The Hanging Coffins of Gongxian County, Sichuan, China. Most Unique Plac...

The mysterious hanging coffins of China. And not just China at that - Sichuan, China - MY province! I've been in Sichuan for nearly four years, and I only just heard of these recently! The Bo people of what is now Gongxian County, Sichuan died out about 400 years ago, supposedly massacred by Ming imperial troops, leaving behind no written records, no monuments.....except for the hanging coffins.
The hanging coffins just may be the most unique place I've ever visited. It's so far off the beaten path that even the locals asked us, "How did you know about these?" I've never been asked that before! Haha
You'll have to take a bus from Chengdu (Wukuaishi Bus Station) to Gongxian (Gong County), then from Gongxian to Luobiao Village, where the coffins are located.
This is not your "ordinary" classical Chinese history. This is something completely different and unexpected. Come and check it out with us!
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Visiting the HANGING COFFINS of Gongxian County, Sichuan, China - Part O...

This is PART 1/2 of my trip to Luobiao Village, Gongxian County, Sichuan, China in order to see the Hanging Coffins of the Bo people. The journey was such that I felt it merited its very own video! We passed through countless tiny towns and villages and wound our way through the Chinese countryside as we got closer and closer to our destination; it would be nine hours before we arrived. Think of that - a full day's travel without even leaving the province!!

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Feel free to subscribe to see more videos about what it is like to be an American (or any kind of foreigner) in China! All are welcome!

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/letchinasleep2

Twitter: @LetChinaSleep

我的微博：@懒惰老外

The Cave Homes of Gansu Videos!

Hey, guys!

I finally finished putting together my second video about visiting rural Gansu (赵台，in the country) and staying in a cave home with my friend's relatives. It was a rare opportunity, and I'm really happy that I got to experience it. Hopefully, I'll be able to go back soon!

For those of you who don't know, I visited an area in rural Gansu Province with two of my friends to visit some of their relatives. They live in some of the most beautiful (and remote) countryside I have ever seen. I was blown away by the difference in our lives, and I think about it every day. Please watch these videos. There are embeds from both YouTube and Youku.






This was my original video about going there - I'm sure some of you have already seen it, but I thought I'd put it up again anyway so you guys could watch them in order. As always, it's on Youku and YouTube! Thanks for watching! I'll have more to say on the second video! Scroll down!

 


The second of the two videos is the one that deals with the underlying reality and what I was (and am still) thinking about in regards to the experience. I hope it'll give you something to think about! Please watch them and enjoy them - it's not a huge investment of your time.

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The Cave Homes of Gansu

One of the things that I was looking forward to the most on my trip to Gansu in June was the prospect of going to a remote mountain village and staying in a cave.

Yeah, a freaking cave. People do actually live in caves in China - it's not just those stereotypes in the Middle East.

That's it there on the left - it's not just a giant hole in the side of a cliff. They've made it into a home, believe it or not.

They cut out a door-sized hole and a window-sized hole into the side of the mountain, and just burrow out a decent-sized hole, round it out and make it work, and then - BAM - time to move in!

For some reason, I didn't take a picture of the inside - but I do have a video clip of it included in the video below, if you are so inclined to watch it.

The cave itself was pretty nice - it was cool although the weather outside was nice. There was a big bed, wallpaper, a dresser, a TV, and all the other "fixings" for a home. It wasn't this big scary unlivable place - it was rather nice.

Where is this place, you might ask?

It is called 赵台 (Zhao Tai). It's in the  countryside.

I just know that we drove from Huan County (环县) for about 5 hours to get there.

5 hours of the craziest, bumpiest, and scariest roads through some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen.

This is the stuff that I had only read about in books and seen in National Geographic.

Terraced mountains literally surround the caves that me, Elena, and Ben are staying in.

The signs of the harvest are everywhere.

The few people that have chainsaws or weed-eaters are letting them loose in the fields, but the rest of the people have their scythes and are at work under the bright glare of the noon sun.

Wheat and apricots are what's being harvested now - the potatoes, corn, and other foods still need some time.

Life here is fundamentally different from life as I know it.

There are no shops nearby, no paved roads, no sound of car horns, no street vendors, no........well, anything.

It's just quiet, clean mountain air and the sound of the goats, donkeys, and other animals that Ben's family raises. Life revolves around the land, and there is little money to be had, and little to spend it on.

It's so different from the money-driven, ambition-fueled society that I have spent my entire life in.

Life here is hard, but I feel like although these people are poor in material ways, they are rich in family and rich in life.

They were so caring and hospitable to me, and it was easy to see that they cared deeply for one another.

I just wish I had been able to better enjoy the moment. I was pretty sick at the time, and I couldn't do a lot of stuff. But I did what I could, and I cherished the time that I spent in this place.

How often do you get to lose yourself in the mountains, be moved by spectacular scenery, stay the night in a cave home, witness (and participate a little bit in) the harvest, be surrounded by new people who nonetheless care about you, and also become buddies with a donkey?

I don't know about you, but that's not something that happens very often to me.

As I said in one of my videos, I'm very grateful to know Ben. He's let me see a side of China that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to see, at least not easily.

I want to take this chance to thank him for that, even though he will probably never read this post, if any posts that I put up on here.


Thanks, Ben.

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Tiger Cave and the Villages

Hey guys,

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately - I've been pretty sick and also pretty busy....kind of a bad combination. I've got some bronchitis.....crazy, huh? That's not really a summer sickness....after I got here to Huan Xian, there were a couple of hot sunny days, and then it rained for 3 days, and I guess my body didn't really like it.

I've been on meds, but they haven't really helped, but I went to a different clinic today. The guy who runs it is a friend of Ben's family and knows me, so he made sure I got the right stuff. I took the medicine just once and I can already feel my lungs clearing out. 

So....yeah, I haven't been feeling up to writing much. 

I went to a couple of little, little places in some remote areas. The first place I went was called 虎洞, or Tiger Cave.....that's probably the most badass name in the history of naming towns. The people I stayed with were wonderful and happy hosts. It's a beautiful place - surrounded by mountains with a river running beside the town and its roughly 2,000 people.

As far as I know, no other foreigner has been to that little town. Understandably, my visit caused quite a stir. As I sat in this one lady's one-room house, people (especially kids) would come by, look through the open door, say "Wow, there really IS a foreigner here......" and then leave......hahaha wow. 

Visit one house, leave, visit another house, leave, visit another house, and the cycle continues. It was really exhausting day.

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The next day, I went to the real deal. I went to my friend Benjamin's birthplace - the remote mountain terraces of Gansu. It was a truly amazing place - it is said that the mountains enrich the body and mind and produce genius and well-disciplined people, and it's hard to disagree. The fresh, cool mountain air was so refreshing and the views were nothing short of truly awesome. A tranquil place. Really and truly awesome. 

And yet, as you take in the view, you realize that all of this beauty is the result of lives of hard and long labor in the fields. When you talk about people "working in the fields," this is it. One must be hard-working, disciplined, and committed to the work at hand. No one is lazy here, although it seems like the perfect place to be lazy. The weather is only the slightest bit hot, with a breeze most of the time, and the caves that the families live in are cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

As you take a walk through the wheat fields, the apricot orchards, the potato fields, you can hear the braying of the family donkeys and the bleating of the lambs. One of the donkeys developed a funny attachment to me - he was my buddy haha. 

Since me, Ben, Elena, and Ben's brother were coming, a special treat was offered to us. One of Ben's uncles killed a lamb and cooked it for our dinner - fresh lamb cannot be beat, although they insisted I be present when it was killed. They wanted ME to kill it, but I don't have that kind of constitution. Watching and listening was bad enough. There was also some fish to be eaten. Ben's grandma said it was "a new spring festival" because we were having two kinds of meat at dinner. 

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I'm going to revisit this, but I've GOT to start washing some clothes and go to bed.

Later!

From Huan Xian, Gansu, China

What's up guys?

It's been a while, yeah! Unfortunately, internet access has been a bit troublesome for me, and this is the first time I have actually been able to sit down and write without worrying about a coming appointment...

It's hot in my hotel room in 环县, Huan County, and I'm a bit thirsty from the Oreos I was just eating as I was talking to my mom on Skype. America is worlds away right now. Outside the window are honking taxis, sputtering motorbikes, and the sounds of shopping and bargaining. 

The fan is slowly panning back and forth, but it's not quite enough to get me "comfortable."

I've spent the day with my friend Benjamin Xi, his girlfriend Elena, his brother Peng, and his mom and dad. We had a great breakfast of 包子 (Bao Zi), which are meat/vegetable stuffed steamed buns that are a typical Chinese breakfast, followed in two hours by a great noodle/egg/tomato/bokchoy lunch with steamed bread, and lots of watermelon.

Lots of watermelon.

Watermelon is good here because it provides much-needed water to the body in a dry place like this. It's also tasty, which helps as well.

After that, we went to the market where Ben's mom sells her food - Sha Guo, which is a small, but deep bowl filled with soup, noodles, tons of vegetables, and meat of some kind (chicken in this case, but it varies). She also sells "mouse ear" noodles, which I will just have to put up a picture of, because I can't really explain what they look like. 

Anyway, we had a great dinner of Sha Guo and Northwestern-barbecue. Awesome! Seriously, this is great food...if Northwestern Chinese food made its way into America, people would quit going to those crappy Cantonese-dish filled buffets. The Northwest is the best!

In a couple of days, we're gonna go to Ben's village - where he is originally from. I will stay with him and his family in their cave homes, devoid of showers and an abundance of water. Life is hard in that part of the country, and I hope I can show you guys why I feel such a strong attachment to these somewhat, but in this case, definitely, far-flung places.

I'll be typing up another blog post right after this one --- read if you like! 

See you next time!


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