From the Terrace

Guilin, Day 3 – Longji Rice Terraces

About 650 years ago a group of Chinese people fled the internecine fighting in southern China and went to a mountainous region just north of Guilin. To survive, they planted rice on the steep mountain slopes by building an extensive terrace system. KK’s and my trip to this area was one of the great highlights of our trip. This is a highly photographed part of China, and much better photos are available online. Regardless, here are a few of ours.

It was a cloudy day, and as we were driven higher into the mountains, we came closer to the clouds.

Longji means “Dragon’s Backbone,” and these terraces supposedly resemble the scales of a dragon (insofar as we know what dragon scales look like), and the view of these terraces from the top of the mountain resembles a dragon’s backbone.

Our little minivan, loaded with 6 tourists, arrived at a small parking area where we were dropped off in front of the inevitable tourist shops.

One of them had these hanging decorations, and I bought two for my apartment door.

At the beginning of this narrow, paved walkway there were the ever-present trinket salesmen awaiting our arrival.

We started up the road toward the village of Longji,…

…and the asphalt quickly gave way to fancier slate and cobblestone.

We could have taken one of these small buses,…

…but KK, always full of energy, just scoffed at the idea. I dragged myself along, not wanting to be a stick in the mud.

Occasionally we passed a local coming in the opposite direction.

The terraces are made of mud and are constantly maintained by the people. If there is a breakage (which I assume happens often), they simply pack more mud onto the wall to fix it.

This person is cutting unwanted weeds and grass with a long machete.

To regulate the irrigation of each rice paddy, V-shaped metal troughs are moved around the terraces.

About 20 minutes into our hike up the little road, we came across a bamboo chute, presumably used transfer slate from this big rock down to the road.

Finally (heavy breathing), after a 40-minute hike, we approached the village.

Arriving at the village of Longji, which is built into the mountainside, we were surprised to see that this ancient village had quite a bit of new construction underway.

The views were stunning.

Our tour guide, in the pink jacket, led our little group around the village.

The village’s location means that most of the walkways here are steps,…

…some of them steep. (Oh me, oh my.)

Here’s the local supermarket,…

…and a guy doing some electrical work.

At first, I thought these were sandbags, but evidently not. Maybe they told us what was in them, but I forgot. (KK?)

As we moved farther into the village, we began to encounter the local wildlife:

Some of the wildlife was less mobile than others. (KK: I don’t remember their significance.)

Not sure what this one is.

The architecture was interesting but not particularly elegant.

This is a mountain village, not an imperial palace.

Some of the older abodes had only wooden joints.

I’m glad we weren’t beneath the window as this woman disposed of who-knows-what.

I guess our electrical guy hasn’t gotten around to burying his wires yet.

Chinese people in general, especially in rural villages like this one, are frugal and clever. Here’s a household mop.

I stopped to take a photo…

…of an old woman sticking her head out over her balcony.

This house turned out to be special: the oldest house in Longji.

As we got closer, a young child peered out from behind the railing.

We were invited up to see the inside of the house, but at the top of the steps I feigned (?) being overwhelmed with the exertion of climbing the steps. The woman offered me the use of her tiny stool, but it was so low to the floor that she had to help me get up.

Inside, as she showed us around, it was clear that she was a charming individual. Here she is tying up some straw.

There were makeshift shelves hanging from the ceiling.

The woman pulled a laminated sheet of a mantle, and she was very proud of her house being the oldest one in the village.

The wildlife inside her house evidently was for the sole use of the child.

She and I had the opportunity to have a “conversation” using only smiles and gestures.

We left her house and headed toward another place for lunch. Outside this restaurant was a woman grilling something.

KK went over to find out what’s up…

The woman evidently was not used to people approaching her and asking questions, but she quickly became genial in the presence of KK’s charm.

She explained that these bamboo cases contained a rice-vegetable mixture that we would be eating momentarily, which we did.

We had other dishes, too, and everything was good, especially after the up-and-down walking.

Right after lunch we headed back.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Guilin, Day 2 – Afternoon & Evening

After leaving the tea farm, our driver dropped us off at a little hole-in-the-wall noodle place (our request).

KK, after checking her meal for foreign bodies,…

…dug in.

Guilin (which means “sweet osmanthus”) is on the beautiful Li River, and a lot of the tourist attractions are associated with it. After lunch, KK, the guide, and I made our way (ways?) down to the river to board a luxury tour boat…

…so we could go see Elephant Hill.

This is one of the many geological formations around this part of China caused by erosion of calcium carbonate hills. (Google “karst.”)

As we got closer, we wondered about the origin of its name.

On our way we saw local fishermen on bamboo rafts…

…and riverside chateaux,…

…a resident of which was washing her clothes in the river.

As we approached the base of Elephant Hill, its namesake became obvious.

After this less-than-exciting boat ride, we “were taken” to Solitary Beauty Peak, a temple/small hill park in Guilin.

I put those words in quotes to imply a double entendre. Many things in China are inexpensive but public parks definitely fall outside that category. I think it cost 135 RMB per person to get in. (KK will remember exactly, I’m sure.)

After passing through the entrance, we looked to our right at a now common scene in China: people unselfconsciously doing their tai chi exercises.

It’s possible this tree should have been staked better and for a longer period of time (duh).

The steps leading up to the palace are all that remain of the structure built in 1372. The rest was rebuilt in 1947.

Like most stairways leading to Chinese palaces, there is a central ramp for the emperor only; everyone else must use the side steps.

Off to the right was the requisite keep-off-the-grass sign, but someone’s gonna have to help me with the pictures.

Is that a Do Not Plant warning? I guess it could be a Do Not Pick the Potted Plants sign, but we’ll never know as his hands are blocked by the slash. And what’s next to it? A cloud hovering over a temple? Reminds me of the movie “Stargate” with Kurt Russell.

Off to the left was a No Striding warning.

It also had the peculiar cloud-palace picture, though I now think the cloud must actually be a peak. Maybe the little lone square in the middle represents the word “solitary.”

Inside the palace-museum-gift shop we were given brief instructions on Chinese calligraphy.

Both KK and I were tired so we opted out of climbing Solitary Peak, either alone or together.

For dinner, KK and I went to the Li River Restaurant, which, coincidentally, is situated on the Li River.

Anyone who has been to a restaurant with me knows I don’t order anything until I’ve read the menu cover to cover – and this was a long one,

We had lots of stuff, including these wonderful freshwater clams.

Everything was great, but what set this place apart from other restaurants I’ve been to was the beauty of the plate decorations.

Next to the Li River Restaurant was a hotel or another restaurant – not sure. But the scene we witnessed is a common one in China: the boss was lecturing the staff in preparation of the evening’s events.

I have seen this many times either just inside an establishment (restaurant, hair salon, etc.) or on the sidewalk in front of the establishment. In all cases the employees were lined up and silent while the boss gave them instructions. I think this is a peculiar thing to do in public.

After dinner we walked around the main square to see what’s up.

Another common sight in China: someone selling stuff out of the trunk of his car.

Used car salesman?

The shop windows in China are fun to examine,…

…but in the end, China is mostly about its children, who are probably the most spoiled young people in the world.

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Betty Grable

I didn’t think there would be anything to add to my stories about my massage guy, Jerry Zhang, but I guess there is.

I’m back to seeing him 2-3 times week and this has helped both my back and my neck. Unusual for me, I arrived a little early last week and had time to peruse the back wall of his waiting room. There was a price list…

…and a few photos. One of the photos was from the 2008 Beijing Olympics during which the Chinese government enlisted the assistance of the city’s best blind massage therapists.

In this picture, Jerry is standing next to Xi Jinping, who is now the head of China (General Secretary of the Communist Party of China).

Here he is working on the Vice President (?) of Ireland (where he spent 2 years).

There was another photo with some dignitaries, but I don’t know who they are, being a little weak in my understanding of Chinese characters.

Jerry told me he spent a month in Poland instructing people there on how to do Chinese massages. I just didn’t realize how famous my therapist is.

I was pleasantly surprised when he told me last week that I had good legs, “like a teenager.” I laughed but immediately recalled, privately, a day in 7th grade as if it were yesterday. During physical education class, the coach had the boys run a specific route around the schoolyard that took us past the volleyball courts where, on this particular day, the girls were playing volleyball. In the next class (which I think was Spanish with Señor Córdoba), fellow student Ann Cunningham leaned over and said I had good looking legs. (She had been playing volleyball when I ran by with the rest of the crowd.) Completely at a loss for words.

In that class we were seated alphabetically, and thus behind me was a scrawny little girl with big, ugly braces named Patricia Cooper. She used to pass me notes during class, but I wasn’t interested. Then one day someone teased her by writing “PC x PC” and a week or two later she announced quite pointedly that she was changing her name to Tricia. In high school Tricia lost her braces and blossomed into a very pretty and very popular cheerleader. The road not taken (sigh). I often contemplate alternative life paths I might have followed under different circumstances and how I would have been different. For example, I’m pretty sure that, had I been born in the Gaza strip, I’d have ended up a rebel leader, maybe killing innocent civilians for the cause. Weird.

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When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie

I think it was in 7th grade when my teacher taught us what a metaphor is, and this is the example he used.

Today (Feb. 14, 2014) is Valentine’s Day in the U.S. There are some people who celebrate it here also, but this year Feb. 14 is special in China not for affairs of the heart but for family gatherings. (Are those two mutually exclusive?)

The 15th day of the first month of the lunar year is the first day of that year when there is a full moon. From ancient Chinese times, the fullness and roundness of the moon represents the whole family getting together, and that’s what they do. It’s also called the Lantern Festival because the round lanterns that are hung everywhere mimic the moon’s roundness and thus also represent families getting together.

In today’s China, this day also marks the last time during the spring festival that people are allowed to set off fireworks. For the last 2 weeks a few fireworks have gone off each night (despite a legal ban on it for the past 7 days, but now they’re back in force. As I write this at 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 14, the sound is deafening. In addition to the fireworks, you have the added bonus of car alarms going off, thanks to the original noise. I may have to sleep on the kitchen floor again.

Oh, yeah: the fireworks’ smoke keep you from seeing the symbolic moon.

Mi Qi and his wife graciously invited me to their house again for dinner. I won’t go through the entire menu, but I would like to make a couple points:

(1) Mi Qi’s father again did all the cooking, and he’s quite good. He’s also a wonderfully jovial guy.

(2) He made an unusual soup that is traditionally eaten on this day. It has little white rice balls with a slightly sweet fruit filling, a poached egg, and some sweetened rice.

(3) He knows I like shrimp so, even though he can’t eat them, he made shrimp again for me. The last time (2 weeks ago) I made a comment about how in China shrimp are almost always cooked with the exoskeleton on, whereas in the U.S. they are almost always cooked naked. So this time he peeled the shrimp before sautéing them and, contrary to last time, everyone devoured the shrimp within minutes. I think they’ll be peeling their shrimp first henceforth.

(4) Another unusual dish consisted of pork ribs that had been marinated in a prepared sauce,…

…coated in rice powder, then steamed. Very good but with an unusual flavor they told me does not appeal to everyone. In the picture below, it is the brownish dish in the foreground.

It’s now 9:30 p.m., and one of my teacher friends brought me roses for Valentine’s Day.

She said everyone, both boys and girls, should receive something nice on Valentine’s Day.

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Which Hat Shall I Wear

(Chad Mitchell Trio.)

Guilin, Day 2 – Morning at Yao Mountain

After a stimulating breakfast of noodles at the hotel…

…and after taking a few photos from our hotel window,…

KK and I were picked up by our tour guide and taken to the Reed Flute Caves. While waiting to enter, we chatted with a teacher and some of her students.

Inside, it looked like Luray Caverns except that there was a lot more colored lighting.

One thing I take issue with almost everywhere I’ve been in China: They tend to be a little sensationalist, coloring everything often to the point of gaudiness. I’m afraid that subtlety is not one of their strong suits, at least when it comes to the natural wonders of the world.

As it is worldwide, the exit for this site required us to pass through the gift shop. This mannequin struck me as China’s equivalent of the wooden Indian. (Will I now get scathing emails from Native Americans?)

Once outside, KK, always the people magnet, ran into another lively group.

This second day in Guilin was loaded with stuff. Our guide…

…took us to the South China Pearl Museum…

…where our greeter gave us a short lecture on pearls.

The pearls were indeed beautiful; as this is a government-operated establishment, the high quality of the pearls is guaranteed, but it also means the prices are a little high.

After a brief discussion with the saleswoman, KK did indeed try on a beautiful necklace.

Also this morning we went to Yao Mountain by ski lift.

Note the metal toboggan run beneath the ski lift. It’s common in China to have these popular individual toboggan ramps for people to descend from a mountain.

As we were heading up we noticed steps beneath us, knowing full well that no one would be silly enough to try to hike all the way to the top of Yao Mountain.

But then we saw a group of knuckleheads doing just that.

As we approached the top, it got foggier…

…and foggier.

At the top we found a small museum…

…with, among other things, some carvings…

…and a sundial (?).

There was a long wall with animal carvings (assuming dragons are real).

Our guide showed us an area where hundreds of red ribbons were hung from the trees. She explained very clearly to me what these signified. I forgot, of course. (KK will know.)

One pond had statues of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. I was born in the year of the rat. Hmmmm.

Another area was for smokers, and it’s now obvious that these people are in cahoots with the U.S. FDA.

I love reading the signs in China. It’s very gracious of them to have English translations on almost every sign, but they really do need to get a native speaker to start translating for them. (YES! A new career!)

Unfortunately, the toboggan run was closed so we had to take the ski lift back down. On the way we took lots of pictures of people coming up. Everyone gave us big smiles. I’ll say it again: The people in China generally are very happy and cheerful (except when they’re driving).

At the bottom of the mountain we stopped at a tea farm.

The entrance had a nice display of tea processing to the right and a bunch of hats to the left.

Among the wide variety of toppings, KK selected just the right one that would go with her outfit.

While I, in an effort to expand my already vast array of knowledge, questioned the hostess,…

…KK took the first of her 35 selfies.

(Boy, am I gonna get it now!)

These “hats” are more for the collecting of freshly picked tea leaves than for sun blockage.

Inside, our hostess provided further information on tea leaf processing,…

…as well as a tasting session.

And, as usual, we exited though the gift shop, buying a couple things on our way.

That was our morning.

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This Little Piggy Went to Market

I have taken several trips around China with friends, and all of them have been wonderful. The trip to Guanxi Province in southern China with KK was certainly no exception. Although there are many parts of China I have not yet visited, I’ve decided to return to Guanxi with my brother in late April. Here’s the beginning of the DC-KK pictorial travelogue.

Guilin, Day 1 – Walking Around the Town

After checking into our hotel, strolled around town, looking in the windows and stores.

There were high-end items, like these ceramic vegetables with insects on them,…

…and some not-so-high-end stuff – in a different store, of course.

In general, Chinese desserts are not like French desserts, though you often come across some wannabes. Chinese bakeries are loaded with desserts that are decorated in cute ways, but not much butter (if any) is used and so they don’t live up, or even come close, to the real thing.

Whenever I overtly took pictures of people, they smiled warmly.

We loved the big markets in Guilin.

In the picture above, the shopping area on the left is only the front of a large indoor market.

Note that all the meats are simply on the tables anxiously awaiting purchasers, as they are throughout China. Occasionally, the seller will casually wave away a fly. The Chinese do not eat rare or medium rare meat.

This being southern China and tropical, the fruits and vegetables were beautiful, sweet, and delicious.

Some I didn’t recognize.

I think the picture below is of squash flowers, but I’m not sure I remember correctly.

We loved these short, fat bananas,…

…and even though they didn’t match KK’s fingernail attire, she bought some.

Here’s the biggest selection of rice I’ve seen in one spot:

If you think these markets limit themselves to food, think again.

One thing about China, the women love colorful outfits.

Outside walking again we noticed some interesting things in the street itself. For example, here’s a guy carrying a chair in front of a bus.

Note that he is not actually crossing the street but walking down its middle, unperturbed by anything around him.

All over China, 3-wheeled, motorized carts are used for transporting just about everything. I’ll have more on this topic later, but I thought I’d show this one now.

Those of you who know KK will not be surprised to hear that she was a magnet for just about everyone and everything, whether they were kids in stores…

…or wild animals underfoot.

We passed these steep steps to nowhere, which reminded me of the hike up and down the Inca trail where my students and I traversed a pass with 7,000 steps, all extremely steep (something that’s hard to comprehend in light of the smallness of the Incas).

We enjoyed seeing the cute sandals that girls really do wear,…

…as well as essential undergarments.

In front of one shoe store was a peculiar torture apparatus (move over, waterboarding):

Whenever we came upon a group of people, we pushed our way in (or at least KK did; I was always shy and demure) to see what they were looking at or doing.

These guys were playing Chinese chess, a common game around China. “Real” chess is not very common in China.

These women were playing a card game I didn’t recognize. (Henry?)

In front of a store there was this display:

Assuming the box of “Breast Enhancer” contained the bottles of “Silence,” we did not understand the connection between these two names. Then KK, using her acute experimental skills, actually lifted the box to reveal that there was indeed no connection – maybe.

Lest I end this on an unsavory note,…

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Song of the Volga Boatmen

This was one of the first songs I learned, early in my elementary school days.

Guanxi, Day 1 – Evening Entertainment

After our walking around Guilin, KK and I had dinner at a nondescript restaurant we passed at one point. Inside, KK got a head start after discovering a banana in her purse.

The food started to arrive and we dug in.

We had my favorite eggplant dish,…

…some nice string beans stir-fried with roast pork,…

…and breaded tofu baked with tomato sauce.

Although KK was as proficient as I with chopsticks, we had trouble finishing our meal, as you can see.

Back at the hotel, our tour guide picked us up and took us to the Li River for the popular Li River Cruise. In tourist parts of China we have noticed that often there are this Disneyland-ish boat rides that carry you slowly by colorful displays and short shows.

This evening KK set the record for number of selfies per hour.

All the trees along the bank were lit in one color or another. Here is a guy on a raft demonstrating the technique of fishing with cormorants.

My photos are lousy because I forgot to bring my real camera and was forced to use my inadequate cell phone. I’ll have more on cormorant fishing later in the trip.

Just as in Disneyland, as we approached one of the show places, the dancers would start doing their thing.

I don’t really remember why, but I recall wishing the boat driver would drive closer to this show.

The main event, attended by several boats simultaneously, was a traditional dance on the bank.

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Let ‘Em Eat Cake

Not wanting to be misconstrued as an uninformed foreign devil, I decided to make a small investment in New Year’s decorations. I bought a couple of round, red decals for my front door.

The decal on the right, stuck to wall by static electricity, says something like “spirit of the horse, spirit of the dragon.”

This, of course, is the year of the horse, and if you have a child this year, he or she will be open (that’s good), eloquent (wonderful!), and romantic (uh, oh).

The decal on the left pictures a flower vase topped by the Chinese character for good luck and happiness.

Yes, I know it’s upside down. It is traditional here to put this decal upside down to signify that your good luck/happiness is on its way.

In case I haven’t told you earlier, the long, blue, cloth hangings with 3 red, embroidered designs were purchased in Guanxi when I was there with KK.

I also bought a Chinese lantern and hung it in my kitchen from what looks like an overhead escape hatch.

Speaking of new decorations, I have two other new acquisitions. Someone has loaned me a small toaster oven that she’s had in its box for a year because she doesn’t know how to use it,…

…and I wasted no time in roasting a chicken.

The oven has a rotisserie and it worked well; the chicken was very good, as you can see. It didn’t start off looking like this, though; but you probably knew that. I picked it up at a Chinese supermarket, and when I unwrapped it at home, I was surprised to find it still had a head!

So I took my kitchen guillotine and cut off its head. Only when I went to stuff its interior with half a lemon and some garlic did I discover that the chicken’s feet had gotten there first.

Fortunately, no further surprises were in store, so I continued preparing the chicken by coating it with olive oil, then smothering it with herbes de province.

When I was at the Chinese supermarket, I felt compelled to buy some Brussels sprouts, the first I’ve seen in China. While the chicken was rotating for an hour, I stir-fried them with several kinds of mushrooms (my mushroom medley), garlic, soy sauce, and oyster sauce.

The chicken feet I sent home with my Chinese dinner companion. Scouts honor.

Back to my decorations. I have one more addition to my apartment: a piano.

I told the powers that I missed playing the piano and that the school’s few pianos were always occupied by (horrors!) students. I proposed the solution that the school buy a good electric piano (which sounds and feels pretty much like a real piano) and store it in my apartment until I leave, whereupon it would be moved to a location more accessible to students.

Hook, line, and sinker.

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The Sound and the Fury

I have never been in a bona fide war zone, but I think I came close a couple times. In the second semester of my freshman year of college in San Francisco, I went down to the Navy recruiting office and tried to join, saying that I wanted to fly planes off a carrier. They asked me how my eyesight was and I said “pretty good,” that I had 20-20 in one eye and 20-40 in the other. They said they were sorry but to fly in the Navy (in those days) you needed to have perfect 20-20 vision. (I believe this is no longer the case.)

A month or two after that a friend of mine in the Marines ROTC invited me to join him for a weekend at the Treasure Island Marine training base to see if I wanted to sign up. This was an easy decision: the food in the cafeteria was lousy.

In the mid-60s we had THE DRAFT. If you were of able body and sound mind, you were classified as 1A: eligible for the draft. Unless you were enrolled full-time in college, in which case you were granted a 2S deferment. Sometime during my second year in college I received a letter from the Army saying that I had been drafted and I was to report to the Oakland facility for medical examination prior to induction. (That examination alone is worth a chapter!)

It turned out that I had forgotten to inform the government that I was still in college and thus I had not received my 2S rating. You’d think that I would have just accepted this and gone into the Army. The problem was, though, by now I had a girlfriend, and I no longer wanted to enter ANY branch of the Armed Services. So, after a flurry of correspondence between the Army and me, I was granted a 2S retroactively. Phew!

I think I may now have experienced, at least approximately, the sounds of a war zone. January 30 was Chinese New Year’s Eve, and from the early evening throughout the night fireworks were exploding in voluminous amounts. These are not the little firecrackers known from our childhood but rockets that explode about 100 feet above the ground with the intention of creating really loud noises. Very few of the fireworks contribute beauty; only a few produce colored lights (also only about 100 feet above the ground). The historical purpose of these noise-makers was to scare aware bad spirits, not to decorate the sky.

The noise was so loud for so long that in order to sleep I had to sleep on my sofa cushions on the kitchen floor with all doors closed. I was warned about this noise but the volume was still staggering.

People started celebrating while I was still having dinner at Mi Qi’s place, and afterwards, when we were walking from his apartment to his car, I saw a couple guys huddled over small fires in the street, about 6 feet from the curb. I asked Mi Qi if they were shooting off fireworks, and he said, “No, they’re burning money.”

“Burning money?!!!” The first month of the lunar year is called Ghost Month, 4 weeks during which the Gates of Hell will be open. The burning money is being sent to one’s ancestors to buy things they need (toothpaste?) and to bribe (naturally, this is China) underworld officials. Here’s a link to a short article about this: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/taiwan-issues/2009/08/21/221366/Practice-of.htm.

Mi Qi assured me that this “ghost money” was fake money. Is that Ben Franklin on the bills below?

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You Are My Dumpling, My Only Dumpling

The night after having New Year’s dinner at Ruby & Eric’s place I had New Year’s dinner at my friend Mi Qi’s & Huijuan’s (his wife) house.

His father is staying with them for an extended period as Mi Qi’s mother passed away last year. Father was in the kitchen with his favorite hobby: cooking. Since he’s been there, he evidently does all the cooking.

He was making the traditional New Year’s dumplings,…

Mi Qi and I took a turn at making the dumplings, but when it was obvious you could tell which ones he made and which ones we made, the father relieved us and gave us a task we could handle: standing and watching.

He steamed them a little in the wok, then fried them a little. They were fantastic and I ate at least 10.

The traditional homemade sausage was sent by Huijuan’s parents who live a couple hours away by train.

Something that caught my eye were these black eggs in black gelatin. I think I sampled them elsewhere last year and I passed this year.

I’ve had so many different foods in China that it’s hard to imagine walking into someone’s apartment and being served something completely new. Mi Qi’s father made a dish from his home town in southern China that I liked enough that I plan to try to duplicate it. Two quarter-inch slices of lotus root were used to sandwich a little ground pork (with seasonings), then battered and fried. Really good!

Great dinner.

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