Xi'an

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I am able to upload photos more easily here, so I will try to add some to previous entries, and you might want to look back to see them. (You are not required to reread the text to do so.)

Yesterday we had a free day to explore Shanghai. Lynn and I started in the Luwan area (French Concession) and had tea in the Old China Hand Bookstore. I found a couple of books of photo essays that included Kuling and Kikungshan, but can probably find them cheaper on eBay. Then to the Old Town, bargaining for pearls and eating great food at the street booths. A massive farewell dinner with the docs and the core team of students.

Is this trip really about food? Of course! We are asked if we miss American food, and we say--absolutely not! We could live happpily on the food here. In this we are apparently different from most foreign visitors, along with our competence with chopsticks.

Here's an interesting fact--the pediatricians tell me that chopstick mastery, as a developmental milestone, is achieved at 3.5 years normally. Compare that with the use of a spoon at 18-24 months. Along the same line--the Chinese developmentalists are having a hard time how to assess dyslexia in Chinese children. There really aren't any criteria for the diagnosis here, and the process of recognizing individual characters is so different from "decoding" strings of letters that dyslexia for reading Chinese may be a totally different type of dysfunction. My position is that memorizing the 3,000+ characters necessary for literacy is so hard that not being able to do it is really normal, and not a disorder. That was not greeted with great enthusiasm, but then, most of my positions on things are not.

So, on with the trip! Our flight from Shanghai to Xi'an was swift and efficient. Security for domestic flights is like in the US but moves quickly. Out the plane window, about the time we were ready to descend, I saw a striking peak that is probably Hua Shan, a 2160 m high mountain, sacred in Taoism. Climbing it is an available activity that we will probably pass on.

We were met by our tour guide, Yanzhi--"call me Gigi"--charming local girl from Shaanxi province, majored in English and now teaching and handling American/Brit/Austr tourists. She works with a driver, Mr. [Chun? I'm not sure I got his name right.] who is pleasant and finds my remarks amusing even though he doesn't speak much English. On the way into the city, Gigi pointed out the mounds that are all around this very flat region--they are not moraines, not natural at all, they are tombs.

Xi'an on the outskirts and further in is drab, dirty, crowded, hectic, like many Chinese cities are said to be. Then we get to the city wall, and I am totally outdone. It is massive, more than anything I have seen, and granted I am not real experienced with the wonders of the world, I know the pyramids are big and all, but it's not so much it's height or thickness, but it is almost 10 miles long! Of course, I haven't been to the Great Wall yet, so this may sound very dumb. I kept thinking, though--how many troops would you have to get together before you felt ready to attack this wall? And how do you get this kind of force together in 500 AD?

Our hotel--the Royal Garden--is quite modern and comfortable. It took us a while to figure out that all the lights are controlled from a keypad by the bed. The room was stuffy, and we fiddled with the buttons for th efan and the climate control but nothing happpened. When we inquired at the desk, the answer was: "Open the window." We are such great representatives for our country! They should have laughed at us for idiots, but the laughter was in reality good-natured.

Gigi and driver took us for dinner--hot pot. It's like fondue, but boiled in water, not oil. Does everyone know about this but me? Well, I've never had it before, and loved it! Especially the mutton. You mix your own sauce out of soy, chili oil, garlic, BBQ sauce, and other stuff. The driver showed the real way to cook the egg--just the yolk, and mix the raw white in your sauce.

Then a quick ride around the South Gate before going back to the hotel. Additional pictures available here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/RDJacobson/XiAn

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Photos

South Gate, Xi'an city wall
At night, to state the obvious

Foreigners at the Gate
Taken by Gigi

Shanghai, Luwan
Sunday

Comments

[jennifer]

i'm SO jealous of you guys. cute babies and hot pot....mmmmmm

[Jennifer]

coincidence...
I forgot to mention that I enjoyed showing your blog to our babysitter Xiaoli. She watches the kids after school 2 days a week while I"m at work. Her husband is here doing an ENT post-doc at Loyola... and She is FROM X'IAN! crazy, huh?

[RandLJacobson]

Xi'an, previously known as Chang'an
(We just spent all day going over the history.) Ask Xiaoli if there is anyone we can say hi to. We leave tomorrow, though. This is definitely an interesting place to be from.