The Beach Expedition

One weekend, my colleague generously invited me to go on a beach trip to 乐亭 (Le Ting) with her and the now infamous car club! A work week soon lay behind me and I anxiously waited in the office, aching to embark!

The long awaited moment soon arrived and I hopped in the car with her, her husband and a new friend. We drove into downtown TEDA to eat a quick dinner and pick up some drinks from the Tesco’s for the weekend. If I haven’t made it clear already, Chinese meals are some of the most incredible cultural experiences that one can have in China. Us four dined on an endless variety of food and sipped the sweet sugars of freshly squeezed juice of Papaya, Asian pear and Asian apples for a grand total of under $20 Canadian. I wonder if I’m dreaming at times like these… To pick the food for this meal, we had to head downstairs to a special room where all of the dishes (at least 50!) were on display, wrapped in plastic under the glow of fluorescent lightbulbs. For those who cannot read Chinese, these restaurants are a blessing! After, we returned to the PPG plant for reasons that were unknown to me at the moment. My colleague’s friend ran inside and later emerged with a gigantic Styrofoam cooler. This behemoth was full of lamb kebabs and other meats to tide our car club over for the weekend.

We began what turned out to be a long drive in the late afternoon as the sun began to dip below the horizon. The industrialized landscape of TEDA soon gave way to farmer’s fields and lush greenery as we drove into the distance. The areas surrounding Tianjin are salt flats, and the majority the earth is not arable. However, through cultivation by farmers, greenery can be coaxed from the saline earth. Thus, as one drives through Tianjin, they will stumble upon a checkerboard pattern consisting of miles of uncultivated wasteland that is interspersed with lush green oasis that have been carefully cultivated. Eventually, we reached a toll gate for one of the major highways where we waited for the other members of the car club to materialize out of the dark. Before long, a sizeable convoy of vehicles (at least seven) had pulled up at our meeting place. There were many faces, both those of old friends and new acquaintances at our toll gate gathering. Here, we pooled our money to pay for the accommodations and communal food and laughter was exchanged as our team readied itself for the uncertain journey ahead. My colleague’s car was chosen to be the flagship vehicle as it had a GPS unit and she has been to the beach before.

So off our convoy drove into the dark of night, traversing highways, winding our way through small distant towns and blazing a path into the night on some very very rocky country roads. It appears that a wrong turn was taken at some point along the way as we stopped at a gas station in the middle of endless miles of scrubland to reorient ourselves. We passed few vehicles, only a seldom few personal cars as well as hulking trucks carrying various types of cargo.

Soon after, we appeared to be on the right track as we arrived at our destination within an hour. We parked our cars by what looked like a covered market and discussed what would happen later that evening. It was here that the two way radio system proved invaluable to rally lost cars and make sure that no one strayed too far from the beaten path. Now, I originally thought that our group would be heading to a western style resort of sorts. Fortunately, the night would have some great surprises in store.

Soon I discovered that I would be sharing a tent with some of the other men on our trip, only the female members of the expedition would have a bunkhouse. My visions of decadent beach resorts soon faded, and I was excited to have a real Chinese beach experience. All of the women headed off to settle themselves into the bunkhouse while all of the men in the group marched off to the beach to stake our claim. We carried our belongings with us including the four tents which would house us for the entire weekend.

We started pitching our tents in the black of night, with only two pocket flashlights to illuminate our plight. There was much scrambling in the sand, but our spirits were high, delighted to finally be by the sea. It was a moment of bonding between the men in our group and I was honoured to be included. Using the limited Chinese in my repertoire I communicated what I knew of the topic of tent assembly from my camping experiences back home. It was quite the challenge as one could imagine, and sign language was used more often than words, but we struggled together and soon, the four tents were standing tall against the salt-rich sea breeze. By this time, our stomachs lapped at our consciousness as the sea waves lap the beach so we scrambled to get a portable coal-fired barbeque up and running. The coal bricks we had brought with us failed to light, even after exhausting a whole laundry list of lighting methods. Fortunately, a resourceful fellow paid a street vendor 5 RMB for a pile of burning embers. This helped our barbeque get off to a kick start and soon we were all munching on freshly barbequed lamb skewers. Some of us used the large Styrofoam coolers as makeshift benches. In addition to the meat cooler, another materialized which was full of Chinese beer. While one of the coolers was being used as a bench, it caved in and the poor fellow on top almost found himself skewered – literally!

By the time our bellies were full, sleep tugged hard at our weary eyelids, it was well past 6am and the sky started to lighten in the distance. In the tent, there were neither pillows, sleeping bags nor any forms of camping luxury but I couldn’t care less – all of this was superfluous compared to the experience. I fell fast asleep, with only a thin sheet of plastic between myself and the sand as a gentle see breeze lapped at the tent flaps – free air conditioning. Sometime, in roughing it, the beauty and the joys of the experience are made all the more vibrant!