The Culture Shock Cycle - Nanjing to Zhengzhou

14th of September 2019, Day 32 - 1,500ish km

Day 22- Road to Chuzhou closed, but I snook through

Here it is, today is one month into the trip. Well, I started writing this at the one-month mark, but I've been struggling to find the energy to write. During that month I at some point smashed through the 1000km mark too. When I started, I had a rough estimate of 300 days - 13,000km over 10 months. It doesn't really feel like I'm 10% done, though.Then again Joetsu definitely feels a long way away now. I guess its more I was hoping I'd be better adapted to all this by the one month mark. Safe to say I haven't quite found my feet.

Day 24 - Country road outside of Bengbu, best riding to date

The cycling itself has not been the problem at all. I get stronger week on week, going from doing 40km days to 80km days with no problems, except my right knee. Hopefully, that's been sorted by raising my seat a little, but for now the knee brace is back on. I'm out of the industrial East coast now, so every day I ride through new villages, each with its own crop. Grapes, to corn, to cauliflower, to corn, to rice, to corn. There's a lot of corn round here, strewn out on the sides of the road to dry in the sun.

Day 28 - The yellow brick road to Zhecheng

My calves stick out like they've been chiseled in marble, and my hamstrings are the size of my head. By the time I get back to the UK, I'm gonna look like a kangaroo. China does not seem to sell suncream, and I wear fingerless cycling gloves, so I have a bizarre deep brown tan that starts at my shoulder and stops at my wrists, leaving pale ghost hands tipped with chocolate phalanges. A beard has spontaneously erupted onto my face again. Who am I to tell it to leave?

Cultural Fatigue

No, the problems I've been having are social and mental rather than physical. I've already been through multiple waves of what people living abroad call the culture-shock cycle* while living in Japan. This time it's far more intense, mostly because I'm alone, and I have no safe-haven of ex-pats to moan to. At first you are love with everything. Its all so new and exciting. You don't understand whats going on, and you're loving every second of it. The "Honeymoon stage" (which you can see in the unbridled positivity of my previous post).

Day 22 - First bit of unbroken nature in the mountains to Chuzhou

Then you grow tired, from all the new and the not understanding. This is called the "Frustration stage", and it's where I've been spending most of the past week. I am now sufficiently peeved to give the other side of the coin to cycling through China.

It starts of course with the language. Despite studying on and off since January, my Chinese is terrible. I now know the words laowei - foreigner, which echos down the street as I ride by, ying guo ren, British, as despite the british flag on the back of my bike the first wary question is whether I'm american or not, and bu ming bai - I don't understand. I generally do not understand. This covers 90% of my interaction with people. To top it off, Mandarin is a very sing-songy tonal language. I can get the phrase right, but with the wrong tone I'm suddenly speaking incomprehensible gobbledegook.

Day 26 - The harvest for this town is peppers

It goes further though than spoken miscommunications. Gestures, body language, and other social signs are all different. The tonal nature of Chinese makes most people sound like they are trying to pick a fight with you when they speak, and they have no concept of personal space.I can't tell half the time if people are mad at me or want to be my friend. With no rising intonation at the end of a sentence to signpost a question, I often have someone repeating something at me louder and louder, getting more and more frustrated. That is until I hit'em with my catch phrase - bu ming bai.

My gestures for money, bicycle, eating, everything basically also seem to fall on deaf eyes. They even have an intricate set of hand gestures for numbers. I'd advise anyone going to China to learn them before going.

Day 29 - Delicious mini nectarines from a stall on the highway to Wulhe Town

Then there is the constant standing out. It's the same feeling you get when you've been on a night out in fancy dress, but now it's the next morning. You find yourself walking down the high street in a tutu, and everyone is staring at you questioningly. Except it's every day and I can't take off the tutu, cause its just me being a foreigner. In Japan you get this, but in China they really rub it in, because they can't help but come up to you and ask what the hell is going on. What in the world are you doing all the way out here in rural China? On occasions I ask myself the same thing. Those are the polite ones. Many are content to stand back and take a picture or videos of me. I must be on so many random Chinese people's phones, I'll be going viral any day now.

Day 24 - Lone Yak in a field outside of Bengbu

The "Find a Hotel" Game

The fatigue from the "Frustration Stage" then makes small inconveniences seem like the end of the world. Day 23, I was pulling out of town. I say town, cause I can't work out what it was called, but it was near the Sangjian reservoir. My rear derailleur is clicking, but rather than stop to sort it out, I try and force it. There's a big cracking sound, and my chain breaks. It feels like the world is ending. The only people around are street cleaners, who are already shaking their heads as I walk up, and put up their hands as I try to get some directions. I don't want to get involved. I'm just here to sweep.

Day 23 - Repair team in that town near Sangjian reservoir

You don't realise quite how heavy your bike is until you have to walk it 2km back into town. Thankfully I stumbled on two extremely kind guys. They were really interested in what I was doing. I wasn't going anywhere fast, so we chatted for a bit, and they seemed to actually understand what I was trying to say. Thank goodness for people who'll meet you half way when communicating. They went out of their way to find me a repair shop, walked me over there, and explained the situation to the repair guy. I love when a friend you make takes over the situation, because you no longer have to muddle through bad Chinese. You can just stand there nodding and smiling. They completely turned my day around, and I pushed on for 70km to Bengbu.

Day 29 - Curious policemen that helped me find a hotel in Wulihe Town

Things hit breaking point though at Kaifeng, day 30. I am out of the big cities now. When I search for a hotel online nothing really comes up, so if I want a reasonably priced place to stay, I have to play the "Find a Hotel" game. The odds are stacked heavily against me. I have no internet, I can hardly read, half the hotels can't take foreigners, and I'm reliant on friendly people to point me in the right direction. Thankfully there are lots of friendly people in China, so I win the "Find a hotel" game nine times out of ten. I have to say, I'm getting pretty good.

Day 26 - One of the friendly people. Bought me lunch and brought me to a hotel

In Kaifeng though, I wasn't so lucky. Hotel 1, too expensive. Hotel 2, no foreigners allowed. Hotel 3, good price and available rooms, even got down to paying, but they give me my money back when they find out I don't have a residents card. In the end I tried 5 different places, cycling up and down the city streets with no luck. In the end I go up to a policeman, which in the past has worked wonders. There are so many policemen here with so little to do, they love a little challenge to spice up their day. Not this time though. This policemen cannot understand a thing I'm saying and points me to the hotel I've just come out of. That's when I lose it and start yelling. Some more Chinese people crowd round, laughing and joking at how funny it is that a white guy is here. I throw my helmet down on the ground and walk away, put my head down on a railing, and wipe away the angry tears forming in the corner of my eyes. Count to 10. Cool it. I realise have to get out of that situation, so I ignore the crowd, grab my helmet, and cycle on.

Literally 200 meters down the road, I find a hotel with a cheap price, the warm-faced middle-aged receptionist doesn't even ask for my passport, and she even lets me bring my bike into the room. Exhausted and feeling sorry for myself, I collapse into the room, not even leave to find dinner. I've had enough of China for one day.

Next morning I'm all out of sorts, as I haven't eaten properly or done anything to fix my attitude. Cycle on the edge of tears till lunch. Found an absolutely lovey place, with an old grandma that made it her mission to make sure I had everything I needed. Turns out I was just hangry.

Day 30 - Chinese breakfast: Bao-zi and a sweet meal soup

As I'm finishing up, something kicks off outside. Two big groups of Chinese guys had been eating and drinking outside. Seems like people either don't drink here, or are drunk by mid-day. I walk out to see a full-blown fist fight taking place. One big guy is being held down by three other people, another cracks a bottle on the table and starts brandishing it about like a knife. Wives are jumping in and pulling out their husbands, walking them away like little guilty school kids.

Weirdly it fixed my mood. I was no longer the object of attention. I was in the crowd, laughing and joking with the onlookers at how absurd China can be. I got on my bike and resolved to adjust.

That's the next step of the Culture shock cycle. The "Adjustment Stage", where you accept the new culture you are in for what it is and adapt to it. Looking back, I was more mad at myself for losing my cool than I was at the policeman and the onlookers. I always eventually find somewhere to sleep, and if not I have a tent. Losing the "Find a Hotel" game is more when I let the situation beat me and give up. China is the way it is, and it's too big of a mountain for one random guy on a bike to move. I am the guest here and have to play by their rules. I can either stay angry or change the way I approach things.*


Dogs and Children

Day 27 - Owner of the Cheapest hotel in Bozhou,  40元 a night.

I don't want this post to be all doom and gloom. You guys just happen to be reading my therapy session live. By writing it all down, I can work through my feelings rather than bottle it up. I never have been good with feelings. Never fear: Things are still good and everything is fine. China still constantly surprises me, and most of those surprises are positive. Through all that fatigue and frustration, I am still amazed on a daily basis how many people will go out of their way to help me out here.

Day 28 - Taking the bike back out of the storage shed behind the hotel, Bozhou

Day 24 stands out as the surprisiest of surprise days. I was cycling through country roads, but had forgotten to bring some food, and there was nothing really around. I pull up to a little village with a shop to ask if there's a restaurant, but run into a young guy outside and ask him instead. He at first says there's no restaurant, but then has a think and tells me to follow him. On the way he's making phone calls, presumably to see if I can eat somewhere.

We pull up, and its not a restaurant, it's his house. He plops me down on a stool and starts giving me food. He has a dog, a huge German Shepherd, but not the angry kind that you sometimes get out here. The dog comes over to see what I'm eating and lets me pet him. The young guy tells me to give him the chicken bones from my meal, so now I'm basically the dog's best friend. He rolls over and I rub his belly. Everything is right with the world.

A toddler comes down the stairs, and I ask if it's his kid. No, he says, it's his brother. Turns out the young guy is just a high school student that casually invited me into his home to eat. Then mum shows up and is like er... WHAT have you brought home? I tell her she has a really good kid, and she agrees proudly before plying me with more food. I eventually have to get going, so we say our goodbyes. At no point did he even ask for a photo together. He just did it because I looked hungry. Good guess.

Day 24 - Group shot

I cycle a bit further down the road and wave to some smiley kids who wave back, but I think nothing of it. 45 minutes down the road, a guy pulls past me, stops, and waves me over. He tells me in broken English that he's a teacher, and he wants me to come to his school. At this point he doesn't even know I have teaching experience. My guess is the kids I waved to mentioned they'd seen a white guy, and Teach was like Yep, we definitely want him at our school. So he jumped in his car and drove after me. China is crazy.

He tells me the school is close, but I have a sneaking suspicion that's car-close, not bicycle-close. I follow him for 45 minutes as he awkwardly edges up the road at 10km per hour in front of me, a small traffic jam forming behind us. Finally, we arrive, but by now the kids are in the middle of class. He takes me up to the teacher's room to chat with the principle and other teachers. When I mention I was a teacher in Japan, they have a lightbulb moment, and I end up teaching the 4th and 5th grade English class in the final period.

Five years of experience making stuff up on the spot in front of a class finally pays off. I briefly introduced myself and the trip I was taking, played some rock paper scissor games, and did some speed drawing pictionary on the board to round it all off. Nothing worked right, but I'm used to that too, and the kids loved it. At the end, we took an excellent group photo, and I rode out into the sunset, never to be heard from again.

Day 24 - I teach kids

On to the Mountains

Day 24 - Owner of the best noodle shop in Cheng Guan Zhen.

Next leg is the start of the real challenge physically - over the mountains to Xi'an. As for the social and mental problems, I'm hoping that because I've identified whats up, I can be better prepared to deal with it healthily in the future. For now though, I'm taking it easy with a rest day in Zhengzhou. It just so happens to be Saturday, and the Henan Jianye Football Team are based here, so I'm going to watch a football game.

p.s. The game was great, a 4-1 win for my boys Jianye against Hebei CFFC. Almost didn't make it as I forgot my passport in the hotel, which is apparently vital to watch a football game in China. At 70 minutes they all shone their phones to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Communist Revolution, then sang the national anthem.

p.p.s. The main criticism of the last post was not enough photos, so I've tried to pepper this one with a few more.

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*Some people talk about Culture Shock as a process with an end stage, but for me it has always been more of a cycle. In adjusting you get better at the language, better at navigating through the culture, and fall in love all over again. Then you hit new barriers, get frustrated, and go through it all again. Thankfully these waves get smaller and smaller, until you get to the final stage, the "Acceptance Stage". But I think this too is not a permanent destination. The academic stuff on Culture Shock focuses on moving to another country. However I think we all experience it on some scale, whether it be a new job, moving to a new town, moving in with a partner, or going to a new school, anytime we face a new environment.

China is Big - Shanghai to Nanjing

2nd of September 2019, Day 20 - 810ish km

I've made it to Nanjing, taking my first rest day in China after a 6 day 360ish km ride from Shanghai. It feels like I've accomplished a lot when I look at the map zoomed in. Zoom out though, and you realise how big China is. It's only a drop in the ocean compared to what's to come. That's the secret, though. You can't focus on whats left. Just the day in front of you, from here to there. No one thinks they can climb a mountain when they look up from the base. Today is my first China post, and it's a long one, so prepare yourself. Just take it one paragraph at a time.

China

But yeah, I'm in China now and it's crazy. My good pal Jamie, the one I really aspire to be like, recently asked me if I am finding it harder or easier than I expected.* Definitely easier than I feared, but harder than I had hoped. Every day I'm surprised by something. The plumbing is bad, so it can't handle loo roll. There is a little bin with everyone's shit paper in it next to the toilet. I went to a restaurant and they gave me a boiling hot glass of water, because that's what you have here with a meal. Meals cost about a pound, and budget hotels and hostels run for less than a tenner.

I've had a lot of time to myself while cycling to think about all these surprises. Mostly, which was inevitable after living there for 5 years, about how different China is from Japan. Now there are professors who have dedicated their life to studying these cultural differences, but obviously after 6 days I've already got it all worked out, and am completely qualified to make sweeping judgments on both countries. I could write 10 posts on it all, but to avoid boring you all, I'll spread out my vague generalisations through the three months I'll spend here.

China is Big

Shanghai at night

The first is fairly mundane and obvious. China is big. We've all read in school about how many people there are here, and how huge it is. But those are just statistics, with numbers so big it's hard to imagine. Being here, it feels big too, and the size effects everything.

Let's start with the roads. I was expecting it to be hell, but it's a pleasure to cycle out here. There is so much room that even in the center of big cities the roads have two lanes plus a bike lane for me and bike-related vehicles. I say that rather than mopeds, because there is everything. Cart bicycles. Three wheel pick-up truck-esque three wheel motorbikes. Electric bicycles. World war 2 era little trucks with nothing left together but the motor and inner frame. In the city it can be a little hairy. Traffic laws are a suggestion. Red lights mean you should probably stop, and if you don't you are taking a risk, but no one gets mad. The horn is used constantly to let people know you are there, not aggressively to yell at people. I have no bell, so have developed an unmissable whistle to warn unsuspecting old men that I'm overtaking.

Despite that, I feel much safer here. In Japan, no one expects anyone to break the rules, so they aren't prepared for anything out of the ordinary (like a touring bicycle covered with bags in the road because there's no hard shoulder.) Here they are constantly aware and monitoring everything, because anything can happen. And with all the space, there is room for people to smudge the traffic laws a little and drive the wrong way down a road. It leads to an atmosphere where everyone is going slow and steady, putting practicality before hardset rules. As long as you too are aware, read the air, and follow the example of the people around you, it's easy to keep safe. I've had absolutely no near misses the whole time.

It is also big in terms of scale. The cities here are huge. There are hundreds of gated high rise apartment complexes, all with hundreds of building in them. Shanghai shocked me. Every street corner is busy. And the skyline. My god, so many huge impressive buildings I've never even heard of before. Not just the big cities, though. Yesterday I was in Jurong, a city that doesn't even come up on the map unless you zoom all the way in, and it's huge too.

It would be amiss not to pause and mention two people who guided me through the heaving streets of Shanghai. I met James and Maurizio on the two day ferry over to China, which was an experience in itself. No one had phone service, so it forced everyone to be sociable to stave off boredom. Maurizio is a 65 year old Italian womaniser, who caught yellow fever, and will be chasing Asian girls till he dies. He will talk about his conquests for as long as you'll listen. He once snook up Machu Picchu at night and camped there alone, eating spaghetti and smoking weed under the stars on top of the world. He was mugged in Peru, and a swiss girl saved him from a plane that crashed out of the Cook Islands by asking him to stay one more night. James is a 34 year old English guy who got tired of his analyst job in London and quit to travel the world. He is a rather timid and anxious traveler, but is braver than I in facing his fears and seeing the world alone. They helped me change money, get a phone, and catch my breath as the sheer size of Shanghai took it away.

Between the Cities

The space between cities is also huge. In island countries like the UK and Japan, almost every bit of usable space has already been turned into city, town, or village. Here the 50km between one city to the next feels like there is nothing out here. But that too is quickly changing. The level of expansion here is mind-boggling. On the way out of Shanghai, I think I saw more factories than the UK has in total. To go with factories are new construction sites of apartment housing, thousands of identical buildings under construction, springing up as fast as they can make them. 

A city in the fields.

On day 14, first day riding in China, I had run out of water. You can't drink the tap water here, so everyone buys huge bottles. I was so used to having a convenience store every few kilometeres like in Japan, and wasn't expecting the large stretches of nothing but factories and newly constructed apartments. I pulled off the highway to look for a store, but it was like looking for a corner store in an industrial estate. A city-sized industrial estate. I stop to have a think, and a guy stops too to look at me. I get that a lot. 

With a life-saving game of charades, I gesture drinking water, and point at my bottles. He laughs and leads me round the corner to what essentially is a shanty town of temporary buildings set up for the workers building all the apartments. I say temporary, but the rust and peeling paint says they've been there for years. There is a shop, and I go in to get some water. When I go back outside, a crowd has gathered to see me. It was an extremely friendly group; everyone was laughing around, bemused by the white guy with no Chinese that had stumbled into their site. We took some pictures, and they gave me a free sprite, before I got back on my bike and found my way to the highway. I make sure I'm carrying at least 3 liters of water when leaving a city now. Lesson learned. 

That is what most of my experiences have been like when I get off the highway. On day 17 I was following a highway on a lovely broad hard shoulder, but it was getting towards midday, and I could do with filling up on water. I see a little bunch of buildings so figured it was as good as anywhere to turn off. I ask some people if there are any restaurants anywhere, and they started laughing. No, but they pointed down the road, through a one-street farming community to a shop. From the shock on the faces of the farmers I rode by, you'd think they'd seen the lockness monster stop and ask for directions.

Friendly Faces

He refused to let me pay. He speaks no English.

The other surprise I want to talk about is how welcoming the Chinese are. With the number of times I've written kind or friendly in my diary over the past 6 days, I can tell I'm going to have to get a thesaurus out by the end of the trip.

I think it is flows directly from how big China is, not just spatially, but also in mentality. I can't tell if the Japanese are too afraid to speak, or too proud, or too afraid of losing pride, but very few people are brave enough to try and speak to you. Here there is none of that. There is so much room and so many people. If it doesn't go well, or they get something wrong, it doesn't matter. They'll never see me again. And as China is really 22.. some would say 23 countries all smushed together under a common flag, they are used to people not understanding, or not being able to read, or even speaking a different language. They are more prepared to find the common ground.

It also helps that I have a sign on the back of my bike, "From Japan to England, Day 20" in Chinese, which instantly piques people's interest.** When I stop at a red light, it usually goes like this. Everyone gathers behind, reads the sign, and start talking to each other. Then someone asks if I really am doing that, where I'm from, where I'm going. Have you eaten lunch? Come eat with me. Here are some grapes. No its free, take them. Do English people like cakes? I've got loads of cakes. Here, take a cake. Oh the light is green. Cya! At least that's what I assume they are saying because they speak fast, and my Chinese is terrible. bu ming bai.

Bike plus sign

Dinner with Qiu

It is no exaggeration when I say I have received free things every day since landing in China. Food, drinks, toiletries. A guy even shared his dinner with me just because I sat near him. But the best show of Chinese hospitality came in Suzhou. Suzhou is different than a lot of places I've cycled through, because it's an old city with history. I went to an "ancient water town" early in the trip, which had clearly been built as a tourist attraction 20 years ago. Suzhou though has been there for hundreds of years, built around the old city. I was just pulling in to the center to find my hostel when I see a father cycling with his two twin boys. All of them are wearing helmets, so I know something is not usual here. He gestures to me, so I pull over to see whats up. Turns out he is Qiu, an art professor at the university with fluent English. The boys can even speak a little. After chatting for a while about the sign, my bike, and the journey, he asks me if I have anywhere to sleep. He wants me to stay the night, but as I have a pre-paid hostel booked, he gets me to come for dinner after I get cleaned up from the ride. 

It's a miracle I found the place, as it doesn't come up on my map and it's building 42 in a complex of 200 apartment buildings. From the outside it looks like a rundown estate, but inside is middle class bliss. Loads of space, separate rooms for everyone, even a second floor. A bookcase full of Chinese, English, and German books. He taught himself German just through reading. If only I could be so studious with Chinese. We eat an amazing steak dinner and talk all night. His wife, a middle school art teacher, doesn't speak any English but she can definitely cook. She tried so hard to speak English, and in turn I did my best with Chinese. They even walked me home to the hostel, which is lucky because I would never have found my way back in the dark. The people here are kind and welcoming. I am nothing but grateful.

Team photo with Qiu's family.

I'm all out of words for the time-being. I just wanna quickly say thanks to everyone from home messaging to check up on me. With you guys, and the gathering I get of friendly bikers at each street corner, I've got no time to feel lonely. Till next time.

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* He begged me to put that in. This is the last time I'm doing requests.

** Bit nervous having JAPAN written on my sign riding through Nanjing because of.. well, the thing. It doesn't seem to have effected anything though, people are still excited to see me.