Stone Art and one-legged acrobats

  Quanzhou, China
Thursday, March 31, 2005

After another round-the-clock sleep I woke up this morning refreshed and ready to eat and go sightseeing. We went downstairs for breakfast at one of the two places where Yoong gorged herself last night. Fresh hand-pulled noodles. I had mine fried with pork and vegetables, while Yoong had hers in a beef soup - much like the Vietnamese Pho.

The rain seemed to have stopped for a while. We decided to make the trip to the walled city of Chongwu. There was a direct bus from the bus station, a bit of a bone-shaker and stopping all the way to pick up and set down passengers.

As we approached Chongwu, we saw many many stonemasonry yards crowded with large stone statues - everything from Greek gods and Chinese sages to Mickey Mouse. Similar statues lined the road leading into town.

As soon as we left the bus, a pedicab pulled up and offered to take us to where he assumed we wanted to go for Y5. We had no idea which way to go, and he quickly went down to Y1 each so we agreed. After a very short trip he made us another offer. For Y10 he would take us to a back entrance where he seemed to be suggesting we could get in free. We were a bit non-commital but allowed him to take us there anyway. He took us a short distance further to a closed gate. It was low enough to step over, but we didn't really feel inclined to do anything illegal, so we indicated we would walk back to the main entrance and just paid him Y2, rather than the Y10 he was demanding.

The place turned out to be a large "Stone Art" park between the old city wall and the beach. We paid the entrance fee (Y25 each) and spent a couple of hours wandering around enjoying the scenery and the rather bizarre range of statues. The billboards outside had promised we would "forget to leave", but we managed to do so, then entered the walled city through one of its four gates. The town had a certain charm and we got a lot of stares as this is probably not a place often visited by foreign tourists. Just before the gate on the other side of the city there was a small shop selling tea-ware. Yoong couldn't resist buying a tiny teapot and two sets of four little cups.

We found a restaurant serving fish from a tank at a very reasonable price, then came back by taking a bus to Hui'an, connecting with another back to Quanzhou, actually a faster route, though the bus did not go back to the bus station but took us on a scenic tour around the port before dropping us somewhere near our hotel.

We had found the local Cultural Centre yesterday and established that some kind of show would be on tonight, so we made our way there to see whatever it was. This time we had to wait a while before we could get permission to go in. We were not given tickets but told to go and sit near the front and be prepared to move if someone turned up with tickets for our seats.

When the lights went down, twenty minutes late, a number of people rushed for the front row, so we did the same. Boxes along the front of the stage were labeled "Hebei Yanzho Art Troupe", which may or may not have been what we saw. Whatever it was, it was a most extraordinary show. Apart from a dozen dancing girls who kept coming out and performing in different costumes which seemed to get more and more exotic as the evening went on, all the performers were handicapped in some way. The compere was blind, and initially accompanied by a lady translating his Mandarin into sign language.

An armless calligrapher

The first act, after an establishing routine by the dancing girls, was a lady in a wheelchair, who sang a lovely classical-style song. As the evening went on, there were performances by several blind or crippled singers, a one-legged acrobatic dancer, a blind musician who played various small wind instruments including an ocarina and some kind of leaf, and an armless painter who produced a beautiful piece of calligraphy by painting with his mouth.

Yoong thought it was a bit depressing, but it seemed to me a very positive thing that these people were proudly overcoming their disabilities to perform to a very appreciative audience, as opposed to lying in the gutter with a begging bowl, though no doubt there is a lot more money in that.

The final routine from the dancing girls was a wonderful performance of Thai dancing, better than any we have seen in Thailand itself. They were extremely professional and a real pleasure to watch. These cultural shows are really among the highlights of this trip.

Raymond's Travel Page