SOUTH CHINA: CELEBRATING THE COMMONPLACE by David

[Google/Blogger, is blocked in China so this blog has been loaded by Ros & Hamish. We are not able to view it. No photos are possible at present.]

And so our journey continues, now moving through southern China. We were disappointed that roadworks and rain prevented our entry into long anticipated Tiger Leaping Gorge, with only the north end being able to be reached. Them’s the breaks. Dali, Lijang and Kunming have come and gone and now we head towards Kali, and then X’ian with its ancient Silk Road history.

Two thing are very obvious from our viewpoint from the road and footpath. Firstly China remains a land of agriculture, on a micro scale, at an individual farm level, compared with home. Rice is harvested by hand scythe, and laid out in neatly tied bundles to dry in the sun. Only once have we seen a small machine assisting the harvesting. The small neatly bordered fields of rice and other crops are tilled by hand, and tended with care by what appears hoards of people (well, a dozen at a time, perhaps), hoeing and weeding and even watering by buckets, suspended from the ends of a slender carved staff carried over the shoulders. Mainly men and boys, still follow and tend individual animals and small flocks or herds as they graze by the roadside. I am reminded of Biblical times…

The other thing that is obvious to us is the equal or even dominant role that women take in physical work. On our drive to Kunming, we have seen an all woman crew backfilling a large rectangular hole in the bitumen of a freeway, small groups of women in Lijang carrying away on their backs, woven baskets full of demolition materials from a building site, and in the western outskirts of Kunming (where our budget hotel is located), we watched a woman alongside men, loading the bucket of a front end loader with heavy pieces of demolished concrete. Everywhere in rural areas we have seen women caring for crops, often in greater numbers than men. Women sweep the roads (!) here on an everyday basis. Men also but mainly women toil by the roadside reserves, planting flowers and trees in narrow median strips, with little protection from the traffic hurtling past. China seems, perhaps because of its history, to be more than egalitarian in the division of physical labour between men and women.

Physical labour itself, in China, has a very real role in daily life everywhere we have recently travelled. From women cleaning the roads and footpaths using a long brush sweep, undoubtedly made by hand, to the riders of the numerous pedal powered tricycles delivering goods and passengers or collecting roadside rubbish, to the farm and building labourers mentioned above, hard and to us wearisome human effort is to the fore. Paralleling human labour is that of animals: oxen or ponies pulling farm carts, ponies pulling rubber tired taxis in cities and pony pack “horses“ carrying anything from bricks to timber poles, all can be seen in a single day in areas we’ve driven in recently. These observations are of everyday events, not delivered especially for tourists.

To our eyes and ears there is also much irony in everyday Chinese life which undoubtedly goes unnoticed by the locals. Nearby from our restaurant’s sealed and wrapped crockery provided now with most meals, and the face masks still worn on the footpaths in surprising numbers, raw slabs of beef are hung in the street, or cuts of beef and pork as well as pigs trotters are laid out on tables in an open air market to be handled and turned over by potential customers. A few metres away I see a squawking hen casually have its throat cut and blood drained, presumably to be soon plucked and chopped up for sale nearby. Ducks, by the dozens, neatly plucked, hang by their extended necks adjacent to a dusty section of local road. On our public bus men loudly hawk and spit with alacrity. While other people take absolutely no notice I carefully look at the bus floor to see where the ‘product’ goes. On the same bus I thank a woman in Chinese (using precisely 50% of my limited Chinese vocabulary!) who has read our guide’s instructions (why am I amazed to see Michelle quickly write out these instructions in Chinese characters?) and helped us navigate our way to the ‘downtown’ area of Kunming, only to have my thanks acknowledged in English! On the same bus the next stop is announced in Chinese and English (on screen and by loud speaker), while a portion of an Italian opera (La Traviata?) is played in Italian from another speaker on the bus. The Italian is just audible above the road and engine noise of the bus. And so it goes, including an amusing incident which must be left until we travel on.

The everyday is not everyday to us. The commonplace is occasionally far removed from our previous experience. While no individual day is usually exceptional, the daily unfolding of places and people and events continues to make our journey extraordinary, in the midst of the very ordinary.