Chinese tourists are rude, thoughtless and ignorant. My conclusion after four days in China is that they are in no way indicative of the general population who have consistently been exceptionally kind and friendly. It was dark when we arrived in Jianshui last night. A young couple from the bus were stood waiting for us when we got off. We showed her the address of our hotel (I stupidly hadn’t taken a screenshot of the map) and were gently bundled into the car that had come to pick them up. Couldn’t find the hotel. They called the hotel, pulled up near the pedestrian area, then got out and walked us all the way to reception. We were so incredibly touched by their kindness.
And these aren’t isolated incidents – they’re happening regularly and frequently. Today, Rudy had a problem with both his bank cards meaning that he couldn’t get any cash. He needed to call home so we went on search of a SIM card. Unavailable at the first place we tried, the lady walked us ten minutes through the city and explained our requirement to the sales assistant. We gasped: £150 for an international SIM card. And started discussing our options, gesturing to the lady that this was far too expensive as we just needed to make a call. She held her own phone out to Rudy. He explained that he needed to call Belgium, an international call. She nodded and pushed it further towards him. We didn’t move for a moment. Then Rudy took it and showed her the number he was about to dial. She nodded again and gestured encouragement. Rudy made two calls to his bank and sorted his problem. We thanked her profusely, but she just smiled, said “You’re welcome” and disappeared on to the street. Above and beyond the call of duty, by any standards. Another wonderful RAOK. And another amazing welcome to their country. Thank you, China 🙂
We’d breakfasted at a local place and weren’t charged tourist prices (we’re definitely off the tourist trail here), which made us feel surprisingly good.
Then off to the Confucius Temple.
Originally built in 1285, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, as the educational and cultural centre of Yunnan, over the last 700 years it’s been expanded and repaired at least fifty times and now covers 76,000 sqm:
The “Dismount archway” (there was a rule that you had to get off your horse) was originally built of wood but destroyed in the war (1647) and rebuilt in stone (1764):
Instructive inscriptions on everything from medicine to political affairs are housed here:
Confucius’ shrine was a similar style to the Buddhist ones so far, with a statue of him seated on an elevated platform, but was less ornate with distinctly less gold spray:
It was also home to two beautiful birds (well, probably more than two, but these are the ones I photographed):
And even the bins were getting into the spirit of things:
Sweet potato for lunch. Just a baked, naked sweet potato. Nom, nom. She was doing a storming trade with her goods sold by weight – you picked one dependent on how hungry you were and then paid for what you had. No trying to source potatoes of similar size, nor customers always wanting the biggest one for the set price. Very good idea.
And it was much better than the tasteless barbecued fare, which seems so popular here:
Back on the street:
… It was cold. Really cold, especially after the warm climes of Laos. Hat. Gloves. “Jingle bells” in Chinese. And then Zhu’s Garden.
It started with a lovely welcome as their “swimming guests”:
The residence and ancestral hall of Zhu Chaoying (1871-1927), it covers over 20,000 sqm, consisting of 42 courtyards and 214 rooms arranged in a crisscross pattern:
Best bit was the “Water stage” whose splayed proscenium extended to the pool which served as amplification and fire prevention:
Very neat.
A pretty house within the grounds:
But, once again, toilets with no doors or water.
Back outside I spotted a new building and noticed that it also had the ornamental quiffs so typical of Chinese architecture (so far, anyway):
At the bus station, there were barriers, presumably to stop queue jumping – rarely seen in England.
Serious communication problems. Nobody speaks any English and I didn’t learn any Chinese before I came. Downloaded another app as Douglas Adams’ “babel fish” hadn’t yet been invented.
Later we went in search of dinner… And realised that the steam pot we’d fortuitously found yesterday was, in fact, the only cuisine available. But it was really good. So we chose another place and feasted:
A great end to a great day 🙂
