Can it be that Anyone Dislikes Chengde?

We got from Chengde this evening. It was such a blast and I have to give a hand to IUP for being able to organize such trips. They really treat us well. I am also starting to realize how some of our money gets spent. They must put aside a bit for these trips. Anyways, enough about IUP, what about Chengde?

See photos here, Chengde Photos

On Saturday morning at 7:30 am we left Tsinghua University bound for Chengde. Chengde is northeast of Beijing and it is where the emporer's used to go during the summer when it was too hot in Beijing. Of course since it is not summer anymore the weather was nice and nippy.

On the way to Chengde we took the same route as we did to the Simatai part of the Great Wall. After a couple hours we stopped at a place where we could use the bathroom. It wasn't really a village, but it wasn't really a rest stop, it was somewhere in between. I was chatting with students and teachers when another student pointed out something I should take a picture of. I turned around and looked. Even though we pretty much in the middle of nowhere in China I turned to see a bunch of people playing pool. Moreover, these tables were not even inside. There were three pool tables outside by the side of road. It seemed as if someone had stolen the pool hall without them noticing. In any case, everyone was standing around having a good time playing pool.

After a four hour bus ride we finally reached Chengde and checked into our rooms. After checking we all ate lunch together. All the students were pretty happy since the last time IUP ordered food on a trip it was an assortment of odd foods. However, this time no asked "who ordered this dish?".

The first stop of the day was at a palace. I forget the name of the palace right now. It was a pretty neat palace, but we did not get to spend a lot of time there. There were two things which stood out for me. First were the pigeons that you could feed seeds to. There was a lady in the palace who sold seeds. Once you bought the seeds all the pidgeons would fly towards you and wait for you to throw the seeds at them. They would even eat out of your hands. I tried to get a pidgeon to sit on my shoulder and eat food, but it was not comfortable, so it kept flying away. The second interesting thing was the magician whose act we watched on the way out. His finale involved swallowing a metal more than half the size of a pool ball and then spitting it back out.

After visiting the palace we all got back on the bus and headed for Qing Chui Feng. When we were at the palace I noticed this and asked the director of IUP what is was. He gave me a simple explanation, it was as follows. Being that the rock was shaped like a large phallic object the emporer thought it was an important symbol, yet at the same time he did not want to be overshadowed. I mean this is obvious right? Being that the emporer is supposed to be the ruler of all the people and the land and is considered a god then nothing can be better. Because of this feeling he built a temple in the hills between his palace and the huge phallic shaped rock on the mountain, so that it would be obscured from view.

We rode a ski lift up to the top of mountain. The interesting thing about the ski lift is that it did not seem like the people who maintained the lift considered or knew that when people rode the lift it was low enough for people's feet to touch the trees. It was not like your foot would brush against the top of the tree, it was more like if you were not paying attention you might be able to lose a shoe as your foot went through the tree. Another interesting aspect of this 'national park' was that once the lift went over the first hill it went into a small little valley where there were people farming. If you looked to one side you could see some villagers homes. I wondered what was more odd, the fact that right below this historical sight were people harvesting their corn, or the fact that the villagers had tourists constantly riding through their backyard on a crappy old ski lift.

All of us eventually made it to the top. We did the whole tourist thing with taking pictures. Then all the guys did the immature thing and made jokes. I would have to say that I was included and I enjoyed it! We took more photos and then headed back down the lift.

For most people it was time to eat dinner, but for Taylor, David and I it was time to hit the sauna. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. Either way the three of us were not going to question why there was a sauna here and not in any of the other places we stayed in while we were travelling. We downstairs to the locker room and got ready to go in, but first we were greeted by a couple of the locker room attendants and a man who had just come out of the sauna area. He was not wearing any clothes and did not seem to want to put on any soon. While we were getting ready my friends were like, "what about trunks? you going to wear any?". While we getting ready the guy from the sauna was just listening to us have our conversation. Even though most of it was in English he still seemed to enjoy listening to us foreigners. Luckily for me and Dave he chose to stand on the bench right behind the lockers we were using, moreover he was not facing away from us. Right before we went into the sauna I tried to take my towel with me, but I guess one of the attendants did not want have anything like that, so he came and took my towel off and put it somewhere. I still do not understand what is considered personal space in China. In the end the sauna experience was fun and I got to hear a lot of the stories that Dave and Tyler had from their previous trips in China.

Once we were done with the sauna we joined our friends at one of the nearby restaurants and ate a little bit of food and then quickly went to sing karaoke. I would have to say that out of the two times I went to sing karaoke this has been the funnest. It made me reconsider my attitude towards karaoke. Did you hear that Jesse?

There were about fifteen or more of us students and teachers who went to sing karaoke. Early in the evening the students and teachers were mixed between both rooms. By the end of the night, however, most of the students had moved to one room while a few students and the teachers were in another room. Even though we did not mind all the Chinese songs the teachers were singing we thought it was nice to be able to sing some American songs we knew, like 'I am Believer','Teen Spirit' and 'Candy Girl' to name a few. One of the students mentioned how singing karaoke displayed the less prevalent ideals of our societies. For example, for Chinese people, friends and family and other are extermely important. This can be seen with how many live together or go out to eat dinner, but when it comes to Karaoke it seems that Chinese people only want to sing by themselves. On the other hand, while Americans have a very individualistic attitude towards many things, when it comes to karaoke, the more people who sing at one time, the better. I have not experienced this a great deal because I do not sing karaoke too often, but I thought it was interesting point.

The second day in Chengde we visited another palace, but this one also had a lot more land, which I guess could be considered a park. After entering the temple we hopped on some little shuttles which took us to the top of a small mountain. The ride made me consider what China's safety standards were in terms of buildings roads that go up mountains. I mean the road was not extremely dangerous, but it was definitely narrow and often times there were steep grades. I also noticed a few times where they had added extra cement around a corner because the original road was not wide enough. That made me wonder whether someone had some foresight or it was a case where hindsight was 20/20. We made it safely to the top of the mountain and enjoyed the view. We took a bunch of photos on a small wall that was on top of the mountain. We also took the chance to laugh at some of the other safety standards we noticed. Even though the wall was only about ten or fifteen feet tall the only thing that kept you from falling off one side was a yellow line and a warning painted onto the walkway which said 'Pay Attention to Safety'. We wondered was this a case of using the cheapest method to avoid responsibilty or was it a way to maintain the beauty of the wall. We could not figure out which was better.

While on top of the wall got to see the next place we were going to visit. This was the Putuozongshen Temple. This was a huge palace which was built in only four years. Other than that I do not know too much. We made our way along the path to the main building and walked around. After taking some photos and relaxing at the top of main building it was time to go. On the way we noticed that there were some small statues in the wall which had their heads taken off. Another student mentioned that this was because someone had come to take the head to sell on the black market. I guess anyone will do anything to make a buck.

The Chengde trip was definitely a lot of fun, but by the end I thought that all the temples ended up looking the same. You can see the pictures in my gallery to make your own decision. So now that the fun is over we have to go back to class for the next two weeks with only one day off since this weekend we had three days. It is going to be rough.

Oh yeah, I have to thank Ji Maike for inspiring me with this title. It is based on one of the grammar structures that he uses alot (Nandao ... ma?).