Yangshuo paradoxes

While Guilin was a blast, one of the things you must do while in the region is take the boat down the Yi River to Yangshuo. While very annoying to be on a double decked boat full of tourists, the hight advantage being able to see things over bank level makes up for the annoyance factor. Plus they feed you, so there is that. If you were wise in the ways of the language, you could probably arrange a more intimate cruise on one of the local sampans, which in olden days were just bamboo lashed together with a small Jerry rigged one stroke motor attached. Actually, it's not much different now... Same bullshit one stroke from the 1940's except somewhere along the way, some genius figured out that you could lash together four 12" prices of capped PVC piping, which wouldn't get waterlogged, and had the added advantage that you could fantail the front for better speed.

At some point, possibly only in the last decade or so, some Chinese government official decided to turning this windy, snakelike river out of heart of darkness into a tourism superhighway, dredging the river to accommodate the two story ferries... Which they have to the tune of 2 million people per year. Dozens , if not hundreds of these monster boats are moored on either end of the route from Guilin to Yanshuo, turning the river into a massive one way train of ferries from morning one way to the return I. The evening.

The river and surrounding countryside for the 6 hour cruise was fascinating. Scores of little hamlet fishing villages and farms dotted the landscape, each group of denizens dutifully waving to the ass hat photo snapping tourists on board the boats as if their very lives depended on it.

Hell, they probably did.. As far as I know there were squads of government snipers ready to pick off the first dirt farmer who gave a less than stellar wave to the paying customers....

{ grumble grumble grumble... I'm tired of all these jackasses taking my picture.. Here ya go fuckers, have a one finger wave!!!!! (Thunk..thunk.. TWAP TWAP!!!) and Han the farmer goes face first into the oxen manure, a prominent reminder of what happens when you piss off the touri.

But in many ways these people do depend on the boats. Two hours into the voyage, we found a medium sampan come up alongside, a grizzled old man at the helm, and presumably his wife attaching a large hook as we were steaming full speed ahead. At first I thought that they were just saving gas and hitching a ride, like a skateboarder on a pickup..

It soon became evident that this was our seafood supply boat. The free lunch on board was nothing but standard Chinese fare, but there was a menu of seafood, that, for a price..and a hefty one, you could order local Li River seafood.. Crabs, clams, fish, snails, and the like.. And this was our floating Wawa.

I watched in fascination as the woman haggled price with the chefs over the back of the boat, then weigh out the various wares on an ancient looking hand scale. After business conducted, detaching to have her Marlboro smoking captain cut the motor, drift backward past the trailing tourist boat, gun the motor, and start the dance again. Total bad-ass pro shit.

The mountains the river winds through are impressive monoliths of ancient stone and vegetation. The scenery is breathtaking to behold. You can't imagine a day, EVER, where you wake up, look out in any direction and say "fuck man, I am still in this shithole?",  and anyone who does, deserves to be dragged out into the street and bludgeoned to death on general principles.

Amazingly enough, the government has managed to string electric wires through the length of every little berg out here, albeit over the old wires on listing poles with those old glass insulators on top. I am assuming this is only on the river villages, and probably for the grimy hippy tourists who want to get back to the roots of traditional Chinese villages for a week.

The tours themselves are less tours per say, that a way to count  warm bodies and wallets. Each tour company ( of which there are dozens) arranges their tourist regiments into team, under a flag you follow. We were team panda complete with the gay little panda sticker, which had to be worn and seen at all times. 

Most of team panda was Chinese nationals from the city on their was for vacation slumming to the Yangshuo, but we met a couple from Belgium, Simon and Freda, who, like us were curious to find out what the region was all about, and getting very annoyed with dear panda leader directing our every move and the boat tour guide telling us every little mountain range looked like 8 stallions drinking from a fountain while small children fed them hibiscus flowers.. Trust me. I looked long and hard, as did my Belgian friend. We could not see it, so perhaps the ancient folk who came up with the stories were either drunk, or just fucking with the younger generation to get them to start screaming "are we there yet" from the back of the boat.

Needless to say, we were looking for the first opportunity to go AWOL from team panda.

Thankfully, my darling wife booked us in Yangshuo village for five days, which is really a good number of days to see it properly. It also gets you off the tour boat, which was good for them, as she was probably gonna maim the chick on the microphone if we had to listen to it for another hour.

 We got into the port of Yangshuo, to find massive earth movers dredging the mouth of the basin, a first step perhaps to trying to widen the river to accomadate two way traffic to and from here. This would not surprise me given the sheer amount of tourist dollar potential of the town. 

The town over the years has geared for westerners. There are a number of pharmacies, restaurants and pletaura of live music and bars at night. Drink prices, unfortunately are at tourist prices, so stick to the supermarkets for stocking up, and byo, where you can. But don't be a dick about it. Order at least 2 at full price, and learn the bartenders name before you pull that move..

When I said before that the government had dredged a one way path through the river to accommodate 10 ton tourist boats, I mean just that. These boats probably have a displacement of at least 18 feet of water needed to navigate a river that on either side of the boat is maybe 6 feet at best, and the Chinese government left little room for error... On either side, the entire trip, there was 3 foot on either side where the ferry could bottom out. These captains either had been doing it for generations, or were on serious drugs, or possibly both.

Yangshuo village is not how it's described in lonely planet, just as an FYI, unless those morons either visited in the 1980's or they just dropped acid and imagined it. Make no mistake.. As remote as this place is.. It's a tourist trap. Complete with McDonalds, KFC, western restaurants, street hawkers and hookers.

But as far as traps go.. It's one of the most charming ones I have ever seen. It's nestled in large, lush beautiful mountains that can even make McDees seem like a small town eatery. The street layout seems to have kept the original ancient plan, and the roads themselves inside the village are still old laid cobblestone blocks. One of the main positives of having this be a haven for outside visitors is the fact that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a place to rent bikes, which are not essential, but it does speed up the process of seeing everything if you only have a limited time here.

Whomever is in charge of Chinese tourism has obviously, and wisely decided to let this place be as far as the decor.. The village, with the exception of the chain restaurants, stands as original, although with a bit more LED lighting... The buildings are as rustic as they seem, giving the town the legitimacy it deserves in the shadow of the majestic mountains.

There is a  little oddity bar like the Rockabond, which features, for some reason, an outdoor and indoor climbing wall that is no bigger than the roof.

 Perhaps for those idiots stupid enough to try to climb the sheer faces of Yangshuo's formidable mountains to practice upon. Great bar otherwise.. it has the feel of your older adventure climbers lesbian sisters room with big windows looking out over the canal... But she charges you for the beer.

 Most of the taverns have rooftop access to rooftop lounge areas, for full viewing of the consumerism carnage below, while being able to gaze at the incredible scenery. 

One of these little hidden gems is the riverside cafe, on west street, which you will most assuredly miss due to the fact that the sign marking it is a nondescript brown sign four floors up. Nestled inside a seemingly small dark coffeehouse is a five floor restaurant and bar, what it lacks in horizontal square footage, it makes up for in vertical expanse. Each floor is a series of comfortable  lounge seating areas, each adorned with its own teddy bear, for some inexplicable reason. They do make you feel safe and cozy. 

It was by shear accident that I discovered the roof seating. I simply asked where the bathroom was (fourth floor) and found a spiral staircase leading to the roof area lounge (no bears). What it lacked it the stuffed animal department, it more than made up for in the view, which is a birds eye view of west street and all the mountain views you will ever need.

Another very pleasant surprise came in the form of a shitty little dive youth hostel called Crazy Jane's. Now normally, I don't even see the hostel signs in Yangshuo, because there are just so damn many, but this one boasted "tallest rooftop bar in town" and guided you down a really dark, long and narrow alleyway that just screamed mugging, so I was down with that immediately.

Five twists and turns later, following the signs, I came upon CJ' hostel. The sliding glass door that said , oddly enough, "slide" didn't, and I had to pic the door up and move it myself.  I found four ethnic Chinese girls playing some form of card game in silence, and no one at the front "desk", such as it was.

 Finally after a few minutes, I asked to the Chinese bridge club... "rooftop bar?.. "

"Up stairs" came the reply from the portly one, never even looking up...

The stairs were old, with ceramic tiles from the 1950's, and the place had all the charm of your kid brothers freshman year frat house. Graffiti covered the wall, and the faint waft of stale booze and vomit.. And this was off season... I would  hate to see it during peak...

Six flights of stairs finally got me to the roof bar, which was pretty much the Elias bunker scene in platoon. Walls were made of billowing and shifting plastic, and a well worn, homemade beer pong table was front and center. Poached couches and non functioning upright glass cooler, with a well carved upon hunk of bar completed what I had already expected. This was not for your secondary tourist drinkers. This was the place for Hard core, live at Leeds, home against arsenal pro circuit alcoholics. There was one girl sitting on the couch. I asked her for a beer.. Tsing Tao.. Ten Kwai.

Yep.. This was the place.

The view on the outside deck is amazing.. The afformentioned riverside cafe, offered views of the tourist streets and the hustle and bustle of cheap Chinese commerce. THIS place! nestled in the shadow of yanshuo's taller peaks, gave you the view of the river and the ass end of the common peoples living quarters.. Backyard grades, jerry rigged heating systems, sixth story murals of Che' Guevara, this place had the entire dark underbelly of the town, in 360.degree panorama.

The location was also the perfect amplifier for the sounds of the city reverbing off the mountains.. Screaming matches, dogs barking, sirens, and the distant echo of Chinese construction, tearing down the old to put up the new.

I was pleasantly suprised that it had the attempt of a working bathroom as well. Makeshift PVC piping and actual drainage. The flushing mechanism was a ingenious push valve, but it seemed to work, and better yet, the western toilet was actually clean.

It's technically winter here, the temp being close to 55 Fahrenheit, but the proximity to the river and the wind chill drop this down significantly, so I retired to the bar/bunker. A stone wok pot with embers is the only heating source in a structure that has more holes than a sieve. But it's better than the outside. And has that casual crack den coziness you would expect, and I am seeing things I didn't get at first glance. 

There are the obligatory, 3 gallon glass jars of snake wine, monkey balls and fuck all knows in the third one. The mysterious locked door that says "lucky sexy room. 36 quay after midnight.. Love you long time.."' The odd poster for Chinese classes at 30 rmb per hour. Various gravity extolling the virtues of copulation with "insert persons name here" or with various inanimate objects... The faint dripping of a faucet in the corner into an overflowing basin put there to collect. The lonely wail of the oxen across the river.

This is the place.. What just may be, to me at least, the perfect bar. Set away in a faraway land, down an alley you would never bring your parents too, up stairs that may cave at any moment to a place that is the quineseential definition of getting away from it all. THIS bar my friends, has no chance of being bought by corporate entities, or besieged by idiot frat boys... This was  home. If only for a little while...

And if you go.. Don't forget to carry ten cases of beer up five flights of stairs to get the tshirt.. Or you can pay 45rmb.. If you want to be a pathetic wanker tourist about it. Your choice.

But I digress..... back to the town itself.

In Yangshuo town, there is an old hotel and resort, the Paradesa. Apparently it was the place to be 15 years ago, and was still the pimp place as short as 2 years ago. Wandering around this place is surreal, given the fact that it is spitting distance from the tourists. I wandered in by accident, thinking that it was still a viable  attraction, and found the main lobby, the pool, and the driving range overgrown with neglect, the gym, stilll left intact, albeit with a hefty amount of dust. All the doors are locked and slapped with the Chinese "do not enter" stickers. the place is  just like Chernobyl. without the radiation.

Its a ghost town, right smack dab in the middle of a tourist attraction, and no one seems to care. but i do.

Word of caution though.. For some reason the Chinese forgot to plan for traffic... Ergo, there are only two traffic lights in the city.. Which makes it pretty tricky for crossing the street, so be warned, the scooters will have your ass if you are not dillegent.

There is a huge park where you can get away from the noise of the hawkers and the cars, and just chill out looking over the mountains and do your Tia chi or whatever you are into. It's a nice place to get away for a little bit of silence.

One of the things they say you must do is rent a bike and just ride, which was ok with me, as I have a tendency to just wander aimlessly, and the bike let me get to nowhere in particular faster than usual. 

The cool part about the ride was the fact that I was able to bang through tiny little towns, replete with homemade basketball courts sporting a random cow. There was one place that sported the sign, cold cold drinks, manned by a guy I called mister tom, only because there was an ancient sign platered in this hovel extolling someone of the same name. 

Now, Tom and I didn't see eye to eye on the language front, but when I came pedaling up after five km of uphill he said only two words of English that I wanted to hear. Cold beer. Which, oddly was the only two words of English he happened to know... And that was just fine with me. Toms place overlooked said basketball/cow haven across the street, and had the patina of road dust all over the three weatherd tables it had in the shadow of old English pronunciation posters. 

I sat with Tom at his place for a while, watching scores of other tour bikers from town amble past... We talked to each other in different languages, both saying the same thing, though we could not understand each other.... The guided tours were for suckers and losers. The best place was right here.. Watching the little kids chase each other with sticks and waiting for the cow to take a shit on the basketball court again, while drinking cold beer. There really wasn't any point in anything else. This was after all the middle of east bumfuck southern china.. It wasn't as if you could get cable.

 Yangshuo is intersected by little rivelets feeding into the Yi river, giving it that meet little Venice feel with out all the pomacity of having those weird ass boats with guys in striped shirts. The outlying communities are a series of fishing villages, famously for, what else... Fish. After 12 kilometers of biking, I decided the cool thing to do would be to take the bike back to Yangshuo via the bamboo sampan. I found a girl hawking just such a service, and after a little negotiating on price, I proceeded to follow her brother up and down a dirt road to the raft village they called home.

Now, you would think that something as old school, ancient and quaint as a bamboo raft trip in china for two hours would be devoid of anything remotely commercial, and you would be dead fucking wrong. No sooner did we traverse the first set of rapids when (I will call him chad, cuz.. Well he just looked like a chad) Chad, sidled the boat next to a floating dock with two guys who had just taken my picture were attempting to sell me pictures of such a heady set of rapids. I talked them down from 40 down to 20  for the most ludicrous of the set, and then took their picture, attempting to try to sell it to them. They were not amused.

The rest of the river sojourn consisted of encountering others on the river stupid enough to think that this was some sort of hidden intimate jewel of peace, a bunch of oxen watering themselves, and the obligatory lunch stop on a floating barge for fish.. Point of interest.. It's considered good manners to buy your pole captain a fish and a beer. That will run you sixty for the fish, and twenty for the beer. Personally, I would not like to think what happens if you don't feed chad. It probably involves a cinder block and a short rope.

Eventually, the boat beaches, and you will find yourself about 20 minutes ride back to Yangshuo, a bit more centered from the journey and a couple of hundred rmb lighter for the trouble. All in all it was worth it, if only for the fish, and watching some dickless foreign tourist drop his 1000 dollar Nikon in the river. That shit just never gets old. Chad and I exchanged giggling glances over that one, and you can't put a price on that.

So now it's Time to leave Yangshuo.. Five days is enough.. Time to get back to the big smoke, with kittens waiting. Our last night was spent at Monkey Janes, with a dozen or so expats, playing beer pong (remarkably, I lost two games)  and discussing Marxist politics until 3am. 

Japanese restaurant who cannot be named....

The one thing that has always baffled me about some restaurants in the Sanlitun area of Beijing, is their unwillingness to either advertise or put their name in the kings English (Elvis, not the ponces) on the sign, given the fact that it is one of the largest homes to English speaking expats in china. Even more baffling are the ones that are located in large expat shopping malls. 
 
No matter, we like to eat, so in the course of cruising the Sanlitun mall opposite International Wonderland, we wanted food, and we were set on a Japanese restaurant that one of our friends recommended, but couldn't give us the name of, because of the aforementioned English problem. We would not be denied.

Now, you have to realize that these Beijing mall food courts take up whole floors, football field sizes, entire fucking city blocks of restaurants, almost all of them Asian in one form of another, and because of the mall factor, are packed with rabid consumers, also mostly Asian.

We found one restaurant that we took for our quarry, and we sat down in front of the flat grill. It was busy and large, and reminded me of Japanese TGIFridays The clientele were a rabid bunch of families on an eat and go shop mentality, well mannered businessmen and wives, with children who bit the heads of 9 inch pan seared shrimp that would make Ozzy cower.. 

The food was good, reasonably priced, and even tho they messed up our order, we counted it as an adequate win, like going to Africa trying to bag the white rhino, but coming back with a couple of gazelles instead... you don't get the money-shot, and although you came out ahead, you never got your blood lust out.

But unbeknownst to us, our real quarry lay one door down, at the very end of floor three, tucked away in a dark corner, like the bastard stepchild who had so much more to offer, but never had the chance. It wasn't our fault we didn't get her on our first try, we were bedazzled by the lights and sounds of the marketplace and a cheap jeweled hooker.

We spotted it on our loop around the floor to get to the escalators. The heard and masses would never given this place a second glance. A door, but nothing descriptive other than a sign you cant understand unless you are Chinese., with windows, but unassuming. no maitre d', no neon blaring sign.


THE QUARRY
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

We returned the next day to find the place quiet, and seemingly empty except for staff at lunchtime. and the mall insanity outside the doors. We sat at the bar-ish section, in front of the cone fire pit, complete with the obligatory red hot cylindrical ceramic cones where the grilling is done... this, my friends, was where all the magic was gonna happen.

The atmosphere was warm, dark and cozy, a safe and assuring break from the circus like insanity that was the rest of the food court. Although the staff spoke no English it was clear that we were there on intent to eat well. I will give you a little trick on eating in foreign lands where you barely speak the language.. be bold.  grab a menu if its not proffered in the first 5 minutes.

The menu was impressive and easy to understand, offering roughly half of the standard Beijing Japanese restaurants including the obligatory sashimi with a wide variety of dishes only found in higher end places such as grilled fresh oyster on the shell with tobiko garlic and scallion.

I went for multiple dishes, including the aforementioned oyster, fresh grilled sea salt and pepper lamb, octopus and scallion salad, and varieties of sushi and sashimi. I was going to order much more, but kat reminded me of our tendency to over order, and end up racking a tab larger than our stomachs, so I backed off at that, although we both agreed that ordering a seaweed salad with cucumber would be a good idea.

My wife is all about the noodles. Kat chose the beef miso ramen with vegetables and the avocado maki, deciding to stop at that, reasoning that while not a fan of lamb or the oyster offerings, we could share the rest.

Our decision of seats was perfect to witness the art of grilling over the coals, and the cold dishes came in quick order. The presentation of each dish was immaculate. We lingered in conversation and exceptional food, perusing Chinese real estate guides, for locations just as immaculate, but could never afford.

Alas, the time had come to pay the piper, and since it was our anniversary, I would pick up the check. Our final delight in this hidden restaurant gem was the tab. 107rmb, with tea and my 16oz beer included. That's a little less than 20 bucks for two. 

Needless to say, we will be back. So too should you visit this hidden jewel amongst the madness.

Im on a boat yo!

It's one of those shoots that always sticks in the back of your head. You see it, and then months go by, but you are always wondering about it.

 

 In this case , in Beijing, it was the boat, or more accurately, the vessel named... Showboat..

I first saw it when Kat and I were looking down back alleys for an obscure Lebanese restaurant near the river. We found the food, but across the street, moored and listing ever so slightly was an entertainment boat that had obviously seen its heyday during the  2008 Olympics.

Rusted and derelict now, five years past, I sat and wondered why it hadn't been towed out for scrap... Why it had been moored, and left to die here. It seemed like she was seaworthy, why the hell couldn't she be recycled? I wanted to know more about her.. I needed to get a handle on what this girl was.

Asking for permission to jump the two foot gap between the dock and the showboat was pointless. Neither my family or friends here in China likes my penchant for jumping over walls, taking corrugated metal apart or jumping gaps to get into places that the authorities don't wish you to see.. ("Do you WANT to get arrested by Chinese police?" )

However Showboat remained in my mind thorough the months., and one winter sunny day, as I was coming back from getting my teeth drilled, a thought occurred. I'm pretty anesthetized, I have my camera and more importantly I was alone without the obligatory " yanno stech, this a stupid idea" rant.

It was a cold and windy, clear autumn day in Beijing, the type of day that makes you think of  Vermont in the fall. I approached cautiously, wondering what security cameras or unmarked police personnel may be watching. in Beijing, this is always an issue.

I really didn't know what the hell i was getting into. But I had four Tsingtao cans in my vest, and a full pack of Dunhill reds to barter with  just in case trouble happened.

I knew that people occupied it.. its derelict, it had been sitting there for years,  its a fucking boat, and its moored..Hell, having slept in cars, I would too.. its a peach of a squat. If this were America, it would be a no brainier, but given the fact I speak no real Chinese apart from perfunctory statements and hand gestures, any communication with people not pleased by my presence would have to be done in the basest, international level of communication... Humor, booze and cigarettes.

Entering through the gangway, the odor of human urine and feces hit like a brick, which I was expecting. I knew before I even jumped that the place was trashed, and had been for a while. Given enough time, in any place in the world, an abandoned structure will bring the homeless and the wretched alcoholic as and junkies, looking for a quick fix, a place to party, and a place to crash. And given enough time, you will need to relieve yourself, and the old adage " don't shit where you eat " doesn't apply in these places.

In Her heyday, The Showboat was a graceful presence on the river in Beijing. A Noble Dame, whose sole purpose was to bring party-folk together on a floating den of iniquity, Chinese style, and watch American subtitled movies with hideous translation. 

She has lace curtain frills and real white leather wraparound booths on two levels, with a dance floor, complete with disco balls, on the first level and a drop down movie screen. Think of a floating studio 54, with lots of chrome and lit floor tiles.

As I walked three steps in, I heard a rustling in one of the end booths on the second floor. "Nehow", I said, slowly drawing a beer out of the vest. "Nehow" came the reply, a female voice, along with two sentences I couldn't understand. She stepped out, and we locked eyes. At first she was shocked to see some white guy with two cameras smoking a cigarette and brandishing a beer. Then she smiled widely, motioning me to the booth, past the aging burgundy separating frills you used to get at those head shops..

The booth was surprisingly clean.. It was obvious that this was her chosen booth to live in, and while the table was dirty with old cigarettes, take out food bags and bottles of overturned booze, the white leather had been meticulously cleaned and fashioned into a bed, albeit with large blankets that needed to be washed.

I will call her Mary, given the fact that I can't ask and wouldn't understand what her real name was if you put a gun to my head. Which at this point, was hoping would not happen.

As I sat down, Mary took the beer from my hand without me offering it, and cranked it right off, lighting a cigarette she had in her mouth. I didn't object, as that was what the beers were for in The first place.

I wish I could say that there was some meaningful conversation between us that gave me the history of  the boat, and herself, and how she came to be on the boat, but that would be all bullshit. It was mostly me gesturing, around, showing her the camera, and handing her another beer to show me around. It was mostly silence from then on, her, following me around while I took shots.

The devastation that the squatters had done was impressive. The once grand bar and dance floor had been trashed more completely than juggaloes, European rugby players, or New York junkies combined. It was a total gut. Whomever ran this party, ripped through every possible cabin ate, crawls pace and light fixture looking for something to drink, sell pr burn.

Whatever Chinese junkies who red hit this place did it with the force of an f5 tornado. If it wasn't broken, it was gone, and the amount of dried blood, vomit and human excrement rivals anything any cleanup crew at a phish festival could see. Hardcore sewer workers would flinch at this. 

As I left the first floor, Mary in tow, I saw the difference between the floors. And it finally came to me. The bar level was for the revelry... The ugly homeless masses, coming to get fucked up and fight. the upstairs, looking over the carnage, was for the upper crust of the street. and each of the stalls were, while not as clean as Mary's quarters, relatively clean as compared to the spectacle beneath. 

This was where you went to oversee the carnage, not to participate, and I got the feeling that not just anyone could come upstairs to watch. This was the Colosseum, where , if invited, you could watch the heathen hoards get fucked up on the cheapest booze and the baddest drugs available.. And if you were very cool, you could watch the lower level drunkards beat the piss out of each other from the luxury boxes on the upper deck. Mary had a sky box. And I had been invited to give her a beer. 

And felt honored. 

What was SUPPOSED to be the first Post in this Blog.

This was actually supposed to be my first post on this blog. I have been writing almost every day since I got here, but this one was the first, so it deserves noting that this post is roughly 6 weeks old. Still relevant though.

Beijing ground pounding.

Never let it be said that the big B is an insurmountable task to get around in even for the most untraveled of folk. It may be daunting at first, but it is possible to get around this burg with limited knowledge of the language.

As with anyplace you may get dropped into headfirst with no knowledge of the general area, you need a good since of general direction. This is key, especially in an area where there are precious few pictogram to rely on.

FIRST DAY

If you are traveling from the us to the big smoke, an important safety tips. When you arrive have your hosts take you out and get you nice and hammered as soon as you get in, no matter the time you arrive. This may seem like an unnecessary extravagance. It is not. For a couple of important reasons.

ONE. They will most probably take you to one of the closest neighborhood bars. Love this place. It is now your first anchor point outside of the place you are resting your head at night. When you are cut loose and you are on your own, this will be the most important reference point you have if you somehow stupidly get locked out of your flop. Yes. That will happen. Make friends with the bartenders, the owner if possible. These people will be a lifeline, so treat them with respect, even though they are laughing at you initially for being the green cherry you are.

TWO. You just spent 16 or so fucking hours on a plane, with probable layover. You are tired, but you will need to sleep. A LOT. To accomplish this, you will need to subject your body to as much central nervous system depressants as you can, and cheap beer will accomplish this in handy order. Your friends may have to pour you into the bed afterwords, but this is necessary, so just take it. When you wake up, you will have a hangover that will kill a small thing rhino. This is Also normal. Drink quart of water, take 2 aspirin, and go back to bed format day or so. You will need this rest to kill the jet lag.

Beijings underground City.

Kat, My Darling Wife, got me the idiots guide to Beijing the other day. It was better that the others I have had access to , as it has larger type and the maps are a wee bit better to see wit h eyes that have gotten old with age. Plus this seemed to be the hipsters back  street guide, which appealed to me somewhat.

One of the big highlights to me in the guide was the Underground City.. apparently a vast complex of deep underground nuclear bomb shelters ordered to be built by the chairman by the happy people of china in thew 1960's to deter the threat by the imperialist running dogs..

THIS I had to see. There was only one small problem. The government shut the tourist site down cold in 2008.

Undeterred, I took the cab to Quinmen, and got dropped outside tons of modern sky-rises and after a couple of misguided questions to some of the locals, I was directed down an alley that looked like it was some sort of service exit.
200 meters later, I saw that the alley was a dump-off to what can only be described as 3 city blocks of rubble. the remains of an entire neighborhood. Kat and others have told me that the Government has been and still is, leveling entire neighborhoods to make way for office complexes and high rise apartment buildings. well. here they were.

I walked down streets that had both sides uncleanly leveled. there were parts of buildings left here and there, and those structures left had the telltale signs of human occupants. makeshift clotheslines, and cooking fires.

Still. I had A mission. I wanted to see the underground city. I asked a couple of the locals, pointed to my guide-map, and was directed further down the rubble city, oddly enough, 1 city block from the highrises.

I found a hospital worker, Chang Yee, who was on his lunch break. Thankfully he spoke English and he took me to the exact spot. along the way he told me that my hopes for going in were pretty slim. in retrospect I should have asked him why the Government shut it down, as getting someone who speaks even marginal english is a rarity in this neck of the hood.

The outside of the building had the peeling paint and decay of a ancient tourist attraction. My reasoning of talking to the neighbors, as this is supposed to be a massive underground complex, turned out to be fruitless and somewhat hostile. At first encounter, people seemed friendly, but upon seeing my mission, as pointed out in the guide, hands crossed, eyes closed. nothing to see here, go away.

After speaking with roughly 15 of the locals, all having the same negative reaction, and getting curious looks from others up the street i decided that maybe it was time to explore something else. the bunker isn't going anywhere, and I figure I will be able to find someone who will talk the international language, cold hard cash, sometime in the future.

I also noticed some of the Houtons had large deposits of freshly dug dirt outside of them, but couldn't figure out if this was somehow related to the underground bunkers, but that was an exploration for another day.

The Cab Driver who brought me to the area earlier, had dropped me about a half mile from the derelict bunker doors, so i made my way back to the drop point, towards the leveled blocks.

I was able to get my way through some of the old doors, that were designed to keep people out of the debris zone and found that some structures still remained from the deconstruction, and there were families living inside them. Amid all the chaos, people were still taking care of their hovels.

The people i encountered were not inclined to talk, a fact that I surmised to being that they were not really supposed to be there.

after walking past the inhabited hovels and not getting much of a warm reception, I decided to explore the hollowed out shells of the other buildings.

It was going through these buildings that I met an older gentleman i will just call Kenny. I stumbled into his squat accidently and found him laying on his cot, amid empty water bottles, and refuse. the air was acrid and smelled of urine and the walls were blacked with soot from his open cooking fire.
He was not looking well, his feet seemed swollen, but he was well enough to yell at me to get the hell out with my camera. i tried to stumble across an apology in Chinese, but it was a feeble effort at best. it was time for me to leave.

it took me only 5 minutes to walk what looked like a war zone to the main city street filled with luxury high rises and high priced wine shops. this bothered the shit out of me. I waited for a cab outside a 2 story high Mcdonalds. I was hungry, but couldn't bring myself to eat.

I decided what I had to do. I walked to one of the local supermarkets, and bought 2 gallon jugs, and a couple of carry size containers of water, 3 Tsing To fresh beers and a pack of Dunhill reds and walked back to the rubble town.

I had no idea what reaction Kenny would have, but at this point i was past the point of going back on the idea. I stepped into his squat, set the water and beers down, and  asked wo neng ma..? or Can I...?, a phrase I usually reserve for asking the cab drivers if I can smoke..

Kenny just looked at me for a minute, and then he scrambled to dust off an old rice bag filled with who the fuck knows what, and put it down on a cinder block for me to sit on. I opened one of the waters, which he accepted drank half down at a shot.

I took out my old pack of dunhills and took 2 out, offering one to him. we bowed at each other and he lit mine before feebly lighting his.

The next ten minutes were spent trying to understand each other, and the dictionary i had was pretty useless. he did get the fact that my name is Stech, and I cant really figure out what his was, but it started with a K sound, so I just called him Ken.

Ken offered me a bit of his food from an old can, but I declined, unsure of what it actually was, but not wanting to offend, I changed the subject by taking out my camera and showing him some of the pictures I had taken. The one thing that I was able to gather through is that there are ways into the bunker, but the police seem to take a dim view of it (as evidenced by my mimicking a police siren and ken shaking his head in agreement)

Ken took out an aged envelope, and showed me a picture of himself, it had to be from the 70's or 80's, in full dress uniform. Proud and rigid in a soldiers stance. you could cut your fingers on the crease in his uniform.  Ken had tears in his eyes as he was trying to explain his life to me, but i couldn't understand a word, much to my frustration.


It was time for me to leave, more from my frustration and new determination to actually sit down in Manderine classes, so i can start documenting stories not based on bullshit sign language. and empathetic facial expressions.

I brought out my camera again, but I already knew what Kens reaction would be, and I didnt blame him at all. He didn't want his picture taken, not like this.

I wouldn't either.

First post moved to China

welcome to 3 minutes with stech.

Here you will find the definitive look into stechs mid-life, with some ins and outs and what-have-you's.


at 47, I decided that it was time to settle down with my best friend on the planet, Kat, and since Kat works in china as a teacher, it was time to move my sorry little ass from Vermont,(where we met in 1988), to Beijing, Chao yang province of, china.

So... Expect travel tips and observations, musings, pictures, and the occasional 3 Minutes with Stech"video rant about a small state dingus who moves to china.