Nanchang

This week is National Week, a fictional holiday created by the party for all the extra money made by massively increasing travel costs, but a holiday nonetheless!  Since it was too expensive to go anywhere we decided on a weekend trip to Nanchang, the capital of Jiang Xi province.  We managed to get cheap train tickets, but this meant the slow train, which took over 4 hours each way.  Trains here are not completely different to trains in England but they are much more crowded, you can just throw rubbish on the floor and whoever sits opposite you will take photos of you.  Sometimes they’ll ask first.  Also, sometimes chickens travel by train.

Our first calling point when we reached Nanchang was…McDonalds.  A month’s denial of cheese, dairy products and low grade beef will turn McDonalds into an incredible luxury.  Here’s Jav showing Ronald some love.

Next we looked for a hotel.  Just around the corner from the station was this picturesque street.

It’s resemblance to post-war Eastern Europe and the total absence of stable ground convinced us it was the right choice of location.  After some very difficult miming, me and Terry somehow managed to get some kind of luxury room with an electric Mahjong table, where playing pieces magically arranged themselves in a spinning pit beneath the table.  Here’s us pretending to know how to play.

We then headed to Tengwang Pavillion, Nanchang’s top attraction.

It’s 9 floors in total, including the outside levels, and we walked up all of them, looking at different paintings and cultural artefacts along the way.  At the top there was a show going on, and outside there were some pretty gardens.

We then walked to You Min Temple, described as ‘huge’ by our guide book.  It didn’t look huge.

But then there another part to it.  Complete with monks blessing a car just in front of it.  Noone knows why.

We wandered back through the central park of the city.  Parks are where Chinese community really reveals itself – there are people playing badminton, men playing Mahjong, big groups of people just discussing or debating things, a big public TV screen, children’s rides, families painting pots, even a special few doing karaoke!

We took a pedal boat out on the lake which was fun, after we escaped from the many boats trying to follow us around and take pictures.

After pizza for dinner and a drink in the city centre we headed back to the hotel.  Since Nanchang is a much bigger city than Pingxiang, traffic was even scarier there. Chinese driving tip no.4: If you can see 3 lanes on the road, consider 5.  There’s plenty of room to squeeze through.  And don’t worry about the police; they’ll be the ones in the 5^th lane, driving the wrong way down the road.

The next day me and Terry went to the ‘Star of Nanchang’, the world’s second biggest ferris wheel.

It confused me as to why they decided to build it in Nanchang, of all places.  It was good, but since Nanchang isn’t the most exciting city there wasn’t much to see.  There was the river, with the current city on one side and the developing new city on the other.  You can see it here on the left; it’s all springing up rapidly but at the moment just looks like a skeleton of a city; empty buildings and lots of half-designed areas.

On the way back we stopped off at Walmart for chocolate, which was right next to People’s Square, a communist style park, all concrete with a big important looking statue at one end.

On the train ride back we were sitting opposite a couple and their son, who spoke a little English, so I used the time to try and learn bits of Chinese.

And that was Nanchang.  It was good to get away from the college for a bit and see some more of China.  We even managed to avoid any serious scamming by taxi drivers and the like…until we arrived back in Pingxiang and someone tried to rip us off by about 9 times the usual fare.  He foolishly got out at traffic lights to ask for directions, so we ran for it.

To conclude: the latest piece of ingenious translation, on a toilet door on the train.

When I first read it I thought it made complete sense.  I am clearly adjusting well.