Shaoxing - Oct 27th - Oct 28th, 2004
Our train arrived in Shanghai around 8:30am (it also had water added to it during one of the early morning stops) and we disembarked and walked out into a bustling city with tall buildings and another sea of people. We were not destined to spend much time in Shanghai at this point, we would return to Shanghai 3 days later but what we saw impressive.
Instead, after we retrieved our luggage we made way immediately for the city of Shaoxing. Shaoxing was the smallest city we visited with a population of half a million but it was probably my favourite city of the trip. I suppose it had to do with the lower population density, the more relaxed atmosphere and all the beautiful girls.
Some Bamboo Garden - We arrived in Shaoxing around 1pm after about a 4 hour bus ride and immediately set about having lunch; I hadn't had breakfast and had subsisted on the remainder of my sweet and sour pork chips. After lunch we headed out to a bamboo garden for which I can't remember the name. After the poverty and grandeur of Beijing this garden hit the spot - I don't recall much of the history of this place other than the fact that several Chinese emperors liked to come here.
Luxun Native Place - After the tour of the gardens we headed to the Luxun Native Place. At this point you must be wondering if my entire trip was about visiting tourist spots. The answer is no, about half of the trip consisted of a guided tour but the other half was entirely open ended for us. We don't hit the open ended part of the trip till my triumphant return to Shanghai at which point you'll see more of the "real" China.
Luxun was a famous Chinese writer and Shaoxing was his hometown thus he has a big museum dedicated to him located at his former residence. Parts of his former residence still exist and we were able to visit that and also the rather impressive museum. It was also here that I sampled stinky tofu for the first time. I had high hopes for it as I see it eaten so much of the time in Chinese movies but I walked away a touch disappointed - I had hoped for something as tasty as spicy salt tofu. Oh well.
Lili - Have I mentioned one of the highlights of the trip? I did mention earlier that there were beautiful girls in Shaoxing so let me introduce Lili. Lili was our tour guide while we were in Shaoxing, born and raised in Shaoxing Lili did not speak Cantonese (unlike our other tour guides) so I didn't always understand what she was talking about, nonetheless whatever she said sounded great (I understand some basic Mandarin). Lili did speak some English though having learned it from a visiting Australian several years ago.
Shaoxing Nights - While my family went to get massages from blind men (the government trains them so they have work to do - so I hear) I decided to wander around Shaoxing. This was the first time I got to play some of the traffic game which I will explain later in one of the asides. On the surface Shaoxing is a very pretty city, fairly low key and modest but peel it back a bit and you can see that there is still a good deal of poverty but not as much as I saw in Beijing. Actually to describe it as poverty is wrong, it's really just a lower standard of living, a standard of living that would be poverty in the Western world but in China it's just normal and liveable. Shaoxing was also the first city where I saw brothels' disguised as hair salons.
When Ernie's massage was over we opted to walk back to the hotel and were treated to a showcase of China's prettiest women - see the aside for more on that.
The Winery - The next morning we headed out to a Shaoxing winery to try out some of their famous rice wines. The Shaoxing neighbourhood is reputedly renowned for its rice wine (I can't verify that). We had a chance to sample 3 of their varieties - one a 15 year old wine then a 20 year old wine and then a 25 year old wine. The 15 year old one was a bit harsh if you're not used to drinking rice wine and the 20 year old one was smoother but it was the 25 year old wine that had a smooth sweet taste to it such that Ernie and I split a bottle to share come Christmas time.
Throughout the guided part of our trip we were taken to a variety of places where the purpose of it was that you, the tourist, bought something. Like those goddamned Friendship stores which employed an army of young girls selling overpriced tourist goods. Some of the salesmanship was high pressure relative to the Western norm but I suppose that when you make in a day what they make over several months that they know you're more willing to "send" money home. That said, not every shop we hit was terrible, there were stores that had genuine value and from which you could get things at prices that you couldn't get anywhere else.
Why do the tour guides take you to such places? Because they don't get a salary for taking you around. They get kickbacks from the places they take you to and from the tips you give them at the end of the trip. If they're lucky they get a group of 20 Westerners who spend lots of dollars and who tip well so that they are covered for a couple weeks. Be unlucky or work in a small town and you get a group of 10 native Chinese who don't tip and who don't spend much and you're screwed.
Keyan Gardens : Our final stop in Shaoxing before leaving for Hangzhou was to stop at the Keyan Gardens. I don't know how old this garden is but it appeared that a great deal of it seemed relatively new but there was also a lot of old stuff lying around as well that they've spent some money on restoring. If there was anyplace I enjoyed spending time at it was the Keyan Gardens, it reminded me of home in the sense that it was clean, quiet and green. I felt like I could spend the whole day hanging out here.
We hopped on these little wooden boats and were taken around a small lake. The boat was steered by an elderly man who spoke only Shanghainese thus his words made very little sense to me at all but my mom could pick out the odd word here or there. Anyways, great place and I'd come to Shaoxing to see just the Keyan Gardens.
Departure : After Keyan Gardens and lunch we departed Shaoxing to head for Hangzhou (about an hour away). All in all I found Shaoxing interesting - for a small town (relatively speaking) it was fairly modern and more civilized than some of the other cities I visited. You should go there. Say hi to Lili for me if you go.
The Ladies
I had been forewarned that when I arrived in China that I would be presented with a bevy of beauties to admire or to show my Canadian passport too. A friend had even joked about me bringing home a wife. My mom had jokingly lamented the fact that I would arrive in China and find myself my own Faye Wong of which she wanted nothing to do with. None of that happened.
So where were the ladies? Well, they sure didn't seem to be in Beijing, the entire city seemed bereft of even mildly attractive women which is contrary to the story that Tina told a while back of her stay in Beijing. One thing I noticed immediately was the difference in behaviour of the women in China, they were far more conservative both in behaviour and dress. They also have a habit of not smiling, perhaps they thought I was just a dirty foreigner. This was actually also true for the men to a certain extent - Chinese people don't smile much
But surely Shanghai, with its bountiful population, moderately high level of income and fairly high living standard, would have lots of nice ladies?? As it turns out all the attractive ones have moved off the continent. Same goes for Suzhou. Macau was also pretty bereft of the pretties. That leaves Shaoxing, Hangzhou and Hong Kong.
Hong Kong did have its array of attractive women but more than that the women knew how to dress appropriately. Hong Kong women are a sexy bunch, boots and skirts are big in Hong Kong. None of it was raunchy or slutty, it always covered up (it was rather conservative if anything) but it always showed just enough to elicit a second look and enough curiousity to think, "Wow".
Hangzhou was different, for a city of 7 million they did have the ladies I would have expected, their bustling downtown shopping area was a magnet for attractive girls shopping for the latest and greatest.
Finally there was Shaoxing, the smallest of the cities we visited and of which there was a barrel of hot women to be found. It seemed like every girl in Shaoxing was pretty and in some cases hot. Alas, we didn't get much time to really see much of the natural Shaoxing but it gets a thumbs up from me. Still, Dalian, a city located between Seoul and Beijing is alleged to have enough tall, thin, smooth skinned beauties to last a lifetime (that's what mom tells me). I have yet to confirm this though.
All in all, I like Chinese girls best.
Ladies, I can't confirm whether the guys were equally attractive or not as I was not paying attention. Judge by the photos I took.