beijing okay

爨底下

。。。

Silvia and I went to Cuandixia, a village a few hours outside of Beijing, completely accessible by public transportation. I had previously been two years ago and wanted to see what had changed. A bit of word-of-mouth must gotten around about the place, because it was much more tourist friendly with signs in English, a trendy tourist shop, an actual bathroom facility (previously it was ghastly concrete slabs with holes in between) and a local populace much more attuned to money spending outsiders.

The character 爨 (cuan4), featured in the center of this photograph, is an ancient character that basically no Chinese person is familiar with, save for the residents of the town. It's a namesake for the people of the village in that it is a completely rare character. It's original meaning is a verb to start a cooking fire.

Many of the Ming Dynasty era buildings have Cultural Revolution slogans painted on them. This reads in part 大学解放军(?)红(?)用毛主席(?) meaning "University student liberation army! (?)Red (guards?) use Mao Tse Dong thought!" I don't understand the whole phrase since it's mostly erased...

Silvia and her homemade cape.

A wonderful dinner of beef and potatoes, eggs stir fried with tomato and a kind of zucchini-like vegetable, duck sausages with walnuts, preserved wild vegetables, fried eggplant and homemade tofu with green peppers.

Me with my new beardless face overlooking the ancient, terraced mountains.

Silvy resting in our village room.

Me in a narrow walkway leading to the entrance of a home.

Big breakfast of "bao zi" filled with wild vegetables and pork, scallion pancakes, several cold vegetable dishes, hard boiled eggs and corn congee.