It Was Bound To happen

The inevitable finally happened.
After 1,107 days since my very first foray into the dichotomous world of China; the country of wonder, the country of regimentation and the country of mystery has actually allowed not one, not two, but three Mercer’s inside its borders!

Legally possible you say? Technically, yes because here they are with valid visas. Will it be allowed again in the future? That remains to be seen.

But as of now my brother Marty and his daughter Milly are here with me!!

For those of you who have hung with me during this multi year adventure, Marty is the dingbat who decided I should be writing a Blog of this adventure of mine. In fact, he coined the name from the Pee Wee movie and established the original site including some goober photo of me as a 6 year old knowing that I would have to get involved to change to the picture thereby causing me to learn how to do it and then continue publishing.

Obviously, it worked.

So anyway, a few months back, Marty called me and said he wanted to come with Milly during her Spring Break to visit first hand this unusual and natural wonder we casually study in American schools. Naturally, I was excited and we began planning.

The basic itinerary is as follows: Fly to Beijing, and connect to Changsha (where I am currently located). Visit Shao Shan (home of Chairman Mao). Then I would hook up with them and we could explore Changsha for 1.5 days. Fly to Chengdu where we would visit the Du Jiang Yan Dam and explore Chengdu for 2.5 days. After this I would return to Xiangtan (contrary to popular belief – I do actually work) and they would return to Beijing to Explore the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden city, and whatever they can squeeze in before returning home.

After some polishing of the schedule, we set it in stone and here they are.

Apparently, their visit to Shao Shan went off without a hitch and Milly was THE hit of the day as apparently all the Chinese now think she is a rock star. I am not really certain why they think that, but just maybe it’s possible that Miley Cyrus’ agent is currently investigating a look-a-like wannabe roaming around somewhere in China. However while I have no idea how that story got started neither can I confirm nor deny that particular story, so we’ll just have to leave it at that.

What I can confirm is that we did explore Changsha together with the help of our Ace Number One Guide, Li Mi. Li Mi works with me in Xiangtan and lives in Changsha so she was a natural choice to help us out and ever so graciously agreed to do that. I think she is a miracle worker as you will understand as you read farther down.

Our first activity on a grey, rain threatening day was to visit the Tomb Excavation Site of Mawangdui. This is a museum housing the family gravesite remnants from a Han Dynasty family dating some 2,200 years ago. The amazing part of this tomb was that the Woman discovered here was buried in a coffin, in a coffin, in a coffin, inside a huge wooden coffin buried below the surface. The result is that she is most perfectly preserved. The scientists even discovered 185 ½ melon seeds in her stomach!! An amazing place with some amazing relics and history. Certainly the best museum I have seen so far!

We then had lunch at a local restaurant and moved on to Hunan Academy. This is across the river and on the grounds of the Hunan Normal University (not to be confused with the Hunan Abnormal University … ok, maybe that place doesn’t really exist). This Academy was a School established over 2000 years ago and the buildings, while being rebuilt several times throughout that long history, still remain intact today. Beautiful grounds, Beautiful setting, and a wonderful experience to see where poets, philosophers, and academicians hung out to teach long before any western cultures began to understand our own educational systems particularly University Life (Harvard – eat your heart out).

It was here on these hallowed grounds that we continued Milly’s rock star status as everybody kept telling her how beautiful she was and everybody wanted to have pictures with her. It was amazing to see the gravitational pull she had on the Chinese locals. She’ll be tough to live with at home.

This was followed with a lite dinner at the Fire Palace; a loud frenzied restaurant that prevented you from hearing your own thoughts and we left almost tired. It was killer – Stinky Toufu (yuck, Marty “said” he liked it), noodles, Fishcraw, um, I mean Crawfish, spring rolls, and watermelon juice!

Outside, unknown to us, there is an open stage where there is a free concert of Chinese opera. We snagged a bench under the Coca-Cola signs and enjoyed part of the play entitled “the Woman from Xiangtan”. Li Mi knew they held these concerts but didn’t know the frequency or the starting times and we just had walked out of the restaurant and were enjoying the vendors hawking their wares when we realized we had a show coming up.

We watched for awhile then headed back down to the river to walk the boardwalk. In true fashion of perfect scheduling by Li Mi, Justas we arrived, there was a huge water show starting across the river with massive water fountains shooting up into the air timed to the music. To our right a group of locals were launching small hot air balloons (maybe about 1 meter in diameter). These are a bright red color with a flame inside so that not only will they then float up, but glow in the dark. At one point, there 7 or 8 of these were illuminating the sky as they gently soared up and disappeared into the night. Below us along the banks of the river were two Chinese burning fake money in homage to some deceased relatives. The tradition is that by burning this fake money, the ashes will somehow transfer to usable currency to the dead relative during their afterlife.

So at the end of this evening, we managed to skirt all the poor weather, saw a Chinese opera we didn’t know was going to happen, saw hot air balloons, people commemorating their ancestors, and a huge water show – all because our Ace Number One Tour Guide! 

Finally, on Sunday, we strolled through the Street market and saw the Basic Chinese Grocery Store. Meat on a hook, Fish in a tub, rabbits, duck, pheasant, and some lady killing and cleaning chickens for a customer – the works. Maybe I’ll save you the details here, but you get the idea. The essential part of this story is that all of the “grocery store” occurs only one block off what you would have to call Times Square. Real Chinese. Real Culture. Fabulous. All because our Number One Tour Guide managed to make it all happen – just for us.

Next up … Chengdu revisited.

Stay tuned.