Portrait of an LBX

Jour 33 (25/10/09)

Shuanggou(双沟)-Mengcheng(蒙城)

Province de l’Anhui(安徽省)

-103km-

Comme prévu, nous nous levons dès que nous le sentons. Mais à peine ai-je le temps de me doucher, que j’apprends qu’Andy va un peu mieux et est prêt pour reprendre la route. Nous préparons donc nos affaires. Pendant qu’Evan et Andy vont prendre leur petit déjeuner dans un boui-boui, je pars assister aux festivités du mariage (voir Jour 32). Malheureusement, ce dernier n’aura pas lieu avant midi. Je remercie donc mes amis lbx et nous repartons tous les trois sur la route. C’est tout de même dommage. J’espère que l’on sera invités une nouvelle fois à un mariage, car il me semble que c’est un passage obligé dans notre aventure lbx-ienne!

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By Evan

Before I begin, I want to say that thanks to everybody’s valuable input, I think I’m starting finally to get an idea of how to write this blog. A month on the road has taught me that we have the most fun experiencing and writing about long durations with LBXes, when we can really get into the experience and learn something a propos to our mission statement outlined in the about page. Without staying too long in one place, we tend to pass quickly through the enormous, grimy, de-naturalized machine that is modernizing China without getting to the substance that is man, and naturally the sentiments we pass on through the site come off negative (what else could they be?). In that vein, we have vowed to go more slowly and try to probe more deeply from now on. Hopefully that means that we’ll have more and more meaningful substance to post.

Getting back to the story, over the last few days we’ve finally passed out of Henan (which we unfortunately spent too little time exploring considering it’s the most populous province and origin of Chinese society) and into Anhui, the last province that can be considered completely Northern China we will pass through for many months. Nevertheless, Henan, not being a stingy host, left in all of us a lasting souvenir of gastrointestinal turmoil, the tail end of which we’re just pulling through as I write this post from several hundred km into Anhui. Despite making us miserable for days, the stomach bug did afford us the opportunity to stop in some unusual places. (more…)

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Jour 30 (22/10/09)

Taikang(太康)

Province du Henan(河南省)

Au réveil, je ne me sens pas bien. J’ai super mal dormi, et j’ai mal aux intestins. Le matin, j’accompagne Evan (qui va mieux) et Andy pour le petit déjeuner, sans rien manger (je n’ai aucun appétit, sauf pour des fruits). Ne me sentant pas bien, je remonte avant eux dans la chambre. Notre départ est repoussé à demain.

A midi, Evan et moi accompagnons Andy (qui a toujours faim) dans un boui-boui. Nous deux ne mangeons rien. Andy va après à la poste, tandis qu’Evan et moi partons à la recherche d’un massage. Nous demandons au chauffeur d’une sorte de pousse-pousse motorisé, qui nous emmène dans une petite devanture, où un espèce de charlatan en blouse blanche discute avec une bonne femme. Dans la salle, quatre lits, les murs sont recouverts de posters sur le massage et les points d’acupuncture, ainsi que de photo révolutionnaires.

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A street scene we traversed as we followed leads to find one of Kaifeng's Chinese Jews. The city also has a more modern and commercial section of town, but we found the back alleys much more interesting.

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(note: bien souvent, mes posts sont bourres de fautes d orthographe et manquent de photos. Je sais… J ai rarement le temps de me relire et que les connexions Internet en Chine sont parfois pourries, ce qui me fait perdre beaucoup de temps. Desole… Je fais le maximum!)

Jour 24 (16/10/09)

Laosengtang(老僧堂)-Liukou(刘口)

Province du Shandong(山东省)

-112km-

Comme notre première nuit en tente, celle-ci a été pour nous synonyme de froid et de bruits bizarres. C’est impressionnant ce que la nature peut faire comme bruit la nuit! Il est facile de croire à des bruits de pas, alors qu’il n’en est rien. Le soleil se couche et c’est toute la nature qui bouge: les arbres, les plantes, les moustiques, les mouches, les insectes, absolument tout réagit, à tel point qu’on a l’impression que des dizaines de personnes et d’animaux circulent autour de nous. Puis deux heures plus tard, dans la profondeur de la nuit, tout dort, plus aucun bruit. Jusqu’à ce que le soleil se lève. Alors la nature se réveille.

Nous aussi nous levons avec le soleil, à 6h. Je mets de l’huile pour graisser ma pédale qui fait des ‘clics’. Résultat concluant: plus de bruits. Nous allons prendre notre petit déjeuner de lbx comme d’habitude: baozi (包子, pains fourrés) œufs-ciboulette et carottes-cheveux d’anges, et pour Andy bien sûr, porc! Des enfants nous entourent, et Evan leur fait toutes sortes de grimaces qui les font rire. Des passants nous demandent évidemment d’où nous venons. Je leur dis que nous sommes Brésiliens et Argentins, et que nous sommes venus en Chine à vélo. Ils nous croient sans se poser la moindre question.

Cette journée de vélo commence difficilement. Les bruits de mon vélo commencent à être plus intenses, et le vent est contre nous. Cela ne m’empêche pas de pédaler à fond. Un petit coup de Johnny et tout va mieux!

Pour déjeuner (l’effort est intense et nous mourrons tous les trois de faim), nous nous arrêtons devant un très bon restaurant spécialisé dans le mouton. La viande de mouton est en effet délicieuse, même si un peu chère, et les bing (饼, galettes), chaudes et farineuses. Seul bémol: nous voyons à moins de 10 mètres des lbx décharger des petites chèvres de leur moto, pour les saigner et les désosser une par une. Le cri de la chèvre égorgée me fait froid dans le dos, surtout quand je pense ce que doivent ressentir les autres survivantes, allongées par terres avec trois pattes attachées, attendant dans un stress intense le coup de grâce de leur bourreau. Evan et Andy, eux, paraissent insensibles au spectacle. Heureusement, des tables et une moto cachent la vision de ce spectacle macabre.

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By Evan

As you might know from following the Twitter stream, I’ve been nailed with a nasty Henan stomach bug, which aside from the usual colorful and musical pageantry, kept us in backwater Taikang for two days and yesterday afternoon struck me down through intense abdominal pain. We sit in a bathhouse hotel in a tiny little town called Dingcun 20 km from the Anhui border, which we had anticipated crossing a little after noon yesterday. Oh well, that’s what today is for, as long as Andy doesn’t get sicker.

As a result of our unintended extra stay in Taikang and on the road recently, we’ve been exposed to a great deal of curious jargon that for me has been harder to stomach than even more Henan noodles. Now generally the response I get from Chinese when I call features of their society “nonsensical” or “illogical” is that I, a foreigner, am incapable of understanding the deep complexities of China. Since I’m thus culturally incapable of rendering judgments, today I call them simply curiosities.

Without further ado, here is what I’m talking about:
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Kaifeng has a massive and lively night market, consisting of dozens of stands selling street food of all varieties. Here, two chuanr (seasoned lamb on a stick) vendors share a laugh as they roast part of our meal.

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By Evan

In my last post I was unduly harsh on Kaifeng, mostly because we had just passed through its several rings of slums and horrid hyper development that surround cities of its size like asteroid belts and entered into a litter-strewn, gaudy downtown area. However, as is proven to me time and time again, first impressions really don’t mean that much if you take the time to do some digging.

Now I should back up a second. We had been discussing stopping in Kaifeng since day one when we rode a stretch on the Beijing-Kaifeng highway to leave the capital. We had all heard about the possible presence of Chinese Jews in Kaifeng, and Alexis, himself sharing ancestry with Sandy Koufax, wanted to go seek them out. Once we realized Kaifeng was a perfect rest mini-destination out of our trajectory through Shandong, it was decided we should go on a good old-fashioned Jew quest.

Having already spent one day in Kaifeng repairing the bikes and updating pictures and blogs in a cafe, we decided to spend a day haphazardly looking for Jews, who we were pretty sure would be a) impossible to find or if found, b) pretty apathetic about the whole affair. As we were eating breakfast in the old part of town next to our hotel, I asked the same question we had asked a few times already with blank faced responses: “Do you know where to find Kaifeng Jews?” An old woman heard me and after racking her brain for a second said, “Yes, there’s a Jew living in huijia hutong near here.” That afternoon we began our quest by walking over to the alley of the suspected Jew. The alleys we wound through on the walk over were old and tight, and just seeped history from their dirty, stone walls. We began asking every old person we could find, and finally one old woman huddled around a Mahjong game exclaimed, “I know who you’re looking for. Follow me!” We hurriedly clipped along behind her to a game of Chinese chess, where the woman pulled aside a man in his 50’s, to whom we asked, “Do you know where we can find Jews in Kaifeng?” “I am a Jew,” replied the man, who identified himself as Mr. Li. After Alexis began barraging him with questions, Mr. Li told us he had been in a car accident and didn’t remember much – his immobile right hand at this point became apparent – but he put Alexis in touch with his nephew, and a meeting was arranged for 5pm. (more…)

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By Andy

I don’t know if you can tell from any of our other posts, but we’re kind of preoccupied with the fact that we have yet to see a naturally growing forest anywhere we have traveled thus far. Instead, nearly every tree we see is planted next to its brethren of the same species in neat rows, with no undergrowth or wildlife to speak of.

On our way out of Kaifeng, we stopped in a gas station to use the bathroom but were told we would have to go across the street to a lumber market to use theirs instead. We made our way through tall stacks of logs, the smell of freshly cut wood a welcome respite from the burning-tire smell common to the outskirts of so many of the smaller Chinese cities.  When Evan and Alexis went to do their business, I was immediately surrounded by LBXes asking the usual series of questions as is prone to happen to whomever is left to watch the bikes.

Finally seeing an opening in the conversation, I asked, “So where do all these trees come from?” I inquired because in addition to the skinny poplar trees we see farmed everywhere, there were large pines in the area where I was standing – not something we’ve seen so far in the “wild.”

“Some come from southern China; others, mostly the pines, are imported from Russia,” the man with the best Mandarin in the group told me.

When Evan returned he asked why they had to import trees from Russia. “We used to get most of our pine from the Northeast (东北) of China, but now China is letting the Northeastern forests return to nature.”

The second part of that statement was a bit laughable based on what we’ve seen in the northeast – planting monoculture plots of poplar trees to be harvested every three years is hardly returning to nature. It was reminiscent of the “China is concerned about the environment now” statement at the coalmine. That is, they now make some bricks and cement out of the waste rock instead of just piling it into a mountain for future generations to deal with – just ignore how much either of those processes affects the environment. But I found the first part rather interesting. (more…)

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Jour 18 (10/10/09)

Xinzhuang(辛庄)-Tai’an(泰安)

Province du Shandong(山东省)

-70km-

Pour cette journée qui sera la dernière étape pour Gilles, nous nous levons à 7h. Avant notre départ de l’hôtel, je n’oublie pas de démouler un nouveau bronze dans la bassine et de la déposer comme trophée à côté des chiottes.

Le boui-boui que nous trouvons nous offre notre meilleur petit déjeuner depuis notre départ de Pékin. Je me régale d’une fine galette à la citrouille et de raviolis au bœuf (pas facile à trouver! La plupart sont soit aux légumes soit au porc!). Nous atteignons très vite la ville de Laiwu (莱芜), et c’est sans difficulté que nous trouvons la gare, où Gilles achète son billet de train Tai’an (泰安)-Pékin, pour 7h40, sans place assise. Evan démonte ma pédale gauche pour donner un petit coup d’huile, car celle-ci ne cesse de faire des clics bizarres depuis hier après-midi. Et l’opération s’avère efficace: plus de grincement!

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