The trip was amazing and it got better by the minute! We landed in Guiyang Friday afternoon and there was a long, very long team meeting. Yes, I did groan too. But like I said, the trip got better by the minute, so looking back I think the meeting was a good starting point and I am happy we got it out of the way first! Ohh, I forgot about the lunch before the meeting. The charm started right there as soon we landed and went to get our lunch. Yes, culture or location or people don’t matter. Its always food first and true to that universal fact , we went for the food first! We went to this local minority owned restaurant. They had their traditional welcoming act for us. They were dressed up in their colorful ethnic wear, sang (though, I didn’t understand what were they singing, they might have as well been cursing us melodiously!) and gave us rice wine. As usual, being the genius I am, I didn’t have a clue it was wine. Assuming it was traditional tea, I gulped it down and it sure did hit me! It was definitely a wine falling on the stronger side of the spectrum!
So, with meeting and some skillful chair dozing out of the way, we started for an early - no, I should say very early - dinner. Sure, I don’t blame your incredulity. I thought it was interesting too. We had only a four or five hour gap between lunch and dinner, with only a meeting in between, to show where all our energy from lunch went. But you have to realize the chinese style of eating is sometimes called grazing. You eat little and often. Ha, but you wont believe the word grazing when you see the pictures of our dining table. But remember that each table serves atleast eight people! After dinner, we decided to walk back to the hotel. This is when the chinese charm started hitting us fully head-on. Guiyang is developed for sure. The infrastructure is pretty good compared to a lot of Indian cities and there are enough skyscrapers and shopping malls. But the people still retain the eastern, old style charm. So the city is a clash of times. Modern buildings, decent new age infrastructure compete with the charm of crowded road-side, open-air, flavor-filled (a little bit of road pollution added for a good measure) food shops. Looking past the dirty pavements and the clash of times, the local faces that is the most important part of this whole system is what makes the place charming. They sure are more curious than people in Shanghai. They stare at you, because they don’t see as many 'Laowei' (foreigners) here. But all it takes on your part is a smile, not even that, just a hint of a smile or a nod of your head. That turns those stares into a gleeful delight. It makes you happy, forget you are in a foreign place with no knowledge of their language or custom. If at all anything, it only inspires you to learn the local culture, the local language and to go interact with the people more! Ohh, that reminds me to caution you. If you are a person who is conscious of people looking at you curiously, come prepared. You will definitely get a lot of attention here! You will feel special. If you are a 'laowei' looking for a little 'pick-me-up' ego boosting experience, this is the place, I would say!
We ended the day with a chinese foot massage. It was good but it made a impression on me from a more philosophical point of view. We were chatting with the girls (yes, definitely the masseur needs to be a girl, if not, don’t even bother rating it, because the charm of a massage is half dead already!) and that’s what started me thinking. When you have enough to enjoy your life, when you are travelling the world, live in relative luxury you sometimes tend to forget the state of majority of the people in the world. Those girls have come to Guiyang from distant parts of China in search of work. They work and live as masseurs in this massage place. They get boarding, food and a 800RMB per month salary for a 14 hours a day, 6 days a week work schedule. But you have to realize that these girls are one of the well doing ones as per developing-world standards. And when you spend 100RMB for a one hour massage, some of the pleasures of the massage goes down the drain when you hear the tough situation they are in. But believe me, I am not exaggerating when I say those girls are doing relatively well compared to local standards. So don’t worry, indulge yourself and get your massages once in a while. You do surely help them with your business.
The awesome waterfall - HuangGouShu, the 50RMB wife and the Karaoke bar have to come in the next report, in a day or two. I still have this one page virtual barrier to my writings!
2 comments:
Very nice!
Would love to see pics of the food... and hear about all the creepy stuff you get to eat :p :)
deifinitely, some pics might look scary though! :)
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