We all pride ourselves on being independent travelers to some degree. You have done the wall, the palace and maybe the warriors. You have traveled the big cities and done most of it without the help of a tour guide, maybe you don’t even own a Lonely Planet Guide and you may even know the Chinese words for hello and thank you – Ni Hao, XieXie. Overall you are fairly proud of yourself. However you want to get away from the beaten track, see the “real” China. Get the local experience!
Before you even leave the safety of the hotel or government approved fleapit, you lie on the bed with your huge map of China. It is at this stage that you should ask yourself two questions; Am I ready to experience small town China? Is small town China ready to experience me?
Small town China is not difficult to find. It is basically anywhere that few foreign tourists have been. There are a few signs to look for however. Firstly absolutely nobody speaks English – that you are aware of. Then you try to stop and do something, anything and a crowd of fifty people all stop what they are doing and stare at you. In fact everywhere you go people are staring at you. These are the first signs that you are off the beaten track and about to experience the real China.
What will you find in a small town in China?
Unless the town that you are visiting has some special significance chances are you think that you have found nothing. There will of course be the obligatory temples. It is more likely that you will find the real temples that are used by people everyday for the purpose that they were built. What you will find is people, genuine people and lots of them. Just because a town is small does not mean that there are not many people there. This is China and there are people everywhere.
The streets will be full of people going about their daily routine. Selling the produce brought in from the market or the latest fad in tea. The old people will spend most of their day sitting in the shade of some tree, playing Chinese Chess and talking with their friends. Unless you go on a Sunday all of the children will be in school. It is worth taking a look at how eighty children can fit into a tiny classroom and how the teacher can produce learning materials with no resources. Some people will stop and stare at you, some try to say helloooo and then howl in laughter.
Walk through the old part of the town with the houses sharing a common courtyard. The only place to get running water and raise their chickens. China is family orientated and you can see three or four generations living in the same house. You will receive many invitations to drink tea. Even if you can’t understand each other they will still talk away in their dialect.
Toward the end of the day the markets come alive with people, bargaining and arguing over the smallest fluctuations in price. The amount of people that move through such a small space is incredible. The farmers from out of town will bring their cattle and goats, tie them to the nearest pole and sell fresh milk. Everything at the market is fresh and everything is kept alive until the last minute. If you want to eat chicken then you can choose your chicken and watch as it is plucked and prepared for you.
Then you start to feel hungry.
If you go to a restaurant you can expect that all of the people will stop whatever activity they are doing and look at you. Not so that you would notice, maybe only for five or ten minutes. The waitress will not be able to speak English. From there it is easier to win the lottery than to get what you think you have ordered.
The street vendors are the best bet. You can see them cooking the food and you actually point at what you want to eat. Each place usually has some food that you cannot find in another part of China. Some small towns even have their own specialties. Special rice or dish, or an animal cooked a certain way. Of course animal is the right word here because once you leave the mainstream tourist areas the people pride themselves on eating anything.
So your day has gone fairly well. You’ve been fed and watered, seen the old parts of town and visited the local temple. You may even have found someone who speaks English and can show you around. However this is very unusual. You can never be fully prepared for travel in China. There is always something that comes up or changes so that your day becomes a challenge. Maybe the bus trip took double the time, the price also doubled for you, as most Chinese see you as a walking bank. Maybe out of the blue it starts pouring rain, know the Chinese word for raincoat or umbrella. There are a huge amount of things that can turn up to ensure that your day will be like no other.
The truth, small towns in China are not prepared for travelers and travelers are not prepared for small towns. That is what makes the experience so unique. That is what makes it one of the last great challenges. You can never be fully prepared for what will happen and you will never know what to expect.
To leave a last piece of advice. One thing that you can be absolutely sure about is the WC WILL HAVE NO PAPER.