Returning from Pandora

When I first arrived in Shanghai, I immediately realized that in order for me to experience Vermont-style nature, I’d need to actively plan trips outside of this 20 million-person city.  I started googling around for “China nature” and pretty quickly stumbled upon this place called the “Avatar Mountains.”  It was about a 2 hour flight from Shanghai and is reportedly the original inspiration for the Hallelujah Mountains depicted in Avatar.  I found a fellow blogger (thanks Brendan’s Adventures!) who posted about his trip there and then started researching flights.  In characteristic Katy fashion, I booked the flights and hostels within 48 hours and Simon and I were set to go to the most remote place he had ever been.

This weekend, we spent four days in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Hunan province in southern China.  We spent one night in the bustling town of Zhangjiajie, one night inside the park itself, and two nights outside the park in a small town called Wulingyuan.  Our innkeepers were incredibly welcoming and gracious hosts who went out of their way to make our stay perfect.  This was especially surprising given that only one of the three innkeepers spoke English, and the other two had to communicate with us by translating Chinese into English using their smartphones.  The menu for our favorite restaurant in Wulingyuan (we ate there 3 times in 4 days) was all in Mandarin, but thankfully there is a cool app that creates a new image with all the characters translated into English right on the image of the menu itself.

Muslim Restaurant (that's the name according to their sign) menu

Our hostel address.  We can't read it, but the taxi drivers can!

I’ll let Simon talk about the actual nature parts of the adventure.  For me, what I’m still thinking about are the cultural interactions themselves.

One thing that was immediately different upon getting to the park itself was how unusual it was for local people to see Westerners.  Kids were actively staring at us on the street and some used us as a chance to practice their English.  It wasn’t just children – even adults our age said “hello” in English as they passed by and we were happy to great them back.  “Laowai” is a Mandarin term for foreigner, and one toddler pointed at us and said “laowai,” the way a toddler in the US might point at a car and say “car.”  We were novel and unusual, and some people were pointing out in a way that made me feel different but not uncomfortable or unwelcome.  Others asked to stop and take a picture with us – unfortunately we only took two back.

When I was reading about Shanghai, I read that people might practice English with me here but that hasn’t happened in Shanghai.  Shanghai is so cosmopolitan that seeing laowais is quotidian.  In Wulingyuan, we could have been some of the first laowais they had ever seen.  There were a 3 other groups of laowais that we ran into in the park (mostly college kids on spring break), but as a proportion of all the people in the park we were definitely less than 1 in 100, maybe less than 1 in 1000.  It was strange thinking that the townspeople might be forming their opinions of an entire culture based on 5 seconds watching us on the street.  It made me feel an unexpected sense of responsibility, knowing that my actions in that moment could set their expectations for all laowais across the world.

Another reflection I’ve had on this trip is how lucky I am to be able to travel like this (4 countries in 4 weeks).  At lunch on Friday at work, I was talking to my colleagues about my upcoming trip to Zhangjiajie and none of them had ever been there.  It was a long weekend, but none of them were traveling at all.  From what I understand, travel is still a relatively new thing for Chinese people.  Only now are millennials starting to have the disposable income and desire to spend money on experiences (travel) instead of consumer goods.  I like to think I’m aware of my privilege, but in that moment at lunch when I realized that travel is a once-a-year type thing and not multiple times a month, I realized how different my life is than that of my Chinese peers.

Monkeys!  The signs very clearly said don't feed them, and we didn't.  But many other people did so they came right up close to us looking for a sugary treat.

Third, traveling to Zhangjiajie helped reset my expectations about what “comfortable” looks like and what is “enough”.  We lived a pretty rustic life over the past four nights.  We always had our own separate bathroom but in each place the shower and the toilet were one area, not separated by a shower curtain or door.  The beds were very hard, more or less a piece of plywood and a cushion an inch or two thick.  The duvets were VERY nice, but didn’t do much to soften the hard beds.  In the hostel we stayed in inside the park, the line-dried sheets were a little damp and the walls and ceiling were dotted with mold spores.  The toilets inside the park were squatting pans rather than toilets, none of them had toilet paper, and some smelled so bad I chose to hold it rather than use them.  Coming back to Shanghai last night, to an apartment I hadn’t been thrilled about for the past month, I felt like I was moving back into a palace.  It’s funny how just a few nights shifted my baseline and helped me see Shanghai and our apartment with a completely new, much more appreciative, set of eyes.  We didn’t choose Zhangjiajie for that reason, but I’m glad I had this experience earlier on so that I can better appreciate all the comforts that I do have in Shanghai rather than focus on the things that I don’t have compared to the US.

Finally, for all of the differences I noticed between what I’m used to and what is “normal” in Zhangjiajie, some things are universal.  One of those things is bunny ears.  One of the girls who was fascinated by our appearance first took pictures of us from across the bus aisle.  Then her grandfather offered to take her picture with us and we squeezed her in between us.  When he took the picture, Simon made bunny ears on her head without her noticing.  Simon showed her the picture and she was playfully mad at him about it.  (I was worried that bunny ears would be some kind of taboo thing in China meaning something awful and completely unintentional but thankfully it wasn’t!)  Another universal thing: bumper cars.  Our last night, we went walking through the city of Zhangjiajie and happened upon a few carnival rides inside a park.  We paid $4.50 for both of us to ride in the bumper cars and ended up playing with 5 other cars full of Zhangjiajie youth.  We couldn’t speak to them, but ramming each other with bumper cars and laughing our faces off is a universal truth. 

Most importantly, family.  One piece of Chinese life that I love is that it is very common to see three generations of a family spending time together.  We saw grandparents, parents, and kids all around us this weekend and it is really special to know that Chinese kids are growing up with such a loving family around them.  It’s something we’ve lost in many parts of America and something I hope Chinese don’t lose for a long time.  It makes me miss my family but also appreciate the time that I do get to spend with them, even those it’s pretty rare these days.  The good news is that I’ll be seeing Em in May in Australia, and my mom and dad in July for a wedding. 

Until then, we have some more traveling and adventuring to do, starting in 48 hours!