Out in the Sticks

Following on from the last post, I should tell the story of my first trip to YY's hometown in Gansu Province.

Whilst it's 2000km away in terms of distance it is, in reality, a lot further away than that in terms of life. Ox-drawn ploughs, donkey-drawn carts, the butchers walking the meat to market, and so on - there're more photos on Flickr.

Whilst having lunch of some sort of potato dish that had been mashed in a wooden bucket with a large pole until it had become quite gelatinous we came to the attention of the local primary school kids, pictured above. At first it was very good natured and they enjoyed seeing the photos that I took of them on the camera. I was very conscious of the fact that I'm probably the first foreigner that many of them have ever seen and felt like a kind-of-ambassador for all non-Chinese people.

This all went horribly wrong when YY decided she'd had enough and threw a saucepan full of water out of the door and into the waiting kids. We decided to make a hasty retreat shortly after this and were pursued by 80 primary-school kids chanting 'Laowai - laowai,laowai,laowai' to the tune of 'Ole - ole,ole,ole'. I fear a failed diplomatic mission...