Jean-Guy!'s Blog: March 2007

Xi'an And Hua Shan
Hello, everyone! I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I've been busy as all hell, if you know what I mean. Since I last posted on my blog, I've been to Guangzhou (again) and Hong Kong, along with a two-week-long trip to Japan. However, in this posting, I have written about Xi'an, the most ancient former capital of a unified China. I have also adorned the page with many of the 750+ photos taken on this trip by me and Cheryl. My photos from this trip are available at http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~scepollo/images/ChinaTrips/Xian.

Before I get into that, I'd like to tell all y'all that I'm going to be on television at 20:00 BST on Monday, 26 March 2007, on CETV 1 (Chinese Educational Television 1). It's a show designed to help Mainland Chinese high school seniors to select a major for university. The major featured in this episode is Chinese calligraphy.

Hua2 Shan1 (华山)
Cheryl and I embarked in November on a trip to Xi1'an1 (西安) and Hua Shan, both of which are located in Sha'an3xi1 (陕西) province. We rode the overnight soft-sleeper on Friday, 17 November, to arrive in Xi'an on the morning of 18 November. Immediately after arriving we secured transit towards Hua Shan for a short overnight trip thither. The two-hour train ride cost 16 RMB, or a bit more than $2.25 Cdn -- not a bad deal.

Before actually taking the next train, however, we decided to look for a good hotel in which to stay after returning from Hua Shan. Cheryl had a lead from the Lonely Planet Guide to China: Lu4 Dao3 (绿岛) Hotel. After briefly investigating the place, we decided to return thither on the next day, after returning from Hua Shan. After riding the train to Hua Shan area, we rode a 'black' taxi to the base of Hua Shan. We found another hotel, also listed in the Lonely Planet guide, and secured lodgings there. Shortly after that, we embarked upon the four-to-six-hour-long climb of the first peak of Hua Shan.

Hua Shan is widely considered to be the most important mountain in all of Daoism. For centuries, its beauty has captivated painters and authors alike, and its likeness has been captured in widely reproduced paintings. A pilgrimage to and up Hua Shan is deemed to be very important.

For those who are not so interested in Daoism, Hua Shan has other appeals. Not only is it considered to be one of the difficult climbs in China for the average person, but one may be rewarded at the dawn after an overnight climb by a spectacular view from above the clouds and smog (from Xi'an, due west of Hua Shan).

Hua Shan has many peaks, and to climb all peaks takes approximately eight hours. Because Cheryl and I started so late in the day, we decided that we'd try to secure another place of lodging atop one of the peaks, in addition to our 'base camp'. :) At one point, when we stopped for a meal, we even bought some headlights (literally to be strapped to our heads) for that we might later be able to see after nightfall. The locals were remarking at how 'strong' I must be for wearing short pants at that time of the year (‘I’m Canadian!’). If I had worn long pants, I'd have died from the heat I generated while climbing. At one point, I doffed my 'hoodie' sweater and steam rose from my t-shirt. I also dropped my BlackBerry device into a water drainage ditch at the side of the path. If ever a comical movie about my life is made, I shall have to include a scene where I'm frantically running DOWN the mountain to try to stop my sliding BlackBerry. By the way, my BlackBerry device survived that four-foot drop onto solid stone followed by a 100-foot slide, and continued to function until Christmas Day.

At that point, my legs were so tired that I felt like giving-up. I tried going further for a few hundred metres, but I eventually had to return to base camp. Cheryl continued to the top with both of our cameras, where she was rewarded with both a wonderful view at dawn and an unpleasant experience. I won't describe the event because that's Cheryl's story to tell. I'm glad to say that she's all right.

I had gone almost four kilometres up the mountain (not directly upward) before I was forced to stop. To this day, I don't know whether not having my bag with me would have been helpful. All I know is that I shall need to be in better shape by the time I try to tackle Tai4 Shan1 (泰山).

While I was descending the mountain, I encountered small groups of old and young Daoist monks. Apparently, some of the younger monks were making a pilgrimage. I walked past them and I encountered another monk who was descending at the same time. I spoke to him throughout more than an hour. While we descended the mountain, I tried hard to pierce his local accent to understand what he was explaining anent the fundamentals of Daoism.

I returned to our hotel room and did some of my homework. After many hours, I finally received a message from Cheryl. She told me that she had secured a place on or near one of the peaks, and that she was preparing to awaken early for to see the sunrise.

The next morning, I tried to contact her but I received no responses to any of my missives. I figured that we were just having problems with reception, as we'd had on the previous night. I tried to prevent myself from worrying by writing post cards. At 11:45, 15 minutes before check-out time, I went to the concierge to ask for help and to figure-out what to do. He tried to assure me that there was no problem, and that I could check-out and wait for Cheryl in the lobby. I'm glad that Cheryl gave me the receipt!

Finally, at approximately 12:30, after I'd told the concierge that I was going to head-out towards Hua Shan to try and find Cheryl, she appeared. It turns-out that both batteries for her phone had died and she'd spent much time exploring. Because of the unpleasant experience to which I've made reference, she didn't sleep at all.

We returned to the local train station via another 'black' cab, for which we were overcharged, and then purchased tickets for Xi'an. The tickets we purchased had, printed on them, 'wu2 zuo4' (无座), which we thought might have meant 'no seats'. Given that Cheryl had not slept, and had climbed much more than I had throughout the previous 24 hours, I was quite worried about her. As it turns-out, the phrase means 'no assigned seating'. We had a hard time finding adjacent seats which were empty. It's not that each seat was occupied by one person. Rather, many persons were sprawled over multiple seats. We had to wait for one person to take pity on our poor state (with two heavy bags each) to allow us to sit. Sitting in that railway car reinforced in me the fact that, despite Beijing's veneer, China is still a third-world nation.

Cheryl, eagerly anticipating our arrival at Hua Shan

Sage advice

Ye olde Colour Checker

'Now that I've finally ditched that Stu guy, where am I going to go?'

'It's over there!'

Cool D00D In Xi'an

Xi'an, Part Deux
We returned to Xi'an on the Sunday of that weekend. We decided to take it easy, and investigate only a couple of things. We were both quite pooped and we wanted to have a fresh start for Monday. After securing for ourselves a room for two nights and booking a one-day guided tour of places east of the city, we went to the Muslim Quarter of the old city for food and a little bit of exploration.

I bought a few souvenirs in the small bazaar next to the Great Mosque. The best souvenir is one which I purchased for a former co-worker. I've included a photo of it below. I also purchased some over-priced ocarinas for myself and others.

Hua2qing1 Pool (华清池简介), Lin2tong2 Museum (临潼博物馆), Qin2 Shi3huang2 Ling2 (秦始皇陵), and Bing1ma3 Yong3 (兵马俑)
Early the next morning we embarked upon a one-day English-language tour of some historic sites east of the city. Our group had seven adventurers: a middle-aged couple from South Africa, a young couple from England, a French man, Cheryl, and me. Our tour guide's English was quite good; I had no problems understanding her. Our French companion, on the other hand, had some problems. Because I am Canadian, and I hail from a bilingual part of Canada, I was expected to be able to speak French well. I had little desire to study French until long after I started attending university. Because I've also lived in a mostly monolingual part of Canada throughout the 15 years before I came to China, I have also not been practising my French. Anyway, I did what I could to at least make what she was saying understood to the French man, even if my French was ungrammatical and my choice of words was poor.

Our tour guide

The first place to which we went on our tour is Huaqing Pool. Huaqing has a long history, going back to the Ming Dynasty, but the most recent famous event which happened at the pool is what is commonly called the 'Xi'an Incident'. In December 1936, two of the GMD's (KMT's, 国民党's) generals, under Chiang Kai-shek (蒋介石), decided that they'd had enough of the GMD trying to fight both the Japanese invaders and the Communists (CCP, Chinese Communist Party), but especially with Chiang Kai-shek's refusal to co-operate with the CCP. They and some of their troops stormed the pool, where Chiang had been vacationing / holding his field office, in the middle of the night. Before they could capture him at the compound, Chiang fled into the hills surrounding the compound. He was eventually captured several hours later. The CCP (Zhou Enlai (周恩来) in particular, I believe) helped the GMD to bargain for Chiang's release. As part of that deal, the GMD was to work with the CCP to fight the foreign invaders. The rest, as they say, is history.

The hot spring itself is reputed to have therapeutic effects. I was able to wash my hands in the spring water for a measly five kuai. The water was definitely quite different from the water in Beijing. :)

Please grant me some sort of supplication!

Enh, I like your sister more, anyway

After visiting the pool we went to the Lin Tong Museum, at which a relic of the Buddha's is reputed to be stored. On display at the front gate of the museum are two lions which are reputed to give good fortune is one rubs one of them in the right spot, and in the right way. ;) One of them is supposed to be rubbed only by men, the other only by women. Rubbing one part of a stone lion is supposed to bring a different kind of good luck from rubbing a different part of it. After spending no more than an hour at that museum, we were taken to a place which sells jade jewelry made from locally mined stones. I presume that the prices are artificially jacked-up and that the tour guide received a premium for each item sold to our group. The jade marketeers even gave us conveniently numbered 'coupons' for keeping track of the sales. After that short excursion, we embarked upon Qin Shihuang Ling (the tomb of the first emperor of Qin, 秦始皇陵). We didn't spend much time there either for we were to see his terra cotta army in the afternoon.

This is the lion which women are supposed to rub for good luck

Qin's mausoleum mound

Courtin' the ladies

While I was in the area around Xi'an I made some amazing anthropological observations. Firstly, at Hua Shan, I noted that the Chinese lack of respect for queues (and signs telling persons not to do certain things) is universal. What I witnessed when we were preparing to leave the tomb for lunch was absolutely astounding. While Cheryl and I were making our way toward the bus, some women caught sight of 'foreigners' and accosted us for to sell things. They wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. We were the first two of the seven adventurers to reach the tour bus. When we entered the bus, the women who were hawking wares tried to CLIMB INTO THE BUS WITH US! We were able to push them (gently) out the door and then close the door behind us. The South Africans were not so fortunate. For a few minutes after we closed the door to the vehicle, the old ladies continued to try to sell us things through the door. The South Africans then spent ten minutes fighting their way through the ladies, all the while trying to be polite. Then the English couple returned. Funnily enough, the French man had no issues brushing them off and entering the vehicle, if I remember correctly. :)

Crazy ladies

While we were at the tomb we encountered many vendors selling pomegranates. At that time, we learnt that pomegranates are one of the area's staples. At lunch, Cheryl and I decided to try pomegranate chicken. It wasn't worth paying five times what we'd pay in Beijing for a similar dish without pomegranates.

Pomegranate Chicken! Yum yum!

Also at lunch I learnt that the young English man in our group could speak better French than I so I delegated to him the responsibility for translation into French.

After lunch, we went to see the famed terra cotta army. It is definitely quite impressive: Qin was so concerned about his enemies attacking him in the afterlife that he had artisans construct a terra cotta army to protect him from his enemies. The warriors face the east, which is the direction from which his enemies in the phenomenal world would strike. At least 10000 such warriors have been found. Some of them are lowly warriors, others are officers, yet others are servants. The army itself is a few kilometres from Qin's tomb. I won't describe too much of it here because pretty much all of the information which I am able to give is available on the internet, and it is in much greater detail.

Ancient and modern warriors

Modern orange peel

Our return trip to the hotel took almost two hours. The first hour, or so, was spent driving to a location half a block from the hotel. The next hour was spent trying to go that other half-block towards the hotel. 'What's the problem?', you might ask. The problem is twofold. Firstly, if the police were to catch the driver allowing us to disembark from the bus at that location, they would have enforced a by-law via which would require the driver to pay more than 200 RMB. Secondly, one of our number had to go to the washroom badly before we arrived at the intersection. For a change, I was not the one who had to go. Rather, Cheryl had to fight to put on-hold the 'call of nature' (thanks to Ben Edlund and Henry Gilroy for the inspiration on that one). That traffic jam was one of the other amazing anthropologically significant events I've witnessed since coming to China. I couldn't believe how cars' drivers were jockeying for position and trying to push their way through the crowd. Our group's biggest problem is that we had a tour mini-bus instead of a car. We were stuck for almost an hour going the wrong way at an intersection because we were too big to make a sharp turn and nobody else would allow us to pass.

After we finally arrived we dumped our things into our room and went to find a restaurant which our tour guide recommended. It's an all-you-can-eat place for only 20 kuai ($3 Cdn, or so). Cheryl and I decided that we weren't too tired for a little more walking, so we decided to hike 30-40 minutes to the trendy part of town where the restaurant is located. Night had fallen by the time we finally left the hotel. On the way to the restaurant, we encountered many 'beauty salons' with purple lighting. We're quite certain that they served another purpose, especially because each of them was equipped with a poorly concealed bed in the back.

When we walked down the street towards our ultimate destination we passed a number of different shops and restaurants. We even passed a restaurant which claimed to serve 'Typical Fast Food'. We joked that that would be the place where we'd eat. When we finally arrived at the place about which the tour guide had told us, we sere surprised that such a place could survive as an all-you-can-eat-for-20-kuai place. We asked the fuwuyuan about that, and we were taken outside to the place next door for 'Typical fast Food'. :) Some of the food wasn't bad, and I was able to eat my fill for 22 kuai (their prices had increased). During our meal, I had fun playing with a child at the next table. I'm glad that the child was fascinated and laughing, and not crying, because the child's father turned-out to be army personnel. After that, we walked a little bit on the main drag and then returned to our hotel for an early night.

Xi'an, Take Three
The Drum Tower
Our last full day in Xi’an was a whirlwind tour of many famous historical sites. We officially checked-out of the hotel but store the bulk of our luggage there because of its proximity to the train station. After that, we took a cab to the vicinity of the Drum Tower at the centre of the old city. Before going to the Drum Tower, however, we decided to grab some ‘food’ at McDonald’s. Some McMuffins, McHashbrowns, and McCoffee&Tea later, we made our way to the Drum Tower. I’m afraid that they wouldn’t allow us to play any of the drums at the Tower. We arrived when things were still quite quiet, and other tourists like ourselves were still sparse.

The Great Mosque (西安清真寺)
After we left the Drum Tower we made our way to the Great Mosque. Since the Tang Dynasty, more than one thousand years ago, when Xi’an was at one end of the Silk Road, Xi’an has had a mosque of some sort at this location. The current compound dates back to the Qing Dynasty (I think) and governmental funds have been allotted each year, since the rise to power of the CCP, to the expansion of the Mosque.

The Mosque’s architecture is an interesting blend of Chinese and Muslim architecture, owing to many Middle Eastern and Central Asian influences. The Mosque has not only Chinese steles anent Islam, but also Arabic ones as well. What’s a stele, you might ask? I have a section on the topic later in this post. The Mosque itself is beautiful. It’s also got by far the best-kept bathrooms within Xi’an’s city walls.

Large Wild Goose Pagoda (大雁塔)
After we finished investigating the Great Mosque, we took a taxi to the location on our itinerary furthest from the train station, for that we may work our way back to the station (and our hotel). The Large Wild Goose Pagoda is not a ‘large pagoda’ named for a wild goose but a pagoda named for a ‘large wild goose’. I am certain of this because the Small Wild Goose Pagoda is much larger than the Large Wild Goose Pagoda.

In front of the Large Wild Goose Pagoda is a large statue of Xuan Zang, the famous monk featured in the story ‘Journey To The West’. In his real-life story, he travelled along the Silk Road to India to fetch Buddhist scriptures and commentaries for translation. He spent seventeen years as a ‘guest’ of an Indian prince or king before finally being released to return to China with wagonloads of material. After he returned, a translational facility was set-up at the Large Wild Goose Pagoda, and the scriptures themselves were stored at the Small Wild Goose Pagoda (I think).

Sha’anxi History Museum (陕西历史博物馆)
After leaving the Large Wild Goose Pagoda we went to the Sha’anxi History Museum. At the museum we saw many things related to the terra cotta army, the Han Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty, spanning a period of more than one thousand years. According to the either the Lonely Planet Guide To China or the Rough Guide To China (I don’t remember which), the Sha’anxi History Museum has a large exhibit of Buddhist artwork. I found only a small exhibit. I have no idea whether what I saw was what was described in the book.

A couple of weeks later I saw myself on television. I was a friend’s home while a show was being broadcast about terra cotta warriors being on display in Taiwan. I saw the back of my head and part of my profile, from when I was admiring an exhibit at the Museum, on television. That was my first television appearance in China. :)

Giant lion on guard for thee

SIM Card Interlude
After we left the Museum we took a short trip to a local temple which is reputed to be the only functioning Buddhist temple in Xi’an. After a short visit to the temple’s book store we decided to grab a short lunch before heading to our next destination, the Small Wild Goose Pagoda.

After we ate lunch I decided that I really should recharge my SIM card. It had been exhausted a day or two before by a phone call from Canada. Roaming prices in China are not cheap. On the previous night I tried to buy a 50-kuai SIM recharge. The vendor said ’55 kuai’. I said ‘screw you’ and left. The vendors already make a premium on every recharge they sell but some vendors appear to be greedy. I guess he doesn’t have much competition. Anyway, after finishing lunch I went to buy one and I was told ’52 kuai’. ‘Why? In Beijing, if a card costs “50 kuai” we pay “50 kuai”’. The response? ‘Beijing is Beijing, Xi’an is Xi’an.’ I can describe them only as 小人 or 坏人.

Small Wild Goose Pagoda (小雁塔)
Cheryl and I stalked away from the vendor in disgust after I purchased the recharge. We decided to walk to the Small Wild Goose Pagoda from where we were. Our estimate was about 40 minutes of walking, based on our map, and it was reasonably accurate. Because the Pavilion was in such a state of disrepair, due in part to an ancient earthquake, we weren’t allowed to climb it. We stayed only for a short time before heading-out to the Forest Of Steles.

Forest Of Steles (Bei1 Lin2, 碑林)
We then headed to a museum dedicated to the preservation of large stone tablets called steles. Such tablets are usually stored upright and have engraved upon their faces either scriptures or philosophical works. One of the great collections of steles at the Forest is a complete collection of the Confucian Analects, carved during the Qing Dynasty.

Possibly the most important one, however, is a stele which was unearthed either during the Ming Dynasty or the Qing. The tablet contains the essentials of Christian thought and it has engraved in approximately 781 C.E., about 150 years after Nestorian Christianity first made an appearance in Tang Dynasty Xi’an via the Silk Road. For those of you who don’t know, the Nestorians were reviled by the orthodoxy at the time because of their idea that Christ was of two natures. As it turns out, heterodoxy these days claims that Christ _is_ of two natures, both fully human and fully divine. How these can be combined into one being is one of the Mysteries. To those who aren’t Christian philosophers or theologians, the difference between Nestorian Christianity and the heterodoxy of the day may seem very unimportant but, at the time, many persons were killed over what looks like a small difference in belief. When Nestorian Christianity was dying in Europe and Asia Minor, practitioners fled eastward. Until this tablet was uncovered, only speculation on the part of the Jesuits had indicated that Christianity had made any inroads into China. Now, the belief that Christianity had a small but strong following in Ancient China is widely accepted. By the way, the Nestorian (or Assyrian) Church still exists and, according to the materials from a course which I took a year ago, there has been some discussion about reuniting it with the Orthodox Churches.

The Nestorian Tablet

Groovy writing

The Rich-meister: makin' copies!

The Wall
After leaving Bei Lin, we climbed the city’s wall. Apparently, when construction isn’t being conducted, one may rent a bicycle and ride around the city at the level of the wall. Of course, we weren’t allowed to do that. I think that we might have been able to rent the bicycles, but we wouldn’t have been allowed to go far.

The current city wall datedback to the Ming Dynasty (I think). It replaced a much older city wall which was in disrepair.

Twins?

Guard-house, from the ground
Hotel, Revisited
After spending about an hour atop the wall, Cheryl and I high-tailed it to the hotel where our stuff was stored. We rented a room for an hour (that’s the first time I’ve ever rented a room by the hour ;D) for to freshen-up before heading to the train station for our overnight return train ride.

Our hotel at night

Good-bye!

Engrish And Cultural Oddities
We witnessed some most wonderful signs and sights during our trip. I want to share some of them with you, my readers.