Day 4: Developing a Hatred for Chinese Tourism

Previously, Richard, Casey, and I had either been by ourselves with just the daoyou or in a little group of maybe a dozen people. The unfortunate part of traveling with only 3 people, however, is that it's too few people for the travel agency to always be willing to give us our own guide and our own tour, so they started lumping us (along with the Japanese girl and the Korean girl who we were with the first few days) onto other large groups of Chinese tourists. This was terrible. I've met plenty of lovely people in China, but (and the circumstances of our meeting figured into this, I'm sure) I did not like the Chinese tourists at all. The group we were with this day were all friends and relatives, so they all knew each other, and were constantly being loud and annoying and touristy.

At one point the guy in front of me was videotaping the view out the window, which was: dirt. He did this for a really long time. At one point, embittered, I made a comment to Richard and Casey about how annoying this was and I wished he would sit somewhere else. Actually my words may have been more along the lines of "I hate that man and his stupid video camera." I know that's kind of out of character for me to say, but that's a testament to what Chinese tourism will do to you. Besides, it was all Chinese people on the bus, so they wouldn't understand our English comments anyway, right? Except later that day the man answered his phone and started speaking English...whoops. Bu hao yisi, as we like to say: how embarrassing.

We hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, so we were sleeping in the back of the tour bus on the way out to Turpan. At one point, we stopped at what is apparently a tourist attraction, although I never would have chosen to go there if it was up to me: the largest wind farm in China. That's right, a lot of windmills. You looked at them from a sort of observation deck, and let me tell you, it was so fascinating that it just made me want to get right back on the bus and sleep instead of looking at stupid windmills. Yet the Chinese tourists took pictures of it, and then took pictures of themselves posed in front of it, etc. This was to be an indicator of our Chinese tourism experience to come.

On the way to Turpan we drove past the Fire Mountains, which are big and red and pretty neat. Apparently they are one of the obstacles for the Monkey King in Journey to the West, which I had only vaguely heard of before but now I feel that I should maybe read it because the tour guides kept making references to it. Hen hao!

Turpan, our destination for the day, is famous for being a Buddhist outpost in what is now a predominantly Muslim region. It was built back in the day when the Uyghurs were Buddhist and hadn't yet been converted to Islam by traders coming through Xinjiang on the Silk Road. It is also, nicely enough, the hottest place in China. When we went, it was 41 degrees, which is about 105 degrees. Lovely. Also, the architecture of the place we went to reminded me a bit of the city of Flibber-O-Loo, a la VeggieTales:














All the buildings were made of mud and straw. It was a pretty okay place. They gave us lunch there, however, and it was zhuafan again, same as we had on our first day in Xinjiang, except not delicious. Whoops. Then we got ice cream, which was more delicious. Yay!

In the afternoon we went to a vineyard, where we saw some (really old!) grape vines. It was riveting. After we toured the vineyard, there was, for no particular reason, a dance performance put on by the Uyghur teenagers, culminating in a dance where they tried to get the whole audience to dance with them. Then we went to some other place where there was more dancing, and they actually even taught us some moves to this traditional Uyghur courting dance, each of which has a specific meaning. The guys' moves meant "I have a big house! I have lots of grapes! Whaddaya say?" There was even one move where you do something with your fingers to demonstrate specifically how many acres of grapes you have, or whatever unit they use in that crazy metric system. Hectares, maybe. Anyway, the girls had corresponding dance moves that meant "My father doesn't agree! My father doesn't agree! I don't agree either!" We all danced around in a circle with the Uyghurs, and it was actually a pretty fun time. Then they tried to sell us insanely expensive raisins, because in the end, most everywhere they took us was just a place to buy expensive tourist stuff.

Random Uyghur dance show at the vineyard:














We also went to a less fun buying-stuff place, where they gave us a presentation and made us try some kind of locally made wine that was positively disgusting. Good times. Then we visited an aquifer, which was pretty cool because we got to go in tunnels underground. They explained to us that the aquifer is super awesome because it's the only reason that part of the desert can even sustain life. Our happiness was dampened a bit by the Chinese tourists, who upon being told that they shouldn't touch the water, immediately started scooping it up into their water bottles. I was so annoyed at them, I just wanted it to be like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Augustus Gloop is so greedy for the chocolate river that he ends up getting sucked up a pipe and learning his lesson. Unfortunately Willy Wonka wasn't there to teach the Chinese tourists a lesson, so I'm sure they will continue to be rude and selfish without consequence. Hen hao.

After the aquifer, they took us to some sort of garden, which I'm pretty certain was just a time-waster, because it wasn't on our itinerary. The three of us were so annoyed that we just waited outside. Ironically, on our way back the bus drove past the Dead Sea of China, which was one of the destinations on our itinerary. Maybe by "see the China Dead Sea" the travel agency meant "catch a glimpse of a sign saying 'China Dead Sea' out the window of your bus but not actually stop." That night we didn't do anything else besides have dinner at our hotel. The food was terrible, not that we weren't already in a bad mood. Also the travel agency forgot to book Richard's room for a second night, so he couldn't get in to his room. Everything got straightened out eventually, but it wasn't the best day ever. Grrrr.