Dream Destination: China, pt. 2

And so we embark on part two of my China adventure of June/July 2017.  If you have not already, check out part one here.  The first post recounts week one of five; the current post covers weeks two and three.

Ready?  Time to travel 6,800 miles back to...

Shaanxi Province, China

Part one left us at the terra cotta warriors in Xi'an.  From here, my field school group traveled to a rural part of Shaanxi, where we would soon begin our archaeological dig.

This is the Jinghe River, the body of water very close to our site.  I had never been so far from an ocean as I was in central China.

Our wonderful field school put us up in a beautiful hotel (out of place in the rural village atmosphere), from where there was only a ten minute bike ride to the site.  This shrine lit the entryway of our hotel.

The view from my room at evening sunset.  We were in a very industrial place, where most individuals live in villages nearby and work in factories that manufacture trucks, tires, and weaponry.

Fun fact: I did not know how to ride a bike until six months prior to my trip to China!  I had tried learning as a child but became so discouraged that I told my mom to never ask me to try it again.  Little did she know that she would end up teaching me a decade-and-a-half later!  This was the day that we got our bikes, which we rode many times a day to get to and from the archaeological site.

Okay, one and all.  This portion of this blog post is one that I have been looking forward to sharing for a long time.  The day before field work began, we had a free day to do what we pleased.  A few friends and I ventured out by bullet train to Huashan, the westernmost sacred Daoist peak.  This was one of the most beautiful mountain ranges (and places) I have ever seen.

Lotus-topped pillar at the entrance to the sacred site.  It took less than half an hour to get here by bullet train from Xi'an, a 120-kilometer trip.  (The bullet train traveled at about 300 km/hr, equivalent to about 186 miles per hour!)

First closer view of the mountains.

Here, we purchased our tickets for the cable car that would take us partway up the north side of Huashan.

Bare face on the ascent.

The cable cars rode high above the mountainous landscape below, giving my friend tremendous jitters (fear of heights, anyone?).

Bright blue sky with pristine cliffs below.

Swiss-made, these cable cars are at the peak of technology and safety.  Or at least, we needed to believe that to ride them!

The cable car station is perched on the side of the mountain about halfway up Huashan (photo is misleading; peaks behind are much taller).  See the stairs winding up to the left of the structure?  These were the first of the over 2,000 stairs we climbed that day!

Ceremonial locks and ribbons are tied to chains around Huashan's sacred sites.

Ethereal.

Notice how close this peak seems here.  As we ascended the mountain, everything below became smaller, smaller, and smaller...

The cable car station already appears to be far below, though we had only climbed for a short while at this point.

Here's me!  I bought this hat for 10 yuan (~$1.40 USD) at the Huashan bus stop and it was absolutely the most useful purchase I made on my trip.  I used this every single day, especially at the field site!  90-100 degree sunny days make face coverage essential.

No signs of humanity.  True, unadulterated nature.

A bizarre bug I was taking photos of while avoiding climbing something that looked very scary!  (I am very afraid of heights, a fear that I work to overcome all the time.)

Stepped ladder carved into the mountain.  I was not enthused to climb this...

...But I did it!

Wonderful group.  This is Faith, Andrew, John and me.  Not pictured, Sal behind the camera!

The sun shone brightly on the high peaks of Huashan as we made our ascent.

Partway to the top!  (Edited by John.  I love this photo!)

I loved the red ribbons in contrast to the blue sky and earth-toned mountains.

Once we reached a certain point on the mountain, we were able to see the view of the other side.  This massive, steep cliff face left us in awe.

A Daoist shrine to the mountain god.  Photos of this sort of thing are generally not encouraged, so I only snapped this one briefly and took no more of the shrines on these mountains.

Stairs forever!  Huashan has thousands of stairs, 2,000 of which we climbed over a three hour course.  At least the ones in this photo weren't too steep!

Higher and higher...

 Lovely yin/yang carved into stone toward the top of the mountain.

The most beautiful cliff face I have witnessed.

Snacks that kept us alive!  Thank you cashews and banana chips!

Never forget to peek around the bend.

Alas, exhausted and content, we reached the top of Huashan.  Multitudes of locked ribbons don this peak, which overlooks north central China from an elevation of 2,000 meters (7,000 feet/1.3 miles).

A thick layer of smog to remind us that, although we enjoyed clean and cool mountain air from where we were, the industrialized nation awaited us below.

Lotus carved in a stone bridge marker on our way to the West Huashan cable car station.  (Fun fact: Hua means "west" and shan means "mountain" in Mandarin.  Westernmost Daoist peak = Huashan!)

A forested oasis surprised us on our way to the cable car station nested on the other side of the mountain.

Mandatory souvenir photo!  (It truly was mandatory; they would not let us board the cable car without taking one.  My friend on the left bought a copy!  I actually love it.)

The views from this side were astounding.

Jagged, green-covered peaks contrast the bare cliff faces we saw earlier.

A muddy river ran at the bottom, supporting the lush greenery surrounding it.

Coolest gate.

Now leaving Huashan!

Pretty proud of ourselves.  In our day at Huashan we climbed the equivalent of 139 floors, or about 2,224 individual stairs!

And now, without further ado, I welcome you to the Yangguanzhai archaeological site.

Yangguanzhai was a Neolithic village circa 5000 years before present.  2017 was the seventh year of excavation done by my field school (Institute for Field Research, info here).

There were sixteen field school students, so we were split into groups of four students per trench.  This was my group's first trench.  My group members, left, ponder the work to be done.  (Meet Sal, Yongjing and Mi.  Best group!)

Every day of excavation followed a specific schedule: excavate 7-11:30 AM, lunch until 3, excavate until 7 PM.  (It is too hot to work in the peak hours of the day.)  So, we ate lunch in the town every day.  Here, Faith and I tried "robot noodles," made in front of our eyes by a robot!  They were delicious.

Right next to the site.  The little red vehicle is called a "beng-beng" in China (tuk-tuk in Thailand, rickshaw in India).  It is a battery-powered motor vehicle that many of the individuals in the village use to get around.  They call it "beng-beng" because, as it goes over the bumpy roads, the sound it makes is "beng beng beng beng beng"!  I loved riding in these.

The standard procedure for taking photos of the trench.  We would lay down brooms as stepping stones so as to not leave footprints!  (Shout-out to Liz and Da Gua, two of our wonderful field directors, pictured standing under the umbrella on the baulk.)

Shading a feature we found to take a good photo.

Our weekly schedule included six days of excavation (Monday through Saturday) and one free day (Sunday).  The Sunday after our first week of excavation, I took a solo bike ride and stumbled upon a small bamboo forest behind the town library.

My ever-faithful bike.  I miss my three weeks with you and your broken bell all the time!

Nesting myself among the bamboo thickets.

Meditating in the bamboo forest rejuvenated my soul.  You'll notice that my calf is wrapped in pretty much every photo you can see it from beginning of excavation on; I tore my calf running two months before going to China.  It took six more months to heal after I got back... apparently biking and squatting all day isn't good for calf muscle healing, who'd have thought?

Spent quality time with my journal.  Writing and drawing is my go-to, always.

Unparalleled beauty.

My canvas always extends to my own skin.  Give me a pen and I'll be entertained for hours.

Riding back into town.  Structure to the right is the library - huge!

Favorite dinner at favorite Muslim restaurant with John and Sal.  I made friends with the little daughter of the owner and cook; we would make funny faces at each other and she would giggle endlessly until her parents made her go back into the back room.  Cutie pie.  My meal of choice: fried egg and tomato over rice.  Yum!

A shot of the alleyway where our lunch and dinner places cohabit.  Always with a beng-beng!

The lions out front of our hotel.  I learned on my trip that Chinese lion dogs of this style are always in pairs: a male with his foot on a ball (closer in photo) and a female with her foot on a baby lion (farther).

My group had begun our excavation in the trench I showed a photo of far above in this post, but after the first week it was determined that our excavation would be better spent in the kitty-corner neighboring trench (we aptly named the first trench "Broken Dreams," ha ha!).  The trench pictured here was our new project, which we excavated for the last two weeks of the program.  My group member Yong Jing here watches Da Gua square the baulk to clean and ready the trench for our work.  Our trench was the deepest one at the site - our fellow excavators could not see us in our trench even when we stood fully upright!

One of our go-to lunch options was a place that had a multitude of ready-made dishes, out of which we would choose four, always with rice included.  Here, I got tofu with green onion, winter squash, tomato and egg, and cabbage.  We often got this to-go and ate them in the hotel once we had cooled down a bit.

On afternoons that it was too hot (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, over 90 in the shade), we would do an alternate activity to excavating.  This afternoon, we got to take a field trip to the tomb of the Han emperor Jingdi.

Introductory plaque at entrance to tomb.

Super cool artifacts uncovered from the tomb, featuring serpent and bovine motifs.

This tomb complex is filled with tiny clay soldiers, reminiscent of the terra cotta soldier complex from the Qin emperor of only a few decades earlier.  These were 2-3 feet tall.

More figurines from the tomb complex, many bowing, arms extended in subservience.

My personal favorite: the cows!

The next photos are inside the tomb complex areas that they excavated and left intact.  The incredible archaeologists and engineers teamed up to create an awesome viewing arrangement, where the tomb is trapped in an air-seal underneath glass floors!

Yes, this means we were truly walking over the tomb of an emperor who lived over two millennia ago.  The blue covers on my shoes were mandatory for all visitors.  Look at all the little people and chariot bits down there!  See the wheels?

The arrangement of figurines in tomb area 18, pictured from above.

We got to go into a cool school-house structure where we were dressed in traditional Han dynasty scholar garb!

Here is me, donning the special hat of a scholarly official.

We learned the traditional hand gestures and bows used in different situations.

My field school group being so silly in our outfits.  Meet (left to right): Maggie (my roommate!), Du Meng, Yongjing, Michael, Sal, Andrew, me, Faith, John, Claire, Mi and Rebekah!



My favorite candy and favorite drink: white rabbits and peach Tropicana (why don't they make this in the US??).  John and I consumed an absurd amount of both of these substances.

Our favorite lunch place, one of the only ones where we knew how to order without help from the Chinese-speaking students.  We became good friends with the owners by the end of our field school.  My meal: fried egg, tomato, and green onion over rice.  Surprised?

John and I both had clear phone cases, so we decided to take the next step in our devotion to White Rabbits by placing wrappers underneath.  Mine is still there, I love it!

Photo of the entrance to the site.

Mandatory to have sleeves, pants, hats, and insect repellent on at all times!  The site is along the path, to the left.

That night, it rained all sorts of cats, dogs, and more.  We arrived at the site to a world of unearthed bugs.  This day, we named our second trench "Bug Midden," or "bug trash heap," ha!  Thank you, monsoon season!

 

I first spotted this sweet little fella wriggling around at the bottom of our trench.  When fully extended, he was over a foot long!  I have never seen such sizable earthworms.

He was coiled here because me being so close was scary.  Sorry, big guy!  Pen for scale.

Another cool unearthed bug: gnarly Chinese CENTIPEDE!!

Little snail.  We found so many snail shells throughout our excavation because they burrow underground.



Xigua chong: watermelon bug!  I have heard these called pill bugs and rolie-polies in the US.  My trenchmate Mi taught me this fun, fruity name for these little bugs.  (Note: I was constantly asking how to say things in Mandarin while in the trenches.  I learned so many words because of this!)

Taking elevations with our trusty line level, tape measure, and plumb bob.

Daily dinner after excavation was with our group at the same restaurant, which served myriad delicious dishes family-style.  On my plate, I have egg and chive dumplings, spicy tofu, fried mushrooms (SO GOOD, and before this trip I hated mushrooms!) and vegetables.

Next day's lunch from our trusty to-go place.  On this day my plastic bag broke as we were walking down the alley, leaving my food sprawled all over the ground.  We went back to the place and when they figured out what happened, they felt bad for me and gave me a new plate for free!  So incredibly kind.

Check out the awesome friend I made!!!  I found him in our old trench, so he assumed the name Broken Dreams as well.

Broken Dreams was huge!  I love him.  I kept walking by our old trench to check on him and see how he was.  He could move far quickly because he was so long!

DELICACY from our nightly dinner destination: sesame seed-candied eggplant.  YUM!  (Janice, if you're reading this, seeing this photo made me think of you.  I miss this food and your face!  Also, Michael, I see your hand swooping on my eggplant.  Non, grand-fils!  Stay away!)

Program director bought us beers for the table.  There is no drinking age in China, so no carding ever takes place.  Cheers!

This ends week three of my five week China adventure from June-July 2017.  Kudos to you if you've actually read this whole thing!  Endless love to all of my China field-mates and directors.  He shui!  I will be back with part 3 in the near future.  Stay tuned...