"We kill the sheep and eat the sheep" - recollections from Inner-Mongolia

When one thinks of Inner-Mongolia, it is not unlike thinking of Siberia, as being a distant, mysterious barren wasteland.  Even though I am only 10 hours away from Siberia, and 24 hours away from Inner-Mongolia by train, both of these places seem so far removed from my reality that when it was suggested that I go to inner-mongolia, my first reaction was to say that i didn't have enough time to travel there, as I only had 8 days.

Upon reflection, a train schedule and a map, I realized that it was absolutely a possibility, and tempted by the luxurious accomadations of sleeping in a yurt, eating yak meat and maybe herding some sheep, I decided to go.

Accompanied by my likewise - adventurous friend, Caroline- we decided to venture to Manzhouli, a town that sits on the border of China, Russia and Mongolia.  At first, we had planned to just get on a train and go, but unfortunately, our Chinese tutor, Emily, found us a travel agent to book the trip for us.  Neither one of us had very strong objections to it, so we agreed to it.  

But before that, we had the 24-hour long train to inner-Mongolia before us- everyone warned us against it- but we loved every moment, it was just us, our books, two bags of groceries and one huge bag of an entire day's worth of meals from McDonalds for two people. Intermittently, another girl in our travel group, a deaf Chinese girl, would come to check in on us.  This was always a long ordeal, as we would have to write our conversations to her- in Chinese characters- which, we thought speaking in Chinese was hard? writing a chinese conversation= much worse.

Getting off the train in Manzhouli, we faced a two-pronged problem which we had not foreseen- 1) we were traveling with two deaf Chinese people- so we couldn't communicate with them except by writing solely in characters- so our conversations were limited, to say the least- though Caroline valiantly and successfully struggled through a conversation about American colleges. 2) in terms of shopping and restaurants, everyone spoke Russian.

Basically, our Chinese was useless to us (except in relation to our tour guide/hotel employees that we later argued with).  and my Russian? rusty to say the least- I could read-but I found that I had forgotten most of my food vocabulary.  and thats how I became an enigma to the good people of Manzhouli.  I look Russian, speak a little Russian- but within a few seconds have to switch back to Chinese- in all fairness, it's been 3 years since I was in Russia- so I confused Chinese and Russians alike, as they tried to figure out how a Russian girl could not speak Russian.

Now, inner- mongolia is beautiful- full of cows, goats, greens and blues- all of things i've been starved to see since I've been in China.  Stepping into Manzhouli was like stepping into technicolor- and a little like stepping into Russia.  Full of vivid yellow, gold and red hues, the city had all the curves, steeples and austere authority of traditional Russian architecture- it contrasted sharply with the slate gray, modern rigidity of the buildings and dull blue of Dalian's sea.  I do love Dalian, but Manzhouli was a whole other world.  we had fun- we went shopping- ate and just walked around the city, which is charming and european- more so than Dalian or even Haerbin.  

Now, the first day, we went on a horse-ride, then to see various, awful, Chinese-style tourist traps.  Finally, at the last tourist trap, I was frustrated and asked the woman what we were going to do the next day- at which time, she informed me that we were going to "kill the sheep, and eat the sheep." To enforce my understanding, she repeatedly and forcefully mimed guillotining the sheep. This didn't sound like fun to me.  It seemed to me that since we had joined this tour group, they were always miming the death of some animal- at lunch they had happily demonstrated how to break the backs of the dead fish laying before us (that was our lunch). Caroline agreed with me, and so we made a pact to to go rogue on our trip the next day- to disappear and do something that did not involve sheep having to die. 

The next morning, we woke up to an ordeal.  The people in our travel group wouldn't let us go. We told them we weren't coming with them that day- didn't ask for our money back or anything- but b/c it was a matter of losing face, they all tried to force us to go, but we wouldn't capitulate- we didn't want to kill sheep.  It was a 1.5 hour argument in Chinese that ended up with us storming off after they tried to take our passports.  

The rest of our trip was relaxing, uneventful and wonderful.  

Lesson of the Story: 

Chinese tour trips: are the absolute worst and should be avoided unless you want to practice your chinese by arguing

Inner-Mongolia= wonderfulness