We just returned to Beijing and I’m in my old room with phone service so I can text to family and work. Over the last few days I’ve completely lost track of time and the day of the week. I had to look it up to see that it is Sunday here and Saturday back home. Though delayed, I will share my experiences in order. It will take a few days as there have been many.
Our days are very structured, full, and laden with food and gifts from our hosts. I think I’ve gained ten pounds and I know I have at least 25 pounds of gifts to add to my already heavy bags. The gifts might put me over the limit for baggage on the way home.
One of the trips we took in Hebei Province was to what our hosts called a grasslands. We thought it was a nature preserve with animals similar to what you would see at a zoo with a natural setting. The reality is far from this. We travelled a couple hours north to the Mongolian border climbing to a height of about 4200 feet.
The trip was enlightening. Small, medium, and large plots of land devoted to farming were visible on both sides of the road. All the vegetables served at the Olympics came from this area. During the entire drive I only saw three tractors, all three being very small. I saw more donkey and mule driven carts than I did modern machinery, but what was most visible was the large number of people working the farms by hand. In between the planting were small sheep herds tended by one herder.
On this trip I also observed the old and the new China, coal powered plants spewing forth their black emissions and solar powered street lights. Though China has replaced us as the number one country for carbon emissions they are also spending billions to find new and cheaper sources of energy. These include solar and wind sources.
When we came out of the mountains, we were greeted by an unbelievable site; a plateau that was so vast you could see nothing but flat grasslands on three sides. On the fourth were low mountains. It was then that we were told that we were near Mongolia and that we were going to visit Zhangbei Zhongdu Grassland, a vacation destination. Upon entering the area we were greeted by a group of riders on Mongolian ponies. In the picture you will also see three black cars in front of the bus. I’ll talk more about this in a later post.
We were then taken into a yurt where we were treated like royalty. Traditional foods were awaiting us in the yurt. There were goat cheeses, a dry meat of some kind, a spicy vegetable, and a drink was poured that appeared to be warmed milk, but with a different taste. When I added toasted seeds of some kind it was drinkable. Oh, there was also a pastry that was quite good and small, hard cookies that were also good. They performed traditional dances, played music on traditional instruments, and sang Mongolian songs. They also gave each one of us a beautiful white scarf after we blessed the heavens, the earth, crossed our hand on our forehead and drank a shot glass of a very fiery local liquor.
Like most of our activities in China, there was too little time devoted to this visit. The people were warm and truly interested in learning about us as we were them, but there just wasn’t the time. All too soon we had to leave, driving by the feisty, tethered ponies, saddled camels, and grasslands with grass that grows to be four feet tall in the fall.
Next I will share my visit to a high school since I was able to switch groups.
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