I didn’t know the town and the village where on a mountain until my colleague told me when we were sitting at the McDonald’s at the Hefei train station. Thankfully I’d packed warm clothes as there was snow and we couldn’t get up to Henghe Village on Monday but we succeeded at reaching the mountain on Tuesday. 

It was a long trip travel wise – about eight or nine hours by a combination of bus and train each way, but well worth it – I had an amazing time personally and professionally.

One thing that bothered me when I was there though. The farmers I interviewed kept telling me that they didn’t have any culture. They weren’t referring to the 5,000 years of Chinese culture that you hear trotted out everywhere. They meant manners. 

Their claim disturbed me because it’s one I have heard Laobaixing (old 100 names – common people) use before. But it’s not true at all. They are some of the friendliest and most hospitable people I know. They could’ve just been being modest but when you tell them that they have manners about five or six times over the course of an hour and they still tell you it’s not true then I tend to think they believe it themselves.

For the rest of what I learned you can wait until my story comes out on April 1st or check out another blog post I did on the trip here.

J.

The one thing I have been doing with my free time is reading a lot. I’m currently in the middle of James Fallows’ Postcards from Tomorrow’s Square but at the same time I’m also working on John Pomfret’s Chinese Lessons and I’ve just bought a few more books today.

Why I don’t know. They just seem to fill me with a lot of hope.  And I know that sounds silly but they’re helping me to chill out during a very busy time right now.

J.