Summer in Xi'an

The Great Wall

July 29th, 2010 by pwillemann · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

Climbing the great wall was one of my favorite experiences here. It’s one of those rare sites that remains awe-inspiring and naturally beautiful despite decades of tourism and commercialization. My friend heard of a guy who would drive you to a remote, non-touristy section of the wall, which is what we did (we later found out the area he took us to was not open to the public, which probably explains why we didn’t see a single other tourist on the wall). The section we went to (I don’t remember the name) was not restored, and thus pretty worn down and grown over, but I was amazed that parts of it were as well-preserved as they were- probably because the section we visited was built in the Ming Dynasty, just before Genghis Khan conquered China and the Great Wall ceased to be used and patrolled. Some pictures below.

Incidentally, I never ended up going to Shanghai- the train I was supposed to take originated in Lhasa, Tibet, and because of all the flooding that’s been going on here, ended up arriving 20 hours late. I bailed after 6 hours of waiting in the urine-scented platform, since I figured approximately 30 hours of roundtrip transportation wasn’t worth for what would have been 10 hours in the city.

Hiking through farmlands to the Great Wall

Hiking through farmlands to the base of the wall

If you look carefully you can see the silhouette of the wall in the distance

Let's pretend that's a gorgeous mountain mist

Partially destroyed part of wall

Piaoliang!

Very overgrown section of the wall- this was the only walkable sliver

In some sections one edge of the wall was very overgrown so all you could see was a solitary ridge.

Inside a guard tower

Guard Tower

Outside of guard tower

Overgrown

Steep section: Supposedly horses could walk the entire length of the wall, but sections like this made me doubt that.

Resting on a guard tower.

Here are some more miscellaneous pictures of Beijing that I forgot to post last week:

Storehouse of corn near small farming village

Recycling truck in Beijing- everyone collects scraps of cardboard and plastic bottles to recycle because the refund is actually substantial

Chinese chess

Mmmm, Beijing roast duck

This is probably the last entry I’ll post while still in China. I don’t leave till August 10th, but I’m going on vacation first. Rough itinerary: tonight I’m taking a night train to Chengdu to see some pandas and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, and then am off to Lijiang and Shangri-la for 6 days (as close as you can get to Tibet without actually going there*) where I’m meeting up with a friend of mine to hike a bunch of mountains and Tiger Leaping Gorge, going back to Chengdu long enough to climb Emei Shan, and then back to Xi’an to fly home. I still have a lot of half-written entries about various things I’ve seen here, though, so I’m going to keep posting as long as I can stay motivated. Also forthcoming is a picasa web album of all my pictures (flickr, picasa, etc are blocked here), for which I’ll post a link here.

*The only way to visit Tibet as a non-Chinese citizen is to get a visitation permit, which are only offered through government-endorsed travel agencies. The agencies make sure that every minute of your time in Tibet is spent with a tour group, so there’s no chance of you accidentally seeing one of the roving Han paramilitary groups in Tibet or the impacts of the massive Han immigration into Tibet. I still want to go there, I just really dislike scheduled and guided tours. I’ve talked a little with the students in my lab about Tibet, and they all feel strongly that it should be part of China- they also think the Dalai Lama is an ‘evil’ man, and were pretty scandalized that I thought any differently. It was one of those conversations (like similar ones about their thoughts on the Tiananmen riots, Cultural Revolution, Communist Party and Mao) where I had a really hard time gauging how much to say- I really do think that that the Chinese media and government (not to imply that they’re two separate entities) have brainwashed so many of its citizens into believing completely false information, but you can’t exactly tell people that. There’s not much you can say about the matter without sounding like an arrogant or condescending American who thinks they know more about China than a Chinese person, but at the same time I sometimes think I wouldn’t mind risking coming across like that to give my friends some exposure to what most of the rest of the world thinks of these issues. I haven’t seen any news magazines (the like of Time or Newsweek) here- I can’t read Chinese, so I’m definitely not the most reliable source, but I’ve gotten in the habit of browsing every magazine stand I see, and front covers always either show western or Chinese celebrities, movie posters, or other clearly non-political pictures. I’ve asked my Chinese friends to translate some newpaper headlines for me, and they too seem to be limited to either (always positive) economic news or (extremely mild) social scandals. Perhaps because of this, most people seem to be perfectly indifferent to politics. No one in my lab reads the news- economic, political, or otherwise. They all said they were comfortable letting the government worry about these things for them, and when I asked about potential government corruption, I was informed that since the government won WWII and helped kick the Japanese out (hatred against Japan still runs deep), they were given a little leeway, and that it was just one of those things you had to accept (Unrelated: three girls in my lab took their driving test a few weeks ago, and told me how they each saved up 400 yuan- about 60$- to give to the examiner in case they weren’t good enough to pass. Apparently, if you’re good enough you can pass without money, but everyone else can pass with a bribe proportionate to how badly you would have failed. I think this explains a lot about why Chinese roads are so incredibly scary.) When I asked about why the Cultural Revolution, they agreed that it was a mistake, but insisted that it wasn’t that big of a deal since only a few hundred people died (more like 20-30 million), and didn’t believe me when I showed them otherwise online, although they seemed so bored by the topic I had trouble even keeping their interest that long.

Again, I have doubts about how much its advisable to talk about with them, but sometimes I really can’t help it. My coworkers are some of the smartest people I’ve met and worked with, so its frustrating to see how much the government has fed them and everyone else these completely ridiculous lies. It’s just incredible how successful the government has been in both fabricating history and, worse, making people truly apathetic. It makes me livid.

I wear a ring that I got last year when I saw the Dalai Lama give a speech (not for any political purpose, just because I like the ring), and for whatever reason many people have asked me where I’ve gotten it, so its sort of an inadvertent conversation starter about the Dalai Lama and Tibet. Yesterday, I met into two girls in the city who asked me that (they spoke fluent English), and when I explained where I got it, we had a short conversation that I remember almost verbatim:

Her (scandalized): ‘You went to see the Dalai Lama? Why?’ Me: ‘Umm…(long pause) I think he is a very interesting person, and I wanted to see what he had to say.’ (She and the other girl giggle nervously, whisper in Chinese) Her: ‘He is such a bad man, we don’t think anyone should listen to what he says.’ Me: ‘He wasn’t talking about politics, he was actually talking about happiness. Why do you think he is a bad man?’ (more anxious giggles and whispering) Her: ‘He is a very greedy man who wants power. He wants his own country. The people who live in Tibet want to be part of China, and they don’t like him. He wants to tear China apart so he can have some. He makes up lies.’ Me:’Hmm. (another long pause) Well, in America, many people think that maybe some people who live in Tibet agree with him, that they want their own country too.’ Her:’That is not true. I know many Tibetans, and they all think that he is a bad man too. They don’t like him.’ (note: native Tibetans are a separate ethnic group from the Han Chinese who have moved to Tibet- there’s some antagonism between the two, as native Tibetans largely want independence and Han immigrants largely want to remain part of China) Me:’In America we have heard different things. Many people in America think the Dalai Lama is a good man.’ Her:’But he wants to split up China!’ Me:’Many people think that people in Tibet want their own country, and that they like the Dalai Lama.’ Her (increasingly scandalized):’But they shouldn’t get their own country. There is no reason for it.’ Me:’I guess in America many think that anyone who wants their own country should maybe get it.’ (Definitely the most poorly articulated reason ever why Tibet should be independent. And kind of inaccurate. I just really didn’t want to get into human rights stuff and that was the first thing I could think of.) Her: (looks at me like I’m an idiot, changes the subject).

Tags: Beijing·censorship·Chinese government·Chinese media·Dalai Lama·Great Wall·Tibet

Beijing

July 24th, 2010 by pwillemann · No Comments · Uncategorized

Chinese trains, like European trains, have 4 classes: hard seat, soft seat (like an airplane chair), hard bunk, and soft bunk. Right now is the peak season for trains since most students are on summer vacation, so I’ve spent many a day at the train station waiting in long lines to get tickets. Last Friday, I wanted to try out hard seat for the night train to Beijing, but apparently when hard seats sell out, buying a hard seat ticket actually means that you’re in standing class. It was a bit of a surprise to get on the train and realize that I’d have to stand for the entire 11 hour voyage, but it was so surreal and such a strange experience that it was actually kind of fun. Standing class doesn’t just mean you don’t get a seat- there are so many people there is literally no room to sit on the ground, except for the 10 or so people who had staked out the space between each cabin of the train. I sat on a garbage can for a while, explored the train for a while, and finally found a space to sit down in a ball on the ground at about 5 am. It was also nice to talk in broken Mandarin with some other students who were travelling back home for summer, who were very surprised to see a westerner in standing class (as usual, the intense staring was probably the most uncomfortable aspect of the whole ordeal).

People waiting at the train station

Best surreptitious picture I could get of standing class

Incidentally, I’m taking another night train to Shanghai tonight, and the only tickets I could find were standing class (half of China is travelling there to see the expo), but I don’t think it’ll be as bad now that I know what to expect. I’m planning on getting there a few hours early to secure a small place between cabins for myself. One thing I’ve learned here is that you really can’t afford to have any compunctions about elbowing and shoving people in line: not to push ahead, but just to make sure you’re not constantly being cut. It really is just part of the culture here, no matter if you’re waiting to get onto a train or bus, into a movie theater, or even onto a plane where there are reserved seats. People don’t seem to hold hard feelings when they get muscled out of the way- my lab friends told me that those who fight hardest deserve it the most, so it’s fair. Several times, I’ve hailed a cab, waited as it pulled up by the curb, and watched as another group of people would sprint out of nowhere and hop inside before I could. Waiting on line to buy my train tickets to Shanghai, the tiny woman waiting behind me was frustrated that I wasn’t pushing the people in front of me forcefully enough, so she started jabbing the small of my back with both of her hands, and wouldn’t relent even when I was talking to the teller (my Mandarin is painfully slow, and I guess she thought I needed some motivation).

Soft bunk hallway- 4 soft bunks per room

So, without further ado, here are some pictures from Beijing. First up: stills from the hutongs by our hostel. A hutong is a type of alley unique to the Beijing region, lined with ancient typically one-story buildings- residential neighborhoods with rich street culture that have more or less retained a lot of their traditional ways regardless of the rampant commercialization going on all around them. The other day, though, I saw this New York Times article about how hutongs likely won’t be around for much longer, as the city government has a massive 73 million dollar development replete with expensive western stores and ‘attractions’. To paraphrase the article, its a luxury to be able to live in single-story housing in a city expanding (both vertically and horizontally) as fast as Beijing is, and the residents appear split- for some, the modest courtyard homes characteristic to hutongs are uncomfortable, the visible lifestyle unwanted, and monetary compensation would be all they’d require to happily move. For others, of course, the prospect of forced relocation signifies not only the loss of a home and community, but also the loss of an indelible fragment of Chinese history. As someone who has experienced many of the abominations of over-funded Chinese tourist constructs, I shudder to think what the region will look like in 5 years. But I’ll leave the rest of the rambling proselytizing to the New York Times.

Hard to believe this is in the downtown of Beijing

Hutong with parked rickshaws

Another common sight in Beijing- uniformed boys marching without apparent purpose.

A very hungry woman

Street vendor restocking his kebab selections

Street welder. Not exactly the safest for passers-by, but fun to watch.

Playing cards, beating the heat

And, of course, there are the touristy hutongs:

Market hutong

Sick Dragon

Man making caramel sculptures

Caramel Sculptures

Calligrapher's studio

Hawker

Some pictures from Olympic park – we went on an incredibly smoggy day. Smog+sunlight = a painfully blinding combination.

Bird's Nest!

Guts of the Bird's Nest

More of the Bird's Nest interior

The one and only water fountain I have seen in China

Ceiling

Some pictures from wandering around the downtown:

Hard shell motorized rickshaw

PSA to anyone going to China: these are not toasted coconut doughnuts. Oh no. They are pork floss buns.

Dog day afternoon

I like taking pictures of people napping in public. I hope this doesn't make me a voyeur.

The Chinese Subway Experience

While walking around the city, we found a public park

Modern fleet of bike rentals...I wish more American cities had these

Pedestrian view of the Beijing CCTV tower (its famous for its unique double-cantilevered structure, which makes it a modern engineering marvel)

CCTV tower

Olympic Badminton Court on the campus of Beijing University of Technology

Most Chinese girls seem to wear high heels every single day, including this girl playing basketball

These posters track something related to the National Lottery, but I have no idea how they work.

Tiananmen Square

Statues in front of Mao's Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square

Great Hall of the People

Street Cleaner and rickshaw of tools

More Street Cleaners- I think there are so many because EVERYONE throws their trash on the ground instead of in trashcans

Street Calligraphy

Visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing: The Forbidden City served as the home to all emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties for about 500 years. Apparently its also the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Moat in Forbidden City

Main Courtyard

Sanitation worker in Forbidden City

One of many imperial thrones (there were about 5)

Beijing Bikini, aka Chinese air conditioning

China has the best mythological animals in the world.

Tang Dynasty-era tree (upwards of 1000 years old) in the Imperial Garden

Street vendor selling what was essentially a huge granola bar.

Hao-chi!

Rooftops of the Forbidden City, with some smog sitting on top

Forbidden city surrounded by modern Beijing

While walking around the city, we wandered into a public park by the Forbidden City. I really think China has some of the world’s most utilized public parks- certainly due in part to the size of the population, but mostly because street culture, for lack of a better term, is very much alive here. Perhaps because of the small size of most people’s apartments, no one really hangs out inside, so the public parks are the epicenter of social life for everyone 30 and up- there are always people dancing, singing, working out, painting, playing cards or Chinese chess, etc. In this particular park, I took a picture of a man who was practicing his calligraphy on the pavement with a sponge and water (a fairly popular activity in most parks), and, seeing westerners who were interested in his art, very eagerly gave me and my friends some calligraphy lessons. A crowd of people gathered to watch us try to draw characters (of which I know three: beef, pork, and yuan). After I had exhausted my entire library of characters, I was forced to start guessing, which led to many confused onlookers. Some pictures below:

Park

Poor man's brush and ink: sponge and water

Improvising characters

My friend Allison getting shown how its done

And, finally, the random picture of the week:

Me and my friend Jose dressing up in perfectly authentic Imperial outfits by the Forbidden City

I currently have an intimidatingly long word document filled with blurbs of half-written posts, so I have a feeling I’ll be updating this blog long after I leave China. Only a week left in Xi’an, then off backpacking in the mountains by Chengdu and Lijiang!

Tags: Beijing·Beijing Bikini·bird's nest·calligraphy·CCTV tower·Chinese trains·Forbidden City·hard seat·hutong·Olympic Badminton Court·Olympic Park·standing class·street cleaners

Buddhism and Religion in China

July 21st, 2010 by pwillemann · No Comments · Uncategorized

I’ve visited a bunch of Taoist and Buddhist temples in different parts of China, and have gotten a chance to observe many practicing Buddhists and monks. Buddhism in practice is extremely complex, and I’m still mostly confused by it, but here are some of my thoughts/observations. Most people know a little about, or at least have heard of, the rudiments of Buddhism- the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, etc- which are mostly philosophical theories about the way to lead your life and be happy. In practice, though- that is, Buddhism as an institution in the People’s Republic of China, not Buddhism as Buddha wrote about it- has, at first glance, almost nothing to do with these so-called defining characteristics, and it’s surprisingly hard to find cohesive information about Buddhism in modern China in terms of the significance it plays in most people’s lives. China is frequently billed (often quite scathingly) as a ‘religion-less country’, but from what I’ve been able to tell, most people connect with certain aspects of Buddhism (interestingly, only about 20-21% of China’s population is self-proclaimed Buddhist, but the government deeply frowns upon self-proclamation of any religion, which is why many guess the actual number to be in excess of four times that amount). However, many people don’t view it as a religion at all- for some, its alternatingly a philosophy, a comforting ancient tradition, a link to their culture/family, or even a political expression (more on that later).

A brief history: Buddhism started in the 5th century BCE in India, and travelling Indian Buddhist monks brought the religion to China approximately 600 years later. By the middle ages, Buddhism was almost extinct in India, but was flourishing in China. Since many Eastern religions don’t have an official doctrine, unlike, say, Christianity’s Bible or Judaism’s Torah, it is very hard to define who is a Buddhist. Can anyone self-proclaim to be a Buddhist? Do you need to have heard of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path or even the guy who started it all? Is it possible to be an atheist Buddhist? A theist Buddhist? A Christian Buddhist? All of my Chinese friends answered these questions very differently, and I think they’re pretty much impossible to answer given how open to interpretation Buddhism is, although there are debates on all sides. (An aside about Christianity in China: on the train back from Beijing last weekend we ran into a church group from Tacoma going on a mission trip in China, and apparently the first time they went in 2004, someone from the government followed them their whole time in Beijing to make sure that they did not try to evangelize to anyone. There was no one following them this time, but Chinese law still forbids Christian missionaries).

It’s extremely hard to find information about the modern history of Chinese Buddhism, but decidedly more interesting/relevant. When the last dynasty collapsed in 1912, religions other than state-endorsed Confucianism blossomed, and Buddhism began its evolution from a personal spirituality into a modern organized religion. Until the formal 1929 establishment of the Chinese Buddhist Association in Shanghai, several dozen Buddhist groups sprung up around China, each with different political and religious beliefs (I’ve heard the CBA headquarters described as Buddhism’s Vatican City). As in other organized religions, it intended to serve average people, but ended up being a power vehicle for the religious elite. That year, a rivalry broke out between two monks, T’ai-hsu and Yuan-ying, for control of the CBA. One of the most controversial issues at the time was the repossession and conversion of state-owned monasteries into schools, since many didn’t believe the monasteries were doing China any good. It’s also surprising how involved both monks and their respective factions were in WWII: T’ai-hsu, a reformer, was denied in his attempts to reorganize the CBA, so moved to the Chinese war-time capital, Chungking, in 1936, and spent 5 years rallying people to support the Chinese government. Perhaps because of this, his reformist efforts were permitted by the government when the war ended. To skip ahead 20 years, the CBA was shut down temporarily during the cultural revolution, when religion was outlawed and many temples were destroyed. Today, Buddhism back in favor with the government, any many temples in both China and Tibet double as lucrative tourist destinations.

The most surprising thing about most Buddhist temples is the sheer number of Buddha statues everywhere (interesting given that Buddha himself was vocal against idol worship, but that’s another matter entirely). Most temples (or maybe just the ones I’ve visited) are huge tourist attractions- mostly to Chinese from different parts of China- and most people worship by buying incense, kneeling on pads on the ground before large Buddha statues, and rocking back and forth- reminds me a lot of Christian prayer. There are also a lot of miscellaneous Boddhisatva (enlightened individual) statues that people pray to- I really wish I knew enough Chinese to ask about them. Like so much else in China, Buddhist temples are a mix of ancient imagery, architecture and traditions, with the strangely modern- people often buy gifts of food to leave on plates in front of Buddha statues, which sometimes take the form of what looks like a rice krispie with pink frosting, there are fake flowers everywhere, and some of the decorations seem downright gaudy (I’m talking hot pink, sequins, and hearts). At the Shaolin Temple, monks man gift stands, and I had the rather surreal experience of haggling with a Shaolin monk.

A friend of mine asked a student in her lab what religion she subscribed to, to which the student replied, “Oh, I’m a scientist.” Although they didn’t put it quite so succinctly, a lot of my Chinese friends have answered in similar ways, mentioning science initially, and only talking about Buddhism when prompted. I found this especially interesting since they all said they prayed to statues of Buddha when they went to Buddhist temples. If anyone has actually bothered to read this far and is curious why I would spend my spare time researching this stuff, its probably because I feel like the Buddhism I’ve seen practiced in the often hyper-touristy temples seems so at odds from the centuries-old life philosophy that we learn about in the study of the ancient history of Buddhism, and I’m trying to reconcile the two in my mind.

Anyway, below are some pictures from the Longmen Grottoes, a series of caves carved into a cliffside about 1700 years ago, near Luoyang. It’s a Buddhist holy spot, and probably has at least half a million carved Buddhas of various shapes and sizes. Since the Luoyang area was the first place in China to import Buddhism from India, the Buddhas are depicted in the Indian style, not in the traditional fat-Buddha-laughing Chinese style. Some of them are pretty large- I’m curious as to what sort of scaffolding they were using 1700 years ago.

Many small grottoes carved into cliff- the roof overhang is a modern addition to prevent erosion

Buddha sans head- many statues were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution

Large Buddhas

Small Buddhas

Buddhas in caves

Grotto-ed cliff by the water

Staircases to view grottoes

Big Buddha

Boddhisatvas (I think they look very Hindu)

Big Buddha, with people for scale

Random pictures of the week, from exploring the area near the Longmen Grottoes:

Awesome looking leaves growing on what looked like a small bush. Anyone know what this is?

Ominous-looking farmer with sickle

Tags: Buddhism·Carved Buddhas·Chinese Buddhism·Longmen Grottoes·Monks·Religion·temples

Shaolin Temple

July 15th, 2010 by pwillemann · No Comments · Uncategorized

Last weekend I went with some of the other students in my program to Luoyang, one of the ancient dynastic capitals of China (the other three being Xi’an, Nanjing, and Beijing). We mostly went there to see the Shaolin Temple, which was about 2 hours outside the city by bus. I’ve been wanting to write about Chinese buses (the coach buses meant for several-hour trips, not the inner-city buses where everyone stands) for a while now, as riding them is quite an interesting experience. Since none of us speak Chinese, we usually have our Chinese friends write down our destinations in characters so we can show people where we want to go. Most of the train stations have adjoining bus stations, and usually as soon as you get off a train, you get swarmed by people hired by the buses to try to get you to go on them. The only English word many of them know is ‘hello’, and many appear to believe that whoever says it the most will successfully recruit the westerners to their bus. It was particularly bad in Luoyang, with about 7 or 8 people aggressively following us around saying ‘Hello! Hello! Shaolin! Hello! Shaolin! Hello!’ over and over again.

Shaolin statue

The buses only leave when every seat is filled, and frequently pick up people along the way, who have to sit in the aisle of the bus on little stools. The buses are similar to American coach buses except that the seats/ leg space are both smaller, and there’s always a TV in the front that’s playing a movie. I’m fine with the tight quarters and the heat, but the movies are what really get to me, as every seat has a speaker that always seems to be on full volume, which makes it impossible to go to sleep. The worst part is that all of the movies seem to involve Chinese women being attacked and shrieking very loudly- I really have no idea how anyone enjoys them. Also, all the buses have several different horns, which are used in a rather complicated manner to communicate with other vehicles. Most of the time they’re not driving in cities, and non-city roads don’t have traffic lanes. All roads are two way, but the lack of lines means that where on the road you drive depends only on where the other cars are. This means a lot of dodging into what would be the other lane, until you see someone coming straight at you, at which point you swerve back into your lane. It’s similar to what I remember experiencing in India, except significantly more frightening, because a lot of the roads are high-speed and curvy, meaning there’s really a huge amount of chance involved. You do get to see some awesome stuff, though. Trucks in China tend to be open-backed, so you can usually see what they’re carrying. I’ve seen oxen, pigs, food of all sorts, clothes, building materials, trash, and just about everything you can think of transported on these trucks. Outside most cities everything is rural farmland, so there’s lots of beautiful scenery along the way, as well as a lot of small villages, poverty, and destitution- China’s infamous for ‘doctoring’ areas exposed to westerners, and since most of my travelling has been around more mainstream areas, its something I only really see on the bus trips.

Front of a Chinese bus, playing some godforsaken tv show at ear-splitting volume.

Front of a Chinese bus, playing a godforsaken tv show at ear-splitting volume.

The Shaolin Temple was, as one might expect, more tourist trap than temple. For those curious, there is only one Shaolin Temple, built by an Indian monk in the 400s to help spread Buddhist thought- it’s advertised as the birthplace of Chinese Buddhism. Interestingly, the spot he chose was at the base of Mt. Song, a site sacred to Taoists, so I’m very curious if there were ancient Buddhist-Taoist turf wars. Anyway, as the story goes, thirty years after it was built, another Indian monk, Bodhidharma, came along wanting to spread the practice of yogic concentration (a key principle of Zen Buddhism), and sought admittance to Shaolin. Bodhidharma was denied by the then abbot, so climbed Mt Song, and meditated in a cave on the mountain for nine years. Incidentally, the temple has a stone with a shadow imprint of a man sitting, which is supposedly the stone he a sat in front of for nine years. This got him admitted to the temple, but he was disappointed to find that a lot of the monks were lazy and out of shape, so he taught them the exercises he did in the cave, which became the basis of Kung Fu, which eventually came to be used to defend the monastery against robbers. The temple was destroyed and rebuilt many times over the last 1,500 years, as Buddhism was often outlawed, most recently during the Cultural Revolution.

Temple in the foggy mountains

Shaolin shop complex

Gate to the temple. Gates like these are very common: you enter though the right gate, exit through the left gate, and go to Heaven through the middle gate (i.e., you're never supposed to use it)

Groups of boys marching- trainees? soldiers? kids at shaolin day camp?

Path in Shaolin compound

Lotus flower path- very popular in Buddhist temples, it symbolizes rebirth

Shaolin monk ascending staircase... my favorite picture is of a group of monks chatting on cell phones, but I can't find it right now

Turtle carrying stele, or calligraphy tablet. In chinese mythology, a turtle once carried the world on its back, which is why these kinds of statues are very common.

Urn of incense

Pagoda Forest by temple- largest one in the world. Each pagoda was built to store the remains of dead monks.

Pagodas and flowers

Kung fu monks!

The temple is kind of like a campus: it’s home to about 200 monks and trainees, there are luxury bathrooms for the monks which cost 3 million yuan (440,000$) to build, and a modern indoor auditorium, where we saw a kung fu demonstration. We also saw lots of uniformed boys marching around, which we guessed were trainees. Most of the older monks we saw were selling things, and most of the younger monks were in the kung fu demonstration- I’m really curious what the monks do besides tourist-pandering, but unfortunately I didn’t know enough Chinese to ask. I know they do make swords there, but the only apparent reason they bother is so they can sell them in the gift store. Overall it was definitely cool to see, but its hard to enjoy something so seemingly farcical.

Next up on the adventure docket: tonight I’m taking a 13-hour night train to Beijing, the weekend after that I’m going to Shanghai, and by that time I’ll be done with my research. I’m getting pretty tired of the Chinese tourist experience, so I’m spending my last 10 days here backpacking/hiking around the south (probably somewhere around Lijiang and Chengdu).

Tags: Buddhism·Chinese Buses·Chinese Roads·Kung Fu·Luoyang·Monks·Shaolin·Shaolin Temple

Dang Jia Village

July 13th, 2010 by pwillemann · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

First of all, I finally put my Huashan pictures up, so you can view them in that post if you want. Two weeks ago I went on a trip to Dang Jia Cun, a tiny farming village outside the city of Hancheng to the east of Xi’an. It’s still preserved much as it was since the village was built 670 years ago in the Ming Dynasty- it was originally founded as a village of two merchant family-clans, the Dangs and the Jias. The merchants wanted to create an relatively isolated outpost to store goods between major cities, and made a fortune together. It’s situated on the Loess Plateau, an area known for its ancient cave dwellings, but the wealth of the village allowed Dang Jia Cun to construct state of the art (at the time) buildings and courtyards. Today, the town is extremely poor and relies mostly on subsistence agriculture. The buildings have not been seriously renovated since when they were first built, which is why it often gets called a ‘living fossil.’ Also, not many people moved in over time, so 60% of the residents still belong either to the Dang or Jia families. We stayed overnight in a family’s courtyard. They cooked dinner for us and I was surprised we were able to take hot showers (they had a solar water heater, which are everywhere in China).

Entrance to Dang Jia Cun- English subtitles mean they're used to tourists

Cave dwellings on the road into the village

Basic engineering at its finest- lever gate, take the huge rock out to close it

Rooftops of Dang Jia Cun

Dubious structural supports

Mei-guo-rens in a Dang Jia Street

Muddy pigs!

Another Dang Jia Street

Village Pagoda/Temple- hasn't been renovated in 700 years

Village's School

Awesome beetle

Dang Jia Street

Base of guard tower- the village kept a 24 hr guard to give warning of approaching bandits.

Another pretty street

Baby in a watermelon truck playing the drums. This baby was wearing an apron and nothing else.

Solar water heater. It was interesting to see these on such old roofs.

Going through these pictures reminds me of another interesting aspect of the village: we saw only babies/toddlers and senior citizens our whole time there. My theory is that the working-age people were either in the fields during the day and we didn’t see them come back, or that they’re working in a nearby city. Either way, it added to the ghost-town feeling of the whole village. Hancheng (the city we passed through to get to Dang Jia Cun) is also an ancient city, but not as pretty. It’s a small industrial city that’s very poor and very dirty. Below are some pictures from the downtown.

Hancheng has the largest power plant in west China (its coal, I think)

Kids playing

Man sporting the 'Beijing Bikini'- a rolled up shirt to combat the heat. You see this everywhere and it always cracks me up, especially when the men have very large paunches.

Three-wheeled truck

Tags: Beijing Bikini·Dang Jia·Hancheng·Loess Plateau·Ming Dynasty·subsistence farming

Huashan Hike

June 30th, 2010 by pwillemann · 7 Comments · Uncategorized

ast weekend I went with the other Americans on a night climb of Huashan (Flower Mountain), one of the five sacred Taoist mountains of China. The sunrises are supposed to be amazing, so we climbed at night. We started out from Xi’an at about 4 pm on Saturday, took a 3 hour bus ride there (more on that later), hung out at the base camp for a while, and started our climb at 11 pm to see the 4:30 am sunrise (it was a 7-8 hour hike to the top.) The mountain gets its name because it resembles a lotus flower- its essentially a huge mound with 5 separate peaks that supposedly look like petals, and its one of the steepest mountain trails in the world. It’s also often called the most dangerous hiking trail in the world- it’s not what most would picture as a hike: the path is paved with rocks all the way to the top, and a lot of it is staircases, which doesn’t sound dangerous, but the staircases are often more like foot holds on vertical cliffs, as you use your arms to pull you up iron chains. One Huashan tradition is for hikers to place little golden locks on iron chains, often engraved with the name of a significant other. They’re very pretty, but a huge pain, since everyone wants to put their lock in the most hard to get to places, which are usually the most dangerous, and the places where you want the best hand grip- its really hard to grasp chains when they have hundreds of locks attached to them.And, of course, because it was China, we made the climb with about 1,000 other people- there was a lot of traffic, even at 4 am. It was alternatingly one of the most amazing, surreal, and terrifying experiences of my life. This site has some cool pictures of the mountain, but it’s horribly written/ kind of inaccurate.

Small town at the base of Huashan

The Dubious Goals of the Huashan Administration

Woman engraving gold locks

Pretty moth- one of the coolest things about the hike was all the exotic flora and fauna

Entrance to a Taoist temple on the way up- the octagon symbolizes serenity

2 am: Backed up staircase

A stray cat climbed into my lab at a rest stop. Very cute.

More stairs

Way to the South Peak

More of the road to south peak

Locks and red ribbons attached to chains

Some pictures from the top of East and South Peaks:

Beginning of the sunrise, from East Peak summit

Me and my friend Emily watching the sunrise

East Cliff

Sunrise

If only I could read Chinese...

Huashan actually serves as permanent residence to a lot of people- many Taoist monks (there are about a dozen temples on the mountain), and vendors who ran stands selling food and water (and lots of beer, which I thought was interesting. You’d have to be an idiot to drink on the mountain.) On the way down we saw how the stands got stocked- a line of laborers heaving up what must have been 80 pound baskets of drinks, building materials, and food to the top somehow managed to pull themselves up cliffs and ladders without shifting the load carefully balanced on their shoulders. It was incredibly impressive.

Laborers carrying water up the mountain

Steep Staircase

Rock scrambling. You kind of have to crab walk down.

On top there were a lot of extra trails you could go on, mostly just for thrill-seeking. The scariest by far, was the cliff walk (see below), where you shimmy across wooden planks while holding onto a chain, on the side of a 3,000 foot high cliff. We had a harness with two carabiners that we latched into the iron chain, which felt secure except for the fact that I realized my carabiners weren’t working properly (ie I had to exert myself to squeeze them shut every time), the wooden planks were a little wobbly, and beneath us was a straight drop. There’s no age or physical requirement, and you don’t have to sign a waiver, it just costs about 4 bucks. Probably the most petrifying thing I’ve done in my life, but the view was fantastic.

Climbing down a cliff

Cliff Walk! I can't find any pictures that properly do it justice

Me and my friend Roman exploring the Playing Chess Pavilion

Cliff walk

Climbing down to cliff walk

Lots of locks- you can see how this makes holding the chains difficult

Cable car for laborers and tour groups

Tags: Chinese safety standards·hiking·Huashan

Chinese Education and the College Entrance Exam

June 29th, 2010 by pwillemann · No Comments · Uncategorized

My friends here are very curious about what education is like in America- a lot of them just want to know if American colleges are “just like in American Pie”, and I’ve gotten the chance to talk to them about the Chinese education system a fair bit as well- I wrote the following a few weeks ago about a high school near me, so its a little out of date.

I pass by a middle/high school on my way to work, and can see the main courtyard of the school from the street. School is just starting around the time I walk by, and sometimes if I’m there at the right moment I can see hundreds of students standing in the courtyard, at attention in pefectly straight lines. They wear white uniforms with red neckties, and listen to daily announcements through a crackling loudspeaker without visibly moving. They also end school at the same time I come home from work around 7 pm, which seems like a crazy schedule for middle schoolers.

Today the first part of the Chinese College Entrance Exam was administered at the school- it’s a nationally administered test that basically determines if and to where kids will be admitted to college. It’s a two day test with four parts: Chinese, English, Math, and Science. All of high school is basically a preparation for this exam, and the pressure is really intense for the students- if their scores are not high enough to get admitted to a public university (all the top universities in China are public, and thus nominally affordable), wealthy students may go to more expensive but less prestigious private institutions, and less affluent students typically will not go to college at all. If the parents can afford it, it’s also common for kids who don’t do well to take a full year after they graduate high school to study on their own for the test (it’s only administered once a year). Today there was a swarm of parents waiting outside the school for the duration of test. Perhaps parents get a little too anxious sometimes, because there was a full police squad there too and cop cars and caution tape blocking off every entrance to the school to prevent anyone from entering or leaving during the test.

The weight this test is given seems to imply a certain level of meritocracy in Chinese academia and the job market, which to a certain extent it might be, but the process for getting most jobs really isn’t a meritocracy at all. I spoke last week with another professor in my lab about the Foxconn suicides, and he attributed them in part to national feelings of hopelessness and futility that stem from the lack of fairness in the business world. He had some pretty bleak things to say about what the educational system does to kids here, citing that even XJTU is struggling to keep its suicide rates under 10 a year.

The experience I’m getting in the lab, though, is quite different- the pressure lets up a lot once students have been admitted to college, especially grad school (my lab is all grad and post-doc students), and although my professor has high expectations, most people are at the lab for 12+ hours a day, and working weekends is routine, a lot of time in the lab is spent watching Youku videos (Chinese youtube), surfing ren-ren (Chinese facebook), and chatting on QQ (Chinese skype). We also play a lot of Badminton when its nice out and take 2-3 hour lunch breaks.

Two of my friends from my lab in their dorm room

Two of my lab friends in their dorm room- its a quadruple with no AC, and most of the ceiling is dedicated to clotheslines for drying.

Tags: College Entrance Exam·Education·XJTU

Kunming

June 23rd, 2010 by pwillemann · 4 Comments · Uncategorized

Last week I went on vacation to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in the south of China. It was a nice break from Xi’an in that it was surprisingly western (it was really nice to eat a hamburger and meet other people who spoke English), you could actually see a blue sky, and it wasn’t too hot or crowded. One of the coolest things I saw was the Stone Forest, one of the largest karst formations in the world. Karsts are limestone rock landscapes that form after once-submerged fields of limestone are eroded over millions of years. Most of the karsts in the Stone Forest were over 100 feet tall, and a lot of the overhangs gave a very sword-of-damocles-esque sensation. The tour guides at the Stone Forest advertised themselves as being part of one of China’s many minority groups: Yunnan is known for having a high population of ethnic minorities (high is a relative term: 99.8% of all of China is Han Chinese while only ~96% of Yunnan is). Apparently, though, there are a lot of fake ethnic minorities in Yunnan- Han Chinese who dress up in ethnic garb and perform semi-bogus ‘traditional’ rituals for the benefit of eager but nonetheless culturally illiterate westerners. There was even a entire village next to the city of Kunming called ‘The Village of Ethnic Cultures’, which I thought was the most egregious example of this: about 6 different “minorities” were moved into a single town for the convenience of tourists, so that they would not have to take the time to visit the actual villages which were scattered and far away, and the people who live there are really just Han Chinese representatives of each culture anyway. It’s an actual village, but the villagers get paid to live there.

View on the way to the Stone Forest- awesome train tunnel

Farmer, field, and small village in background

Fellow Americans outside Stone Forest

Questionably authentic ethnic minorities engaging in questionably authentic ethnic dancing

Stone Forest

Staircase descending into a valley

A lot of the karsts had these hat-like structures that looked as if they were about to fall off- I have no idea why

Tour guides taking a break (we didn't get one- a tour guide that is)

Pagoda

We went wading in a little rivulet until we got caught by the ethnic tour guides

Water-eroded rock

Sounds like a threat if you ask me

Piao-liang! (beautiful)

More Karsts

Ox hanging out in the Stone Forest- there seemed to be several houses of villagers who lived within the tourist attraction

There's a nation obsession with 'whiteness', so people go around everywhere with parasols to avoid getting tan.

We also visited the Kunming Horti-Expo Garden of 1999. Apparently, there’s a World Expo: Horticultural Edition hosted around the world at a seemingly random interval of years, and Kunming, the 1999 host, chose to never dismantle its gardens. The grounds of the expo are huge – they comprise the largest garden in the world which is composed of several greenhouses, domestic gardens which represent each of China’s 34 provinces, themed gardens such as a tea garden, and several international gardens. Parts of it were beautiful, such as the domestic gardens, but you could really tell that you were visiting a tourist attraction, intended to be temporary, about 11 years too late. The place was almost deserted (or at least it felt that way, as the whole infrastructure was obviously planned for masses of people), a lot of the gardens were closed, and a lot of parts of it seemed to be in general disrepair. Something that I thought was interesting was that there were a lot of fake flowers and plants everywhere too, which seemed odd for an event that I’m pretty sure is supposed to remind people how beautiful real (albeit cultivated) nature is. My favorite was a series of cacti that I saw in one of the indoor greenhouses- I was initially surprised to see such vibrantly colored plants until I bent down to get a closer look and realized that they were all spray painted. Everywhere in the city- the airport, taxis, billboards- still had huge advertisements for the Horti-Expo, which reminded me of how Xi’an still has huge ads for the 2008 Beijing Olympics everywhere- I think that once these points of huge national pride come to pass, people (or at least the Chinese tourism industry) just have a really hard time letting them go.

There was a lot of awesome hiking in the West Mountains by Kunming. We found a random trail that had dozens of burial mounds snaking up the mountain, and stumbled upon some tiny farming villages along the way. As in most not-super-touristy areas I’ve been, people were really excited to see Westerners and tried to get us to buy stuff.

Hiking in the West Mountains- some of the graves we found.

Mountain road that led to some tiny farming villages

Makeshift farmers market- we bought a watermelon.

Under-construction well. All the soil had a rich red tone to it.

We also visited the Dragon Gate Temple, a Taoist temple carved into the side of a cliff, Yuantong Temple, a still-operating Buddhist temple in the city, and the Golden Temple, another Taoist temple made of 100% copper. Some pictures from those trips:

Tintin is popular here, too! Even the kind of racist Tintin and the Blue Lotus, which surprised me. They also had Tintin in the Congo, which has been banned in the west.

Tintin is popular here, too! They had the slightly racist Tintin and the Blue Lotus too, which surprised me, and Tintin in the Congo, which has been banned in the west.

The toxic-looking Dianchi, the sixth largest lake in China

Entrance to Dragon Gate Temple

Apparently this is the Taoist goddess Doumo, but I think it looks just like Kaikeyi from Hinduism. I was actually really shocked at how similar the gods and goddesses are depicted.

Apparently this is the Taoist goddess Doumo, but it looks just like the Hindu Kali. I was really shocked at how similar the gods and goddesses look.

Dragon Gate Temple- hacked out of the side of a cliff

Yuantong Temple- largest operating Buddhist temple in South China

Prayer candles lit for loved ones

Offerings for the Boddhisatva- looks like rice krispies to me

This dragon looks just like Mushu from Mulan

Fake flowers at the temple- this (real) bush had been clipped to attach various polyester flowers to the end

Fake flowers at the temple- the bush had been clipped to attach polyester flowers to it.

Flower and Bird Market in downtown Kunming

That looks uncomfortable

I’ve had a busy week preparing for a presentation I’m giving on my research this Saturday. What exactly am I researching, you ask? The short verion: I’m researching the application of a given catalyst in a chemical reaction that forms hydrogen and oxygen from water, in hopes that we can create a more efficient method of harvesting hydrogen for use in fuel cells and the like. The slightly longer version: Using electrospinning, a process that creates nano-scale strands polymers, I’m creating meshes of the polymer PVP that contain a given photocatalyst. By calcining (baking) the PVP-catalyst fibers, the PVP evaporates, leaving behind only the photocatalyst. When exposed to UV light and mixed with water, it should catalyze the process of hydrolysis, which breaks water into oxygen and hydrogen. There are a lot of photocatalysts that catalyze hydrolysis under UV light, but the trick is finding a catalyst that will catalyze under visible light and still be efficient, so I’m fiddling around with different ways we can treat or dope varying catalysts to alter their properties. I made a rudimentary fuel cell to utilize the harvested hydrogen to test the catalyst efficiency. It’s fun stuff, I really enjoy it.

On a random note, I went to a university talent show last week, which was pretty cool- I was surprised by how many singers chose to sing western songs, memorizing the words while likely not having a clue what they were saying – one boy rapped an Eminem song and didn’t miss a word, but his accent made the lyrics pretty much unintelligible, though I was probably the only one in the audience who could tell. There was also s stand-comedy piece that was actually pretty hilarious to listen to even though I didn’t understand a word, and a bunch of dances to Lady Gaga, who is huge here. From what I can tell, the most popular western artists are Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, the Backstreet Boys, and Avril Lavigne. Another western-ish thing that’s a big hit at the university is body building competitions- my friends love going to shows where vaguely muscular boys dress up in speedos and tanning lotion and oil and make funny poses on stage, and there are ads for the contests everywhere. It seems very non-Chinese, but I suppose you can’t account for taste. It reminds me of how guys at the campus gym frequently whip out tape measures to measure their thighs in front of the mirror. It’s really very odd.

Picture of the week- Playgrounds are more popular for adults working out than they are for kids.

Tags: Buddhism·electrospinning·Kunming·stone forest·Taoism·temples·west mountains·XJTU·Yunnan

A Guide to Xi’an Street Food

June 13th, 2010 by pwillemann · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

Xi’an is in Shaanxi Province, which, along with Sichuan, is reknowned for its spicy food. It would be very unpleasant to live here if you did not like spicy food, and almost impossible if you were a vegetarian. I haven’t had a single cooked dish (besides from plain sticky rice) that hasn’t had meat in it, and I usually try to order vegetable dishes. Noodle bowls, salads, soups, and plates of steamed veggies all seem to have tiny pieces of some kind of meat in them. I eat most of my meals in the XJTU canteen, where meals are subsidized by the government, so I usually spend about 30 cents apiece for multi-course lunch and dinners. Street food is very inexpensive as well – I haven’t seen any single item for sale for over 40 cents). Many of the stands seem to be open 24/7- there’s one by my dorm that’s run by what I think is a husband-wife couple, and one of them is always manning the stand. I sincerely apologize for this terrible means of viewing pictures, but picasa and flickr have both failed me- uploading pictures here is painfully slow enough

These coal-powered cookers are used by most street stands

Street chef's spice array, with wok

Spicy noodle soup with quail's eggs and dough twists- one of my favorite meals here. This costs 80 cents.

Kitchen in the back of a restaurant. The stacked metal cylinder in the back is used to steam dumplings (which, incidentally, were supposedly invented in Xi'an.)

Kitchen in the back of a restaurant. The stacked metal cylinder in the back is used to steam dumplings (which were, supposedly, invented in Xi'an.)

Stand selling skewers of spicy pork.

Crowded street of food vendors

Mini restaurant stand- one of the few places I didn't try anything, because it looked pretty unhygienic

Kitchen behind a street stand- I think the owners lived here

Rickshaw filled with oil- the rider was making deliveries to the stands along the street

2 eggs for 25 cents- A delicious afternoon snack

Street Hot Pot- Chinese Fondue. Another Xi'an specialty.

Man hawking cucumbers out of his rickshaw

Corn, pea, and kidney bean flavored ice cream.

Tags: hot pot·street food·Xi'an

Terra Cotta Soldiers and Huaqing Hot Springs

June 12th, 2010 by pwillemann · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

I’ve been so busy it’s a little overwhelming thinking of what to write here. Last weekend, I went with some of the other Americans here (they arrived last week) to the Great Wild Goose Pagoda, built in the 600s, and like other pagodas, meant to store Buddhist documents from India. Nearby is a park, which is apparently the largest public square in Asia. It is home to the largest fountain, as well as the most number of benches and light structures in one place in Asia as well. The pagoda itself was closed when we got there, but we saw the musical fountain show- the jets of water spurt to the beat of a mixture of western classical and Chinese music as lights lit up different parts of the water. It was very pretty, but there were so many people it was difficult to see. I’ll be going back to the pagoda later, as apparently it has one of Buddha’s fingers and part of his skull inside. By the way, Picasa web albums are blocked here, so if I have time I’ll get post stuff on flickr, as pictures are probably a lot more interesting than these rambling stream-of-consciousness entries.

The Largest Fountain in Asia (Fountains aren't on yet)

Longest Stretch of Light Fixtures in Asia, with Wild Goose Pagoda in Background

On Sunday, we saw the Terra Cotta warriors and the Huaqing Hot Springs. There’s not much to say about the soldiers other than what most of you probably already know. If you want to read an entertaining blog post about the Terra Cotta soldiers, read this guy’s post. Something that I thought was interesting, though, is that the lucky farmer who stumbled upon the first terra cotta head in 1974 now works full time in the gift store, signing copies of a book that he had no part in creating, and has cited in interviews how much he hates his job- he never got any money out of the discovery and is forced to act cheerful around tourists to make ends meet. Also, I was convinced that our tour guide was making up half of what she said, probably half because she didn’t know how to say a lot of stuff in English. For example, one of the stores in the massive shop complex surrounding the terra cotta pits appeared to be selling the pelts of various dogs, mostly german shepherds, and our eager guide tried to convince us to buy some ‘traditional Chinese fox furs.’

Iconic Pit 1 Picture

Horses- Archeologists dated the intended age of the horses by counting their teeth

In 1999, they began the third excavation of Pit 1- this is part of that

Shop in the Terra Cotta Complex - those ain't fox furs

Stand in the Terra Cotta Complex - those ain't fox furs

I liked the Huaqing Hot Springs a lot more- they were essentially an imperial vacation house for about 3,000 years, but they had an interesting impact on major events in Chinese history. For instance, many historians blame the downfall of the Tang Dynasty (China’s golden age), on an emperor who was convinced by his mistress to spend too much time at the hot springs, and was away from his court in Xi’an so much that nothing ever got done. Two thousand years later, Chiang Kai Shek lived there when Mao and the Communist Party were doing the Great March, and the communists attacked CKS is his bedroom there. You can see the window that CSK jumped out- he apparently managed to evade the communists by running up the mountain behind the hot springs in his pajamas.

Riding an Imperial Dragon at the Hot Springs

Americans, Random Chinese tourists who were eager to take pictures with Westerners, and the naked lady who brought down the Tang Dynasty

Americans, Random Chinese tourists who were eager to take pictures with Americans, and the naked lady who brought down the Tang Dynasty

This coming Wednesday is the Dragon Boat Festival, a Chinese national holiday. Legend has it that there was a poet, Qu Yuan, who was ostracized by the king he was devoted to, and so attempted to commit suicide by jumping into a river while strapped to a large stone. Villagers liked him a lot, though, so they all hopped into their dragon boats and tried, in vain, to save him. The festival commemorates the rescue attempt- on the coast, they have dragon boat races, but inland, like here in Xi’an, they just eat these rice triangles filled with red bean paste (you’re supposed to drop them in a river to feed Qu Yuan.) Weekend shifting is really popular here (working on Sat/Sun so you can have Mon/Tues off), so I’m working this weekend and next weekend so that I can have a 5 day vacation. I’m taking a trip to Kunming with three of the other Americans, a city known for its cool geology (see Stone Forest) and its beautiful views, so no internet till Friday.

It’ll be a nice break from Xi’an- I like the city a lot, but I haven’t seen a blue sky in 3 weeks and there are often dust storms that kick up years of settled pollutants making it almost impossible to see more than 20 meters ahead of you. The plus side of these dust storms, though, is that there are surprising number of trees planted all around the city, meant to shield people from the brunt of the storms- most major streets are tree-lined on either side. There are also many parks around the city, in which people are always dancing, practicing tai chi, or roller blading. As usual, pictures soon. Also, the pickpockets here are ridiculous. I myself have almost gotten my wallet stolen twice, and the other day I was buying some street food with my friend, and she observed a man who had been hanging around pull a giant pair of tweezers from his pockets and meticulously extract some money from the pockets of the girl in front of him. My friend was able to alert the girl in time, but I’m pretty sure there are many people who pickpocket for a living.

Concert in a park by the city wall- I'm not sure what this style of singing is called, but if I could give it a name I'd call it 'Traditional Chinese Warbling'

Tags: Dragon Boat Festival·Great Wild Goose Pagoada·Huaqing Hot Springs·Terra Cotta Soldiers