Hua Mountain (Part 1)

Xian 4 – Hua Mountain
Day 2 in Xi’an was a planned trip to Hua Mountain provided the weather was good. We got to sleep in a little so we were rested and the weather was okay so Jacky picked us up and we headed out to the mountain. Now, this isn’t part of the standard Xi’an tour package. Probably most visitors stay in the city, Drum Tower, Wild Goose Pagoda, etc. We decided that it would be nice to get away from the city and so we asked to visit the mountain. It is one of the 5 most famous mountains in China so we figured it was close and why not see some nature while we were out in that part of the country. We were told it was 90 – 120 minutes from the city so it wasn’t too bad of a ride. Unfortunately, it was actually 3 hours away from the city but little did we know… The ride to the mountain was full of surprises and we learned a lot just from looking out the windows of the van.

We headed essentially to the TCW museum area and kept on going. On the way to the mountain, Jacky avoided the interstate highway since it was under construction and he wanted us to see the smaller villages along the way. Well, we got to see the real China on this trip into the countryside. It’s tough to write down a lot about all we saw so I’m going to spare you (your welcome) a long dissertation and wrap it up with short points about the trip.

• The villages and farming communities in China are interesting and show the difference between the China we experience in Suzhou. These people are dirt poor (this isn’t the typical “less fortunate” people on welfare in the US that have cars, the big screen tv and all of the stuff that they have a “right” to have…even if it means that they utilize the government to steal that money from their neighbors) and I mean dirt poor. They depend on themselves and their neighbors to survive; if they don’t plant food and tend the crops…they don’t eat. If they don’t make their clothes…they are naked, you get the drift. You see the homes they live in, no central air, probably no running water and I’m certain that there is limited electricity. Jacky explained to us that they live a simple life (and there aren’t two dumb blondes anywhere to be found) and since this is the only life they know, there’s no complaining about what they don’t have. In many ways, I wonder who is happier, them or the people that are always chasing “the dream” (consisting of having everything their neighbors have and then some). Jacky indicated that they may have never been to a city in their life or that they may take a trip once per year to buy things that they cannot get in their village. This reminded me of my youth living in Princeton, Maine where my family would load up the station wagon and make semi-annual trips to Bangor to buy clothes for school or other things. That’s a pretty sheltered life right there but at the time I never thought there was another choice (we also walked 2 miles to school in 4 foot of snow, uphill, both ways). I don’t know how many villages we drove through but it was amazing to see how life was for those people. They swept their trash out to the sides of the road and waited for someone to come by and pick it up (I guess, I mean there were piles of it like it was garbage day). This is why we say that we saw some of the real China on this trip. No big city living, just hard working people living life as best they can and using what they got. They didn’t depend on others; they depended on themselves to ensure they had a decent living.
• It appeared from what we saw that you either farmed the land or worked in a rock quarry, or in one of the power plants. We saw multiple mills that cut the rocks with these huge saws (it looked like something out of the Bugs Bunny cartoon with Wil E. Coyote strapping the Road Runner to a log and trying to saw him in half). Crazy looking stuff and hugely dangerous I’m sure but a job is a job. There were the small shops, local restaurants and stuff but not much other work in the villages, just like any small town.
• Sorry animal lovers but the dogs here are just skin and bones. I know that the people are poor so they don’t have a lot of table scraps to share so I’m sure they do what they can for the animals. You just feel for the dogs, they are scraggly, nasty looking things. I know that they would be just like any other dogs (or at least most of them) if you went over to them but I guess we are so used to seeing dogs treated like anything but dogs (and that includes our own life with a dog) that you forget that these are animals. Around the world people just don’t have the same affinity for the dog as we do in the US. I guess that’s why in many places, it is okay to eat the dog (little Johnny, Rover went to a better place….my stomach). Along some of these villages, in the windows of some of the places there are pictures of dogs and cats. At first you might think that this is a kennel or a vet but we’ve been told (and you know that rumors are always absolutely 100% true all of the time) that when they have a picture of a dog in the window, it means that dog is on the menu. How much is that doggie in the window (arf, arf) the one with the de-li-cious tail (arf, arf).
• The roads we traveled on were narrow and winding but it didn’t stop the drivers from passing each other. In some ways, this was more amazing than the driving we see here in Suzhou. Out in these villages and between these villages were a bunch of dump trucks and heavy duty trucks traveling to carry stuff between the quarries and the rock mills. The drivers never seemed bothered by the trucks. They would pass on a bind corner without a moment’s hesitation. There were times where they would pass a dump truck on both sides (the left and right) at the same time…even if they were going into a corner. Honk your horn, flash your lights and I guess that’s the signal that you now own the road for the next 15 seconds. It was nerve wracking to watch them drive like this. You were waiting for someone to get crushed but just at the last moment, someone would move just slightly to allow room for them to get through. I wondered what the market was for Depends in China since they’ve got to dirty their britches with the way they drive. These were two lane roads and sometimes people were passing like they were 6 lane highways.
• I’ve mentioned the coal power plants around Xi’an. Well, just because we were out in the country doesn’t mean they weren’t there as well. About 30 minutes from Hua Mountain we drove by one of the biggest power plants I’ve ever seen. I don’t need to draw you a picture about this and the less I say the better. However, when you need power you have to get it from somewhere and this is how they power this area of the country.
• We’ve seen chickens on their first and last ride to the processing plants back home. Here we’ve seen pigs on the ride (this little piggy went to market, that part of piggy went home) here. Driving through one of the villages, we happened to pass a man on a scooter with two goats on the scooter. The goats were alive but I don’t think he was taking them out for a ride (at least for their enjoyment). We had a hard time not laughing out loud with this but we didn’t want to draw attention to how funny it looked to us.

To be continued....