Blue skies smiling at me . . .

Nothing but blue skies do I see, for the first time since leaving Beijing 10 days ago. The cloud has been so low that it was reduced visibility to only a couple of hundred meters at best. But today, the sun is shining and the weather is sweet, as Robert Nestor Marley put it. And I'm off to Huashan at last. This is the trip that was postponed at the last minute because of my getting sick. Actually it couldn't have worked out better because it meant I could see the mountain in all its glory, instead of a sea of cloud. Huashan means Flower Mountain. There are five “must see” mountains in China and this is the most western one. You're supposed to see them all during your lifetime, although there is an escapre clause. There's one in Anhui province, wher Laura's father is from, which apparently has all the features of the five and if you see that one you don't need to see the others. Having seen that one, Laura is using it as a lame excuse not to visit the others. That wasn't about to stop me though so the bus arrived and off I went in it.

I was promptly approached by a highschool student who offered to be my translator for the trip, which was good and bad. Good becase he was able to interpret the menu at the ‘restaurant’ – more like a diner really, or perhaps like the kind of communal dining areas they used to have in Maoist times. I paid my money and got a receipt, then went up to a counter and was served from a baine marie (sp?). Actually if that is how people ate before Comrade Deng got his hands on the levers of power, I don't know what the problem was! I had the cheapest thing on the menu and it was rice and four different accompaniments. And quite yummy. After that, immediately preceded by a sales ppitchj about various Chinese medicinal herbs, complete with a doctor who'd look at your fingernails and prescribe for your ills, it was off to the mountain. It's quite a sight. It's not that tall really; more like Banks Peninsula but comprised of sheer cliffs and deep gullies. Of course having been inhabited for thousands of years, it's also comprised of religious sites for the Daoist or Buddhist communities and the whole route is a constructed walkway with guard rails and stairs. So much for the danger I was warned to be careful of. However when it had rained in Xi'an it had snowed on Huashan so some of the steps and shaded bits of path were quite icy so a bit of care was required.

The downside of sticking with the student and his parents was that they were really slow, due mainly to undue caution – they kept warning me to be careful at the slightest opportunity. It meant I was only able to climb the first of the five peaks and get most of thew way tro the second before they decided it was time to return. On my own, I would have made it up to the top of the second (and highest) peak because I would have travelled quicker and not returned so early. Overall though, I think it was probably OK to do what I did. If I ever return to China, I'd like to go back to Huashan and spend a few days there climbing all five peaks. And maybe go to the other “must see” mountains as well.

The biggest disappointment for me has been the whole New Year thing. I'm not a big one for festivals. Since I got over the whole anticipation of Christmas presents thing, it's been a nice day, exchanging gifts with the family and getting together for a meal, but that's it. I could never get excited about the Muslim festivals either. I think I thought that it would be different in China. Chinese students, people who talk about China, and everything you see about the place, go on about China's festivals, one of the biggest being New Year. I expected big street parades with those long dragon things and fireworks displays to put anything in New Zealand to shame. Actually, I found nothing of the sort. There were people lighting fireworks on the street and that was about it. Laura said people are either at restaurants with their family or at home watching the New Year variety show on TV. It all wraps up with the first full moon of the new year heralding the beginning of spring. I got back from Huashan at 8.15pm and the fireworks were all over. I sat at home with nothing to do. It was all a bit weird. I think I'd had this idea that in China things would be different. I'd get caught up in a collective excitement and actually enjoy a festival. Maybe it says more about me than about China. I did comment to Laura though about how I didn't really have a sense that Xi'an is 20 times bigger than Christchurch (8 million people) and she said “Oh, you would have if you'd been on East Street last night for the end of the new year celebration!” Hmmm. I would have liked to have known that before rather than after the event.

Yesterday I decided to go and see Xi'an's Lama Temple. I decided I'd take a photo of the Lamas in their funny hats. Sadly there were no funny hats to be seen, but I did wander around the place. These Buddhists remind me of mediaeval Catholics – there's always some dodgy miracle on display. So here, where Cixi (the Qing Dowager Empress) reputedly poked her hair pins into a tree to hang her hat and coat, the tree now miraculously has holes all over it. Occam's razor would say it's more likely someone put holes in the tree. Kind of like the giant “footprints”, complete with Buddhist engravings in the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. Do people actually believe this stuff or is it just part of a collective myth people like to hold onto?