China, Day 3

March 30, 2003

Once again, I opted for miso soup, salad, sliced meats, and pate for breakfast. Bacon and eggs get very boring on tours. 

China’s population is four times that of Great Britain, Canada, and the USA combined. 

Our highlight for the day was the White Buddha, home of the monks with close-cropped hair and saffron and brown robes. The jade of the Buddha looks like ivory with tinges of beige. It has a warm look, which might have been caused by the lighting. The Buddhas were spared during the Cultural Revolution because they had a picture of Chairman Mao on the wall of the temple.

The deferred maintenance continued. One day the decorative carvings on the outside of the buildings will crumble to dust. The smell of incense was heavy throughout the whole temple complex. People were pushing through (it was Sunday) as if they were on a mission (and I guess they were), heading for the front of the crowd so they could bow to the Buddha (and the Bodisavas) and leave their offerings of money, food, and flowers.

We were fortunate enough to arrive just as the monks filed in, chanting in time to the beat of a drum. The nuns also have the short hair and wear robes like the monks, but a shade darker in color. More photos HERE. 

Our next stop was the silk rug factory. The technique requires a sturdy back and young eyes. The backing layer of threads (either cotton or silk) are mounted on a vertical loom. The weaver sits on a wooden board in front of the backing, with the paper pattern right in front of her (usually a her), and with a “scraper” inserts the colored threads and “scrapes” them into place. 

After the weaving is finished, the next person uses electric clippers to create the highs and lows of sculpted patterns. The fringe knots are tied at the ends, and the rug is complete. Silk backing creates a much finer and more expensive rug. The intricate tiny patterns cost lots more than rugs with large areas of a single color, as in a rug with a center and border of flowers and a solid color background.

I liked the tour and loved the beautiful colors and designs, but once I actually touched the rugs, I fell in love. I tried to identify the feel but could only come up with a combination of rose petals, the finest velvet, and a baby’s bare bottom. If I ever win the lottery, I will have a silk rug. More photos HERE.

We had another Chinese lunch with the ever-present round tables and lazy susans. For some unknown reason, the soup always arrived at the end of the meal (just before the watermelon), and was always very bland.

Then we headed for the airport for a flight to Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province. The flight was only an hour, but the attendants rushed around and served beverages and then a small snack box. The boxes were the thin, flimsy see-through plastic you find in deli counters, but were still able to contain the smell of dried fish, which jumped out at you the minute you removed the top. There were three small slices of white bread with a silver aluminum packet of something dense, but squishy, like cream cheese. When asked, the attendant told me it was “vegetable.” I’ll never know. I wasn’t brave enough to open it after the encounter with the dried fish, which smelled terrible even though it was enclosed in cellophane. We also had a small packet of strawberry jam (for the bread?), some almond cookies, Hershey kisses, a “strawberry cake,” which was a strawberry jelly-filled Twinkie, and some cherry candy. Just a few things to start my afternoon with a carb-induced fog. 

We had a tour of Wuhan, which reminded me of Tijuana, had the signs been in Spanish instead of Chinese, except that many people live in high rises and some have little ledges which are used to dispose of rubbish or to store mops, buckets, or whatever. I even saw a tiny chicken coop just large enough to house two grown chickens. I hoped they were going to be dinner soon, rather than being held as captive egg producers. Wuhan rivaled Amsterdam for ratio of bicycles to people.

There were the ever-present poles and lines with drying laundry outside the windows, on the roof, or on lines strung between poles or trees on the ground. I even saw some on the Shanghai street corner right down town. The pole sticks which are perpendicular to the buildings dry shirts and jackets by sticking the pole through the sleeves.

We stopped on the way to the hotel for another lazy susan dinner. Some things are always the same, and others vary by province. I discovered that I love breaded and deep-fried lotus root.

Again, a five-star hotel. Paradise. I could get used to this kind of treatment; fluffy white robes, straw slippers, a phone in the bathroom, a TV speaker in the bathroom so you don’t miss anything, a room safe, a separate tub and shower, and a first for me – fire escape masks in metal boxes in the closet. 

The lobby and common areas were beautiful, and again, another small and limited gift shop. 

I did my chores, got into bed, and fell into a deep sleep. At 1:30 a.m. a large party of Chinese came chattering and shouting down the hall. Judging by the noise level, I thought we might be caught in another Revolution. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so another groggy day ahead.

To be continued. . . . .