Quanzhou

When Hilda's mother and nephew visited, Calliope, Anton, and I visited the Kaiyuan Temple there in Quanzhou. Although famous for a pair of stone pagodas that were built in the 13th century, we spent most of our time taking in the stone carving. Inside the temples, the carvings depicted various Buddhist themes and stories. The depth of the delicate carvings made the figures jump out of the stone.

Outside of the temples were many scenes from everyday life. I don't read many Chinese characters, so I guessed as to the underlying meanings of each panel. I was amazed to see a panel showing a street-sweeper. Truly, in Xiamen, there is an army of street-cleaners out and about, on any given day, at any given time. A panel with a swing hanging from what look like palm fronds caught my attention. We used to have a super-long rope swing hanging from a huge Cuban Laurel in our backyard. When we removed the tree, there were no other trees to support a rope swing; so, we have done without for many years. But we do have palm trees. I am still contemplating our palm-tree/rope-swing options. One panel looked like it could have been a depiction of a "dog-eat-dog" perspective on our universe. But, in this case, it was "fish-eat-fish". There were hundreds of these simple panels around the various courtyards, as well as many other items of interest. Today Calliope and I returned to Quanzhou to walk through China's only Maritime Museum. Quanzhou was at the heart of the ancient maritime silk route, and this museum chronicles China's boat-building history. Nobody we asked seemed to have ever heard of this museum. We walked in several directions and finally decided to take a cab. We figured we could count on a cab driver to know where all the museums were. Not! Calliope could say the name of the museum in Mandarin. We had it written in Chinese characters, but even the cab driver had to call a buddy to find out where this museum was. We arrived to find a deserted building. There wasn't a single tour bus; there were no other patrons; even the reception guards had abandoned their post. And although the museum was loaded with air conditioners, not one of them worked. It being a very hot day, we were driven to investigate. We found that some of the units were empty shells with no actual parts inside. We proceeded with caution.

My favorite parts of the museum were the detailed models of historic boat designs and materials. There were at least one hundred beautifully crafted models with descriptions as to their purpose and history, as well as the environments in which they were used. I include the following two models here, only because they made me laugh, and not because they were particularly important.

The Red Dragon Boat from the Ming dynasty, was "... a battleship designed to frighten the enemy with its terrifying appearance and color." And how many of the crew would fall for the old bottomless boat trick? It was described as a "... battleship designed to lure the enemy into leaping aboard, whereupon they would fall into the water and drown." Since many (most?) Chinese people today don't know how to swim, or don't know how to swim well, perhaps this devious boat worked better than I would expect. In Xiamen, I gave an adult friend a swimming lesson.

Part of the mission of the museum included glorifying China's fabulous history of inventing everything that had anything to do with boats. It's one thing to take pride in one's history and one's culture. It's quite another to use historical reinterpretation to claim credit for all of humanity's great inventions. Based only on the limited number of museums and rock inscriptions I have viewed, this is characteristically Chinese. Update: I have it from a reliable source that there is significant evidence to justify the claims surrounding China's invention of so much in the maritime world. There is a book that I have yet to read, called 1421, that documents this.

Quanzhou is also home to a marionette museum (no photography allowed). Puppetry has a long history in this area. We took refuge in the Guandi temple during a downpour and witnessed a long procession of people bringing paper money to the incinerator to burn for their ancestors We stopped for tea in the quaintest of tea houses. The menu was written on bamboo panels. There was an old mosque nearby. Traffic overflowed the streets onto the pedestrian sidewalks and crosswalks. We passed an alley where recyclers on foot, bicycle, and motorcycle were bringing their goods.

Xiamen Fashion Scene

I should have been tipped off, when we first arrived and went shopping for sneakers for Calliope. Last year's sneakers were on sale upstairs at a significant discount. Xiamen is a fashion-conscious town. Especially amongst the women. The styles are a cross between 1950's-barbie-doll and what's-cool.

Fashion-watching is a constant source of entertainment on the bus. Notice the color-coordination, the accessories, as well as the heels. There is a calm and lovely art space, where they put up exhibits and stage performances, which has nothing to do with clothing styles. Except that in the storefront window downstairs, there is currently a glamorous, larger-than-life, very-high-heeled shoe.

During our first week in Xiamen, many people approached Calliope to see if she would agree to pose for a photo with them and their friends. A couple of weeks after we arrived, Calliope and I played frisbee on the Xiamen University campus. Calliope was hoping to gather some students who might like to learn how to play. Instead, she attracted photographers. They seemed to emerge from the bushes with their cameras and long lenses ready to catch Calliope in action.

I realized that most Chinese people didn't feel it was a brazen imposition to take pictures of us. And the reverse was also true. They didn't give a hoot about us taking pictures of them. Although I was hesitant, I took my first picture of two young women in their Xiamenesque outfits, looking more like models than students. I asked permission first, and found, to my surprise, that they were both flattered and delighted.

Even if I were sorely tempted to purchase one of these lovely Xiamenesque dresses, it turns out that I do not fit into Chinese clothing. I am apparently an XX-Large in baggy pants. And most of the tops are at least partially synthetic. However, both Calliope and Hilda have been much more successful with their clothing purchases. Calliope will be rocking the streets of Waltham. And some of Hilda's younger relatives may be gracing their fair cities with Xiamen fashion themes.

On Ficus Trees

Banyan trees are one of my all-time favorite offerings of Mother Nature. Once they get large enough, they provide great shade, light play through the leaves and aerial roots, and a playground for tree climbers. They are a type of ficus. Ficus trees tend to crack walls and destroy foundations in Florida. The common fig, on which luscious figs grow; the Cuban laurel, a vigorous destroyer of sidewalks; and rubber tree plants are all types of ficus.

I am happy to report that Xiamen is practically covered in ficus trees.

They are planted every five feet right in the sidewalks, but don't appear to cause much damage, if any. The sidewalks are made up of concrete tiles, so perhaps as the trees grow, a ring of tiles are removed to make way for the expanding roots.

Or perhaps, as with older housing, older towns, and beautiful flower arrangements, the government simply replaces the trees with something new. I like the notion that the ficus trees grow differently here - just another small piece of our universe's underlying mechanics that we don't understand.

Our tài jí quán class (that's Tai Chi in pinyin) is held under a beautiful banyan on the University of Xiamen campus. It is several hundred years old, which means that the University grew up around the tree! Most of the temples I have visited have some very old banyan trees growing a maze of roots over and around rocks. Gulang Yu sports some gorgeous specimens that tower over the walled gardens in which they grow. And, of course, when they are near water, ficus trees are at their best.

Road Trip

This weekend we hired a driver to take us to the Hakka earth buildings. The road took us into the mountains, through bamboo hillsides, tea farms and rice terraces. From a distance this hill appeared to be covered with giant ferns. Upon closer inspection, they were a variety of bamboo. We caught a farmer out working his field with a water buffalo. The views were lovely and lacked most of the constant haze we have in Xiamen.

The Hakka are an ethnic group geographically based in the mountains west of Xiamen, spanning several provinces. Their rammed earth buildings, called tulou, are unique architecturally. Our driver first took us to the tulou complex known as "four dish and one soup". As we approached the first tulou on foot, a man holding a baby was standing outside. We made conversation with him and he immediately invited us in for tea. Together, we walked into their kitchen. His daughter joined us in conversation. They served tea in the tiniest cups I have ever used. They were even smaller than a child's tea set. Thankfully, these folks spoke Mandarin, because we would have been dead in the water, if we had to speak Hakka. We established that there were ten families living communally in this tulou. Each family had its own kitchen on the first floor. We had found an ancient form of co-housing that has stood the test of time! An English-speaking visitor from Shanghai joined us for a quick cup of tea. After a brief exchange with our hosts, she explained to us that this tulou was built in the 14th century. WOW! These structures had withstood strong winds and earthquakes. My guidebook indicates that the juice of glutinous rice and some lime were mixed into the earth for strength, and that sliced bamboo, reeds, and sometimes pieces of wood were also used. Due to the thick earthen walls, the kitchen where we were sitting was reasonably cool, even on this very hot day. They even invited us for a meal.

We climbed up to the second floor to check out the bedrooms. I could see that some of the construction was fired brick. The interior framing, pillars, and walls were made from sturdy-looking wood. Each room had a door and a window facing the interior courtyard. This provided natural lighting and some ventilation. The bedrooms were all locked. Everybody was hanging out downstairs. The next tulou we visited had more activity in their courtyard All of the tulous we visited had converted part of their ground level open areas to vendors selling souvenirs. The largest tulou we visited had a thriving market to take advantage of the busloads of tourists coming through. All of the tulous we visited had one large, thick, wooden/metal door to get inside the structure. Most had no windows facing outside on the first couple of floors. They had a well somewhere in the open courtyard - complete with fish. This made for a defensible structure that had everything they needed to survive for short periods of time. We had lunch at a picturesque river village inside a destroyed and partially renovated tulou. They were using their interior courtyard to dry medicine, beans, and laundry. Our lunch included one vegetable they grow locally that we could not identify. (Hint: it's not the green onions or the carrots) The village is home to a temple that honors the ancestors of the Zhang clan. A plaque explains how the stone dragon carvings used to be erected to honor their high ranking ancestors. Now they erect stone dragon carvings to honor overseas Chinese donors.

At this point, our wonderful journey disintegrated. At lunch, our driver indicated that he had never heard of the tulou I had originally asked him to drive us to. Instead he had brought us to the tulous pictured above. Then after lunch, he claimed there was a landslide between this village and all the tulous we had told him we wanted to visit. He refused to stop at the entrance/exit to ask about an alternate route. He refused to drive us on the proper road, claiming that all the roads led back to Xiamen, except for one very narrow motorcycle route, which was too narrow for a car. After the driver spent a slow hour not following the directions given by the local people, we realized that we really had no leverage to force him to drive anywhere. Our weekend trip to the Yongding tulous had turned into a long day trip to the Nanjing tulous.

Amazingly, when we asked local people for directions, if they were near their home, they would immediately invite us for tea. It truly is part of their culture, not just a show put on for the tourists visiting the tulous. Here are some more pictures to give you more of a flavor of our day.