The Three Kingdoms Tour of China Part 2: The Wu Kingdom

Sun Quan (left) and Sun Ce

So let’s meet the Wus.  Actually Wu is just the name of the kingdom that they form in the southern part of the Han empire.  The real surname to watch is Sun (pronounced Soon, but quickly).  Sun Ce (pronounced Tser) is the ruler of the area when the book starts, he hands it to Sun Quan (pronounced chew-an) who is the main man for most of the book.  Sun Quan has some brilliant generals, some fantastic advisors and he himself is one smart cookie.  His problem his he never makes up his mind whether he wants to defeat Cao Cao and prevent him from usurping the throne, or actively help him usurp the throne, or just sit down in the south and let the Wei and Shu Kingdoms fight it out then deal with the winner.  He does all of these things and manages in the end to nobble the Shu kingdom utterly by killing Guan Yu and taking his lands, but just twenty years later the Wu kingdom (led by Sun Quan’s son) is a vassal under the Jin Dynasty.  Sun Quan never seems to want the emperor position for himself and there’s quite a few times when you get the feeling he’s just getting by standing his ground; wishing he was spending more time relaxing.

From the TV tower in Hanyang, that's Hankou on the left 

and Wuchang on the right.  Yangtze river on the right, Han river on the left.

You have to respect him for his efforts, he never loses his kingdom; but I end up hating him for screwing up Zhuge Liang’s plans.  If Sun Quan hadn’t killed Guan Yu when he did, he never would have.  The Wei kingdom would have fallen to Shu in another five or ten years and Zhuge Liang would have left a frickin amazing dynasty behind him.  So that’s enough of politics from the novel, let’s check in on what’s there today.  Wuchang is the capital of the Wu kingdom at the start of the book and today it forms the eastern side of Wuhan, a huge industrial city formed by combing three older towns; Hankou in the north, Wuchang in the east and Hanyang to the south.  Nowadays the whole of Wuhan is a tremendous construction zone.  The train stations are being extended to build a subway system, they’ve just finished connecting the fast train line from Nanjing, buildings are going up in every direction you care to look and it’s hard to find anywhere quiet.  The three towns are separated by the intersection of the Han and Yangtze rivers, that meet almost at right angles in the centre of Wuhan.  At that intersection there’s a place called Turtle Mountain.  It’s called that because it’s higher than all the surrounding ground and apparently saved the locals from heavy flooding many times.  They would all gather on the turtle’s back and wait until the water receded.  This isn’t such a big problem nowadays with the Three Gorges Dam controlling the Yangtze river; but it is a cool park with a 280 metre television tower on top of it that you can visit for the view.

Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei on Turtle Mountain

I was well happy to find statues of Three Kingdoms characters placed along the top of the walk along Turtle Mountain, but most surprised to find one of Cao Cao there.  In the story he is an outright evil; a Machiavellian, paranoid, devious and self obsessed kinda guy.  I couldn’t understand why anyone would build a statue of him; except as an object of disgust on whom you can spit.  I did talk to a number of Chinese people about this question and imagine my surprise when I discovered that the communist government really like Cao Cao and are the ones responsible for his promotion.  The angle they use is that he was a revolutionary leader, just like them, and he was doing everything to free the Chinese people from the oppression of a corrupt and decadent emperor.  Well, he certainly did replace the emperor and Cao Cao was only a megalomaniacal psychopath, so maybe that’s a little better.  Oh no hang on… there’s a whole section where Cao Cao disappears into the pleasure palace he builds for himself for half a year or so and does nothing but play with concubines.  Nope, he was worse.  I’m still amazed they wanted to promote him when they should have been pushing the righteous Liu Bei.  In the end Cao Cao does become emperor, so I’m guessing they just want to be seen to be on the winning side.

I stayed with a couchsurfing host, a French woman, who teaches way in the south of Hanyang at Jianghan university.  I was only planning to stay a few days, but end up being there a week.  This is partly because she’s so much fun and partly because it’s university holiday time and she manages to get me my own two bedroom apartment with airconditioning and internet access.  It’s an apartment they provide for teachers working there.  Best couchsurf ever!  Ines has been working for four years now on putting the WOO! into Wuhan.  I think it’s worked.  She’s always up for a drink and a smoke, a walk and a dance, a talk with some music and definitely a laugh whenever possible.  We go to an array of restaurants for Chinese, Uighur, Italian and French food at different times.  She also hosts a Kiwi guy, Sam, at the same time, who sleeps on her couch and the three of us have a spectacularly excessive day and night together one Wednesday.

Ines and the Yellow Crane Tower

It all started when she joins Sam and I for a visit to the Yellow Crane tower.  The tower has been there a long time and been rebuilt a few times when it burns down.  It has always been the symbol of Wuchang and now increasingly of Wuhan.  The tower is an interesting place to visit and the view is fantastic, but superseded for me by the enormous bell hanging in a frame behind the tower.  For ten yuan you can give it three good bashes with a log conveniently suspended next to it.  With each ring the guy next to it yells something out in Chinese that I’m sure guarantees me good fortune, cold beers, eternal life and the polish women’s nymphomaniac netball team will use me as their mascot and sex toy. 

 

We’re feeling hungry by the time we leave the Tower grounds and head for a huge restaurant street to find Drunken Shrimps.  Ines tells me about it with a perverse delight, so I have to try it.  When we choose a restaurant that can serve it and sit down at one of the huge tables on the street, we have an entertaining time choosing what else to order.  None of us speaks or reads much Chinese and the place is very busy and noisy so we’re not sure what to do.  Ines then walks around the tables with the waitress pointing at dishes and asking what meat is in them – the limit of her chinese.  Doing this she orders up a storm – especially our Drunken Shrimps.  To make this dish you take a bowl of watery soy vinegar soup, add a couple of handfuls of small live shrimps and some bean sprouts.  Then pour in Baijiu (Chinese sake) and wait for the shrimps to stop thrashing around and die.  Then eat them.  Wasn’t bad at all.  But the dumpling soup or insanely hot slices of chilli beef served cold were probably better.

Sam considering dinner options

This guy is tired of the insistent musos by now

While we’re eating all that with rice, musicians with an amazing array of instruments come to our table to try and get us to pay for a song or two.  Some tables having parties love it and keep them for a while, but most say no; just like us.  The quality of the performers is pretty average, but occasionally a real musician floats through and one or two tables in the restaurant pay them for a song.  One group is determined to have us foreigners pay and we get auld langsyne and jingle bells played for us.  This is despite asking them repeatedly not to.  In the end I flip them 20 yuan for the sheer amusement value of having these guys playing traditional Chinese instruments as commercial whores for the foreigners.  We stay in the restaurant for ages, enough time to finish off 17 half litre beers between us.  This is when a fairly drunk Chinese guy lurches up to the table to welcome us to China and Wuhan.  Apparently it’s is birthday and in true Chinese style he’s busy getting mashed.  Well, he’s probably had one beer by now.  His friends join us as you challenges anyone at the table to finish a whole bottle of beer in a race with him.  We resist for a while, then I decide to go for it and we order two new cold beers.

A crowd gathers around our table and people from the next restaurant stand up and lean in closer forming a couple of rows of spectators watching in awe as we start drinking.  We bang down the bottles at the same time, but this is only because he saw me putting mine down and decided to finish to not lose too much face.  I point out the centimetre of beer left in his bottle and he demands a new challenge as the crowd laughs and breaks up.  Everyone wants to know where I’m from and I happily tell them in Chinese ‘I’m a crazy Australian’.  One man gives me a big thumbs up and says,
“That’s very good.”
Before the guy can arrange beers for the new challenge, his last beer kicks in and his friends take him home red faced and burbling.  We decide it’s time to hit a nightclub.

Chinese nightclubs have a standard format that never seems to vary around the country.  The drinks are incredibly expensive, the beer is always warm and only available six bottles at a time.  If you want spirits, you have to buy a whole bottle, which they will happily mix in a jug for you with ice and green tea.  The music is mostly recent Chinese pop, with a smattering of American pop from anytime in the last forty years.  The décor is the only thing slightly different, but it’s always one large room with blooths around the edges and tables in the middle.  Dancefloors seem to be an optional accessory.  The one thing I like about their style is that about once an hour live performers will jump onto a small platform and put on a show.  It might be one or two dancers or a singer or even a group.  They do three or four numbers in different places in the nightclub and give the atmosphere a huge lift everytime.

Hot Ines Action

Sam decides the drinks are too expensive and ducks outside to buy some baijiu from a small shop and sneak it into some coke.  When he returns I’ve acquired some beers and glasses of coke that he then tops up with the Chinese sake.  I have a small mouthful of the resulting mix and it takes a huge force of will over the next ten minutes to not throw up in the middle of the club.  This stuff is vile.  I know if I even stand up, I’m going to lose dinner and feel greatly relieved when the waves of pressure die down.  Thankfully this passes and we get on with a night of increasingly silly dance challenges that culminate in Sam doing worm like manouevres leaning against the bar.  He gets bounced and we follow into the night.

On the way home we discuss the Chinese idea of losing face.  This is a primal driver for most locals, gaining and losing face can make or break your life, marriage, career and friendships.  Losing control of yourself is bad, having somebody obviously beat you in some social way is worse and having someone lower on the social hierarchy beat you is unthinkably bad.  So we start to wonder if you can buy and sell face.  How much does it cost to gain face?  Is there a sliding scale based on your current and desired position?  How do you bargain for this.  Can you trade on the face market?  If a poor guy with criminal history marries a rich girl from a good family does he gain face, or does she just lose face?  Do they meet somewhere inbetween in the face stakes?  Can her old man pop out to the local face market and prop up her failing stocks?  If somebody finds out that you bought face, do you still gain face?  Or lose even more?  So if I know that you bought face can I blackmail you over revealing that?  And if you make it public and then accuse me, do we both just lose face? Who loses more?  We decide we need to form a lobby group to get the Chinese government to form a group to properly explore all these issues.

Dance like you've never danced before!

We finish the night having some beers on the roof of the building we’re staying in while listening to music on my portable music player.  The sun appearing in the sky becomes our signal to sleep.  I pass out quickly feeling very happy that reading a book has brought me here to have this experience.

The Three Kingdoms Tour of China: Part1

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the four masterpieces of chinese classic literature.  Written in the 14th Century by Luo Guanzhong, it is shakespearian in style; telling a story based on real events.  It covers the period of time from 169AD to 280AD where the Han Dynasty is failing, the eunuchs holding real power in the court and the emporer being kept ignorant of the reality while he plays with concubines all day. Nice life if you can get it.  There are real histories from the time that Luo Guanzhong uses to frame the story and he adds numerous famous poems and songs written in the intervening thousand years.  The english translation I read is spectacular.  I found it engaging, intriguing and utterly addictive, so many nights I was awake after two in the morning telling myself 'just one more chapter'.  Finishing it inspired me so much that a good part of my time in China was spent visiting places of significance in the story and the tombs and temples of the main characters that exist to this day.  I'm just going to assume none of you have ever heard of this amazing book (except from me raving about it), or know anything about it, so in this first part, I need to introduce you to it so when we visit the places later on, I can talk more about what's there today.

"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."
What a way to start a work like this and when you land in the story the empire is dividing.  The book ends with the uniting of the empire and the start of the Jin dynasty.  So to give you some idea on why I've travelled to these places, I'm going to spend this first entry describing the main characters.  First who they are and then a particularly illustrative story from the book, told my way, to give you some idea on what kind of person they are.  The opening of the story gives us three of the primary men who are near the centre of almost all the book.  Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.  Now, you need to know a little something about chinese names.  The first one is always the family name, the second is their given name.  All of them have another name, their 'styled' name.  This is one they choose themselves to further describe to the world who they are, or aspire to be.  Some also have a Taoist name, a name in religion as it were.  So without further ado, let's say hello to Liu Bei.

Me and the boys. Zhang Fei, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhuge Liang and Zhao Zilong

In Jingzhou

Liu Bei (pronounced lee-ew bay) styled Xuande (Shu-an-der), is a part of the imperial family.  Liu is the surname of every emporer of the Han Dynasty.  He is officially declared during the book as the 'Imperial Uncle' of the emporer he spends most of his time trying to reinstate to real power.  However, his father held no position in court, something that is used against him repeatedly.  Xuande means something like 'proclamation of virtue' and he does indeed spend far too much time being very nice to everyone.  He becomes a very benevolent ruler who spends a lot of his time really caring for his people and threatening to kill himself when they suffer as a result of his actions.  This does get on your tits a bit, since if he showed more backbone at several particular moments, the whole history of China would be different.  In fact, his close friends and advisors tell him exactly that and prompt him to seek a better strategist advisor; Zhuge Liang.

The story that best shows his character is when he is forced to leave the city of Xinye after repeated attacks by the emporer's forces under the command of Cao Cao (evil bastard).  Despite advice from the incomparable Zhuge Liang and others he does not want to leave his people in the city.  The compromise Zhuge Liang proposes is that they post notices telling the people they can move with Liu Bei's troops or stay in the city and hope for the best.  In a testament to their regard for the man, they largely follow.  This slows down movement a huge amount and Cao Cao's forces pursue constantly with the aim to destroy the rebel army.  Yeah, Cao Cao should wear a black helmet and have a way deep voice.  Liu Bei is advised many times to leave the people and run with the army to the next town.  He refuses every time and every time he ends up virtually weeping for his people's fate.  This culminates when the main force of Cao Cao's army catches them and Liu Bei wants to cut his own head off with a sword; tricky, but impressive if you can do it.  He is stopped by Zhang Fei who tells him 'If you die, none of us can survive'.  So a man of the people, but he really loves his comforts when he gets them.  He does have a tomb today in Chengdu, but it's inside the Zhuge Liang temple (Wuhou Ci) to give you some idea on how he's regarded today.

Guan Yu (Lord Guan in the translation - pronounced Gw-an Yoo), styled Yunchang is a fugitive on the run when we meet him in the first chapter.  He killed a bully in his hometown who happened to be rather wealthy and well connected; so leaving is the only option.  He is worshipped as the epitome of loyalty, righteousness and the brother you want to have.  He is a much better general than Liu Bei or Zhang Fei, wiser, more restrained, but a hopeless politician.  His style name means 'beautiful beard' and he's well famous for his long beard and bushy eyebrows.  In any statue, you can recognise him because of it.  He ends up running the central provinces of the old empire for quite a while, but loses it all to the Wu (southern) kingdom because of his failure as a politician to maintain good relations.  He also never picks quality advisors, I think relying on his own abilities above all others.  He has two tombs today and a number of temples, the most of any of the characters and more than Zhuge Liang dammit.  He has two tombs because his head is in one in Dayang and his body is in the other in Luoyang.  Met a nasty end courtesy of the Wu kingdom.

The story that best describes him is after Liu Bei is defeated badly by Cao Cao, they all split up.  Guan Yu ends up being taken in by Cao Cao and awarded the title of deputy General in his army.  Guany Yu also happens to have both of Liu Bei's wives under his protection at the time.  He makes sure they have their own private quarters in the emperor's palace and then stands guard himself outside the door most of the time to protect them from any hint of dishonour.  He tells Cao Cao that he is waiting only for news of Liu Bei's wherabouts to rejoin his master.  Cao Cao honours him with a huge banquet every few days and a lesser one most days in a hefty bid to win over this incredible general.  The moment news arrives, Guan Yu asks to leave and join his master.  Cao Cao agrees, but doesn't bother to tell anybody else about it.  Guan Yu leaves immediately with Liu Bei's wives and then kills most of the guards at a few border crossings on the way, because he does not have official permission to leave.  Cao Cao does eventually send a rider with imperial permission for Guan Yu to leave, but he largely discovers the bloodbath left behind.  Cao Cao was hoping one of his border guards would kill the pesky general.  This is one of his famous moments of absolutely loyalty Guan Yu shows to Liu Bei and a good reason he is still worshipped as a demigod of loyalty and honour.

Zhang Fei, styled Yide seems to have little history before the events in the book, apart from being a notably good warrior.  Yide means something like helping the virtuous, but should mean 'general pissant'.  He is a very good general, with plenty of tricks of his own that he uses to great effect.  His problem is when he isn't being a general in battle, he seems a little lost and repeatedly drinks too much.  Whilst he has plenty of respect for his superiors, especially Liu Bei and Guan Yu, he lacks any for his subordinates and routinely punishes them too much - often while drunk.  He's noted for a quick temper and ability to sleep with his eyes open that scares the crap out his subordiantes who think he's always watching.  He often gets a bad run in the book and the real histories speak more of his capabilities as a magnificent warrior and general.  I only found one temple to Zhang Fei, it's on the Yangtze river between Chonqing and Yichang, but my boat didn't stop there...dammit.

The story that best describes this man is when he holds off Cao Cao's entire army at a bridge.  By himself.  This is the same time where Liu Bei wanted to kill himself for causing suffering to his people and it's Zhang Fei who saves the day completely.  Before Cao Cao's troops arrive, he has his men go behind the hill on his side of the river and drag trees behind their horses to raise a huge amount of dust.  This makes Cao Cao think there's a huge army waiting to ambush them if they try to cross the bridge or the river.  Then Zhang Fei astride his horse challenges someone to fight him.  Repeatedly.  He yells so strongly and loudly at one of Cao Cao's generals that they drop dead on the spot.  The army turns back and Zhang Fei laughs.

So these three swear an oath of brotherhood in the first chapter.  Liu Bei is elder brother, Guan Yu second and Zhang Fei third.  This oath and the brotherhood loyalty these three show throughout the story is why they are regarded as the forces of righteousness.  Another general, Zhao Yun, styled Zilong (and normally called Zhao Zilong), joins this group to form the hard core of fighting brilliance that becomes the Shu Han Kingdom later on.  Now Zhuge Liang is going to get a whole post to himself later because I love him so much, so let's just say his style name is Kongming.  The Kong is a refence to Kong Fuzi (Confucious) and the ming means 'bright'.  I think you see where he's going with that.

Hot Cao Cao Action

In Wuhan

So the last main man you need to meet is Cao Cao (pronounced tsow-tsow).  He becomes the prime minister under the Han emporer after winning a series of battles, both of bloodshed and politics.  He spends all his time working to become the next emporer and holds the court utterly in his sway.  I think Machiavelli is a pussy next to this guy.  At one point he has the empress beaten to death and nobody says a word.  He is the epitome of an opportunistic politician, if there's any way to achieve his desired end, he will take it without a thought.  He routinely shows public regret on his actions killing people, their friends, their families, their pets and... you get the picture...but the regret always seems purely politic to make him seem more like an acceptable confucian king.  I'm not sure he has anything but statues commemorating his contribution to history.

The story that best shows his character is when he is running from a bad defeat very early in the story and seeks refuge with his uncle.  His uncle welcomes him and his aide and bids them make themself comfortable while he fetches some wine from the village and his family prepares a banquet.  Cao Cao is sitting inside when he overhears a conversation between his family members outside.
"We'll string him up tightly, there's no way he'll get out of this....his life is ours"...followed by laughter.  Cao Cao's paranoia overcomes him and he and his aide rush out and slaughter everyone in sight.  Members of his own family.  Imagine his surprise when he finds a trussed up pig awaiting slaughter.  Filled with fear and regret he flees and meets his uncle on the road, returning with the wine.  Thinking quickly, Cao Cao kills his uncle on the spot so no-one will know what happened and to avoid revenge.  Keep your friends close and this guy as far away from you as possible.

Right, that's it.  There's a host of other dudes who will come into the picture over the story, but this crew are the main contingent.  So onwards and upwards to the next post where we have a look at the Kingdom of Wu, who were based in modern day Wuchang (now the eastern side of Wuhan), then later Nanjing (the first time it was used as a capital city).

Cute girls with lutes

In Wuhan, Yellow Crane Pagoda 

There's Always a Shop Somewhere

The sharp, cold air bites into my face as I walk slowly, scanning the buildings around me.  It’s three in the morning and I’m looking for water and beer.  The amazing conversation with another Australian guy who’s been living and travelling in China for five years finished one beer early.  We both wanted another, but the hostel staff had quietly closed shop and left us alone in the restaurant.  I considered the sleeping option and became determined to have a nightcap and some water to help with the beer I’ve already had.  When I reach the entrance to the hostel, the girl who sleeps there to let people in is already awake.
“You want to go outside now?  Nothing is open.”
“Yeah, I need water and beer.”
“I think nothing is open now, in the morning you can try.”
“There’s always a shop somewhere.  I’ve been in China a long time now and I know there’s always a shop open.”
Another voice sounds from the makeshift bed in the foyer and the girl moves to let me out.
“You can find one for yourself then.”
“Thanks.  I will.”

They pushed the snow to the side of the street already and the temperature is about zero degrees celsius.  There’s not much life apparent in Xi’an at this time of the morning.  Most shops are closed, but taxis still flit about, pausing near me in case I signal one to stop.  I turn the corner onto the main street and head towards a group of people I can see there.  It’s a night market selling noodles and soups to people coming out of a nearby nightclub.  There are a few different stalls and I can get barbecued meat, stir fried rice or noodles and vegetables.  But no beer or water.  I turn to walk past the nightclub, there’s often a small shop open close to them taking advantage of the evening’s revellers.  I pass two cigarette stands on  the street, but there’s no shop evident. 

Ah-ha…there’s the answer.  A restaurant.  I’m served by a girl who seems to be about fifteen and manage to acquire my beer, but they don’t have water.  Like many restaurants the only water you can get is in the form of tea.  I head back into the night and decide I can always boil the jug in my room for water if I can’t find another shop.  A few minutes later I notice a large box by the side of the road with a picture of bottles of water on it.  I haven’t seen this before in China, so I move closer to investigate.  It’s a vending machine.  Jackpot.  I don’t need to keep looking, my shop is here.  My fingers are cold now from holding the beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, so it takes a few fumbling attempts to feed a five kuai note into the machine.  I arrange myself two bottles of water and pocket the change before moving back towards the hostel.

The whole trip has taken just fifteen minutes and the girl lets me back in with a smile as she sees my arms full. 
“There’s always a shop somewhere”, I sagely advise her.

Shanghai Models and the Nanjing exit

This room is one of the most astounding things I’ve ever seen.  They have spent a lot of time and money creating the ultimate urban planning dream; a complete architectural scale model of the middle of Shanghai city.  All the buildings are there placed individually along the streets and by the river.  Bridges and tunnels are carefully constructed and shown in place.  Parks and riverside walks are shown as well.  The Expo 2010 buildings are in place to show how they will become a part of the city and the frame of the Shanghai Tower currently under construction in the Pudong area is shown finished as well.  This will become the tallest building in China in 2014 and the second tallest in the world; beaten only by the crazy Burj Dubai.  The only thing missing from this amazing model is a dinosaur crushing buildings beneath its feet whilst breathing fire and emitting strange noises.  Perhaps that would be just too Japanese for the locals.


Many Chinese people still hate the Japanese for their world war two atrocities; the rape of Nanjing is kind of hard to forget - even seventy years later.  Now this makes it even stranger to me that Shanghai’s World Financial Centre seems to be modelled on a Japanese sword rammed into the heart of Shanghai’s financial district.  The building company and major organizers were Japanese, so is this a deliberate action?  Probably.  Apparently when it was being built there were protests over the shape of the distinctive hole in near the top of the building.  It was to be round, which resembles a moon gate, a distinctive part of Chinese architecture.  However, that design also looked an awful lot like the Japanese flag flying on top of the sword.  It got changed to the rectangular shape we see now, which made some people happier, but most people saw something entirely new.  The Shanghai Bottleopener.  I still haven’t found one in a souvenir shop, though. 

I wander around this amazing model, drinking it in and thinking what a useful thing this would be for urban planners and developers everywhere.  When you want to know how a new building would really impact the surrounding landscape, you can slot it in and have a look at it from any angle.  Check for annoying shadows and reflections, notice that it’s too big for the land you own and realise that it’s just perfect for looking at the bikini clad women in the hotel’s pool next door.  It takes a while to see everything, but you can walk around the entire model, then go upstairs and look down on it from the next floor too.  As a final trick, you can go into a special round room that has projectors rigged up to provide a computer generated 360 degree view of the city as seen from a boat the river.  It shows in some detail how the Expo site in particular will look when it’s finished, but there’s a little detail that leaves me chuckling as I wander out of the building.  Right in the middle of one of the projector screens, hanging there motionless while the scene moves around is a windows error message waiting for someone to click on it.  Not even the Chinese government can change this small part of modern life.

I’ve decided that I will begin my journey into China’s interior today.  Nanjing will be the first stop and I’ve already acquired a ticket on one of the new fast trains.  You can find agencies all over the city with English speaking staff to make this easy.  So I launch myself into the madness that is a Chinese inter-city train station for the first time.  I can’t believe the sheer number of people who are gathered around the front of the train station, apparently ready to travel; but going nowhere.  It’s an often repeated scene and I spend far too much time considering why they’re always there in droves.  Maybe they plan to meet hours before the train leaves to make sure they all manage to arrive.  Maybe they just think it’s cool to hang out at train stations with your baggage to make it feel like you’re going somewhere.
“You think you’ll go today?”
“Nah, just enjoying the dream.  Don’t have any money anyway.”
“You want to play cards?”
“Nah, I’ve got a mahjong set here, you want to start a table?”
“Mahjong? Hell yes, let’s do it”
There are people gathered together with the cluster of their bags playing all kinds of games to pass the time.  I suddenly wonder if they’re gambling the contents of the bags as a kind of lucky prize draw.  Maybe it’s empty, maybe it’s filled with electrical appliances.  Who can tell what will happen with the crazy wheel of train station roulette!!

I’m brought back to reality by an announcement in English that a train is ready to board.  I’m relieved I will hear the right warning, then search for my ticket and join the crowd passing through security at the door.  The level of concern shown varies greatly at different bus and train stations.  In Shanghai you have to have a ticket to pass through and absolutely everyone has all their baggage x-rayed.  In Xiangfan bus station a disinterested guard sitting next to an x-ray machine watches the hordes passing by without a care in the world.  In most bus stations there is also a metal detector frame you walk through without ever being stopped.  Maybe they just count the loud beeps it makes as each person passes through.  Back in Shanghai I’m staring at a huge electronic board looking for my train number.  It tells me where I need to go to wait for the gate to open; signalling a thousand screaming Chinese warriors who will storm through the station to commandeer the first train they find.  Okay, so that’s just what it feels like when you’re getting onto the train within a Chinese mob.  They push, surge and try to generally outdo each other in getting to the train and then their seat before you.  I think the video cameras in any train station would make quite fascinating viewing with the right soundtrack.  Something loud, heavy and utterly overwhelming.  Carmina Burana.  The opening song, O Fortuna.  They should play it through the loudspeakers to make everyone seem more normal.

Hot train action

The train itself is a lot better than I was expecting from the Chinese train system.  My friends who have been here before warn me of filthy toilets, crowded carriages and the stink of cigarette smoke permeating your existence.  Smoking is utterly banned on the fast trains, the carriages are spacious with comfortable new seats and the toilets are spotlessly clean – and you can even get a western style seat toilet.  I lock up my bags and head for the dining car to see what they might have for me.  I see other people getting a microwave dinner style tray with rice, meat and vegetables separated out; so I jump on the bandwagon and grab one for myself.  I notice beer siting in a fridge and add a can of Tsingtao to the order before returning to my seat to feed my face.  It’s exactly what you expect from a microwave dinner, just with genuine Chinese food in it.  The trip with take just two and a half hours to cover the five hundred odd kilometres to Nanjing, so I settle down to sort through some pictures I took in Shanghai as the countryside rolls by the window.

I'd like a another, please.

 “We’re stopped here anyway, just ask her to open the door!”, he pleads emphatically.
“But this is a public bus, it can’t just stop anywhere.”
“Let me put this another way; if she doesn’t open that door in the next minute I’m going to be pissing all over it.”
It’s not a threat, it’s a statement of fact.  Phillipe suddenly understands the direness of the situation and starts talking in Chinese to the bus conductor.  They appear to have the same exchange because I see her eyes go wide open in shock. The instant the bus stops rolling in the barely moving traffic, she barks at the driver and the door is opening.  There’s a flash of movement as Paul leaps out of the bus and runs jaggedly down the slope a few metres.  He stops and unzips to let loose a strong stream of clear urine.  I’m about one metre behind him and Don is close by.  We three Australians provide liquid nourishment for the grassy verge amidst laughter and applause from all the couchsurfers on the bus.

I suppose drinking three half litre beers and getting on a bus was risky, but with the traffic hardly moving, the risk went critical.  It seems to take an aeon, but the three of us make our way back onto the bus before it gets a chance to move again.  Even the Chinese people onboard think its very funny and greet as with broad, knowing smiles.  Phillipe is shaking his head in disbelief.
“I think I’ve lived in China for more than six years, but I’ve NEVER seen a public bus pull up for a toilet break before.”
This causes a fresh cascade of laughter, so I take the moment to crack the top off another beer.

After we get back to Shanghai city, the couchsurfing group breaks up and Don and I find ourselves sitting in a nearby Pizza Hut eating kimchi and black pepper beef pizzas.  It’s all about the novelty value of the toppings rather than actually wanting to eat there.  We decide it’s time to head back to Ray’s place to sleep for a few hours before joining the couchsurfers at the bar that hosts Shanghai’s weekly meetups.  The place is owned by a local couchsurfer, Aimee, who provides half price drinks to all the CSers that visit; guaranteeing a good crowd.  So we head into the Shanghai metro system and spend half an hour jumping trains to arrive at Ray’s place in Pudong.  I think it takes about five minutes for me to have a shower and be asleep in bed.

The bar is in the Luwan area of inner Shanghai, famous for a main street with nests of interconnecting alleyways filled with bars, shops and other distractions.  Don and I are on our way in a taxi when Ray calls to find out where we are.  He’s sitting in an Australian ex-pat bar called Kakadu and wants to know if we feel like a beer.  We’ve still got a couple of hours before the meetup, so he gives new directions to the driver and just ten minutes later we’re walking into the bar.  Ray has our beers waiting for us.

Ray enjoying a cocktail the easy way

The room is dominated by a spectacularly enormous fishtank behind the bar.  You can see through it to a dining area, but your eyes are caught by the myriad of colourful and varied south American fish.  The owner collects them and only he is allowed to feed them.  This explains why most fish in the tank actually gather together when he approaches the glass and they also turn to follow him around the room.  Apparently these fish do remember who is associated with food and act accordingly.  They simply ignore any other person who approaches the tank from either side.

A few beers and yarns with Ray takes a few hours and we head off to the meetup a little late.  I’ve taken a photograph of the directions written in Chinese that are posted on the couchsurfing website in the Shanghai city forum.  I then show this to the taxi driver and soon we are dropped at the entrance to an alleyway and he’s pointing down it saying something in Chinese.  Don and I look at each other and amble down it looking for the Bell bar.  We end up weaving through some narrow alleys past a myriad of shops and cafes hunting for our bar before I spot the bell logo high in a window.  The place is a small wooden building with two floors.  Five years ago it was somebody’s house, now it’s packed with happy couchsurfers and the odd local creating the buzz of busy conversations.  We make our way upstairs and join a group there with someone we’ve met before.  Beers are delivered to our table by a young guy with a cheeky smile and the night begins in earnest.

I lose track of the flurry of conversations quickly.  The eclipse, travel stories, homebrewing beer and existential philosophy all visit our group for discussion.  We eventually move downstairs to meet the owner properly and find a large Chinese girl with an infectious smile and permanent giggle.  She welcomes us and makes sure we know about the discount.  She’s interrupted by a young man holding a wooden case of some sort.  The speak in Chinese for a minute and she turns the music off as he produces an instrument from the case.  He begins to play and the noisy, boisterous bar falls to silent appreciation of his skill.  It is so beautiful, especially in this moment surrounded by our new friends.  I’ve forgotten the disappointment of the morning, lost in the moment with this flowing and passionate music.

Somehow Aimee is now declaring that she will give five long island ice teas for free, if just one person can drink all of them inside two minutes.  The guy she’s talking to is laughing, saying nobody can do that.  She keeps trying to convince him and asks everybody in the bar a few times if someone wants to take up the challenge.  I’m considering it, but decide it would leave me paralytic and I don’t want to be that bad in a strange city.  I’m still not entirely surprised when Don steps up and says,
“If you don’t put the coke in them, I’ll do it.  I just can’t stand coke.”
There’s a cheer from the crowd and Aimee accepts the bet and begins making the five drinks.  I immediately put twenty kuai (the shortname for Chinese yuan money) on Don being able to do it without throwing up.  They ask where he’s from.
“Australia.”
“I’m not taking that bet, Australians are crazy, he’ll probably do it.”
The crowd agrees and nobody takes the bet.  Shame, I could have done with the money.

The timer starts and Don works his way steadily down the line of glasses.  He pauses between each one for a swig of water and continues.  It’s all over in a minute and the crowd goes crazy.  I hand Don a lemonade for him to skull, he’s going to need some sugar with that dose.  The night gradually fades and we end up trading contact details with people.  At two in the morning Don and I are the only people left.  We give Aimee big hugs before shuffling into the street hoping a taxi will swoop down from above and just fly us home.

 

Aimee and a waitress applauding Don's efforts

The Shanghai Eclipse

 Three minutes to Totality

I look out the window at the clouds and feel sure I wont see the Total eclipse today.  Last night the hotel we’re staying in experienced a mad roaming party as more than fifty couchsurfers from more than fifteen different countries setup parties in four different rooms on one floor.  The rooms were packed and hot as everyone shared beers and other drinks chatting with everyone around them.  One room has a soundsystem going strong, another has a game of mahjong in full swing.  It comes complete with a bevy of spectators watching how to play the game as the most of the participants learn.  One of the local CSers organized it to share this part of Chinese culture with all the visitors.


I’m particularly happy to see two people in particular arrive.  One is Taylor, a Canadian compulsive hitchhiker who has just managed to hitch his way from Turkey to Shanghai across a number of central asian countries.  He stayed with me when he was hitching around Australia and enjoy our collective madness.  The other is Marco, from Italy, who was with me at the last Total Eclipse in Novosibirsk in Russia a year ago.  When he arrives after one in the morning myself and Don give him huge hugs and can’t believe we’ve all made it together to the next one.  And then there’s Don.  He shared the last eclipse with me, as well as numerous other adventures over the last ten or fifteen years; he’s my brother from another mother.  There’s one more person in this unlikely gathering and that’s a French native, Alex who I only met few days ago in Shanghai.  He’s another passionate couchsurfer and I already know we will be friends for a long time to come.

The festivities were still going strong at three when I decided sleep was best, but it’s Alex who woke me up this morning with some heavy duty snoring from the floor of the room.  He surfed my couch last night.  Normally it’s me fulfilling the snoring role and I suddenly feel very sorry for anyone who’s shared a room with me….but I was talking about the eclipse.  We have just over an hour to make it to Jianshanwei beach near Shanghai.  We meet the huge group of couchsurfers in the hotel lobby and make our way to the beach in an endless series of small vans.  They are fitted with a few rows of small dodgy benches and serve as a kind of group taxi in most parts of china.  You have to pay to get onto the beach itself, no problem, it’s China; everything has a price.

We set ourselves up and first contact happens a minute later.  In less than an hour we will see the black sun.  This will be the fourth time for me but for the first time I can feel a growing tension knot in my stomach because I still think we wont see it.  I’ve travelled so far to make my pilgrimage to be a part of the timeless moment…..and this one is even more special.  This will be the longest Totality in my lifetime.  To miss this would tear a large hole in my eclipse chasing career.  I look to the sky and almost can’t believe it when I clearly see the sun through the clouds.   I raise my eclipse glasses and can see the moon shadow growing slowly on its face.  Maybe we WILL see it.

Some of the couchsurfers with us have brought cameras and the special equipment to get photographs of the celestial magic.  They are busily setting everything up wishing they got here earlier to catch first contact.  I move around the group chatting to people randomly and not really listening to anything.  I can feel my heart beating faster and the tension growing stronger.  I start wondering who or what I can pray to in order to guarantee I see Totality.  It’s something I never do, I am a solidly proud atheist with no need for any God in my life.  Well, until this moment, where it seems like a pretty cool idea for the first time.  I look up at the sun and start a simple Tibetan inspired chant and find Marco joining in with me.
“Padmasambhava, Padmasambhava, Padmasambhava, Padmasambhava, Padmasambhava, Padmasambhava, Padmasambhava….”

I stop and consider the ridiculousness of what I’m doing.  I should have researched more, I let the couchsurfing part of my life rule me and chose to stay with this huge group of friends.  If I’d checked weather maps I could have flown to the best location to see it.  I find myself chanting again quietly.  I suppose when you want something so completely, you’ll pin your hopes on anything at all.  Hope Springs Eternal.  It’s not an advertisement for durable inner-spring mattresses.  My mobile phone burbles into life, my friend in Shanghai city tells me its raining there and they can’t see anything. I look along the coastline towards the ocean and see the rainclouds coming towards us too.

The clouds are almost boiling as they shift across the face of the sun.  They’re thick enough now that you can look at the partial eclipse without the special dark eclipse glasses.  We’re not going to see it today.  At each eclipse I’ve captured one photograph with myself and the Totality in the background.  This time I get a picture with myself and the sun appearing as a tiny sliver.  There’s only ten minutes to go and I can see a patch in the clouds moving towards us.  We ARE going to see it today.  There’s a phenomena I’ve heard of where the clouds part during Totality, then close when it finishes.  It’s been documented many thousands of times and a few of my friends have actually seen it happen.  It makes the moment even more mystical.  I would sacrifice anything to have that happen for me now.

The gap passes us four minutes before Totality and the sky begins to darken.  A cool wind starts up and all I can think of is that it become stronger and wash away these clouds.  The sky slowly edges to darkness and the lights come on along the walkway beside the beach.

People begin whooping and screaming and all I feel is emptiness.  I scream louder as if I could force the clouds away from me. 

Totality brings darkness.

The sky is suddenly dark at ten in the morning and I wish I was somewhere else.  My eyes strain to see through the clouds.  My heart yearns for a gap.  In this moment of unfulfilled desperation I can see why people used to sacrifice precious objects and even their children to win this fight against nature.  My mind screams against this insanity, but my soul is crying for the black sun.

The sky begins to lighten and I know I’ve missed the greatest eclipse of my life.

I’m surrounded by such good people and all I can think of is the gaping hole in my existence.  If only I’d researched better, if only I’d thought more carefully about it, if only…if only…if only.

Marco the Italian eclipse chaser

A new resolve appears.  I know when the next one is.  I have another chance.  There will always be another one.  I only have to wait a year.

I turn away from the beach and can only think of drinking more beer to fill the rest of the day with happy warmth.