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I feel like I have been in China for months. No, years. I
honestly can’t speak English anymore. I am having the hardest time
writing this journal. Not only do I only speak Chinese around here, but
when I DO speak English, I speak Chinese English, which doesn’t use
articles or complex sentence structures. I would say this paragraph is
a disclaimer for the horrible writing that is sure to follow, but it
feels more like a warm-up. The first sentence took me ten minutes, the
second eight, the third about five, and now I am writing in more or less
a normal manner (I only revised the last sentence four times). Now that
I am intellectually limber, I shall begin my account of today’s events.
Today’s schedule included lots of cheesy music, many people
in polyester costumes, about a thousand souvenir shops, and a noontime
temperature of 38o C. Sorry, that was a rather negative
description of an extremely positive day. For one thing, the camera
crew that has been stalking us for the last week was no where to be
seen, but methinks they shall reappear tonight at the farewell dinner.
But I am getting ahead of myself. I think I shall give up my attempt to
create a literary masterpiece with this journal, and merely go through
the day, tourist trap by tourist trap.
We began this morning at the extremely bright hour of 7:20.
The sun rises earlier here, and so do the people; the sun blasts through
my window at about 5:30, and I can hear elderly people doing their
exercises in the park at about 6:00. Charles was late, because “the
camera crew was filming him making breakfast.” A likely excuse. We
drove for about an hour to Kai Feng, which is a nearby city. It is a
modern city that sits on ancient land. As in the Middle East, in China
they build new buildings on the rubble of the old one, so each city sits
on layers and layers of history. Kai Feng was the capital of the
Northern Song Dynasty. The Song dynasty lasted from about 900 CE to
1300 CE. The Song dynasty is actually two dynasties; the first was the
Southern Song (which ruled the southern part of China…duh) and the
second was the Northern Song (which ruled the north…double duh). The
Song dynasty was very weak – militarily – but very strong artistically
and scientifically. Some of China’s most famous inventions come from
this period, including gunpowder and paper money. The arts were at a
pinnacle; one of the most famous paintings of China’s history was
completed. This painting was a scroll which depicted Kai Feng and all
its peoples.
In Kai Feng, they have set apart an area and tried to
recreate the city according to the illustration on the scroll. It is
this area that we visited today. To describe the places we’ve visited
as tourist traps gives the connotation that we didn’t enjoy them, but we
really did. They were just…tourist traps. Kai Feng gets 10 points for
effort, but only two for accuracy. They have constructed a rather large
number of beautiful buildings…but they are made out of concrete. On the
huge city gates, the metal studs in the door are in fact wood painted
gold. The reenactors on horseback wear extremely bright colored
polyester instead of muted raw silk. There are souvenir shops
everywhere, and every half an hour or so, there are “performances” in
the various squares. They reenact a wedding, a barfight (at least I
think that’s what it was), firebreathing (a common market sight in the
Song dynasty, apparently), and a puppet show. I had a hard time
figuring out the point of the city, but after much pondering, I finally
figured it out.
But I’m not going to state it here…I have to talk about the
next few places we went, in order to explain it clearly. Ha. Now you
have to read the rest of the journal.
*Note: Mom, I bought some chopsticks in Kaifeng, so we can
stop stealing them from Chinese restaurants.*
After we left Kai Feng tourist trap, we went to real Kai
Feng. Well, not real Kai Feng, but Kai Feng the more subtle tourist
trap. By the way, I love tourist traps. I am a tourist. I like
touristing. And we will get stared at no matter where we go, so we may
as well go to tourist traps. Anyway, we ate lunch at Di Yi Lou, which
means The First Floor. It is a restaurant famous for its steamed buns.
I ate my first fish eye today! They served us a whole fish, and I asked
for the eye (it is sort of a rite of passage in our group). To my
surprise, it wasn’t rubbery or salty. It was sweet and tender – just
like the rest of the fish. Eyes are supposed to make you smart, so if
this journal comes across as intellectual at all, you know why.
After lunch we headed to Kai Feng Fu, which is another
tourist trap. Tourist trap with a capital T. This is a replica of a
Song dynasty Courtroom. There were more people in polyester here, and
they did another reenactment, complete with background CD. The
polyester people just lip-synced to the pre-recorded lines on the CD,
which was blasted over speakers that weren’t built to broadcast anything
louder than a whisper. You think I exaggerate, but I don’t. It was
very entertaining. I understood not a word.
The REAL courtroom’s ruins lie underneath the lake, and
under buildings.
It was then that I had my epiphany. Chinese people love learning about
history. But they also love progress. Thanks to the Cultural
Revolution, Chinese people also love tearing down ancient structures and
building new skyscrapers in their place. In China, they would rather
have a new complete replica than an old ruin. When I asked Chairman Lee
(she was being mean today, so we gave you-know-who this new name) why,
she told me to ask Chairman Mao. I feel like my epiphany comes across
as judgmental, but it is the only way I know how to state it. To me, it
seems dishonest, fake, cheesy, etc. But it really isn’t, to them. When
I think about it more, it is the only way they have to recover a lot of
the history that has been lost. And having to “fake it” is better than
not having it at all. |
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