Hua Shan Village

Hua Shan is one of China's most famous mountains and one of the most dangerous in the world. It is rumored that every year around 100 people die trying to reach the peaks, but because none of the deaths are reported by authorities, it is impossible to know. Google image 'Hua Shan' and you will see why. So, when we were told that we had arrived a little too late in the afternoon to climb Hua Shan herself (not just because of the potential of the sun setting, but also because it had started snowing a few hours earlier) we heeded the advice and instead turned our attention to the small village at the base of the mountain where we were staying. 

What we found was real rural China. Poverty and pollution and cold and confusion. It is so difficult to understand why this town is so poor and undeveloped considering how popular Hua Shan is and how much revenue it pulls in every year. Locals gazed at us as though they had never seen white people before, I couldn't believe that of all the people who went there, we were a minority to have been bothered to step foot outside of the hostel walls.  

Being in places like this always makes me really look closer at what I am seeing.

Hua Shan village has taught me to always look twice. And pack a scarf.

A pile of rubbish the size of a house disguises a lean stray. 

A man standing on the roof seemingly doing nothing but starting was almost enough to hide the wonderful scene in the background through one of the yet-to-be-finished door frames. A man slurping soup with the audience of a hungry hound.

A fluffy little pretty dog seems to be better fed than the man eating a lonely dinner under the shelter of a tent. Look even further and you notice his bed behind him. This tent is his home.