Xizhou and an American dream - Nov 4, 2009

Hello friends and family

(Before i start this entry please note a correction to my Xiangfan entry - the advisor to Zhouge Liang was not Li Bai who was a later poet but Liu Bei - thank you Qiuran)

Well we didn't make it to Tiger Leaping Gorge as JH's cold became worse and he spent the day in bed quite ill. I fossicked around the old town stocked up on cold tablets (thank goodness for those multi-language leaflets inside the packets)and worked out some travel arrangements for the trip the next day to Xizhou. I visited an interesting old Bai mansion (Mu House) that consisted of a series of pavilions linked by pillared walkways and separated by streams edged by willows and camellias.

Yesterday morning JH dosed up on cold tabs and we headed off for the bus for which our wonderful hosts at the Mu Garden Inn had booked for us. We did manage to get on the right 18 seater and also to give the driver the note written for us by Min (one of hosts) to drop us off at Xizhou before Dali. From there we took a bizarre little contraption that looks like a cross between a tuk tuk and tiny tractor into Xizhou.

The trip down from Lijiang was engrossing. Buses pass through villages, towns and farming country whereas in trains our experience was mainly of the latter. So this was revealing in new ways. The age old intensive farming, people toiling over inch of available soil, neat terraces in the steep areas and row upon row, divided again into smaller handkerchief size areas of land divided by irrigation channels. The channels shored up with weed and straw. You have to think of the eons that this same land has been farmed in this way and fed people - one vase in the Shanghai museum showed the same farming scenes in blue and white (can't remember the period - sorry).

People walk along the roads, with baskets of goods on their backs, or toil in the fields, wearing the Naxi costume, something i found surprising as i had thought it was just something for the tourists in Lijiang. Corn hung drying from verandas of houses. Most villages were built in the traditional style of architecture with the upturned tile rooves, again something i was surprised by, I expected something more utilitarian and post 50s. Towns were a mixture of styles of building and more chaotic.

Xizhou is about 30 kms north of Dali and is full of heritage listed Bai mansions. It is on the edge of Erhai lake. We are staying in a converted Bai mansion which has been the grand dream of an American couple Brian and Jeanney Linden. It is beautifully restored. Built around three courtyards and two stories high. It is a bit of luxury for us at this point in the trip having both been sick in different ways. Brian is one of those very hostly slightly full on American hosts but there is no doubt about his commitment to this country and village. It is really a place for rich Western tourists which doesn't fit with us all that well - but we do like the peace.

The intention is to give westerners an immersion experience but in fact they would get more immersion if they walked down the road to the cafe and ate there = but they tend to stay a bit cocooned. He arranges cooking tours, art groups and other activities like visits to the local school. Any way it is a mixed experience but we are enjoying the peace and the environment.

Yesterday we tagged along with some Americans who were staying there and who seem to need Brian to take them everywhere (maybe they have paid for that i don't really know) and he took them antique hunting. Quite extraordinarily old things to be found in shops in the village. It is illegal to take this stuff out of the country so we weren't interested in buying. It was an interesting experience to watch the Americans at work.

We also had an extraordinary experience of visiting an old man in his house who has written a history of Xizhou. It was a very poor courtyard house of two stories but he had come from one of the four main Bai families in the village and had once had a mansion like the one we are now staying in. He showed us his photo album which I would love to have seen more closely but of course the four Americans were clustered around taking photos and generally being full on. They weren't the worst kind of Americans - but nevertheless seem to have little restraint. Classic looking photos from the 1930s on. An extraordinary life he had had.

Brian speaks fluent Chinese and of course knows the village intimately so there is access to wonderful experiences like this which you would not normally have, but on the other hand you were tagging along with people whom you would wish to be just a little more retiring.

Today we have come down to Dali to go to the bank and i am writing this in an Internet cafe. We were going to come down here for a couple of days after Xizhou but having spent some time here i think that is all that is needed. It is a lot better than Lijiang. There is plenty of touristy stuff but off the main streets there is normal life.

We found a market - as you know we love to visit markets and then a small cafe. Here the cafes display stands of fresh vegies and mushrooms on the street and you tell people which ones you want and they cook them up for you. I had no idea what i was doing but we managed to order something delicious and sat and talked watching the passing parade on the street outside.

And that takes you all to now. It is all quite fascinating. I hope you are all well and that you backed a winner on the Melbourne cup which strangely didn't make the news. Well actually it might have but we haven't had telly for a while. There is a Chinese English language channel and Australia does get quite a running on it interestingly enough so the cup probably did get a billing and i just missed it.

Warmest wishes to you all,

Joan