the day we dug

28th april '07

i got up at 3.45am that morning to be at the foreign studies school at 4.30am. andy, harry (swiss teacher) and i were to be off on a positively magical road trip to a wondrous and mystical village two hours outside of songyuan to do some farm work. but there was somehow a slight miscommunication, and we waited for the driver at the school until about 5.30 or 6am. my weary head was cursing the fact that i could've gotten another hours and a bit sleep. i'm glad i had interpol to listen to otherwise i would've been in thrice as much of a crappy mood. anyway, when robert xiansheng our crazy driver arrived we crammed ourselves into the van and set off. and, i mean literally CRAMMED. picture 10 people in a nine-seater people moving van, zooming down an unlevel road at 120kmh. absolutely true. and i was not scared one iota. robert's driving technique is so dexterous, words don't do it justice. i bet he could drive this van on a snowy day with his feet on the steering wheel whilst balancing an egg on his forehead. the way he weaves in and out of traffic (sometimes leaving a hair's width between us and the next vehicle) is poetry in motion. it's art. it's both graceful and electrifying. sorry, i digress. so there we were, sardines packed into robert's tin can of a van, flying down a bumpy strip at turbo speed. now i thought THAT was exciting, but things really got interesting when we hit non-bitumen territory. we drove along a long, long minor road (probably not mapped on any songyuan street directory) that looked as though it was hand paved. but really badly hand paved. it reminded me of the yellow brick road, perhaps after a small hurricane. the ride on this road was insanely turbulent. i think i was airborne off my seat for about 30% of the 10 minute journey. it was an awesome joyride.

we arrived at our destination not long after the yellow brick road saga. i was eager to get my hands dirty after a comment by bill (the headmaster at our teaching college) that the farm work "was not the type of work for girls". i'll show him, i thought. the "farm" was not really a stereotypical farm. it was a couple of tiny houses with a largish block of land out back. the land consisted of a hell of a lotta soil with slender tree trunks forming pergolas protruding from the ground. under the soil were grapevines that were buried underground to prevent them from dying during the winter. the idea was that we had to dig up the vines and drape them over the wooden structures. the abodes at the front of the property were small shanty dwellings, one made of clay and hay, the other of bricks and large concrete slabs. both had thick steel doors. the clay house that we were allowed to enter consisted of only two small rooms. a "kitchen" with a dirt floor, a large wok placed in one corner, a portable gas stove top on the opposite side, and a tub of dirty water to wash in. the second room was a dining/bedroom, again with a dirt floor and a "bed", which was a raised platform with a hard surface. lino lined the top of the bed, with a layer of sawdust underneath, and beneath that was a hollow section which connected to the kitchen cooking fire to warm up the bed from below.

we had breakfast first before starting the hard yakka: steamed bread formed in a twisty shape (the bread was the same type that's used in dim sum steamed bbq pork buns), an array of pickled vegies, rice in hot watery soup and fresh tofu. it tasted so much better than what it sounds. so after that, we started the work. we dug. we dug. we dug. and we dug some more. the digging was easy to start off with, easy in fact for about two hours, then it got ball-busting. i began to feel muscles working that i didn't even know i had. luckily i had gloves, because i took them off for a while and tried digging, but i could feel blisters forming on my hands. overall the work was quite fun, except for the amount of dust and soil i swallowed and got into my eyes. we had to go on the windiest day, didn't we?

we had a fantastically authentic lunch and dinner too. rustic, traditional (or so it seemed) chinese food. an old chinese woman and chinese girl prepared the food for us in this mega-sized wok with a fire underneath that they kept aflame with twigs and scrub. altogether we consumed fish (one gargantuan fish head and two smaller whole fish), egg and leek, tofu again, cornbread, an eggplant dish and a potato and snowpea dish. plus fresh leafy vegies and spring onions picked straight from the ground that you dip in a salty, thick dark sauce. what it is exactly, i have no idea. verdict: divine and extremely gratifying.

in true chinese fashion, drinking accompanied the dining. andy's voice trembled in fear when he saw bottles of baijiu carted through the door. now, andy is a seasoned drinker and can handle large amouts of booze. so this illustrates how terrifying baijiu is. baijiu is evil. it's an evil, sordid chinese liquor. the alcohol content isn't much more than vodka but somehow the effect is extremely potent. the smell and taste is foul. but alas the goose was coaxed into downing shot after shot (glasses were slightly larger than your standard aussie shot size) of the stuff during both lunch and dinner. it was an entertaining yet cringeworthy display to witness. and the chinese love their toasts. they make a toast about every 15 minutes. and apparently it's impoliteto take a sip of your drink between toasts. you must drink when everyone else does. there's so much dining etiquette involved in chinese dining - it really does your head in sometimes. part of the drinking festivities involved an armwrestle battle. robert xiansheng emerged victorious, defeating andy and one other chinese guy. the strength of that man is baffling. such a strong man for such a tiny package. hats off to you robert xiansheng.

the last most notable tidbit to report from the village was the "toilet". it was a concrete hole in the ground that dropped down not too far from your behind. you could see EVERYTHING that was left from people before. smell was nauseating and the sight was horrid. so i didn't breathe, nor look after the first encounter.

during the trip back to songyuan, i felt incredibly inspired by the scenery. we left in the evening when it was dusk. the landscape looked ethereal and serene, blanketed in twighlight. spindly, fragile trees stood somberly in single rows for kilometres on end, lining vast, otherwise bare fields. every now and then a lonely, haunting house would appear. the countryside was often lunar-like, earth's imitation of the moon's surface. the natural beauty was intensified by the sounds of sigur ros playing in my ears. i stuck my head out of window and felt the nippy breeze bite my face and breathed in relatively fresh-smelling country china air.

pity goose was completely drunk and missed the majestic spectacle. he fell off his seat twice on the way home - the first whilst wearing a seatbelt, and the second, somehow with a seatbelt on.