My first Chinese Holiday
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2004
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92
157
Trip End
Jul 20, 2012
Beijing,
China
Sunday, October 8, 2006
I went with my friend Yao to Sanhe, Hebei province, to visit his family. It was great weekend, consisting of endless Chinese lessons and lots of yummy food. I enjoy staying with his mom who still has to take me out for dancing. There was no time this time. We visited some small village and helped a bit with the corn husking.
Celebrating the holidays in XiangHe
I like going with Yao as he is an interested in learning about local life as I am. After two days, we went back to Beijing since Yao had to teach a evening class. In his class, I took an English exam, the same exam Chinese students have to take, and failed to answer 5 questions correctly. So I told him that nobody is perfect after all. Then, after class, we jumped into the car of one of his students, Hao, who took as for 2 days to his family in Xianghe, Hebei province. We had lots of great food again, beer and a good time discussing the cultural differences in Chinese and American life. The next day, we went to visit a small village just 2 km outside Xianghe. The village is famous for the mortal body of Lady Zhou Fengchen. The house is the former residence of Zhou Fengchen whose un-rotten body is on display at the house. The lady died over 10 years ago. She looks like a mummy and nobody knows exactly why her body does not rot. The un-rotten body of the old lady, Mrs. Zhou Fengchen, has aroused great interest from specialists in various walks of life in the society. It was a surreal experience just looking at her laying on display for everyone to see. Whereas Mao and Lenin need to be balmed and pumped up with chemicals, the lady's body lies there naturally in a glazed glow. Later, we went to visit Hao's family in a small village. His mom and dad and two dogs where all there
Celebrating the holidays in XiangHe2
. According to Chinese tradition, the only son has to take care of the family and so his sister had a house built for Hao next to his parents house. At the moment, Hao is working as a salesperson in Beijing but I guess one day, he will go back to his village, get married and continues to live a life in the traditional way. I asked him what would happen if he decided to stay in Beijing or move away to establish a life somewhere else. They looked at me with disbelief as to how can I ask such a question. He is the only son in the family and, therefore, will live where his parents live and take care of them. I do wonder though, with increasing western influence and more possibilities of studying and traveling abroad, if and when the next generations of Chinese will rebel against these old traditions and decide to live their lives the way they want. It would have a profound impact on the elder generation as retirement homes do not exist in China. The family is the ultimate caregiver for the sick and elderly.We got back to Beijing Tuesday night and on Wednesday, i went to work to finish up my final exams which have to be sent to Malaysia for approval. I was planning to go to Tai Shan or Datong for 3 days but refrained from doing so after reading that in 2001, 60000 people descended on TaiShan over the October holiday. So, I decided to visit Taishan after the holidays. I explored the city instead and on Friday went to the Great Wall at Simantai
Celebrating the holidays in XiangHe3
. Its about 2-3 hours outside of Beijing. I took a tour bus and as soon as we got there, I headed off for the wall. We had until 3PM and I wanted to see as much as possible. It was rather polluted that day so there was not much of a view (hence, no pictures). There weren't too many people and I enjoyed just being outside and doing some exercise, i.e. climbing lots of stairs. This section of the wall is also being rebuild, so it was only possible to go to tower 12 or 14 and then we had to turn around. I ventured to the other side which goes for 10Km to Jiankou. This is going to be another trip later in October where I plan on going to Jiankou, hike the 10 km to Simantai and then stay overnight in Simantai before heading back to Beijing the next day.The week is coming to an end. On Saturday, I met with Kelly and we went to a Mexican restaurant. On Monday, its back to work. Stay tuned for more adventures.
