7. Road Trip Through Southern China

IMG_4717Most of today was spent traveling, with only a few short stops, but it was almost more informative than the rest of the days where I spent the whole day walking. By riding a bus, I was able to watch the development wax and wane as we drove from city to city, and the whole experience was like an accelerated walking tour that covered a much farther distance. Our first stop was in Chikan, a village of mansions funded by money sent home from the western world. The village looks like it was really nice at one point, but over the last few decades it has just fallen apart because the people living there no longer have the money to maintain them.

This gives a good idea as to the level of disrepair these mansions have fallen into.

This gives a good idea as to the level of disrepair of these mansions.

Despite the rapid degradation, the city is still quite picturesque and filmmakers still use it when shooting an old-time Chinese film. After I walked across the bridge and into the little town, I had to pass by several vendors in their mansion store-front but it didn’t take long before I was alone and walking through an ally of humble residences tucked away inside of what used to be a mansion. It was really like a walk back in time. This town was a nice contrast to many of the other places I have visited during my time in China, because Chikan is the first place I have seen that really seems to be going backwards in terms of development. Everywhere else is either plowing forward and building like crazy or they are stagnating, but this is the first place I have seen that really seems to be going back in time. The town was once a beautiful row of mansions lining the river, full of money being sent home. But now, although it is still beautiful, all of the buildings are dilapidated, colorless, and exploited for tourism and the film industry. I saw no signs of anything new being constructed here. In fact, renovating or replacing any of the buildings at this point may take away from the historic feel of the town and actually hurt the village.

Here I am picking the longan with a bamboo pole.

Here I am picking the longan with a bamboo pole lent to me by one of the villagers.

The next place we visited was a small village cluster by the name of Majianglong. It is a cluster of 5 villages that were established during the mid-1700’s, but all of the buildings I saw were constructed in the early 20th century. I spent most of my time in this village interacting with the villagers.

I encountered 3 boys who were using a long bamboo pole to harvest the longan fruit, or dragon eye, and when I stopped, they showed me how to use it. It was actually pretty ingenious. The bamboo pole was sliced down the middle at the tip in order to create a sort of fork and you would stick it up into the higher branches of the tree and put the branch with the fruit you wanted in the fork. Then you would twist

 

Here is a star fruit and some longan that I harvested and ate in Majianglong.

Here is a star fruit and some longan that I harvested and ate in Majianglong.

until the whole tip of the branch and all of the fruit ripped off and you could lower it back down.I read on my way out of the village that the cluster used to be called “Fengsuilang”, which means, “good harvest every year” so I think it was appropriate that I spent my time picking fruit with the villagers.

During the drive between the two villages and Guanghzou the views out the window were pretty wild. Most of the time, it seemed like there were just fish ponds dug into the ground and pieces of farmland, but at the same time it was so much more than that, because spread across the entire landscape of southern China is a vast network of power lines

 

A high speed rail line runs right over some farmland and fish ponds

A high speed rail line runs right over some farmland and fish ponds. The farmers of this land will probably never have a reason to ride this train but will feel the effects of it fo the rest of their lives.

and high speed railways. Every once in a while there would be a giant billboard plopped into the middle of someone’s field. It seemed like all of this infrastructure was just passing through this farmland and that nobody who lives in these rural areas was able to use the railways or even the electricity running through the power lines.

Another thought that recurred to me while I was riding though the countryside, was to be on the look out for any sort of larger timber forests.

 

A logging truck that I saw shortly after spotting my first real forest in China.

A logging truck that I saw shortly after spotting my first real forest in China.

Whenever I would see giant timbers used in the construction of the ancient Chinese buildings I would wonder where they got the wood, because I had never seen any real forests in China(in my sense of the word). Halfway between Majianglong and Guangzhou I finally spotted some patches of trees that actually looked suitable for small timbers. They certainly weren’t 2 feet in diameter, like the ones I saw in some of the structures in Beijing, but it was more than bamboo. I found myself getting excited thinking China was trying to let their forests regrow because everything looked so barren, but of course, ten minutes later I saw a logging truck. Every square foot of land and piece of useable natural resource in China seems to have been taken. Based on what I have seen so far, it really doesn’t seem like China is going to slow down their resource extraction or development for much of anything.

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