August 1st-Finding something in Chongqing

Well....it has been awhile since I have blogged. It seems dmb to write this here in this post, but hopefully when I update the past few days, people remember to read from the oldest date first, otherwise my references to finding some kind of spirtuality in "The Mountain City" Chongqing will make no sense! Hmm...I will repost this warning on every post just to make sure.
Getting up a bit later, I made my way to the Pudong International Airport in order to hop a flight into the interior of the country to Chongqing on Air China.
A few interesting facts about Chongqing before we get into:
-It is in the Sichuan (spelling?) area of China, the most populated. In fact, if I remember my facts right, 1/8th of the worlds people live there.
-It is famous for its haze. It was the World War Two capital of the Nationalist Chinese Government (the ones that fled to Taiwan, not the communists) after Nanjing got overrun. Hopefully everyone knows what happened in Nanjing...) It was chosen as the capital because of the haze. Japanese planes would bomb the city all the time. Seven days straight, on every hour at one poinst. But because of the haze they could not hit their targets, allowing the communists and the nationalist to form a truce and fight back (along with the Americans who had a presence in Chongqing at the time) against the Japanese.
-Given the birth rate, death rate, and the amount of people moving to the city: Chongqing gains 1600 people a day. I am not making that up. Of course, technically Chongqing is the size of Maine-it is one the special provinces of China, along with Shanghai, Beijing and Schezen (and I know for sure that is spelled wrong-its the city right next to Hong Kong)
I stated that last fact because it is clear when one leaves the airport that this is a massive city. The future of China is not in oil or politicals or money or anything like that. The future of China is in construction. I can not even put into words, or have taken pictures, that would have really illustrated how many high rise apartment buildings are going up the minute you leave the airport, and stretching as far as you can see from ANY point in the main part of the city. Cranes dot the horizon and the sounds of work being done is clear. When one gets closer to the city, one also sees the other aspect of this booming city. You enter the city on a bridge over the river (the main part of the city is a penninsula with the Yangzi on one side and the Jinjing I think on the other) The city is on the mountain tops, and has large cliffs all around it. On the top of these cliffs is a highway. Under that is a monorail, on and off. (sometimes it weaves on to the top of the highway) Beneath the over passes of the highway and monorail, on the cliffside, are houses. Shacks. Built onto the highway support poles. When you are cruising along the highway that curcles the city, you can see into the nooks and crannies between these new high rise buildings and find little shacks in there as well. In Chongqing, the requirements for moving there are relaxed. (In China, you can not just get up and moved to a city or area as you would like. You have to have a work visa and permission to move from the government) In this city, you just have to find a job and an apartment. No visas required. Hence the boom in population.
Arriving at my hotel, it once again has a rock solid bed. I will not miss these when I leave China. I throw my bag in my room, and head out to find supper in the city. First stop is the People's Square, with the People's Hall. It looks a bit like the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (google it) and was quite nice. While I was taking photos, people were of course taking photos of me. If I was a bit out of place in Shanghai, I was like Chairman Mao come back from the dead here. Seriously. One pair of teenagers of coursed asked to have their picture taken with me. As I sat down to take a breather, a little girl of maybe 13 came to talk to me. She asked how I liked China, if I knew any Chinese (I do know the basics at this point, enough to get by, but there is no way i can ever spell them). I am very upset at this point at being laughed at and all that, and am rejecting this stranger in a strange land thing. Also, after having every other person ask me if i want a watch in Shanghai, I am very leary of the Chinese talking English to me, convinced that it will be a scam or something like that. So I was very quickly told the girl that I had to go, got up and left. After walking about 5 minutes, I felt terrible. Here was this little girl, probably taught English and has maybe never gotten to use it with an American, and I just blew here off. I honestly felt terrible about it.
I tried going to two different restaurants to try the local speciality, the Hot Pot. It is basically a version of fondue, but involves a chili sauce and really hot peppercorns and spices. The first place, there was a big language issue. The second place, they didnt want to serve me since i was alone. Hot pot is really a dish you need a few people for, much like fondue. If you were sitting at home by yourself, you wouldnt make fondue for dinner would you? Same thing with hot pot. As I am wandering the city, very hungry and really wanting the ONE food I just had to have in China, I was still thinking about that girl. I made a kind of deal in my head that next time someone tried to take my picture or talk to me, I would go above and beyond and do what I could to make it a great experience for them. At this point I saw a foursome of Brits I had seen earlier in the Square. They were being shown into a restaurant by their guide. Being hungary, I decided to cheat and try this place.
Good news was it was a hot pot place with lots of options for food. ( you can put pretty much anything in the hot pot, let it sit and boil for a minute, and then eat it)
Bad news: They started to laugh at me. They let me sit at a table. And pointed to the Brits and made some comment I couldnt understand. And then the young waiter came.
And he spoke English.
And he was more then willing to help me out.
I wont go into details about the whole process, but I will say that the Hot Pot was amazing. Some of it was mouth numbing hot, but thats a good thing in this situation.
Things were looking up. I went back to the park, waiting to see the lights turned on at the People's Hall. Then I saw the familar look on a couple's face. They were coming in for a pic. This was a new one. They didnt say a word in english, or ask at all. They looked at me like I was a monkey in the zoo. They quickly threw their kids next to me. Remembering the little girl, I made funny faces at the boy. He was not finding me funny. He looked scared out of his mind. But I smiled for the pic.
Some kind of redemption. I thought maybe this was finding the balance of good and bad, and finding the fun in the situation. I thought maybe my internal thoughts about the guilt over treating that girl bad had come to reality. I thought about the concept of finding faith in a place like Chongqing. (And I thought that something along those lines would make a good book title, not as good as "Things to do in Richmond with Miranda" but good)
Of course, if you read this post after the August 2nd post, then you know that this pic opportunity was not the real reward for good behavior. If you read this blog first, good for you! Move on to the next one!