Boat from Korea to China; cycling down to Nanjing

“What is ideology? It is a kind of spirit to make sluggish people industrious and intelligent people even more capable. The spirit should be started from inside the court and then spread all over the country to as far as the remotest corner of the empire� (The Final Imperial Examination Paper of Number One Student, Confucian Examination Hall, Nanjing)

“It is glorious to get rich� (Chinese Communist Party Leadership in 1978)

Two whole hours before we were due to land I strolled out on to the deck of my ferry from Korea. All around (to my surprise) rather than an empty seascape and perhaps a distant grey landmass, were literally hundreds of giant cargo ships, an armada from all corners of the world. For the final hour of the voyage, cranes, docks and industry bore around us like prison bars. These were my first views of the waking lion. China’s east coast.

Rolling off the boat and taking my first few pedals into China was exciting. Last time I was here, in the late 1990s, it was out in the far west – the empty deserts and epic mountains which border the Stans. Here in the heartlands, things could not be more different – concrete, steel and noisy, busy roads. The people smile and help and spit. The drivers are wild – but at least (unlike in Korea!) do superb braking/swerving manoeuvres to avoid hitting you. Food and accommodation is refreshingly cheap.

There is a feel of partial dilapidation – but in contrast to the collapsing blocks of Siberian Russia, these buildings are falling apart not due to alcoholism and despair, but rather because everyone is so busy throwing up new buildings… there is no time for the past. It is time to get on with the serious business of getting rich.

In cities, the cyclists swarm… stop at a traffic light and you will soon be swept up in a spinning, silent pelathon of steel horses – rushing you into the midst of 6 lanes of moving traffic… astonishingly, you slip through the gaps to emerge unscathed the other side.

China. China. It is one of those places you know about from childhood, but it is unreal until you get here. It is different, vast, mysterious… like it has been hiding. The history is unfathomably long: whilst Hannibal was raising his army, China was already united; as Rome retreated from England, China was busy inventing such exciting contraptions as the wheelbarrow. For the overwhelming majority of human history China has been number one – not just in population, but also in economic wealth and scientific advancement … to the extent that Samuel Huntington calls the past couple of hundred years of western dominance a “blipâ€?, an anomaly in the history of civilisations… many commentators now believe the normal order of
things is being restored – China is bounding with confidence and strength to embrace the 21st century.

Whilst China in the past was the land of inventions – now it is the land of fakes. The markets are packed with imitation brands – some are so realistic that it is hard to tell the difference. I realise that those bargain North Face clothes I smugly bought on E-Bay and wore to keep me alive through Siberia (and which had mysteriously non-North Face zips which broke all the time) just might have originated here!

Riding down the east side of China (south from Beijing) is in a sense monotonous – endless flat roads, dusty villages, muddy paddy fields, rubbish filled ditches, chattering farmer cyclists with their interminable string of questions I do not understand. I attempt some truck surfing to break the monotony. Truck surfing is a fun sport in less developed countries – where, with timing of the essence, you grab hold of the back of a truck/tractor which is moving marginally faster than you are… the only flaw with my attempts to do this so far in China is the headwind… when I finally managed to build up enough speed to grab something I found myself fighting to hold the bike steady. Suddenly the wind blasts my bike sideways and – like a speeded up video clip – I shoot headlong into the ditch. This is not the only time I have felt like the cycling version of Mr Bean recently. For example, the day I discarded my old boots and proudly put on my new SPD shoes. These are the shoes with the cunning metal bit on the bottom which actually locks into the pedal – meaning you can pull it up as well as push it down. To unlock your foot, simply twist your ankle sideways… very snazzy, and efficient too. With new found elegance, I come over the brow of a hill looking sweaty and athletic… I glide smoothly up to an intrigued throng of Chinese onlookers… and then slowly, heroically, draw to a halt… and – to their slight bewilderment – throw myself sideways down to the ground (the bike crashing on top of me) unable to get my feet out of the pedals.

At the beginning of April my parents arrived in China for a few weeks holiday, so – call me a wimp – I stopped where I was, dumped the bike with some friends and had a holiday with them. Seeing the tourist sights of China with a tour group is fun – the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, the Terracota Warriors, Panda bears and the semi-submerged Three Gorges… I increasingly realise that tourist sites only interest me in so far as I understand more of the story behind them. Such as finding out that the 7000 Terracota guys were actually meant to help the tyrannical first emperor (Quin – pronounced
Chin) in his afterlife, with thousands of slaves also slaughtered during his burial to help him a bit more. The other chap who seems rather reluctant to leave his earthly power behind is Chairman Mao. I waited in line in the Beijing wind in Tiananmen square, along with thousands of others, in order to file past his preserved corpse. The faithful propogandised can buy flowers on the way in to leave before his statue. These flowers are periodically picked up and resold to the people queing outside. Now if that is not capitalist initiative I don’t know what is… and all in homage to a dead communist hero !?

After a good break, it was time to say goodbye to my parents again. I felt grateful for the chance to catch up with them as ability to adapt to and enjoy the slightly unpredictable and bumpy nature of travel in China – obviously their own adventurous spirits are still alive and well. In a way, seeing them made it all the harder to get going again. But quality time with family is something not to be received lightly, and if offered, I think the opportunity should always be taken, however difficult it may be to say goodbye.

So I am back on the bike and pedalling south through more blooming cities. Of course, China’s economic boom is not the whole story… I am spinning through the growth zones and will soon reach the mother of expanding cities – Shanghai. After that, it will be time to hit the backroads to Hong Kong, on which (I am told) lies a different side to China – where many people do not have the luxury of hunting for meaning – they just want to survive.

As always, many, many thanks for your emails, prayers and kind donations to help the heroic efforts of Viva Network and their smart-hard work with orphans, street children and exploited children.

Half a day off to climb Tae Shan (wearing a cool Chinese army coat)

You can see my bike is still excessively loaded… what an earth am i carrying? (I often ask myself this question)