meeting different people... and Dali

One of the Great things about travelling is the great number of people you meet with a wealth of different experiences. Often you will meet other people that have just left the place you are planning to go next, and they will give you many great suggestions. Other times they have interesting stories about places that they have visited. I`ve encountered equal numbers of English, French, German, Swedish, Italian, Australian, NewZealand and Canadian travellers, all interesting to talk to, at the hostels (perhaps it is because they all have the same guidebooks). In foosball, the Italians all seem to be very good, and I always lose.

A Yorkshire, england man was travelling for 22 months so far, and related he had gone to Mongolia, and found most of them very friendly, and even those who weren`t very friendly would still take peopole into their tents as guests and feed them. Apparnetly, outisde of a few cities, a lot of the people are nomadic, and wander finding food for their animals. Surprisingly, there is a working mail system for the wandering people! Not sure how it works, but apparently they ask where they think their neighbors may have moved to..

Kai Kai is the marketing manager for the Hump hostel in Kunming, and she had visited north korea... albeit for a short time... 1she said that there were many universities there, and the people were very friendly.... all except the soldiers, who would turn their backs when they waved to them, and even throw stones at them!

I met an 66 year old American who lived in a town called Dali, and he said it was one of the best things he`s ever been to in his 20 years of travelling, and that`s why he now lives there. He gave me a lot of tips drawn on a map - that some guy from the Sheffield, England gave to me - about what to do, and then we ended up talking about democratic process, political mandates and freedom... he is of the opinion that China is the most free country in the world by far, since you can do anything here and nobody cares.

Anyway, Ivo and I were planning to go to Dali anyway (you will read more about ivo later), and we took a sleeper train to DaLi, a small town in Yunnan province. It`s quite quaint, and nice compared to the large millions of people in the larger cities. During the train ride, there was a little 2 year old boy who kept on asking me what i was doing. ``I`m sewing the hole in my pants`` What are you doing. ``sewing` what are you doing. what are you doing. what are you doing. .... what are you doing... (in mandarin, of course) little children like to repeat things for some reason. i can't figure out how to get the question mark on this chinese keyboard)

My travelling companion for the next week is Ivo, a PhD student, also working for Microsoft in Beijing for 3 months (we met up in Kunming, and then we both took the train to Dali ). His family is from East Germany, and it was very interesting to hear about when the Berlin wall came down from his perspective. He was 12 at the time, and he only remembered that they took down the picture of the newly-ex prime minister from his school, and that he heard on the radio...

In East Germany, before the wall came down there were a few goverment shops that would sell western goods. 'Islands' of western goods, and sweeteners from candy would give a sweet artificial smell, that seemed to 12 year old Ivo that this was the smell of the west . When his family finally went across to West Germany, he remembered the shopping malls in many places, and that the smell of the west seemed everywhere. His parents bought him a small remote controlled car and he remembers being very happy. (the West Germany gave each East German citizen an equivalent of 50 Euros (in West German Marks) as a gift after the wall came down)

His parents had had tough choices to make... if you wanted to study in university, you had to cooperate and join the secret service, otherwise they woudl reject your application... apparently, it was very tough for a family that didn`t support the government. When the wall came down and the files revealed, apparently 1 million (out of a total population of 17 million people in the country) turned out to be part of the secret service network (informants included).

We rented bikes and rode to a lakeside town, which was very not meant for tourists and had a very nice bucolic feel. Houses are beside many many farms, with people hoeing and plucking away at the dirt. In the town it is very common for children to say "hello! hello!" when they see foreigners and try to get a response, and it is a strange to be asked it constantly when going through this very old town. Lots of staring. Sometimes the old people with a spark in their eye also say hello, but they are much more refined about it. People were very friendly universally. It was interesting to watch the 2 tables at the market, where one person was waving a plastic bag on a stick to keep flies off of the slab of meat he had on the table. I wanted to buy something to help support the economy but we couldnn`t find anything that I really wanted to get... so at a local cornet market we bought some drinks and i bought 3 packs of tiny playing cards for 5 mao (10 cents) each.