My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 6/8

October 9, 2011

A Cautionary Tale for Expats in China -  a Guest Post by Lionel Carver

During roll call, inmates are required to line up their stools in the hall and sit on them in orderly fashion. When your number is called, you stand and then sit back down.

One day, an inmate argued with a guard, and I have no idea what it was about.

However, the next day during roll call, the officer called that prisoner’s number, made him stand up, then sit down, then up again, and did this repeatedly for some time.

After roll call, we either had morning exercise or just stared into space.  Morning was also used by the warden to question new inmates about their cases.


The Truth behind Deaths in U.S. Immigration Jails and Prisons

Lunch arrives at noon and sometimes we were escorted out into a big sitting room to eat while listening to jazz music or watching a movie.

Once, they put on a pirated DVD of “Apocalypto” just for me, but I was subsequently charged 5 RMB for that viewing pleasure.

After dinner is bath time and those that want to clean their clothes washed and hung their stuff to dry on their bunks.

The rest of the night was spent watching Chinese television or socializing until bedtime.

Air conditioning did not exist.

Instead, there were two ceiling fans, and during the day if it was too hot and stuffy, the two helpers brought giant blocks of ice, which we put in wash basins in the middle of the room to help cool the air.

Continued on October 10, 2011 in My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 7 or return to Part 5.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 5/8

October 8, 2011

A Cautionary Tale for Expats in China – a Guest Post by Lionel Carver

During the first three days in jail, all inmates are required to skip naptime after lunch.

This may not seem like much of a punishment until you realize that every day starts at 6 am and ends after 9 pm.  Most of the time, I felt exhausted, not from any physical exertion but from extreme boredom.


Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s chain gangs, tent prison and no television for prisoners – in the U.S.A.

In prison, sleeping or dreaming is an inmate’s only salvation, and I dreamed about many things that week

For example, I dreamed about a cute Chinese girl I’d once met in Nanjing. I even began having delusional fantasies that I was in the video game Final Fantasy having sword fights.

Each day begins with an officer on the intercom yelling something in Chinese (I’m guessing it means, “Get up!”).

The first thing we did was make our beds. Inmates need to fold their bed sheet everyday, like in a military boot camp, and it must be folded correctly.  The supervisor comes in each morning after roll call to inspect the rooms.

Then somebody empties the trash by throwing it through the bars of the door.  Two inmates out in the halls do the task of collecting garbage.  In fact, those same two guys did all the tasks for the jail house (garbage, deliver food, water, etc), which is kind of gross when you think about it.

Next, came the hot water (in a giant metal barrel with a tap). Soon after that, the helpers bring the breakfast cart.


U.S. unemployment, poverty and then atrocities in the prison systems

Prison meals always consisted of rice and vegetable soup with the exception of breakfast, which was some kind of orange-colored root.  No meat!  But since I was a foreign guest, I was allowed to also request a Chinese steamed bun.

Although the food was tolerable, it produced torrents of gas. Imagine being trapped in a cell with nine Chinese men ripping farts all day. That is the true definition of torture.

Continued on October 9, 2011 in My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 6 or return to Part 4.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 4/8

October 7, 2011

A Cautionary Tale for Expats in China – a Guest Post by Lionel Carver

Apparently, however, homosexual encounters do happen in a Chinese prison (as they do in U.S. prisions too).

One night I crawled up into my top bunk preparing for bed.  I tried to fall asleep but the other inmates were still shuffling around and talking; one young man lit up a rolled piece of newspaper and began smoking it in lieu of actual tobacco.

Eventually everyone turned in for the night in spite of the fact that the lights stay on all night—I have learned that the Chinese can sleep through anything.

I thought I was the only person still awake when I heard one guy whispering to another.

Five minutes later, my metal-frame bunk bed began rocking back and forth.  At first, I thought my bunk mate below was just getting up to take a leak, but the rocking never stopped.

Moaning and slapping noises ensued.


- rape inside American prisons -

Daring to peek over the edge of my bunk, I saw one guy atop another.  When the top man had finished, he slid off and another inmate came over and climbed on top of the same bottom man (seems risky with that close-circuit camera watching what goes on inside the jail cell).

I didn’t know if I was witnessing a rape or if this threesome was consensual, and I was glad I wasn’t going to be in Chinese prison much longer to find out.

Overall, life in a Chinese prison is very boring.  We never left our cells, and going outside was not allowed.

There are no sports.

We did exercise but to a short training video on the cell’s TV where we start off marching, swing our arms around, then touch our toes, and then perform jumping jacks.

There was no library, so books were very hard to come by; I was lucky to find an English book, one of those woman’s romance novels with a long-haired beefcake on the cover , which isn’t the kind of reading you want in a men’s prison.

Continued on October 8, 2011 in My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 5 or return to Part 3.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 2/8

October 5, 2011

A Cautionary Tale for Expats in China – a Guest Post by Lionel Carver

I fled to Baoshan district in northern Shanghai, and with the last of my savings acquired a cheap apartment, where I lived quite frugally (no TV, internet, bed, etc).

I washed my clothes by hand and used a single naked light bulb for illumination.  Anyone who thought that westerners in China have it made should have seen me sleeping on the bare floor.

Inevitably, the police once again came knocking at my door to do the registration thing.  This time I didn’t answer, but, as I learned later, one of the officers waiting outside spotted me hiding on my balcony.

They tried both the landlord and real estate agent to contact me, and I replied with a text message that I had lost my passport at a friend’s party.

This bought me some extra time.

A western acquaintance I met in Shanghai advised me to get another foreigner to stay in my apartment and flash their passport when the police came calling again. I asked if he would be willing, but he was smart enough to avoid his own advice.


How the United States and Canada treated Chinese Immigrants

When the cops showed up again, I was in the shower and didn’t hear them at my door.  I prepared to go to Krispy Kreme, my daily indulgence (I’m not the fittest foreigner in China), which also allowed me to use their free wifi, another penny saver I learned from being broke abroad (a donut is cheaper than the internet).

When I exited my apartment building, I noticed two fellows wearing police uniforms.

I thought I could evade them if they didn’t speak English, but that strategy failed when they began chatting with me in my own mother tongue.

“Let’s go for ride,” the officer said, with what I interpreted as an ominous smile.

“Um, to where?” I asked.

“Police station, of course.”

I swallowed and thought up the first excuse I could. “My passport is still at my friend’s house, so I can’t register yet.”

“That’s okay, you still come.”

Continued on October 6, 2011 in My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 3 or return to Part 1.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 1/8

October 4, 2011

A Cautionary Tale for Expats in China – a Guest Post by Lionel Carver

Even though jailhouse stories have become the stuff of cliché in Hollywood films, I figured somebody somewhere would want to know about my time in a Chinese prison.

Like many foreigners in China, I arrived in Shanghai in search of the “Jade Dream”.

Unfortunately, finding work that did NOT involve teaching English was not as easy as I had hoped.

I had met many people in Shanghai – locals and foreigners – with startup businesses, and so I, too, thought it would be great to jump on board a venture to capitalize on China’s growing economy.

The first company I signed up with, a small real estate startup, seemed like a good opportunity because Chinese real estate prices were soaring.


The cost of illegal immigration in the United States.

Unfortunately, they never actually paid me a steady wage.  They also led me on with false promises of the coveted “Z” Work Visa.  These two withholdings were a double-edged sword because it prevented me from earning enough money to renew my visa let alone stay in or get out of the country.

Eventually my 3-month tourist visa expired. I thought I would be okay as long as I laid low—but I was wrong. There are eyes everywhere in China, especially on foreigners.

It was in Huaqiaozhen, a suburb of Shanghai, that everything began to unravel. I had just signed a lease for a cheap shared apartment, but, strangely, the landlord never came to collect the rent or sign the contract.

One Saturday morning I awoke to a knock at my door.  I answered, thinking it would be the landlord, only to come face to face with a PSB (Public Security Bureau) officer checking identifications for registration.

Luckily he didn’t speak English, so I phoned up a trusted friend to tell the officer I would register the next morning.  I spent the rest of the day packing my stuff and moving out.

Continued on October 5, 2011 in My Experience as an Inmate in a Chinese Jail – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Chinese Tour Groups: Blight? Or Smart Traveling? (Viewed as Single Page)

September 13, 2011

This guest post by Tom Carter first appeared June 13, 2010 as a five part series starting with Chinese Tour Groups: Blight? Or Smart Traveling? – Part 1

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“What could possibly compel them to do something so … wrong?”

This was the question posed by a group of expats sitting around a youth hostel in scenic Huangshan Mountain, China’s beloved mountain range in Anhui Province, discussing the legions of tourists who had disrupted their 72-peak excursion.

As the foreign travelers retell it, what was supposed to have been a heavenly respite turned into an out-and-out circus replete with megaphones, flags and the congestion of untold numbers of tourists with the inopportune desire to see the same thing at the same time.

“We could barely walk up the narrow steps because there were too many tour groups, we couldn’t see the view past their florescent hats and we couldn’t even hear the birds because of all the noise,” complained the foreign travelers.

Crowded scenes are commonplace in China, where 1.3 billion people must contend with both limited time and space during the country’s few and far between national holidays.

But where Western travelers, not unlike their world-exploring forefathers, pride themselves on independence, requiring little more than a backpack and a point in the right direction to circumnavigate exotic new countries, the historically communal Chinese tend to have quite a different perspective on travel.

“We like to go where everybody goes,” said one Chinese tourist when prompted to explain the disorder of collective travel. “If there are no crowds, it means it’s not a good place to visit.”

Note from iLook China Blog host: Click here for Chinese holidays in the People’s Republic of China for 2010, which is the best time “NOT” to travel in China as a foreign tourist unless you love crowds and organized tours.


An alternative explanation of the chaos that orbits China’s favorite attractions is the government’s authoritative instruction of where and when the populace may travel, preferring brief, intensive bursts during the national holidays rather than a steady flow.

This quarterly policy may make for impressive economic reports (though Xinhua News Agency reports a growing disfavor with the eight-year-old Golden Week holiday system), but it creates a havoc that is all of dissuading foreigners from extensive travel in China.

Indeed, every summer scores of Western backpackers are stranded in Shaanxi’s provincial capital city of Xi’an, home of terracotta warriors, waiting indefinitely for train tickets back to Beijing, often resulting in missed return flights home. The blame for this calamity lies with the tour group companies themselves, who purchase large blocks of tickets (often in advance through personal connection with train station officials), leaving nary a hard seat available for the independent traveler.

And what of the more noticeable effects of those traveling en masse to China’s wonderland attractions?

Jiuzhaigou National Park in Sichuan is a site not to be missed, where emerald lakes reflecting a vertical alpine forest blazing in the autumn with crimson and gold make this protected region the country’s premier travel destination.

Unfortunately, what visitors will dauntingly meet with at the park’s entrance is a concert of tour buses piercing the surroundings with deafening blasts of their horns and vomiting black exhaust (contributing to Jiuzhaigou’s own environmental downfall), while streams of red and yellow hat-wearing, litter-tossing tourists noisily follow a flag-waving guide shouting instructions into a loudspeaker.

When pressed for an elucidation of the social and ecological consequences of collective traveling, a local tour operator rejoins fiscally, “I provide guaranteed transportation, accommodations and discounted entrance tickets, all in one package. Without tour group companies like mine, traveling in China would be impossible!”

To the foreign observer, such logic is the bane of China’s heritage, with intrusive tour groups appreciating neither the splendor nor history of the site but rather in a seeming rush to take a snapshot in front of a character-engraved stone before dashing back on their buses to the next site.

But for the Chinese, the constipation and the urgency are indicative of a culture categorically limited in both time and space, where itinerary replaces independence and processed convenience is preferred over pleasure.

“The national holidays are my only chance to spend with my family and see my country,” exclaims a Chinese businessman from Beijing on his way to the Yunnan old town of Lijiang, China’s third most popular holiday destination. “With a tour group, I don’t have to plan, I don’t have to worry, I don’t have to think.”

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Travel photographer Tom Carter is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People, a 600-page book of photography from the 33 provinces of China, which may be found on Amazon.com.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Snowboarding In China

August 27, 2011

I haven’t gone skiing for more than a decade, and I probably should buy new boots and skis if I ski again, since my old pair of parabolic skis have been gathering dust in the garage far too long. I question if my aging legs will hold up.

Back in my powder days, I often skied two of Southern California’s more popular ski resorts, along with Mammoth Mountain in central California, in addition to Mount Bachelor and Mount Hood (both active volcanoes) in Oregon, and have had my share of days and nights skiing in blizzards far below zero.

I have never snowboarded but former students tell me it is easier than skiing. Maybe one day I will find out and I might do that in China.

Sexy Beijing’s reporter Rachel Dupuy went to Nanshan to see what was up in China’s newly forming snowboarding scene. What we discover from Beijing Beat: Riding China (the embedded video) is Beijing’s Nanshan ski area the winter of 2008 with a snowboarding competition that included $25,000 in prizes.

It appears that along with fast food such as McDonalds and Pizza Hut, China is adopting Western sports. In Tiger Woods smiles big while golfing in China, I wrote about China’s growing number of golf courses and mentioned Chinese golfers numbering more than 100,000 and taking to the sport with enthusiasm.

As for snowboarding and skiing, Fresh Peaks.com says, “Prices in China are still reasonably cheap…”  However, “the decent ski resorts in China can be tricky to get to… If you say you want to go skiing or snowboarding in China, you have to really mean it.

“Getting to China’s largest ski resort (Yabuli) in Heilongjiang Province, for example, involves a 90-minute internal flight from Beijing, a two and a half hour train ride and a bus transfer.”

Board the World.com reports skiing in China is a relatively new activity; its first ski resort opened its doors to the public in 1996. Since then the industry has been rapidly growing, especially recently due to China’s new economic prosperity. New ski areas are opening up all the time and … sees a 30% increase in customers each year.”

If you are a dedicated “powder monkey”, for more information about skiing in China, I suggest clicking Fresh Peaks and Board the World.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

24 Hours in Qiannianyaozhai (Viewed as a Single Page)

August 19, 2011

This Guest Post by Tom Carter originally ran as a three-part series starting May 24, 2010.

Eclipsed by the neon blaze of Guangzhou and lost in the limestone peaks of northern Guangdong is 1,000 year-old Qiannianyaozhai, the oldest Yao minority village in China.

Over 7,000 Yao people once occupied the mountain community; however poverty and generational differences have dramatically thinned the ethnic population, leaving Qiannianyaozhai in its present perfectly preserved state.

6am: Rise and shine in Liannan County for a long day of exploring bucolic North Guangdong. Unlike steel-and-glass PRD, the north is a poem-inspiring swath of farmland and karst summits.

7am: Ask several locals for directions, but either their regional dialect is unintelligible or they each point in a different direction. These are the joys of traveling in rural China.

8am: Well-informed bengbeng taxi takes us twenty kilometers southwest up a lush mountainside to “Nangang Thousand Year Yao Zu Village.” Crowning the 800-meter crest we behold our destination: the mystical Qiannianyaozhai.

12am: Spend several hours wandering this living museum. The only sounds to be heard are the whispering wind and an occasional farmer’s hoe against soil. Clustering against the amphitheater-like gradient are approximately 400 stone-and-slate homes, standing majestic and unscathed since their Song Dynasty construction.

1pm: Qiannianyaozhai is reportedly the largest Yao village in China, but with less than 200 current residents we veritably have the entire 159-mu grounds to ourselves. Tilling the terraces are barefooted, red-turbaned Yao farmers, regally draped in dark blue robes and scarlet sashes, ancestors of an ancient agrarian society and the last generation.

2pm: Invited for tea in the home of the yaowang village chief of the Pai Yao clan. The simple dwelling is warmed by a wood-burning stove and accentuated with hand-wrought farming tools, whicker baskets and other antediluvian household goods. No modern appliances in site. While Mother mends clothing, Granddaughter chats with us. She must walk four hours every day to attend primary school at the bottom of the mountain.

4pm: Capitalize on the clean air with a long stroll back down the mountain, peeking into other nearby villages and stopping to chat with locals. Everyone is so unbelievably kind it’s a bit shocking; definitely no relation to the Cantonese.

5pm: Spot a woman with a satchel that glows like a rainbow – the Pai Yao’s signature accessory. Females will spend up to three months hand-embroidering their own bags, each with a unique, blindingly-bright design. I attempt a purchase, but she drives a hard bargain. Apparently, some retail high-rollers have already passed through here and set the standard, which is too much for my backpacker budget.

7pm: Dinner at a riverfront restaurant for fresh caoyu grass carp and locally-grown greens, then retire to our luguan boardinghouse for some much-needed sleep.

12am: Awoken by a riotous KTV parlor next door, Mandopop blaring from a pink-glowing room full of high-heeled, mini-skirted xiaojie. I guess no matter how far you stray from the big city, in China some things just don’t change.

Getting there and away: Qiannianyaozhai is well off the beaten path. From Guangzhou City bus terminal, catch the ___am bus to Liannan County, ___ hours, ____ RMB. From Liannan, best to hire a taxi directly to Qiannianyaozhai, 20 RMB (at the time), 30 minutes.

Tickets into Qiannianyaozhai were 30 RMB per person when I was there and contribute to the preservation of this rapidly-vanishing minority culture.

Liannan’s main, and only, drag is comprised of several guesthouses (20 RMB per bed) and one three-star hotel (100 RMB). Xiaojie cost extra.

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Discover Tom Carter’s Guest post On Crime in China. Photojournalist Tom Carter traveled for 2 years across the 33 provinces of China to show the diversity of Chinese people in CHINA: Portrait of a People, the most comprehensive photography book on modern China ever published by a single author.

To subscribe to “Crazy Normal”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

On Crime in China – (Viewed as Single Page)

August 2, 2011

This guest post and first-hand expose by Tom Carter first appeared on May 1, 2010 as On Crime in China – Part 1 (a five part series).

Perhaps the single most reassuring fact about travel in the People’s Republic of China is its remarkably low crime rate.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the principal authority of domestic criminal procedures, regularly reports a year-on-year decline in violent crime, while common property infringement incidents such as theft, fraud and robbery, which account for no more than 80 percent of all cases, rise annual by as little as 1
percent.

Cosmopolitan cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, which annually attract tens of millions of overseas visitors on business or holiday, applaud themselves for providing public order and relatively safe-city streets where one can walk at just about any hour in relative safety.

But all is not necessarily quiet on the home front.

In an uncharacteristically candid public admission, the MPS once reported a pandemic of illicit drug trafficking in China led by an increasing number of foreign crime syndicates, reportedly from the African regimes of Nigeria and Liberia and triads from neighboring Asian countries.

Moreover, violent crime on the southern shore is notoriously rampant in Guangdong, making it the only province in China‘s mainland to arm police with guns.

Nor is this to say that Westerners are entirely exempt from either being the victim of, or committing, more serious crimes.

I found myself in several situations while traveling extensively throughout China. I fondly remember the street gang that confronted me in a darkened alley in Inner Mongolia, or facing off with a pickpocket in a crowded Qianmen hutong in Beijing with a baying crowd of onlookers taking great delight in watching a 196cm waiguoren vigilante.

Then there was that time in Chongqing. Not exactly heralded as a top tourist destination, the interior municipality of Chongqing, located on the rusty banks of the Yangtze River, uncannily resembles a lawless early-century port-of-call of maritime merchants, hardened dock laborers and waterfront brothels.

An overnight stay in a small hotel on the outskirts of China’s largest, and hottest, city, turned into a midnight brawl after a polite request on my part to ask three obviously drunk men loitering in the hallway to settle down, was met with a hostile response.

A push on their part led to a not gentle shove on mine, sending one of the men flying back into his two friends.

The next few moments were a feral blur, and for a short time, I laudably held my own. But six bare fists can infallibly do more damage than two can.

The tough guys retreated into the night, leaving me breathless and battered.

The police arrived thereafter and took me to the Public Security Bureau to get a statement.

It was determined that the hotel security guards failed to serve their purpose, and it was also found that the hotel did not follow strict municipal protocol in copying the three perpetrators’ identification cards before accommodating them, which would have assisted the police in their investigation.

This meant that it was my right under Chinese law to demand an immediate financial settlement from the hotel proprietor—for my troubles, you see—though it hardly made up for the bang-up job those inebriated gentlemen did on me.

To be sure, the aforementioned incident is an isolated one, with a great majority of expatriates being lucky, or not, to see so much action during their stay in China (“I was overcharged!” seems to be the leading complaint).

With only one police officer for every thousand residents in a population of 1.3 billion, and more than 40 percent of mainland precincts having fewer than five officers, compounded with a general lack of funding, resources or state-of-the-art technology, China’s police ought to be commended for maintaining an impressively low national crime rate.

Let there be no mistake: Xinhua News Agency has reported that total criminal prosecutions in China increased by more than 10 percent in 2009, and public security cases increased by about 20 percent.

However, compared to hyper-violent icons of the Wild West such as Los Angeles and New York, it is no wonder that China is witnessing an increasing number of foreigners residing in its gleaming municipalities.

China remains one of the statistically safest countries to visit, and the rest of the world would do well to take notice.

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Travel photographer Tom Carter is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People, a 600-page book of photography from the 33 provinces of China, available on Amazon.com!

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

3 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese police, crime, cultural differences, expatriates, government, legal system, tourism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The China Backpacker Diaries (Viewed as Single Page)

July 16, 2011

Tom Carter, photojournalist and author

This guest post by Tom Carter first appeared as an eight part series on April 8, 2010 with The China Backpacker Diaries – Part 1

 

 

As a veteran backpacker of both hemispheres, who has traveled extensively throughout all 33 provinces of the People’s Republic of China, this writer has come to depend heavily on hostels. Without them I could not financially (or emotionally) last the months and years I’m expected to be on the road. As such, I’ve brooded on the etymology of the word.

Hostel: a term that has become synonymous with world travel. From the Medieval Latin hospitium, it has been co-opted by over 80 different countries, beginning in 1912 Germany whence originated the idea of the modern youth hostel. Yet in spite of its global popularity, hostelling has continued to remain a relatively underground experience.

Budget backpackers, considered at once hipsters and hobos, rely on hostels for their comparatively affordable accommodations. But youth hostels are also a retreat from the road; a refugee camp for foreigners journeying abroad.

China might have opened its doors to westerners, but we are still strongly urged by the national tourism bureau to check in to pricey hotels while economical boardinghouses, luguan, are for locals only.

Hot destinations, however, like Beijing, Yangshuo and Dali are renowned for their selection of lively hostels. I’ve been to them all, and I’ve seen it all (there ought to be a reality TV series called ‘Backpackers Behaving Badly). There is one hostel I shall especially never forget, where the vibe was so deliciously laid back that my intended two-day stopover turned into seven.

DAY 1: Arrive 8pm in Chengdu, Sichuan’s sweltering capital city, and check into the ‘Stir-Fry’ hostel. The attractive Chinese front-desk staff in short shorts confirms what I’ve heard about Sichuan girls. Get a bed in a 6-bunk dorm and immediately crash out. Woken at 2am by five inebriated Australians returning from a disco vociferously complaining that Chinese girls spend all day playing online dancing games at internet cafés, but at a nightclub they just stand against the wall.

DAY 2: Browse the three-story hostel’s Chinese premises, drying laundry whipping in the wind like the flag of the backpacker. Take a stroll around Chengdu then return to find my previous bunkmates replaced by a guy named Pickle from Hawaii who road a motorbike across Sichuan.

Pickle’s first words to me are “Mind if I smoke a bowl?” At 5 am, a drunk Dutch girl falls into her bunk and passes out in nothing but her g-string. The next morning she tells us “I dreenk haalf day un sleep other haalf. I need to sleep less so I caan dreenk more.”

I would be stupid not to stay another day.

DAY 3: New guy in our room, a University of Oregon grad named Sven (who looks nothing like a Sven). Pickle wakes up at 2 pm and suggests our little American clique have lunch at a Tex-Mex restaurant across town. I feel guilty not eating Sichuan hot pot like I’m supposed to, but my conscience is quickly lost in a world of melted cheese and refried beans.

Nighttime at the Stir-Fry is hopping, the Chinese open-air courtyard crowded with people from every country imaginable sitting around drinking and chatting, their accented conversations invariably beginning with “Where are you from?” followed by “Where are you going?” Happy laughter is a constant. Our world leaders would do well to study life in a hostel.

A British bloke wearing a polo shirt with an upturned collar alternates between hitting on the Chinese front-desk girls (now uniformly wearing size-too-small summer skirts) and asking everyone “Are you going out tonight?”

Me, Pickle and Sven opt for watching the Eli Roth’s blood-and-breasts fest “Hostel” on the lounge DVD player. It’s almost like the Stir-Fry … except everyone gets killed.

DAY 4: Said British bloke, his collar now only half-upturned, is passed out drunk on the lobby couch till late afternoon. He was supposed to have caught an early-morning flight back to the UK, the Chinese receptionist tells us, but they couldn’t wake him.

Evening at the Stir-Fry once again turns out to be quite the social scene. A French guy with tribal tattoos and a Vanilla Ice haircut queues up a jungle drum & bass mix on the lobby sound system and everyone at once stops what they are doing to dance and bob their heads, like a scene out of some musical.

A blonde girl with a nose ring unabashedly drinking backwash out of beer bottles littered around the courtyard convinces Pickle to go with her to a local café named the Pot Palace. I shouldn’t be surprised that such an establishment exists in a province where weed grows wild as a weed.

Pickle returns at 4 am floating. The last he saw of the drunk nose-ring girl, she was fighting with a Chinese taxi driver before running out of the cab without paying.

Day 5: It’s too humid outside, so I beeline to the air-conditioned lounge, where we watch seven pirated DVDs (technically only four because they kept skipping). During this time we visit Africa, various regions of Europe, Los Angeles and prison; it’s almost like traveling! An Italian girl comments, “I shoulda be outsidea meeting Chinesea people anda doinga Chinesea things,” but then settles back in the sofa when the next movie begins.

At night. I chat with a pair of Israeli girls who confide, “We come China to experience culture, but here have too many Israeli backpacker; we can’t escape ourselves!” And meet a young American beatnik double fisting bottles of Snow and Tsingtao (“Dude, they’re both, like, water!”) trying to round up a group to go to the Pot Palace.


It dawns on me that while all these kids are literally blazing through the world looking for a good time, I’ve somehow remained the consummate professional. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I’m ten years older than the average backpacker.

At midnight Sven comes in jovially exclaiming that he found the local pink-light district up by the train station. I’ve wondered where he’s been disappearing too lately.

Day 6: Tex-Mex again for lunch (fifth day in a row!), followed by the Japanese classic ‘Battle Royal.’ A German guy who hasn’t left the DVD room in ten days says that the lazy hostel life is sucking him in. I realize myself that as I still have 12 more provinces to go, I need to either get back on the road or establish permanent residence at the Stir-Fry. It’s a hard choice, but I ultimately opt for the former.

Pickle is having his own dilemma. He had been trying to sell his motorcycle, but the local buyers he lined up cut their offer in half at the last minute. “I’ll be damned if I give in to those thieving b*st*rds. I’d rather drive my bike into the Chengdu River!” he shouts as he revs off down the street.


I don’t know if he’s serious, but we never see the motorbike again. At 11 pm, I watch a baijiu drinking game between one of the Chinese front-desk girls and two Brits who have been living at the Stir-Fry for half a year while working as English teachers.

Day 7: I blearily wake up at 6 am for the first time in a week and go downstairs to check out.

No receptionist to be found. I look around and find the three multinational baijiu drinkers from the night before on the hallway floor. I shake them awake-one Brit crawls off to puke while I turn in my key.

Stepping out of the Stir-Fry for the last time, I look back to see the still-drunk front-desk girl and the other English lad checking doorknobs for an empty room, then stumble in arm in arm. Manchester – Goooooaaaaal!

Note from this Blog’s host: As I finish posting this guest piece from Tom Carter, I think about my daughter’s public school teachers (in California during her junior and senior year in high school), who said the Chinese must be depressed because of their oppressive government.

Then I remember what Peter Hessler, who’s lived in China fifteen years, said about China, “At this particular moment, I think that Americans… might be less happy than Chinese people.”

_______________________

Travel photographer Tom Carter is the author of CHINA: Portrait of a People, a 600-page China photograph book available on Amazon. Help support Tom’s travels by ordering your copy today!

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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