The China Daily Baily

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I’m writing this at nine o’clock in the morning, in my pyjamas. Everyone else – that’s two people – is in bed. The flat had 2 bedrooms, each now occupied by a sleeping body.

If you came to our flat at any time of day you would think we had just got up. This is because, in common with most Chinese households, and a lot of the world, we don’t wear our street or work clothes indoors. This is one of the cosier aspects of Chinese life.

Everyone, even an interloper like me, has a pair of cotton flannel pyjamas to wear around the house. When we come in from the big bad world outside, we change our shoes to slippers, wash our hands, and change into our pyjamas.

I like this because it creates a physical and mental division between the two worlds we all inhabit. As the pyjamas are put on, so is a sense of ease and relaxation.

From a slumbering, pyjama clad household, goodbye.

I had lunch yesterday at the local restaurant near the gate to our estate with Mei and her friend from Dunhuang. Afterwards, Mei took her friend to the station to catch the 13:40 train home, and I decided to go to town and park myself in a café to do some reading.

I got on the No.56 bus at the usual stop opposite the restaurant, and it wasn’t long before I was in one of those “I’m a Laowai (Chinese slang for foreigner), get me out of here!” things.

About two stops into the journey, a huge Chinese guy boarded the bus. His face, as the late Les Dawson once said of his mother in law, was “like a sack full of spanners”. He was the sort of character that turns up in a James Bond film to do our hero considerable harm. He must have been about 55, with a full head of greying curly hair. He wore the greenish brown suit so beloved of building site workers here.

In tow he had a little boy of about 8 or 9, and I gradually formed the opinion that these two were a few noodles short of a bowlful. My suspicions were confirmed pretty quickly.

There were two seats free. One next to me, and one directly in front, over the wheel. This seat, along with it’s starboard counterpart are the seats everyone avoids on these buses. Because the floor is not raised at the back, as in western buses, the seat is plonked directly in front of the wheel arch. If you sit there, you have to sit with your knees in your chest and your feet on the wheel arch at the level of the base of the seat. The boy took that seat and the large man took the one next to me.

The boy started to twist and turn in his seat, glancing back at the man. The big sliding window was open beside us. He had a bottle of water with him, and he suddenly thought it would be a good idea if he started emptying the stuff out of the window beside him. I had other ideas as the draught from the window would have blown the water back on my face. I discouraged the little lad by pushing the offending bottle back inboard with a fairly sharp “Oi!”.

Wrong thing to do. The gorilla beside me, who seemed a little tetchy with the boy already, leaned forward and started raining blows on the boy’s head with the palms of his hands, grunting admonitions. I wanted to shrivel up like a leaf and blow out of the window. Regardless of the fact that the boy was obviously naughty, I had made the man loose face, which even by proxy is a big no-no in China. Would I be next? I lack the karate skills of James Bond, and the bus was travelling a little too fast to jump out of the window.

I didn’t end up in hospital this time. Soon the man grabbed his recalcitrant charge and moved to some seats that became free further up the bus. I sneaked off at my stop without looking back. I think that boy probably slept on his tummy in the kennel last night.

Sorry not to have posted for a couple of days, but I spent yesterday in bed with one of those 24 hour bugs. I blame the melons – Mei says I just ate too much!

However, on Saturday I decided to go down to the river and turn right when I got to Zhongshan Bridge, so that I could go and see how the water wheel park is doing.

I’m not sure when, but I think it was some time in the sixteenth century, a Chinese official spent 40 odd years here perfecting the “tipper” type of waterwheel, specifically to lift water from the river for irrigation. Long square buckets affixed to the circumference of the wheel scoop up the water and tip it into a chute right at the top of the wheel.

There were 24 of these wheels still in operation here until fairly recently – that is about 60-70 years ago, when I assume pumps replaced them. One is still in use at a spot called the Yellow River Gorge, about 2 hours drive north of here, which you must see if you are in Gansu. There are probably many more dotted around Gansu

It appears that Lanzhou’s city fathers decided that it would be a great idea to create a park on the bank of the river commemorating these waterwheels, and commissioned 6 pairs, each feeding water into the park to run little attractions like water powered hammers. There is also a museum of the water wheel, which is really good.

Water park bad idea! The reason that the Yellow River is yellow is the colossal amount of silt it carries from the loess plateau. Loess soil is so fine it seems to dissolve in water. Consequently our park – about 1 km long – is deluged with this mud, which covers the wheels, stops the attractions and smells pretty bad too. The smell is due to the numerous foul streams flooding into the river in Lanzhou. Lots of the wheels are so caked in it they have stopped working. Did I hear you say planning?

Nevertheless, on the bank above the park there is a lovely garden brimming with roses, which flourish in this city. Some of the rose beds must be about 1/2 acre, and there are so many colours and varieties Alan Titchmarsh (famous British T.V gardener and novelist) would have a fit.

You can look at the whole water wheel park from this vantage point, and save having to smell the water. It seems almost nobody pays to go into the place. I was there on a lovely sunny Saturday afternoon, and there was virtually no one in the park except a few older people who probably get concessions. What a waste of money.

As this blog is being read by people from as far away as Edmonton in Canada, and as remote as Urumqi in China (where you will find Uygurs), I have decided to improve and expand a bit.

I shall shortly be putting up my own website on the net – this one is a free hosting site -  and so be able to give you not just the blog but more information about China, aimed at the first time traveller and possibly the potential teacher or Double Bass player. You might even end up paying us a visit in Lanzhou!

Mei has gone off to her home village today. It is 100 days since her father died. Tomorrow the whole family and some friends will go to his grave and, according to tradition, burn “Ghost Money”, pour Motai on the grave and leave some food there. In this way they will pay their final respects to a little giant of a man I count it as a privilege to have known. He loved English tea, and if I were there I would pour some out for him!