I had no idea that the simple act of hanging around our hotel courtyard on the day of mid-autumn festival would create such an experience, but then I suppose you never really do see\u00a0these experiences coming.\u00a0\u00a0Mid autumn festival is a day in China\u00a0where strictly speaking is on the 15th day of the 8th moon,\u00a0or the autumn equinox.\u00a0\u00a0If you are able to view the moon\u00a0through the haze or not\u00a0does not matter, what you do see is the entire country shutting down at the same time to celebrate the occasion.\u00a0 Families get together and\u00a0friends unite, like many cultures who have a celebration near harvest time.\u00a0 The\u00a0staple treat which everyone must consume are moon cakes, 3 inch circular discs which\u00a0are similar to fruit cake in density and taste.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our hotel, or luguan, which is usually a family run smaller and cheaper accommodation was found down a quiet maze of back alley complexes.\u00a0 Meshed together over the ages it is difficult to tell where one house ends and another starts, doors decorated in red fu characters for good luck and\u00a0fortune lead you to our place.\u00a0Most places open up behind these doors into an open courtyard with a few rooms attached.\u00a0 At our particular luguan this mid autumn festival Jim was shooting the breeze with some old men in our courtyard who are part of the family which run it.\u00a0 A graying woman cooked lunch while the men sat and talked.\u00a0 I was in the area organizing some photos and when the food came out was invited to join the gang.\u00a0 Jim, myself, three elderly men, and one woman all sat down to a feast of fish soup, chopped chicken (which was running around the courtyard just that morning) green veggies, sweet\u00a0tomatoes, and of course, as any Chinese\u00a0feast goes, baijiu.\u00a0 Baijiu is\u00a0the Chinese rice spirit which\u00a0usually runs both too strong in\u00a0a number of categories, most overwhelmingly being the taste.\u00a0\u00a0As the meal progressed\u00a0we seemed to be getting along very well and I really wish I could have understood the\u00a0thick accent\u00a0of the old man with the surname of Jia\u00a0to at least know the subject he was talking about.\u00a0 He\u00a0was giving very serious lectures, or telling stories,\u00a0or talking about us I’m not sure but all\u00a0Jim and I could do was nod and say we agreed.\u00a0 The woman was telling us that the yellow\u00a0river valley was the cradle of human civilization and was asking us if this is what we were taught.\u00a0 I told her I wasn’t sure and that\u00a0there are many ancient civilizations in the world, although it is much older than\u00a0the American civilization of where I come from.\u00a0 Perhaps she was talking about existing civilizations, I am unsure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
After an afternoon nap we decided to bike to the town square and play some music.\u00a0 Squares in China are places people go to\u00a0in the evening to dance, sing, play instruments, Rollerblade, meet friends, and just hang out.\u00a0 It always seems to be a great commune of both traditional and modern culture.\u00a0 Nakia, Drew, and Peter took out their instruments and instantly drew a crowd.\u00a0 Reception to our music along the way seems to change depending on the situation but people last night were genuinely interested.\u00a0 We sang a number of songs each with applause, Nakia particularly drew applause with her vocals.\u00a0 After singing a few we told people about our trip and mission then asked if anyone else in the group could perform.\u00a0 A tiny man, about 5 feet tall and\u00a0missing most of his teeth jumped in from the back and demanded the attention of the crowd, people seemed to know him.\u00a0 He belted out a couple of songs with hand motions, great eye contact, and a beautiful voice.\u00a0 He could sing incredibly well and everyone seemed very entertained.\u00a0 A woman soon starting singing Peking opera as well and they would go back and forth.\u00a0 Jim stepped in with the Chinese song “The Moon Represents my Heart” and “Zai Nali”\u00a0 With the help of the woman and the man the trio sounded great.\u00a0 People seemed extremely receptive.\u00a0 I meanwhile explained my bike to the many Chinese examining it, which seems to happen wherever we go.\u00a0\u00a0“Yes it is made in America,\u00a0those are\u00a0to hold water bottles, those are bags I put my things in, that is a pump to put air in my tires.”\u00a0 People always ask how much it cost as well but I usually lie and tell them it is much cheaper than what I payed.\u00a0 Sometimes it is an issue that I don’t want to run the risk of getting it stolen, but more often than not it is because after converting it’s price to RMB it sounds like a lot and I feel somewhat guilty I guess.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The evening was rounded out with skewed meat called Chuar, today we start biking into\u00a0the mountains.\u00a0\u00a0Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, Zhong qiu jie kuai le!\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had no idea that the simple act of hanging around our hotel courtyard on the day of mid-autumn festival would create such an experience, but then I suppose you never really do see\u00a0these experiences coming.\u00a0\u00a0Mid autumn festival is a day in China\u00a0where strictly speaking is on the 15th day of the 8th moon,\u00a0or the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adams-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/0708.fueledbyrice.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}