Hello friends and family. Today I would like to talk about the last five days that I have spent in Dali. Maybe not so adventerous as the last excerpt but nontheless I had a great time. I won't be able to seperate this blog into sections because something is screwy with my blog today. At any rate it's the content that matters most, not neccessarily the way it's presented. By the way I know my spelling sucks. Give me a break.   So where to begin. I suppose I'll start by introducing you to Mr He Li-yi. My second day in Dali I was wandering down one of the very touristy streets in the little town of Dali(which for those of you who know Banff just outside Calgary you might say that this could be the Banff of China, beautiful mountain backdrop, cultural haven, and more foreigners than you could count ) I came accross a small cafe called the cultural exchange centre. This humble little hole in the wall is owned by a minority author who writes books and short storys in english. His name is Mr He Li-yi and to be honest I felt a little in awe of this man.  I wanted to ask him questions but I was a nervous. Anyways we met; and I had read about a book he wrote in the lonely planet, so I asked him about it and he was of course more than happy to show it to me and give me a brief introduction to the book. I bought it immediatley and he wrote some very nice words for me on the inner flap of the cover. Our short meeting came to an end and I couldn't wait to kick up my feet and dig in to this old mans life story. I've heard so much bullshit about the cultural revolution and all that stuff that I though I shoud get an honest mans thoughts. Anyways so far the book is great. ................. On to the afternoon just some very regular stuff I suppose, meeting many other backpackers and the conversations that we were having went from talking about different religions to how nice the weather is to finding out that Paul Martin is Canada's new Primeminister. See yah later Jean I really thought Jean had Charisma! Anyways The days kind of floated by and I got into just relaxing and getting to know some of the other travelers. On my third day I took a boat accross the huge lake, Hiked for about two hours through some small villages and ended at quite possibly the coolest market I've ever been to. And everyplace in china is famous for some sort of market. The people flooded the alleyways, some merchants were even pulling at our sleeves to try to get us to justa looka justa looka. They were so funny. we enjoyed our time there and returned to Dali by the afternoon. There's a place in Dali called Salvador's and this place is run by a couple of californians. They're only 22 and 23 years old and there making a great little coffee bar. I havn't had any really great sandwiches since I arrived in China so I made it my habit to enjoy as many of these chicken mushroom melts as I could. They were awesome. By the fourth day I started suffering from what they call reverse culture shock. This is when you return to your homeland and you have to adapt all over again. I felt some serious anxiety about it all y'know being still in china but.. not really still in china. More like in Banff. I quickly realized what it was and took some time by myself to quiet my thoughts. ..................Last day. Met up with Uri again. I told you about Uri in my last entree. We had treked together for a couple days and then went our seperate paths. Well he turned up in Dali so that was really great. Anyways Uri and I decided to step into the cultural exchange cafe, he wanted to see what it was about and I wanted to chat with Mr He Li-yi some more. We went in and sat down. The kind old man introduced us to some really great chinese tea and I had let him know that I was enjoying his writings. Then Mr He did something that truly felt great. He had just finished typing out the first draft of a new short story he was writing and he asked If I had the time to edit the grammer and do a proof read. Now I realize that I'm not qualified to do such things but my english is native, really all he wants to know if foreigners can understand his style of writing. I felt honoured. The time was all I had. I read his hillarious tale of "A Ridiculous Well To Do Village" and corrected a few minor mistakes and then had a great little conversation with him. We exchanged contact information and he said he would send me some of his storys over email. This may not seem very cool to a lot of you but for me it was a fantastic experience. There's so much misconception about what's going on, what went on and probably what will go on here in china that it was nice to finally get some straight forward answers. The answers came, more importantly from a simple villager who lived through the experience and If there's one thing that I've learned here in china, It's that the surface IS.. shallow. If a traveler really wants to get to know china then he or she shoudn't rely on his or her own personal perceptions. They should really make some good friends and establish a truthful trusting relationship. That's when you can start to fathome "China" With a lot of foreigners we like to stay somewhere familiar so we of course stick together and help each other out but the ranting and raving that sometimes goes on is still to my eye's full of ignorance. More important than money or government or all that other bullshit is PEOPLE! So if there's any fellow trvellers in china that are having a difficult time, try not thinking about the bullshit and really get to know some beautiful chinese people.  These are my thought's not yours I'm Patrick Juurlink signing out.     PEACE&LOVE ALL

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