Bai Ta Shan and Guo Xue Guan Videos!

(Before I start this post, I just want to apologize...I've been the perfect combination of busy and lazy these past couple of weeks, so I haven't done anything. My bad. I'll try to catch up on my posts and updates.)

October 1st was the Chinese National Day - the day China celebrates its being a country. As I'm writing this post right now, I'm surprised that there really hasn't been much celebration.....this is supposed to be a really important holiday, right? How come there's no fireworks, no celebration, and all that? In America, we go nuts during that holiday. I don't want to speculate about China's population's feelings towards their government, but it might have something to do with it.

As you (might) know, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Lanzhou's Bai Ta Shan (White Tower Pagoda) for an afternoon. Here is the video for that afternoon. I'll also add it to my post, which you can read here.



A couple of days ago, I went to another place in Lanzhou called 九州台山 (Jiu Zhou Tai Mountain), which is located in the northern part of the city. On the mountain, there's a Confucian-style temple called the 国学馆 (Guo Xue Guan). Here's the video for that one:

Well, this was a very interesting place - distinctly Chinese, which is what I like. There are lots of different places on the top of this mountain, but the place I was headed to was the "Guo Xue Guan," a Confucian-style temple dedicated to thinkers and writers of Chinese history.

It's in a classic place for a temple - on top of a mountain!

Like I've said in the videos, I like going to mountains for a number of reasons. My hometown doesn't have any mountains, so it's still a new experience to live in a place full of them.

I also love getting above the noise and craziness of the city and see just how big the city is. I'm not Chinese, so I think this is a big city....they keep insisting this city of 4 million people is a small town. Crazy Chinese people.

Going to temples is a serious thing for me - it's a place to pay respect to those who have gone before me and to learn about what they did during their lifetime and how they contributed to this place that I'm living in.

These places are always very interesting for me - it just highlights the differences between America and China. America just doesn't have this kind of history and culture. It's not America's fault or anything - it just hasn't been around for long enough.

I don't really get into the offering of incense and ritual worship and stuff like that, but I definitely understand the respect that's behind it. The temple centers around Confucius, who you see right here. In front of him, you can see where they light the incense and make donations to the temple.

While I understand the respect being paid to Confucius, I have to say, I am always pretty confused about the offering of incense to him. He always said that he was just a teacher and just a man. When did he become somebody to be worshiped?  I get confused about that with Buddha too.....but anyway, the place is still very interesting!

(This is the Dao de Jing by Lao Zi written out in its entirety. The whole other side of the stone is filled up as well.)

As you can see, getting to this place is no easy task. The stairs are really steep, and this is a real mountain....not just a hill.

Me and my friends Nick and Xia Fei took a cab to the top of the mountain to see everything on top of the mountains, but we climbed down on our way back home.

It's insanity - all we did was climb down, and we still all had shaking and sore legs by the time we got the street at the bottom. Man, it was crazy.

But again, the location adds to the mystique and mystery of the place - mountaintops are classic places to put temples in China. It seems like almost every mountain here in China has a temple dedicated to someone.

All in all, it was a good day with some friends - I got to learn about some traditional Chinese culture and history, see the city, and hang out with some people I hadn't seen in a long time.

---------------------------------------

A few days after that, I went with some other friends to climb a couple of mountains. I have lots of pictures and a few videos from that day, so I'm gonna be posting that when I can. This week is a bit crazy because it's the first week back from vacation, so I can't promise anything, but I will really try to do another post in the next 7 days.

Until next time,

Austin Guidry

About Huan, China (Videos and More)

Today, these videos come from Huan County, Gansu Province. This is the hometown of my best friend, Benjamin Xi.

It is a really great little town nestled in the mountains of southeastern Gansu.

As you can see on this map, it's in that weird little fin that borders Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the southeast of Gansu.

Huan is one of my favorite places because it's one of the places that is pretty much untouched by Western influence, or at least as untouched as it can be. There are no McDonald's, no KFCs, no Pizza Huts, Starbucks, foreign investors, foreign teachers, foreign firms or anything like that. It's a completely Chinese city, and that's cool. Lanzhou is pretty much a Chinese-only city, but the number of foreigners in the city has definitely increased in the past few years. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing - I'm just saying it's a trend. I'm not one to really make that kind of call.

I visited Huan last year as well, and it's still pretty much exactly as I remembered it.  It's still a great place that's way out of the way of most foreigners.

Huan is a very old city, with parts of it dating to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) and before, including this wall.

Amazing, yeah?

 It's crazy, nothing this old stands in America and as someone who studied and has a degree in History, it's beyond amazing to be able to see and touch something that's been around for so long. 

I'm not knocking America for being too young or anything - it just hasn't had the chance to stick around for that long yet.

Seriously though, how cool is that?!

One of the things Huan is famous for is its embroidery, particularly its handmade insoles. It may not be famous abroad, but in China, Gansu is the home of artful embroidery. This photo on the left is an example of it, although not a great one. Unfortunately I am away from the pair I was given by Ben's mom -- it's much more beautiful than this one. This one's only so-so.

The amazing thing about these is that they're totally made by hand. The firm inside is basically extremely hardened dough (that will never cook again), and the outside white cover is handsewn.

Then the fun begins.

It's all done by needle and thread. One needlestick and colored thread at a time. Ben told me that the pair I was given took about 300 hours of solid work. Wow. 300 hours - imagine putting that kind of time and energy into something that you'll walk on and ruin.

I didn't wear mine. They're too beautiful.

I can't wait to go back again - the people of Huan are hard-working, friendly, very hospitable people. The only complaint I have is that their dialect is hard to understand, but maybe that's because I'm just a white boy who can't speak enough Chinese to understand......

---------------

That's about all I have to say about Huan County at the moment - maybe when my friend Benjamin comes to the States, he can write something about his hometown for you guys! Until next time! My comment section is always open for you!

Away From Isolationism and 2 New Videos

Here are two URLs for some interesting (and short) articles that reflect a growing trend in China's governmental policy.

Before:

Just picture that sign in Chinese, okay?

Now.

China is Biggest Investor in the U.S.A.

China to Help Boost African Development

China seems to have come to the point of its development where it has begun to withdraw from its traditionally more isolationist leanings and get more involved in the outside world. Since the West forced the opening up of China, China has been involved with the world as far as accepting some foreign investments domestically and exporting goods to those foreign countries.

(((((((Now - when I say "isolationist", I mean it purely in terms of getting involved in stuff outside that country's borders. Foreign investment inside and exportation from that country is just fine - but as far as foreign policy in the outbreak of war/financial/diplomatic tensions, that country doesn't really care.)))))))

However, both of those were pretty much exclusively handled within Chinese borders. In the past 20 years, and especially the past 10 years, Chinese people have come by the thousands to America, Europe, and other places to study, start businesses, etc. and the exchange has begun to level out. Over $6 billion in investments in America, thousands of exchange students and businessmen, diplomatic and aid efforts in Africa - China has begun to step outside of its box.



Guangzhou, like I said, is a nice halfway point. It's English friendly, not too dirty, and it is an air-conditioned city. However, I did not enjoy my time in Guangzhou - I tell Chinese people that I did, but I didn't. When I went places, I would always ask people stuff like directions or where to buy something or something basic, I would ask in perfectly understandable Mandarin AND English, if that didn't work....I'd ask them, and they'd just blow me off just like any New Yorker who doesn't think you're worth their time. Guangzhou people are so rude - the only friendly Guangzhou natives I met were university students. Everyone else on the street was so rude. The food is Guangzhou is okay, but I'd suggest eating food styled after other places. Sichuan food is very popular and I'd recommend that. Local Guangdong food is relatively bland or is a little sweet. The sweet is good, but bland is stupid. Guangzhou's a huge city and I'm not a huge city type, so maybe we weren't destined for a great relationship. But the White Cloud Mountain was cool!

Of course, I'll always enjoy historical sites, such as the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.

This is from the 白云山 White Cloud Mountain. This day was really hot and humid, but the view of the skyline is really cool!

The Old Summer Palace is a pretty cool place, although it suffers from the unfortunate downfall of being swarmed with tourists during the summer and winter holidays.

It's about 5 miles northwest of Beijing's Forbidden City and was the residence of the Qing dynasty emperors and the place of everyday governmental affairs, while the Forbidden City was for formal occasions. The place was destroyed in 1860 by the French and the British during the 2nd Opium War and it has never been rebuilt.

If you go during a time without a lot of people, I can imagine feeling a very strange and eerie aura coming from the place. I had never visited a set of ruins before, so my feelings were very different from what they were normally.

There's a strange feeling of sadness and mystery and grandeur all mixed together - it's sad because it's been destroyed, mysterious because we can't fully reconstruct and imagine what it was like to stand in those halls, and grand because of the sheer size of the place and the intricacy and splendor of the marble carving and natural scenery.

There's also a kind of weird emptiness that can't be described. You really really want to see what these buildings were like and you really really want to have that intimate feeling of seeing the places where the emperor walked and ate and sat and relaxed, but you can't.

The place was destroyed and all that is left are paintings, writings and memories of the dead.

"History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future."
Robert Penn Warren



Just something to think about. I'll be keeping you guys up to date - thanks to one and all who read and care about what I have to say.



Keep coming back - I'm still going to be updating. Got a lot more to come