The Village People

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!