Day 5 – Guilin -> LongSheng

It’s another new day in Guilin. We woke up early today to visit a place called Longsheng. We were greeted by the local folks in their traditional costumes. They did some performances for us such as the Bamboo Dance and we also got to drink their famous Zhuang Tea (a.k.a You2 Cha2 in Chinese) It was also at this village where we met up with another Singapore Tour group.

The next interesting item was the Shan1 Ge1 Challenge (Folk Song Challenge) . Some of our tour mates were called up to use songs to communicate with the local aunties. Even my bro was also called up to do a dance with them.

I really loved this place. It reminds me of my grandmother’s house many years back. She used to stay in Changi Village (Eastern side of Singapore) before the government decides to redevelop the whole area. If only the place was reserved back then, it could make a good tourist attraction. I was real lucky to be able to stay in such an environment for a period time.

Look at the Singapore kids nowadays, will they have a chance to do the following things which i’ve did when young?

• Feed chickens (I was surprised that kids nowadays did not even know how a live chicken looks like, they can only describe chickens with “oh, chickens are birds without feathers and lying on a plate”)
• Chase after snakes (Snakes are mostly locked up in zoos these days)
• Pluck rambutans, chikus and pick durians (Kids can only see them lying on fruit stall tables)
• Make sandcastles whenever i want (Now kids can only do that at Pasir Ris park or east coast)
• Play with 8 wild dogs (Now each dog in the household needs to have licence, so troublesome) and make a good mess
• Make-shift swings from trees (I doubt you can find swings in common playgrounds nowadays)

But if you were to ask me if i would go back to that environment, i would say “No”. I am too used to staying in the comfy zone. But it will be good to experience it once in a while. It’s a refreshing experience :)

Tagged as: Vietnam/China