In the Christmas of 2009, I was invited to a Christmas party. This is where I met my good friends Steve Madden and Chen Ya Qin. It turned out that Chen Ya Qin lived close by and to our delight we became best of friends.
Steve and me enjoying a motorbike rally at Gaochun
I really can't thank Chen Ya Qin enough for her company throughout 2010, the loan of her bicycle, the food she has cooked for me and for taking care of my things. Not least for inviting me and Steve along with the Big Foot tour company to visit towns within two to three hours of Nanjing.
On our first visit to Gaochun - for the Oil Seed Rape Festival, Steve and me enjoyed a photo session on some Chinese made Russian motorcycles - and yes Steve did actually ride it around the car park!
I was a bit dubious when she said; "we will go to Gaochun - see rape." but we had a nice time and not a violated woman in sight!
A small child playing a big part of the show - to the enjoyment of onlookers
Luckily for us our trip happened to fall on one of the first warm days of the year. After the display we moved on to the town itself. The modern part looked very much the same as an English town - the shops
and the street layout. However Gaochun has a very special secret - known as lao jie (Old street). I couldn't be sure of how old it was but it was exactly the kind of street I imagined from my book about a missionary named Gladys Ayleward.
"The old lady was found in the courtyard in the morning, having got up in the middle of the night, walked across the ancient floorboards and plumeted streight to the ground sustaining injuries that became the death of her."
Gaochun - Lao Jie (Old Street) a street frozen in time
After the second half of our day, we explored a temple and a canal and we were ready to come home. Not without taking a few last pictures of eachother before we went. It was here where I told my favourite picture of Chen Ya Chin.
Your article is interesting, and additionally I find the multi-fonted, multi-colored pull-quotes excessively obnoxious; but I hastily assume it must be part of the Blog's software package.
The photograph of you in the motorbike's side car looks hillarious, and it is this kind of photographs that one wishes to have experienced the caper oneself.
The "Oil Seed Rape Festival" is a new one for me. Perhaps next year they will celebrate the "Slightly Chipped Children's Desk Festival" or the "Hand-Luggage Manufacturer's Day." I would be the first to buy tickets for that event ( I would consider buying fresh camera batteries, too ).
But your report illuminates the fact that you have great friends and have had a good time in China, and all this is on the up and up.
I am very familiar with Jiangsu Province. The tour packages offered by our local Council of Tourism Affairs office include shirt factories, the local river-sludge removal crane manufacturers and the grand tour toothbrush factories (of which they are very proud), and tours of the new three-floor supermarket.
The supermarket tour however is not so popular because local legend has it that it has only one cluless cashier. I have not investigated the merits of this local legend, but I suspect it to be true. Some say the legened began the day the supermarket opened. Some say that the cashire cannot count to 12, but all this, is, of course legend.
But legends aside, one can dilly-dally along the Jiangsu river's edge and see the fishermen with their beautiful large birds catch fish.
This is interesting for the local fishermen get these big birds with elongated necks, throw them in the water and watch them catch the fish. But the fisherman have a noose around the birds neck, and when the bird is pulled onto the boat, the fisherman pulls on the noose and the bird vomits-up the fish untouched.
The fisherman has a gaggle of these giant birds (they stand as tall as a small man) and catches many fish. It is a pity they do not consider this a tourist attraction.
Your Blog report sounds fun as your pictures attest. Thanks for the interesting report Mr. Stuart, and maybe we will see each other at the "Worn-Out Computer Keyboard Festival" next June.
Posted by: Sally | 09/27/2010 at 01:17 AM
Yeah don't hastily assume that! actually I chose the colour scheme and whats more - I love it! Sorry you don't share my viewpoint - I was trying to be arty. Black and white alright for you, Sir?
Yeah the sidecar was definitely a highlight, I can't believe so many people would want to take pictures of us. Seeing us there seemed like an event in itself for some of the onlookers.
I know what you mean about the birds. Its the one time that those birds meet something more greedy and lazy than what they are themselves. Evolutionary justice. Actually they were the subject of an HSBC "local knowledge" advertisement campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLkCcKZEaYo
Guilin, China apparently if you can get you tube up at all.
Posted by: Administrator | 09/29/2010 at 11:50 PM