Hunting the big five in China
Francisco Little
Summer in the city…its hot and humid in downtown Dalian, China’s major northern port city and the masses have emerged from high-rise apartments, and outlying suburban homes to head for the beach and a possible chance to cool down. It’s a lemming like scramble that tests the resolve of saints and sinners alike.
With the mercury bumping the 36 degree Celsius mark and humidity levels making life as uncomfortable as possible we headed for the city’s Light Rail train station that transports passengers from downtown, through the Dalian Economic and Technological Development Zone and onwards to the rocky ribbon of the coast.
Boarding the Light Train is in itself a feat worthy of writing home about. In true Chinese fashion crowds disrespect queues and swarm around the platform, where a yellow line indicates where the train will stop and where the door will open. As the train tickets are not numbered it is first shove, first seated – the snag is that there are perhaps 500 seats for a train capacity of 1000. Deciding it was not worth risking life and limb, we waited for the next train and managed to get two window seats with a minimum of bruising.
Gliding through the Economic Zone, it was startling to see how developed even these parts of northern China are becoming. The Zone is a massive 50 square km area housing over 1500 foreign-capital businesses, with an annual turnover exceeding US $12 billion in 2002. It’s also the first area of its kind in China approved by the government.
The massive factories, pharmaceutical warehouses and computer software hangars fade away and 50 kms from downtown, the silver train (which looks like it’s wrapped in tin foil) rolls into the Jin shi tan or Golden Stone Beach State Holiday Resort, as it is officially known.
This scenic area borders the Yellow Sea, with the beach reputedly 7,5 km long and the area offering several `tourist attractions’ which in China can mean anything. We bought tickets at the central depot and then hopped onto a bus that shuttles the endless wave of humanity on a designated route to the many stops along the coast. It’s a matter of jumping off when you see something interesting and then waiting for another bus to take you to the next spot.
We got off at the Jinshi Wax Figure Exibition Hall, housed in an ornate Grecian style building. I was ferociously reprimanded for using my camera (at the entrance mind you), which left me peeved for the remainder of the tour. Although the Chinese wax models are well made, the western models leave a lot to be desired. The strange group of occupants included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Gates (the Chinese love him!) and Romeo and Juliet (balcony included).
Back on the bus, I was content to sit and melt, but 500 meters later was dragged off grumbling to gawk at the outcrop of rock formations that originally made the area famous. The golden colour and weather carved formations appear like giant hand squeezed lumps of yellow clay. Visitors scampered up the rocks to pose in every nook and cranny for the constantly buzzing instamatic cameras. In Chinese we say qiezi (eggplant - pronounced chi-eh-dzir), instead of cheese. Yes, if said correctly the words also pull your mouth into a smile. Go ahead, try it; you’ll never look at an eggplant in the same way again!
Golden Stone Beach State Holiday Resort
Beach time in China is a bit different to what I was used to. For starters the Golden Stone Beach is aptly named. There is very little sand and a lot of stones, some admittedly a golden colour and said to be over 600 million years old. So tread carefully, there are some very old pebbles caressing the soles of your feet.
The beaches have a series of massive multi-coloured, tent like structures set up at regular intervals about 50 meters from the water, under which are placed plastic tables and chairs in neat rows. Beach goers sit and play cards, majong and Chinese checkers, while the inevitable mounds of food are always close at hand. Take those pickled ducks eggs away from me! Twenty metres in front of the big tents are rows of smaller tents, serving as resting posts for those who venture out to the warm waters of the Yellow Sea. Chinese beach goers are not sun worshippers in the western sense of the words, preferring to spend as little time as possible under the sun. Women frequently use umbrellas in hot weather, as having very white skin is seen as a mark of great beauty. The Chinese are also rather shy when it comes to their bodies; most girls consider it indecent to take off or put on clothes while facing a man. Despite the fact that there must have been at least 20 000 people about, very few actually seemed to be out on the beach. It was a kind of fleeting rush from cover into the water and a scurry back. – the crabs must have been most impressed with this movement. Children were conspicuous by their absence and the average age of visitors was over 50. There seemed something strangely orderly about all this, or perhaps it was just me…
Needing a break from the crowded beach, I swam out in the warm water to one of the fishing boats and was told to go back, by what looked like a very drunk fisherman. Maybe the fish didn't like foreign bait. Coming out of the sea I was approached by several old ladies, wearing those flannel type baggy one-piece costumes favoured in the 50’s. They had been paddling nearby and gave me the once over as if we were at an auction. The way the group leader was widening her eyes, made me nervous, causing a casual backward shuffle up the beach. They waved furiously – I bowed and was gone.
We headed over the road for some refreshment and found a pair of empty seats at a sprawling roadside outdoor restaurant where a majong tournament was in full swing. Using 144 small (domino sized) tiles, the game is played both for fun and by serious gamblers. These players were decked out in their team T-shirts and the noise level of shrieking voices could only be compared to a Concorde jet at the point of take-off! A carpet of peanut and sunflower seed shells covered the ground. The restaurant owner came over and told me to be careful as the plastic chairs were not strong and I was a rather big man!
Having settled (carefully) onto a plastic chair I turned my attention to my rapidly melting, what appeared to taste like noodle flavoured, ice cream. Suddenly, my euphoria was jolted by a tatty looking hawker who launched into a verbal tirade at me, shoving envelope-sized slate grey stones in my face. It transpired that these were samples of stone in which fossils of small marine life were embedded and were being sold off as souvenirs. She’s really got to work on her sales pitch! Glancing at the wording on my ice cream wrapper revived my flagging spirits: `Kiss me, tease me, lick me, bite me, let me melted to your heart. From the pure chocolate taste, for your pure heart’.
Dalian International Hunting Club
My companion told me that being from the dark continent of Africa, I had to make a stop at the famed Dalian International Hunting Club, one of the coastal attractions, so the `bwana’ pulled in and set about looking for action. The club consists of a rifle range, skeet shooting area, paint ball alley and what was described as `forest hunting’. I found out that two of the `big five’ available to be hunted were chickens and rabbits — I didn’t want to know what the others were! It seems that my poaching skills haven’t deserted me however, and after scoring 5 bull’s eyes from 5 shots at 50 metres on the rifle range, (using what looked like a .22 rifle left over from the second world war) I attracted a large crowd of onlookers and hunting club officials, who eyed me suspiciously and kept asking what line of work I was in. Just beginner’s luck I said, handing back the weapon and heading for the bus as unobtrusively as possible.
It had been a long hot day. The shuttle dropped us back at the Light Rail depot and the return bump and grind ritual of finding a seat didn't seem so bad. The train was full, not a seat in the coach. At least the aircon was working. I leant against the pole and unperturbed by the jostling bodies my thoughts returned to a funny ice cream wrapper and those five bulls eyes. It seemed that the good life was just a case of meeting your daily targets.
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