September 22 - China: Luoyang to Xi'an

Jon and I had a buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant (if you ever have the option between a 'traditional Chinese breakfast' and a 'Western breakfast', opt for the Western breakfast; unfortunately we didn't have that choice so we were stuck with the Chinese breakfast) and then met the group in the lobby at 8:30.  We put our bags on the bus and went to the Folkway Museum. 

Folkway Museum

The museum was filled with local cultural artifacts such as embroidered shawls, little shoes for bound feet, and various other traditional items.  One section displayed a traditional Chinese wedding, where the bride was completely covered by a red veil until after the ceremony.  The boy and the girl would be engaged when they were 3 or 4 years old, and then married 10 years later.  She could not show her face until after the wedding, so the only thing he could see of her was her feet.  This is why the feet binding tradition was so important.  It was said that people with big feet had ugly faces.  So of course every girl wanted to keep her feet as small as possible.  The government put an official end to this in 1911, but it didn't end in the rural areas until the 1950s.

I wonder what they would have thought of my dainty size-11 shoes.

We completed our tour of the museum at a shadow puppet show.  The puppets are the same as those we admired in the Shanghai Art Museum on Sept 17.  Although they weren't made of leather, it was so interesting to see a real puppet show and to go behind the case to see how the woman worked the puppets.  There were two puppets - one a monk and the other a beautiful woman.  They were each about one foot tall and had three sticks connected to each of their hands and head.  At the end of the puppet show, she had them dancing a funny little Cha-Cha that was so cute.

Cave Houses

We also went to a little village that still had some of the rare "cave houses".  From the name, you would think that these were caves in the side of a mountain, but instead what we found were deep rectangular pits with rooms carved into them.  From the dirt road, we could look down about two stories into the courtyard where the matriarch was setting up benches to receive us.  The stairs to access the dwelling were 20 meters away and connected to the courtyard through a cave.  

The woman was 90 years old and had lived in the caves practically her whole life.  She had 6 sons, three of whom we met and lived with her.  She seemed incredibly happy and very mobile, which surprised me but I don't know many 90-year olds so what would I know?  She also had the tiniest feet I've ever seen.  George told us that, when she was younger, she got a police ticket for having bound feet.  But I guess by that age it didn't matter to her anymore.   She had a very slight limp when she walked, much like the way I walk when my feet hurt after a day in heels.  I imagine that - although they are no longer bound - they are still painful after all these years.

I just had an ironic thought.  Here we are shaking our heads at the tragedy of the feet-binding tradition, but how is that really different from high heels?  They both affect the growth of your feet, and they both affect the line of your spine, and they both are done out of a desire to be beautiful.  But one is acceptable in today's society and the other is not.  I wonder if there will ever be a time when governments ban high heels because they are considered cruel.  After all, there are stories of teenagers in Japan falling in their excessively high platforms and cracking their skulls.  Sorry - just a random thought.  I suppose if this law was ever passed that I would have to get rid of my favorite black Kenneth Cole boots with 3" heels.  I think I would mourn them for a few years, at least.

Train to Xi'an

On our way to the Luoyang Train Station, we stopped by a grocery store and picked up some snacks for the 5 hour train ride to Xi'an.  Jon and I got our PB&J supplies, and were thrilled to find some Skippy Chunky Peanut Butter as our jar from Kathmandu is almost finished.  At the train station, we waited in the "soft car" lounge for our 1:00 train to arrive.  Grant had 13 tickets, but two of them were in a separate car and Jon and I offered to take them so no one else would have to split from the group.  (And because we honestly don't mind the 5 hours alone.) 

We shared a four-seater with 2 women from Austria who were on the train with their tour group.  You could tell from the way they were dressed and their luggage that they were on a COMPLETELY different type of tour than we were.  No shared bathrooms for these folks!  But our two train friends were very nice and we really enjoyed talking to them.  They were excessively amused when we pulled our Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich makings.  I don't think they had ever had peanut butter before, as they asked to try some and were surprised when it wasn't sweet.  It seems that PB&J is truly an American thing.  Grant (from Australia) and Anne and Robert (from Ireland) are politely disgusted by the thought of mixing PB with J, and Grant says that PB tastes like "someone chewed up peanuts and spit them into a jar".

Later, when Jon fell asleep, I went to find the rest of the group in the other car.  There was a man/boy making the rounds of the cars to sell a bunch of socks and he was in their car.  This sounds a bit odd, but he had an official badge for the train and had a gig that was absolutely hysterical.  We tried to ignore him when he came through our car, but even that was difficult.  His English was a bit broken, but it didn't matter because his enthusiasm was addictive.  By the end of the "show", everyone thought that these socks were the greatest things in the world.  We watched him tear through them with a knife, light a lighter through them, and play tug-of-war with them with another passenger on the train.  Kind of like an Infomercial but not on TV.  You couldn't help but get caught up with it.  In the car where the rest of the group was sitting, he had obviously found his dream audience - they were practically drooling over the socks and at least 1/2 the group (including  me!) bought a pair.  We're such suckers.

Xi'an

We arrived in Xi'an around 7:00PM or so, and left the train station to find our Intrepid bus.  The train station wasn't far from our hotel, but the traffic was incredibly bad!  Just like New York at rush hour: bumper to bumper, horns honking, and people cutting each other off.  We did get to see some of the sights from the bus, though. Xi'an city center is surrounded by a huge, thick wall which has entrances on the north, south, east and west.  So of course traffic is going to be snarled, with everyone and their dog trying to get into/out of the city during prime time on a Saturday night.

Our hotel - the Sheng Grand Hotel - is right on the main street that runs north to south through the city center.  The lobby was lovely, but we've learned not to get our hopes up about the rooms based on the lobbies.  Of course, this hotel was no different.  Our rooms faced the busy street, the windows didn't seal so the noise was quite loud, we could hear our Chinese neighbors were yelling through the walls, and the carpets hadn't been vacuumed.  EVER.  But no problem.  We'll wear earplugs at night and never walk around barefoot.  It's just nice to be in one place for more than one night.

Dinner in the Muslim Quarter

We met the group for dinner at 8:00-ish, and we walked to the Muslim Quarter to find a place to eat.  Unfortunately, the entrance into the Muslim area was under construction (in fact, the entire park had completely disappeared) and we couldn't get to the street we wanted.  We found little booths along a side street serving food, but they were very sketchy so we all turned around to walk the few blocks to the other entrance to the Muslim Quarter.

But Jon and I were starving and were getting a bit frustrated with the "group dinner trauma".  (i.e. large group of people wandering aimlessly without any reaching any consensus as to where to eat.)  So we told Grant we were heading off on our own and crossed the busy intersection to Xi'an's newest addition: McDonald's.  

Yes, we do seem to be eating this more often than not.  But there are two reasons for this.  One is that we often want something quick and easy, where we don't have to pull out the phrase book to order.  The other reason is a bit more unbelievable - McDonalds actually has less oil in the food than Chinese food.  I'm not kidding.  This food is SO OILY that my face looks like I'm going through puberty all over again.  And I haven't broken out in YEARS so this is especially traumatizing for me.

Anyway, as I said McDonalds is a brand new addition to Xi'an - which is a very large city.  Jon read an article in the China Daily which said it's so popular that the lines to get in can last for hours.  So we thought we'd see what it was like. Sure enough, outside the front door were queue barricades much like what we see at amusement parks.  So we snaked our way around the rows of barricades to stand in what was actually a pretty short line (compared to the many feet of barricades).  There were McD's employees who were taking orders on a piece of paper that looked like the cash register/computer they use at the front counter.  The  boy who wrote our order had a picture card of the menu so we could point to what we wanted.  He tore our order off the pad of paper and gave it to Jon to take to the front.  So we waited for the McDonald's Bouncer to let us in the front door.  Once he did, it was a free-for-all rush to the front counters, where there were already people lined up from the last rush of people.  

Remember that pushing and line cutting is perfectly acceptable here in China.  You really can't live with 1 billion other people and not push your way to the front.  Jon has now mastered this and has learned to use his height and heavier build to his advantage.  He was a champ!  He scooted his way up and thrust the order sheet right at a cashier who was just looking up to help the "next person in line".  

Meanwhile, I was scoping out the seats to try to find a table.  Yeah - me and 20 other people.  I saw a group that looked like they were finishing up, and I tried to stand a discreet distance away (like, 3 feet) so they could finish their dinner in peace but I could still swoop in when they got up.  Silly me.  I should know by now that there is no "discreet distance" in China.  These two children saw the table and actually went right up and sat in the extra seat, looking at the family until they were done eating.  So I really had no choice but to look elsewhere.  I did manage to get a table upstairs eventually, though.

And yes, it was good.  But we've decided that this would be the last McDonald's trip for a long time.