Friday, April 9
Today promises to be quite an interesting day, as we will see number of historical sights and wares that date back hundreds of years. This will certainly be exciting as the history of China is incredible. I am “fired up” because there are many connections of ancient China with the western world through the centuries. How do I know this? Because I have learned that information from my Social Studies teachers in MIDDLE SCHOOL and high school!
There are many cultural things that one learns as they visit other world cultures. One interesting aspect of the Chinese culture is the food, one topic I feel quite comfortable writing about, which may come as a surprise to my PUMA students. For breakfast the last couple of days I have had cauliflower, tomatoes, noodles, and egg rolls in addition to our traditional bacon, sausage and eggs. For lunch yesterday we had what is called a Pot Lunch. This meal is served with meats, vegetables, and dipping sauces, that you create. Each person has a pot in front of the with hot water that is being heated by a small flame. And then, you choose what you want to put in the pot from a “lazy Susan” that is in the middle of the table that rotates around so that whatever you would like to eat is easily reachable. You then put your choices in the pot, let is boil until it is cooked, eat it and then repeat the process until you are satisfied. It is a lot like eating fondue. For dinner we went to a dinner show that featured a Chinese cultural musical and dancing. Prior to the show, for dinner we had many, many different types of Chinese dumplings (a Colonel Tron favorite). The dumplings are kind of doughy, stuffed and delicious. Again, there are a number of sauces that you can dip them in, whatever type of spice level you would like. The different types of dumplings we had were: beef, pork, a number of different vegetable fillings, shrimp, pickle. They were brought to your table in a pot. Also with the meal we had cucumber, cabbage, parsley, mushrooms, crab, and shrimp dough balls. A couple of the food items need to have a taste acquired for but again, everything was delicious. Enough about the food, now I will you fill you in on my day.
We began the day by going to the wall of Xian that circles the city. The wall is 39 feet tall and 60 feet wide with a large number of towers. Each tower is 100 yards apart so that if there were invaders, they would be able to be deterred by bow and arrows. Thus, 100 yards was what the protector’s thought was a distance where their arrows could be accurate. To further prevent invaders from having the idea they could attack was a moat around the wall that is approximately 75 feet wide. We climbed the stairs to the wall at the South Gate (there are four gates north, south, east, west). Inside the wall there are restrictions on the height of the buildings and that is quite different than outside the wall where there are a number of very tall skyscrapers and apartment buildings. The wall was built by the Ming Dynasty, which began in 1368 and lasted until 1744. The wall is earthen with a brick exterior and is approximately 12 miles around. We biked around the wall and that was very interesting, which I will explain later if time permits.
China has changed quite a bit over the years. There are two systems of government: Communist and government (local). The communist government has the final say in what goes on in the country with anything related to media, television, newspaper, etc. The system, according to our guide works well for China and in many respects may have many of the same workings of our government in some areas, although that there is no doubt that leaders have the final say in matters of interest to China and in his opinion things get down pretty quick when necessary. His example of this is the huge amount of development that is going on as one heads west into China. There is construction everywhere. In fact, some of the work, even though you see modern heavy equipment, is done like in times past my manual labor and craftsmanship.
We came into the city of Xian at night and during the day the city is extremely busy. I relate the traffic, bustle and activity to New York. Xian has a population of 8,000,000 people so there is a lot activity, all the time. The city is very pretty with many trees, flowers and shrubs throughout the city.
We also went to the Historical Museum, The Dayan Pagoda (Mr. Spear would love seeing that!), the Fa Men Temple, and the Confucius Museum where there are many of the actual tablets of Confucius calligraphy dating back hundreds of years (a great spot that Mr. Nelson would enjoy)!
Finally, after our dinner we witnessed an incredible performance at the Shaanxi Grand Opera House by the Tang-Dynasty Palace Music and Dance Company (Mrs. Michael, Mr. Farny and Mrs. Biesecker would have really enjoyed this)! There were ten different acts to the show. Eight of them were dance & song and two were solely ancient instrumental performances. The costumes were incredible, the sounds unique and the entertainment out of this world! It was wonderfully entertaining and delightful.
I will attempt to send some pictures with my next message, hoping they get through.
PUMA students…work hard in school and remember the Simple Six!
