Playing dress up
Thursday afternoon we headed up to Whitney's hometown, Hudiequan. That translates to "Butterfly Spring", a famous spring that's up the hill from the town. We had another family dinner planned and were again given way too many hors d'oeuvres. But hey, that's a good problem to have. Whitney's family home was about the same size as Gail's, though she did not have a business on the ground level. Hudiequan, or at least the part we saw, was much quieter than Hongyuan.
We had arrived at mid-afternoon, so had a lot of time to kill. We were again treated to the family albums. Once finished with that, Whitney decided to take us on an excursion to a neighboring village. This village was an authentic Bai village with authentic Bai people living there. In one sense it was much the same as any village we've passed through in this part of China, with grocery and hardware stores and a farmer's market. There were plenty of folk in the traditional outfits, of course. While there was nothing overtly photogenic about the place (except for a big ol' tree in a public plaza, which, alas wasn't properly captured by my malfunctioning camera) it was a bit of a trip to just walk through town. As we wandered through town, we were accosted by an employee of a textile factory and saw some folks working on traditional dyed fabrics. The tour ended in the gift shop, of course, and it was a real temptation to keep from buying only a couple of things. (Part of me is tempted to just cut loose here and buy a whole new ethnic wardrobe before I leave. Fortunately for my budget, most of the interesting outfits are for women.)
We took a horse cart to and from the Bai village. We had seen horse carts in heavy use on our way to Gail's village and had told her we wanted to ride on one. We didn't have the time for it in Hongyuan, but managed to get a ride now. Our students, of course, thought we were a bit odd that we'd want to ride such an old form of transport. But such is the problem with entertaining foreigners.
Dinner at Whitney's house was delicious, of course. Where dinner with Gail's family was a small, cozy affair, dinner at Whitney's was a two table banquet, with a handful of relatives in attendance. Whitney's father was quite gregarious and offered me some of his bai jyu--what they call White Lightnin' in the States. (I think somebody said it was home brewed. Now I had been warned before we left that folks would want to drink toasts with the foreigner and some might even try to get me drunk. That problem had never really materialized, so I had got a bit lax about accepting an alcoholic drink. Fortunately I exaggerated my reaction to the bai jyu a bit to get a laugh, so after the first toast, they switched me over to wine. Still we had plenty of toasts and I ended up drinking a bit more than I'm accustomed to.
We spent the night at the local hotel--another free night's accommodation. (Did I mention that both students' fathers picked up the hotel tab for our stays in their respective cities? Both had connections with the owners.) In the morning we headed to the Butterfly Spring park, which we again got into free due to family connections. We had a specific mission in mind--Whitney's mom is somehow involved in the tourist trade and had some Bai outfits for us to try on. So we all got decked out in traditional clothes and had our photos taken by the Butterfly Spring.
Afterwards we walked through the park and enjoyed the exhibits. It wasn't the proper season, so the only butterflies we saw were either in the greenhouse or pinned in a display case. It was a nice park in which to stroll regardless. We picked up a few more souvenirs, including a new wedding ring for me. (I lost the previous one a few weeks back.) We finally left the park and headed through the plaza out front.
Whitney's mom waylayed us by one of the vendor's tables (her own, perhaps?) and ordered us to pick out gifts. The girls picked out a couple of silver bracelets and Yau Neih picked up a jade pendant carved in the shape of a bamboo. (Whitney's mom had originally offered her a Buddha, an offer which Whitney declined before Yau Neih could say anything. Part of the entertainment in Hudiequan was seeing Whitney get embarrassed by her parents' behavior. She needn't have worried--we thought they were wonderful folks.) I had a bit of a dilemma, since I had just bought a new wedding ring and didn't need any other jewelry. There were some other nice pieces of carved marble on the table, but I wanted to find the smallest and cheapest thing I could. I finally settled on a stone toothpick holder. I apparently succeeded in picking something inexpensive, since Whitney's mom insisted on giving me two of them. Sometimes the generosity of the folks here is just overwhelming.
posted by John @ 10:11 PM
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