We got up early and caught a coach that would drive three hours up into Fujian province to the area where tolous are located. Breanna, another BYU student that is here in Xiamen on her own for an internship, and her coworker, Yimi, joined us too. Yimi was a lifesaver as she ended up being our interpreter because the tour guides that took us to the tolous didn’t speak a lick of English.
The drive was crazy. We drove through some really poor towns and cities. The buildings were crumbling or only half built and yet people still lived or worked out of them. We saw banana trees everywhere!
The coach stopped a huge market that had tons of coffee and food. At least half of that market was different flavors of coffee. And they had the rows of the market set up to herd all the tourists through every row like cattle. There were also market employees on nearly every corner you had to turn inviting you to try some coffee or some candy. The only thing I tried was some papaya powder drink, some coconut powder drink, and some coconut candy.
Once we reached a little town with a strip of restaurants, the tour guide told all of us Americans to get off the coach. This is where I was really grateful Yimi was there because she told us that all the Chinese on the coach were going to see some different tolous than us, so we had to get off to eat at a restaurant here and then another tour guide and bus was going to take us to the tolous.
Our new tour guide also didn’t speak a lick of English, and yet he was constantly yelling at us in Chinese. He was obviously telling us to get a move on it because he was always yards ahead of us. Despite our impatient guide, we loved the tolous. The scenery around them was amazing too. The first few we visited are definitely used to tourists as they were highly commercialized with little shops all around the courtyards. But we finished up the tour in a village where there was a less-commercialized tolou. We happened upon it because the rain decided to dump on us and we took refuge in the tolou. There were only two ladies that had shops set up in the entrance of the tolou. Otherwise the rest of the tolou was more authentic. It had common water spigots in the courtyard, a little temple, outside sinks with washboards also out in the courtyard, and what appeared to be little stoves out in the courtyard too. Plus there was a cute little puppy and some chickens roaming around. It’s crazy to think that people still live in these rudimentary homes.
It was also in this last village that I had my first photography shoot. A woman and a young girl walked up to me saying what was obviously their only English: “Hello.” “Where are you from?” “How long are you here?” I’d answer her questions but she didn’t understand them. And the whole time these two were talking to me, a man was circling around us snapping pictures of me talking to them. It’s crazy to think that some of these people that come from the countryside have never seen Westerners in real life hence the reason why they take pictures of us – we’re like celebrities to them!
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