2024 China Liase Official Website

We rose at an ungodly hour to ensure that we would beat the traffic and make it to our 7:30 train from Chongqingbei to Beijingshi. While we were aboard, we received a lecture by two representatives from the ‘Research and Innovation’ sector of the China Rail Corporation, about China’s growing high-speed rail system. A few statistics of note: 70% of the world’s rail kilometrage is in China, and in 2023 the rail system there had a personage of 2.8 billion. The representatives emphasized safety, accessibility, affordability, sustainability and comfort for the rider as the primary concerns of the rail corporation.

Rail travel ultimately creates the effect of compressing the temporal and embodied experience of traveling through space, and is inherently discerning between spaces that are incorporated into a system of connection, and those that are not. More and more different spaces and places through the country are being connected by rail, starting between the most ‘metropolitan’ areas, and also connecting them with tourist cities. He explained that a city would have to have a population of over 500,000 people before it qualified for a high speed rail station.

He spoke about a brand new high speed rail line opened in Indonesia in the last several years, as an example of China exporting their infrastructure innovation with other countries. A member of the group posed a question on this point, saying that through her personal relationships she knows that local people are not happy with the rail line there. He said that since he was unfortunately not a foreign diplomat, he could not speak on that.

I scarfed down some hotel breakfast quickly before we headed to our 8:30 train from Enshi City to Chongqing. Our bus ride to the station was short and bittersweet, as we were parting ways with Michael, our steadfast local guide for the last ten days, and our preeminent bus driving, having led us down the windiest of roads safely so far. Michael gave us the farewell gift of a song—a full rendition, a cappella, of the Carpenters’ “Yesterday Once More.” It sunk in that our trip was at that point much closer to ending than beginning. 

We managed to stay together as we made it through the train station, where we were lucky enough to have first-class sleepers. They were six to a compartment, three on each side. I got a bottom bunk, away from the rest of the group, thinking I’d be joined but some other passengers. It turned out I had the compartment to myself the whole way. I spent a long time looking at the window. It was one of the clearest days we’d had so far, and incredibly bright and sunny. We passed villages nestled between mountains covered in pines. We’d spend a few minutes in the light, but then plunge back into a tunnel, which would also last minutes at a time, as we passed underneath thousands of tons of rock. 

After we arrived, we met our local guide Windy, and went by bus to our lunch spot. Delphi, a Vassar alum of class of ’23, and his friend George, arrived while we were eating. They would show us around the city for the next two days we were there. We all shed layers, as it was beautiful and 70 degrees out. Windy led us to one of the city’s most famous spots, where the mono-rail subway goes through a commercial building. We were dropped off at Liziba Station, right by the bank of the Jialing River, which intersects with the Yangtze in the city center. We walked through the crowd to wait and see the train pass through the buildings, and then reconvened to get on ourselves. We rode to the Zoo stop, where our hotel was just a short walk from, and where the bus was waiting for our luggage. 

Students and faculty were given the rest of the afternoon free! Groups splintered off to do as they wished. Many rested, a group went with George who showed them his favorite parts of the city, and some of the older ones, some went to the Zoo (pandas!) and others strolled by themselves, exploring and shopping. I went with a few others in search of a nail salon. At first we had trouble finding it, but we entered through a butcher’s storefront, which led us upstairs to a gigantic indoor shopping mall. We three finished our nail appointment just in time to get to dinner at the Wudu Hotel, kindly organized by Delphi. It was a beautiful meal! There was much toasting, and Delphi explained that that banquet hall was often used by Chinese politicians and diplomats. He said that the hotel likely runs at a loss, but will remain in business because it hosts such clientele. It felt cool, bizarre and uncomfortable all at once to eat in a place like that. 

After we finished, George and Delphi took a group of us to Enling Park, where they said we would see one of the best views anywhere of Chongqing. It was free entry, and there were quite a few people in the park, despite it being late. We spent ages up there, marveling at how expansive and beautiful the city looked at night. 

Waking up in the beautiful Yichang Evergrand Hotel commenced our departure to the Three Gorges dam. As we headed to the dam, we were immediately captivated by the mountain scenery juxtaposed with the imposing dam structure looming in the distance as we approached.

We went to several locations within the Three Gorges Dam, where we got to see the movement of ships coming through and the mechanics of upstream/downstream boat lifts. 

The Three Gorges Dam has a total storage capacity of 39.3 billion m squared (a lot!!) – making it the world’s largest hydropower project, critical to controlling floods in the downstream areas. The construction of the project in the 2010s included resettlement statistics of up to 1.31 million people, among many other infographics. Including this fact felt important, and Ziyao mentioned, too, after conversing with one of the locals, that the Three Gorges Dam is actually one of the only somewhat controversial topics mentioned in their school textbooks. 

We later went to go see a documentary-style video on the dam, which turned out less like the documentary Professor Zhou expected to see, and more like a theme park’s exhibitional ride. Paired with the earlier tourist experience, I was thinking about the development of tourism, particularly as a learning space, and the varying expectations and provocations that exhibitors have from tourists/the audience. 

We then went to lunch at a very local restaurant, which ended up being one of the favorite meals from the trip. We got a little taste of hot pot and ate almost everything on the table (times few and far!). 

Afterwards, we made our way down to Went to the Three Gorges Family Tribe where we took a ferry across the river and watched a performance of the Tujia minority’s traditional wedding ceremony. The natural landscape here was absolutely beautiful and one of the most memorable parts of the trip. The soft jade water was luring us in. We kept wanting to climb, experience, and take in more of the scenery, but were not permitted 🙁 But we had a few minutes to sit, sketch, and meditate, which was really nice! After some time, I began wondering what life here would be like without the developed tourism infrastructure, and if the people living there were supported in developing their own communities away from tourism. 

Overall, the day was fantastic and eye-opening, and we are grateful to have witnessed so much (and for all the questions it has brought up). We’ll send you off with an adorable picture of Yu Zhou holding the sun 🙂

We began the day with a long bus ride to lunch, continuing an intellectually stimulating reflection session from the day before. With gorgeous views outside, the time passed quickly as we discussed the past few days and interrogated the politics of crayfish farming systems, of tourism aesthetics (the wedding ceremony we witnessed the day before was a particularly hot topic), and I was wondering about the ways in which a modernizing, postcolonial China organize and present conceptions of time, nature, and “community.”

Today, our main destination was the Stone Forest in Enshi. Immediately upon arriving, the time and life of the landscape had me in awe — in all the ridges of the stones, the way moss lined rocks as they piled upon one another, and the particularities of each of these seemingly parallel formations that reveal millenia of movement and dynamism. I kept behind the large group much of the time because when I was alone, I found that I could really listen to the stone forest and its silence was filled with the fairy-like tinkling of water drops in crevices and the slow-moving waves of wind. It was serene, and almost spiritual. Though we later discussed how the belief-infused labels, like the thousand Buddhas in the stone wall, were perhaps performative, I don’t doubt that people across ages, before it became a scenic spot and even now, have found transcendent meaning in this place. Incredibly unfortunate that I lost my notebook, but even those moments of writing and sketching and being present were powerful for me! Words cannot do it justice, (nor can the photos) but perhaps the visual documentation can help~~

Afterwards, we ate dinner! Amazing and filling, again, as usual. After dinner, a few of us (including fellow blogger Kathleen!) went on a long walk to a park that had a lake, and I really enjoyed moments like this where we could venture and experience parts of China on our own time. Part of that was spotting a street vendor, and I got super excited to try out some locusts.

That was the end to another wonderful, jam-packed day in China!

We were finally in China! As we exited the airport, it set in that everything this class had been about, we were talking about was happening. To go from the crazy midterm grind to a country on the other side of the world was as jarring as it was excited. Sitting on the bus, with our welcoming, sweet tour guides Michael and Terry, we peered out of the windows, taking in just the reality of our situation, that felt almost dreamlike. We feasted on some delicious Wuhan cuisine for lunch, some of us proving our inability to use chopsticks pretty soon into the meal. The variety of things we ate and drank was awesome, especially because all of us may not have been a 100% sure what everything was. One thing we did know- it was yummy, and we were hungry. Demi’s parents also paid a surprise visit at lunch to the group, which was really sweet!

At 4:30, after laying our weary traveller heads to rest for a bit, we convened to head out for some evening exploring. In the lobby. We met with 2 delightful CCNU students- Angel and Jeanius, who were to help show us around. They dazzled us with their smiles, charm Ann’s quick wit. Truly, it was humbling to have someone so excited to meet us. 

Our first stop was the Yangtze Riverbank- on the way, we crossed over the beautiful ‘long river’ on a bring from the Wuchang to the Hankou district. How magical it was to finally meet the reason we were all here- the majestic Yangtze. At once, some of us (I’m not going to say who) were overcome to interact with it in the most intimate way- swim across it like Chairman Mao did more than a half century ago.!But alas, it was cold, and some say dangerous. Maybe further upriver…. Keep your eyes peeled on the blog for a quest to swim in the Yangtze, or one of its tributaries…

The traffic was too heavy for us to reach our walk at the busy district of Jianghan road, so instead we walked some more, got to make some friends, and took in the beautiful sunset by the Yangtze. Everyone and their family was out on the lovely Saturday evening. After eating a DELECTABLE dinner in what used to be a warlords temporary house with our friendly host students, we slumped back to our rooms in a jet-lagged haze, exhausted from day on and excited for more future exploration.

Here’s a fun bit of photoediting from the first day- who knew of Jeanius’ secret talent! (can you spot the difference?

We started the day with Beijing subway rush hour as we took a line to the Temple of Heaven. At the Temple of Heaven we got a sense for the grand scale which the emperor prayed for the continuation of prosperity to fulfill his Mandate of Heaven. 

The emperor would at most visit the Temple of Heaven three times a year to pray, and the array of blue roofs mirrors the heavenly setting that was meant for the Emperor.

Afterwards we visited the Forbidden City, and ate lunch there. The Forbidden City was filled with buildings with yellow roofs and many galleries and gift stores as well as buildings set up to more closely resemble how past emperors, empresses, concubines, and children would use spaces.

We also saw the gardens and even a slightly disappointing “five star bathroom” (other non-five-star-bathrooms were much more impressive). From there, we crossed to see the hill behind the Forbidden City.

We then went to the Drum Tower to see the Hutongs of Beijing. The alley-like houses were lined with alleys of stores and vendors and many of the traditional houses I walked by had been bought as status symbols and had been renovated. We tried different kinds of tanghulu and walked by the school area of the Hutong, finally making our way to one final dinner that Professor Zhou had personally ordered with some alums!

The dinner was the perfect final communal meal. Then with the help of one of the Alums (Doudou) the students all went to karaoke in a mall near our hotel! We shalala’ed for “Yesterday Once More,” and that was our last full day together in China! 

Today we went to see the Suobuya Stone Forest in Enshi. We drove for 4 hours from Yichang on one of the most expensive highways (2 yuan per km). The bus passed through tunnels and 100m high bridges. From the road we saw the surrounding mountains slant and tilt as the road continued straight and flat.

The stone forest was Ordovician limestone, and at the entrance they had uncovered marine fossils for visitors to see. We went up paths of stairs up and down around gorges and gaps between the rocks.

The rocks were covered in moss, and when I was alone all I could hear was the sound of water dripping from moss to rock down. There were lots of look out points to see the profile of the surrounding mountains. We had dinner afterwards and checked into our hotel.

Afterwards, I got snacks at a supermarket. Some of us walked over to a lake about 50 minutes away from the hotel. The water was clear and still enough to make beautiful ripples. On the walk back we saw a street vendor and tried roasted locusts.

 It was a wonderful day 🙂

We started the day off going to the Tusi ethnic village “二官寨村”. Thanks to the sheer skill of our bus driver we made it there alive. The roads were quite curvy and at some parts there were only dirt roads. (Somehow there was space for cars to pass our giant bus). 

As we winded through the mountains of Enshi, the cliff faces slowly turned into rows and rows of tea plants. In a place where I wouldn’t think anything could grow, there were terraced tea fields. 

Once arriving in the village, we were given a little tour around by a man who was born and raised in the village but taught at a College in Wuhan. We got to see the preserved traditional housing complexes, and the village square where they have community dancing every once in a while. We got the privilege to go inside a resident’s house, got to see their kitchen, their bedrooms, and wine making set up. Since there generally isn’t heating in Chinese households in that part of China, they had a multitude of thick blankets and once central “heating room” where they dried meat and where residents could go if they got too cold. When I walked into that room I was just grateful for the heat, and didn’t notice the hanging pig intestines until a bit later, it was quite surprising. 

I was also happy to see all of the (definitely well fed) village cats all over the place. It was kind of an “I spy” moment. 

Before we left the village, we had a nice walk along the river, I waded in up to my knees, and Karun went for a little swim (big surprise there). 

We left the Tusi village for a cute little restaurant/tea farm (茶花山庄) where we had (in my opinion) one of the best meals, of local dishes. Since it was still in the mountains and it was a foggy day, it was a very cold dinner, but a tasty one nonetheless. 

After dinner we sat at this long table and had a little tea ceremony, trying different types of tea locally produced and processed. It turned out that the same woman who harvested the tea leaves also made some fruit wines and liquors sold at the restaurant. So after the ceremony, I went back to the restaurant and bought locally made loquat liquor. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to buy any sticky rice wine, even though it was the best wine I think I have ever tasted. (I might try to make it instead). We all all bought a pack of locally sourced red tea which I am drinking as I write this (and its sooo good). 

We then went to the old Tusi City and explored on our own. 

The day concluded with a nice dinner (as per usual) and in order to heal the pains from the previous day at the canyons, a few of us decided to go to a Thai massage spa. (Which was amazing and also surprisingly quite painful) 

Aza Wolfwood

Karun Krishnamurthy and Malia Weiss

We started our 2nd day in Chongqing with a lecture from an Urban Planner at an urban planning university. The beautiful place was located in a refurbished old state-owned factory. Unlike the many others like it around the city that are abandoned space, the university had curated a beautiful space of learning based on ‘being like a cow’. Because cows are awesome. Agreed. We even got the lecture at a coffee shop/workspace called ‘cow dung coffee’—a symbol of fertility and new beginnings, and apparently pretty decent coffee 🙂

Prof Yang Zhenyu’s lecture detailed the history of Chongqing, as a dense city central to domestic transport, due to its proximity to the Yangtze River and a massive tributary Jialing, that meet at the base of the city. He mentioned Chongqing’s rapid development, something that was made a spectacle by the state, but also stressed the importance of experiencing daily life when Urban Planning. He encouraged us to look past the impressive spectacle of the city that is broadcast in our space and walk around, and see if we can experience the wholeness of the city—a tall task for our last day here, if you ask me, but nevertheless inspiring. We also spoke about the importance of the Three Gorges Dam in connecting Chongqing with the rest of China, and the phenomenon of the municipality spreading into the hinterland, and absorbing people from the villages around it. The talk raised some important things for us to reflect on—like how does one pitch the importance of making beautiful memories to a government urban planner that talks in incentives and economy and financial districts? 

We pondered these questions later as we walked around the narrow winding streets of the old porcelain city. The lanes buzzed with life, and we couldn’t help being carried along by the energy of the space. Free samples galore, and wonderful happy people all around. Needless to say, we had lots of great food and gave other vendors good business, even if we did not necessarily know what we were buying 🙂 

After lunch in the old porcelain city, we headed to the Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum. Sadly, the Three Gorges Dam display was closed, but we were still able to explore many other interesting exhibits. The first centered on Chongqing history, starting with the physical topography and early urban planning of the city during the Ming Dynasty. One display depicted a Chongqing middle school, high school, and university student protest against US military crimes pre-dating the Communist Revolution. Learning about larger geopolitical happenings in China through the lens of specific events in Chongqing (like the student protest) calls to mind a central method we have been using on this trip: zooming in to zoom out. Our examination of crayfish-rice farming as a case study to illuminate larger Chinese trends of co-cropping, changing land ownership, and rural displacement is one such example.

Another particularly striking exhibit centered on the clothing, traditional handicrafts, and cultural art of the ethnic groups of Southwest China. The displays were beautiful and thought-provoking, especially after our visits to the Tujia villages in Yichang and Enshi. In these villages, Tujia people were able to present their communities on their own terms in the form of food, tea, art, music, and historical narrative. Whether or not these performances were completely “authentic” or “traditional” does not negate the communities’ autonomy in their self-presentation. Were the Three Gorges Museum displays about indigenous groups reflective of any sort of similar community autonomy? Or were these presentations completely constructed by people outside these groups? Most importantly, what narrative does placing an indigenous community’s cultural clothing and art in a state-run historical museum seek to tell: that such groups only exist in an imagined past?

We continued to mull over these questions as we meandered through Jiefangbei Pedestrian Street and its neighboring alleys within the bustling business and shopping district of Chongqing, stopping to try street food along the way.

We finished the evening with a delicious hot pot dinner, each of us cooking up our own concoction of steaming meat, vegetables, and noodles. One might say our motley crew is a bit like hot pot: each of us our own unique individual, coming together in this space to soak up as much knowledge as we can, while still adding our own influences and depths of flavor to the dish as a whole. (I guess China is the broth in this scenario? I never claimed to be a poet…) Cheesy metaphors aside, it was another wonderful day for the books 🙂

 Liana Tortora

We started the day by taking the subway to Tian Tan Dong Men – an exhilarating start to the day as we all struggled to fit onto the already packed subways during rush hour. Once we all shoved our way onto the subway, we waited like sardines in a can until we arrived. 

The Temple of Heaven was our first stop of the day. The temple was constructed during the Ming Dynasty and has a significant connection to the mandate of Heaven, as it was a place for the emperors to come to every summer solstice to worship Heaven and pray for a good harvest. Fun fact: the temple of heaven is blue because blue in Chinese culture represents Heaven! We walked around the temple, enjoying its beauty, and could not stop ourselves from admiring and hugging a 600-year-old tree 🙂 

Our next destination was the Forbidden City. On the way, we drove through “Justice Street,” which houses many of Beijing’s legal courts, and Chang’an Avenue or the “avenue of eternal peace.” On the way to the Forbidden City, Professor Zhou shared with us that there is a perpetual battle over the modernization of the Forbidden City, how there is debate over how low the buildings are as well as how poor the residents are, and how over the years there has been a push to relocate this community, but of course, there has been much resistance. Therefore, in the last 20 years, instead of removing the community and current infrastructure and architecture, it was decided that it would instead be preserved but gentrified. Now, some of these buildings house elders and more impoverished residents and are also used for Airbnb or have been taken over by billionaires. We also learned that the Forbidden City, like the Temple of Heaven, is a central axis, and behind the south gate is the Jing Shan mountain, where you get a great view of the layout of Bejing as a city. 

The Forbidden City is surrounded by a manmade moat, and the leftover mud produced in its construction was used to create the Jing Shan mountain we later climbed. The moat was made to protect the estate, and is about 52 meters wide and 20 meters deep – interestingly, according to our tour guide Cathy, the moat is 52 meters wide because it was believed then that 52 meters was the best shooting distance. Along the moat were beautiful magnolia trees and weeping willows. We entered through the South gate, which is the main gate, is also known as the Meridian gate, named after the emperor’s belief that his residence is in the middle of the universe.  We spent most of our day perusing, enjoying, and learning about the beauty that is the Forbidden City, with its intricate and decorative walls and roofs and the pockets of serene landscapes of trees and rocks of all shapes and sizes. We enjoyed a bagged lunch inside the walls of the city and poked our heads into many of the gift shops that were scattered throughout. We then climbed Jing Shan Mountain, which was known to provide a great view of the city from its top. After many stairs and pictures, we took the bus to the drum tower. 

At the drum tower, we were given free time to roam the streets and lively, colorful alleyways of Beijing, which tempted us with all kinds of snacks and treats.

After many purchases, it was time for dinner. This dinner was definitely, at least personally, one of my favorite meals of the trip. Professor Zhou ordered the dishes for this dinner and showed us all what Beijing cuisine is truly about. We were accompanied by a few Vassar alumn’s who were very open and excited to speak to us about their lives and work in Beijing. 

Of course, we couldn’t possibly end our last night in Beijing before 9:00 p.m., so we students decided that there was no better way to end the night than to finally do Karaoke, something that we had wanted to do since arriving. Over a couple of beers and a huge box of snacks (thanks to Ziyao and her cousin), we laughed and sang our hearts out… it was late but fulfilling last night in China.