BEIJING Forbidden City Hu-tong tour Temple of Heaven Great Wall Sacred Way YUNNAN Kunming Dali Lijiang GUANGXI Guilin SHAANXI Xi'an -------------------- Our tour group |
My friend Connie and I toured China from August 20, 2007 to September 5. Our tour (called "Southern Delights") was organized by the US-China Peoples Friendship Association an American association which has ties to a Chinese organization called Youxie (Chinese Friendship Association). Because of this relationship, we had a national tour guide for the whole trip, as well as local guides in each of the areas outside of Beijing. I came back from the trip with 1300 photos on my digital camera, and have picked out a few (well, actually more than a few) to post on my web site. I wish I could talk to you and tell you about these pictures as you view them, but ... And unless I get very ambitious, I'm unlikely to provide more than a bare outline on this page. They are organized according to the areas of China that we visited. Click on the relatively small pictures to see larger versions of them. The first, and probably largest, group contain photos from in and around Beijing, so they got subdivided into . When we arrived in Beijing I was struck at first by how western the city looked - western buildings, and streets packed with fairly large cars. But the very next morning we went to the Forbidden City, and became overwhelmed by the history and the fantasy of the old architecture and sculpture. In Beijing we took a pedicab tour of a hu-tong area - old courtyard dwellings where several families and houses surrounded a courtyard. These pictures are of a street in the area. Those doors actually open to some very pretty courtyards, although the houses within seemed to belong to people who were quite poor. The Temple of Heaven contained more buildings with beautiful tiled roofs, columns, and sculpture. The last picture on this page is of a group of amateur musicians that meet in the park several days a week. Of course I HAD to see the Great Wall. It's just as impressive as it's made out to be. I got my first glimpse of it from the air when first arriving in China. Last winter and spring I performed (for the Chinese Fine Arts Society) a trio for mezzo-soprano, cello and piano called On the Way by Victoria Bond. The poetry is about a woman who journeys a huge distance, through great difficulties, to see her husband who is working on building the Great Wall. When she arrives he is already dead -maybe buried beneath it? So looking at and climbing up to the wall I couldn't help thinking of the huge national effort and also the huge loss of life that this achievement represented. Our final excursion in Beijing was our visit to the Sacred Way. Actually, we stopped first at a huge cloisonné factory and store. The photos here of some of the pieces in the showroom give a small idea of the fantasy of the artwork. The Sacred Way is actually a long walkway lined on both sides with pairs of statues of people (beaurocrats and warriors) and animals, both realistic and fantastical. The the animals are further arranged in pairs - standing and kneeling. All these statues guard the tombs of emperors. We then went on to Yunnan Province, in the southwest of China. China has 56 different ethnic groups, of which the largest, at about 90% of the population, is the Han. Yunnan has a very large number of ethnic minorities, and we saw the crafts, arts and native dress of many of these minorities (Bai, Yi, Naxi, Zhuang). Of course, often they were dressed that way as part of tourist shows, but not always. Our first outing from Kunming was a visit to the Bamboo temple. Notice the gods who defend it - one of them defends with a musical instrument! When I first entered the large courtyard it felt to me like the most peaceful beautiful place I had ever seen. Perhaps the contrast with the crowded tourist spots of Beijing added to that feeling. We were almost the only visitors, and enjoyed that fact, so maybe I shouldn't be recommending it. The woodcarving and painting of doors and screens were incredible. (Should I apologize for my continual superlatives?) After the Bamboo Temple we visited the Western Hills, where I climbed up to the Dragon Gate. The picture looking down at the misty Dragon Lake was taken through the rocks at the Dragon Gate. The following day we visited the Stone Forest which is an astonishing outcropping of jagged and weirdly shaped rocks - truly a forest of them, many of them quite high. Since this is a real tourist spot, quite crowded, it is not surprising that there were a lot of Bai people, dressed in native costume. Since they were dancing, I of course joined them. Notice the lady playing a gourd pipe. These were sold in many places, and apparently are really used - not just a toy. Connie bought a recording that features them. As in the other cities we visited, in Dali we made many excursions - to the Cohgsheng Temple and Three Pagodeas, the old Dong House, a tea ceremony, a singing and dance show, Cangshan mountain, a batik and tie die factory, various markets and handicraft demonstrations. The picture of the kids in the big balls was taken at a park near the hotel. The kids had a glorious time in these balloons which floated in the pool. Lijiang was a marvelous city, with an old section that's been preserved as well as the modern city. One of the highlights was a performance of the Naxi Traditional Orchestra (sorry- no pictures of that) |