I am so, so tired right now, so I'll just say this as a disclaimer: We got back to Harbin around 3:45 this morning, which means that from about 3:15 until 4:30, I was awake. Not to mention the earlier part of the night, when I was kept awake by the enormous man snoring in the bunk right next to me. But from 4:30 to 8:00 this morning, and later from 1:00 to 3:00 this afternoon and from 4:00 to 6:00 this evening, I slept just great. Just to warn you, though: if this entry sounds a little disconnected, it's because I'm still not sure if my brain has really started working again... still pretty groggy!
This weekend was great fun (enormous snoring man excepted). Thursday night we headed out of town - I had dinner with three other Chinese roommates. It was really pretty interesting to be a fly on the wall and just listen to what Chinese college students talk about when they're still getting to know eachother, which included various culinary specialties from their respective hometowns ( i.e. "Do you have this up where you live?" and "I'll ask my dad to bring some down the next time he visits.") It's amazing how divided China is regionally - these were three students from three different parts of Heilongjiang (the northernmost province in China, where I'm currently living). I found out Thursday night that Heilongjiang is actually shaped like a chicken - to better understand where the towns they were from were located, the students were saying what part of the chicken they lived in. (Harbin is located near the feet.) They waited until the food arrived to change the subject - the second part of the meal was spent describing gruesome injuries they themselves had suffered, or had seen other people suffer. I found out that my roommate got two of her fingers smashed in a bus door when she was younger, and had to wear a cast where she was permanently flashing other people the "peace" sign. Fortunately, my Chinese isn't good enough yet to get totally grossed out, so I was still able to enjoy my dinner.
After dinner we went to the convenience store to get a 24 pack of beer (vital for long train rides - and it was to SHARE!) and then headed to the train station. Train stations in China all seem to remind me of Ellis Island in reverse - it all seems like mad chaos, except that there is sort of a system in place, and people all seem to make it onto the right train in the end. We wound up going "hard sleeper", which is a car with rows of cabins open to the hallway, all of them with six bunks. People tend to sit on the lower bunk to chat (or drink beer), and retire to the upper bunks to sleep. The lights all get turned out at 9:30 sharp, which is why they tell you to bring a flashlight (which I didn't, but I will next time). I don't like to sleep on trains, because all the rocking back and forth makes me afraid the whole thing is just going to fall over. I know that doesn't make any sense, but I still worry.
We got to Dandong around 9:00, and after heading to the grocery store to stock up on provisions (my roommate pointed out that the grocery store we went to was a Taiwanese chain, and I wasn't sure if she meant anything by it, so I didn't say anything -- it seemed like a normal grocery store to me...) we headed to the bus, and from there drove down the coast to get on the boat to the island where we spent Friday night. To say that the ocean was a bit choppy would be a severe understatement - they put us in two speedboats with enormous outboard motors, and the driver we had seemed perfectly happy to rev the engine and head straight out into the waves - I was very happy to be in the back, so didn't have to bounce around nearly as much as the people in the front - but it was still far from a smooth ride. After we landed on the island, we transferred to another bus which brought us to our hotel on the far shore - I was lucky to be roommates with the program director, which meant that we got the best room (very nice ocean view!)
Put Americans next to the ocean, and the first thing they want to do is swim in it - despite the fact that it was about 60 degrees and threatening rain, and who knows how cold the water was... foot numbingly cold at the very least (one of those times when you're really glad you're not a guy!) My roommate took some great pictures of us all splashing around, followed by pictures of us all running out of the water as fast as we could. The coldest part of the whole thing wasn't swimming in the ocean - it was getting back to the room to discover that there was no more hot water. I took the coldest shower in the history of cold showers, wrapped myself up in my duvet wearing all the clothes I had brought with me, and tried to get warm. Our director had brought hot chocolate along, and I swear, nothing has ever tasted so good!
It was kind of a gross day - it rained all afternoon, and after exploring the town for a bit, and climbing up to a pagoda on top of a small hill, we headed back to the hotel. I took a nap, and other people played cards until dinnertime. The original plan was to have a bonfire on the beach and roast a sheep - but since it was pouring rain, the plan was changed to roasting small cubes of meat over coal fires indoors (the windows were open to prevent immediate carbon monoxide poisoning, but it was still pretty smoky). After dinner we played more cards (free Yalu River beer until 9:00 - the Yalu River being the border between China and North Korea - I still think "Drink the Border!" would be an excellent advertising slogan, but I digress...) In any case, it was a fun night.
The next morning dawned all-too early, and we all trooped back onto the bus, back over the island, clambered out to the boats (low tide, so much calmer water this time), and then made it back to the mainland for the bus to our next destination, the name of which I have completely forgotten (this is what happens when you find yourself on a group tour - you don't need to know where you're going, because you just follow everyone else). In any case, it has a real Chinese name which I will look up when I get home, but I kept calling it "Happy Valley" in my head, because that just made it easier for me to remember. In any case, Happy Valley is actually managed by a private company, which is leasing it on a long-term (40 years?) basis from the Liaoning provincial government. It looks like there's been some serious water-management done in the past - there were dams everywhere - but the water was a very nice deep-green color, and after a brief cloudburst the sun came out, and after hiking up a very steep trail to the top of one of the mountains, we were greeted with a beautiful view on all sides. I haven't really gotten out in the woods much since I've been in China, and it was so nice just to be in a place where the trees outnumbered the people - even though there were horribly ugly condo developments, and golf carts racing around at unstable speeds, it was still just nice to not be surrounded by buildings on all sides.
We stayed at a "rural farmhouse" on the eastern side of Happy Valley, which was kind of a trip in itself - as soon as we got back a group of neigboring farmers showed up at the back gate offering horse rides - for 10 kuai, I got about a 15 minute round trip on the back of a horse which kept stopping to eat grass on the side of the trail - it was still pretty fun, though. After dinner our hosts built us a bonfire - nothing unites students from diverse cultures like the universal human fascination with fire. Not really feeling like drinking more of the border, I went to bed pretty early - but not before my roommate made me switch beds, threatening me with slow, lingering sickness and death from cold (if not evil spirits) if I didn't switch rooms and sleep on the kang down the hall, instead of my originally selected cot. For those of you who don't know, Chinese have traditionally slept on a bed known as a kang, which is very wide (about four people across), and it actually not so much a bed as an oven - it is made out of earthen clay, and a fire is stoked underneath, which makes it very warm and cozy. The drawback of the kang, however, is that you are basically sleeping on a rock, but my arguments to my roommate about how I wanted to sleep on my cot with three blankets, that I wouldn't be too cold, that I grew up in New Hampshire and I KNOW what cold is, etc. etc. etc.... all in vain. I slept on the rock (but it was a very warm and cozy rock!)
Sunday morning we drove up to Dandong, and took a speedboat tour of the Yalu River. The most exciting part of the tour was when our motor stalled, and we started drifting slowly over to the North Korean side. A couple excited cell phone calls from our pilot later, the motor started up again, and we continued our journey down the safe side of the middle.
I can't tell you how eerie it was to see North Korea. There were no people there. The Chinese side is packed with skyscrapers and sightseers. The North Korean side seemed to be empty warehouses, empty boats pulled up on the bank, and one forlorn Ferris wheel with no one on it. There was only one barge I saw loaded with anything, and it was loaded with Red Cross food supplies. As soon as I saw the Red Cross logo and realized what it was, I just felt sick to my stomach. The only North Koreans we saw were two soldiers on a boat who waved to us.
For some reason, I thought that there would be more traffic back and forth between the two sides, but that was very much not the case. North Korea is completely closed - any North Korean who escapes into China and is found by the Chinese authorities is immediately returned and executed. From listening to the Chinese talk about it, what we saw right next to the border is the "nice" part, the part they dress up for the outsiders to see. The situation inland is indescribably worse. The most interesting part was hearing how the one working bridge across the border (the one that wasn't bombed by the Americans during the Korean War) is pre-wired for detonation, should Chinese-Korean relations take a sudden turn for the worse (I don't know if this is true or not, but it makes an interesting story). I kept looking around for North Korean-manufactured souvenirs, only to realize that North Korea doesn't seem to really export anything except stamps and counterfeit versions of its own currency. I got some postcards and Kim Jong Il stamps - the only souvenirs I could find.
OK - I'm ending this now, because I'm hungry. Long story short: took the train, nice scenery, snoring man, abrupt awakening, went back to sleep, major brain fog, lots of napping. more later!
