Qing Ming Festival, aka Tomb Sweeping Day, is the day to celebrate those family members that have passed onto the next world. Some ways they celebrate are by taking the deceased family members favorite meal, some fake money and they go to visit the gravesite, they literally sweep the tombs, cleaning them and planting new flowers around it, after this is completed they take the meal, the fake paper money, sometimes paper clothing and jewelry and offer it to them by burning it. This is a way of the family making sure that they are well fed and have enough to live on in the afterlife. It’s kind of cool that they have these traditions, it’s something that we would never think about but they’ve been doing it for a while. It lasts for about three days, and lucky me, I get the days off from teaching. My part of the Qing Ming Festival was to investigate the nearby Dayan Mountain; it’s very close to the city and only took about 50 minutes by bus. During the bus ride I also found another Temple to explore on another day, see something good comes of bus rides. Dayan Mountain is close to what the locals call ‘Shoe City’, which is where the shoes are made and also sold at a very cheap price, another note to self when shoes are needed, if I can find my size…the prices are beyond cheap for shoes. Before I even got off the bus the smell of rubber smacks you in the face. There are factories all over as well as the market on the street, selling shoes and clothing of all kinds. Now to try to find an entrance or path…just go towards the mountain, there are no signs, so I just went towards the large thing in front. It wasn’t too hard to find a pathway, there were a few people enjoying the day as well and they decided it was a good day for a hike as well. After a little bit, the people trailed off…and I really had to pee, good thing I went when I did…as right after a few people started down the same trail. Haha! It was nice to get out of the city for the day, relax among the trees and waterfalls. The birds were happy today and I got some sketching done. I also thought about the question, ‘If a tree falls in the forest does anyone hear it?’ Haha, dumb I know. But my final answer is fun…. If a tree falls in the forest, the birds and squirrels start to complain, they tell the roaming mice and chipmunks, they tell the raccoons, who tells the coyotes, who tells the bobcats, who tells the panda, who tells the mountain gorilla, then the gorilla using sign language tells a human…so you see, everyone needs to learn a new language once in a while, communication is important, the trees depend on it! Haha! I could have started with the bugs on the trees, but that seemed like a bit much. After my contemplation of that question, I headed back to the bus stop but along the path ran into a group of boys, who followed me down the mountain and through the streets…it was entertaining, check out the videos. | The factory area around the Dayan Mountain, 'Shoe City' Waterfalls obscured view I have groupies! Up close of the groupies, they followed me for sometime more |
1 Comment
Denise
4/13/2013 05:27:49 am
well glad you found a fan club to hang out with. The boys were funny. When you were walking and showing us the pipes in the canal there was laundry hanging to dry, among other things, was it sea weed drying on the lines?
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Patricia CalvertAn American expat and the adventure in her new world. This expat tells you about her escapades, struggles, moments of laughter, as well as those "huh?!?" moments of her journey of teaching ESL in Wenzhou, China; a manufacturing district in Mainland China. Archives
March 2014
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