I just realized that my last few posts did not get published.
At one of the bathrooms, I had a conversation with the lady in charge of cleaning the restroom. She said what I've been wanting to say for a while, but haven't. "Can't people fucking flush??" She snapped, as she cleaned the stalls. She and I engaged in a rant about how awful bathroom etiquette is in China. Honestly, China may have the worst bathrooms that I have seen in my life, considering the circumstances. In Senegal there were some dirty ones, but usually if it was a place with plumbing, it would be somewhat acceptable. The bad bathrooms are where there is no plumbing and just a pit, and honestly that I understand--it just will be nasty. China now has the second largest economy in the world--and every bathroom I have been to has plumbing. You step on a little button, or pull a lever, and it flushes. Would it kill people to take just a second to do that?? The best bathrooms have automatic flush and tend to be cleaner, but that also tends to be gross because it may flush before you are done and you get sprayed with toilet water. I don't have any problem whatsoever with squatting toilets. But I hate it when the bathroom is literally full of shit. Also, a lot of people don't bother to close the door. Maybe because they don't want to touch the door, or just don't think it's a big deal. Another thing that I find pretty gross is how it's acceptable for children to just pee and poop everywhere. Just on the street, if someone under the age of 10 has to go, their parents let them pull down their pants in a corner and go. Baby outfits are designed that way. The streets are still clean, since there is a large and organized janitorial force in most Chinese cities, but it's something that I'm just not quite used to seeing. I guess we let dogs do that, so maybe it's not such a big deal for babies to do it too. But the flushing. I know when there is a bathroom nearby because I can smell it. It is often worse than an American porter potty.
Hangzhou is a beautiful city though, and the setting for a lot of Chinese romance stories. Two that they mention are the story of the white snake, and the story of the butterfly lovers. The story of the white snake is about how a magical white snake got caught in the rain, and turned into human form. This guy offered her his umbrella, and then they fell in love. In the end though, they both die and become spirits. The butterfly lovers are like the Chinese Romeo and Juliet. They fell in love and their parents wouldn't let them get married, so they committed suicide. Their parents felt bad about this, so buried them together, and from the grave came two butterflies. Something should be said about Asian love stories though--East Asians loooove sad love stories. They loved each other so much in life and couldn't be together in life, but at least they get to be together after death. The tour guide said that Chinese people hope to learn from the butterfly lover story, but I'm not sure they do--for many Chinese people, their parents' consent is still a major issue. So I'm not sure if anyone has really learned a lesson from the butterfly lovers, because parents are still interfering with who their children marry. Just most people don't commit suicide, rather they just live their lives unhappily, married to someone else they don't really love. Perhaps it is those people who take consolation in the butterfly lover story, because maybe they imagine that after death they can do what they want, and it makes the present easier to bear.
Hangzhou's west Lake has everything a traditional Chinese painting would need--misty mountains, expansive water, pagodas and temples, and blankets of water lilies. When I travelled through China, there were several moment that took my breath away because China has so many stunning landscapes. I was expecting to be underwhelmed by West Lake because of all the hype, but it really is beautiful. As we drove up, I saw the mountains--and I love the mountains--but as we rounded the corner, there was a stretch of water lilies in bloom. People have asked me what my favorite flower is, and it's hard to really categorize. For smell I like lilacs. For gifts, I like pink lilies. But overall, I think I would have to say my ultimate favorite is the water lily. I love water lilies, so I was sold as soon as I saw them on West Lake. We took a boat along the lake, and then walked through a botanical garden.
At the garden, they showed us two types of trees. When famies had a son, they would plant one type. When they had a daughter, they planted another. When the daughter got married, they would chop the tree down and make a trunk out of it, and fill that with longan, tea, and other fragrant things for the couple. You can often tell how old a family's daughter was by the size of the tree. Of course I don't like that he daughter's tree gets chopped down and the son's does not. Another symbol of sexism, like the woman's life dies when she gets married. They should keep both trees alive. Anyhow, there isn't enough land for people to continue this tradition anyway.
From that point things went downhill, but it's okay since I saw all those water lilies. The tour guides make commission when you make extra purchases. They did not tell us this until we arrived in Hangzhou, but the afternoon event was to go to some theme park, which would cost 140 yuan. That is almost double what I paid for the whole tour! Some people were upset and didn't want to go, including me. So, we decided not to. The tour guide threatened us and said that if we did not, we would get bumped to a later bus back to Suzhou and would have to wait four hours in a place without AC. It turned out to just be a threat, but I was really annoyed. They took us to a silk museum, like the one in Suzhou, and a tea place. Hangzhou is famous for long Jing tea, a type of green tea. I didn't buy anything at either, so the tour guide was mad. Normally, I would have just given them a tip, to make up for not buying anything, but his attitude was so bad that I didn't.
In the evening, I had something similar to Hotpot for dinner, but with a thicker broth. Like a casserole. It was really good, and had lots of tofu skin and vegetables.
Now I am on the train to Shanghai. Unfortunately I am in the back, and I can smell the bathroom. Oh well, it's a short ride so not so bad.
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