China Revisited -- 2013 [#18]

Senior Activity Center

The road into the Zhang family village was lined with colorful vertical banners to announce the special occasion.

 

As benefactor of his family village, Edward's father was being honored with a dinner to which everyone in the village was invited.  He was being honored for building the Senior Activity Center where the dinner was served. While it was not mentioned as part of this celebration, we were also aware that he had paid for other buildings in town, including the Zhang ancestral house, and, as I have noted elsewhere, he built the aqueduct that brought clean water to the village.We were told that folks from neighboring villages, family and friends, had also made the journey. What an honor and privilege it was for us to be included in the gathering and to be treated as special guests. 

   

                                 

We were led up to a table on the second floor and seated in the corner, out of traffic.  We had toured this building briefly the day before, when the place was empty; but now it was packed with folks seated on red plastic stools around the big circular tables. Edward's father had a place at our table, but he did not sit. He spent the hour moving from table to table, "working the room" as we say. Edward and his mother also had seats but they were only sporadically there. Edward was clearly learning how to make connections, and his mother was, I think, just catching up since she knew nearly everyone. Yujia, who doesn't know the local language, kept company with the foreigners.

We had thought there might be speeches, too, or a ceremony, which would have been interesting, but as often happened, we were working with the wrong assumptions. It was eat, drink, and talk. Between the two floors of the Senior Center and the building next door, about 500 people were being fed. The room buzzed with conversations.  Women came to the tables with food, mostly soups, and a man came around with ceramic jars of rice wine that he left on individual tables.  He was very busy.

As the first foreigners anyone could remember, people came over to offer us toasts and to thank us for coming.  The custom is to hear the toast and then clink glasses. Edward translated the first few as "Good health and long life" -- something like that. His first uncle, so-called to designate birth order, gave a long toast in which he welcomed us to China and thanked us for taking care of Edward and Yujia.

After the toast, customarily, you drain your glass and then hold it upside down so that everyone can see you took the toast seriously.  When I didn't drink the rice wine after the toasts, Edward had to explain that we did not drink. His explanation was always greeted with laughter. After three or four of these explanations, he decided to dump the wine and fill my glass with 7-Up.

That way I could toast with a good conscience and turn my cup over to everyone's satisfaction.  Let it be known: this American can hold his 7-Up with the best!

Edward told us later that a lot of people had wanted to come over to meet us but were too shy or afraid. When we had finished eating we went outside to find that it had warmed up.  We sat under the trees at the tea table and talked, through Edward and a bit through Yujia, with those who had gathered. For a while Edward's father and mother sat with us, but eventually they were called away to talk with different friends or relatives or guests.

We talked for some time with a group of businessmen from out of the area who had come to the village to explore business opportunities. They asked questions about the recent American presidential election; in particular some harsh criticism directed toward the Chinese in the debates had hurt their feelings. After a bit of give and take, we figured out that what they wanted to know was how Americans felt about the Chinese as people.

We assured them that whatever mistrust our governments held toward one another, we had come to China to see people for whom we had great affection. We did not solve our national differences, but we agreed that in human terms we liked each other. Even this little guy, who had spent quite a while in our company with his grandfather, seemed to think we could all get along.

At that point a new black car pulled up and took the businessmen to the airport. Shortly, our diplomacy at an end for that afternoon, Edward opened his BMW and announced it was time to go.

China Revisited -- 2013 [#17]

Where Did You Come From? Why Are You Here?

On January 2nd we headed for the Zhang family village, which is to say, the village of Edward's father's family.  Festivities honoring Edward's father were set to begin around noon, and we were invited.

We had been to the Zhang village briefly the day before after our hike into the mountains. Before going to bed we had been told to be ready to go by 9; but at 7 a.m. Edward announced we were leaving in 20 minutes.

As it is also nearby, we drove first to Edward's mother's village, LuoXi. To say that these villages were unexpected to us as western foreigners is almost laughable. In this world all manner of discontinuities exist side by side.

I had had similar impressions on visiting Vladimir, Russia, in 2004. There, Soviet era buildings on the main streets gave way to 19th Century wooden houses on streets of dirt and mud on every side street and back street. The telescoping of time, culture, technologies, and material wealth is almost beyond comprehension for American eyes; the transition from one block to the next is simply astonishing.

In these Chinese villages there is no transition. The telescoping is absolute. For example, there is no mud in the thoroughfares as one might expect -- and as I found often in Russia -- because nearly all walking and driving areas are smoothly and recently paved with concrete.

It is easy to see that a certain kind of village renewal has been going on and that the government has invested in basic kinds of infrastructure (roads, paths, bridges, public areas). This investment was also true in the Zhang village, so it was clear that progress in rural villages has been a priority.

Houses, unlike the road and bridge infrastructure, are structurally varied. New construction sits side by side with old buildings.  All construction, all progress, moves by fits and starts; it continues, I am informed, until the money runs out.

Construction itself is labor intensive, which means virtually everything requires many hands, from digging foundations to mixing cement to hauling materials to laying bricks. Older home are made of an earth colored brick with tiled roofs; many have dirt floors. Newer homes were largely poured concrete slabs with brick walls layed on a two-story, rebar reenforced concrete framework. When they are finished the houses have steel doors and metal grills over the windows; but some houses had open windows and empty door frames, presumably because money had run out before grills and doors could be purchased.

It is one of the astonishing stories of recent Chinese growth and success that these two women, Edward's mother and aunt, spent the first twenty years of their lives in this little blond brick house. It has two rooms. To the right is the room where their father slept. It was his room. To the left is the room where the mother and her children slept. Two thirds of the room is a bed; up a wooden ladder in the loft is another bed.

The window opening is covered with wooden bars and the ceiling is just the underside of the roof tiles, which rest on sapling supports. My guess is that the tiles slid occasionally and let in wind or rain.

 Edward's father grew up under similar circumstances.  Either just before or just after they got married, Edward's mother and father left the village for the town, Lehu, where they lived in town poverty rather than village poverty. For a number of years Edward's father worked various laboring jobs before their fortunes changed and he began to make money.  Edward remembers being poor when he was very young and envying playmates who had new toys.

Poverty remains part of life in the village.  We watched Edward's aunt try to give money to the masons building a house next to their two room childhood home -- the construction pictured above -- so that they could buy supplies to continue working. But giving the money took considerable negotiation and explanation since neither of the masons were used to handling money.

We have this phrase in English, dirt poor, that I have no first hand experience with.  But here we came close to seeing what it might look like. This poverty is as unimaginable to me as the material success and wealth of Edward's parents. Their rags to riches story is the stuff of dreams, American or otherwise.

Despite this recognition, nothing I might conclude from visiting this village is simple or easy. Perhaps it is enough, here, to say that I have been astonished and humbled to see with my own eyes what I could never have imagined.

China -- Revisited 2013 [#16]

Into the Mountains

On January 1st we headed for our first visit to "the village"  to see the old China, or at least what remains of the old China in the rural areas.  After a cold night, we had breakfast of broad noodle soup with pork meatballs at a restaurant literally around the corner from the Zhang family "town" house.

We drove to the village via the mountains, which is, we might say, the long way to get there. As I have noted earlier, leaving the town means literally and abruptly driving into open space; the houses end and the gardens or meadows or hills begin.  We drove up into the mountains to walk about and eat lunch -- and then back down to see the village.

There are several points of interest in these mountains. The first is a dam that serves to conserve water for the villages and towns like Lehu in the valley.  Edward's father had built an aqueduct to bring water down from this mountain reservoir into the family's village to provide them with sufficient, clean water. The stream in the village is polluted and subject to seasonal fluctuations, so it is neither reliable nor healthy. The water level in the reservoir when we saw it was abnormally low, creating a rather alien landscape with its denuded embankment.

Although we stopped at the dam office and went inside for tea (of course) with the officials there, who were friends of Edward's father, the only pictures I actually took at the dam are the picture of Edward and Yujia pointing at a map (included in post # 4) and this photo with its high vegetation line.

Driving away from the dam, we glimpsed a "big Buddha" on a mountaintop in the distance, which I photographed from the moving car. My original intention in taking the picture was just to bring the Buddha close enough to see it -- as I was unable to make out more than a white bump with the naked eye.

There was so much enthusiastic conversation about this Buddha, I thought it might be a destination.  As it turned out, this picture was as close as we got.  If memory serves, its distinction, in addition to its size, is that it depicts a female Buddha, which is rare.

What we saw instead was a mountain forest area famous for several very old species of plants and animals. The identification that appeared in English on the sign is red vertebral forest; the lengthy explanation was in Chinese.

We were told that there were pangolin native to this mountain, although we did not see any. The pangolin is a small mammal with a snout reminiscent of an anteater and a kind of plated armor like the armadillo.



The only wildlife we actually did see were ducks, paddling in one of the shallow stream beds that carry run-off down the mountainside.

We parked at a shop that sold tickets to the trail.  It also served meals and sold various dried roots, herbs, mushrooms and other fungus, berries, seeds, greens, and so forth. Anything edible and vegetable that could be grown or found locally and dried was there in zip-lock plastic packages. My understanding is that these are primarily for soups, which are ubiquitous in that part of China. Many of these dried vegetable items are spread out on sidewalks, parking lots, and road pavements to dry in the sun.

The mountain trail is a concrete path along a rock-strewn stream bed. It is a pretty easy walk for maybe half a mile.  When the path began to involve climbing rock steps along the side of the stream, it was decided that we had gone far enough; so we turned around and walked back to the parking lot.

One of the prehistoric plants that grows here is a fern tree with huge, familiar looking fronds and a trunk that resembles a palmetto. It was a bit off the path, but I would estimate the trunk to be about six feet high.

The stream gorge that we walked along provided a number of convenient photo ops to demonstrate our presence.




















Back on level ground again, we found a number of ducks hanging to dry. I made an immediate connection between these ducks and the ducks we had seen in the stream.  Fun today, food tomorrow.


 Unknown to us, Edward's mother bought two of the ducks from the rack I had photographed near the shop where we bought our tickets for the mountain trail.


 We also saw -- but could not approach -- a couple of traditional houses that would have once belonged to landowners.  We were not able to get a clear story, but I gather these had been abandoned for decades -- perhaps since the turmoil of the cultural revolution that began in the mid '60s. We saw other, more elaborate landowner homes on our visit to Guangzhou.

 

From the mountain shop we drove twenty minutes to a village restaurant for lunch. Just after we pulled in, a bus pulled in behind us and unloaded its twenty-five to thirty passengers, many of whom went into the small restaurant. Others stood outside near the road where we were standing to let the sunshine warm us.

After considerable conversation between Edward's father and various other people -- the bus driver, the restaurant workers, passengers -- we learned that Edward's father was buying lunch for the whole bus.  It was a rather astonishing gesture of generosity.  He went around handing out cigarettes to the men and chatting with them in the same way he had in Lehu the day before.

We were astonished not only by this act of generosity but also by the poverty of the people living near the restaurant. Many of the houses were half-finished new construction, which meant they were concrete and brick shells with no windows or doors and with construction rubble in the yards. We were told many new homes had not been completed because money had run out. The region is poor. Times are tough here. Small children from the house next door were running around barefoot on the broken brick and construction trash in very cold weather.

Out of respect, I did not take pictures of those children or their parents, or of the young woman -- maybe 20 years old and mentally disabled -- who crawled out of the house on her hands and knees and began to make her way out to where the crowd of travelers was standing while lunch was being prepared. When we were called in to lunch, she was still on her hands and knees in the middle of the road.

I did, however, photograph an old man who came marching down the road from the village. He was wearing an old army uniform, complete with arm bands, cap, medals, insignia, and a leather pouch. He carried a flag that was Buddhist rather than military. His face carried a look of serious, if inexplicable, purpose.  Under his elbow he held a yellow megaphone constructed of a plastic bottle such as we might use for orange juice. He had cut off the bottom and taped a handle to the side.

He, too, was clearly living in an alternate reality.

Just as he started to deliver his rant, Edward's father came out to him. After a brief conversation, the old soldier tucked his megaphone under his arm and marched back into the village. Edward told us later that his father had given the man 100 yuan, a considerable sum for an old veteran on a pension, and asked him to forgo the speech.

After our lunch of soups -- black bean, chicken, vegetable -- and white rice, we drove to the family village for our first look.  Here, too, we were impressed with the generosity of Edward's father, what he has built, what he has done to improve village life.

Edward's father is a complex man. Although he remains in many ways a mystery to us, he is as man who possess great awareness and responsibility. Like China itself there are many stories to tell here, and they are intertwined in ways that is hard to reflect in brief accounts. The family village deserves at least one story of its own.

China--Revisited 2013 [#15]

The Full Body Foot Massage

After our afternoon walk through the neighborhood, we went to dinner at the Happiness Valley Mountain Villa Restaurant before the women -- Donna, Edward's mom, and Yujia -- were planning a visit to the foot massage spa for what we could only assume was some kind of traditional foot treatment.

The restaurant was quite spectacularly adorned with lights. The usual arrangement with upscale restaurants is that our party was led to one of many private rooms where we were to eat our meal. It was cold at first, so (as everyone does) we kept our coats on. Gradually, as hot dishes are brought and gas burners are lit to keep various dishes hot (soups), the room warms a bit.  Tea, of course, helps in this warming process as well.

Dinner consisted of peanuts (appetizer), a whole chicken (served, as I have mentioned elsewhere, actually whole -- head at one end, feet at the other, sliced horizontally bones and all), black bean soup, shrimp and wild goat soup, greens (spinach), and bitter melon with fat soup.  My notes to do not specify what kind of fat this might have been. Bitter melon, however, I am quite sure about.  It is accurately named. I think we would say bitter melon is an acquired taste.


Edward's father was already at the restaurant hosting local businessmen and their wives in another private room.  He came to greet us and returned several times to make sure we were being treated well, but he did not eat with us. Edward's cousin arrived with her little girl. We had met earlier in the day. She saw me and ran out of the room.

Edward proved to be quite the gallant hero for his cousin's daughter. She needed considerable time and coaxing to rejoin us. He referred to his cousin as "sister" and to her daughter as "niece." Who would have guessed Edward would be so accomplished and accommodating with children? What a guy!

After dinner we all drove to the foot massage spa, where it was decided that Edward and I would join the women in the foot baths.

So I found myself sitting in a lazyboy type recliner with the three women and Edward. We were attended individually by a team of masseuses.

The process, briefly stated, followed a set routine. We were each given a glass of hot water to drink and a bucket of hot water. We put our feet into the hot water to soak, to relax them, and presumably to soften the callouses. While our feet soaked we sat on stools opposite our recliners while these young women gave our shoulders and backs a serious work over.

As the only "massage novice" in the group, I found this process quite rigorous, somewhat akin to being beaten up.

Then we returned to the lazyboy while our feet were pulled from the water, dried, kneaded, pummeled, folded, scored, slapped, bent, and pinched. The young woman assigned to me was small but athletic. She just might have the strongest thumbs I have ever encountered. By the time she had moved above my ankles, I was sure I had experienced the limits of voluntary pain.

There was a lot of conversation in Chinese and laughter during this process. Donna asked Yujia for a translation at one point. Yujia confided, "She likes your fat legs!"

Once our feet and legs were tingling from the workout, we were asked to lie flat on our stomachs. The lazyboys flattened out nicely, so we lay prone. Quickly the young women jumped onto the arms of the chairs and began pounding our backs. I could feel feet on the small of my back, then knees on the backs of my thighs. At one point, my masseuse locked elbows with me and lifted me from the chair.

When they were finished beating us up, the women vanished. Donna wanted to leave a tip, which would have been expected in the U.S., but it clearly was not possible here.

What did it cost for an hour or more of individualized attention, she wanted to know.  After some calculation, Edward reported, "About $8 US each."



The one item I neglected to relate in its appropriate spot is that we were told initially to roll our pant legs up above the knee.  Neither Yuji nor I were able to roll them up that high -- Yujia because she was wearing "skinny jeans"; me, well, just because -- so we were sent to rooms to put on shorts.

Matching boxer shorts, as it turned out.  Quite stunning and stylish. A memorable way to end a memorable day, the last day of 2012.

China -- Revisited [#14]

Walkabout, Pt 3

Once past the Catholic Church with its Christmas decorations, we walked a loop, heading west through the market, turning south along the river, and then east through a business district. At the end, we found ourselves back at our starting point in front of the Zhangs' building.

As we headed into the traditional market, we encountered folks who stopped Edward's parents to greet them and, briefly, to catch up. Sometimes we were introduced, but often we were just told how this person or that was related. These two boys couldn't take their eyes off of us, but their older sister (with the impressively colorful half-fingered mittens) and their grandmother didn't pay us any direct attention.









Although cars did not travel through this market, bicycles and scooters did, often quite fast. Pedestrians seemed to know when to step aside and when it was safer to let the scooter find a way around them, but those skills did not come naturally.  Several times we were tugged or nudged to the side by our alert hosts.

Here and there little alleyways branched off of the market.  We did not have time to follow them, but on another trip I would love to just wander the neighborhood.

At one point we came out from between buildings into a clearing that turned out to be a school yard.  Faded lines marked out a field of play for several games -- soccer, I assume, and basketball. A pair of hoops without nets stood in this school yard. Boys who had been shooting hoops and other kids who had been running around stopped to look when we appeared.  That was usually a signal for me to stop shooting pictures and act gracious.

Beyond the school we came to the river that ran along the edge of Lehu. The river bank had been improved with stone walls making a channel, on top of which was a new walkway and a new concrete road.

The houses across the road from the river walkway were squat, mostly two story affairs. They struck me as being not necessarily older than the town buildings we had just come through but more rural, more village construction.

For reasons that I can't explain entirely, I find myself drawn to virtually everything in this landscape, from the houses that could be described as boxes set one atop another, to the admittedly mundane color scheme (varied eath tones), to the window lattices, to the roof lines and roof tiles. I am draw to tools, especially traditional tools.  I am drawn to more abstract things too, like colors, shapes, patterns.  I love brickwork. In another life I could see myself as a stone mason.  I love trees, especially when they are twisted or oddly shaped, like this sycamore that had been left to grow through the new sidewalk between street lights.  If I remember right, the tree inhibited foot traffic to the point where we had to walk single file around it or step out into the street.







Here, too, men on bicycles would stop to chat with Edward's father.  He would offer them cigarettes and they would converse while smoking.

Across the river was countryside.  In the low space between the road and the houses was an open space, maybe 150 feet wide, that local residents had planted as gardens. All the gardens were neatly laid out and well tended.  Often we saw people working these gardens. Everywhere we went we saw the same thing, cultivated open space. The houses might be cluttered or in poor repair, but the gardens always looked well-tended.


Then, as I have said, we reached a cross street and turned back into town. 

But that's another story.