This is, I suppose, an inevitable post in any cycling tour. I now have a feeling for what our counterparts on The Pan-Eurasian Bike Trip have felt for their 10,000km trek across Russia, which will end at the Atlantic Ocean. To this point, we had enjoyed days of riding in only the slightest breeze, which we have found at our backs more often than not. That changed the day before last.

To begin with, a failure to account for the difference in scale between our map of Shandong and that of Henan meant that we had vastly underestimated the distance of our journey, which we originally thought we could complete in one hard day of riding. Of course, we didn’t realize this ego-slap-in-the-face until two days of riding had failed to produce the desired result. We left our hotel in Qufu, to which we had treated ourselves in order to relax after our “downtime” at the coalmine, late — around 10am after a Western breakfast and coffee. At the time we thought a push of 150km to would get us to Kaifeng in Henan, but being fully rested, we thought we could pull it off. It turned out the distance was over 300km by our zig-zagging route.

We were excited to get to Henan purely because it would mark the third province on our journey, thus increasing our manliness by 1/3. To get to our destination of Kaifeng, we had to travel southwest from Qufu. In our limited travels thus far, we have noticed that the inter-village roads that we prefer to travel are maddeningly laid out in somewhat of a grid pattern — that is, either east-west or north-south, but not necessarily traveling in either direction for very long before ending at a T-intersection, requiring a re-evaluation. As we learned in geometry class, this doesn’t make for the shortest distance between almost any two given points. The westward-slanting border between Henan and Shandong, which follows the Yellow River, also meant that the more southward we moved, the longer the distance to Henan became.

But as the general direction of our trip for the next couple months is southward, we opted to move south when we were presented with our first T-intersection. Unfortunately, as we moved south, we were confronted with a dearth of official roads leading west. That morning, I had Tweeted “Henan or bust,” and we were determined to hit the border. Our only choice was to turn onto the small dirt roads between fields, which are of widely varying quality and to which we have appointed the loving moniker of “grundle busters.”

Riding through what used to be fields of corn

A week ago when we traveled between fields, we were surrounded by rows of corn that towered over us as we sat on our bikes so all we could see were green stalks and a hint of the uneven road ahead. I unclipped my shoes from my clipless pedals (now there’s a real misnomer) to minimize damage inflicted by any tumbles off of the uneven tire ruts and looked out over an expanse of plowed, brown earth. Between the furrows, we noticed the green tips of winter wheat beginning to poke through the soil. The corn, which had characterized the first two weeks of our journey, was now only a fading memory.

We moved through the empty fields and among small villages still lacking paved roads to connect them to the outside world. We moved slowly, between 12 and 16km an hour, down from our usual 20 to 25km. At almost the same moment when we noticed the first hints that daylight was beginning to fade, our westward path through the fields came to an end. After clarifying our route with some farmers watering their fields from a well dug for the purpose, we took a circuitous route to a provincial road running south, where we stocked up fruit and peanuts for dinner and turned west again to look for a suitable place to sleep.

We rode in tight formation, as we are learning to do when we are tired, Evan and Alexis catching the draft behind me for an easier ride. Passing through a small town called Li Village, I moved slightly left to avoid a large rock that had previously been set up to demarcate the location of a family’s corn-drying plot on the road. Evan, who I can only assume was staring at my now-finely chiseled buttocks, failed to notice my maneuver until the last moment, caught the side of the rock with his front tire and skidded to the ground, scraping his elbow and knee up fairly badly. Luckily, his helmet took the brunt of the fall. In front of a growing crowd of concerned or simply curious onlookers, we pulled out the first-aid kit and patched Evan up before moving quickly out of town to find a camping spot before nightfall. As there does not seem to be a single natural growth of trees anywhere in Hebei or Henan provinces, we set up camp in another tree farm, this one set behind a small village and surrounded on two sides by cotton plants. We felt much less nervous about the experience given the fact that the crops were harvested and the farmers no longer toiling in the fields until late ate night, and after a dinner of apples, tangerines, bananas, persimmons and peanuts, we settled in for as good of a sleep as could be expected, thoughts of arriving in Henan the next day running through our heads.

—-

The next morning we awoke a little before six, packed up camp, and rode five kilometers down the road for a breakfast of buns filled with meat and carrots. For the first few kilometers we moved as usual, but before long we were being slapped full on in the face by a pervasive wind from the west. We moved slowly from that point, our faces scrunched into grimaces and eyes squinting to avoid (you guessed it) the dust and trash flying through the air.

With our early morning start, we managed to push through 72km before lunch break, but the wind only intensified as the afternoon went on to 15km per hour with gusts of 20km. The weight of our bikes and bags has always been a blessing and a curse — hard to get moving, but providing welcome momentum when moving from the downward slope of one hill and onto the upward slope of the next. With the wind blasting against the blunt front of my bike, sleeping bag and tent strapped up top and two panniers on the sides of the front wheel, momentum meant nothing. The moment I ceased peddling to give my legs a short reprieve or to stand up and relieve my aching bottom, my bike would quickly grind to a halt.

We managed to persist through another 15km or so before we arrived at the westward Yellow River dike. Climbing onto the dike, on top of which a small, quiet road led the whole way to Kaifeng, a short man in a green army uniform of sorts and large, heavily tinted glasses pulled up to me on his motorcycle and asked where we were headed. I told him we were going to Kaifeng and he smiled and dropped behind me to talk to Evan and Alexis. A few minutes later I heard a yell telling me to slow down and Evan caught up to me to say that the man, Mr. Liu, had invited us to his place for tea. Evan also informed me Mr. Liu had ventured a guess that we were from Russia, and they had nodded their heads yes. The story was now that we had all gone to separate universities in Moscow and met in China.

This may seem a bit strange, but we have been approached by so many people on the road or when we are stopped for lunch or dinner, or when we are moving into our hotel, or any other situation imaginable, all asking the same series of questions that we are simply tired of answering. Sometimes we just answer yes or no to move the conversation along, even if it is a lie, and but usually the conversation goes like this:

Where are you going? Don’t know. Where did you start? Beijing. How long did it take you to get here? What country are you from? America and France. Wait, you’re not all from the same country? You look exactly the same! Well, I’m better looking. Are you students? We were before, but now we’re not. What is your job? We quit our jobs. Then what are you doing? Traveling. Are you used to eating Chinese food? (This is often asked by a restaurant owner after we have just finished a meal) Yes, we have been used to it for a long time.

After a week, we began making up answers. Evan and I are from Brazil and have ridden our bikes the whole way to China. Alexis is from Afghanistan and a member of the Taliban who fled the American invasion by bicycle. He’s looking for somewhere to buy a knife. We can’t stand Chinese food and feel like throwing up after every meal.

Anyway, it turned out Mr. Liu, a retired staff officer in the People’s Liberation Army, had an affinity for Russians, as we soon discovered. He led us a couple kilometers down the dike, the wind having turned from an intense headwind below the dike to what seemed like a gale-strength side-wind up on top, which at times took hold of my front wheel and threw me momentarily off course. We descended on a small lane of cracked concrete into a village to the eastern side of the dike (that is, away from the river) and approached Mr. Liu’s house, which was the first house in the village. As Mr. Liu stood fumbling with the door to his compound (I say compound because Chinese houses are traditionally a walled-in courtyard with separate houses on each side for various generations of a family living together), I found myself reading the traditional wishes for good fortune painted on the tiles on the two sides and on top of the door. Pictures of lions, dragons, mythical Chinese birds and double-happiness signs were placed at the end of each saying like bookends. As my eyes moved up toward the roof, I saw a painting of a Chinese landscape — waterfalls and pagodas. It seemed like a bit of an overkill.

After much banging around, the wife of Mr. Liu’s son opened the door, and without letting on a bit of surprise at her husband returning with three Russians from Moscow who had met at university in China, helped us find places to lean our bikes and invited us in for tea. The Liu’s courtyard was surprisingly charming, as we’ve found these country courtyards to be. A goat kid greeted us as we entered, and we soon found it was not the only animal in the place. There was a dog, a mother cat and her three kittens (that we saw), a turtle and about ten chickens, half male and half female. Not necessarily an overkill in rural China…but still.

Three generations lived in the compound: Mr. And Mrs. Liu (her surname was probably not Liu as Chinese wives generally don’t take their husbands’ surnames — although we learned that most people in the area had the surname Liu, so it’s certainly possible), their son and his wife and their two daughters. Mr. Liu’s wife was in another village. His son, a traffic policeman (my favorite, considering the great job they’re doing at regulating traffic in China) was working and the daughters at school. In traditional fashion, Mr. Liu and his wife lived in the house facing the gate.

Mr. Liu in his living room, by Alexis

The living room of the Liu household was a sight to behold. Aside from the usual promotional calendars from this company or that, which often serve as decoration in these rural households, the wall opposite the door was covered with illustrations of Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. To the left, above another door was a color poster of babies in diapers with the letters A, B, C, D and E above them. The right wall was covered with Polaroid photos of Mr. Liu in the same army uniform he wore presently in front of various landmarks in China and with various people that he had met. In one he was riding a camel in the desert. Noticing a few foreigners in the pictures, we asked if they, like us, were Russian. He told us the stories of their meeting in Beijing.

So Ivan, Andre and Alexi shared a couple cups of tea and some pleasant conversation with Mr. Liu, learning, among other things, that while he lived in the village, he was not apportioned any farmland, while his wife was given two mu and his son ten. As our conversation continued though, I became increasingly uneasy about our little lie about being Russian. We spoke to each other entirely in Chinese both out of courtesy and more importantly in case he knew any Russian. Occasionally we would throw in a ‘da’ or ‘niet’ or ‘glasnost,’ ‘perestroika’ or ‘Gorbachev’ for effect when he moved away to boil some water or call something to his son’s wife.

Turning to Alexis, Mr. Liu asked, “Which university did you graduate from in Russia?”

“The University of Moscow,” Alexis ventured.

“In China do you spend Renminbi or rubles?”

“Reminbi,” we responded. This is a common question, though usually involving U.S. dollars, that we imagine is probably a vestigial memory of a time not too long ago when foreigners were only allowed to spend special ‘foreigner’ currency.

“Which has more buying power, the ruble or the Renminbi?”

“The ruble, but only by a little.”

“So the exchange rate is like one and a half rubles per Renminbi?”

Evan passed the responsibility off to Alexis, saying, “Umm…what is it lately?”

“We haven’t checked in a long time…” Alexis offered.

“Because our paychecks are in Renminbi…we’ve been here for a long time,” I blurted to fill the silence, completing the evasion.

I had a feeling he would eventually invite us to stay for dinner and suggested we politely excuse ourselves before his son came home, the baijiu started flowing, and we let something slip that would make for a very uncomfortable situation. Evan agreed, and after about ten minutes of talking him down, we left a much-deflated Mr. Liu behind and slipped our bikes into low gear to climb back onto the dike.

I felt horrible. “No more lying,” I said, and the others agreed. Not only had Mr. Liu invited us for dinner, but he had invited us to sleep in one of his rooms for the night — the very situation we have been hoping to find ourselves in this entire time. And from his numerous entreaties and the expression on his face as we left, we could tell he was sincere.

Once we were up on the dike, my worries faded away and were once again replaced with an irrepressible urge to curse out loud at an inescapable force of nature, the wind.

Alexis and I setting up camp by the Yellow River, by Evan

We battled the nemesis of all cyclists (I had written bicyclists, but I imagine it’s even less fun on a unicycle) for another thirty kilometers before the sun began to get low and we had to resign ourselves to another day spent in Shandong. There were simply no bridges across the river into Henan for at least another 30km, and crossing the river would not make for the shortest route to Kaifeng anyway.

As daylight began to fade, we made our way off the dike away from the river again to stock up on water and food and attempt to convince someone to take us into their home for the night. This sort of thing only happens when you’re not trying though, and after getting some overpriced dishes to go from the only restaurant in town, we made our way over the dike once more and camped in another farm of poplar trees by the edge of the Yellow River. Exhausted after 113km against the wind, sleep came easily.

—

We awoke with the dawn again yesterday morning, which is somehow becoming a satisfying feeling as it means we will be able to use the day to its full potential. The “Henan or bust” slogan of two days previously ran through my head. “I’ll be damned if we don’t make it to Kaifeng today,” I said as we packed up our tents.

Breakfast came later than usual as we rode along the dike asking passersby where we could find food. Our legs tired from the day before, we had no interest in going into a village below the dike only to have to climb back up because it didn’t have a restaurant. After 15km, we descended into a village and had a massive breakfast of dumplings, noodles and tofu. Everyone we asked told us that Kaifeng was still well over 100km away, so after a water refill, we climbed back up onto the dike and went to work.

The wind, which had been negligible when we rode to breakfast, had since picked up again, and it continued to intensify throughout the day until it was nearly on the same level as the day before. It had also shifted and was now coming from the southwest, so no matter which way the road wound, we found ourselves riding into it basically head-on. We finally passed into Henan at about one in the afternoon and snapped a couple pictures in front of the only indication of the boundary, a sign reading “Welcome to the Area Administered by the Henan Yellow River Administration Bureau. (欢迎您进入河南黄河河务局).” China is not big on signs marking provincial borders.

After an equally large lunch with some very friendly proprietors in a village down off the dike, the wind had died down, and we were again able to move at close to our regular cruising speed. It was then that I realized that I had been riding for basically two days with my head down and looking at the ground in front of me as I willed my pedals to turn faster. I felt my neck muscles loosening and looked around me for the first time and saw that our time on the dike was one of our most beautiful rides so far. With a highway running parallel a couple kilometers down below, the traffic was minimal. As we moved into Henan, the ubiquitous poplar farms of Hebei and Shandong changed to similarly monocultured and ordered expanses of other trees, including pine, but the small change was refreshing nevertheless. A man passing by on a motorcycle as we stopped on the side of the road to relieve ourselves told us that Chairman Mao had once visited there.

As we passed the 100km mark, a couple on a motorcycle who lived in Kaifeng convinced us that it would be faster if we descended down off the dike and took a national highway into the city. We usually avoid national highways at all cost, as they are noisy, polluted and downright ugly, not to mention dangerous. But as tired as we were, we took the advice, and after 137km and our longest ride yet, we had settled into an extremely dingy hotel on Freedom Road (judgment reserved).

. . . . . .

With a local coal powerplant in the background, a woman prepares to water a recently planted field in Shandong. From our recent experience, they've probably planted winter wheat.

. . . . . .

Having spent a decent rest day in Tai’an under the shadow of Mt. Tai, China’s most sacred mountain, and having consumed the majority of our meals in the old Hui (Chinese Muslim) quarter as usual, we struck out south with two destinations: a Chinese sorghum liquor company and 40 km further down the road the family of my friend and our lodging for the night. Leaving from the old mosque after lunch and watching some really disgusting lamb entrail washing, we arrived at the Taishan Shengliyuan sorghum liquor (baijiu) company just south of town. We asked a group of about 30 unemployed men waiting on the side of the street for work how to get there, and they responded, “just down there” with the smell of baijiu on their breaths that we immediately smelled also emanating from within the baijiu compound. After a little while of talking to people in the sales department, I finally got to a manager who agreed to let us tour the production facility down the street.

Mr. Bian, the nervous international sales manager, arranged a car to take us down the street to see where the magic happens. Once we arrived at the facility, we were introduced to Shift Manager Wu, who guided the actual tour. I like shift manager Wu immediately. His twitchy sales counterpart had worked at the company for 17 years but didn’t know anything about the product. Wu, a young Shandong native who had graduated with a degree in fermentation (probably translates better as alcohol production), on the other hand was completely open with us and talked in a no-BS kind of way. Once I told him that I make beer, and displayed knowledge of the process, he excitedly showed us around the production facility. Now when I say this place was huge, I want you to imagine a warehouse that could probably hold ten goodyear blimps. Once we walked in, the smell of alcohol and sorghum was prescient in the air. Since I love the smell of boiled grain and alcohol production, it was an angelic smell for me. Andy was slightly nauseated. In the center, where we walked in, was an endless row of vats full of sorghum being steamed, some with a cap collecting the steam and some without. On the sides were stacks and stacks of sorghum bags, apparently all purchased from Hebei (who knew they made anything of value?). Workers were bustling between the vats with big metal containers that two men needed to carry full of alcohol that had just been distilled. The two side wings of the facility seemed about half a mile long each, and with thousands of concrete pits in the ground, or “fermentation pools” (发酵池). Some were empty, but most were covered over with mud. Yes, mud. I was about to go crazy trying to figure out why in the hell they would steam whole grain sorghum to get alcohol and why the mud covered pits were full of grain, not sugar water. You see, when we Occidentals make booze, we usually run the sugar water out of the grain first and then ferment it. Not so here, shift manager Wu finally enlightened me. Producers of baijiu first steam the grain to break down its sugars, throw the grain in the pits, sprinkle some yeast on it, and cover it with mud (which doesn’t allow outside air in but allows CO2 to escape – genius). After 40 days, they crack open the mud and steam the alcohol-full whole grain again, this time collecting the distillate, which is 60+% pure sorghum alcohol. We asked if we could try some of the fresh stuff, and with a bright glow in his eyes, shift manager Wu agreed to take us into the baijiu cellar under the facility. Once the door was opened, the smell of baijiu was overpowering. We walked in and saw the vast underground steel containers that at any given time can hold up to 150 tons of baijiu. After explaining that the baijiu is aged for 60 days to take off the edge before being sorted for quality and bottled, he grabbed a beaker and dipped it into one of the vats for us to taste. The stuff burned alright, but I have to say it was the best baijiu experience I’ve ever had. It was very strong, but the taste of sorghum was crisp and clear, especially apparent to me having just smelled tons of it being steamed outside. Afterward we thanked everybody, bought a bottle as a present for our hosts that night, and parted.

The trip to the baijiu factory was one of my personal highlights of the trip, and not just because I got to drink some of the fresh stuff. There were absolutely no party signs anywhere around the place, just your standard safety reminders. Shift manager Wu and I got along talking about making alcohol like two old generals discussing war tactics. The more he explained, the more I wanted to know, and there wasn’t a hint of BS in anything he said. Moreover, it was clear this guy was excited about what he does and about making a damn good product. He told me about the history of Taishan baijiu and how the art of making it has gone relatively unchanged for hundreds of years, even how they continued producing throughout the cultural revolution (because when the times are good and when the times are bad, you’re always going to need booze). Despite not being as famous as several other baijiu brands, like Maotai or Wuliangye, Shandong baijiu, he told us, is distinctive in its own way, and he hopes in years to come people will appreciate it as much as the big guys. He even explained that they had tried adding rice into the grist to cut expenses, but the quality team decided that the taste wasn’t right at all and canned the idea (mind you, almost every commercially available beer giant in the world uses about 30 % rice in their grist to keep prices down – and that’s why they’re all so terrible). In a country full of BS propaganda and ass-kissers who don’t care about quality, meeting somebody who takes his craft seriously was a breath of fresh air. I hope we meet more people like shift manager Wu.

Heading south again slightly buzzed, after getting lost next to a bizarre plastic palm tree lined beach on a deserted reservoir, we found our road through the farms again and pushed on. On the road, a giant statue of Mao attracted our attention, and we were compelled to stop to figure out what was going on. Immediately we realized that the propaganda department of the village was absolutely on crack – there were walls and walls crackerjack full top to bottom of planned birth policies and slogans, including a very vivid and terrifying Q/A series describing why it’s good to stop having children and what the government, the ultimate source of wisdom and justice, will do to you if you F up. We headed over the the statue of Mao, which was in a large fenced-in facility being guarded by two old men smoking cigs. Very excited to see foreigners, they jumped at the opportunity to explain that this had formerly been a school, but recently has become a retiree activities center. Naturally assuming that the  30 ft. tall Mao statue was a relic of yore, I commented that they kept it looking very new, and how long had it been around? “Oh we put it up about 2 months ago.” I really wanted to meet the propaganda man in this place and shake his hand for a job well done. (pictures coming soon hopefully)

Finally after a mad dash through some big empty plowed over fields (as fast as corn madness descended upon us, it has left us, and new crops now await their turn in the annual rotation), we arrived in Huafeng after dark to meet the family of my friend, our hosts for the night. For background, I met my friend a long time ago in Beijing and became friends with him in the US, where he’s getting a phd in one of America’s most prestigious universities. I had known that his father was a big deal of sorts, but I never had a hint in what capacity until I received the address to the family’s house, which included the word “coal mine.” After finding us in town with an old Chinese van and driver, Mr. Huang, my friend’s father, led us to the family apartment, where we stored our bikes and such in the garage. After formal introductions, a brief tour of the immaculately clean apartment, and a promise that we’d drink some “good booze,” we all jumped in the van toward dinner. On the way, we picked up the entire Huang family, about 10 people in all squeezed into the tiny van, including granny. We pulled into a huge company’s grounds, and were surprised to find that one of the giant gray buildings contained a fancy restaurant. Once in the luxurious and massive private room that Chinese bigwigs are so fond of entertaining in, I asked Mr. Huang’s younger brother if in the Shandong fashion we’d have to sit according to our societal rank around the table (I had had been to Shandong several times before for work and knew the drill). “Oh no, we don’t care about that anymore.” Mr. Huang came in from ordering food about 30 seconds later and promptly lined us up around him according to our age. He was the first host, and his brother the second. Our ranks went Alexis, Andy, and me, according to age. This is how we were to sit for the rest of our stay in Huafeng. It was also the beginning of our royal treatment, which the Chinese describe as 上宾之礼 (the rites accorded to most esteemed guests), as we were treated to a royal feast with enough food for about 40 people and two bottles of high proof Maotai, the Dom Perignon of baijiu. Having originally expected to leave the following day, we were entreated to stay until at least lunch the following day so we could meet Mr. Huang’s superior, the Party Secretary, who had been invited that night but couldn’t come.

Once we were good and soused, Mr. Huang dropped his wife and family off at their houses and took us with the driver to “take a shower.” To this end, we drove down the street and passed through a giant rainbow arch and into a courtyard with some huge neon signs that read, “Huafeng Coal Mine; unswervingly and wholeheartedly fight to improve.” We were led into the shower facility, given towels, and told to strip. Oh boy, here we go. We took off our nasty bike shorts, which we had still been wearing, and walked with the naked Chinese men into a nice little shower room to watch each other soap up and then sit in the hot tub. 30 minutes later, leaving the shower room, we passed a huge changing facility full to the breem with coal miners’ suits and boots. As we left, a shift of about a hundred Chinese men walking in file passed us walking into the shower facility, which we were then informed was on top of the entrance to the mine, convenient for sooty faced miners. Finally we were deposited at the coal mine hotel, where we drunkenly passed out, grimly aware that we would likely not be biking to Henan the following day.

Around 10 the next morning we were awakened in the hotel, a little hungover, by one Mr. Liu. In his 40′s and wearing the same outfit all the management in the whole place wore – black pants, black shoes, and a white, slightly oversized collared shirt – he was thin haired, a little pudgy, and extremely twitchy in the eyes. It was immediately apparent that he took great precaution to always say the right thing. He led us to the dining facility, where he surveyed our enormously excessive breakfast. “So you’re friends of VP Huang’s son, are you?” Yes, we are, but VP Huang, you say? “Yes, he’s one of the most important people at the mine.” Who knew? During the breakfast Mr. Liu drilled us with questions about the US, and said his son wanted to go there to get away from China’s education system. “China is different from the US, you know?” We had premonitions. Amid the flurry of questions we asked him about the mine, I mentioned his “party cadre” name tag, which he said was de rigeur for his position (more on this in a bit). Breakfast over, we were escorted to the main office building – somewhat ornate on the outside but dingy, bare wall concrete, gray, and soul chilling the way only CCP architects are capable of producing – and taken up the stairs to the third floor into a room marked “organization” and sat down among stacks and stacks of documents, most of which stamped with Communist Party insignia. So what happens in the old organization department? “Oh, well, you know China is different from the US, right? Here we have one party and are mostly concerned with harmony. The US is concerned with harmony too, right?” I suppose most Americans are, but it’s not a national policy, I said biting my tongue to keep from laughing to myself about Obama’s peace prize. He continued, “I’m in charge of distributing information to party members at the mine and organizing educational events to increase the moral fiber (素质) of our workers. Most of these workers are just laobaixing, with a very low moral fiber, so we are responsible for reinforcing values.” Otherwise, Mr. Liu mostly talked to us in slogans and party lines he had clearly become used to repeating. “The pollution here is bad, but now that our country is concerned with the environment, we’re making efforts to improve.” “China is poor, not strong like your USA or France. We need to work harder,” etc. At one point unexpectedly and completely unprompted he recited to us in heavily Chinese accented English, “Karl Marx was born in Germany. He was forced to leave his homeland at a young age due to political reasons.” Where am I, I started to wonder. Needing to drop a deuce, I excused myself to the bathroom, which was right across the hall from the “propaganda” department and – frustrating in the way only communist buildings can be – contained only urinals. Then Mr. Liu brought in Teacher Wang, about 50, formerly a physics teacher and possessor of some of the yellowest teeth I’ve ever seen to shoot the shit with us. Through thick Shandong accent he told us, “just a month or so ago, we had a party education seminar discussing lust. We were told that it’s natural to be moved by beautiful women, but it’s absolutely improper to act on those impulses.” I began to imagine a room full of middle aged men – all fathers themselves – being lectured to about the dangers of sexual desire – and how that might go over in the US. Teacher Wang had a reason to be loyal to the party, though, as he had been allowed in ’78, the year the college entrance exam system (gaokao) was reinstated, to attend university in Shanghai to study physics. Throughout the time in the office, Mr. Liu received several calls from his leaders, during which his mannerisms couldn’t have been more subservient than if he was saying, “yassah massah, ain’t no problem if massah wants it done, sorry for botherin massah.” On the flip side, he ordered his young assistant around as if he had just bought him off the boat, finally ordering him to take us on a tour of the mine.

Little Li, the assistant, was 23 and well travelled. He had been loving life working in a Suzhou (southern city close to Shanghai) hotel, but he had returned due to his Shandongese filial requirements to his parents. “In Shandong we’re very attuned to Confucian values, since this is where Confucius was born.” I guess that made sense, since only in Shandong are they so ritually observant in my experience. Having only been at the coal mine for a month, Li knew nothing about anything but walked next to us for propriety’s sake. Are you in the party yourself? “No, but we’re processing that right now. It’ll make things easier in the organization department.” How long do you think you’ll stay here? “Who knows. Maybe a while, or maybe I’ll go crazy and run back south to work in a hotel.”

At this point I should mention a thing or two about this place. You’ve never seen more insane propaganda in a workplace before, not anywhere. This place proved the axiom fact is stranger than fiction. Right in the middle of the plaza was a huge phallic tower imprinted with “Love the country. Love the corporation. Love the family.” A huge statue of Mao was surrounded by some of the funnier slogans we’ve seen yet. Everywhere you could feel big brother screaming at you from the walls. (We have tons of pictures of these slogans which will hopefully get posted soon). The people walking around seemed very subdued. There were everywhere we looked women lazily sweeping piles of 10 or so leaves around in circles. Later in the day one such young leaf-sweeper woman would speak to me in startlingly good English, telling me how much she liked her job cleaning the area and that English is her hobby – bizarre stuff. Behind the main building there was a pile taller than Magic Mountain of waste rock brought up from the mine. Every so often a railcar would emerge from the earth and roll up tracks to the top of the mountain to unload some more waste rock before descending again into the depths. Through those rainbow gates, we had clearly entered the twilight zone.

Little Li then led us out the gates into the dusty, dank city, telling us, “the air here is no good. Coal mines make a lot of pollution.” You don’t say. About 1500 feet away from the gates, the Magic Mountain sized pile of waste rock had disappeared behind haze. Outside of the coal mine area was a long strip of Hui (Chinese muslim) restaurants with Arabic signs everywhere. They really get around. Since Alexis has recently taken to directly referring to himself as a Chinese Muslim, thus skipping the long necessary explanation of why Jews don’t eat pork, our hosts treated us to a Hui lunch. Immediately after the arrival of VP Huang and our seating at the table according to rank came the 2 bottles of baijiu and 2 cases of beer. “We can’t drink much now since it’s lunch, and you all still have to drink at dinner with the Party Secretary.” Oh my. Our hangovers had only barely passed. In addition to everyone we knew from the organization department, we were joined by station manager Wang, in charge of the Huafeng coal mine tv station. Now if I could only describe one person from the mine to you, it would be station manager Wang. He was middle aged, badly balding with a truly despicable combover, glasses-donning, and with poor skin to boot – just an image of poor health. Throughout lunch he incessantly and unabashedly sucked up to VP Huang. “You’ve been such a great leader for so many years, you certainly deserve a good retirement in the US.” Mr. Liu was funny with the slogans, but station manager Wang could barely open his mouth without going into propaganda mode. “This is a hundred year history mine” he repeated over and over in a voice I don’t usually hear outside of television ads for baijiu or phony Chinese medicine. At one point during lunch when we were discussing linguistic differences around the country, Mr. Liu said, “it’s so different in Tibet and Xinjiang that when we go there, it’s just like going to another country!” Bingo! VP Huang, our host, was the only Chinese in the room who exhibited intelligence on his own. He was also sincerely gracious to us and wanted to show us a good time. Subsequently it was suggested that station manager Wang take us around the mine with a camera for the local tv. Sounded good enough to us – maybe we could learn a thing or two.

Without giving us enough time to recover from the first or second rounds of baijiu, station manager Wang showed up with his cameraman Little Cun fifteen minutes early. We were whisked off first to the shower facility to see the mine entrance. On the way we were informed by station manager Wang that the mine was 1200 meters deep and pretty much just a giant open room underground. At any given time about 4 to 5000 people could be down there at all times of the day and night. We started wondering how stable the earth below us really was. First he took us with the camera into the po’ man’s shower facility, where if we hadn’t gotten our fill of naked Chinese men the day before, we would have nothing to complain about now. There were just hundreds of naked miners milling around or changing, probably wondering what 3 foreigners and a film crew were doing in their shower. Then we went to the entrance itself. I guess the propaganda department’s theory was “if we didn’t get them with the hundreds of signs outside, we’d better make sure to blast them one last time with intense patriotism on the way in and out of the mine.” All the same, it was very tidy and businesslike, clean faced men scuffling toward the door, picking up safety equipment and lights at various windows staffed by young girls, and dirty faced men doing the process in reverse. The shaft was traversed on a giant, terribly loud slanted people-conveyor belt, where the people going down sat on the bottom belt, and the up-comers on the top.

The rest of the tour was technical and too boring for mention here, but we got the idea that the coal was being sent mostly to Shanghai for steel production. “Coal is one of the basic elements of our nation’s development,” Little Cun told us, referring directly to steel and electricity. He does have a point, given how crazily reliant on coal China is. Also apparently the mountain of waste rock had previously been 2.5 times its current size but had been slowly built into bricks since, “the country now cares about the environment.” I tried to imagine how he would excuse it if the country didn’t care about the environment. Afterward we were shown to the living area, which was composed of dull yellow, monostyled 6 floor elevator-less apartment buildings that more closely resembled a correction facility than a living community – by US standards, of course. Every 5 meters or so were signs about planned birth. Then we were taken to “Harmony Square”, a recently built little section of concrete with some sloganed statues randomly dispersed. Apparently there had been a mass marriage of 22 couples on the day of the National Holiday. All the couples were employees of the coal mine, and they had picked the auspicious date of the nation’s founding to be married to show unity and save on resources – not to mention that the leaders were in attendance and gave gifts to the newlyweds. I could think of nothing more romantic. Behind was the retiree quarter, actually very pleasant and full of trees, where old Chinese people with not much to do hung around a pond and played cards or looked at the odd statues.

Little Cun, the cameraman, was himself a piece of work. Only 12 days older than myself, he had been working for the Shandong Mine Corporation for 6 years and was already married. Extremely enthusiastic and never without a slogan to recite to us, he had found his slice of heaven right there in Huafeng, where he had been reallocated from his hometown a year earlier. “What do you Americans think of the Japanese?” he asked out of nowhere. Oh, not too much, I suppose. “We hate them. They’re the people we hate the most. Americans fought them too, you should hate them as much as we do.” Uh, I guess we got over that a while ago. “You can never forget the past!” I wanted to ask him if he still harbored a grudge against the Mongols or Manchus, but there was no getting through. “Later, when you’re talking to Party Secretary Yu, you really need to pay attention to what you say.” Or else what, I wondered.

We were then led to the tv station hq, in a room on the 5th floor of a building above the birth control distribution center. It was technically slightly more sophisticated than my college radio station. The girls in the studio were ordered to surrender their seats to us so we could watch a movie about the hundred year history mine. There was no way of knowing it, but we were in for a treat. It started with a scene of girls dancing in front of the mine and a song that went, “a hundred years of dreams, a hundred years of love, extracting brightness and glory, Huafeng coal mine!” It then went on for thirty minutes of interviews of various leaders spewing great things about the illustrious and fabled mine and how wonderful it was for the community and the development goals of the central government. It was so whoopingly unrestrained ridiculously over the top I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing, and the whole time we sat watching the movie, we ourselves were being filmed! After the movie, station manager Wang told us how hard it had been to make the piece, how they had collaborated with film crews in Beijing and spent countless hours on it (it was clear that they had spent a lot of time and money to produce it), but that it had very much pleased Party Secretary Yu. He then told us, “the Party Secretary is not like other people. When you talk to him, you’ll understand how smart he is. By the way, when you’re talking to him tonight, please mention the video and say how much you liked it.” I was getting the impression more and more that we were going to meet the wizard.

Finally after another quick rest we were summoned to meet his excellency at the mine restaurant. Formalities out of the way, Alexis having already praised the hundred year history mine video, and seated according to rank with the Party Secretary at the head and VP Huang at second host position, we began our final feast and baijiu imbibement at the mine. The Party Secretary, a middle aged man also balding and in the same black/white garb as everybody else, was a man accustomed to holding the floor. He weaved together intricate, stylistically patterned discourse as though he were lecturing in the great hall of the people, while the 3 underlings he had summoned to dinner with us kept their mouths shut. Actually, station manager Wang had been right; the secretary clearly had something going on upstairs. After regaling us with local history and stories about his own life and the mine, he told us about his travels in Paris and Washington. “I saw the Arc de Triomphe, and it was very nice, but it wasn’t as magnificent as our Tian’anmen square,” he said with a mighty air. Later, “I saw your White House and Capitol Hill, and they too were very impressive, but again nothing like our Tian’anmen square in Beijing.” I thought to myself, we can appreciate your cute little great wall, but nothing tells the power of mass labor mobilization like the US freeway system. Then he started lauding us for being adventuresome and taking initiative to do something like our trip on our own. “I wish my son were like you, free-thinking and independent,” he said as his underlings nodded their heads in unison. “I am going to call him and say, ‘going out on your own and exploring your country like these foreigners – are you up to the task?‘” Um, are you really telling me that you, the Party Secretary and controller of all wisdom at the mine, are encouraging free and independent thought, I wanted to ask. Eventually from curiosity I ventured, so what does the Party Secretary do, and how is he different from the Mine Superintendent? “Well, first you must understand that our China is different from your America.” Yeah, we’re getting that idea. “The superintendent is in charge of day-to-day operations and technical issues. I’m in charge of managing the corporate culture and direction. I guess in America you wouldn’t have a position like this, but it’s very important in China.” No, we still haven’t gotten around to establishing a completely separate department full of extremely politically sensitive middle aged men who task themselves with imposing contradictory values handed down from above on every aspect of life and work in every major company in our country. All that rigmarole aside, he was actually very charming and pleasant to talk to – extremely knowledgeable on a variety of subjects. I guess that’s how he got so far. Anyway, they eventually fulfilled their duties as good hosts got us hammered as all hell. I, of course, couldn’t resist telling them I could sing a song about coal miners, and tried to sing it, but being so drunk I forgot all the words. Andy and I sang the US national anthem instead, followed by Alexis and me doing La Marseillaise, followed of course, by all 3 of us doing the Chinese anthem. At the end Alexis was cutting off the Party Secretary, at which point the dinner finally concluded.

All 3 of us lit like roman candles, we were led back to the hotel, where surprise of surprises Little Cun had been waiting with a camera. Station manager Wang had summoned him from the living quarters section during dinner and asked me to sing the coal mining song for the camera. While I went to fetch the computer to remind myself of the lyrics, Alexis had tackled Andy in the hallway and dumped a liter and a half of water on him in front of our hosts and then slammed his door to avoid retribution. I came back and drunkenly stumbled through the lyrics twice on camera, singing “you load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt…” Before he left, station manager Wang asked me to translate the lyrics so they could put it on tv. Woops – I just figured they wouldn’t ask for lyrics. That’ll be a funny surprise for the Huafeng coal community. After they left, we had the maid open the door to Alexis’s room and then covered his bed, the floor, and his person with water, before he locked Andy on the floor in a grip I had to save him from so we could escape to our own room. Yes, all this in the coal mine hotel. We are dumb when loaded.

This morning we were promptly woken at 8am, and despite fierce hangovers had to make one more appearance for a much-too-big breakfast. Finally at 9 we made our escape from crazy land and rode hungover 40 km to Qufu, the home of Confucius and Chinese tourism Mecca. It all seems like a bizarre dream as I write in the hostel we found here. We’ve agreed to avoid State Owned Enterprises at all costs in the future. Despite how the above may sound, however, I really am appreciative for the way they treated us. They honestly went out of their way to make us feel welcome in their home and accorded all courtesy and respect to us, as though we were actually worthy of such treatment. It’s just that it was supremely surreal, and every two minutes something nuts would fly in from left field.

Anyway, God willing, we will finally ride the 100+ km to Henan tomorrow and begin a new province full of adventures. Good night from Qufu.

. . . . . .

Our ride to Tai’an was marked by our first hills and mountains, which while nothing compared to what we will face when we climb up onto the Tibetan plateau next summer, were enough to give our relatively inexperienced legs the workout of the trip so far. In the mountains, we passed a number of villages that, aside from the occasional slogan painted on the wall of a house, seemed untouched by the maddening rush for development of the past forty years. Nestled down from the main road among some of the largest and most natural trees we have seen thus far, the villages could easily be overlooked.

Clamoring down the steep slope into one such village, I was immediately struck by the tranquility of the place. With the majority of the tiny population out in the fields, themselves on terraces painstakingly cut out of the rocky mountain slope long before, the village was abandoned except for the occasional chicken and an old man pushing a wheelbarrow of corn who asked me if I was lost. Red paper banners with black characters imploring fortune and prosperity decorated the doors of each house. When an old woman peered out from behind one of the doors and responded to my “Ni hao” with only a blank stare, I began to feel like an intruder and made my way back up the rocky path to the road.

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One thing that caught my attention over the past few days is the condition of the elderly in these mountain villages and other small towns. In Beijing, retirees gather in parks to practice tai chi, fly kites, play chess, show off their caged birds or just sit and talk. Their only worry seems to be boredom. Passing through these villages, however, I have watched old ladies, clearly in their late 70s or 80s, crossing the road, their bodies doubled over under the weight of a load of dried tree branches with which to cook dinner or a huge basket of corn ears to husk. Old men push wheelbarrows full of rocks uphill for kilometers. In contrast to our romanticized view of life in the countryside and abhorrence of the mess created by the all-too-rapid development of China’s cities, life in the country is undeniably hard. The old ladies are the least likely to respond to a wave or a smile from us as we pass, instead only gazing at us from behind empty eyes as if to say, “I have seen crazier things, and I am too tired and broken to care.”

Now we are back in the city – another soulless place indistinguishable from the myriad, gray, expressionless urban centers that are already blurring together in my memory as if viewed from a merry-go-round. But in front of the temple next to our hotel, behind which the outline of Mount Tai is visible through the haze, the elderly sit and play chess or practice tai chi as black Audi A6s rush past on the main drag.

. . . . . .

I’ve always thought that mountain villages in China are the most charming places in the country. We stumbled onto this one while passing over one of our first big hills of the trip. Most people seemed to be out in the fields, and with the exception of a few elderly people, the village was seemingly uninhabited except for a cow and a couple chickens.

. . . . . .

Moving on, people who have been on bike rides with me in the past know that I have a nasty habit of planning bike routes without taking topography into consideration. Having learned my lesson finally, we checked Google Earth for our planned routes before setting out from Beijing and found that there was only one mountain range between Beijing and Shanghai, right in the middle of Shandong, which we, as sane individuals aware of our poor physical condition, decided to avoid. Nevertheless, we completely forgot about the mountains when we went to Qingdao, and our only route west to Henan was straight smack through them.

Now there are ups and downs to biking through mountains in China (cue rimshot). On the downside, we went uphill for painfully long stretches and felt lots of burning in those quads, but thankfully we get the periodic payout of a gigantic descent. Today on a monster downhill Andy clocked a personal speed record of 63.4 km/h (just a hair under 40 m/h).  The bigger reward for the physical effort, however, is that the mountains are blessedly far away from new development (aka the kiss of death), meaning clean air, more natural environs, fewer trucks, and much cooler villages. Despite being on a provincial highway – usually a recipe for ultra dusty / industrial landscapes – we passed some really beautiful old villages, still composed of older courtyard homes tightly organized around narrow paths and among trees. We inadvertently passed through a “nature preserve” (自然保护区), which was still very populated but at least had miles and miles of undeveloped “basic farmland protection areas” (基本农田保护区), as indicated by signs. Beyond just the lesser extent of development, we noticed other differences between the mountain areas and their more modernized lowland cousins – in the most obvious of places.

"Bear fewer children and get rich fast; together approach decent living standards"

In China it’s pretty easy to figure out the insecurities of local governments. In most cases, you literally need do no more than read the writing on the wall. I can’t be sure if other autocratic-communist regimes do the same, but here they love throwing up all sorts of vague (and often completely meaningless) slogans in very conspicuous places. Before the Olympics in Beijing, there were signs everywhere telling citizens to be civilized, stop spitting, contribute, establish new trends, etc., the obvious fear being that the world would come to a capital city full of peasants and be aghast (with reason, mind you). In most of the developed areas we’ve passed through on this trip, the propaganda mostly tries to extoll such values as fighting fake cigarettes, building the economy, working toward the benefit of consumers and the country (yes, in one sentence), following party guidelines, etc. If my theory of wall propaganda representing real concerns is true, then we must have passed through multiple-male-children-bring-honor-to-the-family alley over the last two days in the mountains. Almost all the signs were about upholding the Planned Birth Policy or the value – or at least non-dishonor – of girl children (Side culture note: in traditional China male children are key to continuing ancestry. The policy allows peasants a first chance for a boy, and if it’s a girl, to have a second.). We see more propaganda signs in a day than you can shake a stick at, but some of the more interesting signs we saw these two days included:

“Whether you bear a boy or a girl, you’ll still have posterity” (生男生女都能传后人)
“Having a boy or having a girl, let nature take its course” (生男生女顺其自然)
“Today’s [little] girls are tomorrow’s [society] builders” (今天的女孩是明天的建设者) *there were just too many “boys and girls are both ok, we swear!” signs over the last few days – I wish I could write them all
“Have fewer children and get rich fast; together approach decent living standards” (少生快富 共奔小康)
“Initiate a new trend of birth in wedlock; develop a civilization of [fewer] births” (倡导婚育新风 弘扬生育文明) *these wedlock signs caught my eye since I had always thought of China as the marriage-is-all-important capital of the world

This picture captures a great contradiction between values the government is pushing and actual local values. The big red sign on the left says, "Study and implement the scientific development perspective; build a new socialist farm village." The signs on the house next door say, "may our family prosper and our sources of wealth flourish" and at bottom "wealth and honor" and "auspicious."

Incidentally, yesterday we happened upon a Planned Birth Service Center (计划生育服务中心), presumably one of the places Little Liu had told us that all women must go for their compulsory bi-monthly pregnancy exams (lest there be fines levied). Another aside: when in a sex shop in Qingdao (Alexis is interviewing them… don’t get funny ideas), we noticed a Planned Birth Policy contract lying on the counter. The young proprietor informed us that all individuals 18 and older must sign a contract with the government stating understanding of the policy and compliance with possible fines for over-birthing.

Leaving the mountains finally, we found ourselves again amidst LBX-dom in the form of the city of Yiyuan (沂源). Immediately we passed a coal burning power plant and then a large urban area full of blaring horns, pollution, dust, max 10 year old cheap structures, and all other standard accouterments of Chinese blitzkrieg development – in brief, a very unpleasant place to be. Needless to say just about all the propaganda graffiti was related to “greening” (绿化) and “building an ecological home,” (建设美好生态家园) [whatever that means] etc. The sad part is that the place wasn’t geographically lacking in the least. Surrounded by mountains and with a little river running through the center, Yiyuan could be a little gem of a city. Despite all the potential, as Andy pointed out, it’s almost impossible to imagine how such rotten places could ever turn into worthwhile places. To draw a parallel, I’m sure at some point the farm villages of France, Germany, and Switzerland shared characteristics with the mountain villages of Shandong, cows and chickens running around, no electricity, outhouses, and the works. The difference is that during the process of bringing those villages into the 21st century, a certain amount of respect was certainly paid to maintaining some of their traditional aesthetics, as anybody who’s been on European tour can tell you. Here there’s just no gray zone whatsoever.

That little vent out of the way, and after two delicious meals in a row, including one bottle of baijiu at dinner (we’re becoming more LBX daily), it’s time to go to sleep. Tomorrow we push to Mt. Tai and then further West to Henan in he days to come. Stay tuned.

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Little Liu Picking Persimmons by Andy

We met Little Liu in Chujiawangwu (褚家王吴村) village of Weifang (潍坊市) prefecture in Shandong (山东省), visiting the country home of his aunt and uncle with his pregnant wife for a few days during the national holiday to get away from it all.

Young and stylish, Little Liu’s tight black pants and fashionable coiffure immediately stood out in contrast against the drab peasant stylings of his relatives. After brief conversation, he disclosed that he, 22, had married his wife of 23 only 6 months prior, and had had to pay some money (not clear if it was a fine or a bribe) to violate the Planned Birth Policy minimum marriage age of 23 for men. In case you didn’t follow that logic, I’ll repeat for the disbelievers: he paid extra money in order to get married even younger than average.  It is also possible that he fibbed about the timing of marriage as related to pregnancy, since Little Liu, as we found out, is all about image.

First I should back up a little. Little Liu made excellent company, especially as compared to his eccentric uncle. Like most 22 year olds, he likes going to dance clubs, drinking with buddies, getting into fights, chain smoking, and buying nice electronics. Recently an inhabitant of Weifang city (one of the area’s biggest urban areas), he grew up out on the farm with his family doing the peasant thing. During our walk around the village, it was Little Liu who explained all the crops to us and climbed the persimmon trees to pick fresh ones for us to eat. Clearly not just a city slicker, Little Liu also took charge of pouring our tea back at the homestead, in addition to explaining the subtle formalities  of tea drinking in Shandong, such as pointing the spout toward himself when not in use and filling glasses only 3/4 full.Despite being very impressed by his knowledge, we were most moved by the deeper topics we discussed with Little Liu back at the house. Having previously told me several times that “the life of a peasant is hard,” he explained how he worked double shifts from 1am – 7am and 5pm – 9pm at the carrot distributorship, leaving only the early afternoon to spend time with his young wife. Still he insisted it was the beginning of a life for him in commerce, better by far than life as a farmer. In fact, his family, peasants by official status, had left their plot of land to friends to plough and were all small time veggie entrepreneurs. After prying us for information about life in our countries, especially salaries (Chinese have an uncanny ability to quantify quality of life in terms of foreign exchange), he burst forth emotionally, “in China if you don’t have money, nobody thinks anything of you. If you have money, anything is possible.” He proceeded to confess he was desperately trying to find a decent enterprise for himself to make more money and live the LBX dream. He had even considered moving to the US to work a petty job for a while to earn capital, but he changed his mind once he became a daddy-to-be.

Just before we left, we asked Little Liu if he wanted his child to be a boy or a girl. “A boy, of course. If you don’t have a boy, nobody think anything of you,” he responded as his little female cousin walked into the room. As a peasant by official status, he’s entitled to have a second child if the first is a girl. Would he have a second? Of course, he said. What if you got two girls? “Then I’d just be really unlucky.” At least we can’t fault him for dishonesty.

Little Liu isn’t very uncommon among young Chinese. Ambitious, passionate, smart, misguided, and a little desperate, he’ll likely find a way to make his money and preserve his image, but who knows what measures he’ll go to on the way. At least he was very genuinely kind to us, and very clearly loved his family deeply. I hope the future is bright for him.

. . . . . .

I recently started to loosen up on the navigating, not taking only roads that I’m sure will get us to a certain intermediate destination but just taking whatever road there is as long as it’s going our general direction. The result, aside from finding ourselves on some super bumpy “grundle buster” trails and almost impassable sand pile roads over small rivers, has been that we have found a plethora of little hidden super charming villages way off of the beaten path (literally). We’ve run across tightly constructed villages among dense tree cover (mind you, we’re still talking very young trees), full of cows, dogs, pigs, chickens, and of course corn lying around in huge piles everywhere. The last two days we have stumbled upon some great vistas, but even more memorable was yesterday’s LBX farm family experience.

Right after stopping a while in a little village to ask an old man about his cows, pigs, and corn, we started asking around for a restaurant, half hoping we’d get invited somewhere for lunch (especially given it was quite obvious the locale was too small for a commercial eatery). As luck had it, one LBX man who had seen us pass rode up on his motorcycle and invited us to his house for lunch. Bingo!

Mr. Chu, our host, proceeded to introduce us to his wife, whom he promptly ordered to make some noodles for his foreign friends (It was 3, and the family themselves had eaten well before). Then he began showering us with homegrown peanuts (we ate them raw, actually pretty tasty), local apples, and carrots (more on this in a moment) before cracking out the Shandong baijiu (strong spirits) and beer for all of us. Right after the booze hit the glasses, Mr. Chu’s newly wed nephew and his 2 month pregnant wife arrived from Weifang city for a few days of vacation. Little Liu, the son of Chu’s wife’s sister, was in the same line of business as his uncle, namely the distribution of wholesale carrots.

Having just lunched at 3, we started talking and drinking. Little Liu and his wife started telling us about their lives and their city of Weifang, which incidentally is the biggest producer of canned asparagus in the world (of particular interest to me as this was one of my favorite snacks as a kid – something that happens in households without sugar snacks – just ask my dad). As we all sat and talked, various neighbor youth and adults would pass through to see the foreigners that Mr. Chu had picked up. Eventually Mr. Chu’s own daughter, a very cute 10 year old girl showed up, and it was cellphone picture time.

After a long time talking, it was decided we should go pick persimmons and walk around the area until dinner. After a short walk, we were at a small row of persimmon trees, from which Little Liu grabbed us all fresh, delicious persimmons to eat. I asked Mr. Chu if these were his trees, to which he answered, “No, but as long as you’re with me, there’s no problem.” Ok, bubba, whatever you say. He then asked us if we wanted to go row a boat. Sure, why not, sounds like fun. On the subsequent walk we were shown several different crops, sweet potatoes, gourds, cabbage, onions, cotton, peanuts, corn, etc. Little Liu explained that farmers here don’t use chemicals on the crops they eat themselves but always do on crops that get sold to market – to increase the quality, he says (though I’m pretty sure he meant to increase the weight since that’s how they’re all valued). Soon thereafter we arrived at the Wangwu reservoir, basically a huge lake, where we saw a sand mining operation and several boats out on the water. Where was Mr. Chu’s boat? “Oh I don’t have one, but as long as you’re with me, there’s no problem.” I asked him if we could go fishing, to which he promptly responded yes, but as for fishing poles, “oh we’ll find them somewhere.” He responded to every question with an unforgettable, slightly maniacal laugh.

Once it was just about dark, we all headed back to the house for dinner. By the way, the house was not bad, albeit full of projects waiting to be completed, like putting a light or door onto the “bathroom” (a squat toilet in the corner of what might be called a garage). 8 years old, the house was composed of a kitchen, guest room, outer courtyard, and main bedroom/living room complete with coal heated kang bed. The women busily tended to our dinner of pork dumplings (incidentally, this was the most male-dominated family situation I’ve ever witnessed, quite a treat) while the men again sat in the living room to discuss life. Mr. Chu repeated over and over that he had no intentions but to make friends with us. Eventually he started repeating frantically that he felt bad since his relatives were in town, or we could stay at his house, but he could arrange a hotel for us. I wasn’t sure if he was drunk and crazy or just crazy, but he started sounding desperate after a while. He also continued to insist that we stay with him for a few days to have some fun, “but don’t worry, I don’t have any other intentions – just make friends and take a picture with you.” Eventually he did arrange the hotel, and after dinner we scurried off to beds in the adjacent village.

The following morning brought Mr. Chu knocking at 6:30, anxious to start a day of fun. We eager early risers were then promptly up and at ‘em a little after 8, whereupon we returned to the Chu house for the saltiest breakfast any of us has ever had. Much to the disappointment of the Chu’s we informed them we had to hit the road and make progress west, lest we lose our schedule to Henan.

Overall the experience was very positive, and Mr. Chu, clearly not a rich man, entertained us on the highest level he was capable of, I am sure. I think it was incidentally also a matter of pride for him to be seen around the village with 4 foreign friends, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he meant mostly well. Thus passed our first LBX homestay, albeit still in a hotel, but altogether a very positive experience.

Also, as you may have read in Andy’s post, I really need to fix my nasty habit of trying to fix things I don’t know how to fix, like chains. I can only pray that the damage inflicted yesterday doesn’t keep us from riding further west today.

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In my last entry we were debating whether to head south toward Rizhao or west toward Taishan and Henan. After looking at our map and seeing how far south Rizhao would take us and how silly it would be to work our way back up to Henan from there, only to head south again, we decided to head west. We began by moving southwest on the provincial road running through Ducun, S217. After missing our turn-off, we decided to take the next paved road west that we saw. The road took us through a small village, after which the pavement disappeared and we were on a dirt road through the countryside. With the exception of the ever-present dust and perfectly planted rows of trees, as we moved through rolling hills covered with corn I could imagine that I was back home in southern Pennsylvania. As we began climbing uphill, the dirt road eventually ran into another paved road, and we flew downhill at 45km per hour. From there we wound through narrow, back-country roads for what was the most pleasant ride of our trip thus far. We passed through several tiny villages where corn once again lay drying on at least half of the road. The words coming out of the mouths of the elderly residents meandering the streets were about as intelligible to us as the mooing of the cows tied outside some of the houses or the clucking of chickens from inside the courtyard homes.

As we passed through one of the villages by the name of Chujiawangwu (褚家王吴村), a man in his late 30s or early 40s waved us down and invited us into his home to eat. After stashing our bikes in his courtyard, we sat down in his living room where we chatted, and his wife served us bowls of noodles and sausage, which everyone ate out of courtesy despite Jewish, vegetarian and anti-sausage requirements.

The couple’s living room also served as a dining room and bedroom. A small table sat in the center of the room and a giant kang (a type of bed common to the north that is heated by pipes running through it from the kitchen) in front of the window. The walls on either end of the bed were covered with four calendars each — 2008 at the head and 2009 at the foot — in the style of Chinese scroll paintings and with the words “Shandong Rural Credit Cooperative” written across the top. The room’s two other walls were likewise decorated with similarly sponsored calendars serving as decoration. A TV, long-broken we learned, sat opposite the kang. A single, bare light bulb hung from the ceiling. We sat on a couch next to the bed and on some tiny stools around the table.

Our host’s name was Mr. Chu, and he was just happy to see us — he had no other intentions, which he told us countless times — but he liked us and he hoped to take a picture with us. Mr. Chu’s Mandarin, while by no means totally comprehensible to us Beijingers, was miles ahead that of his wife as he was in the business of buying local vegetables and selling them to cities elsewhere, requiring a common dialect. His main business seemed to be carrots, judging by the number he offered us and other visitors throughout our time there, chortling and telling them how great it was that he had foreigners in his house.

From front to back: Daughter, Mr. Chu, Wife, Little Liu's Wife, Little Liu

Mr. Chu sent his wife out to pick up his daughter, a nine-year-old off playing in a stream with friends, and then the baijiu came out. Baijiu is a hard Chinese liquor made from sorghum and other grains. The good stuff tastes like rubbing alcohol with some flavored sugar thrown in. The bad stuff tastes like kerosene. We decided we probably wouldn’t be riding any further and dove in, hoping we could become good enough drinking buddies to set up camp in the Chus’ courtyard.

As we reached the halfway point through our teacups of baijiu, Mr. Chu’s nephew, a skinny but well-built 22-year-old, and his wife came through the door and joined us. We finished the bottle of baijiu and each received a 630ml bottle of beer as a reward.

Mr. Chu’s nephew, who we called Little Liu, had grown up in the same village as Mr. Chu’s wife, but had moved to the nearby city of Weifang for work, also in the vegetable sales and distribution trade. His wife, who he had paid a fine to marry a year earlier than the youngest age permitted in China, was three months pregnant and they had just bought a sixth-floor apartment in a building without an elevator in Weifang. In contrast to his uncle’s cheery demeanor and frequent guffawing, Little Liu was much more reserved and spoke to us fairly honestly about his and his family’s situation. As many others have, he told us about the imperative for earning money in China at the expense of living a hard life. “In China, if you have no money, no one will even look at you,” he said. “If you have money, everything is fine.” He explained that his uncle was extremely generous and welcoming, but also very poor. We began to question accepting his food and alcohol.

After lunch and some additional chatting, Mr. Chu and Little Liu offered to take us to see some persimmon trees and eat some fruit. With Mr. Chu’s daughter and one of the family dogs in tow, we followed them out of the village and climbed a hill to a grove of persimmon trees where we each had some of the delicious fruit. When we asked if the trees belonged to the family, Mr. Chu said no, which was a little strange since Little Liu had just climbed into one and shaken all the ripe fruit out of it.

The two proceeded to take us on a little tour of the village’s surroundings. We passed cotton and sweet potato plants and a patch of what Little Liu called hanging melons, although they were laying on the ground. Then they took us to the village reservoir, a huge expanse of water they said was used mainly for watering crops and fishing. Mr. Chu suggested we stay another day and fish. Later, when we asked him if he had a fishing pole, he once again said no. He offered to take us out on a boat, but it turned out he didn’t have one of those either.

As we crossed over the reservoir dam, we saw several men working at a site with a large tube shooting large amounts of water and dirt and water out of the tube and through some mesh. It turns out they were dredging the bottom of the reservoir for silt and sand, which they then sold for about 20 yuan per cubic meter to construction companies to mix with cement. Mr. Chu said it was good money.

On our way back to the village, Mr. Chu invited us over for dinner, but also pulled us over to apologize and say that he wouldn’t be able to host us in his house because of Little Liu and his wife’s visit, but that he insisted on arranging for a hotel for us. So after a dinner of excellent dumplings cooked again by Mr. Chu’s wife, we followed him about a kilometer down the road to a bath house, where he told the owner that he had a friend studying in America and that we were all his friends visiting China. He insisted that we wouldn’t be able to bargain for the hotel room on our own and that we would off because we were foreigners. In true Chinese-host style, he also insisted on paying for them, despite our every protest.

Mr. Chu wanted us to stay in the village for the next couple days, fishing and playing in the reservoir. The thought was certainly appealing, despite the fact that he doesn’t have a boat or fishing pole, but as we only managed to bike 20km or so before our baijiu lunch, we had to decline.

I was awoken this morning by a knock on the door of my bathhouse room at 6:30. Mr. Chu stood outside asking if I had slept well. After talking him into letting us have a little more sleep, we left for his house at around 8:00. The family had already eaten breakfast, but treated us to a delicious dish of cauliflower and pork, as well as another plate of the previous day’s sausage and a plate of pickled, salted vegetables. The salted peppers were the saltiest thing I’ve ever tasted outside of a spoonful of salt…although I can’t remember why I would’ve tasted a spoonful of salt.

After breakfast, we tried to excuse ourselves as politely as possible, despite an invitation to spend the day fishing, pulling Mr. Chu aside and convinced him to accept our payment for the previous night’s room. We set out over more dirt roads through farmland, passing numerous villages without a single paved road, and made it 66km before a link on Evan’s chain got smashed up when his bike fell down from its precarious position against a tree. Unable to fix the problem within an hour, we got a room in the nearest town, Guanzhuang (官庄) and will most likely have to seek help with the chain tomorrow morning as we are sorely lacking in chain-repair knowledge.

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For those who have never experienced rural China, it might be difficult to envision, but here more than anywhere I have ever seen or heard of, the entire landscape is the product of the works of men. Every square inch of land has been meticulously planned and molded, from the huge industry to the smaller structures and roads and right down to the very flora. For example, one of the first creepy phenomena we encountered that has continued the entire length of the trip is that every tree is lined by perfect rows of trees exactly like it – some seemingly planted for later use as wood or pulp – but absolutely never over the last two weeks have we seen anything resembling a wild patch of woods. We didn’t realize the significance at the time, but the 600 year old tree in the Hebei temple we saw was probably the oldest tree we’ve seen so far by 580 years. Then there are the crops. Honestly it has been a pleasure watching the crops change from entirely corn to corn and dates, and then corn and cotton, and back to mostly corn with fillers of ginger, onions, and fruit trees. Despite the omnipresence of corn and the obvious centrally planned nature of finished product pricing affecting which crops are planted (1 RMB per kilo of corn, 13 RMB per kilo of cotton, etc.), at least they’re green and represent an admittance that at least some things can’t be engineered.

The farm villages themselves mostly seem rigidly planned and ordered, rows of the same concrete houses all built to house a certain number of peasants, whose crops are various distances from their dwellings. [As an aside, I have to say that despite my distaste for the ugliness of socialized planning, at least in China there still exists a large portion of the population who understand small agriculture outside terms of McDonald's supply.] Outside of the remote farm villages, small commercial or residential centers are simply blights, built extremely fast with horrid trash collection and in every sense possible violating the “don’t s**t where you eat” principle I learned from youth. The third type of terrain we see on a repeating basis, the large spewing industrial type, is the most offensive to all the senses. For days on the way into Qingdao we passed giant salt flats, oil refineries, oil wells, and various putrid smelling enterprises interspersed with ghosts towns, giant trucks, and some sad looking peasants.

Most Americans who haven’t been here probably don’t get what I’m talking about. In Louisiana we have tons of huge oil industry and agriculture and trucks, but at least we have plenty of trees that grew where their acorn fell 50+ years ago and beautiful marshlands. I could even find some signs of nature in sprawlville Los Angeles, but here, absolutely nothing. The craziest part about China that you don’t generally see in the US (at least outside of certain towns along the Mississippi), is that here the people live at extreme density in the squalor. Try to imagine huge communities set up 20 feet on either side of the Jersey Turnpike, or villages right on the open cesspool in Butte, Montana. The only respite from dreariness – and, incidentally, the goal of our trip – are the little remote farm villages, where despite the stiflingly planned nature of life, at least there is a sense of connection with something higher than economic reform and “scientific” development – as long as you ignore all the signs printed on the walls.

At this point, I have to open up the philosophical end of the question. I assume first that man is fallible and second that nature, left mostly untouched, is self-balancing. I know what you’re thinking – I’m about to go on a Walden or Into The Wild rant about abandoning human enterprise and eating nuts and berries naked in the woods. No, it’s not reasonable for man to abandon all enterprise or to leave nature completely unadulterated. As Liang Shuming, the last Confucian and author of my travel companion philosophy, said, just building a bridge or a house or planting a seed is man exerting his will onto nature. Maybe it would have always been this way if mankind had always had the power to overcome everything with brute force, and maybe it’s just a problem of cloudy values among the ruling regime. Either way, a place that has completely disregarded natural balance for the very fallible plans of men (and if you know anything about how things work here, make that extremely fallible) doesn’t seem to be a very reasonable place at all. Both the physical manifestations and the inherent values of how everything here is submitted to ugly ambitions are very grating on the senses.

Now that we’ve had our rest days in Qingdao, a relatively pleasant place, we ride into the real hinterland, toward Henan and Anhui, some of the poorest and most “backward” places around. Hopefully as we ride further south and west (the area they’re dying to “develop”), we’ll find some places more worthy of human habitation. Hopefully next time I’ll have a more positive post too.

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