China – Luke Netzley

How To Survive The Climb Up China’s Highest Sacred Mountain

Standing at just over 10,167 feet, Mount Emei is the highest of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains in China and one of the most famous mountains in the Sichuan province. Its golden summit is one of the most significant Buddhist landmarks in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site that draws thousands of tourists and pilgrims alike each year. It is also home to the Guangxiang Temple, regarded by some as the first Buddhist temple ever built in China, dating back to the 1st century CE.

1. Eat well, sleep well, and don't get drunk at the karaoke bar the night before...

At least that's what we should've done before our early-morning departure from the western-Chinese city of Emeishan. Instead my friends and I stumbled out of bed, heads pounding and stomachs churning, dreading the two-day journey that awaited us to the golden summit.

2. Take the first step, but not too fast.

The road to the summit is a long and arduous 37-mile trek along a network of cobblestone steps that snake through the jungle-clad mountainside, so make time for rest and recovery by stopping at one of Mt. Emei's ancient temples to sip plum juice and pay your respects to the mountain and its history.

3. Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate.

Before we even began our climb, we were sweating buckets. The temperature was in the high 90s and the humidity was in the high 80s, and it was only seven in the morning. Scientists state that nearly 25% of heat-related illnesses result from dehydration rather than the heat itself, so it was important that we drink and drink and drink so that we wouldn't end up asleep on the side of the road... though we did anyway.

Budget traveler tip: buy water at the base of the mountain and carry it with you. It may be extra weight on your back, but it will keep you from over-spending on bottled water. The nearer the summit, the more expensive everything becomes.

4. Find yourself a bamboo stick.

Nearly four and a half hours into the ascent, my hiking partners and I began to notice that every local farmer, elderly shopkeeper, or mountaineering tourist we passed carried a bamboo stick. We thought they were used as makeshift walking sticks, until we discovered our new arch nemesis for the journey: the Tibetan Macaque.

These endemic primates are big, strong, fanged, and have an undying love for petty theft. As one roadside sign warned: "Carrying any plastic or paper bags can make you a target for the local monkey gangs. Please avoid doing that...As we are not allowed to arrest them according to Law on the Protection of Wildlife, we strongly recommend you take good care of your belongings."

5. Spend the night in the Elephant's Washing Pool.

No, not an actual washing pool filled with elephants, but a sprawling temple complex just five hours below the summit where monks pray and incense burns slowly beneath towering statues.

After a tiring day of nonstop hiking and macaque warfare, we had finally reached the steps of the temple Xixiangchi, meaning Elephant's Washing Pool, and watched the sun set above the misty valley. The temple was named after a legend that the renowned bodhisattva Samantabhadra once bathed his white elephant in the waters of its courtyard.

6. Never drop your guard.

We left Xixiangchi at daybreak with our stomachs full and bamboo sticks at the ready. At that point we had learned that the macaques attack when you least expect. Like guerrilla soldiers, they use the land to their advantage and attack from all angles, even dropping on us from the trees above our heads. So we kept our guard up as we marched on through the forest, the remainder of the ascent spent fending off macaques and taking in the stunning vistas that the mountain had to offer.

7. Don't look down.

There comes a time in the journey, though, that taking in the scenery becomes less than pleasant. There are sections of the hike that venture above staggering drops and along uneven, sometimes unstable, portions of cobblestone. One wrong step in your battle with the macaques could send you hurtling down the face of a seemingly-endless cliff and into the swirling sea of clouds below. So it's best to keep your eyes on the trail in front of you and march on with a clear mind.

8. And finally... breathe.

Once the clouds finally part and you see the the sun shining on the golden summit before you, everything you have suffered on the climb, all the hardships and doubts slowly melt away. There are few feelings that come close to this, to the sensation of achievement. We had reached the summit of Emei, without the aid of bus or cable car, where we stood in the footsteps of countless generations past and knelt on the stones where Samantabhadra found enlightenment.

I closed my eyes and thought back to the times I nearly fainted from dehydrated exhaustion, the times I nearly lost my footing on the cobblestone steps, the times I fought off hordes of angry macaques, the times I felt like I had reached my limit and that the summit was too far from reach... and I couldn't help but smile.

China 2019: My Life in Chengdu 成都 – Personal Blog

Upon touching down in Chengdu after a long flight from Los Angeles, I found myself back in a world I had been apart from for four years. The last time I was in China, though, I was visiting with a group of some of my closest friends for two weeks. This time, however, I was alone and would be living there for over a month and a half. I have no problem living on my own, but compared to my home town the city might as well have been on a different planet. I couldn't speak the language and I wasn't accustomed to the culture, food, or social cues. What was I even doing there in the first place?

In the spring of that year, I was walking back from playing soccer with a friend of mine at university in Cardiff, Wales. On the way home, we passed by a career fair in the university's main hall, where I picked up a pamphlet for an internship opportunity in China. An online application and a couple of phone interviews later, I secured my place on the program and started looking at round-trip flights to a city I had only ever heard of once or twice before in my life.

After I arrived at my apartment in Chengdu, I dropped my bags and went for a walk. I wanted to explore the city on foot and get a sense of my surroundings. After walking for over an hour and a half, I realized that I had only passed through two high-rise neighborhoods and a business center. The city was so massive that two hours of walking eventually landed me two centimeters away from my house on a city map. I knew it was a big city from my research back in university, but being able to see the scale firsthand was much different. Even the size of the buildings astonished me. Not just the size, but the shape as well. Modern Chinese architecture is an art of its own. The attention to detail and the use of patterns and irregularity was particularly astonishing.

The photo above on the left is from when I walked past Chengdu Polytechnic University in the Hi-tech Zone on my way home. The illuminated building is the same in both images, but the second is the view of it from my room. The lights on the building would turn on at exactly 8:10 pm and would turn off at midnight.

Jet lag kept me up at night through the first weekend. I didn't mind because I found the night to be better for exploring the city than the day. Afternoons in Chengdu had two moods: windy with torrential rain or oppressively hot and humid, while nights were usually cool and cloudy. I tried to balance my walks through the city between tourist traps and local favorites. Each night, though, would bring me back to the same spot: Anshun Bridge.

Over time, the rainbow-lit steps by the bridge became my favorite place in Chengdu. Local musicians played their guitars and sand to the crowd as pedestrians came and went. I would usually walk there late after work or nights spent on the town and sit for hours. The crowd would change every half-hour or so, but almost every person came in a group of two. University students drinking canned cocktails, a mother and her boy, a blind man and his wife, star-crossed teenage lovers, a businessman and his small dog...All of these different people sitting and listening to music together, sharing the same moment under a moon-lit sky.

Making friends on a night out in Lan Kwai Fong.

The picture above on the right is the first hotpot meal I had in Chengdu. A group of interns and I were led through the restaurant to a private room in the back, where we were given translated menus and tea. The idea behind hotpot is that the entire group uses a pot of boiling water to cook the raw meats and vegetables they order. By tossing different ingredients into the boiling water, you basically create your own custom broth to cook the food in. Our hotpot was segregated by spice level and food preference, with the pot on the left cooking mild vegetables and the pot on the right cooking spicy meats. Hotpot is a communal experience and was a perfect way for the group to make conversation, share a few laughs, and get to know each other better. One particularly comical moment was when we ordered a pig's brain for the hotpot. The majority of the group seemed both curious and nervous to try it. Once the brain arrived, a friend of mine started to lower it into the spicy pot. Suddenly, it slipped from the spoon and into the mild vegetarian pot. The entire group screamed and fished the brain into the correct pot, apologizing profusely to the vegetarians who found the funny side of it, thankfully. As the night drew on, we realized that each person in our group of twelve was born in a different country: Israel, Poland, England, France, Lithuania, Germany, Ireland, and the United States. It was both an honor and pleasure to have dinner with such a diverse, friendly, genuine, unique, and all-around fantastic group of people.

I am not a beer drinker. If a restaurant offers any kind or quality of wine, I would happily drink a bottle of it before a beer. This particular hotpot restaurant, however, did not. Determined not to be the only person in the building not enjoying a drink with their dinner, I asked one of the internship coordinators if there was anything else to drink besides beer. He replied, "Yes. You can try Baiju." I had no idea what that was, so I simply nodded my head and suddenly a small glass bottle of clear liquid was placed before me. Baiju, I would come to learn, is a Chinese grain-based spirit. After my first sip, I instantly recognized my mistake. Finishing the bottle was a painful experience. Some people enjoy it, like some people enjoy sipping straight vodka, but I am not one of them. It was cheap, though, so if you're looking for a bottle of discount vodka while in China this is a solid option.

Another memorable experience during a dinner with the interns was at a Pizza Hut celebrating my flatmate's birthday. Like many Western chain restaurants in China, the menu at this Pizza Hut was unlike others, sporting local favorites such as the durian pizza. It was on this night that my friend Katie and I hit a language barrier with the waiter. After the guy sitting across from us ordered a pepperoni pizza, we ordered a plain cheese pizza to share. He said that they were out of them. Katie and I exchanged confused glances and looked around for help. Another intern showed the waiter the cheese pizza on the menu and he shook his head. We asked if there were other pizzas available, and he replied with a range of options, all including bread, red sauce, and cheese. Figuring that something must be lost in translation, we asked him if we could have a pizza with just those three basic ingredients. He nodded his head, confirmed the order with us, and left. Twenty minutes later, we received the pizza pictured above. Somehow, a pizza with 'just bread, red sauce, and cheese' came out as a pizza with mayo, potato slices, and a buttery egg base. At that point, we were too tired to try again so we ate it. It was strange.

A fun day at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

Chengdu is often known as the home of the giant panda, the birthplace of Chinese tea culture, and the artistic, historical, and cultural hub of all Sichuan. For a city that’s thousands of years old, Chengdu has increasingly become a symbol of Chinese modernity. This is seen in it’s growing population of eight million residents, in the number of supercars present on any given street, and in the construction of the New Century Global Mall.

Tianfu Square from the ground.

Tianfu Square from satellite view on Baidu Maps.

Back when I was applying for this experience in university, I was given a link to a list of potential companies I could work for across the city. I chose my top three, all in media-related fields, and emailed them to one of the internship coordinators. He emailed me back saying that none of the companies I chose were offering opportunities that year. He then sent me a link to a company that was not on the initial list, a company called Walkingbook. They were an event organizer looking for someone to help with social media and marketing. I jumped at the prospect and, after an interview with the leader, Karan, I happily accepted the position.

Working for Walkingbook was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Little did I know that a "social media and marketing" position would offer me so many new skills, friendships, and opportunities. Aside from shooting promotional photographs and videos from the summit of a 12,000 ft mountain covered in storm clouds, a normal day was spent at the city studio in Tongzilin designing advertisements, building the website, and managing social media accounts.

Paint & Sip at Walkingbook.

There were several days that stuck out to me looking back at my time working at Walkingbook. The first was the day of my first 'Paint & Sip.' It was a Wednesday during our first week and my coworker Alina and I arrived at the studio expecting another day of media-based tasks. When we met with Karan, however, she handed us a pile of supplies and pointed to the walls, asking if we have ever put up wallpaper before. We shook our heads and before we knew it we were wallpapering the entire studio. Six hours passed and Alina and I were tired and sweaty, taking turns standing in front of the studio's air vent. It was almost 6:00 pm and we had to finish before the night's event. After putting up the last slab of wallpaper, Karan congratulated us, poured two glasses of red wine, and asked if we wanted to stay for the event. We shrugged and took our seats in front of our easels as guests began to pour through the door.

This event is the crown jewel of Walkingbook. Hosted in our studio, Paint & Sip brings locals and visitors from across the world to a shared table to drink wine and paint whatever they want. At the end of the event, the guests share what they painted, why they painted it, and what the finished work means to them.

After everyone had shared their paintings, Alina and I stepped outside and made conversation with a couple of American visitors. They told us that they were on their way to Lan Kwai Fong and asked if we wanted to join them for a few drinks. At that point, I was already a fair few glasses of wine down and I was up for anything. We met up with Alina's boyfriend, David, and before we knew it the entire group was packed in a taxi headed for a night of hilarious memories and antics.

This was the culture. This was life in Chengdu. With each adventure, I grew to love where I was and who I was with more and more. Every day was a new story, every moment and opportunity to laugh, learn, and grow...and this was just the beginning. This was week one. I couldn't wait to see what the rest of my time in Chengdu would bring. Looking back, I'll tell you now that it did not disappoint.

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China 2015: Paradise Found in Guangxi – Personal Blog

After a short flight from Shanghai, I was on the bus to Guilin, a city in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi. Guilin is one of the most captivating cities in the entire country. At night, the buildings explode with bright lights and dazzling monuments dot the streets. One such attraction is a glowing golden orb built on the banks of Shanhu Lake, whose waters hold the stunning Sun and Moon Pagodas. During the night I stayed in Guilin, I was fascinated by my surroundings. The city was unlike any place I had ever seen. Guilin is a truly special place.

The famed karst peaks of the Guangxi province take their unique forms from their composition. The mountains are made of limestone and have been eroded throughout history to become what we see today. The hills are also known for the underground caves they naturally produce. Tourists from around the world are attracted by the colorful light displays strung up throughout the caves. They leaves fascinated by the show and relaxed after a dip in the underground hot springs and mud pools.

After exploring the landscape around Guilin, my group and I boarded a bus to Yangshuo, a town of just under 300,000 people. Compared to Guilin, a city sixteen-times its size, Yangshuo felt like a small village. Compared to Shanghai, it felt like another world.

The town of Yangshuo is home to winding rivers, quiet countryside, a bustling night market, and, strangely enough, a McDonald’s. Yangshuo county offers spectacular sights, such as Moon Hill, Yulong Bridge, and Fuli ancient town.

Similarly to Shanghai, Yangshuo’s downtown transforms after dusk. From where I sat on the patio of a small Chinese restaurant, I observed a noticeable calm before the storm. For a moment, all was quiet under the neon blue lights of the alley. A warm wind swept past, carrying the distant sounds of a growing storm. In an instant, the two main pedestrian streets are set alight with lanterns and LEDs as vendors populate the curb. We walked through the masses of wandering shoppers, busy exploring the various foods and trinkets on display. Wood and bone carvings, rice cakes and noodles, bright clothes and jewelry, gold and jade ornaments…it was a spectacle, to say the least, and one of the most enjoyable nights of my life thus far.

The following dialogues are not exact quotations, but they closely mirror the content of conversations a friend of mine and I had with two shopkeepers:

“Why the high price?”

“These are one of a kind!”

“You made these yourself”

“Yes, they’re my carvings.”

“Then why does a man two stalls down the road have an identical collection for half the price?”

“Would you like half price?”

“Yes?”

“Here.”

“Thank you.”

“Where are these from?”

“Apple.”

“So they are real iPhones?”

“Yes.”

“Why are they so cheap?”

“There was an explosion in a factory and I took them.”

“Oh…that’s nice. Do they still work?”

“Yes.”

“Can you show me that they work?”

“You ask too many questions. Buy one and it will work.”

The next morning, a friend and I drifted down the Yulong River on a bamboo raft. It was a soothing rest after our dance with the swindlers of the night. The breeze from the previous evening’s storm came back again, this time carrying with it the melodic sounds of the countryside. European tourists dressed in white rode bicycles by the riverside, a water buffalo splashed playfully under the bright midday sun, and the man steering our boat punted our small vessel forward with a bamboo pole as he whistled into the humid air. The blissful experience was a perfect way to say goodbye to Yangshuo.

The Dong Villages: A rural dreamland.

The early summer rains pattered on the wooden shingles and the smell of smoke drifted in through an open window. The storm had finally started to cease after drenching the ancient town of Chengyang, one of the several Dong villages. These indigenous communities rest in the hills and valleys of Southern China and their people still follow traditional ways of life.

On the side of the river stood a collection of dark wooden houses, drum and bell towers, a theatre decorated with paper lanterns, and a small school. Amidst the din of the noisy schoolchildren, wind and string musicians practiced their pieces, farmers tended to their paddies, and elders weaved indigo cloths in front of their homes. All was calm in this hidden paradise.

The Guangxi province is a difficult place to express in words. It’s natural beauty captivated like nowhere else I’d ever seen. The people showed immense respect to the landscape around them and kindness towards us. The way the cities shined at night was breathtaking. No matter where you live, Guangxi is a must-see if you want to get a sense of how incredible the world can be. I will never forget it.

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China 2015: Shanghai, The Moving City – Personal Blog

It could have just been the jet lag, but after landing in Shanghai everything seemed bright and blurred. Choking smog and flashing lights, words and symbols that made no sense to me. The world was spinning and I felt the full impact of culture shock. There was an astonishing beauty to it all, a harmony that I did not yet feel acquainted with. The vehicles and pedestrians worked together like clockwork, moving rapidly beneath a grey sky. However, wait just a few hours after sundown and bursts of color take over the night. The side of the Huangpu River bustles with life as people make their way down the Bund.

The Yuyuan garden changes with the time of day. When the large your groups flood through, the narrow corridors and bazaars become alarmingly crowded. The winding streets become threatening for those who suffer from claustrophobia. When the fray begins to calm, however, the garden becomes a serene place where one can enjoy a cup of tea in peace. Empty or full, the architecture of the garden is stunning. Red and white buildings adorned in gold flank the bustling market and open courtyards. This is a must-see destination for anyone interested in the history of Shanghai and classical Chinese culture.

The Longhua Temple is the oldest in Shanghai, preserving Buddhist traditions and Song dynasty architecture. A towering pagoda greets visitors entering the large red gates. First constructed in 242 AD, this Buddhist sanctuary sprawls over several acres of land, making it Shanghai's largest temple space, and serves as a perfect place to take a break from the pace of the city.

One element of Shanghai that I did not particularly enjoy was the weather. When I visited in early summer, the air was hot, humid, and smoggy. During the day, the buildings looked dull, dreary, and monotonous. Through the viewfinder of my camera, it appeared as though I was drowning in a grey ocean. As night approached, however, the character of the city transforms. Like a butterfly out of a cocoon, Shanghai bursts into new life in a frenzied explosion of color. Neon lights decorated the skyline and spotlights cut through the cloudy night sky.

Whether it’s a peaceful stroll through a misty park or a trek through one of the busiest cities in the world, Shanghai does it all. The city is both fast-paced and relaxed, noisy and quiet, hardworking and creative…a harmony of the past and the present, history and modernity, skyscrapers and teahouses.

Shanghai is an incredible city. Sometimes I feel as though it is a living creature with a mind of its own. The concrete jungle can be an intimidating and sometimes lonely place. The tall buildings, noisy intersections, unfamiliar faces, and afternoon smog are certainly parts of the city’s character, but there is so much more to it. The boats drifting on the river, the steam pouring out of restaurant windows, the temple bells ringing in the wind, and the brilliant light displays that dominate the night sky are all too a part of the moving city.

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