Tianjin, a large (over 11M people) second tier city near Beijing, is also seeing explosive growth (e.g., new buildings going up everywhere you look). The city has much western architecture, a remnant of the French, British and German populations that once lived there in foreign concessions.
While down in Lanxi, we also had a chance to visit the nationally well known and very unique Zhu-Ge Ba Gua Cun (Eight Diagrams Village). The village was designed and constructed 700 years ago by Zhu-Ge Dashi, 27th descendant of Zhu-Ge Liang (a famous statesman, ideologist and strategist during the Three Kingdoms Period, 220 -280 A.D.), following the design of the Eight Diagrams. This layout was used because Zhu-Ge Liang applied the theory of the Eight Diagrams to military formation, which was very effective in defeating rivals. The village center is the Bell Pond, divided into yin (water) and yang (land). Eight lanes radiate outward from it, forming the inner Bagua (eight diagrams) and carving the village into eight blocks. The village is surrounded by eight hills, representing the outer Bagua. To newcomers, the village is like a labyrinth, with many dead-end lanes impossible to navigate without a guide (or so the story goes … we didn’t get lost too many times ;-)).
The design of Eight Diagrams, which is painted on a wall near the Bell Pond (not pictured).
A picture of the village ...
... and, of course, many of the trees were decorated for the Chinese New Year.
Finally, I couldn’t resist taking this picture to show the stark contrast (which has become very prevalent in China) of a brand new BMW parked in a village where the locals are still washing their clothes in the nearby pond.
I want to share my most recent experience of a “real” Chinese New Year in rural Zhejiang Province. One day before the official start of the week-long holiday in China, Vivian, my girlfriend [at the time], and I took an express train down to Jinhua to celebrate the New Year with her parents, her brother and his wife, and her aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. The experience was wonderful! Imagine a warm family celebration with multiple Thanksgiving feasts, Independence Day fireworks, and Christmas/Hanukkah gift exchanges all wrapped into one—Chinese New Year (for many of China’s over 1.3 billion people, the one time each year that the whole family can get together) has all of this. Needless to say, this was a truly unique experience, one that several of my Chinese friends who grew up in the big cities even tell me that they have yet to experience. Add to the mix that I did not see another foreigner for 6 days and you will get an even better picture.
Before sharing some pictures, let me add one more element to the story … you see Southern China was experiencing some of the worst snow/ice storms in over 50 years (and perhaps you can’t imagine the resulting havoc that these storms wreaked on the transportation system, during the world’s largest annual human migration for the Chinese New Year no less). We were very lucky to get first class seats on an express train (only 2.5 hours) down to Jinhua station. Once in Jinhua, getting a taxi to Vivian’s parent’s place in Lanxi was not quite as easy, but finally we made it just fine.
In and amongst all of the tradition, food was certainly a major theme …
Here is Vivian’s mother preparing one of many feasts in the kitchen.
Here are just some of the preserved chickens, ducks, fish, sausages, pork, etc. that Vivian’s father had prepared for this festival.
On the eve of the Chinese New Year, Vivian’s mom prepared rice and tofu in bowls with red paper on top as a traditional symbolic offering to the family ancestors.
Vivian’s father lighting incense as part of the ceremony.
Then, the feast was set (or at least the first course of it).
Of course, there was also plenty of wine--in this case, red sticky rice wine (米酒) that Vivian’s father makes from scratch every year--straight from the vat.
At sun down, the fireworks began (including the ones that we lit), and they just kept going … all night and everywhere … next door, over the roofs, across the fields … EVERYWHERE!
Nevertheless, after staying up past midnight, we were able to sleep well into the morning despite the intermittent “kaboom” of fireworks, “rat-tat-tat” of firecrackers, and having all the lights in the house on all night (another local tradition).
In October 2006, I took an amazing trip to the West of China (Yunnan and Sichuan provinces) with my parents. Here are just a few of the over 500 pics I took.
This is Black Dragon Pond Park in Lijiang (Yunnan) … we were very lucky to have great weather.
This is inside the ancient city in Lijiang at night.
Yes, yak riding … who’s that handsome Naxi tribesman? ;-)
This is the Stone Forest outside of Kunming (Yunnan) … hard to believe that all of these great stone sculptures were molded by nature.
This is Jing Jing, China’s 2008 Olympic mascot at the Panda Research Base in Chengdu (Sichuan).
As great as the Pandas were, I think Dad was even more excited to see this group of school children, who were equally excited to be using their English … “Hello!”
This is Huang Long (Yellow Dragon) National Park in Sichuan province … like the Tibetan cowboy hat?
The Autumn colors were truly amazing.
Our final destination was Jiuzhaigou National Park, which is most famous for its incredible multi-colored lakes.
Crystal clear water with tones of turquoise reflecting the multicolor trees ...
... great hiking paths between the lakes ...
... and the waterfalls were pretty impressive as well.