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| Lazy man gets no bread |
Despite
the cold and snow of Indiana, being back in the States is a refreshing breath
of fresh air. Literally. Luxuries like indoor heating, high speed
Internet, and cheese are a high comfort in addition to the things like clear
skylines and phonetic alphabets. The
past few weeks in Wuhan were busier than a beehive in spring. Hopefully the American vacation will renew my
energy and send me back to China ready to tackle the last few months.
Prior
to the eight-day teacher workweek I traveled with the C.E.C.P. group to several
villages around south Hubei province.
Each village had unique structures dating from the period of the Qing
dynasty. The first places we passed had
covered bridges. The next village was a
labyrinth of an old farm palace where possibly a hundred people now live. The whole of the weekend’s villages offered different
sites: a 50 meter long dragon boat,
family temples complete with ancestral remains in decorative coffins, and a
variety of people that both love and disagree with the party’s distribution of
wealth.
Following
the cultural revolution all land was redistributed and the ancient structures
were taken from families that had lived there for hundreds of years. The
families that live there are very poor and survival is their greatest
concern. As a result, the beautiful
structures are in disarray and maintenance is beyond concern. Many people that earn money working in the
city come back to the village and construct modern looking fronts for the
buildings. These villages are
disappearing as China becomes a richer country.
The C.E.C.P. keeps records of these places on their website: http://www.icecp.org/ You can also see many photos of me in the
pictures from the end of the year gala.
Hopefully photos from this weekend’s trip will be up soon.
Saturday
night one of our group members found a very decent hotel for us to stay at 85
RMB/room. Between two people the total
is around $6/person. Each room had clean
beds, heaters, towels, separate bathrooms, and Western style toilets. It sounds like the norm for any hotel in the
states, but a typical Chinese hotel at this price would offer none of the
before-mentioned items. Sometimes
sleeping on a park bench offers greater luxury than a cheap hotel in China.
The
following day was sunny, warm, and full of more villages. The greatest surprise was an unassuming
village with an AMAZING temple and a man who specializes in creating
traditional Chinese coffins. Chinese
villagers try to make their own coffins if they live to a certain age in
preparation for the inevitable. This is
a part of life, which is not easily planned.
In this situation there are specialists who make ancient style coffins
for others. The man went about his work
creating decorative clay handles while we spent a few hours searching the
temple, staging our own Peking opera on their ancient stage, and photographing
both the beautiful ancient details and the cultural revolution marks left in
sloppy red paint. Most people in
villages flock in masse to see foreigners, but this man continued working as if we were a
passing wind.
The
leader of our group shared with this village two boxes of clothes and
children’s toys that another transient member of C.E.C.P. donated. At first many people said it was not
necessary, but after seeing some designer labels, the boxes were emptied in
under five minutes. No fighting and
everyone got something.
We
drove to see the mausoleum of Li Zicheng, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Zicheng),
before having lunch at a mountainside restaurant. The final stop was to see terraced rice
fields, but the road to the fields was recently covered by a mudslide. The diverted travels lead us to a village
funeral where they were honoring an elderly woman with a day of open
mourning. The pre-recorded sobbing
prayers were blasted from giant speakers.
People close to the deceased wore white and covered their heads with
white cloth. There were inflatable
ancestral gates and lions propped in front of the mourning tent and a truck
loaded with huge fireworks. Although the recordings broadcasted from the speakers sounded painfully tragic, people were
smiling, talking, and looking forward to the great firework show that
evening.
Starting
Monday the Montessori teachers of the kindergarten and I worked together for
the next eight days cleaning rooms, creating materials, and talking about
curriculums. It was busy, challenging,
and not completely finished, but certainly off to a great start before the
break. Happy Chinese New Year to all! May this year of the horse be full of hard work and great payoff! Ma shang you qian!
