Drunken Masters,Tea Farms, and Bath Houses

Drunken Master, Chao Zhou, P.R.China
Originally uploaded by morningmilk8.

First i'd like to tell everyone that my friend tracy ellingson and her husband bart are having there first baby!!! (or she's already had it and because of time differences i don't know) it is a little girl that they are naming emma jo..... its the first one of my friends to have a baby and its so crazy and exciting! can't wait to meet her.
next, i should talk about the picture, my entire weekend actually!! it was so amazing. my friend jesse and i went to chao zhou which is northeast of shenzhen, still in guangdong province. on the bus on our way, we met a man from hong kong, who actually lives in holland now. he was very nice and a little eccentric as well. he spoke english with a dutch accent, it was great! anyway, he told us of a bathouse type place that we could also sleep at for only 48 yuan/ night.... (about $6 US)... he told us you could do a hot tub, sauna, steam room and then sleep all for 48 yuan and that they also did massages.
i'm of course skeptical because of the rampant prostitution in asia.... well, we find the place and it turns out to be amazing!!! (i'm still not convinced of the no prostitution, but there was nothing blatantly going on) so we first go to our seperate quarters, men and women are of course seperated. so i go into the changing room and there is someone on my ass the whole time... this was service like i had never experienced and to be honest i was a little uncomfortable with it...also, they speak another language in chao zhou, chao zhou hua or chaozhounese and so the communication was very difficult. anyway, i'm trying my best to speak mandarin, but don't understand their responses. and i'm also not sure what i'm supposed to do because i know that the men soak naked, but i'm not sure if the women do. i'm pretty sure they don't cuz chinese women are generally very modest, but i'm not certain. luckily two women come in and i've stalled long enough to just watch and learn...
but when you are in a changing room, watching isn't exactly what should be going on. i'm pretty sure i made one of the women uncomfortable before i realized that i was watching too intently...oops, better look away and just follow the hand gestures, because that is what my communication had reduced to with the women helping me.
so i scramble for the word bathing suit in my chinese book... just to be on the safe side, i'll be clothed. after asking and communicating it quite beautifully i must say (which actually means that they understood me), they lead me to the showers. one must shower before and after the hot tub, sauna, steam room, etc.... so i'm in the shower, which do not have doors or curtains and feeling a little exposed when someone gently and discreetly hangs a bating suit out for me to wear.... at least i thought i had asked for a bathing suit, not a full body suit... which is about what this swimmingsuit was. as i'm pulling it on, i'm thinking, is this ever going to stop? how long is this thing and chuckling to myself at how absurd i'm going to look...finally i have the thing on (i'm sure it was the biggest size they had as well, it was quite large, even on my fat western ass). i catch a glimpse of myself in a marble reflection and can't stop laughing to myself. to top off this swimming suit that goes almost to my kneess all the way to my neck, they hand me a plastic shower cap to cover my delicate golden hair... i'm feeling so ridiculous at this point, i don't even know what to think. so i go out into the hot tub, which is actually a huge pool with warm water and different "stations" with insane water pressure for massage. so this whole time a girl is following me taking care of my every need. she doesn't get in the pool but follows me from the outside and turns on each water thingy as i walk by... i finally decide to go to this one that looks like a chair submerged in the water. i assume that you rest with your back to the back and rest your arms on the U shped arm rests... so i position myself and the woman turns on the water. suddenly there is intense water pressure going up my butt and i'm very uncomfortable thinking, this can not be healthy, who thinks water thrusting up their ass feels good... so as not to look like a total idiot, i play it cool and shift so that the water is massaging the back of my legs and not my bottom... which actually feels quite nice, but is a little awkward to stay in this position. two women move from these reclining chair things with many jets in them that you can lean back and it massages your legs and back. i walk over and get comfortable, knowing exactly what i'm supposed to be doing and feeling relieved cuz its the first time all night that i have.... the woman who were reclining in the chairs go over to the butt exploder that i had been sitting at. however, they have their chest down and i realize that it is actually a "bossom massager" that the brochure i read before going in had talked about. not butt massager, bossom massager.... wow did i feel cool. i'm chillin in my bathing suit from the 1930's while wearing a shower cap with water shooting up my butt.... the other two nights were fine though, i actually knew what was going on...
after the hot tub, steam room, sauna, they give you these disposable underwear and nice pajamas (not disposable) that the women helped me get into. i haven't had someone dress me since i was what 3? very weird, but thats just the treatment one gets at this place. next they take me up to a room with about 100 plush chairs and foot rests. here you can get free drinks, tea, fresh juice, etc... and foot massages while watching tv on a huge screen. it was so nice and so comfortable. all for 48 yuan!!!
after our first fabulous nights rest we go out exploring in the city... there was a lot of traditional acrchitecture, a temple, an old city wall, etc... there was also an old pagoda from the 1500's that was about 9 stories tall and had an amazing view of the city. everyone was so kind to us and treated us so well.... including the man and the boy in the picture. the boy was a student named eruc who translated for the older man, that we'll call "drunken master" not because of his kung fu style, but because he was beligerently drunk on bai jiu (chinese rice liquour). he was however a historian at heart and gave us a run down of chao zhou's history... eruc the student stumbled upon us and translated. eruc had never met foreigners before and was quite happy to use his english with us. after how history lesson, i took this picture... the man busts out the kung fu pose and after the picture is taken, breaks into a full on kung fu show! it was hilarious, he was so funny and probably worth the whole trip there.
after exploring the city on saturday, we went to a nearby mountain town on sunday... the bus ride there was amazing! so beautiful, with tea farms and rice paddies everywhere. more like what we think of china rather than the modern cess pool that is shenzhen, i mean the town i live in. jesse and i step of the bus and its like another world. the town has modern buildings, but very small and people begin staring and we realize that most people have never seen foreigners before. people were screaming for their relatives when we would walk by, when we bought water, we attracted a crowd, when we talked to anyone we attracted a crowd! we decided to walk towards the older part of town with more traditional architecture. we start walking some tea plants when a farmer spots us. this a farmer with gold teeth and black toenails. he tells us it is his tea farm and shows us some plants and then invites us to his house for tea.. it was so kind and great! he lived in a small concrete house with his son, his wife and their daughter. after alot of tea and a wicked caffeine buzz we decide to walk around some more before we make our way to this old circular structure that was once a village...very romanesque, but in the middle of china. anyway, we start walking around only to have more people staring. eventually we run into a local english teacher from the high school.. as we begin talking to him a crowd of about 30 people gather round us. the teacher invites us to the school to speak to his english classes! so we go and speak to one of his classes who know no english whatsoever. the kids get a kick out of it though. we were surrounded by kids and stares and dropped jaws, it was quite surreal... after we left the school we made it to the circular village which was actually still occupied. one of the men living there, showed us around, and of course offered us tea. he was so great, as were most people in hengfuang (the small tea village) and chaozhou. tea is such a part of the culture in hengfuang that beginning this last monday was a 10 day holiday to go and harvest tea! on our way back to chaozhou people were drying the tea leaves on tarps draped acrossed the road. it was beautiful!!!
it really was a great weekend. it was nice to be in china and have people be so kind. not that chinese are unkind, but it is a rarity in shenzhen...
the weekend before last i went to hong kong. there is a film festival going on right now and i saw the hong kong indie film shorts. it was four short films done by directors from hong kong. it was soo great. quite different from the experience in chaozhou....
in one of the films was some great indie music from hong kong called "My Little Airport"... if anyone is interestd you should check them out. quite good!
that's it for now, hope all are well. more pictures from this weekend coming soon. i have to get them from jesse, it was my first excursion without my precious camera :(... luckily jesse is an amazing photographer!
all my love
nrj