we’ve taken a short detour from wutai shan to pingyao (via tai yuan and more banking madness, but all’s well that ends well and we finally have some cash in hand).

pingyao is a tiny little ming dynasty village, a walled city which has, for most intents and purposes, been preserved in its original state. we were’nt even planning to pass through, except that someone talked us into it.

and so we’ve stumbled into this tiny piece of another time and place. and it’s beautiful. absolutely gorgeous. we wound up having dinner at a funky little place playing reggae with posters and lanterns and candles. drinking beer and watching china pass by. and it suddenly hit me with the force of a tonne of bricks. this one beer is worth all the months and months of socialising i gave up. because this is *it*. this is what i’ve wanted ever since i first discovered my love of travel. this is my big dream. to go around the world. and i am living in it. i am *doing* it.

it’s mine.

if you’re wondering where plastic bags go to die, it’s china. what should be rows and rows of brown dirt waiting for planting, are studded with multicoloured plastic bags everywhere. sad.

the influence of communism in china isn’t immediately apparent until you start looking at all the multitude of ways that utilitarianism pervades the everyday ethos.

fashion sense is utilitarian in the extreme – if it covers you, and it’s warm, why not wear it? high-falutin’ notions of colour-coordination don’t even enter the picture. that rattling deathtrap of an automobile? if it still goes forward, then health and safety be damned. if you can squeeze an extra person into a sapce, you do. if you can do without something, you do. everything is spare and there is very little waste. even in the workforce, there is an understanding that everyone can be put to use in some way. everyone has a very specific job, a purposeful role to play – from the street sweeper to the woman who approves the bus to leave the station.

nothing is left unused.

it’s amazing how much information you can glean from roman numerals. if you know the general layout of the situation you’re in (a train station), and what you should be looking for (time, platform) you can muddle through with numbers, even when everything else is gibberish.

thank god for them, or we’d be fucked.