Yesterday, Saturday April 26, 2008, a few of us went to a tea plantation outside of Yangshuo. We rode bike. Three and a half hours there. Actually we walked our bikes most of the way as it was too steep for us to handle on the bikes. Here Gary, I, Sunny, Amy, Aaron and Doris rest in the shade of a tree while Kelly takes the picture.

On the way we carried the bikes across a pile of rocks in the middle of the road and pushed them around road construction. Gary, normally my Chinese teacher, was our guide. He and Aaron did most of the carrying. Gary thought the rocks in the road were not a landslide but the workers getting rocks for a wall under construction just down the road. OK.

The scenery along the way was remarkable and from the tea plantation was even more magnificent. Tea is grown at high elevations since the plants need excellent drainage. They also like a humid climate and watering by rain.

This plantation employs 120 workers. The workers come from outside the local community from less prosperous villages. A picker is paid 8Y per kilo and may pick 6 to 8 kilos a day. Gary thinks they make about 1000Y a month, that’s similar to what a teacher makes.

The first picking of the tea in the spring is considered the best. The pickings continue through summer and fall. They pick the new growth for tea and developed leaves for tea pillows. We asked these pickers if they drink green tea after work. They said they like clear mountain water.


In the middle of the rows and rows of tea bushes, some workers were building a new stone office building. Their first task was to get the stones up to the building site. We were glad to see they had a winch to help them with this chore!

Each evening the day’s tea picking is dried. First it lays on the floor for an hour or two.

Then it is dried by heat in a machine. When we first arrived at the tea plantation these females were carrying wood that would be needed for the firing.

When the day's drying shift began this worker threw handfuls into one end of this dryer. The machine later spewed the tea onto the floor where it sets for a half hour.

Then it will be ground, pushed, pressed…I wasn’t sure what. It is sifted and again I’m not sure what. Much was lost in translation. There seemed to be a six or seven step to the processing of this green tea. The drying/processing work started at three and was scheduled to continue until midnight.

After witnessing a bit of the drying process, we sampled the product. The demand for their tea is greater than they can provide. They have a shop in Yangshuo but also sell to Beijing, Shanghai and other major Chinese cities.

We had a bit of a surprise while we were drinking tea. Their packaging says the plantation is 6 kilometers from Yangshuo. Before we set out in the morning Gary told us it was 12. During the ride/walk there we told Gary it was 20! Whatever the distance, we flew home as it was now mostly all downhill! Three hours to get there, one and a half to get home.

Chicken is a part of our diet here. That said there are just a few differences. For one, the chicken in a dish is cut into bite-sized pieces which include bone, skin and a bit of meat. The bones are spit on the floor or table after you’ve sucked all the life out of each piece.

Besides those differences, we customers here are much more aware of the life the chicken is giving for our nutritional needs. (Being reminded of the life behind a chunk of meat has driven more than one foreigner to vegetarianism. Apparently at home they had forgotten that cellophane-wrapped purchases used to breathe.) Here chickens are underfoot and heard from behind closed doors. Even my neighbor in my plusher neighborhood is raising chickens in her villa just as these poorer townsmen in FuLi do.

Last fall a store that I have assumed is a seed store was raising chicks. Most mornings as I walked to the boat to DuTou I’d see their box covered and lit against the chill, but by noon when I passed on my way to FuLi they were uncovered. Eventually the box was empty. Some people raise their own dinners.

Before the October Mid-Autumn Festival the old abandoned theater in DuTou was overflowing with grown chickens ready for market. The theater, which staged traveling opera performances before people acquired TVs, was a warehouse for a week or two and then was empty again.

On market days I often see vendors carrying chickens, or ducks, in these baskets hanging from poles slung over their shoulders.

The week of Spring Festival the sidewalk outside the covered outdoor market in Yangshuo was lined with these chicken vendors. Chicken in dishes is common but is even more prevalent during a holiday. The Chinese are more likely to eat pork on a daily basis.

Here members of the FuLi school staff are carrying chickens for a school picnic. Although there is a KFC in Yangshuo(the only foreign restaurant in town or in nearby towns), I doubt many of the local people eat there. They are used to wringing necks and plucking feathers just before they cook. How fresh is that!?

And, no, I still haven’t tried killing a chicken or removing its feathers. I hardly ever cook…..anything..…anymore!

A Few Observations From This Week….


First: The Yangshuo powers-that-be are making changes. Last October they moved the night market out of the downtown parking lot. The night market was where you went for local delicacies. Vendors moved in every evening with their wagons. They set up their small eateries serving frogs, fish, snails, dumplings, etc. But after October the night market was banished from the lot, no one knows to where. The parking lot became a full time parking lot. Now it looks like the motorcycles that used to park on the sidewalk have been sent to the parking lot. I suppose now that the sidewalk is clear the powers will want us, the pedestrians, to walk on the sidewalk instead of along the edge of the street! This is no doubt all is for the betterment of Yangshuo….but somehow it feels like we’re losing some of Yangshuo’s color.

During Spring Festival in February the sidewalk was crowded with motorcycles, bikes, and chicken vendors special to the holiday but few pedestrians.
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Last week the sidewalk was clear...the motorcycles are banished to the parking lot across the street.>>>>>>>>>>>







Second: The Li River made a marked change Wednesday evening. We had a heavy rain that day after several smaller rains on previous days. So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised Thursday morning, but I was. The vast bank on the DuTou side had literally disappeared. Mind the shoreline was already up some from the picture taken last fall. However from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning the last nine to ten feet of beach were covered by the river.

In September the dock on the DuTou side of the Li River was quite a piece from the stone stairs which you can just make out in the distance on the right.<<<<

On the Thursday we stepped from the dock to the stone stairs.>>>>>>>








And on the FuLi side the dock was underwater a foot or two.

The FuLi side of the Li River in September. The stone dock is substantial.<<<<<<<

On Thursday the boats slid over the larger portion of the stone dock and tied to the steps.>>>>>>>>>







Third: On Tuesday I left the DuTou staff room to teach my fourth grade class. When I returned forty minutes later Peter, the principal, had changed a piece of bamboo into this puppet. Now isn’t it clever!

Peter the principal with his pieces of bamboo on a length of string.
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The puppet performs on a chair.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

After classes Friday morning I went to Ben's place. Ben is the FAO (foreign affairs officer) at Qinfeng, the middle school in Guilin where I end my week teaching four periods of 9th graders. He is one of the nicest men. His English is good. His history includes a summer school in the States. He is a collector of coins, some stamps and orchids. My visit Friday was mainly to see his orchids.


We ate a box lunch of rice, two meat patties, cooked eggplant and cooked cabbage (9Y/$1.10) at a Chinese fast food restaurant near his apartment building before we climbed the seven flights of stairs to the roof of his building to look at his plants. His roof garden includes mulberry trees, a couple fruit trees, a strawberry plant, his award winning orchid (largest orchid in 2007) and a few other plants. He says the fruit are mainly for the birds.

Then we entered his orchid greenhouse. It is equipped with fans, a misting device, gauges that measure the temperature and the humidity, and a tub where water sets for three days so that the impurities settle out before he sprays it on the plants. There are hundreds of plants....or did he say a thousand? Most were not currently in bloom.

But a few were.

Our last stop was their sixth floor apartment to look at the current blooming beauties. Ben's goal is to have blooming plants for their home year round....and he is successful.
Now I was impressed by his flowers. But I also was impressed by the wood floor. I don't think I've seen one of those in an apartment in China. I'm trying to remember if I seen a wood floor here at all. Surely I have? They are rare though. Maybe more rare than Ben's orchids!

I have returned to China after being away for six weeks. I had wonderful visits with family and friends in Oregon and then spent a week and a half with my family on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Don't have many photos to show though. I must admit I'm a bit disappointed in myself. Here is a photo of the Castle at Chichen Itza. You'd think I might have gathered the family off to the side, but no.

I returned to China in time for Qingming Festival. It's a Memorial Day. People travel to their hometowns to visit family and to tidy up their ancestors' tombs. Along with sweeping and weeding they make offerings. Several shops near our apartment carried paper houses, clothing, food, cars, furniture, candles and joss sticks. The paper items are burned so that the dead are not lacking these things in the afterlife.

This year Qingming was on Friday. And this year for the first time Qingming was a national holiday. We saw many tourists in Yangshuo for this three day weekend. Mostly young people. Guess not everyone went to their ancestors' tombs.

While I was gone, the weather changed. It's warmer, not always warm but always warmer than what it was in February. And it is wet. I've been back five days. On two of those days I woke to rain in the night and it continued to rain and drizzle all day. The laundry I did on Wednesday hung in my room for three days and even then I wasn't really sure it was dry. More than anything I was tired of it taking up space and wanted to put it away.
Everything is damp. The walls, the floor, the sheets, papers...everything. Today it did not rain and no one took a shower. And yet the mirror in the bathroom was fogged over! Now that's damp.