China, Day 13. Xi'an: Wild Goose Pagodas, Calligraphy, Dumplings and School Visit

It poured all day today! The rain was relentless. We debated about which was worse...the rain or the heat. We all settled on the heat being worse. Still, we were all very wet all day. Thankfully, it didn't stop us from any of our activities.

We started with our best breakfast buffet yet. There were hundreds of choices of food from Chinese to Korean to Japanese to American to European to you name it. It's such a fun way to start the day.

We then visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It is a Buddhist temple built in 652 A.D. during the Tang dynasty for the Master of the Monkey King. It housed ancient Buddhist texts and beautiful jade and copper reliefs until they were destroyed during the cultural revolution. The reliefs were rebuilt in recent years based on their original designs. Over the years, it suffered damage from earthquakes and now leans slightly to the West. It has been repaired extensively over time.

 

 

(The gold pagoda houses a piece of an important monk's skull.)

There was a huge golden Buddha in the center of the temple but we did not photograph it as monks were praying there. One of the monks had 9 dots on his forehead. This practice involves being branded by incense and signifies wisdom. It is no longer officially allowed due to its brutal nature, but it is practiced nonetheless.

After, we visited the Small Wild Goose Pagoda. It was built in 709 A.D. It once had a huge crack down the middle due to an earthquake. Then there was another earthquake and it shifted it back together. Much of the pagoda is original.

(After the big earthquake.)

We then did a calligraphy class at a local studio. We learned how to hold the brush and paint the character for "happy."

 

(Jia attempted to do a "bubble" character.)

 

(Painting inside of bottles.)

We then had our best meal yet - a feast of 15 different types of dumplings. There was spicy chicken, duck, pork and lotus root, taro and cheese, fish and pickle, mushroom and many more. There were dumplings in the shape of a swan, a chicken, a duck and the Monkey King. It was delicious and so much fun.

 

(dessert)

And the best for last, we spent the afternoon at a local school. It was the "Experimental Primary School Attached to the Shaanxi Normal University School." We were welcomed by a huge neon sign and a sixth grade class of about 35 kids. They performed songs including Somewhere over the Rainbow, You are my Sunshine, Let it Go from Frozen, Edelweiss and others, and did a play with the same story as the Giving Tree. Then they had everyone do the Macarena!

 

 

 

They then asked the girls to do a performance. The girls had chatted about singing a song, but at the last second, no one wanted to do it. So Jia took the mic and started to teach the kids how to play the camp game, Obo Shin Otten Totten. We loved watching the kids having fun playing it.

 

 

 

Afterward, our girls performed "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" and "Happy Birthday" in Mandarin. The kids all then exchanged gifts. They were so generous with them!

 (Our girls received quite a haul!)

We toured their art display after that.

It was so much fun to see the school. As Willa said, "They were not super proper, but just regular kids like us!" We are very grateful to have experiences like these. Right after we left, Jia exclaimed, "I already miss them!"

 

A last note about our fabulous guide Henry. He is both very educational and entertaining. He has been teaching us a Chinese rap song with hand motions. He also talks about the lives of locals a lot. He said that about half of the kids in China live with their grandparents because their parents are busy working. His daughter lives with his mother-in-law. He and his wife try to see her every few days if possible. He said that they have a good relationship because she lives close by, but that it's much harder for parents who leave their kids with grandparents in the countryside to go work in the city. They only see their kids every year or every other year and the kids become resentful. It gave the girls a lot of food for thought.

We were amused by Henry's comments about driving in China. He said that cars have really only been around in China for the past 15-20 years and that when they arrived people forgot how to behave properly. He also said that the Chinese word for driving is similar to fighting. And when asked, "Who has priority?" when driving, he replied that it's "kind of a subtle feeling" and laughed.

A game of Foosball capped off the day!