Hangin’ with the Locals

8/8/15 

Sadly, my attempts at containing my contagion have failed. Nick now has a full blown respiratory infection. Sorry, Tico! :o(  He was a trooper though; we didn’t have time to go to the pharmacy to get him some medication and he stuck it out all day.

Pagoda

Pagoda Detail

Us & pagoda

We started the morning at Xingqing Park to mingle with the locals and diverge a bit from the tourist track. Part of Gate 1’s mission is to impart some cultural wisdom on us, as well as the history part of the tour. So we were taken to the city park to see what current-day local life is like. We stopped by various dance troupes and exercise groups to join in and walk around the park. Nick and Julio (the 15 year old Mexican in our group) showed off their hacky sack/soccer skills with a group of older women who put us silly foreigners to shame. China’s largest age group is its senior citizens, for which retirement comes at age 60 (55 for women), at which point the government gives them a mandatory pension. So there are millions of retirees with nothing but leisure time on their hands. As such, it’s very common for large groups of friends/neighborhoods to get together in parks each day for 2-3 hours of early morning exercise (before young parents and families get there). So we saw lots of groups of people gathered around trees or any large open space practicing tai chi, sword dancing, singing, even whip skills! [NN: There was this big man, shirt off who was spinning a top using a long whip. Right in the middle to the park and his other whip friends looked on.] Our tour guide had us join in on a few of them, one of which was practicing group massage, and another line dancing troupe with live band that plays/dances continuously for 3 hours each day, that was clearly used to welcoming the crazy “big nose” foreigners (the local colloquial term for Westerners, since we tend to have a larger schnoz than the average Chinese) into their dance line. [NN: We had a blast joining the dance troups and the hackey sack grougs, and they seemed to love having Westerners join them. Indeed there was so much activity in the park, it looked like a great way for senior citizens to stay vital and socialize. Maybe I’ll move to China when I retire so I can enjoy that every day.]

Which, speaking of morphological differences, brings me to Nick’s height. He inevitably, hits his head on a lot of the doorways (which never ceases to entertain me) that were clearly not built to anticipate anyone over 6ft, and people are constantly telling him “watch your head, watch your head”. It’s almost as if we were back in Nepal as numerous wide-eyed, open-mouthed children have stopped to look up and gawk at him as he passes. Not to mention the nervous young man in Xingqing Park who did a double take as Nick passed him and then excitedly stopped him to take a picture with the towering white man. I’ve got a celebrity on my hands. [NN: Which I don’t really understand. In Nepal there were not many locals over 5’8” but in China, the young Chinese are often over 6’ (obviously shows stature is more nutrition than genetics) so there were lots of other people who were just an inch or two shorter than I. Of course, I am being hypocritical because I remember a time my Dad was talking to a friend who was taller than him and as a small child I called him a giant. Well he was only about an inch taller than my Dad and then I grew up to be about 1 inch taller than him. I guess in a height a small difference is huge.]

Nick playing hacky sack

Kids sliding down carving

Dance troupe

Dance troupe

Dancing Cat

Dancing Nick

Letter writing with water

The Famous Nick

A word on the air pollution: stepping out of the Shanghai airport was overwhelming. You could see the thick gray layer of what must be smog sitting on the horizon, but it was more the oppressive heat, humidity and smell (from I don’t know what) that hit you like a punch in the chest than anything else. In Xi’an, the visibility outside our hotel only extends a few blocks before everything in the distance is enveloped in a misty grayness. So yes, there is significant air pollution here. And yet it doesn’t seem to affect the locals at all. The images we see back home on the news of people walking around in face masks just isn’t the reality here. [NN: One thing that disappointed me is that when we flew across the country I was excited to see the Chinese landscape from above, however in every flight in the country the land was blanketed by a featureless sheet of grey fog that made it impossible to ever see the ground. This was consistent across three internal flights spanning thousands of miles. Could there really be smog everywhere?]

Xi'an Smog

Our tour guide is very sensitive to Western perceptions of China and continually stresses that we should not compare China to anything else. “China is China” he says. And to a degree, he’s right. You can’t really judge a place until being there. When asked about the pollution (which I’m sure he prepares for and anticipates on all of his tours), he asked us to look around and notice if we see anyone wearing masks. We do not. [NN: Well there were some but actually there were a lot more in Vietnam. Over there street vendors would sell them in all sorts of designer sytles. Not so much in China.] With the exception of a few women riding scooters, I have not seen anyone wearing a mask. So either they’re used to the pollution or to them it’s not bad at all. A situation that seems very similar to what (I’ve been told) L.A. has gone through over the last 3 decades or so. [NN: I wonder if LA was just as bad in the 80’s, but I suspect that China’s problem is bigger than LA’s was. But LA shows that the problem can be addressed and dramatically improved.] Even so, you can see the layer of smog across the sky and you most certainly notice its ABSENCE when you get further away from the city, as we did on the river. But the line I’ve heard about there being no blue sky in China because of the pollution isn’t real. There were some cloudy days, but there were also some sunny, blue sky days as well. So, so far, whatever level of pollution there is, it’s not a hindrance or really any concern to us at this point.