August 30, 2000
Dear All,
This message comes to you from Datong, the coal capital of China. As you might expect, however, I have a different reason for being here. Datong has been the capital of China on several occasions in the country's early history. In the fifth century, a series of rulers (the Northern Wei dynasty for those of you who care) inspired the carving of caves and grottoes with Buddhist sculptures, ranging in size from 17 meters to a few centimeters. Pretty impressive!
One sad aspect, however, is the number of headless statues, or even empty niches with no figures at all. When Europeans and Americans first "discovered" Datong, they merrily hacked off anything that took their fancy -- with the booty ending up in museums and private collections worldwide. The next time I see a Buddha in the Met or someplace, I will feel quite differently about it. Still a beautiful object but....
Several days ago was the birthday of one of the major bodhisattvas in Buddhism, so all the temples had special rituals in commemoration. (I didn't realize this, of course, until I asked the guide what was going on....) We visited a nunnery in Wutaishan just as the twenty or so women were gathering in the main temple building. Their chanting was high and pure, a clean sound accompanied by a simple drumbeat. Then about an hour later, at one of the secondary monasteries, we saw about forty monks gather for a similar ritual. The men's chanting was lower and more pulsating, seemingly in unison but with interesting harmonic overtones. In addition to a drum, the monks had bells and cymbals which, whenever struck, seemed to signal a shift to a new text or a new rhythm. (Incidentally, all the chanting is in Sanskrit, as are the scriptures -- Buddhism came from India and is more closely related to Hinduism that I had realized).
We watched as the monks moved from one building in the temple to the next, apparently repeating the same ritual in each place. The procession was led by a young monk carrying a tray with an incense burner, followed by the old abbot in a red and gold cloak over his saffron robes. The other monks followed, two by two, chanting nonstop. At one point all the monks prostrated themselves. It was very clear that photography was forbidden so I have to carry these images in my mind's eye -- but it was fabulous. We never witnessed much ritual in Tibet so it was wonderful to see these ancient buildings alive with belief and veneration as they were intended to be.
Shanxi Province is off the beaten track, at least for Anglo tourists. This afternoon we met a French couple in a temple, the first non-Asian people we have seen in six days. I've been reading an old book, "Riding the Iron Rooster" by Paul Theroux about his train travels through China in the mid-1980s. He comments that Chinese people consider the minority peoples in the country as something between barbarians and zoo animals. Well, I feel a tinge of that as well. About a half dozen times Jane and I have been asked to have our pictures taken with someone's kid or even with a group of adults. We always oblige, but I am beginning to wonder about the complex motivations that prompt the request. Hmmm....
The other book I've been reading is Simon Winchester"s "The River Through the Center of the World" about his trip from Shanghai to the source of the Yangzi River. He weaves in a lot of history, culture and geography as well personal experience, plus he writes beautifully. Jane thinks that we would have a new form of student protest if a lot of CC undergraduates read the chapter on the Three Gorges dam. (Read it yourself but don't mobilize the troops!)
Shanxi Province has the largest collection of ancient buildings and statues of any region in China. One reason is the dry climate (much like Colorado in many ways) which preserves wooden architecture. Another is the relative poverty which discourages a heady pace of modernization. I don't know how the local people feel about that but it's great for history buffs.
It's interesting how much of tourism is viewing of old things -- museums, temples, pagodas, and the like. We have seen very little of the lives of people today except what we observe as we walk or drive around. But I suspect that tourists to the US might do much the same -- gawk at the tall buildings in New York City, gaze on the Grand Canyon or the Tetons, visit San Francisco, and so on. They don't often meet ordinary Americans just as we aren't meeting typical Chinese. I guess ordinary people live pretty ordinary lives. Here, given the political vagaries of recent decades, you might even say lives of quiet desperation.
As we have covered much of central and northern Shanxi, I have marveled at the variety of landscapes we've experienced, from alpine meadows around Wutaishan to dry flatlands of wheat and sunflowers. Perhaps most interesting is the loess region with hard clay soils that erode badly. Historically people have dug caves as their homes, providing living spaces that are warmer in winter and cooler in summer than wooden or stone buildings. We are not all that far from the area in which Mao based his operations in the 1930s. The Red Army lived in such cave dwellings as they fought both the Japanese and the Nationalists with great success. As I looked at some of the hillsides, I imagined Edgar Snow and other Mao sympathizers winning the affection of the poor peasants in this area. It's starkly beautiful in August, but I wouldn't want to be here in February.
I don't know if it is truth or fiction, but certainly we were all taught in elementary school that Marco Polo came to China and brought back a number of innovations to Europe -- one of those being pasta. Well, if it's true, he probably told the Italians about Shanxi noodles. The cook takes wheat flour and pulls the dough like taffy as part of the kneading process. The result is an irregularly shaped noodle that is traditionally served with one bowl of cooked tomatoes and one bowl of minced meat in brown sauce, both sauces to be stirred into the noodles before they are slurped up greedily. Sure looks like the origins of ragu bolognese to me! Except for the absence of parmesan cheese, Shanxi noodles would look very familiar to all of you.
Datong is the northernmost point of our trip. In a few days I'll be back in Chengdu for the start of school at Sichuan University. I've had a wonderful month seeing more of China than most Chinese have, but I am also looking forward to the next phase of my adventure.
Cheers,
Kathryn