Qingyan Ancient City

On the second full day of our trip, we went to the Ancient City of Qingyan. It was built in 1378, and originally was a functioning military town in the Guizhou Province. Now it is more of a tourist attraction, with lots of temples, street stalls selling strange food, and cool architecture. It was one of the few ancient towns built mostly of stone, so I like to pretend it is all original, but I'm sure that's not totally true. 

This is one of the famous gates in Qingyan, and it's original! It is called longevity gate. Funny that it's named that when in Europe about this time, my ancestors were dying hand over fist from the plague. 

This was the entrance gate to one of the Chinese temple compounds. 

Once inside, there was the main temple with lots of practitioners. There seemed to be a whole group of people actually going through one at a time to pray, get their fortune discussed with a priest, then tie a red ribbon just outside of the temple. Not sure what the red ribbon was for. Notice in front of this temple is a big yin-yang symbol? I always remember how as a kid, we would wear these silly hemp necklaces with beads on them, often yinyangs, peace signs, hearts, etc. We were genuine hippies, but we had no idea what the symbols meant. I even thought it was Ying-Yang, not yin/yang. It turns out, yin means light, and yang means dark black, hence the well known colors. Most people get the balance part of it, that you can't have one element without the other. But, the symbol originally represented two fish in a swirling dance with each other. Therefore, movement is inherent in this symbol, or, in other words, flow. This links to the flow of chi that the Chinese believe govern all aspects of life. Like tai chi? Crazy huh? It's all linked together! 

This was a unique painting on the ceiling of a pavilion just outside of the main temple. I am going to pretend that this is super old too. Makes it feel more special that way. 

One thing I really liked about this particular temple was its human like depictions of gods inside of the temple. This reinforces how their "gods" were really just people who, in their lifetime, were particularly good at one thing or another, and the Chinese now go to pray to them, or show respect, so that these ancestors will help guide them in that specific area of need. I like to think of them as saints. 

This was a calligraphy station set up so you could practice your characters. But, the best part was we weren't using real ink. It was simply water than turned the paper dark, and then later dried and lightened it again. Infinite fun! Plus, we didn't have to worry about making mistakes or wasting ink. Perfect. 

The city is completely walled in by a substantial wall. Like a mini-Great Wall. The funny part was, the top of the walls weren't high enough to cover our tall heads. So, if we had really been fighting a battle from up there, we most certainly would have been shot in the head by an arrow. Oops. Apparently we need to be about a foot shorter for this wall to be effective. 

The other funny thing about this town was the amount of food they were selling that was unrecognizable. Or, if it was, you wish you hadn't recognized it. For instance, not really sure what kind of meat that is in the first picture. But, I can certainly tell you what the second picture is! Can you? Needless to say, we did not partake of any of this....

Finally, the last cool part about this town was that aside from the stuff set up for tourists, real people actually lived inside or just outside of the city. At one point, we wandered through their own market, where they were selling real life things an every day person would need. For instance, this guy is selling the heads of farming tools, axes, hoes, etc.

As we were walking around this local market, I decided I was too hot and wanted a tasty ice cream treat to cool down with. We saw the ice cream guy, and I asked him in mandarin how much it cost. He said "1 dollar 5. I assumed he meant 15 dollars, as I was still getting my dollars and cents vocab mixed up. 15 yuan is like 2 bucks, so it didn't seem outrageous. So, Drew handed the old man a 10 and a 5. The guy smiled at us, handed Drew back the 10, then gave us 3.50 back in change. The ice cream had been only 1.50, (or about 20 American cents) not 15. This is a perfect example of how the people in this area have no intention of scamming people, or taking advantage of clueless westerners, unlike Shanghai and Beijing. The old man could have just taken our 15 dollars, and I would have enjoyed my ice cream. But, he didn't.