China's Ancient Water Towns

I guess these things are all over China, and some are more modern and ‘developed’ than others. Shanghai is just full of them, and it’s a weird sense coming to one.

These tiny towns are beautiful, and interesting, and fun to explore. But you also get the sense that the town is a zombie. Like it used to be a living, thriving, proper town, but then it was killed, modernized and trampled to make way for shopping malls and roadways, then finally a small corner was brought back to life as a tourist trap.

Some towns are more touristy than others. There was one water town that I loved so much, and which felt so organic and real, that I’m not going to tell you the name. It’s my secret little place. It felt like a REAL town, with people actually living there, and I don’t want it to get zombified like the rest. Sorry friends.

The towns all have a similar pattern, with canals crisscrossing through the town, and bridges going over them. Boats, either tourist boats or garbage collectors, pass slowly along the waterway.

If you go to China, I encourage you to visit the ancient water towns, just not my special little one : )

People here use the water for everything. 

Here, a woman does her washing in the water, 

even though other people use the water for their garbage.

 These are the boats that frequent the waterways, 

all hand powered so they're silent. 

This gives the town a lovely feeling of peace- no noisy engines

The encroaching modernization. 

 My special little town. 

Another photographer looking at my little town. 

He had a unique type of camera and used a strange technique called, 'film.'

I wonder if it'll catch on.




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Deadly Bus Crashes and Singing Condoms: My first day in China

I traveled into China from Vietnam. By bus. It was long and boring, with beautiful scenery. And as usual, I was the only foreigner on the bus. So when shit got weird I had no one to turn to to see if the world had truly gone bat shit crazy.

Crossing the border was easy. Really easy actually. Getting on some of the trains across China has actually proved much more difficult than getting into the country. The border guards who processed me were cool; most of them smiled at me curiously, or ignored me. Some of them tried to practice their English with me. It all went smoothly and simply. Once I’d gotten into the country I took another bus, the one I’d ride to the city of Nanning. That’s when things got weird.

There was a small TV at the front of the bus, and one at the rear. The TV showed brutal, and I mean BRUTAL bus crashes. This was real footage from security cameras on buses- it was black and white, and just grainy enough to assure you that it was real. You could see people tense up the second before the camera shook and they were all tossed around like rag dolls across the grainy, black and white screen. I saw an unaware bus driver get thrown through a window after a collision. In another clip the floor became ceiling as people were thrown against metal bars and each other. Police officers sorted through debris and dead bodies in the following scene. Next, a little cartoon came on telling me to use my seat belt; I buckled the thing as tightly as it would go.

Next there were, unceremoniously and without warning, singing condoms on the TV. It’s possible they were meant to be something else, but seriously, what else could they be? They’re white, phallic shaped objects, with little reservoir tips at the top.

Someone actually made the decision to show violent, real-life bus fatalities, followed by two ridiculous singing condom-looking things. To people entering the country for the first time. What the fuck, China? Watching these videos, combined with my being vulnerable and alone in a foreign country… It made me feel like a 13 year old boy watching hardcore Japanese pornography for the first time. I was confused and uncomfortable, and unsure if what I’d just seen was real. But I also worried that what I’d just witnessed might have permanently broken something inside of me.

I got to Nanning expecting it to be like all the other bus rides I’d experienced in Asia. Motto taxis waiting to escort me to a nearby hostel, each under-pricing the other so I could get the best deal. This is not what happened. The bus dropped me off at an empty parking lot. No taxis. No ATM’s. No English speakers. I stood alone in an industrial looking parking lot, no Chinese money in hand because I’m me. No hostel booked. No idea where the nearest lodging might be. Some traveler I am, huh?

Exhausted, hungry, utterly alone, and not dressed to handle the cold at all- I wandered. For maybe an hour or more. I found an ATM, found an overpriced hotel, and fell in love with a country.

People talk a lot of shit about China, but I loved it. I swear to God I did. The food. The incredibly kind people. As soon as I passed the mind-fuck of singing condoms and deadly bus crashes, and made it to Nanning, I absolutely fell in love with the Chinese people.