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New Post has been published on http://crossingchina.com/crossing-china-round-2/

Crossing China Round 2

Hiya everyone!  Long time no see!

Lots of new things so let’s just dive right in.

Since I’ve been gone from this blog I’ve done an absolute boatload of incredible and not so incredible things. I spent an extremely busy year and a half at a job in Shanghai that brought me to world class events worldwide, and introduced me to a new industry, taught me new skills, and also completely broke me down. That is the main reason for my absence all this time, but now I’m back and better than ever. I’m healthy and happy and ready to get back to living life the way I want to.

I will have a lot to share, as well as a lot to keep secret, about my time working in Shanghai, so please look forward to learning about what business in China can really be like. From the high times to the low, I’ll share as much as I can in a series of subsequent posts for those that want to keep up.

So since I’ve quit my job what have I been doing?  Well first I took a solid two months or so just to recover. I worked every single day and night for about a year and a half. I drank way more alcohol that I ever had before in my life, and way more than I ever wanted to. I was severely sleep deprived. I gained 25 kgs. My knee hurt, my foot hurt, my back hurt. I felt halfway dead and I needed the time to rest. I spent some of the time in Thailand, and then in South China (Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Hunan to be precise) and then I spent a month or so back in the USA with family. Most of the time I was sleeping on the sofa just trying to rest enough to feel alive again.

After about 2 months I started to feel normal. I began working out. I stopped drinking (as soon as I quit). I lost a decent amount of weight. Now 5 months later I’m down about 12 kg from when I quit, with the goal of losing another 10kg or so ideally before the new year.

Miao Zhai, Guizhou

So what’s next you might be asking? What do you mean “Round 2?”

My friend Yali and I are planning to hop on our bicycles starting in her hometown of Liuzhou in Guangxi Province and ride for two weeks. Now obviously we can’t make it all the way across China in that time, but that’s all the time we’ve got. I’ve got a job lined up in Shenzhen shooting video and photos for MKW, China’s biggest pro wrestling promotion. And the following day I’ll be headed to America for Xmas and New Year with the family. This upcoming bike trip is also kind of a proof of concept, just to see if we are capable of riding long distances. Neither of us has done a bike tour before, so a two week tour doesn’t seem like too big of a first attempt. But who knows once we get on the road. We are anticipating it going well and in the Spring when the weather is a bit better we are gonna make another trip if all goes to plan.

New Post has been published on http://crossingchina.com/gansu-and-the-yugurs-pt-2/

Gansu and the Yugurs Pt 2

From the resort area on the top of the mountain we pressed on, winding our way down the backside of the mountain range through narrow two lane roads. The landscape abruptly changed from grassland to dense coniferous forest as we descended from the peaks of the Qilian Mountain Range into a tranquil valley on the western edge of the Hexi Corridor. We raced across a small stream that trickled over the road, shooting water into the air and causing much excited screeching from our young hosts. The trees thinned out in the valley as we approached the Yugur town of Sunan.

Jasmine above Sunan Town

Sunan was the first proper “city” that we came across since leaving Zhangye. It was small but felt like an actual town with businesses and school and homes and a “downtown” area, as opposed to just scattering of homes and farms. We didn’t stop however, we instead drove through town and up to a lookout overlooking the city and the snowcapped mountains beyond. We left the doors to the car open and the music cranked as we got out of the car. One other person was at the lookout, sitting shirtless on a bench under the hot sun. Our driver Birdie enthusiastically greeted the old man.

In such a small city out in the middle of nowhere, it is probably not a coincidence for townsfolk to run into people that they know, but it turned out this old man was one of Birdie’s school teachers from a few years back, and the two of them welcomed each other as old friends, smiling and shaking hands and laughing. The old fellow greeted the rest of us in the local dialect, with Jasmine and I nodding politely and smiling while not understanding a single word. After just a few moments more he wandered off down the hill. Maybe he was tired of baking under the summer sun, or perhaps he was annoyed by the blaring music, nevertheless he was gone from our lives just as quickly as he entered.

Shopkeeper in the middle of nowhere, Gansu

We took a few pictures of the idllyic country town as it hugged the natural contours of the valley. From our perch above Sunan it looked like a small slice of heaven with its neatly arranged identical apartment blocks nestled in the green foothills of the snowcapped Qilian Mountains. Before long we set off once again for the open road.

Convenience Store in Gansu

After climbing out of the valley and deeper into the treeless mountains we finally arrived at Birdie and Purp’s hometown. The village had one dirt road that wound its way through a block of about 20 mostly earthen homes. About half of the homes seemed to be abandoned, with their gates chained shut or the doors boarded. Each home had  At the highest point in town sat a large metal barnlike structure. The home nearest this “barn” was the only house that appeared to be made with “modern” design techniques and materials. I’m sure the town had a name but as far as I know we never learned it, despite asking at least a few times. A meandering dirt road snaked through town, around one set of homes, crossing a small stream and irrigation ditch before wrapping around another set of homes and off towards the snowy mountain in the distance. A number of small clay brick homes dotted the rolling hills in the horizon. Birdie and Purp were excited to be home. They picked up Jasmine like some kind of emperess and excitedly carried her down the road towards the one modern house. That was Birdie’s home. His family were the leaders of this tiny domain. We set our belongings down in the house and headed back for the car. We had somewhere else we needed to go.

Birdie’s home

Near the Yugur Village

Once again we piled into the sedan. Through the small village, across an irrigation canal, past the handful of homes, and out along the dirt road onward into the mountains. The dirt road slowly disappeared and became lost in the wild grassland. Flattened grass and tire tracks from the few cars that made this journey marked our path. Grazing sheep dotted the hillsides and, from time to time, blocked our forward progress. A well timed honk of the horn made the sheep aware just in time to escape being bumped by our slow moving ride. Eventually we found ourselves standing outside of a mud and brick home, perched alone atop a hill, surrounded by hundreds of sheep and a smattering of cows.

Very Few People in China

Birdie’s Grandma’s Home Powered by the Sun

Birdie’s dad, aunt, and grandmother, awaited us inside the two room home. His father sat at the foot of the bed chainsmoking cigarettes, while his grandmother laid on the bed, immobile and seemingly incapacitated, covered in blankets and wearing a hat and face mask. Birdie’s aunt fed the fire of an indoor stove. The fuel was dried cow dung that had been collected and was sitting in a box near the door. The aunt brought water to a boil before serving us the local style of milk tea. It was salty and just mildly flavorful. We drank from bowls.

Dad and Grandma

Gansu Style Milk Tea

The Second Bedroom and Batteries

The home was spartan. The main room was just a bed and two small sofas. A coffee table and a wardrobe. A dining table. A wood burning oven. A few knick-knacks. A poster of a wolf. Birdie said that the wolf was a representative animal of their family and their local culture. I tried to get more out of him but our ability to communicate on anything more than a superficial level was not quite there.  A portrait of Mao hung on the wall. This is typical of many rural homes. And a strange poster of an epic feast was prominintely displayed above the dining table; grapes and wine and cheese and flowers were arranged neatly on the image. It was the kind of spread that had probably never been seen in this part of the world. I asked about the picture. Birdie didn’t have a cultural explanation for this one.

“It looks nice,” he said. Sometimes there is no deeper meaning.

Jasmine and the Posters

The sun was starting to set so we finished up our milk tea and said our goodbyes. Back to the village we went.

In the village, hundreds of sheep blocked the road, drinking from the irrigation ditch that ran through town. We got out of the car and watched and took pictures. Purp noticed a rabbit bounding through the grass. He pulled a knife from his waist and ran off after it. Needless to say, Jasmine and I followed him. He chased the rabbit for a few minutes, over and through barbed wire fences and through dips and over hills, before giving up his hunt. We were having a good laugh about it when something else caught Purp’s eye. He raced over to a kind of small dirt cliff and thrust his arm into a hole. When his hand emerged he was holding a small bird. The tiny bird flapped its wings and squawked its beak in a desperate attempt to escape. Purp calmly held the bird by its feet, proudly showing me and the camera what he caught. He let the bird fly away. Growing up in this environment seemed to have taught Purp a lot about the natural environment and its native inhabitants.

Purp and his Bird

Light disappeared fast and the temperature dropped even faster. From a blistering hot morning at Danxia Mountains, to a cool afternoon in the Yugur Village, to near freezing temperatures as night fell, this part of the world seemed to be a punishing place. It took a strong and smart people to populate this part of the earth.

Sheep Drinking at the Irrigation Ditch

We went inside and cracked open a case of beer while Birdie went into the kitchen to make dinner. He cooked up some “big plate chicken” aka 大盘鸡, a famous, but simple, Xinjiang dish whose main ingredients are chicken, bell peppers, and potatoes. The four of us drank and ate, played cards and sang songs, well into the night. Around midnight Birdie’s 18 year old “brother” (cousin) showed up with a bottle of local baijiu. The alcohol was flowing and the three young men sang us songs. Local Yugur traditional songs, Chinese classic and modern pop songs, you name it, they sang it. It appeared that drinking and singing was one of the ways they found to entertain themselves, with no cell phone signal, no internet, no TV and unstable at best electricity supply.

Drinking Time

Around 3 in the morning as we were starting to wind down, we heard the distinct “clop clop” sounds of a horse approaching. The front door of the house swung open, and in stumbled a drunken uncle, carrying another bottle of baijiu. He could barely formulate a coherent sentence, but we cracked open the bottle and went to work anyway. According to Birdie, his uncle lives off in the hills on his little farm somewhere. News traveled fast through the countryside and so he rode his horse on down to the village to see the foreigner and have a toast. We wrapped up the bottle around 4 am, everyone drunk and happy, and headed to bed. The locals had to be up early as the whole village needed to gather in the big barn to shear the sheep. After the amount that we drank I didn’t believe they’d be able to get up and work in just a few short hours, but since they planned to be up just past 7, I set my alarm for 730 as well. If they could do it, I could do it.

Nightsky in Yugur Country

The alarm seemed to go off just moments after I set it. My head throbbed from the alcohol induced headache and lack of sleep. I checked on Jasmine to make sure she was ok. She was passed out. I chose to let her sleep while I ventured out into the village.

Uncle Sharpening his Shears

Outside the crisp morning air gave me a jolt of energy. I stumbled over to the barn where the first thing I noticed was the uncle and cousin both hunched over their respective sheep, efficiently shearing wool with electric trimmers that hung from the ceiling. They worked without a trace of drunkenness or hangover symptoms (besides bloodshot eyes) somehow. I was impressed. I felt like garbage, and the last thing that I think I could do while hungover is to be hunched over smelly farm animals in a crowded barn. The whole village was working. Young, healthy and strong men sheared the sheep. Women picked up the wool and helped bundle it in large sacks, along with other young men. Women also constantly swept up the poop and fluff and blood and other mess that came along with shearing sheep hundreds of sheep all day in an enclosed space. Older men had less labor intensive jobs. For example, one old man sat in the corner and handed one token to each young man for every sheep he sheared.

Sheep

The old token man told me that they get 8 RMB for every sheep they shear. The fastest shearers could finish upwards of 40 sheep in a day. That’s up to about 320 RMB for one day, nearly 50 USD, which doesn’t sound like much but is really quite a lot of money in this part of the world. The work looked tiresome and hard on the body, and they don’t shear sheep every day of the year, so they must get income from other places as well.

Getting Down and Dirty

Shearing Sheep

They said much of that extra income comes from selling the sheep for slaughter. They told me that most of the sheep goes to Xinjiang Province for meat, though they are willing to sell it anywhere, to anyone, for the right price. Just so happens that the market is in Xinjiang. Lamb is a staple meat in many Xinjiang dishes, and Xinjiang style lamb skewers are famous across China,  so it’s no surprise that the sheep get shipped off to Xinjiang when they are ready to be harvested. The entire economy of the village was based around this animal. There was no convenience store, no shops selling clothes, nothing but farms and sheep. It was quite special to see the entire village, along with this animal, working together to maintain their lifestyle and keep their culture and town alive.

Break Time

Ciggie Break

As the morning gave way to midday Jasmine woke up and came down to check on the sheep shearing situation. The process consisted of putting the wool into a huge bag that was propped up by inside a large box with a door on it. A person climbed into the bag with the wool and continuously stamped down the wool, packing it as tight as possible. A rope dangled from the ceiling above the sack, for the stomper to hang on to and keep his balance and safely work. We were both feeling pretty good and took turns helping the locals bundle the wool, jumping up and down in the bag. When the sacks were full the workers would open the door and pull the huge bundle to the scale. They’d weigh it, mark down the number with a permanent marker on the bag itself, as well as in the ledger, and then a team of men would lift the heavy bag on to the stack. The whole operation was incredibly efficient and well run. Everyone had a job to do. At noon lunch was ready for the entire village. Other women and young kids had been preparing it in a kitchen on the other side of the barn. Soup, bread, rice and some hot dishes kept the laborers full and ready to work for the rest of the day.

Packing Wool

Stomping

In the afternoon Birdie and Purp told us it was time to go. We drove directly back to Zhangye. We took a much more efficient route, straight down the mountain and to the highway. What was an all day trip on the way to the village was just a little over 3 hours on the way back. They dropped us off at Zhangye Railway Station and we posed for a picture together. We shook their hands, thanked them, handed Birdie a few hundred RMB for gas and food and just to show we were appreciative of his time and giving us the experience, and then we said goodbye.

The Road Out of Town

It was a really remarkable experience. I don’t know if I conveyed it well enough with my words. It was just a couple of days. But it was the kind of surreal and fun adventure that I hoped to stumble into when I initially set off across China. Birdie and Purp, if you ever somehow see this, thank you so much those days.

I shot this photo while heading up the Gondola in Banff National Park. The view from the Gondola ride is amazing and if you ever find your self in Banff it is definitely worth a look! Even if you’re not crazy about mountains, the views will not disappoint. Click photo to view in a larger size. Thanks for stopping by, Rob

New Post has been published on http://crossingchina.com/gansu-and-the-yugurs-pt-1/

Gansu and the Yugurs Pt 1

8 AM, bright and early, we climbed into the car with two young men that we had barely met a few hours before, drunk outside a bar. They were 19 years old and seemed about as carefree as could be. They drove crotch-rocket motorcycles the previous night, doing drunken burnouts and wheelies in the streets of Zhangye. Now they were driving a new luxury sedan and blaring Chinese electronic dance tracks at an annoyingly high volume as we sped out into the countryside on our way to Zhangye Danxia National Park (甘肃张掖国家地质公园). They were typical teenagers; the feeling of invincibility exuded from them in everything that they did. Jasmine and I sat in the backseat with white knuckles, just praying that we’d survive the trip as the tires squealed around each curve in the road.

Fixing something outside Danxia National Park

Danxia is famous for the colorful striations of its landforms. The banded hills at the feet of the Qilian Mountains range from white to yellow to red, and many shades in between, and are one of China’s most famous natural landmarks. We arrived at the park around 10 AM and our hosts insisted that we enter the park alone; they were more than willing to sit outside and wait for us. We placed a great deal of trust in them, seeing as how their car held all of our meager belongings. They asked us not to stay too long as it would be few hours drive from Danxia to their village, also they probably didn’t want to sit around in the scalding parking lot for hours on end.

Inside Danxia National Park

Unlike most parks in China that have an optional shuttle, when you enter this park you are forced to take a shuttle bus. It actually makes sense in this case as the different points of interest are scattered about a large swathe of land, with nothing but dry desert hills and the blistering sun in between. At each shuttle bus stop are trails and boardwalks up into the hills in order for visitors to get a good view of the beautiful banded mountains. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Uluru in Australia while we explored Danxia. Uluru was at it’s best at sunset when I visited, with the soft light of dusk lighting up the giant rock a glowing fireball of red. I wouldn’t be surprised if the colors really popped at Danxia as well, when the light is softer and lower in the sky, but unfortunately we were there when the sun was at its harshest and we couldn’t sit around and wait until dusk while our friends were outside in the car. Parts of the park were still very impressive, especially the last stop, which had an endless sea of striped mountains to stare into and quietly contemplate your existence. At least until a large group of tourists comes speeding through in matching hats, yelling and spitting and seeming to barely take notice of their beautiful surroundings.

Panorama at Danxia

We didn’t have much in the way of a cell phone signal but after an hour or so in the park we started to get missed calls and messages coming through from our new friends asking us where we were and when we were coming back, so we grabbed a shuttle going back the opposite way we came from with the hopes of not pissing them off and having them run away with all of our bags. I thought perhaps we were too slow still though, as when we returned to the parking lot they were nowhere in sight. Jasmine called our friends and they said they’d be back soon. The area around the entrance gate was mostly empty save for a few souvenir shops and overpriced food stalls. A small town loomed down at the end of the road. I started walking there while Jasmine stood back and complained about the heat, which to be fair was quite oppressive. Luckily for her the black car pulled up and we climbed in, back on the road to the Yugur village.

Rural Gansu

I suppose I should say a little bit about our friends and give them names at this point. They were quite secretive and never told us their real names. They didn’t add us on WeChat. They only gave us their phone number and some nicknames that neither Jasmine or I even remember now that I am writing this. The main guy, our driver and 19 year old tuhao （土豪）friend, looked a bit bird like, so from henceforth I’ll refer to him as Birdie. His sidekick and fellow 19 year old had a pretty purple hairdo, so I’ll call him Purp. Birdie and Purp.

Birdie and Purp and Jasmine

As I mentioned in the previous post I made, oh about 8 months ago, these guys are from a Chinese ethnic minority group called the Yugur (裕固族) and there are just over 10,000 of them still around in China. Birdie and Purp drove us across absolutely breathtaking Gansu landscapes. Over the course of about three hours, from Danxia to their remote mountain village, we experienced a handful of unique biomes. From Danxia we cruised through dry desert canyons before reaching a large entrance gate to a mountain road. We slowed down for the security guard who presumably was coming to collect our entry fee, but as he approached Birdie put his foot to the floor and sped through the entry, laughing as we left the security guard in our dust. We sped up two lane mountain road, out of the desert and into the mountain grasslands. We raced around turns, the music thumped endlessly. The only sound besides the ceaseless electronic thump was the sound of the tires desperately trying to cling to the road as we sped around each bend with reckless abandon.

Jasmine Jumps in Gansu

After about 30 minutes we arrived on a vast mountain plateau. A tibetan style stupa with prayer flags was the only man made object as far as the eye could see. There were no other cars or people. Just us. Jasmine and I. A couple of 19 year old kids. And a stupa. In this land of a billion people we managed to find these two crazy kids to guide us to what seemed to be the most serene, natural, and uninhabited place in the country. We took some photos in the road, “prayed” at the stupa, and then took a seat in the grass and paused to take it all in. Truly a needle in a haystack. Life is strange. It’s not an original thought, this I know, to contemplate how people come together. The unique set of circumstances that must occur. All the decisions that one makes in his or her life that leads us to where we are today. We could roll and reroll the dice of our existence over and over again, and get many similar results, but I don’t know the odds of me ever rolling the dice again and coming up with a scenario that involves meeting Jasmine, and Birdie, and Purp and all of us being here at this place, at this time, lost in our own minds, enjoying the randomness and beauty of life.

Stupa in Gansu

In a flash I snapped out of my transcendent thoughts. I opened my eyes to the sound of Chinese pop music and the sight of the car doors open and waiting for me to get in. I lost myself in my own mind while everyone else piled in the car and was ready to once again hit the road. We drove across the vast plateau, with snowcapped peaks to our left, and endless grassland to our right. We passed no more than a handful of cars as we made our way onward towards Yugur village. The biggest source of traffic on the road was sheep. Hundreds of sheep were being herded by farmers from one field to another, blocking our passage for just a few minutes before we were able to press on. About 20 minutes after leaving the stupa we find a mountaintop “resort” area, with a few restaurants, convenience stores, and “yurt” style accommodations for travelers. We stopped there to buy some supplies. As we headed back to our car, two security guards were waiting for us. They began yelling at Birdie as we approached, scolding him for blowing through the entrance gate and not paying the fee. He laughed and said he lives in the village and after a few minutes of semi-tense chatter they all seemed to work out their differences and they let us go on our way. Birdie told us that he and his fellow villagers didn’t need to pay the entry to the resort area because this is their land and that the fee is only for tourists. I was mainly surprised at how diligent the security guards were, waiting for us at the resort parking lot and ready to intimidate and collect the 10 or 20 kuai fee.

Resort in Gansu Somewhere

Once again, we hopped in the car and hit the road. Further onward and upward, deeper into rural Gansu, China.

Traffic in Gansu

I love wandering the streets of Spokane at night looking for photos. Riverfront park is probably one of my favourite parts of the city. There are tons of great locations to shoot photos in a very condensed area. This view is one of my favourite of the city. I love locations where I can sit, enjoy an urban park by the water with the view of a beautiful city. Click photo to view in a larger size.…

The last time I went to Spokane in the fall I got a pretty wicked room that had this beautiful view! The deck was actually massive and I really should have got a picture of it, but I guess I forgot haha. Anyhow, if you want a good view this hotel (The Red Lion) has a lot of good rooms with nice views. I thought might as well add a picture of myself on the the deck too ;). Thanks for stopping by,…

I was walking around this neighbourhood (South Hill) with a friend of mine in Spokane. We had just took a stroll in a nearby park when this mail truck caught my eye. I thought the beautiful house the mailman was in front of made a nice little scene, so I snapped this photo. Thanks for stopping by, Rob Click photo to view in a larger size.