Today Yokelin and I visited the largest cave in China, the Zhijin cave. It takes 4.5 hours to get there from Guiyang where we are currently based, not because of distance-it is only 150km away - but because the second half of the journey is in the mountains, with narrow roads and hairpin bends. Prof Zhang, my host, kindly supplied a university chauffeur, Mr Liu, to dirve us in a university car, model "hongzhi" (red flag), actually a Japanese car made in China. He also supplied an English speaking graduate student, Wang Yi Sung, to accompany us. What he neglected to tell us was that Mr Liu must have graduated from the school of "chicken driving". He took hairpins in death-defying tests of the car's road-holding ability, and he overtook trucks near blind corners. Sometimes he would overtake a car despite seeing a truck heading toward us, and poor me and Yokelin just shut our eyes after a few narrow misses! On the way home he happily did 150kph on a 120kph limit expressway.
So, was the cave worth it? Not while we were going there as we thought we might not make it! But once there, the experience was great.
It is indeed huge. We have never seen such enormous columns in any cave, and the volume of the cave itself is breath-taking. I never thought, on the way back, that we will live through Mr Liu's driving to report this to you! I have saved the best part for the end, like some of you surely did when you were served with dinner when you were kids :-). I refer of course to the art of spitting that seems to be universal in China. I have already told you about the well-dressed men in our hotel who nonchalantly spit into the pebble-lined cigarette extinguishers next to the elevators. After raucous throat clearing of course. They do likewise in the streets, out of cars, on pavements, ... And today I heard and saw the limit! In the cave, our group had a WOMAN and several men doing it!! This blew Yokelin's theory that only men practise this art. I was delighted to point out to her that this woman was in fact the most productive of the spitters-in the old days I might have nominated her to the Party for a "productivity medal". Now, to add to the drama, can you imagine what happens to the sound of loud hawking when one is in a huge chamber of a cave? The chamber is a perfectexample of a "resonant cavity", a gigantic echo-chamber! Wow!! When these chaps, and the sole chappess, did their throat clearing in preparation for the launching of a lump of precious bodily fluid, the whole cavern amplified and echoed it! El magnifico!! Yokelin was disgusted. Me? Heh, heh, I naturally thought, "Yet one more report to freak out my relatives". So there! But think about it. No one in our group except us thought that such behavior was a bit off.
I hope I do not find another spitting story to top this one.
So, was the cave worth it? Not while we were going there as we thought we might not make it! But once there, the experience was great.
It is indeed huge. We have never seen such enormous columns in any cave, and the volume of the cave itself is breath-taking. I never thought, on the way back, that we will live through Mr Liu's driving to report this to you! I have saved the best part for the end, like some of you surely did when you were served with dinner when you were kids :-). I refer of course to the art of spitting that seems to be universal in China. I have already told you about the well-dressed men in our hotel who nonchalantly spit into the pebble-lined cigarette extinguishers next to the elevators. After raucous throat clearing of course. They do likewise in the streets, out of cars, on pavements, ... And today I heard and saw the limit! In the cave, our group had a WOMAN and several men doing it!! This blew Yokelin's theory that only men practise this art. I was delighted to point out to her that this woman was in fact the most productive of the spitters-in the old days I might have nominated her to the Party for a "productivity medal". Now, to add to the drama, can you imagine what happens to the sound of loud hawking when one is in a huge chamber of a cave? The chamber is a perfectexample of a "resonant cavity", a gigantic echo-chamber! Wow!! When these chaps, and the sole chappess, did their throat clearing in preparation for the launching of a lump of precious bodily fluid, the whole cavern amplified and echoed it! El magnifico!! Yokelin was disgusted. Me? Heh, heh, I naturally thought, "Yet one more report to freak out my relatives". So there! But think about it. No one in our group except us thought that such behavior was a bit off.
I hope I do not find another spitting story to top this one.
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