Caught on the Cob

Rural China at this time of year is all yellow. Everywhere that Penelope and I went, the villages seemed to be carpeted in corn harvest. Huge walls of corn cobs barricaded homes and stores, while corn stored on roof tops gave the impression of delicate decorations.

Of course they grow other things here too; roadside stalls sell a variety of fruits including my favourite, the Nashi Pear (which has the texture of an apple and the flavour of a pear). But nothing is so dramatic as the bright yellow radiance of corn, which overtakes whole villages in incredible abundance.

On our way down to the Yellow River we asked our driver to stop at an isolated village. He waited by the car as we wandered along the main street. The residents were wary of us intruding foreigners, so I whispered to P that we should keep a low profile. Corn was everywhere and we strolled along in wonder.

I admit that the sight of the corn made me a bit peckish and, at one point, P’s stomach made a serious growl. We had not eaten lunch. I used to skip meals when travelling, but I now subscribe to the theory that a hungry travel partner makes for an unhappy trip. As such I approached a farmer who stood sweeping his stoop and politely asked if we could taste a small cob of corn. The gentleman was very friendly and, after a few moments, nodded.

Now Koalas are famous for living on a diet consisting almost exclusively of eucalyptus leaves, so I assumed that a small bite of corn would satiate the litter critter.

Well.

I told young P that she could have a small bite, but she must have been starving because, before I could say anything else, she jumped on a large heap of the stuff and started zipping through it like a lawnmower. Within minutes the wall of corn had been transformed into a pile of cobs!

I was, as they say in Australia, “embarrassed as”, but there was so much corn there that the farmer just laughed at the sight of Penelope’s feasting. Red faced, I apologised and grabbed Penelope, running back towards to the car. Other villagers had heard the farmer’s laugh and were starting to crowd around to see what was going on. I looked up at my driver and wanted to yell “step on it!”, but of course it is not one of those things they teach you in Mandarin lessons. “Thanks, please go” I sublimely said and we started on down the road.

I just had to laugh at the whole situation. P, of course has had a sore stomach ever since, which just serves her right. But I can’t help feeling sorry for her.

I wonder if she has ADHD?

A Shot in the Dark - or - The Odd Couple

People who meet us sometimes remark that Penelope and I are an odd couple.
"I would never have put you guys together. How did you two hook up?"

How indeed?

Just before a trip to Vietnam, close friends threw me a farewell party. A mutual friend brought Penelope to the party and we started chatting. She confided in me her fantasies of traveling (Koalas are not, by nature, big travellers) and how she wished she could join me.

At the time, I spent a few minutes pondering the possibility of Penelope joining me. There could be some benefit to me, too.

I love taking photos when I travel but the same photos have usually been taken by professionals and sold as postcards. So why not just buy postcards and save myself all the trouble? The answer is, of course, that my photos have meaning if I am in them. But for that to happen I need a friend who can take the shot.

I agreed for Penelope to join me, provided she learned to photograph me. Our relationship, all in all, has worked out quite well. At first she was not quite proficient with the camera, but I knew it was important to be patient. A few days before we flew out to China I purchased a large DSLR camera with a very a heavy zoom lens. It's not so easy for a young female koala to manipulate such heavy equipment. (Don't get me wrong, it's even more difficult for male Koalas). But despite her fragile appearance, Penelope proved that she is made of tough stuff. I have been quite impressed with her skills, which are improving all the time. In addition it has been great to have a travel partner, someone with whom I can share all these amazing experiences.

Penelope has proven to be quite a model herself. She is extremely gregarious and gets on with most people we meet, always managing to elicit a smile. And truth be told, she relishes modelling for me. (It has occurred a couple of times that I woke in the middle of the night to find both Penelope and the camera missing. On both occasions the bathroom door was closed with a crack of light shining through underneath. And I knew that she was in there, admiring the shots I took of her that day. Is it because of something that happened during her childhood that she needs a confidence boost? Has it to do with a certain element of female vanity? Or maybe it's just the sort of thing that koalas do? Whatever the case, I am not fussed. As long as she's having a good time and I get my pictures).

It has worked out particularly well on this trip, considering the way the Chinese locals take pictures. They just LOVE taking photographs of themselves everywhere. And every tourist site we visit, there they are, taking pictures of each other. But here's the rub; one gets the impression that many of them are not so bothered by background. So at every temple, at every mountain, at every Kung Fu show, at every grand building, I have seen someone posing in front of a wall to have their photo taken. A blank wall. Sometimes a retaining wall, sometimes a city wall, sometimes a concrete wall next to the ticket office. God only knows how they sort out their photos and show them to friends. "We went to the most beautiful place with stunning waterfalls - look, here is a picture of me next a wall. And then later on we took a taxi to see this gorgeous palace. The artwork were so intricate, the colours so amazing. Look, look at this! I got a photo of me next to a wall outside the palace!"

More than once I have spotted a man taking photographs of his family, looking through the camera with the lens pointed backwards at his nose. As the family stood smiling, and the photographer tried to work out this new fangled technology, I grabbed his camera and turned it around for him. The entire family thanked me. "Xie xie" they say. And I wave them off with a smile: "Pu Ka Chi", you're welcome.

This local photographic expertise does not bode well when I want someone to photograph me and P.  To avoid these problems I also carry a small automatic camera. I can simply hand it to any random passerby who then just needs to point and shoot. (In some countries, they call this a PHD camera - "Push Here Dummy". Not so in China). As I stand back, posing with Penelope by a famous statue, they look for a digital screen behind the camera, expecting an image. Unfortunately my PHD camera is an early model with viewfinder only. "No, no, look through the eyepiece" I explain. Dutifully, they hold the camera in front of them at arm's length, one eye closed, trying to look through the eyepiece from a distance. "No, no, hold the camera up to your face and look through the eyepiece". Eventually they realise what's going on and, like everyone in China, they begin to count down. "San, Er, Yi" (3, 2, 1). And then, instead of pressing the shutter button, they press the on/off switch. An electronic sound ensues and the lens retracts back into the camera as it switches off. And with Penelope losing patience, I simply tell them thank you and move on.

It has happened that locals have actually succeeded in taking a photo of me. But in all the time I have been here, almost never has a photograph of me been in focus (quite a feat when using an auto focus camera). And when it is, half my head has been chopped off.

Having said that, I won't pretend that my experiences with western tourists have been that much better. It's just that compared to all the Chinese, there are so few of them to ask.

At one stage, P and I took to hiding behind trees, waiting until a tourist (Chinese or otherwise) holding a big fancy looking camera came by, in the hope that they would know how to take a good photo. But, you know, that just felt silly.

All this goes to explain why Penelope and I have made such a great team, and why you'll seldom ever see photographs of the young lady and me together.

Penelope thinks I'm being too harsh in my comments. There are lots of good Chinese photographers she says and of course that is true. It's just so strange that I have rarely bumped into one.

A Ticket to Nowhere ?

Attractions & Humanity

Local Attractions

It's hard being a tourist at the best of times. With few comprehensive sources of information, guide books become your best friends.

As a result, travellers tend to blindly follow suggested attractions, and that "must see, quiet, crowd free" place becomes everyone's prime destination. In the well oiled world of backpackers, the ubiquitous Lonely Planet guide book series has taken on the moniker "The Crowded Planet".

The trick is to decide whether you really want to see what everyone else is seeing. Most travellers I meet are bent on going to specific places in order to photograph a view that someone else has already published in a guide book. Who cares if the photo is out of focus? As long as they can show their friends and say "I was there!"

Attractions for Local Tourists

China is set up for its most prolific tourists who are, in fact, Chinese. Everywhere you go there are thousands of domestic Chinese tourists on package tours. At some of the main sites in Beijing the Chinese tourists are so numerous you can find yourself at a standstill in crowds of hundreds or more. And what is really cool is that they wear coloured baseball caps and follow their tour guides who hold up flags or umbrellas so that the tour groups can follow.

The domestic tourist economy is apparently incredibly powerful.

I reckon that, out of a population of 1.3 billion, I must have bumped into about 0.3 billion of them on package tours. (That's about 300 million, isn't it? It sure feels like it! And about half of those wanted to get a photo with me. That was a fun novelty for a while, until I found I wasted large amounts of time just smiling for pictures. If I had one Chinese Yuan for every photo I agreed to be in...)

The thing is that my preconception of a weak Chinese economy is clearly illusory. Relatively high (for locals) entry fees means that a lot of money is getting bandied around in China.

Attractions for Foreign Tourist

When in doubt, or tired, or just plain lazy, I have been going to see tourist sites recommended by the guide books or hostels. And they are almost always sites of interest to the Chinese traveller, developed and accessible to Chinese people. Very little is tailored for the foreign or western tourist. It's amazing that local tourists travel thousands of kilometres to see yet another temple. Well I'm sorry, but my spiritual well-being does not extend to visiting every temple under the sun. I have seen Buddhist temples in Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, S. Korea and elsewhere, such as China. Sure, they're interesting. I've seen 'em in caves, on mountains and on rivers; new, old, private and public. But at some point, you gotta move on and see something unique. (That's not to say that I do not share interests with Chinese tourists. Sometimes I do).

Locals as an Attraction

Like I said, foreign tourists blinker themselves when travelling, trying to reach those 'must see' attractions. Many don't understand why I travel slowly, exploring in depth specific places and the people who live there. After all, who would actually want to make the effort to speak to the locals?

For me, learning a few words in the local language allows for amazing interactions that cannot be gleaned from a guide book.

(Penelope is all for this approach and, as you have seen, loves meeting the locals. And let's face it, she has a way with them. She leaves the task of learning the language to me. It did result in a small crisis last week when she needed to buy some "ladies things" and my Mandarin did not extend to such items. A bit of confusing body language and gesticulation at the pharmacy overcame the problem but it did get a bit hairy there for a few minutes...)

For me the real deal is not when I visit a site that someone else tells me that I want to visit but when someone in the street approaches me to ask if I need help, to ask where I am from, or to test their English. It is the humanity that is shared when locals approach me with a smile, trying to connect, and in a strange mix of Mandarin, English and sign language we share our respective stories. It's offering some fruit to fellow travellers on a train with whom you do not share a common language; the simple gesture of extending a hand holding an orange represents kindness, warmth and sharing. It's seeing the distant glazed look on a stranger's face turn to a warm smile when Penelope waives her little paws and calls out "Ni Hao !" (Hello) in her utterly ridiculous, high pitched voice.

I am not the only one who thinks this way, but we are not the mainstream. Let those other western tourists have their views and temples; I've got more than a billion people here to talk to.

Catch ya later

Al