Portrait of an LBX

By Evan

*Long post warning — this one goes on for a while, but there’s some pretty funny stuff if you hang on for a while.

(For all the great pics we took during our stay in Luxi, click here)

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It has been weeks since my last meaningful post, and so here is my shot at an act of contrition. Last time I wrote anything worthwhile, we were heading into the southwestern corner of Fujian (福建西南角) right before Spring Festival (春節).

Entrance to Shengwu Lou, falling apart in many places. By Andy

Once we had a night of sleep under our belts, we headed out into the villageside of Luxi (蘆溪鎮鄉村) to scope out the famous sister tulou (姐妹土樓) for which the city is apparently famous, even though most people had no idea where they were. Tulou #1, named Shengwu Lou (繩武樓), the first one we came across, defaced on the side facing the river with Maoist propaganda, was like a miniature Chinese rendition of the Roman Coliseum, made of earth and nestled amongst the rolling green mountains. As terribly magnificent the giant structure was to look at from the outside, it has clearly been the victim of historical stagnation (因凝滯而腐蝕).

The stucco exterior was cracked and falling apart in many places, and on the inside, it was mostly quiet, with most doors barricaded or otherwise locked. A woman emerged from the only open door and, as we were becoming used to, invited us inside her apartment within the tulou for some tea. Shortly thereafter, her husband, Mr. Ye (葉, everybody in Luxi is named Ye) entered the dark, damp, cave-like dwelling and took over tea-pouring duties. As he talked to us, his daughter of six jumped up and down from a wooden chair onto the stone block floor, and his wife tidied the tight apartment of maybe 30 square meters, dumping waste water into the slit in the floor, a feature apparently all tulou share. (more…)

. . . . . .

By Evan

Time to make up a little lost time. After our time in Anxi, we spent some really glorious days meandering around Xiamen, which I swear is China’s most charming city — that I’ve visited — bar none. If we were urbanists and not LBXists, as it were, I’d spend an entire post writing about how we got lost in the old city’s dense, pulsing alleyways the way men lose their souls in a beautiful woman’s long hair. Alas, our quest is for LBXes, and after only three days Alexis returned from his visa run to Hong Kong, obliging us to part from that beautiful city. [Andy's pics of Xiamen here]

On our first day out of Xiamen, torrential rain stopped us short in Zhangzhou (漳州), a rat hole of a city, where successive sicknesses encumbered us for two days. At least it was in Zhangzhou that I got to see my Saints roll to a Super Bowl victory via a friend’s NFL.com subscription (thanks to Weiwei and Travis!). Three days later than expected, we rolled out of town toward the northwest and the land of the tulou (土樓), or as they ought to be called in English, round earthen castles.

Inside the tulou of Xiazhai. Photo by Andy

That day out of Zhangzhou, I lost three tubes to lesions in the same spot on my back wheel (one before even riding on the $@*# thing) before realizing that my rear Schwalbe Marathon XR, “the ultimate expedition tire,” had been ruptured severely. I threw it away and put on my spare, but seriously, I want my $55 back. Needless to say, that cost us loads of time, and we got only as far as the small town of Xiazhai (霞寨鎮), where the following day I was sick to the stomach… again. As I lay in bed listening to the same five Spring Festival songs on endless repeat at max volume (there will be brutal violence next time I hear the gongxi gongxi gongxi ni [恭喜恭喜恭喜你!] song), Alexis wandered out and found a surprise: a tulou right in Xiazhai, way ahead of schedule. (more…)

. . . . . .

By Evan

Yesterday as we made a rough 90 km cold, rainy push from the charming — if dilapidated — old town of Chayang (茶陽鎮) south through some amply steep mountains, the last we ought to see for probably a month, something I’ve read recently popped into my head. For background, I believe I mentioned in a post some months ago the importance of geography to politics and culture after we had crossed the desolate wasteland of the North China Plain (華北平原，古稱中原). The great flatland surrounding the Yellow River, the “cradle of Chinese civilization (中華文化的搖籃),” has apparently always been extremely susceptible to sweeping political or cultural changes since the entire area is flat enough to allow for rapid horseback transit within its boundaries. As such, the language, ethnic makeup, and culture of the areas within the plain are largely identical. While that makes trade and communication vastly more expedient, it also allows for easy conquest by armies of whatever marauding warlord happens to be strong at the time and subsequent assimilation into whatever said warlord’s imperial imagination can conjure.

I can’t speak to what China looked like a hundred years ago, but I do know that the North Plain now has been the victim of several quite overwhelming imperial edicts (詔) over the previous decades, the Great Leap Forward and Scientific Development to name the two that come most to mind most quickly. Since there’s literally nowhere to hide from such movements on an open plain close to imperial power (China’s capitals have by and large been in the plain for the last two thousand plus years), the whole place is, as we found it, a dusty, polluted Mad Max-like dystopia (with Chinese characteristics, of course). It was thus with great relief that we arrived at the northern boundary of South China’s sprawling mountain ranges (take a look at this map) after our stay in Shanghai, even if it meant slower progress. (more…)

. . . . . .

Picking up from the last post, we had just been bidden to enter his an Anxi family’s home to drink tea. The tea tasted damn good to us (even though we’re still not quite connoisseurs), which we told our host, but of course, he let us know in the Chinese tradition of self-deprecation, “No, it’s bad, it’s bad (不好喝，不好喝!).” All the while we sat talking, a dog,  several chickens, three young children, his mother and father, and two young women were walking all over the courtyard, which was messy with tools, stacks of baskets, and lots of machines for processing tea. It was a mess, but it was the kind of lived-in mess that gave warmth to the place.

Huang Peibin chats with us over gongfucha in his family's courtyard home. Photo by Andy

After not very long, young 30 year-old Peibin began explaining the recent history of his family. His father had been born in Xiamen (廈門), but in 1969 at the age of 19 was forced to relocate to the countryside (下鄉) during one of Mao’s great movements (大運動). He had grown mostly rice and other vegetables in Xianrong, where he had married and had children, until about 20 years prior, when he became the first person in the village to convert his hillside paddies into terraces with tea trees. Peibin, the third of three children, had grown up his whole life with tea. The family, he explained, spends six months of the year actively cultivating, harvesting, processing, or selling their tea, divided over two seasons. (more…)

. . . . . .

Two years ago when I visited Anxi (安溪縣) with my mother as a day trip from nearby Xiamen, I was impressed by its giant “City of Tea (茶都),” which I remembered afterward as resembling a hastily assembled Vatican with the merchandising of tea as its religion. Afterward through the years that I spent in Beijing and Shanghai, whenever I went to a tea market — which I often did — it was usually exclusively in search of the type of tea that I had discovered on my first trip to Anxi, tieguanyin (鐵觀音, Iron Avalokitesvara, or Iron Goddess of Mercy, a type of oolong tea produced in Anxi, article 1 & article 2). Not only was the tieguanyin I kept at all times in my freezer always produced in Anxi, but every one of the hundreds of merchants selling it for between 100 and 1000+ yuan ($15 – $150) per half kilo (I usually bought in the 200 yuan range) was a native of said mountainous county in Southern Fujian. A year or so ago Andy also began his appreciation for the hot, green beverage, and so when plotting our route, it was only natural to plot a course through one of chief production centers of one of China’s greatest gifts to the world. By way of a metaphor, Anxi is more or less to the world of Chinese teas what Napa Valley is to US wine production. Yes, it’s kind of a big deal. 

An Anxi woman crops her tea trees with extended shears. Photo by Andy

As we neared Anxi in neighboring Datian County (大田縣), signs for tea workshops (茶廠) began to appear regularly on the sides of the road, although most producers with whom we stopped to speak told us they had tea only immediately after production and had long ago sold the entire batch. One old man informed me that due to the profitability of tieguanyin production, its cultivation had spread to Anxi’s neighboring provinces of Datian, Yongchun (永春縣), and Dehua (德化縣), and further that Datian’s tea was superior to Anxi’s since “our tea industry has only recently been developed, and their trees are old (我們的茶業最近幾年才開發起來的，而安溪那邊的茶樹都老了).” Not only that, but some producers from Anxi even travel to Datian to buy tea and then sell it with an Anxi label slapped on the packaging, he told me. The veracity of his claim is of course up in the air, but from the long row of tea producers all lined up in a row with giant mechanical tea cookers out front and the brand new “International Tea Trade Center” across the street, it was clear the industry was growing. (more…)

. . . . . .

By Evan

Ever since I began frequenting the institution of Shaxian Snacks (沙县小吃) back in Shanghai two years ago, I’ve always had a vague desire to know just what old Shaxian (沙县, literally “Sand County”) is all about. I mean, the little hole-in-the-wall (they all look more or less like this) vendors of super cheap banmian (拌面, mixed noodles), zhengjiao (蒸饺, steamed dumplings), and other dimsum’ish delicacies are almost on every corner (those not occupied by Lanzhou Pulled Noodles, that is) back in the Paris of the East (you heard me, Alexis). I passed two on my fifteen minute walk to work every morning. So it was that as we rolled south from Gaoqiao toward the Mecca of mian meals, I felt like a Bubba who’d spent years eating the Colonel’s secret recipe finally making the hajj to Louisville.

I'm telling you, southern Shaxian is Lord of the Rings stuff. Photo by Evan

Most unfortunately, however, the county city of Shaxian was just like any other county city anywhere else we’ve found, give or take a really gaudy central plaza and a giant, expensive, extra-touristy and double-lame City of Snacks (小吃城). We ate the only meal we could in good conscience eat, of course, and slipped through the city without too much event. However, since leaving, I found this article on People’s Daily about the phenomenon and have since reconsidered the rest of our time in the county of sand. If People’s Daily is to be trusted (you think FoxNews has an agenda?), nearly half of the rural labor force of the county is somewhere else in China operating dingy dim sum dives under the exact same moniker. That’s more than 50,000 people, mostly in Shanghai (over 2,000 locations) and Guangdong province (6,000 locations!). It just made me think how huge a role geographical luck plays in the life of people in China. Born in Huafeng,  you’ll likely spend your life in a coal mine; Jingdezhen, and you’ll probably see your fair share of ceramics; Anxi, and expect some tea in your life; Shaxian, and get ready to fry some noodles etc., etc. By the way, make a note of the last paragraph of that article:

Some outlets are plagued by poor training, or poor internal financial control. For example, the owners of many small outlets are not showing much competitive edge; they tend to use much of their profit to build new houses for themselves and spend little on reinvestment.

(more…)

. . . . . .

By Evan

When last I left off, we had just parted from the Daoist funeral and had to pass up the offer of some female Buddhist monks to stay in their temple due to its unaccommodating location atop a mountain. We rolled on again until around 4:30 to the town of Gaoqiao (高桥镇), where we realized there wasn’t enough sunlight left to continue. The only hotel in town, much to our dismay, had no vacancies, and we scrambled to ask locals where we could stay, half-way hoping one might invite us in. “If you have your own sleeping bags, you could sleep in the government center,” said one man selling raw pork in the central market. Well well well, a government center! That’s just ridiculous enough an idea to make for a good story, I thought. I was not to be disappointed.

Gaoqiao Town Government Center, our home for a night. Photo by Alexis

We proceeded to roll through the complex’s gate and in front of the five-story-tall government center — which possessed all the charms of a Soviet bomb shelter — we began incredulously asking if there was indeed room at the… inn. A Mr. Zhu, office director of the county government (镇政府办公室主任), looked with pity upon our plight and offered the center’s fourth floor spare room to us free of charge. To boot, once we had moved into the room with much fanfare from the other employees, Mr. Zhu, a terse, middle-aged man given to speaking in staccato bursts, took us to the employee cafeteria (员工食堂) for a bowl of rice with some cabbage, eggs, and pork strips — on the house. This world is just full of surprises! Afterward two dopey cops showed up to register us, and after telling us to “cooperate (你们配合一下),” Mr. Zhu left us with them for over 45 minutes as they clumsily took notes and filled in forms on nearly every detail of our lives, down to our religion (we were tempted to answer Communism but resisted) and our addresses in our home countries (were they going to send our moms letters if we misbehaved?). After they left, and just after I had climbed into my sleeping bag on top of one of the short bamboo planks in the free, broken-windowed room, an energetic man in his late 40s sporting a disheveled head of greasy hair, Mr. Wang (汪), burst into the room. (more…)

. . . . . .

By Evan

Looking down from about 3/4 up the giant mountain over endless bamboo stalks. Photo by Andy

It’s been a long time since my last update (is anybody surprised?), so I’ll try to go easy on not overloading you with the silly stuff we’ve been doing. When last we left off, we had been stuck in Jiangle for days due to nonstop rain. Finally we caught a break and rolled south three days after expected and after skipping past the Yuhua caves (玉华洞, we still refuse to pay admission anywhere) rolled for over an hour and a half up a mountain through cloud base up to just shy of 1000 meters high followed by a breakneck plummet of 10 km. At the bottom of the mountain in the little village of Dakeng (大坑), we came across an unusual sight: a large group of LBXes gathered on the roadside clustered around several women in red coats playing music on marching band instruments with the reverb kicked way way up (no, that’s not poor audio quality on the video). Intrigued, we asked what was going on, to which one of the red-clad band members responded: “a funeral! (葬礼呀)” Then about five women screamed at us in unison, “come sit down and have a drink (过来喝一杯酒吧)” and a minute later we were sitting at the table facing one Mr. Le (乐先生), whose grandmother, 87 year old Mrs. Zhang, had just passed away. (more…)

. . . . . .

By Evan

*See all the great pictures Andy’s been taking in Fujian here

At the time of my last update, we had just finished exploring the ancient city of Tangyin back in Jiangxi. Since then much has happened (while at the same time not as much as we’d like due to the infernal rain).

Fujian has been the only province to care enough to put up a more glorified marker at its border than just a small blue sign

The last day of Jiangxi and first two days of Fujian were a veritable comedy of errors in navigation and planning (Andy and Alexis found it less funny than I did). Having had our appetite for ancient towns whetted by Tangyin, we decided to target another such town just over the border in Fujian only 170 km from Nanfeng, where we took our last rest in Jiangxi.  So we set out to make the trip in two days, except that on day 1 we missed a turn and ended up tacking an extra 30 or so km to our day’s ride through steep mountains and narrow dirt roads. Having at last rejoined the correct route, around 4pm, we were treated to an awe inspiring surprise. The provincial road snaked around and up a terrifically high mountain, so high that we could tell the switchbacks would continue well after we could crest the highest point then visible. Alexis disappeared out in front of us as he is wont to do, and Andy and I pressed in lowest gear slowly for an hour at least, before finally at the top of the slope we crossed the border into Fujian. After the obligatory picture next to the entrance stone (incidentally, to this point Fujian is the only province to mark its frontier with more than a small, simple “Now entering xyz province” sign). After the border marker, the first thing I saw in the new province was an old, thin man wearing a Mao hat in the middle of a terraced field with two water buffaloes. As he looked up, his smile stretched as wide as the look of wonderment in his eyes, and he waved emphatically at the three foreigners creeping steadily upward in the dusklight. If there is a value in omens, then our prospects in Fujian seemed most auspicious indeed. (more…)

. . . . . .

By Evan

*Click here to see all our nifty Jingdezhen pictures.

**This article was meant to be posted weeks ago, but was badly delayed due to author incompetence and a Wordpress bug.

During the last week of 2009, despite ever-dropping temperatures, we had decided ostensibly against common sense and the self-preservation instinct to actually ride back north (see route page here just in case you weren’t sure we’re crazy) just for the historical significance of visiting one of the premier sources of China’s ancient wealth and the cradle of porcelain culture all over the world, Jingdezhen. From the Ming Dynasty vases Indiana Jones threw around in the German castle to the invaluable relics stored in Taiwan’s National Museum down to the fine china my grandma used to sell in her gift shop in Florida, just about all of the world’s fine porcelain owes its heritage to the little city in northern Jiangxi.

Considering its weighty cultural value, we hoped Jingdezhen would be a pleasant surprise, or at least that’s what we told ourselves as we pushed up across the cold provincial highway leading thither (the ride through Wuyuan county was at least visually rewarding in its own right). What we discovered when we arrived, however, was just more of the same, only more so. On our way through the eastern edge of the city, we came across the “New Campus of the Jingdezhen Institute of Ceramics,” which in its brown brick boxes of buildings looked more likely to contain a remedial boys school than an academy of one of China’s oldest art forms. Further into the city, past the sprawling, state-owned complex of Changhe (昌河), a car and helicopter manufacturer and the city’s largest single employer, the urban landscape emerged as a muddy, uniform mess. The streetlights were decorated in the style of old painted ceramics, in homage to the city’s tradition, but they only made the run down tenements stand out more. And the place was everywhere covered in mud, the kind of mud you spend ten minutes cleaning from your boots at night. Suffice it to say, from our highly disappointing first impression, we could scarcely predict how positive we were to eventually feel before leaving.

This scene from downtown Jingdezhen really says it all. Photo by Alexis

(more…)

. . . . . .