In our blog last year covering the Silk Road, we mentioned hearing the tune “Happy Birthday” from time to time while in Kashgar, China and had assumed it came from the amusement park near our hotel. But, here in Kunming, we heard it again and we are not near an amusement park. It turns out that this tune is played by the street washing vehicles as they clean the streets.
Banks met us at 9:00 am and guided us to the city gates nearby – the Peacock Gate and the Golden Horse Gate, named after nearby mountains. Both are very ornate and date from the 1400’s, although they were rebuilt in the last 20 years. During the lecture, a couple of Chinese with cameras in hand made believe they were pointing their cameras at a Gate, but actually we were the subjects. Garry, Rich and I pretended we didn’t see them and by doing so they crept closer and closer determined to take our pictures. Later, our guide said that Chinese visiting the city from remote villages are curious about westerners.
While walking with Banks, I asked him about the AIDS/HIV problem in China. He replied that Yunnan Province has the highest incident rate in all of China. Why? It’s because of its proximity to Burma and the Golden Triangle (Laos, Thailand and Burma) with their drug trafficking and use of needles.
We drove to Nine Dragon Lake, a very large lake situated in a beautiful park near the center of Kunming. It gets its name from the fact that it is fed by nine springs. This area also has many universities and the most expensive housing in the city.
Our guide mentioned that it had once been used for naval training exercises and interestingly, the Chinese word for lake, hai, also means ocean. There is a promenade around the lake passing through beautiful gardens, wooded areas and paved common areas. While walking through the park many groups of women and men were performing Tai Chi, dancing to music, and various other forms of exercise like hitting a tennis ball attached to a long piece of elastic. While watching the latter and looking intrigued by their skill, one of the women asked me if I wanted to try it. Of course, I couldn’t turn down an invitation like that. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, but I managed to put the racquet on the ball often, but certainly not to the skill level of these women. They had a couple of extra balls with an attached loop for the elastic, so Garry bought one for ¥20, the equivalent of $3.00. The best part was that one woman patted her stomach, basically telling us it was a great way to lose the belly fat. Thanks, were the Magnum Bars showing already?
Later while driving to lunch, Banks explained that Kunming has three ring roads whereas Beijing has six ring roads due to the growth of the city. In Kunming, no motorbikes are allowed to enter into the first ring area, the city center, due to the noise they make. Taxes on cars are assessed annually based on the size of the engine, but there is no tax on gasoline which is currently priced at ¥5.6 or about $1 per liter. With the rapid increase in the number of trucks and cars in just the past two years, the environmental air quality in Kunming has deteriorated. Yunnan Province had been one of the best for clean air in China.
Banks also entertained us with a story about an old courting tradition within the Yunnan province. In days gone by, there was an annual festival in Kunming and families traveled from distant villages to attend. Girls who did not have a boyfriend by age 15 or 16 would cook chicken and offer it for sale to show their availability. If a boy was attracted he’d stop at her table, taste the chicken and ask the price. If the girl was attracted, she would offer at a very low price. This was a method for the girls from the mountains to meet men since it’s difficult in a remote area.
We discussed plans for lunch. None of us were especially hungry, but facing a four hour drive to Dali with uncertainty about places to eat along the way, we changed our minds. We wanted to get on the road and not take time for a sit-down lunch, so Garry suggested McDonald’s. As it turned out, Banks drove across Kunming to the only McDonald’s with a drive-through. Pulling up to the window, the girl gave us a point-and-order laminated sheet showing the items and prices. The items were very similar to those in the US and the food tasted the same as well.
It was a long drive to Dali and after arriving at our hotel in late afternoon, Garry, Rich, Richard and I walked into town and found the locally famous Foreigner Street. Souvenir shops and restaurants lined both sides of the cobble-stone street. The restaurants really catered to the foreigners with Hawaiian Pizza, chicken pizza, lasagna, spaghetti, cappuccinos – well, you get the idea. Wood-fired pizza and beer was our dinner for the evening. Are you shaking your head? We’re in China and eating western food, you say; but we did have Chinese food for breakfast. That qualifies!
The Polaroid camera photos were a big hit, and as always, you can tell if they have ever seen a Polaroid photo before. These people had not. Looking at two dark sides of a piece of paper, men, women and children would flip it around to view both sides and then look at you quizzically. Then, when the images begin to show, the fascination is addictive and their friends and family crowd around. This one little boy sitting at a small desk and dressed in bright orange stared and stared so intently at his image appearing on the photo. He looked up and rewarded us with the brightest smile.
Smile and world smiles with you,
Tamara, Rich and Garry
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