2006-06-07 @ 9am, Beijing : This is our group at the entrance to the
Forbidden City standing in 35-degree heat with our hands raised
to celebrate World Unity. We are (L to R):
2006-06-07 @ 9am, Beijing : This is our group at the entrance to the
Forbidden City standing in 35-degree heat with our hands raised
to celebrate World Unity. We are (L to R):
2002-06-07 @ 4pm, Beijing : The same group after the all-day 35-degree
Forbidden City tour with our hands around our sweeties to celebrate
World Exhaustion, please hold me up to prevent me from falling on
my face. We are standing in front of the pavilion at the top of
the hill in Jingshan Park, high above and behind the Forbidden
City. Supposedly the park's claim to fame is its locust tree, from
which Emporer Chongzhen hung himself after being wracked with guilt
in 1644 after allowing insurgents to break into the Forbidden City.
His death (and the invasion) ended the Ming dynasty.
2002-06-08, Beijing : Tao and Dan sharing a laugh at the Summer
Palace. The palace was built around a lake in 1750 as the summer
retreat for the emporer and empress. Almost everything was destroyed
by the French and British troops during the second opium war and has
since been rebuilt. Every single sign in front of a pretty pagoda /
building / etc. mentions something like:
"this beautiful blah-blah was built in 18xx, and although it was
burned to ashes by the French and English, was rebuilt afterwards
to its original specifications."
As you can imagine, we used these opportunities to ride Guillaume
for representing such violent, culturally-insensitive people...
2002-06-08, Beijing : The How Much? group relaxes on a plaza on the island in
the center of the Summer Palace lake. The nice storekeeper at the top
was kind enough to take the photo and didn't miss the chance to
have us repay her kindness by frequenting her tourist shop.
2002-06-09, Beijing : The Great Wall! Awesome. Some history --
Emporer Qin Shihuang (see Terracotta warriors below) who had
just unified China ordered it to be built to protect from potential
invading armies. This particular section (Badalang) has been restored
to virtually the original condition. It was a misty / rainy day
(providing a nice relief from the 35 degree weather we'd experienced
all week) making for some magical photos. There is this one section
in which the wall is only 12 inches high on one side. I guess they call
that part the relatively-mediocre wall. I'm also told that you can
only see the moon when standing on this wall.
2002-06-09, Beijing : A pretty entrance to the Ming Tombs.
In 1409, Zhu Di commisioned a great tomb for himself to be built in
the foot of the Tianshou mountains. There were booby traps (hidden
arrows and locked-from-the-inside doors) guarding it
underground. Here's another scary quote from my Let's Go China
tour book:
"Although most people knew the area housed lots of dead emperors, authorities worked hard to keep the precise location a secret. Every laborer who had even the slightest knowledge of the location was systematically executed."Throughout history, some emporers were known to be kind and some particularly brutal -- Emporer Qin Shuhuang (see below) is much worse.
2002-06-10, Beijing : Da Jiu Jiu's family (Tao's oldest
maternal uncle) [from L to R] Da Jiu Jiu, Er
Niu, Da Jiu Ma, Tao Ye, Dan Garcia, Peng He (Da Niu's girlfriend), Da Niu. We
have just finished a delicious purely vegetarian dinner in which tofu
was used to simulate fish (it really looked like fish!), pork
(complete with rind and meat) and chicken. What was truly amazing was
watching them simulate lettuce, mango juice and even chopsticks,
all with tofu! These folks are truly artists.
2002-06-11, Wutaishan, Shanxi : Our group after climbing 1080 steps to
see (yet another) Mountain Buddhist Temple. That's an actual Monk
joining us, as well as (Tao's mom's
college friend) Liang Xiu who set up this part of the trip for us.
Funny story -- the monk was carrying a
four-liter plastic bottle of cooking oil up the steps and stopped at
a rest area halfway up. Guillaume saw him laboring and offered to
carry the oil for him,
which at first he refused claiming he couldn't accept help from anyone
or he'd get in big trouble. Then he checked the vicinity
and realized his superiors weren't around and said "ok", but he
seemed to imply that we needed to keep it under wraps. Before they
got to the temple on the top Guillaume gave the monk the oil back, so
that when he turned the last corner it looked like he had carried it
the whole time. We bid him adieu and wished him successful enlightenment.
2002-06-11, Wutaishan, Shanxi : A scene from a Henan Opera
(similar to Peking) we
stopped by for a moment on our way home from our Mountain visit. The
colors of their outfits are really beautiful, the movements elegant,
but the songs they sing are, ahem, interesting. Very high pitched singing,
but not soprano-operatic in the least bit. Many
people swear by this art form (among them our own David Wagner) but for the
most part the addicted folks are tourists and locals past sixty.
Listen for yourself...
2002-06-12, Datong, Shanxi : These spectacular Yungang Grottoes
are carved out of the mountains west of Datong. You'll notice our
group sitting Buddha-style at the feet of the largest carving.
Listen to the numbers involved to bring this project to
fruition some 1500 years ago (from my Let's Go China tour book)
Some 30,000 families of artisans were forced to relocate to work on the caves. Carving from the top of the cliffs down, 40,000 sculptors took 50 years to complete the project, which now ranks among the finest examples of Buddhist art in China. All together, over 51,000 Buddhist statues, ranging in size from 17m to just a few centimeters, remain in the 20 or so caves.
2002-06-13, Hengshang, Shanxi : This Hanging Monestary is an unbelievable
architectural feat. It hangs precariously along the side of the cliff,
with the only structural support coming from large 10cm x 10cm beams
thrust and wedged into the side of the rock. Some areas are supported
by a single beam! The vertical supports are not even close to
load-bearing -- my belief is they're there to make tourists feel at
ease. What's neat is that all the buildings are supposed to look like
a dragon (what you're seeing here is the head, neck and some body as
it is facing to the right).Overall, not for the acrophobic or faint of heart.
2002-06-15, Xian, Shaanxi : In 221 BC Emperor Qin Shihuang had
just finished unifying China by beating all the local warlords and enslaving
most of the remaining opposition. To make sure he'd be head honcho in
the afterlife he ordered local artisans and his slaves (the former
opposing soldiers) to dig his tomb and create an amazingly vast army
of terracotta warriors to protect his soul. It has been called
the eighth wonder of the ancient world. After he didn't need the
slaves anymore, he buried them all alive. Now, there's a little bit of
a flaw to his logic. If indeed the terracotta warriors are just
pieces of clay and don't pass through to the afterlife, then Qin when
he died would have the souls of thousands of angry just-buried-alive
slaves waiting for him. However, if the terracotta warriors do
pass through to the afterlife, then (as Marc pointed out) remember
they were sculpted by the slaves themselves, who as their creators
would be their masters. So Qin is in trouble here too. The third
possibility that there is no afterlife, which means Qin doesn't
benefit at all. In any case, he gave 20th century archeologists and
all of us the gift of a lifetime. Thank you, farmer Yang (whom we
met) who discovered them while digging for a well in 1974! Actually,
three different men claimed to be "Farmer Yang who found the soldiers"
so we initially concluded that any man over 70 in the area can sit in
that seat, say he's farmer Yang and sign the tourist books for a few Yuen.
Only after seeing the re-enactment during the Circle-vision movie (all narration in English,
even though only 10 of the 100 people in the theatre spoke it) did we
realize that 6 farmers found it simultaneously, and as in many small
villages, they all shared the same name. So yes, Virginia, there are
more than one "Famous Farmer Yang".
2002-06-15, Xian, Shan Xi : The end of an era, this photo captures
the last moment in time that we, the members of the
Jing & Tao 2002 China Tour
(also known as How much?)
were together. The name How much? for our group was an inside
joke because uttering those two words anywhere near a cluster of walking
vendors immediately caused a feeding (selling) frenzy in which they
would all simultaneously rush at you, stuff their trinket in your face
and say "two Yuan". No amount of "No thanks" or "Boo yow"s would deter
them. It actually got so bad once that we had to form a protective
football-style huddle so that no vendor could get through. Regarding
this photo, the strange thing was that we were told to act normal...
2002-06-17, Chengdu, Sichuan : This beautiful female was
chowing down on her favorite meal of bamboo in the
giant panda breeding research center. Her dexerity was truly
outstanding -- she was grabbing the stalk with one paw and gnawing away
at it the way you'd clean your teeth with a
half-meter toothpick. She was so playful! On the other side of the
log chair was her baby who didn't have the technique down quite as
well. Mom was raising two kids, one of whom wasn't her own (which
we were told pandas almost never do). After their meal they wrestled
and cuddled and played for about an hour. We were told one of the
reasons pandas have so much trouble breeding (and need a
research center devoted to the study) is the panda males have
relatively short male members compared to the size of the female
organs. There's an old Woody Allen joke about how his uncle
was involved in animal husbandry...until they caught him at it.
2002-06-19, Emeishan, Sichuan : Beautiful Tao standing in an idyllic
mountain stream
deep in the Tibetan macaque monkey preserve. If you look
carefully to Tao's right, there is a hungry male sneaking up looking
for food. Moments after this picture was taken, a swarm of monkeys
gathered around us and tried to sell us insurance.
2002-06-19, Emeishan, Sichuan : Danna White presents...one cute monkey
Years ago there were these shady men who would ask for money in exchange for
protection from agressive males. (Sounds like Brooklyn, doesn't it?)
Now there are these
sweet ladies in green vests all around who have canes and know all the
monkeys by name, how to read monkey body language (when to run, when
to hold your ground, and when to let them win and give all your food to them), who the surly ones were, etc. We could have
stayed there all day studying the behavior ala Jane
Goodall. Unfortunately, once the monkeys find out you don't have any
more food they usually completely lose interest. (Insert joke here about how
this reminds you of your third husband)
2002-06-19, Emeishan, Sichuan : This is perhaps one of the
most beautiful gazebo locations in the world, which you pass as
you leave the monkey preserve. On the right is the requisite tour
group of spry old Chinese ladies in their sixties, which seemed to be
swarming around the mountain. That finally explained the literally 50+
virtually identical vendors sprinkled around the mountain selling tea.
2002-06-20, Leshan, Sichuan : This is the
largest stone Buddha in the world.
It was carved from the mountainside in 90 years starting in 713
AD. What a feat of engineering! The small Buddha on the right is
viewable only from the
water. We were fortunate to catch TheCheapestFerryOnEarth (2 Yuan,
only 25 cents) which took us up the river and passed the Buddha at
the perfect distance and speed for a great photo. The small dots
you see by the feet are people. This is one big Buddha!
2002-06-20, Wutong, Sichuan : Here Tao's third-oldest maternal uncle
and aunt, San Jiu Jiu and San Jiu Mu ride in a three-wheeled bike
(known to Tao's mom as a not-so-luxury bumpy bumpy -- the luxury ones
have motorcycle front ends). These are lots of fun: romantic, slow,
and they only cost 1 Yuan (12 cents) for a pretty long ride. The only
drawbacks are that all cars emit really foul noxious
no-EPA-in-sight fumes and that by the end of a muggy day the driver
usually has some world class BO.
2002-06-20, Wutong, Sichuan : This is a
really nice plaza at the end of town
where folks gather to relax and gossip. When we showed up to
stroll around and take photos, virtually all of the fifty people
in the square turned around stared at us. Continuously. Staring is
not something folks here are ever taught to avoid, so when a
foreign ghost (as any non-native person is called)
standing 1.9 meters high shows up to your small hamlet, you look!
2002-06-21, Wutong, Sichuan : One of the many pleasures indulged by
retired Wu Tongers (for that matter, folks here of any age) is a
rousing game of Mahjong, always for money. So, for a late lunch, we
boarded this engine-free permanently moored riverboat for dining
followed by a game. Lunch was river catfish (huang la ding) caught
that morning and still wiggling when it was dumped into
the cooking bowl in the center of the table, called a hotpot.
Dessert was delicious pumpkin fritters. Afterwards, we played several
hands in which San Jiu Mu won, and Tao and I came in second.
The game is played with four copies each of three suits of pieces
numbered one through nine. One needs to learn to read Chinese numbers
to read the third suit. The goal is almost identical to Gin Rummy with
a few exceptions. I particularly like the feature that if you
mishandle the pieces when it's your turn you have to pay your
opponents. Also, the pieces feel good in the hand -- they're like very
thick and squat dominos.
2002-06-22, Chongqing, Sichuan : Every rain-free evening in this
very modern city bordered by two massive rivers they have
People's Square line dancing in which huge loudspeakers
blast Chinese "country" music to thousands of bobbing and stepping
folks. Pretty much only spry middle-aged ladies dance, though there
are a few men and girls sprinkled about. Tao, A Ye (Tao's aunt,
pronounced "ah yee") and I danced and enjoyed the beautiful evening
weather while being stared at by
literally hundreds of people over the course of the night. How much
fun it was to watch an entire city dance to variants of the
electric slide!
2002-06-23, Chongqing, Sichuan : Every time we've gone out for a
meal, it's been a feast! This is Chongqing lunch with A Yes
at a nice restaurant. Tao's aunt is seated in the middle flanked by
her close friends whom she invited to lunch. You'll notice there are
five people and eleven
dishes -- and we had already finished one! This two-plus
dish-to-person ratio was common when we've gone out. Those of you who
know Tao well will remember that she doesn't take to spicy food too
well, and almost every dish was spicy. Thank goodness for rice and
coconut juice which helped cut the hot pepper-induced pain when our
endorphines became overloaded.
2002-06-23, Chongqing, Sichuan : Tao's uncle Xu Shu Shu
took us on a driving tour
of beautiful Chongqing countryside, and we ended at the
top of One Tree in South mountain where we had a really nice
view of the city. We saw the fog roll in and the lights of the city
come alive. This location screamed for a parachute and a fan on your back.