The people of China are overwhelmingly warm friendly and inviting. It might possibly because we look like washed-out negative images of themselves with our pale hair, eyes and skin, or because it is just innate in their culture to be kind. I would prefer to believe the latter.
I was remarking to Beloved today on our walk back from church (Yes! Church! More on that later!) how I struggled more in Spain with their culture and the speed in which they do things. I felt like I was always a bit off in my timing and my rate of walking, because eventually I would run into or be cut off by a Spaniard who was either very very slow or ridiculously fast. It’s hard to explain. But Spain definitely had a different tempo to it than Asia does.
Asia is fast. It is fast, hot and dirty.
Everyone is in a hurry. You expect to be nudged or bumped into, but not in an ‘endangerment of losing your wallet’ type fashion…they’re just fast. They got places to go, man…and I respect that.
They drive ridiculously fast (the discovery of taxi cabs has been exhilarating….why wear a seat belt when you are being driven by possibly the most skilled driver you will ever sit with?) and their streets are loud, noisy and dirty.
I’m so accustomed to stepping over puddles of wet garbage and sidestepping braziers of red-hot coals that I can almost forget the broken concrete tiles and uneven streets. Nevermind the cars who obey NO TRAFFIC SIGNS WHATSOEVER. For the dozens of miles we have walked in this city, we have only witnessed one traffic accident. In a city of twelve million people…that’s pretty good. Now pedestrian/car incidences…those are still an unknown.
You get lulled into a false sense of comfort by the first few times you go at the ‘green man’ (Walk) signal…but that comfort is short-lived. A friend I have made here, Nancy, who is visiting her brother who teaches English here at the University, has taught me the ways of the road. First, obviously wait until the streets are as clear as humanly possible (you will have to wait a very long time for them to ever be empty) and then just go. Any hesitation on your part will result in you being hit (Nancy’s advice). You will get pegged. Because, she says, the driver will assume you are going to go one direction and won’t change after that, it’s basically a stopgap measure for them. I have gotten too used to herding my children through crosswalks and having gold and blue taxi cabs lace around them like they are tying them in knots. It’s just how things are done.
So imagine the joy I felt when we went into the mountains SE of Harbin, Hangtou Mountain Park. Nancy’s brother had given us the name of a driver, Joe, who would be driving us the 90 minutes outside of town to the mountainside. He was an absolute delight. He was a happy young kid, maybe early 20's, who loved American TV and knew all of the American lingo ("My grandma is gonna be SO PISSED when she hear I marry my girlfriend and not go to university!")
The first 45 minutes or so of our journey was basically city driving, but the last bit of our journey was really lovely. We drove through the agricultural region of the area, where they grow a lot of corn, melons and of course rice. Having never seen a rice field in person it was a definite ‘once in a lifetime’ feeling for me. The rice field looked like heavy full-grain green velvet, covered with a light mist that the sun was trying to break through to.
We made our way up into the elevation a little bit (elev. was very low) and then Joe pulled into this parking lot, greeting area for the park. He parked his car there and then we took a golf cart to the park entrance, where we paid 50y for us and 25y for Bumpo and Tank. The park was heavily manicured, with groomed lawns and raised walkways with posters of photographs taken throughout the park during the year. Joe had told us that the ideal time to see the park was during the fall, when the colors of course were more brilliant. There was a tall arched structure that added elegance to already pretty setting.
But I still thought it was a naturally beautiful place. We walked up a steady paved road for almost 2 hours (we could have taken another golf cart to the top). The walk up with dissected into trails that would wander off the roadway onto wooded paths would take you to a small pagoda or a shrine or sitting area. and then found our way to the forest entrance. There were little shops selling wood items, pressed butterflies and kid’s plastic toys and then picnic tables for eating close to the cart parking. Groups had set up tents and were eating and noisily playing a card game. A short walk into the woods and there was another area with a shrine to Buddha and a place that sold drinks and had a few carnival games, along with an archery gallery for practicing your target shooting. While the rest of the family walked up to a landing where there were more tables, I investigated the small stucco hut with the shrine inside.
Inside there was a reclining Buddha, with a stereo speaker playing a recorded chant. There were five kneeling cushions and a large urn full of ash. I paid 10y for a set of three candles, who the lady lit for me and I set them in the urn. I thanked God for protecting my family and myself so far on our trip and asked His continued blessing over us as we continued on our travel. I then thanked the woman and found the family. Not soon after I polished off my half-sandwich (my stomach is in full on revolt from the food here---which would normally cause one to back off a little bit but I keep telling myself the fresh veggies and slaws are good chi for my belly. They may in fact be the culprit because the vegetables are probably not washed with bottled water ;)---anyway…nothing to get worried about, just really have to know where the WC is at all times ;)….we were confronted by a large group of middle-aged Chinese men and one woman. They were talking very loudly to us, and one of them “Elvis” insisted in getting our picture taken with him. Fine.
Well, then Elvis wanted to get pictures taken with Dan. Also fine. But when he grabbed Tank by the neck and in good-heartedness laid a big smacking kiss on his cheek I had seen about enough. I stood up and walked over next to Tank, who was by now humiliated, and just stood there. They would chatter at me and to Dan and we would just smile at them with mouths closed, and they finally got the message. Kids are off-limits. The hike into the park was unexpected. There were no dirt trails, every path was fully paved with paving stones and the steps were exquisitely done with matching stone steps and wooden railings.
The park reminded me a lot of the Hoh Rainforest in the Olympic National Park in my homestate of Washington, with lots of fiddlehead ferns and mosses of all colors growing up among the rocks and trees. The trees were similar to our Colorado varieties, with maples and oaks and aspen-related growth. 
We did a short loop, being interrupted on occasion by being asked to stop and take a picture with a Chinese group, and were blessed with overcast skies and no rain. The walk was also nice because it was just between Beloved and I, the kids had run off in front of us and were neither seen nor heard for minutes at a time (I love them…but this was a nice break).
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