I sing, you sing, we all sing

The memory of that day was a ginseng root. It began at the top and finished with the roots - nebulous and chaotic.

In order to start a successful independent tea business, we figured it would be best to get spices and ingredients directly from the growers themselves - that way we can make better deals and ensure the quality of their product.

Up in Changbaixian, Liu Baiguo was that grower. The owner of a local Chinese-medicine shop (中药房), recommended Mr. Liu as his farm was the closest to the city, but produced some of the best ginseng. Liu walked into the shop and asked for the ones who were looking for him. He seemed genuinely excited to be able to show his roots to two bright-eyed American entrepreneurs.

He led us out of the shop, out of the marketplace, and into his car - a police car that he got to keep after his work as a chinese border customs official. At his fields, he told us everything he knew about ginseng, how he inherited his fields, how there are 92 workers working for him, how he plants trees on the plots where the ginseng is picked because the roots use up all the nutrients.

This year's business wasn't exceptional because of the economic crisis, but "One day," Liu said, his eyes gazing at the open road ahead of him, imagining it as his own personal runway, "ginseng is going to buy me an airplane."

Liu dropped us off at the Violet Fashionable Hotel and asked if we had dinner plans. We said no, and he said he'd pick us up in an hour to take us out.

If you must know one thing about northwestern Chinese people, dongbei ren (东北人), know this: they are the warmest, most welcoming people in China, and when they ask you to drink with them, you better drink with them, and jeez can these guys drink.

We ordered four dishes at the restaurant:

1. Some kind of fish in a pollution sauce
2. Chicken livers in a spicy sauce
3. Fried crawfish
4. Probably some vegetable, I forgot this one.

and then he busts out the rice wine - brewed by the devil himself, Baijiu (白酒) is an awful drink.

The bus back to Baishanshi left at 7 in the morning, and we didn't want to get too drunk because it would be hard to wake up... like Liu cared at all about that. The lowly ginseng farmer runs out to his squad car, rustles around in the back, and within seconds emerges from the back, holding a prized bottle of Baijiu, cradling it like a prized chalice from which, in due time, we will quaff.

The Baijiu itself is about 120 proof; we each had 3 small glasses of this fire-broth. He yells out to the waitress in a medieval tone to bring us 6 beers - each beer is about the 24oz, the size of 2 longneck ISB bottles. This would not bode well for tomorrows journey.

Needless to say, we got pretty shwasted wasted hammered blasted plastered. At one point, his wife joined us because Liu wanted her to meet his newest business partners. Up in dongbei, the wild wild northeast, women know how to drink too. Liu had to leave because he was already feeling a bit sick, so she told us that she would "take [her] husband's place, and drink for him." Liu, I think thats cheating, but I love you, so it's cool.

We ended up in the public square, chilling out, drinking more beer - I can honestly say I lost track by this point - and doing more chilling. In order to avoid drinking any more, I suggested we get some ice cream. Matt ran off to the stand and bought them before Liu could pay. He's a big guy and insisted on buying ice cream for his new partners, I physically had to push this man back to his seat to let us pay for something on this ridiculous adventure.

At some point it started raining, and I looked around and the square was empty. We should have been sensible and gone home with the rest of the Changbaixian-ers, but we didn't. Instead we rented these little putt-putt electric go-karts so we could ride them around the empty square. Matt and I took turns chasing Mr. and Mrs. Liu around in our wannabe Cozy Coupes (I swear thats what these things looked like), then eventually got Liu to drive us back to the hotel.

We woke up, drunk, just in time to catch one of the most uncomfortable busses I've ever taken.

Until next time, Liu, you crazy ginseng farming sonuvabitch.

The ZhongNanHai-light of my day

"You are given a complimentary hat and shirt, then you float down a river in a tube with two long cigarettes, and whoever keeps them lit the longest is the winner," Baba told us about a week ago. After hearing this from Matt's host-father, we turned to each other and had one of those telepathic moments in which we agreed that we must sign up for this fierce, unique sporting event.

Over the next week, we familiarized ourselves to the rules of "Smoke n' float," and found that some of our intelligence may have been a little off:

1. We thought maybe "long cigarettes" meant cigars... it just means normal cigarettes.
2. There will be no tubes, you are swimming.
3. There is no competition, you just swim and smoke with some old Chinese people.
4. The event is sponsored by Zhong Nan Hai (中南海), a popular cigarette brand in china
5. They heard about our signing up... and they want to take pictures and put us in an advertisement

After taking the Beijing subway line 1 all the way out to Pingguoyuan(苹果园), we took a public bus out to some far-off river on the outskirts of Beijing. We put on our Zhongnanhai T-shirts and took pictures with "Pretty women and foreigners in front" as directed by the event organizer.

The river shore was a cache of buried treasures - old melon rinds, instant noodle packets, and brilliant, shining glass-shards as far as the eye could see. I had neglected to bring my bathing suit, but found that the swimming garb of choice was the speedo and I would be quite normal in my underwear. In fact, Baba had revealed his swimsuit earlier: a knit loincloth that he tied up, protecting his...wontons, from whatever garbage and pollution lurked in the river.

I, having been rather drunk the night before, needed to use the restroom before swimming. I walked up to the public toilet, which, I kid you not, had a number of beehives in the poop-area. Most Chinese toilets are "squatters" which means there's no bowl, there's just a hole in the ground, and you go for it... you squat, and you do your business. I pulled down my pants and began my descent into the squatting position, the fury of the bees and flies in that toilet was tangible; they poised to strike as if I had threatened to desecrate the sacred breeding ground of their ancestors.

I squatted in a secluded, forested area then returned to the shore. The water was surprisingly warm, most likely from the fishermen who were peeing into the river upstream, but pleasant nonetheless. An old man asked me: "How many hundreds of meters can you swim at once?" To which I answered "I can barely swim one meter," which was true. I tread a mix of instant noodle broth and polluted water for about 20 minutes then returned to the shore.

A woman who came on the trip offered me a snack of dried miniature shrimp skins. I politely accepted a handful of about 20. While munching respectfully, Baba took the bag of shrimp skins, dumped the entire bag on a piece of bread, and devoured the oriental delight.

We dried off and took the bus back to Pingguoyuan. China is weird.