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.

-

* 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.