China Day 8 and 9 - Friday/Saturday July 26/27, 2013 - Small Wild Goose Pagoda, Tai Chi, Donghan Village Homestay and Chengdu
We have had a busy day today. We left our Xian hotel and went first to a jade factory. It was interesting to see the jade and to learn about it and to see artisans at work carving and polishing various pieces. Then we went to see the Small Wild Goose Pagoda, which is in Xian. It used to be a Buddhist Temple but during the cultural revolution the statues were destroyed and removed and it is now a folk art museum and public park. While we were at the pagoda park we got a demonstration of tai chi from a local master. He then had us do some tai chi with him. We were soon the local attraction as others gathered to watch us. We must have been a comical sight since we didn't know what we were doing and we were trying to follow the master and do the movements at the same time. I actually found it quite relaxing and meditative and can see why it is so popular.
After we left the pagoda we went to lunch and had another regional specialty, along with the usual variety of Chinese dishes. It was a special soup that is popular in the Chinese Muslim community of which there is a sizeable group in Xian. Everyone gets a large bowl and a "pancake" (which looks like a thick, very white small pita) which you break into very small bits and put in the bowl. They come and take the bowl away and make soup in it with the bits of bread. The soup is beef and various vegetables and other kinds of Chinese noodles. When they serve it to you the bits of "pancake" have expanded and thickened sort of like dumplings. You add cilantro, pickled garlic and chili pepper oil to the soup to flavor it. It was absolutely delicious and very filling. Of course, the weather today is HOT, way up in the 90s with humidity to match so we are all dripping with sweat just sitting still and downing that large bowl of soup didn't do much for the hot flashes we were all suffering from! Truly the heat today is oppressive. Its exhausting everyone because when you walk out of an air conditioned building its like walking into a wet wall of heat. The pollution only exacerbates the effects.
After lunch we headed to Donghan, the small village where we are doing our homestay. We arrived and got parceled out to our various hosts, all of whom have homes that have a number of guest rooms that they routinely rent out to OAT groups and to local Chinese from Xian who want to come to this village for a taste of rural living and to visit the galleries of local artists who live here. This small village is a farming village although the residents can't make a living just from the farming so many of them also have other jobs, either in Xian or self-owned businesses of some sort. The family we are staying with is typical - three generations living in the home, the grandparent generation working in the city and here in the village offering hospitality, the middle generation working at jobs locally or in the city and young children. We met our hostess and made feeble attempts at conversation across the language divide. Then we went to a day care center where the local village pre-schoolers spend the days while their parents work. They were absolutely adorable and sang songs for us, one of which was in English. Then we took a walk through the old village, from which all the residents of this "new" village (circa 1990s) originally came, and that was a window into true rural poverty. Run down shacks, trash everywhere no heat or cooling in the huts, truly third world. We visited the home of an 83 year old woman who lives in one room, sleeps on a bed of brick with a mat over it, has an outside sink and outhouse. She has lived there all her life so even though her son has tried to get her to move to the new village where he lives she won't go. There was attic space above her "bedroom" which is the only real room in the house and the only thing remotely live-able, and our guide pointed out that her coffin is already up there, ready and waiting for when she dies. He said she probably has the clothes that she will be buried in up there too. The "new village" was built in the early 1990s, and the government helped fund the building of new homes that the residents all had to buy on their own for about $30000. These homes are pretty run down and spartan by our standards but they do have air conditioning in some rooms, running water, TVs, western toilets, functional kitchens. After the old village tour we came back to the home and rested in our air conditioned bedrooms for a short while before going down to help our host with dinner. Another multi course meal, which we helped, (sort of!) to prepare! We had delicious local pancakes into which you wrap a variety of the dishes that were laid out on the table including beef with vegetables, stir fried bean sprouts and other veggies, egg. It was reminiscent of moo shoo pork that I've had in Chinese restaurants at home, but way more tasty! Then we had a noodle soup with beef broth, tofu, veggies, herbs. Our hostess kept refilling our bowls till we realized the only way to get her to stop was not to eat anymore! We were enchanted with the hostess' little one year old granddaughter who is absolutely adorable and whom we got to play with for awhile before we went dancing.
After dinner we went to the community gathering place where the villagers meet every night for exercise, dancing and socializing. That was great fun as we joined in with various line dances. The whole village was there, with lots of little kids running around and coming up to us to have us take their pictures. There were also a goodly number of middle school kids who came there to talk to us to practice their English. We were amazed at how polite, poised and self-possessed the kids were. They came right up, introduced themselves, asked how we were and then launched into a whole bunch of questions so that they could practice their English. None of us could imagine middle school kids in the US having that degree of poise and manners and initiative to engage foreigners with such grace!
After about an hour of the dancing everyone was melting from the heat so we returned to our host homes, rinsed off in a cool down shower and then went down for the night. Truly, the heat today was absolutely unbearable and enervating. All you want to do is sit somewhere air conditioned because the slightest activity outside causes profuse sweating and exhaustion. I sure hope we get into Tibet so we get a few days respite from this truly oppressive and extreme heat and humidity. Tomorrow we fly to Chengdu, after visiting some local art galleries where villagers do painting that is known throughout China.
Day 9 -- Last morning Donghan Village then flight to Chengdu
We spent the morning in the village, breakfasting with our hosts then doing a walking tour of the village and visiting some artists studios where local artists, one of whom has become quite famous in China, showed us their work. One of them is a paper cutter and she took us all through an exercise where we did our own papercuts. It was really fun! I've included a pic of me holding mine up! Her stuff is magnificent - really intricate and detailed.
The guest rooms where we stayed in the village were very basic - bed and nightstand and the bathroom was a medium sized room with tile floor with toilet and shower head on wall for a rinse off shower. Hot water was not plentiful, although after our dancing last night we were all so hot that cold showers were really fine with all of us! The bed was the typical Chinese plank covered with sheet! Hoo boy those things are hard! Fortunately, the air conditioning worked wonderfully so I did sleep reasonably well notwithstanding the hard bed. I must confess that I really don't care for Chinese breakfast. That's the one meal of the day where I want only certain foods. The Chinese eat the same foods for breakfast that they eat at every other meal. Our hostess ate with us and was insistent that we keep eating more, even though most of what was there did not appeal to me at 7:30 in the morning!! There was some toasted bread that was pretty good and hard boiled eggs, but also a pita stuffed with veggies and garlic, a corn soup, cauliflower with spices, and pickled cucumbers. I tasted most of the dishes but didn't eat much since I just can't face most of that in the morning! No tea or coffee, so we were all suffering caffeine withdrawal half way through the morning. What I wouldn't give for a good cup of PG TIps right about now! We were relieved to discover when we started our walk through the village that the temperature and humidity had gone down a bit and there was a slight breeze making things way more bearable than they were yesterday.
Donghan village is a pretty "upscale" village as Chinese rural communities go. The houses are more spacious than many rural dwellers in China enjoy, although they are smaller than what most American families think is adequate, and they usually house several generations together. I continue to wonder how introverts survive this communal Chinese culture! Privacy and solitude simply are not part of the scene in Chinese life, certainly not in village life.
After we left the village we headed to the airport for our flight to Chengdu. We had lunch in the airport and then made our way to our gate. Our flight was delayed about 45 minutes so we had plenty of time to sit around the airport. I found a place I could get an ice cream, which was a welcome treat after days of no sweets to speak of!! When we got to Chengdu we came into the city and went to dinner. We are in Sichuan province, known for its spicy foods, and we did get one spicy dish with our meal tonight, although I could have used more spice. I think they were trying to go easy on the tourists!
The hotel we're staying in here is quite nice and is a local Chinese hotel. My room looks out on the balconies of an apartment building next door! The weather here is very hot again, and exceedingly humid and I notice my AC is not keeping up with the weather outside. Tomorrow we do the Panda sanctuary. And we learned tonight that we most likely will get into TIbet. Apparently they approved our request, so as of now it looks like its a go. Could still change, but our guide is hopeful.
I've included pics of our tai chi master, the children in the village kindergarten, me in the kitchen cutting the noodles for dinner last night, some of the children who were fascinated by us at the village dancing, me holding my paper cut and two of us with our Chinese hostess at dinner last night.
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