Last week my friend and co-worker, Jess, invited me to go bike riding along with some students at Da Fu Mountain. Having seen her amazing pictures of it previously (lots of trees, flowers, a lake, Chinese architecture-the type of pictures you see in travel ads), I was in!
Jess and I got there about an hour before everyone else, rented our bikes and headed out. Not far along, we pulled over at a rest stop to wait for the others to catch up. This stop was a good place to take pictures of the lake, grab a beverage, and there was even an information booth run by volunteer college students, eager to practice their English. Us two white girls were like a beacon to them. A nice, young girl ran up (literally) to us and started making conversation. After we were done with that, some bright colored fabric caught Jess’s eye…”Cait! We have to do this!” I followed her to shop next to the place to buy some drinks, and I see white wedding dresses, red, pink, gold dresses hanging from the ceiling of this hut-like shop. There’s a big display board of photos Chinese women, couples, kids, dressed up in these, what I now realize are costumes. ”No.” I answered firmly. Jess is literally bouncing around she’s so excited, “please? I’ll pay for it!” Looking at her huge grin, I realize that if I stand firm it will just crush her.
“Fine,” I conceded. ”Ah! Which one do you want? Should we wear the wedding dresses? I want that white one!” “What, so we look like we’re getting married? I already have wedding pictures. I want that red one.” The wife of the couple that owns this little business, took our dresses down and lead us to the dressing room (which is really just a sheet hung over a rope). I took my shirt off, but left my tank top and leggings on. It’s about 100 degrees in the ‘dressing room’ so I put on the traditional Chinese dress damn near made out of plastic, in rapid speed. As I’m waiting for Jess to finish putting hers on, the lady motions for me to sit down a plastic stool while holding a dingy looking comb. Free lice with your photo? No thanks. ”Jess, let’s go!”
As the wife/photographer leads us to the picturesque background, the little volunteer pops up and she’s brought a friend, “Can we take pictures?” she asks taking out her phone. ”Only if you take some with our cameras too,” we agreed. Then the photo shoot begins. There are props, and poses….it’s so ridiculous, I’m trying to keep it together, barely succeeding. The two little volunteers are snapping away, no doubt later that day will post our photos on Weibo (Chinese version of Facebook). As we’re in one particular pose, sitting on the ground, sweating our asses off in these death trap dresses, Jess says to me through her smile, “try to look as gay as possible,”. Pretty sure I’ve got that covered! Here’s that picture below:
Cait and Jess making fools out of themselves
Here are a couple more for your viewing pleasure:
As we’re waiting for our photos to be printed, the rest of the group shows up. We quickly hop on our bikes and take to the trails. It’s not really a mountain, but there are some large hills. It’s a really nice park with paved paths, rest stops/photo ops, you can rent paddle boats, and hiking paths. It also seems there is a possible restaurant being built.
After an afternoon of biking, we went to a BBQ restaurant. The food was amazing! We sat on a rooftop terrace and ate grilled chicken, clams, calamari, and lots of vegetables like mushrooms, eggplant, corn on the cob, and bok choy.
Mushrooms, corn, beer, a great meal I'd say
The students were so much fun (I will have pictures of me with the students-to be posted soon). They had such a great sense of humor, we were laughing the entire time through dinner. It’s a different experience when you are with locals-their knowledge of the city and Chinese language add much more to the experience than I could have on my own. Many of the students we teach are fabulous, and I feel privileged to be able to spend time with them outside the classroom and get to know them on a personal basis. Not many teachers get this opportunity.