I did receive one Christmas card. I have a friend who works in the provincial trade department, and she said (the day before Christmas) that she would send me a card. So it was to my sheer delight, a week after Christmas, that I received yuletide greetings from both the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shaanxi Sub-Council and the China Chamber of International Commerce Shaanxi Chamber of Commerce. The spirit of Christmas lives on after all.
For New Year, national law requires companies over a certain size to give a small gift to their employees. Normally it's in the form of vouchers. But this year the boss' wife, who is in charge of the money, had a brainwave whereby she could save a few kuai. And so it was that each of us was given an enormous box of bananas and a slightly smaller box of tangerines. I estimated the bananas to number approximately 80-100. Despite being partial to the occasional banana, I felt slightly overwhelmed by the volume and smell of boxes upon boxes of bananas being stacked up in our small office. We were faced with the problem of transporting this lifetime supply of diarrhea-inducing fruit back home. My electric scooter is pretty good, but it was not designed to transport cargo. So I took about 30 of them out, and left the rest to someone else. I think he sold them over the weekend.
The day before New Year, the news headlines popped up on my QQ (the ubiquitous instant messaging service) with a report about 'Thief Village', a place in the countryside near Xian famous all over China for being an outlet of stolen clothes and accessories. I decided to go there on New Year's Day, one of my rare days off.
After about a 50p, one-hour bus ride from the southern bus station, I got off the bus on the main road running through the countryside, with few other people about. I headed towards a nondescript looking village. Not sure if I was in the right place, I was about to ask someone when they stopped me mid-sentence: "You saw the report on QQ then?"
The entire place is completely illegal, but even the huge introduction sign erected by the village council states 'clothing retail industry' among the selling points of Meng Family Village. Near the entrance is a block of small, single-storey shops, all with a bed sheet covering the doorway. Most of them sell the same things - shoes, clothing, belt, watches, and so on. From my research, it's mostly fake stuff but with some genuine items mixed in. I heard that if you make yourself friendly with the shop-owner, they'll bring out the best stuff from the back for you to inspect personally.
I don't think they get a lot of foreigners there, and I was greeted with plenty of 'hah-lows'. They don't like it when you say you're just browsing, so I said I was checking the place out for some rich foreign friends who were hoping to visit the next day. One shop, unassuming from the outside, had wooden floors and dark wood closets, with a very strong smell of leather. It could easily have been the real deal. Inside, rough but well dressed women with dyed hair were arguing with customers about the genuine-ness of the clothing. There's no fixed prices, so the final price depends on the bargaining skills of the two parties. I left with no damage to my wallet, but a good idea of where to do my gift shopping next time.
On the other side of the main road by the bus stop was a single-track road heading through the countryside with a sign for a mountain scenic spot. Having not much else to do, I decided to take a look.
Having not been to the countryside much, it's always good to have a wander round. I was struck by how empty and quiet the villages were. Urbanisation is taking in people and leaving behind old people to look after the kids. It seemed the kids, though, playing outside on the streets and in the fields, were better off than urban contemporaries stuck in front of their computers with no fresh air. I wa as also struck by the relative wealth. One battered old house with a missing door had brand new washing machine humming away in the courtyard, and many of the houses had big red doors and white tiles on the front, a sign of wealth.
After paying the five kuai entrance fee (50p) and avoiding the enormous dogs belonging to the old women in charge, I wandered up the mountain, Erlang Mountain. It's effectively in the middle of nowhere and not well known at all. I had the entire place to myself for most of it. There were lots of birds and pheasants flitting around among the trees, and the overall peacefulness brought home just how much noise there is in the city. A waterfall was completely frozen over, and I watched some university lecturers attempting in vain to climb round and over the side of it. One woman, like many others, chose to wear high heels for her Sunday afternoon mountain climb, which always interests me.
On the top section was the occasional mud brick house, and any reasonably flat part was given over to crops. I met up with a nice couple and wandered round with them for a bit. Later on they gave me a lift back to the bus stop. It's easy to see why so many people are enjoying high standards of living in China. Their small hatchback cost only 60,000RMB (about 6,300GBP), much cheaper than before. And with their only one child being looked after by the grandparents, they are free to go out and climb mountains and give random foreigners lifts.
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