04.21.09
Posted in Travel at 12:00 pm by Benjamin Ross
This is the 4th entry in a series titled From the Delta to the Backwoods about my recent trip to China.
Located just west of glitzy Jiangsu province is a land which bares little in common with its affluent neighbors. There are few skyscrapers, no Dairy Queens, and even karaoke clubs can be difficult to find. If there is one thing which characterizes Anhui province, it is a lack of discretionary income. What Anhui does have however is people, over 65 million of them and a per capita GDP of just around $2000, one of the lowest in the Middle Kingdom.
Anhui’s economic status, as well as its landlocked location, have also ensured that during the past three decades of reform, it has remained one of the provinces least touched by outside influence. There is arguably no other municipality in China’s eastern half (where 90% of the population resides) which has been left further behind than Anhui since the Deng Xiaoping reforms were initiated in 1978. While few travelers, Chinese or foreign, would opt to venture into Anhui (excluding Huangshan), the people of Anhui are a common sight all across the Middle Kingdom. In recent decades the economic conditions and slow pace of development in their homeland has triggered a mass migration of much of Anhui’s rural population to neighboring regions in search of work and a better life. Thesedays in many wealthy coastal cities, especially Shanghai, Anhui people form a healthy majority of the working class, partaking in those occupations undesirable to locals. If you’ve ever ridden a peddicab, paid to use a public toilet, bought vegetables in a wet market or received a foot massage anywhere in Eastern China, chances are you’ve been the recipient of Anhui labor.
It was with all this in mind that I decided to make Anhui the focal point of my recent trip to China. From the Great Wall to the Earth Buildings in Fujian, China is chalked full of a plethora of cultural heritage sites and attractions. However, often the most intriguing locales are the ones where there is “nothing to see.” Once Tex and I arrived in Anhui, the most common question we received from locals was, “Why on earth did you come here?” And that’s exactly why we went.
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| After our first day of travel to Huang Shan, Tex and I wanted nothing more than to get away from the over-commercialization of Huang Shan. While some travelers find Huang Shan to be a cultural and scenic highlight and others think of it a lackluster tourist trap, one thing that can be agreed upon across the board is that Huang Shan is not an accurate representation of Anhui. Our first introduction to the real Anhui came as soon as we arrived at the Huang Shan train station. Our next stop was to be Hefei, the provincial capital of Anhui. The only tickets available were for “hard seats” (no beds) on the 普快车, literally “regular fast,” or more accurately the “extra slow” train. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal, if only it weren’t an 8-hour overnight train. In all practicality, the best way to endure these kinds of journeys where one typically ends up sleeping upright on a firm seat in a train car packed like a school bus, is to drink…heavily…both before and during the journey. The plus side is that riding the 普快 train is usually cheap, dirt cheap. Tickets cost roughly $5 USD |
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| A reminder to all patrons of the train station not to spit on the floor |
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| This is the interior of the 普快 (extra slow) train. Back in the day, this is what most Chinese trains looked like. These days, most routes between major cities are serviced by 特快 or 空调快速 trains, which are faster, more comfortably furnished, and air conditioned. Over the past year or two, even these trains have been increasingly replaced by the super speedy 动车组 (bullet) trains. Yet in places like Anhui, many routes are still run by the old slow trains. Fortunately for us, the train was half empty and the outside temperatures were in the fifties. In peak travel times with a packed train and no air conditioner, the journey on the slow train can be an exercise in sheer human endurance. |
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| In addition to keeping the cabin temperature to a level appropriate for human breathing, the fact that the train was half empty also allowed us to lie out across the seat, thus partially alleviating the discomfort caused by lack of beds. |
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| That being said, you never are going to get truly satisfying sleep on the slow train. |
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| You can either bitch and complain, or suck it up and view the journey for the value of the experience. For millions of people in China, the slow train isn’t merely an inconvenience, it’s just the way you travel. And they probably don’t have the extra money to blow on warm 5 RMB cans of beer either. |
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| For any Chinese province, the capital city is the main transit hub and jumping off point. Our goal was to make it to some of the more remote regions of the region, but since we had to go there anyway, Tex and I decided to take the day to explore Hefei on foot. We arrived at about 6 am, and our first order of business was breakfast. One of the first options we encountered was 臭豆腐 (chou4 dou4 fu2) “stinky tofu.” |
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| If you’ve never tasted it, you’ve probably at least smelled it before. Stinky tofu smells like boiled garbage, and its aroma can travel blocks away. Yet the taste of stinky tofu, as claimed by most vendors, is actually quite different from its rank smell. I’ve tried it before and am indifferent. Tex is a big fan. |
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| In many ways, the setup of Hefei is congruous with other stock Chinese capital cities, with tall highrises, wide avenues, “scenic spots,” and public works projects such as this broad lake in the middle of the downtown. Yet noticeably deficient in Hefei are restaurants, tea shops, massage parlors, brothels, and karaokee bars, all of which are heavily dependent on disposable income. |
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| As one of the more industrial of the Chinese capitals, Hefei is a city where you can feel the dust in the air between your teeth when you breathe. |
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| While exploring Hefei’s city center, Tex and I came across the Anhui Provincial Zoo. With a 10 RMB admission charge, a campus no larger than half of a football field, and rudimentary bared cages, the zoo was a veritable trip back in time in the history of human treatment of animals. |
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| This was very much exhibited in the “animal show” we watched. Bears and monkeys who spent the majority of their existence locked in tiny cages with barely enough room to turn around, were dressed up and paraded around the enclosure in a mock Chinese wedding ceremony. |
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| In China, captive animals are still very much treated like novelties, and while it is easy to criticize the Chinese in this regard, it is worth remembering that the favorable treatment of animals we have in the West took many generations to develop as well. It is also very much confined towards those animals from whom we receive entertainment and companionship rather than purely nourishment. |
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| Interestingly enough, turkey is the only member of the animal kingdom I have ever catalogued which is commonly eaten in the United States but never consumed in the Middle Kingdom. While I have never seen turkey on a Chinese dinner plate, it is actually a fairly common captive animal in Chinese zoos. |
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| We spent the rest of the day exploring downtown and especially the large park in the center. |
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| Like most major Chinese cities, Hefei has a pedestrian street which runs through central downtown. |
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| A common site in some of the China’s less developed major cities, Hefei has a great deal of street activity which in other locations might be conducted behind a store front, such as this ear cleaning. |
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| The edge of Hefei’s city center are surrounded by more water ways. As one meanders further from downtown, the streetscape becomes increasingly industrial with rows and rows of machine shops and materials plants (not pictured). |
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| another shot of downtown |
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| In the geographic center of Anhui is this Buddhist Temple. We took a brief peek inside, and decided it had little to differentiate itself from the other 925,873,895 touristy Buddhist temples in China. |
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| Hefei had by far and away the best public infrastructure we would encounter anywhere in Anhui. |
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| more parks and highrises |
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| surprisingly picturesque Anhui overcast skies |
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| another view |
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| view over downtown |
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| One of the more interesting episodes from our day in Hefei was a public “political meeting” we accidentally bumped into. Typically in these meetings retirees stand around in a public space and discuss political topics in an open format. Upon our entrance, myself, Tex, and Barack Obama immediately became the main topics of discourse. The retirees, led by several outspoken individuals griped to us that Anhui people were not receiving the majority of the benefits which have become available to the rest of China in the three decades following the Reform and Opening Up. |
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| After a few minutes of casual questioing about our backgrounds and personal lives, the topic of discussion became increasingly political. Tex and I found ourselves stuck in the middle of a sea of bodies genially hurling pro-dem0cracy (and ant1-CCP) slogans our way. For the mob, it was as if for the first time they had encountered outsiders who presumably would share the beliefs and causes they were championing for. It was at this point, we decided it was probably in best interests to remove ourselves from the situation. |
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| Before leaving the leader of the mob insisted on taking a picture with me. He wrote down his phone number on a piece of paper and told me to call him later to “discuss more political things.” |
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| While walking through downtown in the afternoon Tex and I had come across 小吃街 (xiao3 chi1 jie1) or as we might say in English a “snack street.” A snack street is usually an alley off of a main street where vendors set up stalls selling freshly made street snacks. Some snack streets are officially sanctioned by city governments, however the majority consist of vendors who setup without the proper permits. Enforcement of street vending regulations in Chinese cities vary, but more often than not there is a mutual understanding between vendors and police that they will be allowed set up their stalls, but only in certain locations. One of the most entertaining Chinese street spectacles is when word travels through the crowd that the police are coming through and checking permits. A pack of vendors rush to pack up their carts and dash away before the police make it through. Fifteen minutes later, it’s back to business as usual. |
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| Fortunately in Hefei, street vendors didn’t seem to get pestered too much by police. As our tour of Anhui continued, Tex and I would come to find that the province has an extremely high concentration of street food vendors relative to typical Chinese standards. This we found was to make up for the dearth of restaurants, as street food is generally more affordable than food served in a bona fide restaurant. |
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| Snack streets also enable patrons to eat entire meals by grazing rather than simply sitting at a table and ordering food. This gave Tex and I an excellent opportunity to sample some of the local fare, like these deep boiled eggs and sausages. |
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| …as well snacks found all over China such as these squid-kabobs |
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| One pattern in Anhui cuisine which we noticed was a high affinity for chicken. |
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| Large snack streets, such as the one we found in Hefei, often set up mini-tables with small plastic chairs for patrons to snack at. There are no trashcans. All skewers, napkins, cigarette buts, and other non-recyclable garbage is thrown directly on the ground. After the stalls close down at the end of the night, a thorough cleaning is done with all garbage swept up. The next day the cycle begins again. |
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| Tex and I did most of our eating mobilly, bouncing from stall to stall, and sampling the various culinary delights. No item on the snack street cost more than 4 RMB (a little more than half a dollar) and most were more in the nighborhood of 1 or 2 RMB. |
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| another parting shot of vendors hard at work |
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| After dinner we took another walk around the pedestrian street. Like most cities in China, Hefei looks entirely different at night than it does during the day. |
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| One particularly interesting site was this bus station located just near the end of the pedestrian street. The terminal is in fact a bridge over a busy thoroughfare. Coming down from the bridge are numbered gates where passengers walk down to street level to board their bus. |
Tex and I had spent a full day exploring the largest, most modern, and well-developed city in Anhui. While it shared many of the same features and amenities of other Chinese capital cities, Hefei also provided us with a glimpse of what we would experience later in our journey as we traveled to the poorer areas of the province. Our next stop was to be Fuyang, a more anonymous Northern Anhui city, and one of the poorest in the province. More to come.
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CHRIS (China quality inspector)
said,
April 21, 2009 at 10:13 pm
god..i go to anhui like twice per week for business trip, but never travel that deep..you know my country better than me..lol..
btw, have you ever come to nanjing ? maybe next time we could hang out .aha
Matt Schiavenza
said,
April 22, 2009 at 3:33 am
Good stuff Ben. Hefei actually seems rather pleasant in these images. My favorite bit of this post is the mob forming around you and Tex- one of the drawbacks of Kunming, at least from an entertainment perspective- is that foreigners are so common that nobody seems to notice us.
Frank
said,
April 22, 2009 at 6:48 am
Great post! Thanks.
Makes me think back to my visit to Hefei.
Pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fz/169837537/in/set-72157594169911813/
(there are also some pictures of Huangshan, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and Beijing in the album – all cities we visited during an extended university trip to do a 2 weeks design project together with chinese design students from (one of) the university of Hefei)
Benjamin Ross
said,
April 22, 2009 at 8:17 am
@Chris
Nanjing was actually my second to last stop on this trip. I’ll have pics and a recount coming later in this series.
@Matt
I think in terms of Chinese capital cities (and I’ve probably been to 75% of them by now) Hefei is quite possibly has the lowest concentration of foreigners, percentage wise. The only other one I can think of offhand is probably Jinan.
chriswaugh_bj
said,
April 22, 2009 at 8:26 am
“Anhui’s economic status, as well as its landlocked location, have also ensured that during the past three decades of reform, it has remained one of the provinces least touched by outside influence.”
Somehow that reminds me of when I lived in Taiyuan and I regularly heard people remark that Shanxi was too far west to benefit from the first 20-odd years of reform, and too far east to get anything from the “go west” campaign (which had then only just begun) and therefore had wound up as one of the poorest provinces in China. What’s heartbreaking about Shanxi’s poverty is the sheer, phenomenal amount of resources- coal, and history which could, and should, and is slowly being turned into tourism.
And doesn’t Hefei host one of China’s top science and technology universities?
Hang
said,
April 22, 2009 at 10:56 am
Interesting post. I don’t Anhui benefits least from China’s reform and opening up. Maybe some western provinces such as Guizhou, Gansu benefit far less. Stinky tofu does not taste the same in China. The best stinky tofu I ate was in Guiyang, Guizhou province.
Alan
said,
April 22, 2009 at 11:40 am
You should remove the two pictures of the mob rally immediately. I can’t believe you are so insensitive and naive. The mob leader is probably in jail now. What you have described is still not a laughing matter in the middle kingdom. It’s estimated that hundreds of protests of this sort happen daily in poor regions of China. Anhui is definitely one of them. Needless to say, many mobsters have been harmonized. You should read this article on Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502901.html
Delete the pictures and my comment here after you are done with it.
Rebekah
said,
April 22, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Hi Ben,
Been enjoying this series of posts!!! Great travel adventure stuff for me to pilfer for ChinaTravel.net
Rebekah
Ji Village News
said,
April 27, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Good stuff Ben! You shots of the train interior brought some nostalgic feeling out of me, although my train in the early 1990s during high season was way, way more crowded than yours. Not too sure if I passed Hefei or not, but definitely Bengbu.
Wei
said,
April 29, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Alan,
Seriously, if you believe in the stories on Washingtonpost you don’t need bother to read a blog like this one at all.
China Business Success
said,
May 1, 2009 at 8:07 am
Wow nice pictures! I’ve never been to Anhui before. I would like to though, but there are so many places that I want to visit some day. I’ll just add Anhui to the list
I thought the pictures of the street vendors with the different “food specialties” were not that attractive. But the “chuan” (meat on a stick) does remind me of the time that I was in Beijing when I bought a few of them. I really like them! So good…just like something of the grill or barbecue here in the West.
Jane
said,
May 14, 2009 at 3:57 am
PLEASE!
Do not discriminate a country only after you know she-to Alan from USA，and welcome to China by yourself？
Ronald
said,
June 8, 2009 at 12:22 am
Ive been staying for internship in hefei for 2months now, and I found many ktv around hilton, but still no dairy queen (you hardly find dairy queen in Europe as well). When I wanted to visit hefei, chinese guy from Beijing asked me, why the hell your going to hefei? To be honest at frist I had bad image about hefei as wikipedia says it is one of the poorest province in china; but I change my mind now, its not as bad as it said. It has 3 carrefour & walmart, hilton, pizza hut, mc.d, etc (so far only starbucks is missing), and anyway why on earth i want to eat that in china, like old people say, when you go to china you act like chinese !. Foods that foreigner must try is fish on very hot oily soup, egg crépe on the street, and sweet bread on the street also (0.5rmb).
Another thing, I think people in hefei is so warm hearted and sincere to help.
So far the downside with hefei is its hard to find someone who can speak english, if they speak more english, im sure it will catch up with other cities in china.
Anyway, when i come back to Amsterdam, if i miss hefei, i think your blog will be good to read ha ha ha.