Hongcun Village

"Hongcun Village is located at Yixian County, Anhui Province. Set up in the year of 1131, Hongcun Village has a history of more than 800 years. The place is surrounded by mountains with beautiful scenery, enjoying the name "a village in the Chinese painting". In the Song Dynasty, the villagers constructed an irrigation canal to water their fields and to prevent fire from the village. It was built with fine craftsmanship that was regarded as the best in China. The construction was designed in similarity to a cow's body structure, the vivid display of fine artwork is one outstanding feature of the village. The village still preserved over 140 dwelling house from the Ming and Qin Dynasty, all in excellent condition. All the buildings have exquisite carvings and are magnificent symbols of its time. Reputed as "A Living Ancient Residential Museum" by experts and tourists at home and from abroad, Hongcun village was listed as a world cultural heritage site by UNESCO in 2000."

When I was there, old, that's the first word that came to my mind. Not the kind of old that comes form undevelopment or poverty; it was a quaint world, the kina that comes from time and distance. I didn't consider it's a beautiful village in the first place. But when I got home, after viewing the pictures taken there, I suddenly realized the scenery there was stunning. This time, what I see from the pictures seems to be more beautiful than what I saw from the real world. Here're the pictures of Hongcun Village.

Feeling of Sars

I'm back. There's some bad news waiting for me -- SARS has hit Hangzhou; several people were infected with SARS. My family were really worried about me when I was away from home. It's not safe to travel any more.

SARS has got lots of media converag recently, and the public is getting more information about what's going on. The Chinese government and media used to hide the truth about SARS, but now it's impossible to cover up the tough situation -- SARS is spreading all over China; the numbers of people infected and dead are jumping dramatically every day. The government and media are getting serious about SARS finally. Instead of telling us everything is fine, SARS is well-controlled in China, they've changed their tone to SARS is dangerous, China has been fucked up by SARS. Past couple of days, Chinese Health Minister and Beijing Mayor were sacked by the government; the information about the patients has been announced publicly; the reports on SARS are nonstop on TV ( taking the place of the war reports ) ; the national holiday ( May1st -- May7th ) are cancled; many places (some schools, bars...) are closed... China's kinda going through a war nobody knows when it will end.

The massive coverage is definetly causing fear. The deadly disease didn't get that worse overnight, but the report seemed to be opened all of a suddenly two days ago. Everywhere I go, I hear people talk about SARS nervously. Obviously, SARS is messing up our normal lives. Take my home for instance, we're talking about it all the time too and my family worry a lot. My grandparents don't wanna go out anymore, they've decided to stay home for a while. My mom won't take buses from now on. Tomorrow, I'll go back to school, I'm sure the school would be different from few days ago. Anyway, it would be great if they could close my school, then I don't need to go to school anymore.

Moving

I've decided to move this blog to leylop.blog-city.com. Everything stays the same beside I change the blog host from Blogger to Blog-city. The reason I wanna move are:
1. Blogspot sites are blocked in China. I have to access my blog through a proxy. Recently, probably because of SARS, the blockage thing is getting worse in China; I've got much trouble accessing Blogspot sites even proxy is on.
2.Some of my classmates and friends are getting interested in my writing and pictures. Before, very few of them were reading my blog as this blog is not available in China. Lately, I really want to interact with them more and get a life in the real world rather than just spending tons of time on the Internet; it would be cool to share with them what I'm thinking and doing.
3.I've been getting a little bit tired of blogging through Blogger. Finding some new place to go gives me a fresh feeling to keep moving.
So here we go, this is where I move to.

(P.S. The moving work is still unfinished there. More links and entries will be added in soon.)

Task and task
Task and task and task...� This afternoon, I picked up many things that have been put aside for a while. It's like performing some tasks mechanically. No fun, no gain. The only drive kept me going was the thought that after getting these things done, I'd be relieved, and I'd be free to do anything. Now, I do finish most of the things I have to do, but I'm not as relieved as I thought I'd be, not even close to. Though I've got a little bit peace at night, after waking up tomorrow morning, the new tasks will be coming one after another, endlessly.

Life can be separated into tasks and tasks, these tasks are the units to count our lives. I used to live like that, I still do sometimes. It's probably one of the worst and saddest ways to live. Living like that, my head is so stuffed with yesterday's knowledge and tomorrow's hope that I can to enter this moment deeply.

Yesterday, I can't remember from when I started to like talking about yesterday. When I was a kid, I used to...In the past, it was like...� I bring up recollection a lot. Am I getting older, or I'm just trying to dig something out because I've got nothing else to say about today?

Tomorrow, I used to live in the shadow of tomorrow. This moment is worthless; I'm looking forward to tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes, when tomorrow turns out to be this moment, I realize it's not like the moment I thought, so I start waiting for the next tomorrow. I live for tomorrow, but it always fails me. Finally I come to realize that tomorrow won't get necessarily better, the moments that I expect and imagine will never come as I wish. If I can't be in love with this moment, life will never be turned around.

I don't like dissussing the topic of future with others. I have no clue about my futrue, and I don't even want to figure it out. No need -- tomorrow, I will know. Tired of hearing some ambitions or goals or dreams like I want to make lots of money, I want to travel around the world, I want to be happy, I want to... All cliche.

I don't know what I really wanna do in the future, but I'm pretty pretty clear about what types of lives I don't want to live and what types of people I don't want to be. I'm trying to avoid doing or saying things that I'm sick of or disgusted with, escaping the world I don't like. In some way, I'm getting close to the world I'm fond of. I will be there, someday.

Feng Huang Si

I went to Feng Huang Si (phoenix mosque) last Sunday. It's a mosque -- one of the four most famous mosques in Southeast China. It was my first time to visit Feng Huang Si, I thought it'd be awesome and full of crowds. But to my surprise, there were only three people in that mosque: an old man, the old man's wife, and the old man's grandson. They lived there, responsible for the work of cleaner, security guard, and any other work inside. Feng Huang Si looked pretty simple; much simpler than I thought what a mosque would be like. When seeing it was so quiet there, I figured feng huang si had already lost its religious function. But the old man's wife said some Muslims would come on Friday. It seems besides people who originally come from Muslim world, there're not many Muslims in Hangzhou. The old couple were kind of mean anyway; getting out of here seemed to write on their faces, the old man even tried to stop me from walking around. I didn't listen to him though, as this mosque was opened to the public, and visitors were supposed to be welcomed.

Camera was not allowed in that mosque, but I still took some pictures secretly, since there were only an old man and an old woman and a little kid there. I don't respect rules that much as long as I'm not caught by others. Here're the picutres.




Other pictures taken on Sunday:

Yard (Pictures)
On the way to the mosque, I came across a really nice yard. This yard used to belong to some rich family living a couple of hundred years ago. Finding an old jiang nan style in the street was definitely unpredictable and amazing.


Food Market (pictures)
Let's go to a tradional Chinese food market and meet some people there.

Hills












My class went out together yesterday. I was worn out after eight hours spent walking in the hills -- we climbed the half hills of Hangzhou. Though exhausted, we had a really good time.

The best part of the trip was that I talked with some classmates I'd never really talked. We've been classmates for three years, but there're some groups I just never got into. Go to school every day, I say Hi when seeing them, then I sit in a seat alone doing my own things, then I go back home, and that's all. I don't really know them, they don't really know me.

Yesterday, I involuntarily joined in a group with four guys I hardly knew, as five of us all walked pretty fast. I talked with them all along. There was one guy who surprised me a lot. He's the best looking guy in class; all three years, I spoke to him less than five sentences. I thought he was shy, a little bit proud, hard to close, and didn't feel like talking with me. If we see each other in the campus, both of us would pretend we're looking at somewhere else -- greeting seems awkward. Yesterday he happened to walk behind me, sometimes walked with me. We talked a lot, not some deep conversation, but really really nice. We were teasing back and forth, all the distance seemed to be gone between us. By talking, he turned out to be an interesting guy with a lot to offer, totally different from what I thought. Great to have some chance to get to know people I don't really know, great to break some wrong impression I've formed by my lousy judgement.

And pictures. I really like the places we've been to, pure nature --
Hills
People
A Taoist Temple

Sunday Church



"Is this a real church?" Sitting in a pew, I seriously doubted it. I really wanted to ask people around where I was, but it was too embarrassing to do it. What would other people say? "Oh yeah, it's a church, are you retarded?" Or "No, you're in the wrong place, it's actually a temple."

Believe it or not, it's my first time to go to a church. To finish a school assignment about religion, I went there on Sunday to do a little bit research. The church I picked was the biggest church in Hangzhou, which was bulit in 1868. (right, the same church I doubted about if it was real or not)

Never been to a church, I'd formed an image of the church from TV, movies, and pictures-- awesome architecture, quiet surrounding, religious people... Church seems to be a pure place. But when I was in that church, everything I saw was so different from what I expected that I started doubting where I was.

The architecture of that church seemed nice, but definitely had nothing to do with awe. And there's amost no decoration inside. Since it's in China, probably cool to have a Chinese style church.

Then people -- It's hard to believe how crowded that church was. People were separated in different places rather than a big room. There were several rooms, each room had a big TV. And they had to make use of the outside space too. People outside were sitting in folding chairs, listening to the radio--every corner was full of people. I think they really need to build more churches in Hangzhou as the number of Christians seems to grow fast. Oh, another strange thing -- probably more than 80 percent of people in church were the old; couldn't find much vigor there. It seems old Chinese are more religious, and it's easier for them to accept some religion.

The thing I like most about church is the music. I really enjoyed the songs they were singing.Though I had no idea what the meaning of these songs are, the melodies are beautiful. The part I less enjoyed was reading Bible. I thought the priest would give a powerful speech like they do in movies, but he was just reading Bible sentence by sentence, kinda dry. Plus, his mandarin was really bad ( speaking with a strong local accent), I wasn't even sure what he was talking about.

Also took some pictures. At first I thought it would be inappropriate to pull out a camera there. But that church turned out to be a crowded, noisy, kinda messy place, so I felt less guilty about taking pictures. And really wanted to caputre what I saw, here are the pictures of Sunday Church.

Roads (spring) -- new








Roads (winter)








(these trees are green all year around)





I love roads.
I like standing at the beginning of a long and straight road, doing nothing but watching the other side of the road. It looks as if the road will never end, and I'm just in the middle of nowhere -- love that feeling.
I wish the roads I like could just belong to me: no cars, no people; only roads and trees. Oh yeah, trees. Love trees too...

Getting married




I came across two couples in a bamboo wood. The couples who were getting married were taking pictures there. The location was pretty good, and these people were really nice. Curious about how professional photographer worked, I was there all along. And here are more pictures I took.





having an argument





sunday afternoon

Visiting Guangzhou and SARS

I was planning to visit Guangzhou area next week, but now I'm really hesitant about it -- should I stay or should I go?

What I'm worried about is that Guangdong province is where the outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) began, and many people have already been infected and died .

Getting the news of SARS from non-Chinese media mostly, SARS is making headlines throughout the world. But ironically, very few news reports are given by Chinese media -- general public have no idea what SARS is , and it seems Chinese officials are ignoring the spread of this dangerous illness.

Tonight, they talked about SARS fully and openly on TV for the first time. The Chinese Health Minister was interviewed by CCTV ( China's Central Television ). According to latest statistics, 1194 Chinese have been infected by SARS and there were 46 death cases. These numbers are a little bit scary, but in tonight's interview, they seemed relaxed and calm. The host was even squeezing some smile all along. In their words, "...both central and local governments and health authorities had worked hard to control the disease, and their efforts were "praised by experts of the World Health Organization." ( from CCTV website). He also said China has found the method of curing SARS ( which I don't believe ), and there's no direct evidence to prove that SARS was originally from China ( which I doubt about). In general, everything is under control, don't worry about it at all.

This interview was like a fake show. Instead of discussing this serious problem and telling the public what's really going on, they intended to assure us that there's no big problem and there's no need to fear. I can't say it's wrong, but I'd like to see more reports in detail on this issue. It's a shame they haven't talked about the SARS epidemic for such a long time. Less people would have died if they paid more attention to it, I think.

Back to my plan of visiting Guangzhou, I haven't decided yet. Sometimes it's stupid to worry too much. There're tons of people living in Guangzhou, only few of them are infected by SARS. Fear causes more worries than illness itself, it's probably not THAT dangerous. Kinda like there're not THAT many people who die from air crashes, but the impact of an air crash on people is huge. What I'm thinking about are the the questions like what if I become one of these unlucky people, what if I am infect.

The reason I want to visit Guangzhou is pretty simple -- I just want to travel to different places of China, and Guangzhou is a typical southern city. So I don't have to go there. Maybe it'd better to visit there some other time and find a new location to go. I'll think more about it...







Past few days

I've been busy past few days. Needed to hand in some long essays to school; I was working on them. Last night, I finished all my assignments finally, and I've got free time now. Sorry I haven't replied to some e-mails or logged in any IM these days, I'll do it tonight. And new entries and photos will come soon.

Also I've been reading a lot recently. Reading will be beneficial to writing in the long run, I believe. But for now, reading seems to kill my motivation to write. The more I read, the less I feel like writing. Not that I don't like writing or I've got nothing to write, I just want to write better. Through reading, I've realized how little I could actually write and how much I need to learn. It's a nice thing to devote more time to reading.

Been getting some nasty comments and e-mails recently, I've decided that from now on, I'll delete all of them. Any comment attacking China or Chinese people intentionally will be deleted. I used to think I'd keep all comments here, but now I'm asking myself -- What's the point of leaving these poisonous words? What's the point of arguing with these people? To prove that I'm not the type of person they accuse of? To try to change their opinion on me? No matter what I do, they won't change their positions a bit. It's wasting my time to deal with them, and I don't care what they say. Also it's wasting their time to blame me on censorship, human rights, or politics. Not my fault, and there's nothing I can do. This is a PERSONAL blog, I'm free to delete any comment here.

More Soon...



( P.S: I'm making a little bit change of the layout design. If there's anything wrong for you to view this blog, please let me know. Thanks a lot! )