人山人海

I'd like to teach you a Chinese idiom today. Unlike many of the idioms my various Chinese professors tried to teach me, this one is actually quite useful. Here it is: 人山人海(ren shan ren hai). What does it mean? Well, literally, 'person mountain person sea,' and as a comprehensible English phrase 'people from the mountains to the sea,' and thus you can see it is meant to describe large crowds of people.

I read today that the UN's State of World Cities report for 2010 pegs the population of the Pearl River Delta (that's basically the triangle formed by Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Macao, plus the outlying areas) at approximately 120 million. That's right. The urban agglomeration I live in has a population 3.5 times that of all of Canada. I know I complain a lot about the endless city, the pollution, the crowds, the noise, &c. This is why.  I'm not sure I could ever acclimate to this life (certainly not in one year).

Let's take a little stroll.

So to get away from the skyscrapers for a little while, today I hopped a bus to Xiaozhou (小洲). Xiaozhou dates to the Yuan Dynasty and is notable for its old network of canals and its newer artsy vibe. You can get there on a Guangzhou city bus in about 45 progressively bumpy minutes. I enjoyed watching the scenery change from skyscrapers and wide roads to crumbling little shops and narrow streets.

boats in a canal

Once in Xiaozhou, I felt very out-of-place, wandering at random down little side alleys and gardens, but I also immediately spotted one other foreign visitor and a group of Chinese tourists, so clearly the locals must be used to having strangers poking around.

a gate

Time for the photo tour! Pull up a chair and settle in.

Here, have a fake stump.

Xiaozhou is full of those tiny narrow alleys that squeeze between buildings and make me feel like I'm in a maze. A really cool maze, where you turn a corner and find four old ladies playing mahjong under a slowly turning fan (but they didn't want me to take their picture).

That tiny white sign is advertising broadband.

There are also little landscaped gardens that just pop up unexpectedly. As it was two o'clock-ish, there were of course people taking a siesta in the shade. It's 90 degrees today.

I wish I was that comfortable sleeping in public.

Formal Chinese-style gardens are growing on me. Normally, I find controlled nature to be a poor substitute for the heart-crushing beauty of the real thing, but many of the Chinese gardens I have seen have a way of feeling like human space molded to fit nature and not the other way around. Also, pagodas make me think of lazy afternoon tea on a warm day. This fits my mental image of my perfect sepia-tinted life as a lady of luxury and leisure in the early 20th century (why not the 18th century? you who know me may ask. The 18th century is lovely, yes, but in my perfect dream past life, I want to be able [or nearly able] to vote).

Back on topic. Xiaozhou has an eclectic blend of architecture and architectural adornment. This ranges from the traditional:

This could be any time in the last century, if it wasn't in color.

to the traditional in an entirely different sense:

Well hello, Comrade Mao

to the quirky and modern, which reflects Xiaozhou's current reputation as an artistic village.

It's an eagle? Watching TV? Whatever, it's cute.

And winding like milky green ribbons through all of this are the old canals, crisscrossed by numerous bridges, some no more than plywood covered bamboo poles and others sturdy and solid stone.

Not the prettiest, but the easiest to photograph.

And that was my visit to Xiaozhou. It was midafternoon, so I didn't get to try any of the little local eateries. I was tempted, though, because I saw one of my new vocabulary words advertised at one: 毛血旺(mao xue wang). It's preserved duck's blood and eel stew (and is actually a Sichuan specialty). Any takers? Alright, yes, I was kidding, I am not at all tempted to try that, any more than I am tempted to try the famous Cantonese dish "Tiger fighting Dragon" (it's a braised snake and cat combo). My interesting food item of the day was this:

Look, Ma, it's 5% juice. That's healthy, right?

"Pear and Sea Coconut Drink," with bonus  red date and Chinese wolfberry flavors. Sadly, it mostly takes like sugar. Way too much sugar. Under the sugar, you can taste the pear and the red dates (aka jujubes). I'm still not entirely sure what a Sea Coconut tastes like, but thanks to Wikipedia I know it comes from an endangered tree native to the Seychelles and is used in both Traditional Chinese Medicine and Cantonese cuisine. I also learned that a wolfberry is the same this as a goji berry, and that goji berry is a modern loanword from the Chinese name for the fruit, gouqi (it's a superfruit! it needs an exotic name! we can't call it a wolfberry, those are so common they grow on hedges in England!).

I also managed to get my hands on a bag of mini marshmallows at a quite low price last time I was at the Park'n'Shop (I've decided my preference of Park'n'Shop over the other international stores is that the name reminds my subconscious of Shop'n'Save, which is associated with childhood memories of Damariscotta). So, what's a former girl scout to do with a bag of mini marshmallows? Grab a toothpick, a candle, a Hershey's bar and the closest thing to graham crackers she can find (uh... oat biscuits) and make s'mores.

S'MORES, FTW

Ah, delicious. I'm looking forward to some camping in August, but I'm also aware that I may be planning too much for August. It feels so far away, because it's when I'll be home, the concept of which seems so far away, but in reality it is getting quite close. My contract ends in less than 50 days, and I'm beginning to feel the internal twinges of 'oh, I'll miss this when I'm gone' (usually food related moments). It's not enough to change my mind and stay, though. I am looking forward to August -- a reenactment, a baby shower, hopefully a new job, blueberry season, and maybe some camping/time up to camp. Yeah, it's going to be good.