Okay, so it’s not really a theme park, but Yan’an is the city in which Mao Zedong and the Communist forces entrenched themselves during World War II after the famous Long March. Since we are fairly close, China Institute planned an overnight trip
there to explore the Communist sites, as this is part of modern China. Coincidentally, we were there on the 60th anniversary of the creation of the People’s Liberation Army.
So we had to get up especially early on Saturday to have breakfast at 6.30 am and be on the bus by 7 am. Yan’an is 300 kilometers away, which under normal circumstances would take about 3 hours or less to drive, since 100 km/h is the equivalent of 66 mph. But of course, we’re in China; circumstances are never normal! Two things slow traffic up here. First there is the inordinate amount of construction on the highway. It seems like something is always
been repaired or added to. But the highways here put those in Michigan to shame (which really doesn’t take much of an effort). Secondly, they let ANYTHING on the highway. There are tons of trucks moving at probably 25 miles per hour. Plus, as I may have already mentioned, traffic regulations are really just a mere suggestion here. So even though the highway is officially two lanes, cars and trucks make their own lanes as they chose. So all that being said, it took about 5 hours to arrive in Yan’an. Fortunately the drive is through some pretty amazing country. The entire highway is flanked by loess hills and valleys.
After checking into our “four star” hotel, the quotation marks are there for good reason, we had a large lunch at the hotel’s restaurant and then we headed off to Yan’an University. On the site of the university are many of the caves that the Communists used as headquarters during World War II. The caves have now been turned into faculty housing! On the trip with us was the president of the English Club at Shaanxi Normal University, who has arranged so much assistance for us over the past five weeks. We asked what his impressions of the site were, as it was his first time there. He said it was sad to him that it wasn’t better preserved and more reverent to the cause. He told us that his is a member of the Communist Party and that it’s really a necessity to advance in society in China. Next we went to the Communist Party Museum, which was a big Mao fest. The artwork
was cool, and I loved the statues. If only working so hard made people smile so much in the US! Then we went to visit the pagoda where Mao would often sit and do his writings during air raids, since the Japanese typically avoided attacking religious sites. It was quite the hike up the hill to get to it, but it was all worth it. It was an amazing view of the town, and there was ice cream up there. J
After another large meal for dinner (which included goat meat!), four of us decided to go to the hotel spa and get a foot bath. It was in the second of the two hotel buildings, and as no one spoke any English there, I carefully copied down the characters for foot bath from the hotel directory and we went over. We found it and was it ever fun! We had no clue what they were saying as they worked on our feet, but it was all good. As our feet were soaking, we got arm and hand massages, then they worked on our feet, legs and then flipped us over and did our backs. They were laughing when they started working on our feet, and we think we figured it was from the size of our feet. They asked where we were from. For the three women I was with, they asked, in Chinese, if they were American. When the woman working on my feet asked me, she asked if I were Canadian! I thought that was rather odd. It was also odd feeling when my masseuse climbed on my back and used her knees to massage my shoulders while the masseuse was kicking me with her feet! (By the way, massages in China are fully clothed.) I couldn’t help but to laugh as she was doing it, as my friends did as they saw it. When it was all done, they worked on us for about an hour, then we lounged in the room sipping our water as we just talked about our day. For the service, we each paid only 88 Yuan or $13!
The next day we were out of the hotel around 8.30 am with the plans of visiting two more communist sites. We visited more cave homes. Believe me, after a while one cave home really starts to look like another. After the cave homes we went to a revolutionary village. These places were jam packed with Chinese. In fact, we were the only westerners at any of the sites. On top of that, we were the only westerners that we saw in Yan’an! We came to the conclusion that not many westerners visit Yan’an, because people were literally dropping what they were doing as we would go anyplace. We all had multiple Chinese people come up to us and ask if they could get their pictures taken with us. It was all quite amusing.
No comments:
Post a Comment