Three Favourite Gravestones: Armenia, China & Wales

It Isn't Really a Holiday Unless you Have Been Round a Graveyard...

...as Lynne so often says.

Père Lachaise in Paris and Highgate Cemetery in London are well established on the tourist trail, but the graves of non-famous people in non-major cities can also be interesting.

Grave of a Baker
near Goris, Southern Armenia August 2002

We had driven out from Goris to see some ancient cave dwellings. Getting as close to the caves as we could - which was not actually close enough to make them interesting - we walked through a graveyard. Several of the newer headstones bore representations of the deceased in a style we have not seen anywhere else.

The grave of a baker, near Goris, southern Armenia

I imagine he was proud of his profession and wanted the casual visitor to know that he had spent his life producing fine bread - an honourable and noble calling.

Grave of a Miao village
An Chi village, Guizhou Province, South West China November 2010

The Miao are one of China's larger ethnic minorities. 10 million Miao live in communities across south west China with another 1.5 million in northern Vietnam and Laos (where they prefer to be called Hmong). The Miao are divided into a multitude of subgroups, speaking several different though related languages. The Chinese and Vietnamese traditionally classify the groups by the dominant colour of the women's traditional clothing. An Chi, in rural South West Guizhou, is a Black Miao village.

Black Miao women, An Chi

Graves are situated throughout the village and adjoining fields. The distribution appears random but the graves are all in auspicious sites, carefully chosen by the village shaman.

Black Miao gravestone, An Chi

The gravestone names the deceased and gives a detailed genealogy including not only forebears but also descendants who are added, generation by generation, in ever smaller script as they arrive in the world.

The Davies Family Vault
St Cynog's Church, Penderyn, South Wales Summer 1991

Lynne is a keen genealogist and despite the problems caused by the Welsh National Surname Shortage, has traced both our families back through many generations.

It has long been a source of amusement to her then when searching for the graves of my ancestors it is usually sufficient to walk into the churchyard and head for the largest monument. It worked for my paternal grandmother's family in Magor in 2010, and we had found the technique effective for my other grandmother's family in Penderyn twenty years earlier.

Penderyn is a village on the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Since 2000 it has been the home of the first (and only) malt whisky distillery in Wales. More importantly to my ancestors it is only a long drop kick north of the industrial valleys of South Wales, where they made their money.

The Davies family vault, St Cynog's, Penderyn
The picture was taken in 1991. Little has changed, except my daughter
and I are now more than 20 years older

The angel on the top of this Victorian monstrosity is probably pointing the way to heaven. I prefer to think the mason was a cricketer (as, doubtless, God is too) and the angel is the celestial umpire giving my ancestors 'out'.

Three Favourite Taoist (or Daoist Temples): Hong Kong, Huizhou and Qingyan

Daoist Temples in Hong Kong and Southern China

A Little About Daoism and the Transliteration of Chinese Characters

The Bagua used to explain Dao

Taoism/Daoism is not an easy religion for a westerner - most specifically this westerner - to get their heads round. The opening of the Tao Te Ching/Dao De Jing, Taoism/Daoism's key text: The Tao/Dao that can be expressed is not the true Tao/Dao, is not designed to be helpful

But before failing to express it, you should decide how to spell the Tao/Dao. In Chinese it is 道, which means way or path (to which English happily adds –ist or -ism), but how do you render 道 in Latin lettering?

There are, or were, two main transliteration systems. Wade-Giles, developed in the 19th century and the most widely used until the 1970s, gave us ‘Peking’ and ‘Mao Tse Tung’. Pinyin, developed in China in the 1950s prefers ‘Beijing’ and ‘Mao Zedong’. Pinyin is used throughout China (conveniently for western travellers all street names, road signs, metro stations etc., etc. display their names in pinyin as well as Chinese characters). Pinyin is a better approximation to standard mandarin pronunciation and has now been almost universally adopted. Almost, but not quite. A tourist in 北京 (Beijing) can still eat Peking duck, drink Tsingtao Beer and visit a Taoist Temple. In pinyin that would be Beijing duck, Qingdao Beer and Daoist Temple.

Once a spelling has been chosen you then have to consider the distinction between philosophical Daoism (Pinyin is the only realistic choice) and religious Daoism. Some argue that they are not even related, they just happen to have the same name, others that the religion grew from the philosophy.

Philosophical Daoism was developed during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) and is concerned with the individual’s position in the natural order. It emphasises the ‘Three Jewels’, compassion, moderation and humility. Religious Daoism arose some 700 years later probably from a melding of Chinese folk religion with Daoist philosophy. To add further complications, Daoism has no organisational hierarchy, although the same cannot be said of the gods; the Daoist pantheon mirrors the Imperial Chinese bureaucracy, with gods being promoted or demoted on the basis of performance.

Wong Tai Sin Temple, Hong Kong
Visited July 2004

Daoism is Hong Kong's main religion. Temples to Tin Hau, the goddess of the sea, are ubiquitous, but Hong Kong’s biggest temple is dedicated to Wong Tai Sin, a mythical shepherd boy whose job it is to cure illness and bring good fortune.

Wong Tai Sin Temple, Hong Kong

Built in 1973 the temple is probably the least spiritual religious building we have ever visited. Hong Kong is a relentlessly materialistic society and worshipping Wong Tai Sin is just another commercial transaction. The devotees buy some incense sticks and dutifully bow their heads, and in return Wong Tai Sin sorts out whatever needs sorting out - like ensuring good luck for gamblers. Devotions over, temple goers scurry off to shake a pot of bamboo prediction sticks or consult the fortune tellers, whose booths - over a hundred of them - surround the temple.

Devotees at Wong Tai Sin, Hong Kong

A Muslim Uighur we met in Xinjiang (China’s westernmost province and in theory the Uighurs’ Autonomous Region) said, rather contemptuously of his Chinese neighbours (and rulers) ‘They have no religion, only superstition.’ While that might be unfair of the Chinese as a whole, Wong Tie Sin would seem to support his contention. On the other hand there is nothing sanctimonious about the worshippers, and there is a complete lack of hypocrisy. For that reason - and for its optimism and vivacity, I liked the place.

Nine Dragon Wall, Wong Tai Sin

Our 2004 visit to Hong Kong (including Won Tai Sin) and 2005 visit were pre-blog. A three day visit in 2010 is covered in one lengthy post. Our week long 2016 visit spawned seven post (including two Macau posts) and starts here.

Daoist Temple, Huizhou, Guangdong Province
Visited July 2004 and 2005

Huizhou is an unremarkable city in the People’s Republic, some 100 km northeast of Hong Kong. It was here our daughter Siân spent 18 months teaching English, and it was visiting her in Huizhou that sparked our interest in China. Now, seven years later, we have visited the country five times. [update: and again in 2013 and 2016. I do not like Presedent Xi, particularly his attitudes to Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region, we will not visit again until he has gone - so probably no more visits.]

For links to all 75 of my posts labelled China, Hong Kong, Macau or North Korea (and descriptions of some) see my China and North Korea Page.

I generally find Buddhist temples to have a serene and spiritual quality, but I am much less comfortable with Daoism. Siân, on the other hand, complains that, in Huizhou at least, the only contact she had with Buddhists was as persistent and even aggressive chuggers.

Daoist Temple, West Lake, Huzhou

To escape the crowds, which are ever-present in heavily populated Guangdong, she would retreat to the park, the small entrance fee sufficient to provide some peace. The Daoist Temple stands on the edge of the park. ‘I really liked [it]’ she said ‘because it wasn't special, or glitzy (well, enormous gilded statues not withstanding), but... like a church, it had atmosphere….. I always used it in visualisations when you have to choose a place you feel relaxed in when learning to meditate in preparation for childbirth.’ No one would say that of Wong Tai Sin.

Qingyan Daoist Temple, Guizhou Province
Visited Nov 2010

Qingyan walled city

Huizhou may be unremarkable, but the same cannot be said of Qingyan, just south of Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province in southwest China. Since the 1970s China has become interested at looking after (sometimes over-restoring or even faking) its ancient monuments, but there are fewer examples of preserved vernacular architecture. Qingyan is an artfully pickled Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) walled city.

Qingyan Daoist Temple

The Buddhist temple is quiet and serene, the nearby Daoist temple is bustling and busy. The many temple attendants, in all-black uniform, wandered around, always present, always doing something but not apparently interested in us – like shop assistants in Dixon’s.

Raised stage, Qingyan Daoist Temple

What cannot be denied is that with its incense and urns, with its raised stage and surrounding carvings, the place has some style.

Detail of Carvings, Qingyan Daoist Temple

Links and descriptions to all posts primarily about religious buildings can be found on my Temples, Churches, Mosques, Synagogues and More Page.

Rongjiang, Zhaoxing and on to Guangxi: Part 6 of China's Far South West

Meeting Two of China's Ethnic Minorities in the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture

05-Nov-2010

China

We spent the night of the 4th in the county town of Rongjiang County, sometimes called Guzhou City sometimes (and in this blog) Rongjiang. It is a dismal place and we had a poor dinner in a very ordinary hotel.

The next day we set out to meet the Miao and Dong inhabitants of the two southernmost counties of the the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture. The Prefecture is in the southeast of Guizhou Province in south western China.

This post is about the three most southerly counties of Qiandongnan Prefecture  in Guizhou Province

Leaving Rongjiang

Rongjiang means ‘Banyan River’ and we hoped it might make a better effort at living up to its exotically attractive name in the morning sunshine. It failed. Several industrial sites and the building of a new highway had churned up the chalky soil and deposited a layer of white dust over the streets, the buildings and even the trees. As we left, I tried to imagine how the town might look without the dust – it was still ugly. As our road climbed into the hills, Mr Wu looked back down into the valley and said something to Dylan. ‘He says it looks like Afghanistan’ Dylan translated.

Congjiang County

Tingdong Livestock Market

We were soon in pleasanter countryside and, after crossing the hills, descended into the valley of the Duliu River at Tingdong.

Tingdong livestock market

On a field below the road, Tingdong livestock market was in full swing. Walking down the grassy ramp we passed a huge bull buffalo tethered to a stake away from the other cattle. Miao may no longer dismember chickens in the cause of marital harmony, but bull fighting remains a big entertainment. These huge beasts are not pitted against men, but against each other in what must be a titanic battle for the honour of the owning family.

Young bull, 4500 Yuan, Tingdong livestock market

There were buffalo, humped cattle and a compact but powerful breed of what we would recognise as normal cattle. All looked in fine condition and we were offered a young bull for 4500 Yuan (£420).

Miao Women in Traditional Clothing

A small lorry disgorged a load of bristly yellow piglets. They ran about their pen, swarming all over each other in a squealing pile of pigs. Back by the entrance a women pulled a black piglet out of a basket and held it up by it hind legs. The piglet’s loud complaints gathered a small crowd of potential purchasers.

Miao woman baskets of piglets, Tingdong Livestock market

Like livestock markets everywhere, it was largely a masculine affair, but the piglet woman was not alone; other women, were setting up food stalls or selling chickens and eggs. They were all dressed in traditional costume, short skirts or colourful pinafores worn over a tunic and tight leggings of a navy blue cloth with an unnaturally shiny texture. They were all Miao and wore their long hair oiled and coiled in Maio fashion, though the shiny cloth was originally a speciality of the Dong people, another ethnic minority of eastern Guizhou. Locally the Miao have adopted Dong clothing and there has been some intermarriage, although the two communities live largely parallel lives in separate villages.

Miao women, Tingdong market

ppp

Tingdong to Congjiang

From Tingdong to Congjiang we followed the Duliu River. Although its wooded valley is steep, the river is broad and shallow, sparkling over gentle rapids and swirling into lazy pools where fishing boats congregate. It is a clean, beautiful river, reminiscent of the Loire, except for its bright green colour and lack of chateaux.

Congjiang is a long narrow town jammed between the river and the mountain. The main drag is, of necessity, much narrow than in most Han towns, and we felt as though we were driving down a canyon.

Yintan a Dong settlement

Yintan

We turned up a side valley to visit the Dong settlement of Yintan. Most of the three million Dong live in eastern Guizhou with some communities in neighbouring provinces. Unlike the Miao, they build their houses in the valley bottoms. In Yintan, the ground floors are of brick with wooden overhanging upper floors. Yintan is built around the confluence of two streams, both of them full of rubbish.

An ear, some entrails.... Pork stall, Yintan

Dong Drum Towers

Every Dong village has a Drum Tower; a tapering wooden tower like an open pagoda. Larger villages like Yintan, which is more of a small town, have two or more. Built and maintained by one extended family, an extra storey is added for each new generation; some had fourteen or fifteen levels.

Drum Tower, Yintan

Wind and Rain Bridges

Being in the mountains every village has a stream, and across every stream is a ‘Wind and Rain’ bridge, an elaborately carved wooden structure placed, typically, just outside the town. The bridges have two purposes, apart from joining one river bank to another. Situated between the town and its fields they provide shelter for agricultural workers during inclement weather, and in the evening they are a place where young Dong men and women can meet away from the inhibiting eyes of their elders

Wind and Rain Bridge, Yintan

Yintan seemed a bustling little town particularly after the rural quiet of the Miao villages, but along with that bustle came clutter. Miao villages are unnaturally tidy, but in Yintan the streets were full of building material, discarded agricultural equipment and just plain rubbish.

Lunch in Congjiang

We returned to Congjiang for lunch. In a private dining room on the first floor of a small hotel we ate an excellent fish, fresh from the Duliu, served on a bed of spring onions and chillies. Along with this came a dish of runner beans and aubergines, a bowl of mashed pumpkin, some pork with peanuts and chillies and a plate of quartered ‘thousand year old eggs’. The eggs are not really that old, but have been buried long enough to become completely black. The yolks looked like the dyed yolk of any hardboiled egg, the black ‘white’ was shiny and translucent. At first their taste was simply eggy, then a flavour of the sea emerged, like a fresh oyster, and finally there was an aftertaste where the rot and decay seemed to linger. I liked them – until that aftertaste kicked in.

Basha and the 'Long-Haired' Miao

Basha Miao village, up the hill from Congjiang, is the home of the ‘Long-haired Miaos’. The women's hair is immensely long, but neatly coiffed. Dylan said it was the men who have the long hair, but they were all out in the fields, we had to take his word for it. Or not.

...dark blue cloth painted with egg white..., Basha Miao vilage

The women, all in traditional costume, were hard at work treating cloth. The dark blue cloth (we saw a brown version elsewhere) was first painted with egg white, then with pig’s blood and hung up to dry. Once dry it was beaten with large wooden mallets, the plonk, plonking sound being audible all over the village. After prolonged beating the cloth becomes shiny and, to some extent, waterproof.

The cloth is laid out to dry....., Basha Miao village

....and beaten with wooden mallets. Basha Miao village

The village was set among trees, high on a valley side, above terraced fields. Following a path lined with wooden frames draped in drying rice we reached a dell set aside for festivals. The local Miao are animists and a tree is planted at a child’s birth with the hope that, in the fullness of time, it will provide their coffin or at least shade for their burial place.

Drying rice, Basha

Liping County

Leaving Basha we returned to the valley and continued downstream to Diping before turning up a side valley. We travelled deeper and deeper into the mountains and the road rose higher and higher. Terraced fields stepped down the valley sides towards the stream far below. The higher we climbed the more vertiginous the terracing became. Down the noses of truncated spurs, the terraces hung one above another like boxes in a theatre.

Terraced fields, Basha

We climbed to the head of the valley and over a pass into the next one. Instead of descending, we turned along this valley side, first contouring and then climbing even higher to another pass.

Zhaoxing

We descended into a lush valley hidden deep in the mountains. Zhaoxiang nestles on the valley floor, a Dong town of richly mature wooden houses lining a main street with more horse drawn vehicles than cars.

Zhaoxing at dusk

We checked into our wooden hotel next door to the wooden police station and opposite a drum tower. Taking a stroll through the town, we found ourselves walking through a China we had thought only existed in photographs from the beginning of last century. If Rongjiang had been China at its ugliest, Zhaoxing was China at its most delightful.

We had a light meal at one of the barbecue stalls lining the main street. The lady of the house sat behind a brazier nursing a child, the food lying on skewers in front of the brazier. Her husband, specialising in fried rice, operated a wok over a gas ring. We chose skewers of beef, pork, heart (we think), tofu, green beans and a long green leaf threaded backwards and forwards like a concertina. We were relieved when it was served by number one son without any barbecued infant parts being included by mistake. My reluctance to eat scorpions is merely squeamishness, my objection to eating children - call me a bleeding heart liberal if you must – is more ethically based.

Hopefully not popping the baby on the barbecue

Returning to the hotel we could still here the sound of wooden mallets falling rhythmically onto cloth.

06-Nov-2010

In the morning Dylan arrived to show us the way across town to breakfast. Zhaoxing had risen early, we passed a silversmith’s where girls were hard at work on the polishing machines, and we could already hear the sound of mallets upon cloth. There are people whose whole waking lives are spent hitting cloth.

Zhaoxing in the morning

In the morning we crossed town to a restaurant for breakfast. Zhaoxing had risen early, we passed a silversmith’s where girls were hard at work on the polishing machines, and we could already hear the sound of mallets upon cloth. There are people whose whole waking lives are spent hitting cloth.

We passed two lads squatting beside a fire in a metal bowl, roasting rats on kebab skewers. We watched the fur sear off and the skin begin to blacken. Dylan reached behind their front door and brought out the rattraps – spring-loaded snares – which they set in the rice paddies every evening. I half hoped they would offer us a taste despite the rats looking supremely unappetizing. I was mostly relieved when no offer came. Presuming that, as no one would eat rat by choice, that must be all they had and they were far too poor to share, we wandered off to a less challenging breakfast of spicy noodle soup and a fried egg. Later Dylan told us later they ate rat because liked it, and in the market their catch would fetch a similar price to chicken.

Rat kebab

Tang'an

After breakfast we drove back to the top of the pass, then turned up towards the mountain top. The village of Tang’an offers magnificent views over the terraces down the valley to distant Zhaoxing.

Tang'an

Built almost on a flat mountain top rather than a valley bottom Tang’an has been maintained in a strictly pre-industrial state in a Chinese/Norwegian collaboration to produce a living eco-museum. Its site is extraordinary, the views breathtaking, but the village itself is, for the moment, unexceptional. As other Dong communities develop, the isolation will help it maintain its deliberately primitive status, but the authorities will need to ensure the continuing cooperation of the villagers themselves.

Zhaoxing at the bottom of the valley

From the valley top we retraced our steps to Diping, the small town where we had left the Duliu River. We stopped for a closer look at the Wind and Rain Bridge, considered one of the finest in eastern Guizhou.

Wind and Rain Bridge, Diping

After Diping we followed the Duliu River downstream as the valley gradually widened, eventually crossing into Guangxi and arriving at the sizable but undistinguished town of Sanjiang. Here we said farewell to Dylan and Mr Wu and met Liu, our Guangxi guide and her nameless driver.

Ham on a motorbike, Diping

China's Far South West (2010)

Part 1: Kunming and The Stone Forest
Part 2: Shilin to Xingyi
Part 3: Xingyi and on to Huangguoshu
Part 4: Qingyan, Guiyang and on to Kaili
Part 5: Kaili, Xijiang and Rongjiang
Part 6: Rongjiang, Zhaoxing and on to Guangxi
Part 7: Chengyang Dong Villages and the Longsheng Rice Terraces
Part 8: Guilin and the Li River
Part 9: Hong Kong
Part 10: Macau

Kaili, Xijiang and Rongjiang: Part 5 of China's Far Southwest

We were woken at five thirty by an artillery barrage which turned out, on closer inspection, to be firecrackers. I was still wrestling with the concept of sleep when there was a repeat performance, this time including rockets. They were impressive fireworks, but at half past six…..?!  Kaili, we discovered later, had been woken in celebration of a forthcoming wedding. I hope the noisy couple have a long and happy marriage – and enjoy it far away from me.

Impressive fireworks - at 6.30 am, Kaili

We left town on a good new road heading southeast, but soon ran into a roadblock. Some people who had worked on the road had not been paid. Promises had been made and repeatedly broken, so they had taken matters into their own hands, hauled a couple of logs across the road and stopped the traffic. There were some very angry people, but they were not interested in us, so they let Mr Wu improvise a way round the roadblock, in the knowledge that buses and lorries would be unable to follow our route.

It takes a brave and/or angry person to demonstrate in China. We can only guess at what might happen when the police arrived, as they surely would, but the most likely scenario involved the demonstrators being beaten and arrested.


A little further on we stopped across the valley from the Miao village of Jidao and walked down the rough road and over the stone bridge towards the wooden buildings. Jidao is a show village, which means the government have concreted the paths and put up a few signs, but otherwise life carries on as normal. Normal meant almost everybody was away working in the fields, but those who were left, largely older women, got the favourite aunty treatment from Dylan and greeted us warmly.

Drying corn, peanuts, chillies & tobbacco, Jidao

Entering one of the wooden houses, we met an old woman sitting beside a bucket of pork, carefully rubbing a mixture of salt and spices into each individual slab. The cured meat would eventually find its way into the smoker nextdoor.

Curing pork, Jidao

Outside was the main square, and in the corner of the building opposite a small shop. The diminutive shopkeeper dashed out and grabbed hold of my arm. She seemed genuinely impressed by my enormous height, which was a novelty as I generally think of myself as being on the stumpy side. However, as she came up to my elbow, and I was a head taller than Dylan, who might also be described as ‘stumpy’, perhaps she had some excuse.

The sign on the ‘hundred year old barn’ possibly underestimated the age of the village’s second largest building. It is now a communal storehouse but was once used as place of retreat in the event of attack. The largest building had started life as a normal sized house but sections had been added generation by generation as the family had grown until it now occupied the whole of one street.

Like Qangmen, the ground floors were for animals, the balconies were decorated with drying vegetables, and the village was built on a hillside. We walked through the village and down the hill to the stream, which was crossed by a plank bridge. We could have returned to the stone bridge, and that was Lynne’s preference, but eventually Dylan persuaded her to walk the plank – provided she could keep a firm hold of him.

Walking the plank, Jidao

Xijiang, the ‘biggest Miao village in the world’, is reached by driving up a side valley near Jidao, climbing over a pass and then dropping down into the deep valley beyond. It is a town rather than a village, several hundred wooden houses perched on a steep slope above a green river. Despite its remote location, it has been commercialised and we had to pay an entrance fee before negotiating a parking space among the tourist buses.



Xijiang

At the entrance to the village, a group of women in ceremonial costume were lined up as if for a procession, shuffling on the spot to recorded music. We watched them for a while but they seemed in no hurry to move off. Dylan looked at his watch. ‘Time to go’ he said, ‘the show will be starting soon.’



Lined up for a procession
Xijiang Miao village

We hurried off to join the crowd in the main square, but the show started late as a party of VIP guests insisted on demonstrating their importance by holding everybody up. I enjoyed the ‘pensioners’ choir’ and some of the folk instruments, but I am not a fan of dance at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. Scenes from Miao life were acted out to music. Girls skipping daintily through imaginary water filled rice paddies prettily plonking down the open-ended barrels used to trap rice paddy fish may have been idealised, but going fishing in full ceremonial dress, complete with silver horns, seemed a ridiculous idea. The final scene, the fantasy wedding of the Miao ‘Prince’ and ‘Princess’ would have graced any production of Aladdin. I turned and caught Dylan’s eye. ‘It’s not like that, it’s just not like that’ he said shaking his head. The show was culture sterilized and packaged for undemanding tourists and did real Miao culture no service at all. It is customary to blame western tourists for this sort of thing, but of the five hundred or so spectators, four hundred and ninety eight were Chinese.

Aladdin
Xijiang Miao village

Walking from the performance area to the main street, Dylan met a ‘cousin’ from his home village who had recently moved to Xijiang to open a restaurant. There was, he explained, a lot of competition and he was struggling. Dylan loyally led us to his cousin’s little restaurant, but it was immediately obvious that the business was hardly functioning. We sat at a table and drank tea while the cousin chatted with Dylan about what he might cook. The speed with which Chinese restaurants provide food is based on all the chopping being done well in advance, but here nothing seemed to have been prepared. Dylan’s face became increasingly sceptical and we could see the cousin’s self-belief ebbing away as they talked.

Leaving Dylan to solve the problem, we took a stroll through the market that occupied the main street and several side roads. A few stalls were aimed at tourists and sold handicrafts and silver Miao horns, but most provided for local needs. There was little order, a blacksmith selling spade and mattock blades (bring your own handle) stood between an electronic games stall and one hawking cheap clothing. A man with baskets of dripping honeycombs was filling old water bottles and another was selling cheap reading glasses, demonstrating their strength and durability by putting them on the cobbles and smacking them with a mallet.



Honey salesman, Xijaing

While we were walking, Dylan decided his cousin was not up to the job. We would eat with Mr Wu in a nearby restaurant, while Dylan did the decent thing and endured his cousin’s cooking alone.

The restaurant was on the first floor of the building opposite and the planks moved uncomfortably under our feet as we made our way to our table. I wondered for a moment if the constructers had ever considered the possibility of solidly built westerners treading their boards.

The centrepiece of the meal was a firm fleshed, delicately flavoured rice paddy fish, but we also had shredded pork with mushrooms, some green vegetable and a bowl of what looked like thin tree roots with bits of bacon nestling in it. The bacon turned out to be smoked pork, the meat we had seen being cured in Jidao. It was too smoky for my liking – I want to taste what went into the smoker as well as the smoke – but went very well with the roots, called Zhe-er-geng in Mandarin. They had been gently cooked to retain some crunch and had a strong floral, perfume-like flavour, similar to Sichuan pepper, but without the mouth numbing quality. It was an excellent lunch, but every time I shifted on my little wooden stool, I could imagine the three of us plunging through the floor in a shower of rice, fish bones and tree roots.

Zhe-er-geng on sale (in Hong Kong)

The centrepiece of the meal was a firm fleshed, delicately flavoured rice paddy fish, but we also had shredded pork with mushrooms, some green vegetable and a bowl of what looked like thin tree roots with bits of bacon nestling in it. The bacon turned out to be smoked pork, the meat we had seen being cured in Jidao. It was too smoky for my liking – I want to taste what went into the smoker as well as the smoke – but went very well with the roots, called Zhe-er-geng in Mandarin. They had been gently cooked to retain some crunch and had a strong floral, perfume-like flavour, similar to Sichuan pepper, but without the mouth numbing quality. It was an excellent lunch, but every time I shifted on my little wooden stool, I could imagine the three of us plunging through the floor in a shower of rice, fish bones and tree roots.

It took all afternoon to drive over the mountains to Rongjiang where we would spend the night. The distance was modest, but parts of the road were being constructed as we drove over it and twice we had to wait for road building equipment to finish a job before we could move on. Darkness had fallen before we reached our destination.

The road to Rongjiang being constructed as we drove over it

 The Chinese love neon; arrive at any town after dark and you will be greeted by acres of red, purple and lurid green. Any town, that is, except Rongjiang, a dusty, untidy and unloved 40-watt bulb of a town specialising in dimly lit shops and dark vacant lots. Turning off what seemed to be the main street into a courtyard, we found the Dongxiangmi Grand Hotel.  Most of the grandeur was in the name, but our room was clean and comfortable enough.

‘Eat in the hotel’ was Dylan’s advice, ‘there’s nothing else here.’ It was after seven and he was concerned it might close before we got there. As it turned out they went on serving for some hours and the restaurant was a comfortable and apparently sophisticated oasis in the urban desert. Unfortunately, this was only an appearance. Our ‘fragrant chicken’ was dire: tough, lukewarm and in no way fragrant. It was our worst meal of the trip – and among the most expensive.

Later, we walked along the dusty main street to see if there had been an alternative place to eat. There were few people about and the town looked closed, but we did find another restaurant – and it was on fire. A knot of people, presumably the proprietor and family, stood outside in a state of shock, while the residents of adjacent buildings milled about anxiously. Very soon, a fire engine arrived, the flaming wok was quenched and the excitement subsided. There would be cleaning up to do, but there was no real damage.

Rongjiang means ‘Banyan River’ and we hoped it might make a better effort at living up to its exotically attractive name in the morning sunshine. It did not. Various industrial sites and the building of a new highway had churned up the chalky soil and deposited a layer of white dust over the streets, the buildings and even the trees. As we left, I tried to imagine how the town might look without the dust – it was still ugly. As our road climbed into the hills, Mr Wu looked back down into the valley and said something to Dylan. ‘He says it looks like Afghanistan’ Dylan translated.

China's Far South West (2010)

Part 1: Kunming and The Stone Forest
Part 2: Shilin to Xingyi
Part 3: Xingyi and on to Huangguoshu
Part 4: Qingyan, Guiyang and on to Kaili
Part 5: Kaili, Xijiang and Rongjiang
Part 6: Rongjiang, Zhaoxing and on to Guangxi
Part 7: Chengyang Dong Villages and the Longsheng Rice Terraces
Part 8: Guilin and the Li River
Part 9: Hong Kong
Part 10: Macau

Qingyan, Guiyang and on to Kaili Part 4 of China's Far Southwest

A Preserved Town, Guizhou's Modern Capital and Lunch in a Miao Village

03-Nov-2010

China

The Artfully Pickled Qing Dynasty Town of Qingyan

In the morning Mr Wu drove the two of us and local guide, 'Dylan' northeast from near Anshun towards the provincial capital of Guiyang. The mountains, now, were gentler and the largely empty motorway ran past newly harvested paddy fields. At Guiyang we turned south off the ring road, through Huaxi and on to the walled town of Qingyan.

Guizhou Province.South West China
This post is about the region around Guiyang and Kaili in central Guizhou

Chairman Mao hated Chinese architecture and had little respect for history. A 1958 survey listed 8,000 historic monuments in Beijing: Mao decided to retain 78. Today’s regime has more respect for Chinese history - and recognises how effectively such monuments separate tourists from dollars, so the greatest danger is now over-enthusiastic restoration. For a long time the same could not be said for vernacular architecture; China has many people to house and tower blocks are being thrown up in every town and city. The bulldozing of cities’ older quarters was indiscriminate, but the provision of clean, new, draught-proof apartments with running water and electricity meant there are few protests – and, anyway, it takes a brave person to protest in China. But now, several old towns are being preserved (or sometimes rebuilt) as a reminder of how life was, and as a sop to tourists.

Qingyan walled town

Qingyan, a complete Qing dynasty town, is, then, a rare survival. It may have been tarted up and turned into a tourist trap, but that is the price it has to pay.

Stone flagged streets between single storey houses

Once through the impressive town wall, we found ourselves in stone flagged streets between solidly built single storey houses with projecting eaves. If visiting Anchi had been like stepping back in time, this was like stepping into a museum gift shop. The town still has a thriving resident population, as was obvious during the school lunch hour, but most citizens make their living by selling things to tourists

School lunch hour in Qingyan

We visited a large and active Taoist temple,...

Taoist Temple, Qingyan

...peered into the fortune-teller’s offices outside......

Fortune teller, Qingyan

..... and a smaller, quieter Buddhist temple; the two Christian churches were locked.

Buddhist Temple, Qingyan

Several large houses sat in grounds beside the road. We paused in the doorway of a house once, reputedly, the home of Zhou Enlai’s father, though I have been unable to find any reference linking the family to this area.

Maybe the house of Zhou Enlai's father, maybe not

Many shops sold tourist trinkets, and those that did not sold food. The Chinese do not generally have a sweet tooth, so it was unusual to see confectionary being prepared and sold. A melange of sugar and nuts was being boiled up, poured onto tables and beaten with large wooden mallets. After cooling, the sticky, chewy slabs were perfect for removing filings from teeth.

Sugar and nuts being beaten with large wooden mallets, Qingyan

Elsewhere, smoked pork hung from frames, pigs trotters, stewed and glazed, were heaped in vats and piles of spices were laid out on tables.

Smoked pork, spices and more, Qingyan

We might have lunched at one of the many restaurants, but Dylan had other ideas.

Lunch in Huaxi

Huaxi, just far enough south of Guiyang to be considered a separate town rather than a suburb, is the home of Guizhou University, Dylan’s alma mater. Whether the restaurant he chose still doubles as a garden centre was unclear, but tables were laid out in a huge greenhouse amid trees, shrubs and gurgling water features. Despite a higher standard of cleanliness and comfort than we had become used to, the food was not special. The spicy green tofu was good, as was the bowl of bamboo served in its own steamer, but the fried pork and potatoes with a dip of what tasted remarkably like tomato ketchup was less exciting.

The Creatures we did not Eat

After eating, we wandered down to look at the seafood. The array of tanks, with price labels attached, blurred the distinction between aquarium and menu. There were fish, eels, lobsters and many crabs, including a tank full of the rather sinister Horseshoe Crabs that I had seen before only on wildlife programmes. The largest tank, too small for its occupant, held a substantial turtle. ‘For show,’ said Dylan, ‘he’s too big and old to eat’. The same did not apply to the various species of terrapin.

Several species of terrapin

One tank contained not sea creatures, but several hundred scorpions. A few scuttled about the floor, but most lay in a heap, waving their nasty little tails.

Scorpion is on the menu

Lynne and I believe that if other people think something is food, then it is arrogant to turn your nose up at it and stupid to refuse to even try it. We brought our daughter up with the same attitude, and this is her photograph of a bowl of scorpion soup, taken a couple of years ago. She sucked up the broth but when her Cantonese dining companions picked up the scorpions, broke them open and sucked out the insides, she could not bring herself to follow suit. It may go against my philosophy, but I strongly suspect I too would have quailed. I find it difficult to understand the thinking of the first person who looked at a scorpion and shouted ‘lunch’ instead of the much more sensible ‘run away’. Maybe it was desperation, but the price made it clear this is no longer food for the desperate. So why?

Scorpion soup

Guiyang, Capital of Guizhou Province

Guiyang has been described as the obscure capital of one of China’s poorest provinces. It does not feel like that when you are there. Fifty years ago it was a conglomerate of tumbledown houses, now it has enough towering buildings and complicated road systems to qualify as a thoroughly modern city with a quietly confident, almost metropolitan, air. Surrounded by mountains it is a compact and tidy city, though the mountains are reputed to concentrate the pollution. That was not a problem the day we were there.

Modern Guiyang

Mr Wu parked beside the Nanming River. Since Huanhgguoshu we had crossed a watershed; the Nanming was the first river we had encountered flowing north towards the Yangzi basin instead of south towards the South China Sea. The old centre sits beside the river and consists of two Ming pavilions and a small park. It is pleasant enough and the view of modern Guiyang upstream is impressive, but the city has little else to offer the casual visitor. Fortunately, we were only staying one night.

Old Guiyang (and young me)

That evening we walked around the block looking for somewhere to eat. Finding a restaurant in China is rarely difficult, but the usual tatty little places looked unfrequented and unappealing. Eventually we spotted a larger establishment across the road, which seemed to be bustling. Inside, we were quickly ushered to the only remaining table and were seated before we realised it was a hotpot restaurant.

Hotpot is popular in many parts of China, but remains virtually unknown in Chinese restaurants in England. The tables have a hole in the top with a gas burner beneath. A wok arrives containing stock, a few vegetables and some lumps of tofu, and is placed over the burner. There are regional variations; in Sichuan a few chillies are added (‘a few chillies’ in Sichuan means forty of fifty’) and elsewhere the pot is divided ying and yang style with spicy stock in one side and plain the other. In Guiyang it was just plain, but we were given a spicy dip if that became too boring. Choosing other ingredients from the long list presented a problem, but a young woman at the next table kindly lent us her linguistic expertise. Selecting from those items she knew the English for, we ended up with potatoes, a variety of sliced meats and some offal based meatballs. We had a good meal, but I can never entirely still the little voice telling me that it is perverse to go to a restaurant and then cook your own food.

04-Nov-2010

The Miao Village of Qangmen

Guiyang was the most northerly point of our journey, and next morning we turned southeast, heading, ultimately for Guilin in Guangxi Province.

It was a dull, cold morning and we drove along a deserted motorway through misty hills. We left the motorway at Kaili, heading away from the town before taking a narrow road into the mountains towards the Miao village of Qangmen.

On the way, we passed three people harvesting sweet potatoes in a tiny field. A man was mattocking the vegetables out of the ground, a women was cutting off the tops and stacking them for use as animal feed, and another man squatted in the mud cleaning up the potatoes and putting them in a sack. They were Miao so, naturally Dylan stopped to talk. They came, they told us, not from nearby Qangmen put from a village on the other side of the valley. When they had finished they would walk home, the heavy sacks hanging from carry poles.

Harvesting sweet potatoes

Qangmen is a 'Long-Horn' Miao village of some 1500 people. The wooden houses have animal sheds on the ground floor, with the human accommodation above being approached by a balcony. Along the balcony vegetables are hung out to dry, corncobs, chillies, rice and peanuts all twisted into decorative shapes. Like most Miao villages, Qangmen is built on a hillside, so every living room looks out over the neighbour’s roof towards the communal fields below.

...along the balcony vegetables are hung out to dry...

More than a hundred people were gathered in the central square, squatting in groups or sitting on tiny wooden stools. There had been a funeral and the mourners had gathered for a communal meal. Most of the women wore a working version of traditional dress, but all had their long hair carefully oiled and elaborately coiled, with a comb stuck in the back to keep everything in place.

...more than a hundred people gathered in the central square...

We had lunch in one of the newer wooden houses by the main road. We were greeted by two women in full ceremonial dress, long horns included, who sang a welcome and offered us a cup of rice wine.

We were greeted by two women in full ceremonial dress...

Tradition dictates that the host holds the cup while the guest leans forward and has the wine poured down their throat. Commercial rice wines can be glutinous with some not altogether wholesome flavours but this home-brew was light and clean with a pleasant balance of acidity. It was fortunate that we liked it, because once one cup had been poured down us, the rules demanded that a second went the same way.

a cup of rice wine

A wooden plaque informed us the owners were permitted to operate a tourist restaurant, albeit a restaurant with one table. There was also only one wok, but it was huge. One of them fed wood into the fire while the second poured in some oil and set about cooking our lunch. We watched her stir-fry some strips of pork before returning to the table to await our meal.

Preparing our lunch

Once the ingredients are prepared, Chinese meals are quickly cooked. Soon the table was covered with dishes; soup with tofu, spring onions with white radishes, green beans with pork, red radish strips with chillies and pork, potato strips cooked in stock, an omelette, bamboo with meat and bowls of the Miao’s favourite sticky rice.

It was a fine and filling meal

It was a fine and filling meal, briefly interrupted by more singing and more pouring of rice wine down our throats. Too often, tourists are served up a pre-packaged version of a culture on the verge of extinction. Just occasionally, in places where mass tourism has not reached, you meet people who are proud of their still living culture and are pleased to share it with you. This was one of those times and it was a thrilling and humbling experience.

We reluctantly said our goodbyes to the villagers of Qangmen...

Farewell to Qangmen

Paper Making at Shiqaio

... and a kilometre or so down the road Mr Wu stopped beside a small track heading into a valley. Dylan watered the bushes while Lynne and I walked down the track wondering what we could possibly find. Rounding a bend we came across a forest of fine meshed frames on which newly-made paper was drying. Inside the large cave beyond, three people were busy dipping more frames into vats of watery pulp. We knew we were going to see a papermaking factory, but had not expected it to be in a cave.

A forest of fine meshed frames

We watched the highly skilled, if rather repetitive, work for a while...

Paper making in a cave

....before driving on to Shiqaio, the papermaker’s village.

Main street of Shiqaio 

Along a single street of wooden houses we saw old women picking over shredded bark, an old man beating pulp with a venerable mechanical hammer, a woman painstakingly separating the wads of damp paper brought up from the cave and sticking the single sheets onto a wall to dry, and a group of women counting and smoothing out sheet after sheet of finished paper. Apart from one man threshing rice in the street and another sitting on a sofa drinking beer, everyone in Shiqaio seemed to be busy papermaking.

..beating pulp with a venerable mechanical hammer..

With no distinction between home and factory, life went on as it has for the last century or two - apart from the addition of electric lights and an outbreak of satellite dishes. At the end of the street, stuck on a wall, was the plan of new Shiqaio. It seems the government intend to demolish the village and move it to a site across the river, where it can be opened up as a tourist attraction. A pity no one had asked the locals if that was what they wanted.

new Shiqaio

Kaili

We returned to Kaili with mixed feelings. The Heaven Sent Hotel, right on the central roundabout, represented an emphatic return to the twenty first century. We checked in early enough to visit the post office - a waste of time, as they had no stamps for ‘abroad’ – and to take a stroll round the central shopping mall.

The centre of Kaili

Later, we dined at a small restaurant where they boiled up individual meals in cast iron pots over a gas brazier. It was largely noodles in tomato sauce with a couple of pieces of sausage and a meatball or two, but we had enjoyed a large lunch and 45 pence each represented a cheap diner by any standard.

China's Far South West (2010)

Part 1: Kunming and The Stone Forest
Part 2: Shilin to Xingyi
Part 3: Xingyi and on to Huangguoshu
Part 4: Qingyan, Guiyang and on to Kaili
Part 5: Kaili, Xijiang and Rongjiang
Part 6: Rongjiang, Zhaoxing and on to Guangxi
Part 7: Chengyang Dong Villages and the Longsheng Rice Terraces
Part 8: Guilin and the Li River
Part 9: Hong Kong
Part 10: Macau