Tiger Leaping Gorge

During the ten day long October national holidays, I left the urban jungle of Beijing behind and ventured into the wilderness. I found myself trekking through Tiger Leaping Gorge, the most breathtaking canyon on the Yangtze River. Too treacherous to be navigated by boat, the rapids are best enjoyed from solid ground. With 2000 meter cliffs on each side, Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest canyons on the planet. The river beneath narrows to 25 meters at one point, and legend has it that a tiger jumped across the gorge to escape a hunter at this very location.

The nearest city to the gorge is Lijiang and the nearest town is Qiaotou. At the Lijiang bus station, I found the schedule unfavourable and decided to hire a vehicle to Qiaotou instead. It was costly, so I waited until another traveler joined me so we could split the fare. A fellow named Fangyuan was up to the challenge. His friends had decided to relax back in Lijiang, while he was keen to see the sheer cliffs of Tiger Leaping Gorge. We took the low road, passing goats, driving through waterfalls, and experiencing occasional engine failure as our vehicle had a hard time navigating through the rock slide prone area.

Without any assistance from the government, the locals have created a path down to the river. They charge a maintenance fee and have set up stalls every few hundred meters down the arduous trail selling refreshments. As we made our descent, it started raining heavily. The stall keepers wisely packed up and hurried back to the top. I got separated from Fangyuan, and we took alternate routes. I arrived back at the summit and waited for him to return, observing a suit clad villager chase down a chicken with a knife in the meantime. As I shivered in my wet clothes, I heard someone call out for me. Fangyuan had returned with the driver! At Qiaotou we went our different ways. He went back to Lijiang to rejoin his buddies, while I caught the last bus to Shangri La.

*****

Tiger, tiger, burning bright   
In the forests of the night,   
What immortal hand or eye   
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
~ William Blake ~

Peking Opera

For several hundred years, the opera has captivated audiences in Beijing. A friend of mine was performing in one staged by an amateur troupe in the student area of Wudaokou. All the performers work or study during the week, but find time each weekend to practice one of the city's oldest art forms. When she invited me to attend I readily accepted. It was my first opera of any kind so I did not know what to expect.

Front row seats were reserved for me. I was commended for staying awake for the duration of the four hour extravaganza that featured singing, dancing, extensive makeup, and elaborate costumes. My friend's mother was also in attendance, along with many senior citizens. After the performance was over I delighted the performers by taking photos with them. The mother commented that I only posed for pictures with pretty young girls. The daughter gave me a frown.

*****

"I don't mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand." ~ Edward Appleton

ARNABanged: Hitting the Road

They say that Chinese people do not know how to drive. It's not true. At least one does. He drove right into me.

I was standing in the middle of a crosswalk in front of Beijing's Workers Stadium, waiting for oncoming traffic in one direction to stop flowing so I could get to the other side. The locals have as much respect for pedestrian crossings as they do for intellectual property rights, so the crosswalk marking on the road does not mean anything. I looked back to see a red car coming directly at me from behind. A split second later I was in flight, my body performing a grotesque pirouette before making contact with the pavement.


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I scraped myself off the surface of the road, glaring at my attacker as I got up. He had gotten out of his car and was sheepishly looking at me. His mother popped out of the passenger side holding a fluffy pet dog. Suddenly, the driver ran past me into the middle of the street. My phone had taken a slightly different trajectory than I, and was moments away from being crushed. He grabbed my cellphone, narrowly escaping another violent collision with an oncoming vehicle himself. He handed me my phone and I got in his car and drove off, dialing my friends for assistance.

*****

“If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.”
~ Henry Clay ~

On Thin Ice

Unlike most of the major cities on Earth, Beijing is not located near any large body of water. Numerous lakes and streams are sprinkled throughout Beijing's districts to compensate. During the long winter months these waterways are frozen solid. Recreational fishermen dig holes in the ice and wait patiently for the fish to bite. Near the banks, old men strip to their undergarments, stretch, and then take a plunge in the frozen water. Less adventurous types simply skate on the icy surface.

I walked a 2 kilometer stretch of the Liangma river, occasionally having to duck under bridges. Several boats had been ensconced on the riverside. I spotted a man urinating in the middle of the river. He was cool as a cucumber as vapor rose from the area around his feet. To safeguard the public, I also contributed some liquid sealant to mend a few cracks in the ice that I came across.

*****

Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray
Who can tread sure on the smooth, slippery way
Pleased with the surface, we glide swiftly on
And see the dangers that we cannot shun.
- John Dryden -

Higher Learning

ARNABlog began to chronicle my globetrotting adventures after I graduated from Simon Fraser University. The campus was located on top of Burnaby Mountain, giving it the nickname "high school on the hill". The dull grey buildings and the isolation from the society below also gave it the moniker of "Simon Fraser Minimum Security Facility". Every day, I would join busloads of diligent students on the trek up to the peak. If it snowed just the right amount classes would not be canceled but the buses would not make it all the way up the steep incline, depositing students midway to their destination. We would trudge uphill in snow with heavy backpacks full of textbooks and notepads, leaving our bodies exhausted but our minds still thirsting for knowledge. 

*****

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." ~ William Butler Yeats