Today was Forbidden City (now merely Strongly Discouraged City) and Lhama Temple, which was gorgeous. My cousin Greg took me to a store that sells shard (sherd) boxes, ceramics, and jewelry. Then there are a few famous market streets. Bargaining is interesting. You don't know if you're buying the sweater or the girl selling it. "You like? I give you special friend price."
Still not much in the way of English language publications, but I did pick up Woolite and Camembert. And I met some nice people at the hostel where I'm staying. I'm supposed to be meeting them now for dinner, so I'm going to run. Hope everyone is doing well.
-Jenny
The kids all have their normal Chinese names and then either they choose, or we assign English ones. I assigned. In my last class, I had Lucy and Ricky, Fred and Ethel, Marco and Polo, Gilligan, Skipper, Ginger, Thurston and Muffy, Homer, Dagny and Francisco, Anselm, and Jack and Georgia (those two are random). Previous classes included Ferdinand and Isabel, Madeline and Sofie, Madison, Elvis, Orlando, and Ella. Some names were simplified to make it easier for the kids. I couldn't remember the Professor's name in Gilligan's Island. Any other soap opera names are welcomed, but they can't be confusing, like Stone or Chip or something. Damnit, I forgot Maryann.
Right. Yesterday. I was hopelessly lost. I just kept taking whatever trail went down, giving preference to trails with hoofprints and horse shit. The trail got really steep and I slid part of the way, but by that point I was so tired I didn't want to go back. It was a *really* hard hike. This whole "lost" thing went on for a while. I kept following voices, but apparently they really carry well up the valley.
Eventually I ran into two men carrying bamboo home. They were peasants and spoke no English, but the one fellow who I talked most to was one of the best people I have met at understanding the confines of a limited vocabulary, and successfully communicating within those confines. He pointed out a road and said that I could take a truck, but it was gone by the time I arrived. I told him that I didn't really speak Chinese, but the two friends I had come with did. We got a good laugh out of that one. So I jogged/walked back to the other side of the mountain, hoping that if Jenna and Julian had gone back to the entrance they wouldn't have to wait too long. But they hadn't. To make a long story short (it's really long), I waited for a bit, then took a quick walk up; ran into some horse people who said they had seen my friends; took a horse part of the way up; got ripped off by the horse lady; proceded to call her obscenities in English (which is a great way to blow off steam); went back down and eventually headed home.
My friends' day was equally long. I had hoped they would just go back to the beginning, but it turns out that where I had gone left and gotten lost, heading right would have taken me to Heilongtun. In 5 hours. They figured I might be able to ask for Heilongtun, but I might not understand that it was 5 hours away. So they continued along that path, hoping to run into me or at least ask people if they had seen "the other foreigner" (that part's always pretty easy). Eventually they gave up and came home and we watched my Harry Potter DVD and I gave them part of my Dove chocolate bar and they mercifully didn't kill me. Then Julian and I stayed up and had a long conversation about the world, China, etc. It's good to think every now and then. Well, I'm always thinking here -- it's good to have someone with whom to discuss things.
Oh, vacation.
Dazu -- fantastic. The carvings were just amazing. I'll post pictures as soon as I get them scanned. Fortunately, I have my real camera, so I can take pictures in restricted areas where they ban photography, b/c most cameras would got to automatic flash and the preservationists want to preserve the paint. Special thanks to Uncle Jim for the camera, which is fabulous. Jenna wants to buy one now. Shouldn't I start getting kick-backs soon? Many hands and heads had been stolen and now grace the coffee tables and mantlepieces of irresponsible rich people around the world. Some of it was really sad, but the majority of the sites (we visited two) were well preserved. It was magnificent.
We then visited the Bo Hanging Coffins ("Xuenguen"). Also really neat. It took us 5.5 hours on a ridiculously bouncy bus through the country after a couple of hours on decent buses on real roads. The hanging coffins were really high up and I kicked myself for not having brought my ridiculously large zoom lens. I'll have to have the Boy bring that. It would have been mighty handy at Dazu as well. At any rate, the coffins were really high on cliff faces. Most were supported by beams driven into holes the Bo people had carved into the cliffs. Others were placed in caves. There were some interesting cinnabar cave paintings. We could see a couple of them that were on the cliff faces. It's funny how cave paintings around the world are so similar. I'll try to scan and enlarge those. There are some more in SW Guizhou that I hope to visit. The coffins were mostly protected by overhangs on the cliffs, though we saw hundreds of holes where beams had supported coffins, but had rotted away.
In Chongqing I got the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers DVD for 85 cents.
We stayed in a little house/hotel in the little town near the hanging coffins. I think the name started with an "L." We hung out that night talking to the kids there. They told Jenna that I was prettier than she was. Earlier the proprietess had said that she thought I was the younger one (I'm 2 years older), b/c my skin is better. Then at dinner she said to Jenna that she (Jenna) should eat some food b/c it would make her prettier. People here can be really shallow. It's not helping Jenna's self-esteem. And I feel like a jerk. Usually I make some sarcastic remark in English when someone says something and Jenna doesn't hate me yet, which is good. I get random discounts.
I'm going to eat dinner now. Life continues to be weird. Unexpectedly. (by which i mean, "expectedly")
Yesterday Jenna, Julian, and I went to Heilongtun. We gave it the old college try, at any rate. It is (supposedly) an old military fort outside of town. Jenna and I had tried and failed to visit once before, but yesterday, armed with directions (highly recommended), we set out again. We made it to the mountain where it kind of was, told the horse people (what next?) that we didn't need to ride their horses. We're westerners, not amputees, for crying out loud. Every time we go anywhere we're stalked by taxis, rickshaws, motorbikes -- it's crazy. So, the horse people and their horses stalked us for a long way. I don't know when they stopped. Jenna and Julian weren't keeping a very fast pace and they were stopping to rest, so I told them I was going to go on ahead and climb to the fort. Things were going well until I couldn't find the fort and then people didn't understand when I asked where Heilongtun was. Eventually, I was hopelessly lost, so I just took any trail that went down. A big part of the problem was that the mountain was completely enveloped in mist. Visibility was about 20 feet.
SIgning off now so Jenna doesn't have to trek out to CHina Telecom. I'll leave you in suspense. Here's a hint. The heroine makes it home. Ahhhh, heroine.
Tomorrow we go to Dazu. It's a county 162 km northwest of Chonqing with 100 or so sites of grotto art. Lots of carved and painted statues. There are over 50,000 figures and 100,000 characters carved in the sites. I cannot remember if this area will be flooded by the Yangtze, but I believe it will be. I know looting has been a big problem lately.
The centerpiece of the most important site (Beiding Shan?) is a semi-circular grotto with large figures carved into it. Dazu is different from other grotto art sites in China in that it includes secular and religious art and it includes figures from various religions, including Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism from India, Confucianism, Taoism, and the local indigenous religion. In addition to religious allegories and legends, there are scenes of the everyday life of people from high political figures to people tending animals and playing instruments.
I have a cold again. It's a beautiful day and my head hurts.
And I want to cough, but I can't really, because it involves a commitment of a few minutes and sitting down. I feel like an operatic heroine. But since they don't have much western opera here and I don't know how to say tuberculosis in Chinese, I refrain from coughing.
Jenna and I actually found a bookstore that has English books (novels, specifically).