New Post has been published on Finding Not Seeking
New Post has been published on http://findingnotseeking.com/anhui-province/
WARNING: THERE ARE PHOTOS OF DEAD DOGS TOWARDS THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST>
Although I have yet to see all of China, as of now my favorite province is Anhui.  Within China Anhui Province has a pretty bad reputation.  When I tell people that I really like Anhui they always incredulously ask my âwhy?â  People say that Anhui is dirty, that everyone is poor, that the cities are crowded, that the people are liars or scoundrels. While I would actually agree with a few of those things (dirty, poor, crowded) I actually think that it also has a very unique charm.
My first experience in Anhui (ćźćŸœïŒ was a business trip in early 2013.  My boss and I went to meet with some potential clients and present to them the benefits of investing in our particular program.  We traveled first to Hefei (ćè„ïŒ which is the capital of Anhui, and home to nearly 8 million people. I am always amazed at the size of cities in China.  Hefei would be the second most populated US city, but it is nearly non-existant as part of the collective global consciousness.  Itâs not even an important city in China, thatâs how insane China and its massive population is.  Back on track⊠we went to Hefei, the roads were bumpy, the air was thick with smog, people were literally everywhere.  But it was alive and bustling and exciting.  We went directly from the railway station to our meeting so we didnât get to see much.  After the meeting we were driven about an hour out of town to the Hefei countryside to a giant villa where we were entertained with a massive meal, copious amounts of baijiu and red wine, and many beautiful girls.  We eventually ended up at a very opulent KTV and well⊠what happens at KTV stays at KTV.  The next day we returned on an midday train to Shanghai, but I knew I needed to return to Hefei and Anhui again as soon as possible to see more of what it was all about.  Before we got on that train though we stopped to eat around the corner from railway station at a Malatang restaurant ïŒéș»èŸŁç«ïŒ.  The owner told me that I was the first foreigner she ever served and she was very, very happy.  Since that time each return to Hefei I go and eat at her restaurant and she always remembers me.
A few weeks later we had a three-day weekend and I chose to go back to Hefei to see what kind of trouble I could get up to.  I spent a couple of days walking up and down the crowded Hefei streets and alleys that were teeming with neighborhood dogs fighting for scraps from the street food vendors.  I also managed to find an amazing park (parks in China tend to be either amazing or terrible and no in between) called Xiaoyaojin ïŒéé„掄ć
ŹćïŒthat is well worth a visit if you are ever in Hefei for whatever reason.  The people  in Hefei all  are so friendly and the food is abundant and delicious.  Walking around Hefei I was in the background of many âslyâ selfies as well as in many posed photos from the people with the courage to walk up and talk to me.  There were also tons of mannequins around town which was very surreal; at first they did not really register with me because there is always weird stuff laying around the streets of China, but once I started to notice the mannequins I started taking photos of them in all of their weird places. Since that time I have returned to Hefei on two other business trips.  They werenât quite as awesome as the first two trips, but Hefei has a pretty special place in my heart when it comes to Chinese cities.
I also was lucky enough to take a weekend trip to Bengbu ïŒèć ïŒ last year.  Bengbu is in Northern Anhui and has a population of about 1 million people.  Still a good sized city to be sure, but it is much smaller, poorer, and dirtier than even Hefei.  It also even more fun and fascinating for an adventerous kind of person.  I arrived in Bengbu around midnight on a Friday and took a cab to my hotel. After checking in and dropping my bag I grabbed my DSLR and set off on a nighttime hunt for street food.  The streets were not well lit, the sidewalks dirty and uneven.  As a relatively young and fit guy walking was not a challenge exactly, but it did require more attention than usual.  I ended up stumbling across a street with a few food carts still open, some BBQs still grilling,  and small noodle shops with outdoor seating filled up by young people putting back some cheap 3.0% ABV Chinese beer.
 Happy to see the foreigner
I grabbed an open stool and ordered some beef noodles and within seconds I had a crowd of 15 or 20 Chinese people staring at me and asking me questions like âcan you use chopsticks?â or praising my Mandarin skills and calling me âććźłâ.  They started asking me questions about my camera and lens and how much it all costs.  One person asked me if he could hold the camera and either out of naivetĂ©Â or misplaced trust in the Chinese people I did so.  They passed the camera around the crowd while I tried not to appear to watch too closely and after a few minutes it circled around the crowd back to me.  Somebody bought me a beer and after a few rounds of cheersing ïŒćčČæŻïŒpeople I finished dinner and said goodbye to everyone and headed back to the hotel.
The next day I got up early and set out to exploring.  Despite being a city of a million people, car traffic was very light.  It was nice to not be inundated with cars honking incessantly and playing human frogger like in Shanghai.  Exploring Bengbu was fantastic.  The first place of interest that I found was a older lady and a beautiful young âfashionableâ lady selling Chinese egg pancake ïŒç
é„Œ).  The girl was wearing heels, a short skirt and a nice blouse; she did not look like any street food vendor that Iâd ever seen so I figured I had to stop for a chat and a purchase.  Iâm such a sucker for pretty girls.  Their food cart was located in a small dirty alley directly next to a giant pile of trash.  It was not likely to pass any health inspection but the food was good and it filled my belly in preparation for the long day ahead.
Street Food From a çŸć„ł
I continued on my adventure from there.  It wasnât long before I came across a large wet market, full of fresh vegetables and fruits, live and dead animals, various shops selling rice or pepper flakes or cooking oil and anything else you can imagine.  It was not unlike many of the markets you see in Shanghai or other cities in China except for the simple fact that it was very, very large, and they very openly killed dogs and sold dog meat.  I am a dog lover, but I am not a culture warrior.  It was a little shocking to see at first but ultimately it was not any different from the chickens I had just seen boiled alive or the turtles who were just stepped in order to expose their necks prior to it be chopped with a pair of dull scissors.  I talked to the two men who were killing and skinning the dogs.  They were wary at first but we ended up having a short but cordial conversation.  Bengbu does not likely get a lot of foreign visitors, and I would guess that most of the visitors that are witness to the dog meat industry are actively against it.  At the very least those foriegners arenât likely to stick around and strike up a conversation with the people killing Fido.  Iâm not trying to say that Iâm particularly enlightened (or unenlightened for that matter) but that it is important to not make value judgements on different cultures.  If these men are part of the illegal kidnapping of dogs for meat that does happen here in China then yes, I do think that is wrong, but simply raising dogs for meat is not any more or less wrong to me than doing it to any other animal.  Itâs just cultural differences.
I continued on my way and ended up stumbling across a large warehouse.  It was not necessarily open to the public, but the large doors were open and no one was around to stop me so I ventured on inside.  China in general, and particularly smaller cities, tend to be pretty accepting of this sort of thing.  If they did not want me in there they would assuredly escort me out, but as long as Iâm not causing any trouble and they arenât a bunch of shady characters doing some illegal business then wandering inside a random place usually is not a cause for concern for anyone involved.  Inside the warehouse there were a lot of large bags of peanuts and other food products being loaded and unloaded and generally just moved about.  You know, warehouse stuffâŠ
As I walked around taking pictures, saying âhiâ to people, and avoiding tripping over the chickens running loose, I came across a group of workers unloading large bags off a truck.  One well built Chinese man was standing shirtless on top of a pile of product and stacking it beneath him as it was passed to him.  He was working hard and was covered in a thin white dust, perhaps flour, when I started taking his photo from the warehouse floor.  When he noticed me he pointed and began yelling something words that I didnât understand.  I smiled and told him âsorryâ and began to walk away.  He jumped down off his stack and approached me, still with a look of rage in his eyes.  I let my camera hang from its strap as my hand instinctively formed a fist by my side, while backing away and repeatedly saying âsorryâ to him.  As he got closer his scowl turned and one of the biggest and brightest smiles I have ever seen broke across his face.  He slapped me on the shoulder and he and his friends all had a huge laugh at my expense.  I let out a large exhale of relief and unballed my fist as we all shared a laugh.  Most of the people in the warehouse heard the commotion and many of them stopped what their work to surround me and look at me and have a chat.  We talked for a few minutes, the typical Chinese conversation about where I am from, why I am in Bengbu, and if I ate yet or not (äœ ćé„äșćïŒïŒ.  I didnât want to be too much of a distraction to the workers or any bosses that might be around so after our conversation I excused myself and headed back to the streets.  The rest of my time in Bengbu was also fun though less eventful.  I went to the park and enjoyed a Chinese Yo-Yo (ç©șç«čïŒlesson from a nice older guy, met up with an Instagram friend from Bengbu, and enjoyed lots more awesome food.
I have had a few other really great experiences in Anhui Province, including when Mom came to visit me in China.  We went to Yellow Mountain (é»ć±±ïŒwhich is way very beautiful, as well as some small villages and towns surrounding it.  Those stories will be saved for another time as this post is starting to get a bit long.
Some of my favorite Chinese people are Anhui Ren.  Many Anhui people come to Shanghai looking for work or for university and it has been a pleasure to get to know a lot of people from such a cool place.  Iâll share some of their stories in the future as well.
