I was woken by a gentle "Happy Birthday To You" being sung in my ear by Orlando. We were in a lovely little friendly hotel in a town called Luoyang, (well it has a population of more than 6 million but that feels small by Chinese standards), about 6 hours by fast train east of Xi'an.
After doing some chores like sussing out bus routes for the next day, and booking our train back to Xi'an for later in the week (Orlando really is coming along fabulously with his Chinese!) we hopped on the number 81 bus to the Longmen Caves, which we had been promised were similar to the Yungang caves we had seen earlier in our trip. One hour and Y1 each later we arrived at what was obviously a big tourist place - all car parking and auspicious-looking signage.
The Longmen Caves are a recognised UNESCO World Heritage Site. We ran the gauntlet of a long parade of tourist shops selling the usual stuff, and I stopped to use the loo. For the first time, I was confronted by a real Chinese public toilet: three toilets opposite three, but each separated from the next only by a low tiled wall about a metre high. Each cubicle was open at the front - no doors! Unperturbed (and in desperate need in any case) I got organised to do my business: there was nobody else there so it wasn't too bad.
As soon as I squatted (oh, yes, most toilets here are the ones in the floor over which you squat) another woman came in, but happily chose the stall alongside me. No problem still - there was a modicum of privacy afforded both of us by the dividing wall once we were both in position, so to speak. Then a third lady arrived, and chose the stall opposite me. She was a large enough lady, one of the sellers it seemed from the capacious apron she wore over her tracksuit bottoms. She squatted - or, rather, half-genuflected as best her bulk could allow - and I averted my eyes before the uncompromising view before me became too much.
In time I escaped my baptism of fire, none the worse for wear and with another Chinese first under my belt!
The Longmen Caves were a spectacle. The day was warm with hazy sun trying to break through the ubiquitous Chinese smog, and we spent almost five hours wandering slowly along the river bank from cave to niche. There are over 100,000 carvings here, of various Buddhas and their companions, but tragically Western explorers desecrated most statues in past years by removing them completely or simply by removing the Buddha's head, apparently by a swift upward machete blow.
Some key pieces are in the Metropolitan Museum or Art in New York, and others in the British Museum. Even all those years ago, I cannot imagine anyone coming across this place and not realising its religious, spiritual, and cultural significance. How arrogant we Westerners have been. Of course, the Cultural Revolution also took its toll: Chairman Mao's attack on the "four olds" (old customs, old culture, old thinking, old habits) from 1966 - 1970 resulted in much of China's heritage being destroyed, and the Longmen Caves suffered in this period too.
The caves got bigger and the statues more impressive, but nothing could have prepared us for the sight of the main cave (or niche) - the Fengxiang Si or Ancestor Worshipping Temple. Here, dozens of steep steps above the valley floor, stood a beautiful 17 metre high statue (thankfully almost intact) of the Buddha Losana surrounded by 2 disciples, 2 Bodhisattvas, 2 kings, and 2 protector warriors. The Buddha's face, allegedly modelled on the face of a Tang Dynasty Empress, was serene and benevolent; despite the crowds of tourists I could sense the peace surrounding this place.
We continued on, across the river to yet more carvings and caves, some being worked on by archaeologists and preservation experts. Our last stop was a beautiful temple high on the east river bank, where I threw money (a coin and a note) into a pond promising good health for floating money and longevity for sinking money.
As we enjoyed some birthday ice cream sitting on the temple wall, the sun sank slowly behind the caves on the west bank, and the incense hung in the still air while the monks chanted their meditations. What a lovely way to spend my birthday.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Saturday, October 22, 2005
The China Logs: Things I Have Noticed About China Part 1
Chinese Hygiene
Chinese people are beautifully turned out, and very well presented, the vast majority of them. The hotels foyers are lovely. The malls are highly polished. There is precious little litter on the streets, and armies of street cleaners are in evidence everywhere you look. So how come they still hawk and spit wherever they please? Even indoors on carpets and where people are sitting or eating? In addition, how come you can walk through the poshest of hotels or restaurants, to find the stench of the toilet meeting you way before you see the sign? Why does the stench not get any better even when there is an attendance there whose job it is to clean the place? WHY???
Being Sick In China
The Chinese (Mandarin) for Aspirin is ASR-PEELING. I love it! How come despite a blocked nose impervious to all known medication, once you approach above Chinese toilet to use the facilities, one's nose miraculously unblocks perfectly for the precise time it takes you to use the facilities, so one can appreciate the atrocious smell better, and then blocks right back up once you have walked out?
Chinese Hairdressers
We noticed this more in Beijing, and Datong, but not so much further south. Nice hairdressers all set up to do business in the day, with women getting blow dries and people with curlers in and all that... then the sun goes down and the lights are dimmed. Sometimes even the light bulb is changed to a red or pink one. The hairdressers' clothing gets slinkier and sexier, and there seems to be very little hairdressing going on at all. Indeed, most of the clients are now men. Hmmm.
Chinese Pregnant Women
Pregnancy is a big thing over here, given that you are only supposed to have one child (unless you are a farmer and your first born is a daughter - you can try for a son then). Pregnant women's clothing is all cutesy and cuddly, dominated by the dungaree look (criminal in most other countries) and almost everything is appliquéd with teddy bear, balloons, storks, you get the picture. Fashion Police - quick!!
The One Child Policy
There are huge billboards everywhere advertising (or encouraging) China's one-child policy. Most of the pictures I have seen show a young good-looking couple with their beautiful daughter playing in a park or by a river. I guess this is to also encourage people not to discard their child if it is female, which happens with alarming regularity over here (death by neglect or the orphanage being the two main routes).
Chinese Traffic
Traffic lights are everywhere. Most of them have little green and red men for pedestrians too. Generally the little green man flashes like he is walking. In Xi'an some of them are animated so that he sprints alarmingly when time is running out, encouraging you to do the same. Traffic lights are purely decorative anyway. A red light for traffic doesn't apply if you are (a) a bicycle, (b) a motorbike or other motorised two-wheeler, (c) a truck or bus, (d) turning right (they drive on the right here), (e) turning left. I may have missed a few out. Generally, traffic lights are a suggestion only, and should not be taken too seriously. Orlando has taken (quite chivalrously I would say) to always standing on whichever side of me faces the oncoming traffic, so as to defend me against the onslaught.
Chinese people are beautifully turned out, and very well presented, the vast majority of them. The hotels foyers are lovely. The malls are highly polished. There is precious little litter on the streets, and armies of street cleaners are in evidence everywhere you look. So how come they still hawk and spit wherever they please? Even indoors on carpets and where people are sitting or eating? In addition, how come you can walk through the poshest of hotels or restaurants, to find the stench of the toilet meeting you way before you see the sign? Why does the stench not get any better even when there is an attendance there whose job it is to clean the place? WHY???
Being Sick In China
The Chinese (Mandarin) for Aspirin is ASR-PEELING. I love it! How come despite a blocked nose impervious to all known medication, once you approach above Chinese toilet to use the facilities, one's nose miraculously unblocks perfectly for the precise time it takes you to use the facilities, so one can appreciate the atrocious smell better, and then blocks right back up once you have walked out?
Chinese Hairdressers
We noticed this more in Beijing, and Datong, but not so much further south. Nice hairdressers all set up to do business in the day, with women getting blow dries and people with curlers in and all that... then the sun goes down and the lights are dimmed. Sometimes even the light bulb is changed to a red or pink one. The hairdressers' clothing gets slinkier and sexier, and there seems to be very little hairdressing going on at all. Indeed, most of the clients are now men. Hmmm.
Chinese Pregnant Women
Pregnancy is a big thing over here, given that you are only supposed to have one child (unless you are a farmer and your first born is a daughter - you can try for a son then). Pregnant women's clothing is all cutesy and cuddly, dominated by the dungaree look (criminal in most other countries) and almost everything is appliquéd with teddy bear, balloons, storks, you get the picture. Fashion Police - quick!!
The One Child Policy
There are huge billboards everywhere advertising (or encouraging) China's one-child policy. Most of the pictures I have seen show a young good-looking couple with their beautiful daughter playing in a park or by a river. I guess this is to also encourage people not to discard their child if it is female, which happens with alarming regularity over here (death by neglect or the orphanage being the two main routes).
Chinese Traffic
Traffic lights are everywhere. Most of them have little green and red men for pedestrians too. Generally the little green man flashes like he is walking. In Xi'an some of them are animated so that he sprints alarmingly when time is running out, encouraging you to do the same. Traffic lights are purely decorative anyway. A red light for traffic doesn't apply if you are (a) a bicycle, (b) a motorbike or other motorised two-wheeler, (c) a truck or bus, (d) turning right (they drive on the right here), (e) turning left. I may have missed a few out. Generally, traffic lights are a suggestion only, and should not be taken too seriously. Orlando has taken (quite chivalrously I would say) to always standing on whichever side of me faces the oncoming traffic, so as to defend me against the onslaught.
The China Logs: Xi'an
Xi'an was wet and miserable when we got here, but has cheered up since then. Nothing much to report except for the Terracotta Warriors which were predictably a highlight. It is one thing to read about them, and understand how many of them there are (4,000) and how old they are (more than 2,000 years) and that they all have different faces, and that some of the technology used to manufacture them and the other things buried with them have amazed 20th century scientists. But it is another thing entirely to find yourself in an aircraft-hangar-sized complex in the middle of the Chinese countryside and actually behold them with your own eyes.
They reckon it will take another 10 years to fully excavate and research the site, but what they have discovered already is amazing to see. The sellers in the market outside the gates are also amazing in their tenacity.
Upon leaving, we were met by an impenetrable line of them holding up small replica warriors, bits of jade, the usual Chinese tourist stuff, and yelling prices at us. The prices fell rapidly too - within less than one minute I had bargained with one woman for a box with four warriors and a horse in it (they are about 4 inches high, don't panic!) from her initial "One dollar! One dollar!" (Y8, or the price of our dinner some nights) to Y3 (25p). I reckon I could have got her down to Y2 but that would have been churlish.
They reckon it will take another 10 years to fully excavate and research the site, but what they have discovered already is amazing to see. The sellers in the market outside the gates are also amazing in their tenacity.
Upon leaving, we were met by an impenetrable line of them holding up small replica warriors, bits of jade, the usual Chinese tourist stuff, and yelling prices at us. The prices fell rapidly too - within less than one minute I had bargained with one woman for a box with four warriors and a horse in it (they are about 4 inches high, don't panic!) from her initial "One dollar! One dollar!" (Y8, or the price of our dinner some nights) to Y3 (25p). I reckon I could have got her down to Y2 but that would have been churlish.
The China Logs: Chinglish 2
More Chinglish For You Fans Out There
- Sign outside bar in Xi'an: "Sunny Half Past And Friend Changing Club" (any ideas, anyone? We have a few...)
- At Terracotta Warriors complex: "Fire Exting Atcher Box" (you can guess this one)
- Enormous billboard in Xi'an advertising something I didn't understand: "You can't along with eagle to fly, when you are as high as turkey together." (this is my favourite so far)
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