Quanzhou City and more...

China - #7

The coastal China town, Quanzhou City, is renowned for being the largest port in Asia during the Song (960 - 1279) and Yuan (1271 - 1368) dynasties and became our destination for a day's exploration.   Eight million people now inhabit this seaside city.  A city often overlooked by tourists for the more popular, Xiamen, about 55 miles southwest.  Pio, Yessi's brother, offered to treat us to this day's outing, with Uncle graciously loaning his car.   We are hugely grateful to both Pio and Uncle.

Pio's good friend living in Quanzhou City, charmed us by meeting us on arrival and leading us, he in his car, Pio following in Uncle's car, to the temples we'd come to see.  Weaving through amazing traffic, down narrow roads, through throngs of people, and beautiful old buildings, we arrive at the temples. 

Much of what we saw we could not photograph.  Inside the temples, out of respect to Buddha and  worshipers, no photographs were allowed.  Nevertheless, you won't miss the splendor from our few images.  I'm  embarrassed to admit that many of the questions I now have thought of were left unasked.  I have excuses, like language barriers, not enough time, the overwhelming nature of what we were seeing, but, more to the point, I simply didn't think quickly enough.

Our first stop...

Our second stop…

What a world these two wonderful people
have opened up to us

We're in awe of the beauty, history and architecture. 

One of the Chinese Buddha spiritual traditions is to "burn money", or to burn Joss Paper, also sometimes known as ghost money.  These sheets of paper-craft are burned as offerings.  Temples always have stores available for the purchase of joss paper, incense, lanterns, and other accessories for paying respect to the dead or for the expulsion of negative energies.

Stacks of joss paper.

One example of beautiful joss paper.

Joss paper being burned in a temple oven

Incense is also burned at temples for purging negative energies.

Gina to the right

But, as always, children are the highlight of any outing.  

And then, there's that Mr. Ed again.  This cute-woman-in-red very much wanted a picture with that tall guy in the hat.

On another day, Pio, and his friends out did themselves -- again.   This water sport is definitely not a common experience in China.  

Followed by coffee at this amazing coffee shop…

We ate chocolate waffles for yet another kind  of "too good to be true" experience.

Toward the very end of our China trip, Yessi's family included Ed and I in a very memorable event -- the visit to Yessi's father's and grandparents' tombs.  There is an annual event in China to worship ancestors and pray for them called Qingming Festival.  Although this day wasn't festival day, it was selected because it was the last day before Yessi and Brad departed for America. 

The ritual is to go to the graveyard for tomb-sweeping and the sacrifice of ready-to-eat food, tea and flowers.   Also, according to tradition joss paper and incense are burned at the tomb.  The stacks of joss paper you see in the photo below, were burned, as was the incense, before we departed.    Yessi's Dad died when she was very young.  We are grateful to him for our dear Yessi.

~~~

"The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude."

~ Thornton Wilder

Hongcun Village

China - #6

On the nights before and after our visit to Yellow Mountains, Yessi booked a hotel for us in Hongcun Village.  Perfect!  

For thousands of years this village has preserved its character as a traditional Chinese village (World Heritage of China), including the economic and clan-based social structures.  Manmade waterways, village layout, architecture, building materials, and surrounding environment have all been preserved.  We found ourselves completely smitten with this village.

And, of note, both Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon had scenes filmed on location in Hongcun Village.

The street food, both day and night, was plentiful and sumptuous.

The streets were bursting with entrepreneurs.  Each home-shop doorway was set up with goods.   Their offerings artistically presented.

Walking the streets charmed us.

And at night it just got better.

But, I'm afraid we did our part to change it.  With chagrin, we wanted our morning coffee but the only drink offered in the morning was hot water.  Typically we traveled in China with Starbuck's instant coffee pacs, for just this situation.  Unfortunately, on this trip. we found ourselves without a supply.  On our first morning in the village we settled for tea, although even that was difficult to find.  On our second morning we were served coffee.  The previous evening Yessi and Brad, while enjoying a beer, talked the shop keeper into opening early for us the next morning. 

Here is the sweet man who got up early to serve us coffee.   A generous tip, lots of photographs and unlimited smiles showed our gratitude.

Outside the Hongcun Village gate was the "support" village where our taxi driver lived.  It was alive with the bustle of commerce.

~~~

"Life and human society are the chief concern of Confucianism and,

through it, the chief concern of the Chinese people.

~ Hu Shih

Yellow Mountains

China Blog Posting - #5

If ever you find youself in China, do visit Yellow Mountains  (Mount Huangshan -  UNESCO World Heritage Center), known as "the loveliest mountain of China", attracting 2.74 million visitors annually.   The wonders of the Yellow Mountains are numerous, but four are key:

• The natural bonsai pines growing from the cracks in the rock, along with…

• The unusually-shaped rocks…

• The sea of clouds…

• And, the hot springs, sadly missed but for the steam off in the distance.  

As we were traveling from Hongcun Village, where we'd spent the night, to Yellow Mountains, it was foggy, rainy and very chilly.  We were bundled up in layers, prepared for a cold day of no views.  Because of a slide detour our taxi was taking us, at breakneck speeds, through tiny villages, honking without end to scatter bicycles, chickens, children, and dogs.  The  detour had made him late so the ride was hair-raising, although both beautiful and interesting.    We traveled through acres of tea fields with tiny bicycle work vehicles lined up along the road's edge.  Further along, gigantic bamboo forests hugged the roads, stretching far off into the distance.

These narrrow mountain roads had logs (about 5 to 6 inches in diameter; 8 to 10 feet long) freshly cut, stacked on the road's shoulder, often tumbling out onto the road.  The logs were bamboo, but other times some kind of hard wood. Mostly the piles were untended, awaiting pickup; other times workers were wielding chainsaws, right in the  road.  If you think this slowed down the taxi driver, think again.  A honk, but no brake, as we sped by.

After being dropped off at the end of the taxi line, we still needed to catch a bus to the tram, and then ride the tram up the mountain.   As we rode up in the tram we were groaning with disappointment.  The fog was so thick we could barely see our hands, never mind the mountains.  And then, suddenly, we broke out of the fog…

The first walking section, directly off the tram, was an engineering wonder, stairs hanging onto the side of the rock.

The path continued through unimaginably beautiful scenery.  Not just the rocks and pines were beautiful, but lush forests of Rhododendrons, Enkianthus, Oak, Dogwood, Bamboo, Witch Hazel, and other plants we are familiar with here in the northwest.  The fall season gave us the magical sea of fog but spring must be spectacular too with the blooms and frangrances of the flowers.  As we walked, viewing sites presented themselves.

I couldn't stop taking photographs, nor could any of us.   We were each breathless with the beauty and splendor of this magnificent place.  Brad especially went nuts taking photographs (and he's the best photograper of us all), just to go swimming in Thailand several days later, with his cell phone in his pocket.  Bye bye photos.

On the ride back to Hong Cun Village our same taxi driver slowed down and even suggested a tea field stop.  The tea being grown in this locale was Chrysanthemum.  

Despite being quite sure our driver was trying to kill us on the way up to Yellow Mountains, on the way back to the village he won our hearts.

The next morning
we're dropped off at the train station for our return to Xiamen.

~~~

“The climb speaks to our character, but the view, I think, to our souls”

~  Lori Lansens, The Mountain Story