Song Shan, Shaolin Temple, Yuntai Shan

The reason for one of my recent trips came in a discussion with one of my students about places she had visited in China. I thought I had been to three of the four famous/important mountains in China. But, she corrected me and let me know that I had only been to two. Later that night, I was talking with her on QQ (the ubiquitous Chinese chat program) and suggested taking a trip that weekend. I of course thought she would reject immediately, because of the lack of time for preparation coupled with the oddity of traveling with a foreign teacher. Surprisingly, she said yes, if she could find a friend to come with us. I said the more the merrier. So, Zhenzhen (真真), Zheye (哲烨) and I headed to Song Shan in Henan province. Both of them are my students, seniors majoring in English Education.

Our overnight train trip was uneventful, which is how train trips ought to be. Upon arrival, we needed to find a hotel. Both of them had traveled a fair amount before, with their parents. Both of them are from families with sufficient if not excess money hence the traveling. So, they were pretty unhappy with my hotel selection method…essentially look for the grimiest location, knowing it will be cheap. They didn’t agree with my assessment that it’s all the same when you’re asleep. But, they consented, and the three of us shared a room for only 90Y.

We first visited Shaolin Temple(少林寺), the world famous home of Kung fu (better termed Chinese martial arts). It is also the titular location of Jet Li’s first movie. The temple was very similar to the Confucius Temple, in the absence of a guide telling me the significance of the structures and tablets, wasn’t too interesting to me. We were able to watch a performance by mostly teen martial arts students. It was pretty impressive. One of the students did a few push up modifications that didn’t look that easy. I tried them when I got home: I was wrong. They were incredibly difficult. Throngs of visitors (mostly Chinese—thus pushy) made the temple less spectacular than it might have been.

In stark contrast to the temple, a pagoda garden, filled with burial pagodas of past martial arts masters, was gorgeous. Amid the mountains and filled with a bright afternoon sun, the pagodas majestically (I borrow this word from President Obama) rose into the sky. I really enjoyed just walking around and pondering about history and the thoughts and desires of the men buried beneath the pagodas, (as one does in any cemetery or memorial). One funny thing happened when I asked Zheye to take a picture with me in front of one of the pagodas. She politely refused. When I asked (because I always ask) she said that it was bad luck to take pictures in front of graves/memorials. I had heard this before here, but didn’t really think of it. I held my anti-superstition tongue and took the picture with Zhenzhen. After the pagoda we took the cable car up to a peak, as it was too late in the day to climb up, and my companions didn’t want to. Song Shan is more like a collection of peaks than one stand-alone mountain, and this peak was spectacular. There were some great paths along precipices and the views of the valley below, changing into autumn colors, was a great change from the bustle and overwhelming grayness of Changzhou. Back at the hotel that night, as we discussed the next day, I was just planning to try to climb up one of the other well-recommended peaks. Zhenzhen though, true to the adventurous spirit which made her consent to the trip, wanted to head to a national park nearby which she had heard goo things about.

So the next morning we headed to Yuntai Shan(云台山), which although called a mountain, is much more famous for its waterfalls and gorges. So we hit up two buses to make it to the town nearest Yuntai Shan. Both of the girls weren’t super keen on using the (admittedly) rough and dirty intercity buses. Apparently when their parents foot the bill, it’s either private cars or chartered buses. Contrarily, I love the unadulterated humanity that exists on such bus rides. Once we got there, it was a great relief to have the two girls figure out the taxi, tickets, and a hotel for me. The park itself was beautiful. We enjoyed a nice hike up to the highest waterfall in China, that was a little weak that day…but infinitely higher than anything I’m used to in Iowa. The main gorge was impressive, and had trails running right through and around it. I noticed that the valley below it was dry and overgrown with vegetation, due to a small dam and reservoir at the bottom of the gorge. I appreciate the eventful gorge that this created, but also think it might be a symbol of the developing water shortage problem in northern China. At the end of this site was a massive construction project of a new dam. I wondered if maybe I was glad we went as the whole gorge might soon be go the way of the valley. Of course then they can run tours of the dam like they do at the Three Gorges or Hoover Dam.Our taxi driver to and from the park was much more like a business consultant. He arranged the hotel for us, took us right to the ticket booth and told us about the discounts, and kind of gave us our schedule for visiting the different sites in the extensive park. This is because the infrastructure prevents it from being a DIY place. I don’t know if this is due to a lack of tourism or a lack of government interest in creating the infrastructure. It seems like there is much more of these limited option stops in China than anywhere else I have traveled (save Laos, where there literally is only one road). I hope it’s due to lack of volume to warrant the creation of more varied options, but tend to think it’s more likely to be the often seen Chinese government tactic of controlling/extorting tourists. They do this because, well, they can and no one’s going to tell them they can’t.
Both Zhenzhen and Zheye were great travel partners. They seemed to be much more easy-going than many of my other students/acquaintances. Finding a hotel room and getting what I wanted to eat was no longer one of the main challenges of traveling. As I have maybe mentioned before, I was still amazed at how I was more proficient at figuring some things out and finding places. I probably shouldn’t have been though, because, even though they have both traveled a lot in China, they hadn’t ever been on a trip with this small of a group in which everyone was unfamiliar with the place. The three of us stayed in the hotel room without any troubles, which might seem awkward to many, but it was fine. For starters, it was cheaper, so an easy decision for me. Additionally, having assigned roommates in middle school, high school, and/or college as well as often sharing rooms with relatives and friends makes young Chinese people much more comfortable sharing rooms than a lot of my American friends. They complained a lot about being bored on the bus/train rides, but after I offered the line “the only people who are bored are those with boring minds” from my fifth grade teacher, they didn’t complain so much. It was a great trip, and I think it’s pretty cool that I can say I have walked among the same stones and trees that first inspired Chinese monks long ago to begin martial arts.