THIS IS A FIVE-DAY VERSION OF EVENTS, SPLIT INTO FIVE FEATURES, EACH OF APPROXIMATELY 1,000 WORDS.
Monday
As the train snorts up the courage to depart this smog-choked capital city of Henan Province, Zhengzhou, which is fading into the darkness of the quickening October dusk, I find myself clinging to a bravado built up from my years of living here in China. It’s only a six-hour ride to Luoyang, my next destination on this solo ancient capitals tour of Henan, so I shouldn’t despair at not having been able to secure a seat.
I’ve stood on trains for dozens of hours before, certainly. I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed by the history that I’ve witnessed today in the Henan Provincial Museum and more than a little exhausted from my sleepless night due to a couple who screamed at each other until dawn this morning in the room above me in the seedy hotel where I stayed. I’ve visited Zhengzhou twice, and among the impressions that I’ve taken away is that young couples here fight with a rare gusto. I muse that it stems from the warrior roots of their Shang dynasty (c. 1700-1100 BC) descendents, which I am here, in part, to investigate.
While Saul ruled Israel and Moses received the Ten Commandments, the Shang dynasty made a thriving home in present day Zhengzhou. Within city walls more than 10 meters high, they created large buildings, bronze foundries, bone and pottery workshops, and human burial and sacrificial sites. Today, some of these sites may be visited in the city’s southeastern section and also in Zijingshan Park.
While much of the glory may belong to the past, the virtuous qualities of hard work and hope persist. In industrial Chinese towns, one finds beauty in unexpected places – a flash of yellow curtains in the upper windows of an old apartment complex, a red flag proudly hung above the door of a tiny restaurant, a fresh green plant set outside of a car wash. All the same, I am ready to move on to Luoyang, which was the capital of 13 ancient dynasties, and, more importantly, today has fewer people and less meat processing plants than this dump.
Now, crammed with passengers returning home for the National Day holiday, the train begins its torturous trudge. This is the proletariat car – the cheap seats for those lucky enough to have them and tight standing room for those who don’t. At times like this, I curse my big western booty, and yet I crave the cold comfort of hot instant noodles.
Travel in China often proves to be a journey of contradictions. Knowing this eases the guilt of sliding over to a group of tired looking students who I know will relinquish a seat for the opportunity to speak to a Western woman in Chinese. They are middle school students from Luoyang who have been selected to live and study in Tianjin, a special municipality southeast of Beijing. They ask me why I have come to Henan and why I’m going to Luoyang.
I have come to Henan to rediscover its ancients roots, but I also seek to understand what it is about the modern day province that makes so many Chinese disdainful and dismissive of the place and its people. There are obvious problems with the province – that most notable of which is also the biggest dilemma of China itself: an overwhelming population and not nearly enough resources. Imagine putting one third of the US population, or about 100 million people, into a state the size of Wisconsin. That’s Henan.
Going to school in Tianjin is not a choice, the students tell me, but a necessity. There simply aren’t enough schools for all the children in Henan. In addition, widespread poverty, an AIDS epidemic and corrupt officials plague the province.
A few years back, when I visited Henan for the first time, I found myself in the industrial hometown of an older friend who grew up during the Cultural Revolution. As he surveyed the coal cast landscape of Jiaozuo, he turned to me with an unreadable smile playing on his lips. “There is a Chinese saying, ‘look out for fires, look out for thieves, look out for people from Henan.’ People have different impressions of things, but it’s still home to me.”
Places with big histories often find themselves tangled in words, and Henan, the cradle of the Chinese language itself, proves no exception. They call this land Zhongyuan, but they can’t agree on what that means. One way is to simply define it as a geographical term – the middle plains. The other way is to define it by historical terms – the origin and center of life.
Actually, these concepts cannot be separated. Modern day Henan province, located in the Yellow River basin of the country’s middle plains, gave birth to Chinese civilization. Out of the eight declared ancient capitals of China, four may be found here: Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Anyang and Kaifeng. Within a 340 kilometer tour, it’s possible to take in 7,000 years of human history and its development through the ages. This is precisely my intent.
As the train’s rhythm lulls tired workers and students, mothers and grandfathers to nod off into the pockets and crooks of warm bodies, I revisit the treasures of the Henan Provincial Museum in my mind. Among them is a 7,000-year-old flute that anthropologists believe to be the oldest surviving musical instrument to date, a slew of Shang dynasty oracle bones that provide the first evidence of the Chinese language, and assorted pottery, bronze work and stone carvings all found within the province and dating to various dynasties, many of which claimed Henan as their home base.
It’s relieving to find a land’s ancient artifacts stored safely in its regional capital. Museums hold history’s success stories in a way that actual sites cannot. My feelings, heading to Luoyang, remain mixed. Years before, in another trip through Henan, I decided against visiting. I had read about the pillaging that had been done at some of the area’s ancient sites – most notably the Longmen Grottoes – and couldn’t bear to witness it. Now I think a little differently about things. What a place has lost may provide the evidence, for better or for worse, for what it has gained instead.
Tuesday
A delightfully weird little couple wearing matching pants, shirts, sweater vests and blazers sits down at my table to enjoy a free hotel breakfast with me. Free hotel breakfast, I come to appreciate in the busy days to come, is enough to sustain one until supper, and moreover, provides one with enough sodium for the rest of one’s life.
For couples to wear matching outfits in China is not a curious phenomena, but this couple is interesting in that everything one says, the next one repeats in a quizzical tone before answering. They are from the nearby city of Nanyang and here on holiday.
After confirming that I can speak the language, they animatedly ask me the usual questions: “Where are you from?” “Can you use chopsticks?” “Are you willing to eat Chinese food?” “Are you married?” “How old are you?” “How much money do you make?” and return my answers with the usual commentary: “America is a developed, prosperous nation.” “You can use chopsticks very well.” “You do like Chinese food.” “You can find a Chinese husband.” “You are still young.” “You don’t make enough money.”
We amiably slurp on rice porridge, stuff our cheeks with hot steamed bread and suck the salty pickled vegetables piece by piece. I feel very tender towards them. There’s something to be admired about a culture that permits people to ask the questions that people are honestly interested in as opposed to dancing around issues of what is and isn’t “personal,” and I relish the freedom to eat my food with abandoned enjoyment. Warmed by a hot bowl of soy milk, I say good-bye and head to the bus stop, which, like the rest of the city, is crowded with pots of yellow and purple chrysanthemums.
On the bus to Bai Ma Temple, the driver plays a Confucius program, and I notice that the young give up their seats to the elderly or to those mothers pregnant or bundling children. In a society recently opened to capitalistic market ideas – competition, privilege and the value of “self”— evidence of traditional moral values grows increasingly rare. This seems especially apparent in China’s wealthier cities where even in fast food queues, people think they can get ahead in line by waving a 100 yuan bill over the shoulder of the person in front of them. I’ve learned to look away when I see six strong young men in designer business attire sitting on the bus and fuming about the “Japanese devils” while 80 and 90-year-old men and women, who persevered through that wicked history to create the life that these young men enjoy now, wobble on their feet. More “sophisticated” Chinese may accuse Henan people of being old-fashioned and backward looking, but maybe, all things considered, that’s not entirely so bad.
With this peaceful assurance, I enter the grounds of the lovely Bai Ma Si (White Horse Temple), which was the first Buddhist temple built on Chinese soil. During the later part of the Western Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 24), the emperor dreamed of a golden man flying to the west. Logic somehow follows that he consequently sent two envoys westward to search for Buddhist scriptures. In Afghanistan, the envoys met two Indian monks whom they invited to come back with them to the then capital of China — Luoyang. With a statue of Buddha and a bundle of scriptures stowed safely on the backs of two white horses, they returned. The temple was founded in the 1st century A.D. to house the scriptures and the statue. It was named after the horses that brought them here.
Perhaps scared off by today’s soggy weather, people are few in numbers, which makes the grounds especially soothing. Smoke from sandalwood incense snakes its way up through the falling rain and its warm scent mixes with the sodden smell of autumn earth. Doves coo in the rafters and sparrows flit about nervous for their nests. The red of the temples and the green of the grass are emboldened by the overcast day.
A girl who joins me for a walk through the temple grounds tells me that in the spring, the peonies here are brilliant. Her name is Yu Mu. She is 17-years-old and often comes here to troll for foreigners so as to practice her English. I treat her to a bowl of noodles before I head to Guanlin Temple.
Few characters are as notorious in Chinese history as Cao Cao, a statesman and a strategist during the final years of the Eastern Han dynasty (25 AD – 220 AD). In fact, the Chinese version of “speak of the devil” is a play off of his name: “Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao will arrive.”
Although he ruthlessly killed thousands of men, he wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t responsible for General Guan Yu’s death. According to legend of the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220-265), after King Sunquan of the Wu Kingdom executed the famous general, he tried to blame the Wei Kingdom’s Cao Cao. In order to deflect the slander, Cao Cao respectfully buried Guan Yu’s head in a grave south of Luoyang, which eventually, during the Ming dynasty, was surrounded with temple buildings. During the Qing dynasty, Guan Yu was posthumously given the title, “Lord of War.”
Today, outside of the temple devoted to him, visitors have offered Guan Yu hundreds of plates of real food that sit on a huge table in various stages of decay. I notice that the gummy bear treats have far outlasted the plates of peaches. The smelliest award goes to the plates of pork, which teem with maggots. The most colorful award goes to the various breads, which have blossomed with a spectral array of mold colors. An imposing statue of Guan Yu stares out sternly from the temple, as if saying, “I’ll eat it when I’m damn well ready to.”
One prudently shouldn’t argue with anyone given the hail “The Lord of War,” so I wander through the ground’s small museum spaces that house stone work from the Han, Ming and Qing dynasties. Before long, I’ve worked up an appetite of my own, and so I head back to Luoyang’s city center to sup at the locally recommended Bu Tong Fandian (One of a Kind Restaurant).
The restaurant is furnished beautifully in a Tang Dynasty style with high ceilings, bright light, soft shapes and burnished woods. Dinnertime in China is one of the times to regret traveling alone as meals should be something to share seated around a table as big and round as the moon carrying on with friends and family.
I’m ushered away from the warm glow of the main dining room into a small, cold, empty space behind the kitchen. As I see it, at least this way I can order several dishes to try without people on site to ogle at the big greedy white girl. And I’ve got a waitress all to myself who can recommend the best dishes and tell me the stories behind them.
According to my waitress, the story of Luoyang’s Peony Swallow dish (Mudan Yan Cai), which is part of the Luoyang specialty 24 soup course “Water Banquet” (Shui Xi), contains three main ingredients: a cowering chef, an epicurean Empress and a tasteless turnip. During the Tang dynasty, the notoriously temperamental Empress Wu Zetian ordered a chef to make a masterful turnip dish. So vexed by this order, the chef manipulated the stubborn root from all angles. He blanched it, he cut it into hair fine slivers, he dried it, and he pickled it with seafood. Finally, he served it cold on a dish with slices of roasted pork, ham, fragrant mushrooms, crab and a sprinkling of coriander and cherries. A big bowl of hot chicken broth partners the dish, and the ingredients are mixed small bowl by small bowl. Wu Zetian was rightfully impressed by the turnip’s transformation. So was I.
Allowing myself to be quite so extravagant, I order several more dishes, all in the name of research, naturally: A feisty bowl of sweet and sour meatball soup, a savory and sour soup of ginger, pork, wood mushrooms and lima beans, a delectable cold beef gelatin dish with garlic, pan fried bread stuffed with a fluffy egg and a pot of hot chrysanthemum tea.
Water banquet approved, I summon my most royal effort and waddle back to my hotel for a good night’s rest.
Wednesday
No matter the kid, no matter the famous destination, for them, the highlight is theme trash cans. Here at the top of Xiang Shan (Fragrant Mountain), my focus drifts from the view of the Longmen Grottoes across the rain swollen Yi River to a group of children prodding the mouths of the golden frog rubbish bins. I welcome this momentary distraction, as I’ve lost all sense of the present amidst these ancient hills and their testament to the creation and destruction of ancient human culture.
Carving of the Longmen Grottoes began in 493 A.D. after the Northern Wei dynasty moved their capital to Luoyang. Throughout the next 400 years, other dynasties, most notably the Tang dynasty, added their own touches to create more than 100,000 Buddhas, 2,800 inscribed tablets, and 43 Buddhist pagodas.
I take my time climbing up the steep stairs that narrowly hug a sheer cliff face not because I’m worried that I might plunge from these rain slicked stones to an untimely death hundreds of feet below, but, rather, because all along the way, evidence of history would literally peer out from the crags… if it only had a head.
As we climb in the rain looking for redemption, I listen to the Chinese tourists who peer fervently from one figure to the next. “No head?” “No head.” “No head?” “No head.” “No head?” “None.”
The devastation done by souvenir hunters and revolutionaries here makes one hang one’s own head a little lower. Today we’re not even witnessing half of it. With more than a week of rain, officials have prohibited tourists to cross the river for a closer look at the tombs on the other side, which include the site’s main attraction – the Ancestor Worshipping Temple.
I’m almost relieved that we can’t cross because from where I stand, it looks unblemished. The empty caves around it a decorative touch rather than exploited spaces. The head on the largest figure, which altogether from top to toe measures 17 meters tall, stands erect on a proud neck with a slight smile despite the loneliness of its pillaged surroundings. Good for you big head, I think. You made it.
Another major site, the Three Binyang Caves, did not escape as unscathed. Panels once located on either side of the main entrance now rest in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo. and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Efforts within China and Taiwan to have artifacts returned have largely proved unsuccessful. I am reminded of the concern about Iraqi artifacts being bombed and looted in the aftermath of the war there and wonder why more attention has not been given to the looting of China and the rest of Asia, which has occurred on a grander scale and over a longer period of time.
One reason scholars and international art dealers are able to rationalize the sale of suspiciously attained Chinese art is that China itself has not always been a good custodian of its heritage. Some items of antiquity were sold by early Chinese merchants and carted off to the Middle East and Europe via the Silk Road; others were destroyed by the Chinese themselves during a sundry of wars, rebellions and revolutions.
Here, the top of Xiang Mountain, proves to have its own share of messy modern political Chinese history. Although the mountain retreat was originally built as a summer home for the Tang Empress Wu Zetian, later leaders also found relief up here on the cool pine ridged cliffs. Chiang Kai Shek built a retreat here for his beloved wife Song Meiling. Under the guise of celebrating his 50th birthday, he met here with top Nationalist leaders to plot against the Communists. From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, the Communists held key members of his party prisoner here in the same rooms where the plotting had occurred.
I marvel at the resilience of a place that has withstood so much human conflict, that has witnessed historical hands seize power and then have it wrested away, and that has served as the foundation of ancient buildings, monuments, capitals, dynasties, and legends. Then, before descending the mountain, I go to poke at the golden frog trashcans.
Back in town, I find myself wandering amidst kitsch of a different sort. Weaving in and out of the narrow streets defined by the old city walls of Luoyang, I sift through craft and artisan shops for the perfect souvenir.
Mockingbirds in wooden cages hang above doorways where old women wearing padded jackets chat with stainless steel thermoses of tea. Times must be alright for that. At local restaurants, scattered throughout old town, men drink rice wine and play finger games. Their Henan accents are made thicker by their late-afternoon drinking. Here, shops sell new electric guitars and old erhus side by side.
A young girl rides a bike with a puppy in her basket. “What do you call your dog,” asks a little boy, running to keep up. “Cat,” she responds, laughing maniacally as little girls have the habit of doing when they dare respond with what they know to be ridiculous. “What does it mean?” The little boy asks and stops running to watch her ride on down the street. Such, I think to myself as I stroll past the befuddled boy, is the nature of the heterosexual relationship.
Upon stumbling onto the Luoyang Antique and Painting Exchange Center, I climb up the dimly lit steps to the painting gallery. I find a native Luoyang woman painter and, with a little friendly bargaining, buy two small hand painted scrolls of peonies for 40 yuan, or five U.S. dollars. I’ve got to hustle to make the train to Anyang, but on the way to the station I stop at the Zhengchang Park where hundreds of Luoyang residents have gathered to do aerobics and ballroom dancing at dusk. They demonstrate no self-consciousness neither about the dancing nor about doing so while wearing collared shirts with sweatpants.
I begin my train journey north to Anyang seated next to a slim engineer who is unusually fastidious about the neatness of our shared table and across from a fat composer who moonlights as a Christian minister.
“Eat, eat, drink, drink, happy night! Don’t eat, don’t drink, lonely night!” The hawker sings as he travels up and down the aisle. Later, he will give a sales demonstration of industrial socks that can’t rip, shred or burn, which he demonstrates by tying them to the luggage rack and pulling his entire body up with them, scraping them with a metal brush and holding them above a lighter.
For now, the skinny engineer, the fat composer and I settle into intermittent conversation, share the food that we have brought aboard and watch for the occasional red lantern that lights up the dark country between here and the next destination.
Thursday
The connection between life and language has endured as a conceit of philosophers and writers throughout the ages. To these searching souls, I would humbly suggest a course in Chinese and a visit to Anyang, where some of the world’s most ancient evidence of language, the Yin dynasty oracle bones, have been unearthed.
The Shang Dynasty built their first capital in the area around what is modern day Zhengzhou, but in 1300 B.C. the 20th king of the dynasty relocated the capital city to the area around Anyang, which remained here for two and a half centuries making it history’s longest enduring Shang dynasty capital. This section of its history is more commonly called the Yin dynasty.
In the 30 square kilometers surrounding the western suburbs of Anyang, the Shang developed villages of family settlements, installed irrigation for their crops and draining pipes for their homes, created fine works of stone, clay, bronze and jade, traded and bartered with other nations using cowrie shells as currency, conducted animal husbandry of cow, lamb and pig and created political and ritualistic institutions. Perhaps most to their credit, however, is the creation and use of the Chinese language. Of the three ancient writing systems, only that of the oracle bones has developed into a form still used today.
Not only is it possible at the Anyang Yinxu Site Garden to witness how the Chinese language developed from pictographic symbols to encompass the sounds and meanings of its modern day form, it’s also fully conceivable that many of those ancient symbols, standing on their own, can be understood by anyone, regardless of their native language, should one take the time to carefully look.
This all poses some very interesting questions to the visitor. Namely, how is it that through the thousands of years that have passed, despite the many cultures and languages that have arisen in that time, that today we are able to glean the same meaning from certain symbols? Does it bespeak of humanity’s inherent definition or value on certain things? History forced language to evolve and branch out, but, if it only served to fragment people, why?
I am no linguist, but I am a student of Chinese. I fell in love with its written form years ago on my first visit to China when I saw a man using a four foot long calligraphy brush and a bucket of water to write out Chinese couplets on the smooth ebony tiles of a small park. Because many of the same sounds in Chinese can have dozens of characters and thus dozens of different meanings, when Chinese speak to one another, they often trace the character on their palm for clarification. In writing, everything becomes clearer.
The site has a fascinating outside exhibit of the language’s evolution and has copied many of the oracle bones’ writing into large print set onto huge stone blocks. There are also English translations for those unfamiliar with the language. The real oracle bones may be found in the onsite museum.
I wander through the outdoor exhibition, jotting down characters here and there. This language lives and breathes. It speaks to me.
I am not alone.
A father asks his daughter who sits upon his shoulders, “What’s this?” He points at a big body with a long nose. “Elephant.” “What’s this?” He points to a figure with a square base and three pointy tops. “Mountain.” “What’s this?” He points to what looks like an E facing downward with three dashes coming from each horizontal line. “Rain.”
I notice that he passes by the pictograph of a woman kneeling holding a baby boy. This character means “good.” There is no such character involving daughters.
Good can hardly describe how I feel about this place, which offers many more treasures to explore. I stroll over to the tomb of Lady Fu Hao (c BC 1200), who long before the more famous Chinese woman warrior Mulan, kicked butt and took heads. She was also the favorite consort of King Wu Ding who guided the Shang dynasty to their zenith of military power.
The students at the information desk tell me that a lot of the stuff in her tomb exhibit, however, is copies of what was found there. A little disappointed, I head over to one of the Yinxu site’s more authentic exhibitions.
With horse skeletons still harnessed to the front and slave skeletons still splayed out in what must have been the ancient time’s equivalent of the trunk, the relics in the Exhibition Hall of Chariot Pits of the Yin Dynasty don’t fail to impress. These chariots, which are the oldest discovered in China to date, are wider than you would expect them to be. Some archaeologists, one who has dubbed this model the “S.U.V. of chariots,” believe that they were meant for three people standing. A driver stood in the middle while two people, one on either side, battled. Yet, the chariots here were not used for battle in this life but the next. This sacrificial burial tradition carries through the Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties.
One can also witness the love for horsepower today among China’s car struck citizens.
More burial goods, including the real artifacts from Lady Fu Hao’s tomb, oracle bones, slave skeletons, weapons, artwork, musical instruments and China’s largest bronze ding, or cooking vessel, discovered to date, rest within the fascinating onsite museum. The ding, which weighs 825 kilograms, stands 133 cm. high, 78 cm. deep and boasts a width of 111 cm was a burial gift from King Wu Ding to his mother.
Later, as I poke around the streets of Anyang, I discover that this ding possesses an equally interesting modern day history.
Back in the heart of the flat, dusty town, a display of screen shots and story boards for a television show stand outside in the middle of a busy shopping area. Above it all hangs a huge red banner, “Thank you Comrade Wu,” it reads.
This is all somewhat intriguing, but what really catches my eye is the picture of a bent over little man wearing an old-styled blue communist jacket standing next to the ding that I’ve just seen in the Yinxu Site Museum.
I join the assembled crowd for a look. The story boards, like so many mainland television shows these days, detail the atrocities suffered by the Chinese people during the Japanese invasion and occupation. Tensions between the two countries have mounted in the past few years as Japan has decided to stop feeling guilty about World War II, and, quite far from it, outrageously deny in their most recently published school text books their role as aggressors, flagrantly continue to visit the shrine of Japanese war criminals and apply for a seat on the U.N. Security Council.
This year, the 60th anniversary of Japan’s defeat on Chinese soil, has proved to be a particularly nationalistic one for the Chinese. Even the elementary students at the school where I work part time have ceased using the word “Japanese” without adding “devil” to the end of it.
Though racism on any level has always been intolerable to me, the flood of hate mongering media has at least forced me to look at its source and to, on some level, understand it. Most of the stories are brutal with nightmarish endings. I am glad to see that, at least in the case of this little old man, Comrade Wu Peiyuan, the conclusion is less coup de grace, if more capitalistic.
A man approaches me and asks me if I have seen the real ding. Would I like to see a life sized model at the Si Muwu Ding Shop?
I follow him a few blocks to a little space selling bronze replicas of everything that I have seen in the museum today as well as other famous pieces that I have seen in museums in Beijing and Shanghai. The man, who introduces himself as Mr. Liu, sits me down, gives me a cup of tea and tells me the story of Wu Peiyuan.
During the Japanese occupation, when he was a country kid of 18, Wu Peiyuan heard that the soldiers were coming for the recently discovered ding. One night, he recruited a team of villagers to help him bury it in the earth, which, considering that it weighed 825 kilograms, was no small feat. In the years that followed, he would have to hide it from the soldiers two more times before it was finally transported to Nanjing for safekeeping.
Later, for his efforts to preserve Chinese artifacts, he was rewarded by visits from high level cadres and government officials. His son, interested in preserving artifacts in his own way, opened this store to provide people with a chance to cherish the craftsmanship of Chinese goods without having to own the real thing. Recently, CCTV had made a docudrama about Wu Peiyuan’s life and bravery, which was what all the hoopla had been about outside.
“That, and he’s getting old,” Liu tells me without offering any unnecessary explanations.
After heading to Anyang’s old city, I learn that Wu Peiyuan’s life is not the only one in danger of running out of time. Residents here sit outside in the sun cleaning vegetables seemingly oblivious to the character spray painted on their walls. I have seen this character before on many of Beijing’s hutong, which are also rapidly being demolished to make way for modern construction projects. “Chai” is a death sentence for these old buildings.
I ask one elderly woman sitting directly below her “Chai” how long she has been here. “My whole life,” she responds, not looking up from the knitting in her hands.
Next door is the Gaoge Temple, which, I notice, has no visible doors but also no “chai.” “It’s been here for more than a thousand years,” a man with glasses bigger than his face says.
Before I make my way to the bus depot to head to Kaifeng, my last destination on this four ancient capitals tour, I climb to the top of Wen Feng Ta, an old Buddhist pagoda located in the center city. From here, I can see Anyang in its entirety.
In my hand, I cradle small flowers pinched off a bush for me. I’ve noticed that all of the local women’s fingertips and nails are dyed a pimento color, and when I complimented the ticket taker here on hers, she had the resident guard rustle these up for me. They crush the flowers and put them in hot water to make a dye.
“Keep these in a safe place until you can use them,” she told me. “And tell the foreigners about our beautiful city.”
Friday
The road to Kaifeng, I learned last night, is paved with corn. And peanuts. And lots of little red tractors the size of your childhood Big Wheel.
The time it takes on a bus from one town to another in Henan province depends on a variety of factors: 1. Mileage from one city to another; 2. Number of passengers and stops; 3. Eggs.
The eggs and the corn were responsible for turning what should have been a two and a half hour journey into an eight hour adventure.
I board the five o’clock bus, which is the last one heading to Kaifeng for the day. There are two other passengers onboard – both self-described businessmen — who ignore me for the most part and devote their time instead to chain smoking until they reach their stop four hours into the journey where they get off in a dark little country town.
Like a lot of long distance buses, this one is owned by a middle-aged couple. He drives the bus; she collects the money and yells out the window to people walking along the highway discounted prices to various locations along the way.
Early on, we come to the point where the corn, piled high in half of the lane on either side of the road, forces the moving vehicles to one middle lane, which can be tough navigating if there’s oncoming traffic. Most of the corn has already been threshed, but people are still busy taking care of the remainder that hasn’t by hand. Corn combines are not a luxury afforded here.
Likewise, neither are silos with built-in dryers. Men, women, and children, for mile after mile, hour after hour on this road, use shovels, rakes and hands to turn the corn over and over to rid it of moisture before packing it into burlap bags.
“They say they do it to make a living, but we’re trying to make a living here too,” complains one of the businessmen looking at his watch.
Fortunately for him, he and his buddy are let off before the bus gets caught in a tractor jam.
Hundreds of farmers riding little red tractors haul a modest trailer piled with corn or peanuts, wife, and kid. I open my window and get noticed.
“Where are you from, foreign friend,” one farmer yells over the din of horns, diesel engines and harvest revelry. Upon my response, he invariably comments, “America is a developed, prosperous nation.” And then, “How much land does the government allow a person to own there?”
Surprisingly, the bus lurches off the paved highway onto a mud jut country road. Errand time has begun. In the next few hours, we pick up eggs from one country home and deliver them to another country home. Outnumbered by the husband and wife team two to one, I choose to remain silent about my misgivings about being dragged along.
It’s worth every last kernel of corn when we finally reach Kaifeng. In my extensive travels throughout China, this place maintains a special place in my heart… namely because my heart is directly connected to my stomach.
Despite the late hour, Kaifeng’s legendary food street is still cooking. A literal mile-long stretch of food stalls barbeque lamb, stew beef, roast pork, steam fish, sauté tofu, pull noodles, stuff dumplings, knead bread, fry vegetables and boil mushrooms. These small eats, as they’re called, are not only incredibly tasty, but cheap as well. I grab a sweet bowl of glutinous rice porridge filled with almonds, sesame seeds, cherries, green raisins, silver tree mushrooms and ice sugar to ensure good dreams.
Maybe it was last night’s porridge or maybe it’s Kaifeng itself, but I feel great today. Despite the rain, I want to walk. I follow my feet down the familiar willow lined streets to Bao Gong Lake where I notice a fish jump.
Several men fishing there notice it too. I ask them what kind of fish they can catch here. “Kaifeng fish,” one replies with either a twinkle or a raindrop in his eye. I ask them whether they are here to fish for food or for fun. Fun, they say. They are drenched and shivering a little, and I conclude that fishermen are crazy everywhere.
Despite being landlocked, Kaifang’s history has always been closely connected to water. During the state of Wei (364 BC) during the Warring States Period, the first of many canals linking the area to the Yellow River was constructed. After being connected to the Grand Canal in the 7th Century, Kaifeng became a major commercial hub. In Zhang Zeduan’s famous painting, “River Scene at Qingming Festival,” the life of Kaifeng’s Northern Song dynasty (AD 960 – 1127) bustles with trade, steams with new technology and spills forth with riches.
After centuries of flooding, that ancient capital has been buried and several more dynasties’ capitals have risen and fallen with the tide. Much evidence of history has remained, such as Qing dynasty structures throughout the city, and other markers, including the Dragon Pavilion, which was built on the site of the original Northern Song palace.
The names of present day construction and landmarks likewise provide testament to Kaifeng’s history. Here the Bao Gong Lake and Bao Gong Temple are dedicated to and named after an official of the Northern Song dynasty who is famous for being an upright, fair and efficient leader. At the temple, many come to pray to him and offer pomegranates the size of fists and packages of Henan’s finest instant noodles.
Although it’s not an ancient site – it was built here from 1984 to 1987 – this place reveals more indigenous and enduring aspects of Chinese culture than any ancient Buddhist temple is able to do. China’s original religion has nothing to do with god and everything to do with politics. Current Chinese leaders make a big deal to come here to display their sympathy to such a character in front of the state-owned news cameras. Some also pay a visit to the more attractive Temple of the Chief Minister, or Da Xiangguo Si, not far from here, which is more beautiful than this one and offers an afternoon Kung Fu show.
I’ve seen all of that already, and so I set off for the nearby Yangqing Temple to see the Tower of the Jade Emperor, which is an old Taoist structure. On the way, I stop to ask a little old man, who is strolling around the lake like someone who knows where he’s going, for directions, which he obliges to give me. He leans on a carved wooden cane and peers at me with keen eyes. “Are you sure you don’t need help?” I reassure him that I can find it on my own and thank him for his help and concern.
Fifteen minutes into my walk, I hear someone yelling, “HALLO!!! HELLOR!!!! HELLO!!!”
I ignore it and keep walking. As a foreigner living in China if you can’t learn to ignore the “Hellos,” it’ll drive you up the Great Wall. Very few unacquainted Chinese actually say “hello” to your face. Usually, you only get them after you have walked by the party. It’s a great game that I haven’t, during my three years here, been able to wrap my head around the pleasure of playing yet. Sometimes it’s taunting; sometimes it’s curiosity. It happens everywhere.
Finally, after five minutes with no good bye in sight for this heckler, I wheel around to face my opponent. I’ve a pre-packaged, “that’s not polite and you’re making me lose face you bastard” speech for occasions like this.
To my surprise, it’s the old man who had given me directions.
“Why didn’t you wait for me,” he asks. “I’ve been calling you for some time now.”
He tells me that from here on out, he’s going with me. He enjoys the walk and the company. He introduces himself as Old Tang. He’s going to be 80 this year and has lived in Kaifeng his entire life.
We tiptoe around puddles and potholes and he tells me a little bit about Kaifeng and its traditions.
“Did you know,” he says, “that Kaifeng baozi are famous all over China? When you pick one up with chopsticks, it looks like a lantern. When you set it down on your plate, it looks like a chrysanthemum.”
When we reach the temple, he tells me he’ll give me a personal tour. He proudly shows me a red card that reads in Chinese, “Old person certification.”
“This allows me to get into the sites for free,” he says proudly.
He waits while I go to buy my ticket. At the door, we bump into trouble.
“Please go to the ticket office and pay a one yuan tax,” the ticket taker says to him.
“A one yuan tax for what? Why?”
“It’s a new policy,” replies the attendant.
“I’ve never heard of this policy. When did this happen?”
Old Tang is growing increasingly upset.
“I don’t need to pay this. Let me in.”
The ticket seller pulls on his umbrella.
“It’s not me. It’s a new policy. Go to the ticket window.”
By this time, people are surrounding little Old Tang, the ticket taker and myself.
“But I’m here to introduce the foreigner to our culture,” Old Tang says.
The ticket taker looks at me for the first time.
“It’s true,” I say.
“Let him in,” the people surrounding us say.
Old Tang’s face has crinkled up as if he’s going to cry.
“I completely don’t understand this,” he says.
It’s a matter of face now. The ticket taker lets us enter. Old Tang gives me an introduction to the sites. I snap a few pictures. The entire time, he seems distracted and is less chatty than he was on the street.
“Things change fast,” he says. “And some things stay the same.”
The comment is cryptic. I don’t know how to respond. Instead, I take his cold hand, wrinkled by time and the rain, in my own and thank him for spending some of his morning with me.
I wish Bao Gong had been here to back us up this morning. I wish the farmers had better equipment. I wish the kids of Henan all had a place to go to school.
But if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about this place it’s that it has heart. In my mind, that’s what they mean when they talk about the origin and the middle plains of any life.
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