about travelers is that none of them can speak Chinese (except that girl from France). They often have to rely on travel agencies in cities to get them from place to place. This is fine, but after a while, I’m sure all the service charges start to add up. Also, they pay a lot more for the things they buy. If you want to buy water in Yangshuo, and ask how much it is in English, then it’s 5Y or more. If you ask in Chinese, then you can get it for 2-3Y.