HuangHe

Yesterday I woke up early in Kaifeng. I don't usually have much to do on the weekends. Especially since we haven't been given a lot of homework yet. We are still mostly working on pronunciation. Well I decided that I needed a chance to get out and stretch my legs. I decided to walk to the Yellow River.

The Yellow River runs right through the North China Plain and its watershed is the cradle of Chinese Civilization. Kaifeng marks the boundary on the river between the Loess Plateau and the Alluvial Plain. Loess soil is fine dust-like soil deposited by the retreat of the glaciers. It is easily carved into and through out China's past people have lived in caves carved out of the sides of cliffs. It is also very prone to erosion and the river carries this fine soil giving it a coffee-with-cream complexion.

I packed my bag with some stuff to read and water and headed out of the campus is the general direction of the river: North. According to my guide book the river is only 15 km north of the city and it shouldn't be hard to find since all I have to do is walk far enough. I marched out of the Beimen (North Gate) of the city wall. All along the road (sort of a mini highway) for at least a mile out of the city were stands selling prepared food, batteries, tires, piles of sunflower seeds (for chewing), carts of fruit, and on and on. The traffic was bad, of course, the only rule of the road is whoever is bigger and louder has the right of way. Little quiet me, on foot steers way clear to the shoulder; most cars do give a wide berth to pedestrians and bikes, so it is fairly safe. (This coming from someone who scootered around Taiwan for a year though.)

As I reach the outskirts of Kaifeng I come upon a most curious place for about 500m on either side of the street are construction outfits. There are stacks and stacks of wood planks, logs about to become planks, corrugated steel, and roof parts. Intermixed with these are heaps of salvages wood and building materials. There are pile of desks, over there carefully organised thick A-frame roof beams, rows and rows of salvaged doors and windows. The whole place is full of people loading things on and off of trucks, people cutting and welding; all on the side of the road. China is deconstructing and reconstructing itself in a way that reminds me of a giant Lego city. And everything seems so much more immediate than in the US. I finish a soda and an old man with a sack asks for it. Trash gets thrown on the ground and somebody sweeps it up. Fascinating.

At some point the city just sort of ends. Chinese cities are too new to have suburbs, though I'm sure they will be coming in some form. Urban goes right into rural and so abruptly too. I pass fields mostly of corn interspersed with some wheat and peanuts. People stare at me and ask where I am going, or they just stare or they laugh at me. I pass through a few very tiny villages they seem more like the archetypal western towns with one street and lots of dust.

Out on the road a bicyclist gives me a wide berth as she passes, simultaneously a motorcycle passes the bicycle, while a small truck passes it, which is being passed by a much much larger truck. The whole affair takes up most of the entire road. No one waits to be passed or waits to pass. They just do it. Meanwhile a similar dance is taking place up ahead from the on coming traffic. I flinch as everyone falls into place just in time to avoid a massive collision.
Then the whole thing happens again. And again. etc. Until I don't even notice reckless driving going on all over the road.

People here are both more reckless and much more attentive when driving. Oh well.

I kept walking and walking, expecting to come up on something after the next village or the next one. But nothing yet. Well 15km is kinda far. Just need to walk further.

Some teenage boys started following me on their bicycles, and after a half hour or so one of them pulls over to ask me where I am going. I tell him and he assures me that yes the Yellow River is still up ahead. Then he wants to know if I want a ride their on his bike. Sure why not?
So I hop on gingerly, and ride sidesaddle on the rack over the rear wheel, holing on to it with one hand and his shoulder with the other. I have to balance myself carefully to stay on. He and his friends ask me questions and we converse in both English and Chinese to the best of our abilities. They live near by and are all 17. We stop at a cross roads and have noodles at a stand there. They wont let me pay for anything even though I insist upon paying for them. (This is pretty normal, even though I knew they wouldn't let me pay I tried anyway. Its what you are supposed to do.) We then head out again, I see the river now we are quite close. We pull off onto the bank.

I had expected to sit by the river and read, but now that I had company that wasn't going to happen. I wasn't sure what we were going to do or what they wanted to do either. I threw rock into the river which prompted a rock skipping contest. I felt at least 10 years younger. There were places on the bank where the mud had hardened and cracked. The boys pulled out big flat chunks of it (like slate) and we broke these into perfect flat disks for skipping. Too much fun. Ma Dong, the boy who gave me the ride and who spoke the most English asked me if I liked corn. I said yeah I guess I do. Then the other two kids biked off and eventually returned with 6 ears of corn and some peanuts. I don't know where they got the corn, you can buy it on the side of the road. But the peanuts suspiciously still had dirt and the plants attached. I'm pretty certain that those just came from somebody's field.
I've never had raw peanuts before, but they taste sort of like peas from the garden. Then we peeled down the corn stuck sticks in the ears while one guy made a pile of sticks and old corn stalks for a fire. They roasted the corn in the fire. Not too bad, and lots of fun.

Well we decided to head back they dropped me off at the bus stop and waited with me for the bus to come. Also I agreed to be Ma Dongdong's pen pal (Ma Dong for short). They told me we could hang out when ever I came up to the Yellow River again.