Hiroko and I took a trip to China this week in order to attend a
friend's wedding. It seems to be wedding season. This was the
third wedding that we've been to in the past month. The first wedding
was my Aussie pal J getting hitched here in Japan. The second
was
for our Japanese friends Mari and Aochi. This time, we headed
over to
Fuzhou, China for Lin's wedding. Lin is Hiroko's best friend,
and
is going to be the maid of honour at our wedding, so we were pretty
stoked for the occasion.
It was also my first trip to China, proper. Daniel
and I
went to Hong Kong for a week back in 99, and while that is technically
part of the red giant, we all know that it isn't really China.
I was able to get a week off work from the uni. That gave us
enough
time to spend a few days in Fuzhou for the wedding, and a couple of
days on each end in Shanghai. I've thrown up a new
gallery in the photo area where
you can flip through the snapshots that we took in Shanghai.
I'll put up another one with shots from Fuzhou within the
week.
dance, dance, dance
I will admit that I wasn't particularly excited about visiting Fuzhou.
This was partially due to the less-than-flattering comments
in my
Lonely Planet
guidebook for China. The guide's summary for Fuzhou reads as
follows.
Fuzhou: pop 6,500,000 Capital of Fujian
province, Fuzhou is
an industrial hinterland choked with concrete dust. It can
serve
as an overnight pit-stop for travellers en route to Xiamen, Quanzhou or
Wuyi Shan, but the city itself offers few diversions.
It did not bode well as a destination of wonder and delight, but what
did that matter? I was there for a wedding, not as a tourist.
All one needs for a good time at a wedding are a happy
couple,
some music and a few bottles of joy. Fuzhou did happen to
offer a
few pleasant surprises, though.
After arriving the first day, Hiroko and I took a power nap after
meeting up with Lin and checking into the hotel for the wedding.
When we woke up, it was already dark. We
could see the
illuminated fountains and some lanterns across the lake, so we decided
to take a walk around the area. Once outside, we could
just barely make out some ghostly silhouettes dancing on the shores
across the water. It was really quite beautiful. We
made
our way around the lake to get a closer look, but the scene that
awaited us was far more pedestrian than we had imagined.
It was
not an organized dance show, an ancient ritual or a group of fairies
that
had descended into the forest to perform a mating dance for the
sprites. It was calisthenics. Loosely
organized groups of old folks, housewives, teens and families were
waltzing, jazz dancing and mamboing throughout the park. The park
itself was huge, but there was hardly an empty space in it, as any
uninterrupted area had been commandeered by a group of 20-30 people
with a
CD player and an amp. Apparently, groups of old people doing tai-chi in
their pajamas have been replaced by mixed groups grooving to Ricky
Martin as the modern picture
of Chinese outdoor fitness. We did see one man that appeared
to
be practicing kung-fu on his own, but he might just have been itchy.
The park itself was beautiful. It surrounded a lake and the
grounds included a museum and what appeared to be the ruins of
a
monastery. Unlike sites like this in Japan, there was no
pretense
at preserving the ancient serenity of these sites. Neon
lights
seem to have been strapped to anything that will support them, which
gave the grounds a Disneyland at Night type of feel.
All in all, Fuzhou offered us a pleasant stay, but I can't
help but think that I missed
the real city. All of the people in the park were obviously
locals, but I got the feeling that they had ridden their mopeds in to
the Hotel district for the ambiance and the use of the sprawling
grounds. I'll have to visit the factories and breathe in the
concrete dust on another visit.
Today's
Stars
Lin
Lin was with Hiroko the
night that we first met. By the end of the night, Hiroko was
in
possession of my phone number, but had no particular motivation
to use it. Lin had taken the time to grill me on my
intentions
while Hiroko was using the restroom and apparently I had passed her
test. She convinced Hiroko that I might be worth giving a
call. Thanks Lin.
Lin will be making the long trip to Canada to act as Hiroko's Maid of
Honour. She speaks excellent English, so you won't need to
practice your Chinese pronunciation charts. Her new hubby,
Paul,
is from Manchester, so his English isn't bad either.
