July 22 - Weekend Travels - The Zhijin Cave

Ni Hao, Dear Blog Readers!!

Ah... we have been without electricity, running water, and/or Internet access numerous times in the past several days, so it makes for difficulty in finding the right conditions to write for this blog. Once the water goes on, I am trying to quickly fill all bowls, pans, and bottles with a water reserve. Nancy, my teaching partner who served in the Peace Corps in her 20's, demonstrated how to take a "bucket shower."

When the electricity is out, we need candles to navigate our apartment at night. Apparently, Bijie experienced a period of no electricity this past winter. The supply of candles throughout the area was quickly exhausted, and they have not been replaced in the stores. However, our lovely students supplied us with several candles. They are extremely protective of us, even escorting us to our apartment in the darkness. Nancy just smiles and calls all of these outages "Peace Corps Moments." I am learning to be patient, learning to live without water and electricity. Everything just slows way down.

I expected there to be a great shouting of "Hurray" or some other form of happy exclamation soaring through the campus when the power returned. No such thing occurred. I think everyone here is very accustomed to the outages, and accommodating to them has been become a way of life. I think my celebratory exclamation when the power returned was the only one on campus.

And now, to back track a bit...

Last weekend, our facilitator Mr. Tang took us on an amazing adventure. First, we journeyed to the famous cave in Zhijin. This is about a 3-4 hour car ride from Bijie. We were traveling deeper and deeper into the countryside, and the mountain roads reminded me of some of the car rides with my Uncle Boombellock (yes, that's his name... last name is Rzemplinski, which is undoubtedly connected to Rumplestilskin) during my summers in Pennsylvania. We would go miniature golfing and then go spotting for deer, admiring their beauty via a high-powered flash light out of the passenger side window. I would then be treated to an ice cream cone, which I always regurgitated because my stomach was so queasy from riding in the back seat of the car through the switchback mountain roads. My stomach took a nostalgic trip back to the Pennsylvania of my childhood. However, before I completed the cycle, I asked to sit in the front seat of the car. This, and a bottle of Coca Cola, helped the many spasms my stomach was experiencing here in the China countryside.

The poverty in many places is indescribable. There are small villages or patches of houses along the way. Many of the houses seem to be caving in on one another. Most of the homes seem to have a rather broken down sofa inside, and perhaps a couple chairs. The living space is minimal for several people. I saw many women washing their hair with a bucket in front of their homes. There were more and more chickens and dogs as we drove further into the countryside. There are always many men and women, often very old, carrying heavy loads of water or sticks or straw on their backs. I am ashamed of complaining about the outages of electricity and water here in Bijie when I think of how difficult the lives of the people in the countryside are on an hour by hour basis.

Guizhou Province is directly south of Sichuan Province, although the epicenter of the May 12th earthquake in Sichuan is 700 miles from Bijie. I'm told that the mountain areas where the earthquake occurred are even more remote than the ones we were driving through on the way to Zhijin. This gave me a new understanding of how cut-off many of the towns and villages were when the earthquake occurred. There is still a tremendous amount of loss and suffering in the earthquake areas. However, the Chinese people are very proud of their response to the earthquake and the way in which their whole country answered a desperate need in a loving and compassionate way. They credit the national as well as the provincial governments for their leadership role in this very tragic human crisis.

Amidst all the poverty along the way, I saw so many beautiful interactions between the people in front of their homes in the villages. Grandmothers and grandfathers were playing with their grandchildren in front of many of the homes. There was a delightful and playful interplay between generations, and it was obvious that the children were enjoying the attention showered on them by their grandparents. Physical closeness seems to be a strong characteristic of their interaction, and their faces are often touching or very close to one another. Many, many smiles. Much laughter. Their body language exuded joy.

Along the villages, there were numerous clusters of plastic stools around some sort of makeshift table. Gathered around these tables were people playing cards or mahjong. As I said in an earlier blog, these games are more for the sake of "chat" than for the actual game. Catching up on local news and gossip abound during these games.It is not unusual to see very young children out alone or with two or three other children. They are walking very near the road, or in some cases playing in the road. We've seen several groups of children, looking to be about 7 or 9, playing in a lane of a highway, too.

The cars, trucks, and buses simply lay heavily onto their horns as they approach, and the children and animals are expected to move quickly out of the way. I remember when I first arrived here in Bijie how difficult it was to navigate crossing the street, as the flow of traffic is sporadic and vehicles shift from one side of the road to another at will. Now I find myself moving through the traffic, being within a couple inches of a passing car, still moving forward, and not even concerned about having my toes run over by a truck. Everyone just keeps moving, and the flow happens, even if it appears to be chaos from a distance.

The Zhijin Cave is nothing short of breath-taking and spectacular. Those words don't begin to describe the enormous underground structure that you experience in Zhijin. This is not a spelunking cave where you crawl through narrow passages dodging rats and bats. This is a palace of a cave, with many rooms. Each area has its own history and story... and many of the structures in the cave have been named after figures and moments in ancient Chinese history. I felt as if I had walked onto the set of "Lord of the Rings" at times... or into a fantasy world that would be the dream of any American film director.

As it is with everything Chinese, everywhere you look there is a new and startling vision. Every turn in the cave revealed lofty spaces of unbelievable textures and heights. The work which went into making this cave accessible to people/tourists is daunting. The many steps, which one of my students tells me numbers 999 on the tour, are beautifully crafted. In places, there are round and square stones, inscribed with beautiful carvings. To navigate the wetter parts of the cave, you move from stepping stone to stepping stone. There is a great deal of moisture, naturally, in the cave. As a result , many of the steps are wet and covered with a thin layer of mud. This day was a test of endurance for my surgery-repaired knees.

The lighting in the cave is actually quite minimal. The tour guide has a large flashlight, and there is intermittent lighting on the stairs, but they have made every effort to allow the natural beauty of the cave to simply be present for those hiking through the cave. There are a couple "rooms" which they have infused with a sort of garish red or green lighting, and there are plenty of photo stations along the way. We had the three of us photographed in a very famous area of the cave near the Warrior's Helmet. I was also able to try out the night portrait and candlelight settings on my new camera, and the effects are quite awe-inspiring. Mostly, I felt like I had been transported back in time to a magical and enchanted place, and I was in awe of the beauty of this majestic and mysterious place.
To be continued in the next blog...

I wish you moments of peace and joy today. As the Chinese saying goes, "May you have bright sun and gentle breezes in your life today..."