Fujian and Beijing

What up? What up? China has been good to me and my family so far. I started in the south with my professor and worked my way up north to meet my dad. Traveling with my professor's family was great, because the Fujian region is not visited much by foreigners, and so you really need Chinese. Because I was hanging with the Chinese, that meant I got to go to all of the places that I would have never chosen for myself--like places where they bring out bamboo tablet menus in dingy looking seafood restaurants that happen to serve excellent sea snails (my first time!)

The photo is of me in front of a giant Lao-tze from the Song dynasty. It is carved into one of the surrounding mountains of Quanzhou, and had we hiked higher up (we would have but it was too late) we would have seen several other carvings of buddhas, giant Chinese characters on peaks, ancient runes to past emperors and sea gods.

It does look like I might have a project in front of me. I am researching an Indian merchant community that settled in China during the 13th century. These bas reliefs of yalis, mythological animalistic figures, have been taken from an Indian temple and reinstalled into a Buddhist shrine. There are lots of other Indian carvings in the local museum, all of which are significant for surveying cross-cultural interactions.

The next picture is of me (wearing the same shirt and some intensely dorky shorts which I have not since removed) and my dad in front of the Forbidden City in Beijing. Beijing is a rather fantastic city, with so much to see and do. Though our somewhat unscrupulous tour guide dragged us to every tourist trap "factory" in the book to pick up souvenirs, we still managed to have a fabulous time. Of course we visited the Great Wall. . .
. . .and listened to impromptu Beijing opera in the park! I have to say that Beijing park was really inspiring. The retirement age here is really young, around 45, and most of the people in the park seemed to fit into the retiree bracket. Not only did the park provide a great community for the elderly, it also allows them a place to stay really active. I saw so many people playing hackey sack, practicing Tai Chi, doing Tango. . . definitely not the scene in Central Park.

I will be back soon, as I have internet access in my hotel room for the next 24 hours.