2011 Day 12 - The white knuckle ride from Quzhou

China - Day 12

Sent 1/23/11

Today is my last full day working for this trip.  Tomorrow I fly from Shanghai to Hong Kong and the following morning back home.  I am really ready.  Unfortunately, Larry and I are still in Quzhou and it snowed more overnight.  We have nearly 300 miles of road, largely through the mountains between us and Shanghai.  We left our hotel around 8:00 AM for the drive back with a planned stop in Jiaxiang to inspect a customer’s machines.  This would normally take around 4 hours, but not today.  As it turns out, China has few snow plows in this part of the country and does not apply Salt or sand to the roads.  The temperature was slightly below freezing and the roads were icy, especially the bridges, of which there must have been over one hundred, many of them quite long through the more rugged mountainous stretches.  The few plows left chunks of slush which froze into rock-hard pieces of ice stuck firmly to the pavement.  The result; every bridge crossing was like driving over a slick field of large rocks - the car continually tossing left and right, Larry fighting hard to keep the car headed straight and away from the other cars and many trucks.  A true white-knuckle ride with many cars and trucks wrecked on both sides of the road (there is no ditch - the road has continuous guard rails all the way to Shanghai on both sides).   I am a pretty lousy passenger to begin with, much preferring to drive myself, and with Larry at the wheel on these roads in this weather, the odds of the trip ending without incident seemed slim.  We did, however, arrive in Jiaxiang intact nine hours later.  A photo from the road is attached.

In Jiaxiang, we stopped at a rest area for some food - this turned out to be one the highlights of this trip.  The rest area has a small grocery and an eatery where Larry introduced me to Zongzi, a traditional Chinese food with a great history.  First, a description of the food - basically a fist-size ball of sticky glutinous rice containing a price of red-cooked pork and what I think was a chunk of sweet potato, plus some other ingredients I can not identify, all wrapped up tightly in bamboo leaves and boiled.  It tasted unbelievably good, the rice had absorbed the flavors from the pork and other ingredients, and the effect was even better because we were cold and the food was quite warm - the place was not heated of course!  Now the history.  Zongzi is associated with the annual Dragon Boat Festival and dates back to around 300 BC.  According to Wikipedia:

In the year 278 BC, at the age of 61, Qu Yuan, a prominent Chinese scholar drowned himself in the Miluo River. He clasped a heavy stone to his chest and leaped into the water. Knowing that Qu Yuan was a righteous man, the people of Chu rushed to the river to try to save him. The people desperately searched the waters in their boats looking for Qu Yuan but were unsuccessful in their attempt to rescue him. Every year the Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated to commemorate this attempt at rescuing Qu Yuan.

When it was known that Qu Yuan had been lost forever, the local people began the tradition of throwing sacrificial cooked rice into the river for their lost hero. However, a local fisherman had a dream that Qu Yuan did not get any of the cooked rice that was thrown into the river in his honour. Instead the fish in the river were eating the rice. Thus, the locals decided to makezongzi to sink into the river in the hopes that it would reach Qu Yuan's body. The following year, the tradition of wrapping the rice in bamboo leaves to make zongzi began.



Zongzi



This is pretty much as the story was told to me by Larry.  It was a memorable lunch.

Following lunch and the customer visit, Larry drove me to my hotel near Pudong airport.  It was dark by now, and Larry in typical fashion got lost, at one point asking me which way we should go.  I think the look I gave him said enough, he did not ask me for directions again.  We did finally make it to the hotel and I thanked him for getting me there in one piece - it was a long day and I have to give him credit, as lousy a driver as he is - we made it without incident.  We had dinner at the hotel while listening to the lounge act - two very pretty Chinese girls singing the worst American pop songs ever ( You right up my rife...).  A fitting end to a long day.

That’s it for this trip.   Thanks.