Swine Flu City

As I mentioned before, when I was in Shangri-la, schools were closed as a precaution against H1N1. The local cases had everyone freaked out—as I was told more than once, SARS never made it to the Yunnan province.

In Beijing, plenty of people are wearing masks and trying to get vaccinations, which are apparently in short supply. I spotted this topical graffiti outside of the 798 Art Zone in town.

And the blog Far West China, written by an expat living in Xinjiang, has a funny post about trying to teach English when everyone—including the teacher—is required to wear a mask.

The extreme measures seem to be working—infection rates and deaths are comparatively low in China. But there are some accusations of under-reporting.

Oh, Obama

Barack Obama was in town last week, and he managed to run everyone's fun.

The newly popular T-shirts of Obama dressed as Mao in Red Guard uniform—"ObaMao" as they're known—were pulled from stores because they might offend him. (How? No one can quite explain what they mean, and here they're kind of a tribute to Obama as a pop icon. His image is also on cheap woodcuts and random items like keychains.)

A CNN reporter was even detained while reporting on the shirts. (The day after Obama left, I bought the keychain/coin purse in the photo from a store that discreetly began selling them again.)

Another American was detained, according to a human rights group, when she waited outside the embassy to deliver a letter to him. (Seriously, you have to wonder: how does the Chinese government not realize that limiting free speech is likely to piss Obama off?)

He mentioned supporting "non-censorship" in his town hall meeting with students, and the censors had to scramble to scrub the reference from local media.

And he carried his own umbrella, making Chinese officials who have lackeys carry their umbrellas look like jerks. What's next? Chinese girls will have to start carrying their own purses rather than making their boyfriends hold them, because Michelle totes her own bag?

Can you believe this is Beijing?

On Halloween night it was rainy and gross, but I went out anyway because it was my first night back in town. Sometime after midnight, someone announced it was snowing, and we went out to play in the big flakes.

It was weird because Beijing usually only gets a few snow showers a year in January or February. Even stranger, when I woke up the next day several inches of snow covered the city.

It was the first of three freak snowstorms; the next two were this Tuesday and Thursday. But it turns out it wasn't so freaky at all (or maybe even stranger than an unseasonal snowstorm): the government's Weather Modification Office seeded the clouds to help relieve a drought. But when the subsequent snowstorms resulted in damage and deaths, they've backed off taking credit.

Of course, it raises all sorts of questions: is the silver whatever they put in the clouds safe? Are they diverting rain to northern China that would be going someplace else? I can't find clear answers to those questions, but I can say it's beautiful—especially if you work from home and don't have to deal with messy commutes or delayed planes.

Little Lhasa

Sometimes called the mini-Potala Palace, the Songzanlin Monastery in Shangri-la is considered a must-see, especially if you can't make it to Tibet. Originally built in 1681, the active Tibetan Buddhist monastery is striking, jutting out from a hill. But what's most noticeable is that the central building is missing—the monastery was almost completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and is just now being restored. This painting shows what the buildings should look like.

Despite only having the two side halls (and loud Chinese tourists who ruin the serenity), there are beautiful shrines, giant Buddhas, and paintings inside.

If you're going: There's a back way in that avoids the steep 85RMB entry fee, but I went in the regular way. Some online posters advocate getting around the fee because the money goes to the government, not the monastery, but the local I asked wasn't sure—and the government is paying for the monastery's renovation, apparently. The line 3 bus goes from Old Town to the monastery for 1RMB.

"You've reached your top, and you just can't get any higher."

Tucked in the mountains, the Tian Sheng Qiao hot springs are worth the pricey admission. The air outside was chilly (maybe in the 50s), but the sun was super-strong and the water must have been close to 90 degrees. It's too hot to swim, but I floated around and enjoyed the warm water and perfect blue skies, taking breaks to sit outside for a bit or go to the cooler, shaded pool.

Male and female spring-heated saunas are cut into the side of the mountain. When I was soothed, relaxed and almost ready to leave, a busload of obnoxious Europeans arrived. The women thought their sauna wasn't hot enough so they went into the male sauna. The staff (mostly Tibetan) tried to get the women out of the male sauna, but they didn't understand or refused to leave.

The workers then zeroed in on me to translate, "Please tell them this is a Buddhist site and our shrine is right over there, and women can't go in the men's sauna." I relayed the message to the people in the men's sauna, while staff members stood behind me. "Tell them there's no Chinese people here. Everyone in here is Dutch." "Tell them to make the [naturally heated] women's sauna hotter." Jerks.

I didn't relate the first statement, but the staff was unmoved by the second. (I think the women didn't go all the way back to the second, hot room.) Luckily, everyone decided they'd had enough co-ed sauna-ing at that point and went back to the pool.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera or think to snap a cell phone pic until the Dutch came to mar the view.

If you're going: There's no easy way to get to the springs. I found a driver in the Old Town parking lot who agreed to take me there, wait three hours, and bring me back for 70RMB. I hear taxis are asking 50RMB one-way. A Shangri-la expat advised me to bring my shampoo to get my money's worth (20 RMB to enter, 80RMB to swim) and use the sites spring-fed hot showers—much nicer than a hostel shower.

Lakeside

Shangri-la is the kind of place where maps are drawn on scraps of paper and there's no need for street names—turn left at the horses will do. And if you're looking for said maps, or the best hiking spots, or the back way into anything, Kevin, owner of Turtle Mountain Gear & Outfitters in Old Town, is the person to see. An American who's lived in town for years, Kevin owns a store that rents motorcycles and outdoor gear as well as providing guides, but you should also visit for insider trekking and travel advice.

I stopped by the store one day with directions to Napa Hai, a nearby lake I was told I had to bike around. "That's exactly the wrong way to go," Kevin told me, when I showed him the guesthouse's route. Instead, he informed me of the back way, which bypasses the main roads—and a 30 RMB admission fee—while passing through quiet grasslands and Tibetan villages. (I took the other route back, sharing the road with exhaust-belching trucks and hitting commercial streets during the last stretch.)

I had the way almost to myself going to the lake, which is about half dry during this season with animals feasting on the yellow grass and ducks splashing in the puddles. In some places, the only sound was yak bells.

I reached the entrance and ticket booth at the end of my ride, and dragged the bike up a hill right before that to avoid the fee. When I reached the main road, I followed it up a little bit to the botanical gardens and an overlook of the lake with a stupa below.

If you're going: The Yak Bar right outside of Old Town (across the street from the parking lot) rents not-so-comfortable bikes for 20RMB a day. The whole trip took me five hours, but I'm very slow, walked my bike for long stretches on the annoying mild incline of the ride back, and made several stops, including a detour to the bus station to ask about schedules.

Turtle Mountain Outfitters is off the road leading from the parking lot to the square.  If you're coming from the parking lot, make a right at the bench with their ad and follow the road up.

Tibetan Rural Life

I've visited a few villages in the Chinese countryside, but I still can't get over how hard the life is. Recently, I spent the night in the Tibetan village of Yisong, arranged by my guesthousein Shangri-la, and saw how firsthand how much work the villagers put into a day. This part of Yunnan is near the Tibetan border, but it's much easier to interact with the villagers here, partly because it's not in Tibet, and partly because there's not as strong support for the Dalai Lama here—the house I stayed in, in fact, had several portraits of Mao. (One long-term expat I spoke to—who's certainly not a Communist Party-apologist—explained that a lot of people admire Mao because previously they were living under feudal landlords.)

I spent most of the time talking to the mother, who was 30-something and did much of the cooking and work around the house. Her 9-year-old daughter was home from her residential school in a nearby village for the weekend (and, as it turned out, for two weeks, because all of the schools were closed due to H1N1 fears. Her older sister was quarantined in her school because of a case there.) The younger daughter was full of energy, tossing a small basketball around the house and surfing down a nearby hill on a beam of wood. She's supposed to be learning Mandarin in school—and she seems to speak and read OK—but it's a little difficult because the teacher only speaks the local Tibetan dialect. The other family members can speak Mandarin more or less, but can't read characters.

The grandmother, in her 60s, still lugged jugs of water on her back and climbed the ladder-like front stairs. Her husband, who had some health problems, watched Chinese patriotic TV dramas and asked if I'd seen the National Day parade in Beijing (He and I watched the same TV broadcast).

The 30-something husband was out working, as were all the men in the village, since the government gave them money to improve the road running through town. He's from a nearby village, and they were an arranged marriage (the custom there), his wife told me.

The women wear head coverings, preferring hot pink, as well as keeping their arms and legs covered. Younger girls, like the 9-year-old daughter, aren't as used to the traditional outfits, and have found an interesting compromise—the daughter was wearing a hot pink baseball cap, while another girl wore a pink visor.

Very little grows this far up in the mountains, but they have potatoes and some other vegetables, including some sort of root vegetable they dry for the winter. The family had pigs and pian niu (a new animal I discovered—a cross between a cow and a yak). A couple of months a year, they go hunting in the mountains for the area's wild mushrooms—something that earns them a couple hundred RMB a month.

The temperature drops to 15 degrees below freezing in the winter—there's even ice in the house. They're building a warmer side room for the coldest part of the year, but it's still a cold season with heat just coming from a central stove. There's no running water in the house, but they do have electricity and a few modern conveniences, including a TV, cellphones, and a blender. The ornately carved wooden furniture was made by a craftsman in town, while the husband painted the Buddhist images in the entryway and front room.

The whole family gathered around the fire for dinner—yak hot pot with egg, noodles, potatoes, and a green leaf vegetable that grows in the mountains. There was also bread, salty yak butter tea, and rich yak cheese. The husband offered us a taste of qing ke jiu, liquor made from fermented barley that came in a plastic jug.

If you're going: The Harmony Guesthouse in Shangri-la offers overnight stays for 200 RMB a person. Other places charge up to 800 RMB, and I can't imagine too much of that is going to the families.