Adventures in Jiangxi - II

Well, well, here I am again in my beloved Nanchang, Jiangxi Province...

There is still enough alcohol (baiju + Great Wall wine + Chinese beer) in my system, plus my last hour spent in a gentlemen's club, that I had to get online to blog about right it now...

We - several FAO members representing Beijing, Rome and Bangkok, plus staff of multiple Chinese institutes and agencies - are back in Jiangxi to execute the duck sampling project that Guo and I so carefully prepared a few weeks ago. Of course things aren't turning out as we expected. But that is supposed to be the fun of field work, eh?

At least this time we are staying in the 5-star Jiang Xi Hotel, just down the block from the 4-star Jiangxi Hotel where I stayed before. If you read the last post, you may recall that this was translated to me as the "Chicken With No Sex" Hotel. It has turned out to be surprisingly comfortable, with truly soft beds, international TV channels (alas - still no Fashion TV!), drip COFFEE, a gym, and an ok breakfast. Fine, I am very satisfied with it. Although, the cooked purple cabbage at breakfast is unnaturally purple, suggesting colorful food additives...

But I digress. We arrived last night on Air China. Instead of the "Chairman Mao Visits the Village" propaganda movie I got flying to Hunan, it seemed to be a somewhat racy show with two adults in bed with a video camera. The usual rice or noodle for a meal. Pickup at the airport by some familiar faces and time in the mini bus to meet and greet the new ones. The laowai then pow-wow'ed over chrysanthemum tea to discuss our plan for the week.

This morning there were many new faces in the conference room, including a guy who I quickly named Mr. No but have decided instead to call the Dark Lord. He never, ever made an appearance when Guo and I came to lay the groundwork and is listed as working for some sketchy, "severe animal epidemic" center and teaching institute. Hmmmm. If you want to know the honest truth as I see it, this guy is a spook. Sent from central to keep the laowai in place. He dominated the discussion, including over the head of the provincial veterinary service director. And even lorded over our trusty contact from the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing. Things that make ya go, "hmmmm..."

So, I guess there was at least one thing we forgot to bring with us for this sampling mission: a little lubricant to make it all go, um, a little easier. We a) won't be sampling the wild-type ducks we had expected to sample, b) won't be taking any samples ourselves, and c) won't even be going on the farms with the sampling teams. Well, we negotiated to get to go to the first farm for sampling to make sure everything was being done according to our agreed protocol. After that I guess maybe we should go back to Eunich Island?? In the afternoon we got to meet the 30 people that will be doing the sampling for us. I have never dealt with such a huge entourage in field work, not even in Indonesia! Getting bored, a few of us FAOers were figuring out who would be the lion tamer, elephant trainer, and ring master amidst the circus that this expedition has become.

Since there wasn't much else we could do with ourselves today, we decided to go visit the nearby WalMart SuperCenter. Maybe China's 2nd Great Wall? It was, to say the least, chaotic. Especially with everyone stocking up before the approaching Chinese New Year, aka Spring Festival. I took a few photos, followed my gang in a daze, and decided that I would get capture myopathy if I stayed much longer. A few drops of Rescue Remedy and 30 mins on the treadmill made it so much better! :)

Dinner was the not-unexpected baiju-infused affair. I must say that the food was the least exciting meal I've eaten in the field so far. No duck tongue, no liver, no dog meat. Not even that spicy! Where's my numbing Sichuan?? But at least the crab was really good this time. Even if we had to repeatedly explain that we don't eat the guts. This time I had moral support on the baiju and crab guts! The Dark Lord made sure we women sat below him at the table. But I guess that was just as well since my distance from the director shielded me from too many "Marsha" gambei baiju toasts...

Anyway, it was a pretty fun meal with lots of flushed faces afterwards. So it was decided that we wanted to have massages. I kept pressing for 'blind massage' - administered by blind people, thereby supposedly eliminating the image of impropriety. I haven't had one yet, although there seem to be blind massage places on every other corner. Instead, we were herded out back of the hotel to some X______ Club (I'll try to look up the name tomorrow). It sure looked like a gentleman's club to me, and I and my female compatriot from FAO Rome protested that we women have massages in spas, not clubs. Most of the art found along the stairs leading up had either fully-exposed breasts or buttocks. Lots of dimly-lit hallways and many, many rooms. We were offered a face massage or a full-body. Both of us women opted for full-body - I since I couldn't deal with someone messing with my face and then having to manage breakouts for the next 2 weeks.

So, the full-body massage group was lead further upstairs to then wait while rooms were being assigned. We were in full view of a room containing a bed with brass posts curving over the top and some weird straps hanging down. There was also a shower and TV in the room. In the adjacent room we could just see a robe, patterned in stars and moons, hanging aimlessly. I quickly asked if there were a room where the two of us women could have our massages together. We were led upstairs to a room with a double bed. And red velvet curtains/ropes hanging down from brass rails on the ceiling. There was also a hospital-looking double bed IN THE SHOWER. Baby oil, q-tips, tissues, and talcum powder next to the bed. At least a) the art on the wall had a modestly-posed fairy and a clothed gnome and b) they did not play porn on the TV. Two uncomfortable looking young women in short dresses and high heels (one sporting an arrow tattoo over her left breast) came in and told us to lie face-down on the bed. So, we did, side by side. It was not exactly a deeply professional massage. Lots of superficial rubbing and the requisite percussive episodes (will blog that from my family's visit next time!). I have to say the sounds of massage administered through our long-sleeved shirts and pants was somehow a comfort. It took effort sometimes not to laugh at the whole thing, but I knew there was time for it later. I just tried to enjoy my massage as much as possible.

We decided that we really didn't know who was felt more uncomfortable - us or our young massueses. I got photos of each of us posing with our red velvet and one of the shower bed before leaving. It would have been great, but somehow inappropriate, to get photos with our girls. Downstairs we found our bosses enjoying pedicures. More photos for Facebook! My delightful boss had received his full-body massage in a room with straps hanging down. Speaking pretty passable Mandarin, and with genuine curiosity, he apparently had asked his masseuse how they are used. She told him to come back tomorrow night to find out. And, I guess, even gave him a price list?

I made it back to my room by 9:30pm. And thereby ends yet another exciting night in the field in Jiangxi, just in case you wanted to know...

E :)