I am writing these first impressions of our stay in the Middle Kingdom while speeding over the smoggy plains of Eastern China in a train on our way to Shanghai. Looking out the window there appears to be a layer of thick gray fog hovering above houses and fields, far away buildings are nearly impossible to see, merging with the haze.
The amount of pollution around here is scary to observe and makes one wonder what is going to happen in the future. It is of course not a secret that China is battling with severe environmental problems, but to see these first hand in their full impact on the population is a different story altogether.
We have spent about 3 weeks in China by now, which is nothing given the vast size of the country- you’d need a year to be able to at least get a glimpse of its diverse landscapes and culture.
Given our time constraints, we have opted for ‘hardcore city hopping’ as we call it. Travel distances are huge and thus take time, and navigating the countryside is rather difficult without any knowledge of Mandarin or Cantonese, so during our first visit to the country we will mostly see its metropoles- as such all our stories have to be taken as that- impressions from the city. The countryside would make for a different story altogether.
What can be said about Chinese cities (or the ones we have seen so far?). They are huge. 1 million inhabitants qualifies as small place. There is lots of traffic, albeit way more orderly than in Vietnam (less honking- and electric scooters!!!). They are full of bland grey highrises- most apartment buildings seem to uniformly blend in with the often smoggy surrounds… There are veritable house jungles, one highrise next to the other, 30 stories or more, narrow huge towers dominating the cityscape everywhere. Then there is what one would call communist architecture- vast building complexes with an intimidating aura around them- everything is big and seemingly towers above you. The CBD’s are full of shiny skyscrapers.
On the edge of the city the image is somewhat different. Family homes exist, often tiled on the outside in kitschy colors, built in between community gardens. In the countryside, through which we passed on long train-journeys, small huts dominate, perched against hills or along rivers.
Some places are so big it defies imagination- Guangzhou, a city some 160 km north of Hong Kong has 12 million inhabitants. We started a bit smaller. After crossing the border into the ‘town’ of Hekou where we spent the night, our first port of call was Kunming in Yunnan province with ‘only’ 1,1 million inhabitants. It was a pleasant enough city, we particularly enjoyed the fact that we could finally use sidewalks as sidewalks again (not possible in Vietnam, where they are constantly blocked by food-stalls and scooters). Also, Kunming had a number of nice bars and cafes that made you want to linger rather than just consume something and leave.
China is definitely more comparable to the West regarding its development status (again speaking for the cities here)- consumption plays a major role in peoples life, shopping malls seem to exist at every street-corner, and rather than having the abundance of street-food like in Southeast Asia, fast food chains dominate in Chinese cities.
There is a marked difference to Southeast Asia in a lot of ways, be that wealth or organization or cleanliness. China is a place in which we spotted subcultural movements again for the first time in a while. Many people own cars rather than scooters, there are big supermarkets rather than markets (even though the latter still exist). Also, obesity is a problem again- hardly existent in Southeast Asia.
In order to get at least a bit of a country glimpse, we embarked on a 24 hour journey through the Yuannese mountains to Guilin and on to Yangshuo. The area is famous for its karst mountains (much like in Vietnam, only here they are dotted along rivers). It is a truly beautiful place. We rented bicycles and did a 35 km tour through the countryside, followed by some rock-climbing the next day. For me, it was the first time while Nico had previously climbed- but for him it was the first real rock cliff, too. It was a lot of fun, climbing up the karst rocks and enjoying the beautiful view from above- and exhausting. Thinking we did quite well, we later walked up onto the so called Moon Hill only to be shown by the pro’s what climbing really is- people mastering the craziest walls with apparent ease- overhangs and all. We have a lot to learn….
The next station on our journey was Hong Kong- which merits a separate article- thus, here end our first impressions of Chinese life- more to follow soon.
🙂 Schön, wieder regelmäßig hier von Euch zu hören! Und sehr interessant!
Habt Ihr eine Privatzug gehabt? 😉 Man stellt sich Züge in China immer überfüllt vor! Das Landschaftsbild ist ja traumhaft! Da möchte man auch gleich mit einem Floß fahren!