Houkeng Village

China - #2

Brad and Yessi meet the first six American visitors arriving for the wedding, with four more drifting in over the next two days.  The Hat is born!  And, Houkeng Village becomes our home.

Fran, Yessi, Brad, Stef, Paul, Ed, Greg, and Deb

 Uncle, living in the building next door  and connected to Yessi's
 family home with a tiny bridge high over the street,
made his elevator available to us when we were carrying luggage.
 Otherwise, it was six flights up...

 The Hat

Gathered on Yessi's mom's outdoor room we capture a first day's moment.

Rainier Mt. is our backdrop, the location of Brad's wedding
proposal to Yessi.

We soon meet Gina, our guide and interpreter, and soon to be our good
 friend.  We affectionally called her "Little Boss".
She and Yessi were a perfect guide team!!!

In Yessi's villiage, Houkeng, within the city of Xiamen, we are the "family" from America, with the children swarming Brad when we venture out.  

The narrow streets within the village accommodate only a few cars, around the edges mostly, but there are hundreds of bicycles; even more scooters, all electric to comply with Xiamen ordinance; as well as little three-wheeled and four-wheeled trucks hauling all manner of stuff.  The people own their streets with the old men playing cards in the park, working men and women rushing through on their way to jobs, folks of all ages shopping, teenagers playing badminton, and little kids doing what kids do…basketball, bicycles, skateboards, frisbee, kickball, yelling, laughing and making the most delightful squeaks and shouts.

The little narrow streets buzz with life and are safe enough that Yessi's mom one night met our taxi at midnight, dressed in pajamas.  The security in the village consists of a camera system recording activity on every street.   There is little police presence on the village streets, and we only heard sirens once or twice the entire time we were staying there.

Yessi's mom's Temple, nearby in the village.
The village security cameras can be viewed in a little precinct below the Temple.

For now, within this huge city, Houkeng Village is distinct.  Xiamen's rapid development stops at the edges, leaving the village social and family ties united.   It is slated for reconstruction in the next decade, so it's future is uncertain.  In the meantime, tiny produce, meat, grocery and drug stores are all close at hand, occupying the first floor of the five and six story apartment buildings, along with small manufacturing companies and repair services providing all the services needed.  The local grocer operates on the ground floor of Yessi's family's apartment building.  Yessi's family live on the top floor.

Our exercise program was not hurt by the six flight climb several times a day.  Chickens and a vegetable garden happen on the roof.  The four floors in between the grocer and Yessi's  family home provide residences for about 30 families.

The roof, with the chickens in the background.

View from the roof.

We were stuffed, three times a day with a wonderful assortment of food, especially seafood.

A typical meal prepared by Yessi's mom (we all called her Momma and Ed
and I were called Momma and Poppa).

Yessi's mom is a very good cook, spending endless hours
in her kitchen spoiling all of us.

Momma in her kitchen

Birthday parties for one year-olds are a very big celebration and, like at Yessi and Brad's wedding, the "Red Envelope" filled with money is the appropriate gift.  This poor baby is scared by all the fuss, but the party rolls forward with food, drink and boisterous gaiety.

Birthday Girl, not so sure about all the hullabalou.

Gina's mom was the cook and the party was at her family's home in the village.  The sushi was a special gift  delivered to our table.

One of five party tables, all loaded with food.  The quantities of food served
at every meal  were stunning.   In the company we were keeping,
we were able to once and for all put aside the warning from our
parents, "Finish your meal.  Think of the starving children in China."

Gina took a cake making class so she could create these
 cakes for this special occasion.

Daily, Momma serves tea to friends and family, often several times.  In our language void, she would often serve tea as a friendly and welcoming way to communicate and share and make us feel welcome. I can report total success with the tea-welcoming technique.

We were told not to thank Yessi's family for all they did for us.  It was not necessary and in fact it could be insulting.  In China, you don't thank family, as they are honored to be in your company.  Love says it all.  I had trouble with this concept throughout our visit.  I say "thank you" knee-jerk often and curbing it was almost impossible.  I'd bite my tongue but thank you still creeped out, or rather, was blurted out frequently.   Once I said to Gina, by way of explaining my inability to stop uttering my thanks,  "I can't say thank you freely to you, but believe me, in America, we thrive on thank you."

~~~

"If the only prayer you ever say is thank you, it will be enough."

Meister Eckhart

China, China, China!

China - #1


We left our beautiful home…

our wonderful pup, Benton…

fall in the garden…

and, travels in Thistle…

at the end of October, to travel to Xiamen, China for Brad and Yessi's Chinese wedding!

You might be wondering why there were no blog postings the entire month we were there about such a momentous occasion, with interesting adventures, all shared with wonderful friends.  Let me count the ways…not enough time, internet too slow or non-existent, and no way to upload my photographs onto the blog.    Now that we're home again,  I'll begin catching up and filling you in on our adventures.  This posting, China - #1, is the first of several China posts.

Yessi and our interpreter, Gina, settled us in nicely with planned sightseeing, shopping trips, family dinners and navigation in Xiamen, a city of about 4 million people.  We were pretty much awestruck.  Yessi's family showered us with attention.  What we have been experiencing is a mutual admiration fest played out with food and smiles and gifts and gratitude.  We've been fed and fed and coddled and shown around with the greatest generosity imaginable, and we were a handful of 11 non-Chinese speaking Americans.   We smiled and smiled and smiled in gratitude, as we participated in the gift-giving, tea, dining and toasting rituals.

Very generously Auntie and Uncle take us out to lunch, where we all
 experienced our first taste of seaworms in gelatin.

In their home, Uncle serves tea,  Mr. Ed sniffs the aroma, and Auntie looks on.

Cousin (far left), with Uncle (front and center) hosting us with
grace and style and kindness.

Our meal, prepared by Kevin, Cousin's son.

Lunch at Cousin's on the mountain top.

Dinner at Uncle's.  Uncle had served on the Xiamen Council, is a large land owner
 and was clearly the patriarch of the family.  Uncle is far right, red shirt.

Restaurant dining.
We could not pay when we went out or help when we
dined at home, but this time it was our treat.

An early sightseeing adventure was to Gulangyu Island, very close to Xiamen, but quite the trick to get to with many rules for foreigners and huge crowds everywhere.  With gentle herding by Yessi and Gina, we enjoyed a wonderful visit.

Wherever we went people stared and requested photographs with us, especially Mr. Ed who looked particularly dignified in hat-less China in his hat.   We were 12 strong on these trips, 13 with our interpreter Gina. 

The island is a popular location for wedding photographs.  The sight of brides, scooting from location to location, long wedding dresses bundled into bustles to keep them off the ground, was amusing.  In close pursuit of the bride were husbands-to-be, personal stylists, photographers burdened with equipment, and a friend or two, all chasing the perfect wedding photograph. 

A bride in red, although most of the brides being
photographed on the island were in white.

Gulangyu Island, China

On another day we visited the Toulou Round Houses, transportation provided by tour bus.  The tour bus driver informed us we would stop on the way to Toulou at the Coffee Factory giving us our first introduction to "forced shopping" in China.  Compliant, we piled off the bus and almost immediately discovered we were trapped inside a huge warehouse where we were routed onto a zigzag pathway designed to force us to pass dozens and dozens of vendors.  The route was jammed, shoulder to shoulder, with hundreds of shoppers, all arriving via tour buses.  Many of the vendors had microphones into which they were yelling, in Chinese of course, the wonders of their products.  The noise was deafening; the air stifling.  The only exit was at the end of the prescribed route.  I exited dazed and wondering what in the world had just happened.

The round houses were interesting, and, according to our guide, had unintended consequence when foreign war planes thought they were silos. 

Round House exterior

Round House interior

Beautiful stone buildings in the village

Handsome stone bridge

Another stone bridge,

Water Wheel, with beautiful stone work

Sacred trees of stunning beauty

And, naturally, the round house village had  tourist shops.

But, real shops too.

We also group-shopped in Xiamen, seeing the sights along the way.

And Cousin took us shopping too.

A path around this reservoir, close to Yessi's home, became Ed's
race walking route.

~~~

"The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water; but to walk on the earth."

Chinese Proverb