November 14-17, 2014
The weekend of November 14 through 17, I went to Zhangye in Gansu Province, to visit an Amity teacher from Germany, who had been out of China for a couple of years and is now back. Since I am not an Amity teacher any more, I might not bump into her at an Amity event as I otherwise might have. Also, she is teaching in Zhangye, a place I like a lot. I had been there two other times, once in 2005 on a personal tour of the Silk Road from Dunhuang to Lanzhou and again in 2006 where we had an Amity SEP team, and thought I would like to have one more look.
Karin's university is quite large, she rides a bicycle from her apartment building to classroom buildings. Behind her is the library.
I flew in two stages to get there on a Friday afternoon. Karin met me at the airport; the weather was cold, gray, and windy. I had expected that, but wasn't thrilled with it. However, that was the last we saw of anything other than perfect, sunny, crisp air - the rest of the weekend we had wonderful weather. Her apartment, provided by the college, of course, is quite spacious, the living room with big windows facing south to capture the warmth of the sun in cold weather - and it does get cold there, and snowy. In north China, there is automatic heat provided to every building. In their case, it comes through heated floors, with warm water circulating through pipes in between floors. Even barefoot, the floor is not cold. Hot water from the tap, though, comes from a solar heated device on the roof, so if you want a hot shower, you'd better get it while the getting is good. If it's cloudy, you might be out of luck, as we were that first night.
Saturday, 15th
On Saturday, she suggested we go out to a sightseeing spot that I had not known about before, even in my two other trips. This is called the Dan Xia Landform Scenic Spot (loosely translated). Actually, once some years after my last trip to Zhangye, a 'forward' circulated on the Internet about this landform and when I read that it was near Zhangye, I was shocked that such a stupendous place had not been mentioned on previous trips. I suspect that it had not yet been developed into a tourist destination, so it wasn't on tourist maps.
We hired a taxi driver to take us and wait for us, because otherwise, getting out there and back might have taken most of the time we had to spend. As it was, we had most all day.
The gist of it is this: it is a large area (like many square miles, I don't know the exact size) of a kind of landform that, first, has no vegetation; it looks like sand covering steep hills that jut up in willy-nilly fashion, with ridges and wrinkles, colored in red sand with stripes of yellow, green, and white.
See the strip of bacon in the back? Notice the variegated striping throughout the wrinkled hills
They have it really well organized, and since it was not a holiday, not crowded at all. Once you arrive at the site and buy your ticket (mine was free due to my age) you go to the scenic spots by shuttle. When you get to a place you want to explore, you get off the shuttle and when you want to go to the next spot, there will be another shuttle available to take you. At each site there are wooden walkways up to overlook points. The area had had a dusting of snow the night before, which left some white patches in the shady areas. It was all quite spectacular.
Sunday, 16th
That was Saturday; Sunday, of course, we attended the Zhangye church. The old church had met in a facility in a building that housed other functions; it was not a church building.
But, two years ago, the new church building was completed and so that is where we went (the old building has been demolished, though some people meet at a different downtown location for prayer meetings during the week). It is large and beautiful, and the best part is that it is located in the middle of a housing boom, with dozens of high rise complexes being built around it. The church has room for expansion, with a u-shaped balcony that is not being used at this point.
After the service we lingered, greeted people and asked questions; I told this woman I had worshipped in the old building as well
There is also a side building that offers possibilities for future activities. Currently, the side building is being used commercially to offset the cost of servicing the debt the church incurred in building. Offices are being rented and even apartments being sold, as I understood it. There is a guesthouse inside, which can be used as a hotel, but can also be used by trainees from the surrounding area who come to receive training in that building.
There is a space on the ground floor about half as large as the full sanctuary, which is on the second floor, that is used as an overflow room, also for those who can't climb the stairs to the second floor. This will also allow for future expansion.
When we arrived, we explored the facility a bit, learning that a fairly frequent attendance is about 1000, with about 3000 believers in the urban area. This is the only Protestant church building in Zhangye, though there are many small congregations that meet in homes (not necessarily 'illegal.')
Reclining Buddha
On Sunday afternoon, we visited a Buddhist complex that housed a 'reclining Buddha' figure, about 40 feet long, the largest reclining Buddha figure in China. It is about 1000 years old; in a museum area, there was displayed a model showing how it was built. First, there was a wooden frame, that was then covered in clay, then painted.
this is a panorama of a model showing how the figure was made, from wooden frame to clay wrapping to painting
The figure is huge, 40 feet long; it is the largest such figure in China
Monday, 17th
On Monday, Karin gave me a tour of her campus, which had surely doubled since we were there in 2006. It was huge; I think it might have been a mile from one end to the other. She lives in the south end and we walked to the north, as she pointed out various buildings and functions. Fortunately, there is a shuttle that runs from one end to the other every few minutes, so we rode back.
That evening, we treated ourselves to a foot massage. (I was fully massaged during that trip; on Saturday after the trek around the Dan Xia landform park, she treated me to a full body massage.) I like foot massages, and they are much cheaper in China than in the US, though more expensive now than they used to be, as prices for everything have gone up, along with rising incomes. Anyway, the highlight of this foot massage was the use of moxibustion, another form of Chinese therapy that includes acupuncture (which I have had and don't intend to have again). Moxibustion involves heating special, thin glass cups and attaching it to the skin (I have seen as many as six on a man's back, in a 1990 trip to a small town in south China). The purpose, I gather, is to suction out whatever it is supposed to draw out that is harmful.
Anyway, this was included in our foot massage program. The masseuse took a gauze held with needle-nose scissors, dipped into a chemical, then lighted and swished inside the cup, which is then attached to the foot. She moved the cup around a bit and then left it stuck to my foot by suction caused by removing the oxygen with the flame. She did this for each foot and left it there for several minutes. Some excitement was provided by an accidental fire caused when the flame touched the paper mat under my friend's feet. It caught on fire and was quickly pulled to the floor where the girl seemed not to know what to do. It burned brightly, and longer than I might have thought, but someone finally came to put something over it to extinguish it.
Monday-Tuesday, 17th-18th
To return to Nanjing, there was not a combination of flights that would allow me to get back in one day, so on Monday night, at midnight, I boarded an overnight train to Lanzhou, the capital of the province, arriving at 6:30 on Tuesday. I like Chinese trains and was comfortable, within limits, sleeping on the lower bunk, of three. Upon arriving in Lanzhou, I found a hotel where I had breakfast and then took a taxi to a shuttle point, which took me to the airport. My flight was about 11:30 and I flew back to Nanjing.
