By wink of water

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We’ve been traveling around the Yunnan province, in southwest China. Some observations:

Rice terraces in Yuanyang

The food is amazing. We have a guide and he orders for us, but our one day on our own we had an equally good experience. Dishes are quite spicy. The meat is not always of the highest quality, but usually seasoned well. The vegetables a another thing all together. Fresh, crisp, tender, unbelievably flavorful. In the US or in France, too often veggies are overcooked, soggy, and totally bland. Here they are cooked perfectly.

Meat market in Yuanyang.

Sanitation leaves a lot to be desired. The hotels have flush toilets, though often with a strange smell that suggests the composting variety. On the road it’s nothing short of disgusting. The best version is a tiled hole to a landing spot four feet below. It’s not an outhouse; in fact, it’s much dirtier than that. You can see sunshine and what others left before you. There is definitely no toilet paper. You squat over the hole and each hole might be separated by a 3 foot wall to protect your privacy. In the worst case, it’s a ten hole hall that you actually have to pay for. Instead of a hole, there’s a trough running the length of the hall, of a depth of a foot. The leavings just sit in this tiled trough for god knows how long. One assumes that said trough is sprayed down periodically and the waste washed into some sort of receptacle, but one doesn’t think this happens very regularly. Women’s bathrooms have the additionally lovely detail of used feminine hygiene products just sort of laying out in the open. The stench is overwhelming.

The conjunction of old and new is one of the most interesting and confounding things about China. On the one hand, there are spanking new highways, high speed rail systems, and a billion people with cell phones – including those living in primitive conditions. On the other hand, the water is not safe to drink, sewage systems are often nonexistent, and farmers graze their ox on the shoulder of the road. Nothing brings this home more clearly than the mess of driving. Sharing the road are brand new Toyotas, BMWs, and Fords; overloaded and unstable dump trucks that travel very, very slowly; motorcycles with helmetless riders (including two year olds gripping the handlebars); tractors or motorcycles that have been modified into three wheel vehicles with a covered bed that can carry goods or people; bicycles; and horses pulling carts. This on four lane roadways as well as smaller village streets. C’est un bordel, c’est clair.

Having the guide has been a life saver for travel. These no way we could have driven ourselves, and the bus ride to Yuanyang would have left me a trembling mess. The terraces were worth the voyage – hard to imagine the centuries work it took to transform mountain upon mountain into sculpted farmland. They are breathtakingly beautiful. We have also seen many interesting markets with the minority villagers doing their daily shopping, heavy baskets resting on their backs and tied around their foreheads. Our guide brought us to a lovely restored Qing house that is now a hotel that we never would have found otherwise. It had 42 courtyards, a gorgeous garden, and intricate carvings on all the doors and awnings. Unlike some other examples of Qing architecture, this house wasn’t destroyed by the Cultural Revolution, as the state used it as a hospital and government offices.

We are off to hike the Tiger Leaping Gorge, the deepest in the world. I think we’ll see a lot of European backpackers.

First impressions: Gleaming white skyscrapers leap out of jungle canopy. Verdant, steep hills rising out of the sea, Vancouver island transplanted to the tropics. I have never seen a city so in love with capitalism. On Hong King island, shiny steel towers proclaim their creators in 10 story letters: Philips, Samsung, HSBC. Giant LCD billboards play 30 second advertisements on a continuous loop. There are shopping malls everywhere, filled with familiar stores. The streets are packed with shop after shop, with even restaurants and bars hard to find. Kowloon stores advertise with signs suspended seven feet above the sidewalk and stretching across the street; it feels like a permanent street festival.

The heat is unbearable. I am envious of the tourists with hats, the locals with umbrellas. People slowly jog along the promenade at 7 am, completely covered in sweat. Locals practice tai chi, moving slowly in loose, flowing clothes.

The city wakes later and stays up later than Boston or Paris. The commute doesn’t pick up until 9 am. After dinner the stores are still open and people are still shopping. We go to the Kowloon markets at noon, mini-neighborhoods filled with flowers, birds, goldfish. The streets near our hotel are lined with food stalls, very similar to Paris except perhaps less refined – Paris in the 1800s. The smells are powerful and not entirely pleasant.

But elsewhere, the city is ultra-modern. The subway is speedy, quiet, and extremely well organized. Underground tunnels that are very clean, well-lit, and frigidly air-conditioned lead to numerous exits at every stop. It feels very safe; early in the morning, no one bothered an obviously confused tourist, and there are tons of police throughout the markets. Thus far I have seen only one person begging, which seems shocking in a city of this size and with so many tourists.

Today we’ll seek out the old Hong Kong, though it’s hard to find anything older than the colonial period. Then we go to China; I’m curious to see the differences, now that the mainland has embraced capitalism.

Glee mix

I made my Glee mix, actually buying some songs to fill out the list. Mostly I kept the real version of the song when I liked them better. Sometimes the Glee cast members don’t do much other than sing the same song note for note, and usually they lose in the comparison (very evident on Heart’s “Alone”). That said, Lea Michele’s version of “Jar of Hearts” and Darren Criss’s “When I Get You Alone” are both a thousand times better than the original. Enjoy!

1. Tik Tok by Ke$ha
2. Blame It (On the Alcohol) by Glee Cast
3. Thriller / Heads Will Roll by Glee Cast
4. Rolling In the Deep by ADELE
5. Alone by Heart
6. And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going by Glee Cast
7. Jar of Hearts by Glee Cast
8. I’m Not Gonna Teach You by Black Kids
9. Borderline / Open Your Heart by Glee Cast
10. When I Get You Alone by Glee Cast
11. I’ll Stand By You by Pretenders
12. Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler
13. Defying Gravity by Glee Cast
14. Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine
15. Faithfully by Glee Cast

Not really romantic, per se, but in time for that Hallmark-produced holiday. Mainly songs that missed the cut of my 2010 mix, or I hadn’t heard before the new year.

1. Go Outside by Cults
2. What’s My Name f. Drake by Rihanna
3. Acapella by Kelis
4. Cold War by Janelle Monae
5. Decisions f. Yuksel Arslan by How to Dress Well
6. A Case Of You (Joni Mitchell Cover) by James Blake
7. Blue Moon (Big Star cover) by Kendal Johansson
8. Baby Now by Nichole Alden
9. Glitter by No Age
10. Carolina by Girls
11. S&M by Rihanna
12. Burn Bridges by DOM
13. Desire Lines by Deerhunter
14. Mermaid by Okkervil River
15. I Only Know (What I Know Now) by James Blake