Remaining the rain falls upon the steam like lake,

The broken bridge, with the silk sunshade, my sighing for you paled into black and white.

Who on the boat ,is writing about my past?

a line of vow, but on paper was all about parting.

Rain, ah, standing at the edge of the lake,

rain, ah, I look at the north bank in the distance.

...

impression west lake


It is the theme song of Impression West Lake, one of three real scene performances directed by Zhang Yimou's teams. Zhang, as one of the most celebrated film director, through great search and study, developed on three beautiful landscape locations cultural performances. His other two, which I have enjoyed greatly,in Lijiang and Guilin respectively are huge successes. For his most recent works, Impression West Lake is attracting more and more audience too.

But actually not until recently I watched the show,although it has been on for about two years. Too proud of Zhang's reputation, the show has very high ticket price ( 220, 450, 600 RMB, or 32, 65, 90 US dollars) besides no discounted prices for tour groups and no free tickets to guides, which made it so distant to tourism circle for a while. But since early this year, they have become much more welcoming, maybe faced with tougher competition from other hugely popular cultural shows in Hangzhou. They hand out pamphlets, offer free entry to tour guides and discounted prices to groups.

Compared to other impression shows, this one is a little abstract to apprenhend . It's a love story but instead of household love stories related to the west lake, tells two cranes turned boy and girl. Their encounter, their love, sweetness and pains of departures. The lake or Yuehu part of the west lake, surrounded by forests, lit up colorfully, enshrouded in artificial water mist,with pleasure boats decorated brightly is for sure the genius choice and creation. As well, the platform, hidden inches under the lake surface, makes possible all dancing dream-like.

I found it visually stressful, the colors, pure bright, blue, red, purple being so sharp and contradictory; its hundred actors making the lake so crowded, creating strange senses like love affairs and dishonesty. The ugliest is the water screen, paramid shaped, is never better than a flat one.

And my favorite part is still the music.Hitaro, the Japanese writes a superb melody for the lake, romantic, sad and silky, which is equally superbly intrepreted by Jang Zhang, the Chinese idol.

calla lily

complicated sickness

I've got a cold obviously. My running nose, sneezes, light headaches are results of the blamefully changeful weather in the last weeks. Rainy, overcast and hot sunny days came seemingly in turns with daily temperatures rising and falling actively between 10 to 25. So every morning recently when I leave home, I would hesitate and rethink over if I should put on one more piece and bring an umbrella with me.

And strangely, my sickness is complicated as I am carrying typical symptoms of typical excess of 'internal heat'. Every day I wake up with dry, bitter and sore throats, heavy eyes and little acne outbreak. 'Internal heat' is a term in traditional Chinese medicine related to aggregation of body toxins from too much intakes of spicy and deep fried food, 'hot and poisonous' fruits (like pineapple), overwork and stresses. I guess too much coffee will worsen things too.

So, in order to return to being a healthy man, firstly against the cold, I choose to drink more hot soup and wear a little more, instead of taking western medicine, for the sake of their possible bad side effects. Secondly regarding to cooling off body heats, I have two strategies:

One, drink more green tea since I just can't sacrifice coffee. Green tea has been reconfirmed all over the world as a very healthy drink, with its high content of powerful antioxidants working out wonders, while Chinese ancient doctors already claimed green tea relieves body toxin, keeps people light and smart, and ensures long life. My city Hangzhou happens to be nicknamed to be capital of green tea, for it produces the best green tea in China but also a large percentage of its residents are religious heavy drinkers.

Two,three pills per day of 'niu huang jie du pian' ( toxin-relieving ox-bezoar pill' by pharmaceutical company Tongrentang, with major ingredients of artificial bezoar, dried kikyou, borneol and licorice. Very good and effective, by my own experience.

I just wish my treatment plan will help me recover as soon as possible, from laughable tortures of the cold and heat, before they might team up to explode my whole head.

a pilgram called Tsasi

Every time when I visited Lhasa and Tibet, I couldn't help being impressed and touched by those Pilgrims, who composed most memorable sights on my tours. I wonder about the exact history about the most sacred custom of pilgrmizing in company or alone, hundreds of miles from hometowns by prostrating every inch on the way to the mecca city of Lhasa, or to be more exact, the 12-year-old image statue of the Buddha in Joarkang temple. Upon arrival, they would bath in the Lhasa river and wait in full expection to meet their Buddha, and prostrate and pray at the square to the temple and walk around Potala palace, and to continue to journey to other monasteries in Tibet and around.


Tsasi is a 33 -year- old young lama,from Datongma grassland, Ganzi county, Sichuan province. At age of 18 he became a monk at a local monastery and soon joined by his young brother too. Their little sister stayed at home, who passed away during a birth delivery short time ago. Tsasi once visited Lhasa in 2003 by bus ( instead of walking and prostrating on the way). 'Maybe if I have prostrated last time, my little sister wouldn't die,' he regretted in grief. He was doing good deeds for her, or her lonely but wrongful soul to reach pure land. In traditional concepts, dying young age is sinful. Meanwhile he was doing prostration, he invited five lamas at hometowns to enchant and do service for his lost sister. He planned to complete 100,000 prostrations within 49 days here in Lhasa, exactly the same time for the lamas at home to complete the ceremony.


He had a very regular routine life in Lhasa, tough but strongly supported by his strong faith for the good of his sister. He would take a short rest on his cushion or lie down to nap for a while before he continued again. In the first days, he wasn't very accustomed to it so he take half days breaks. But still he shouldn't stop completely, with minimum of three hundred prayers per day.

I tried to experience it. So the day before I left Lhasa, I tried 108 times which took 40 minutes. I sweat all over and next morning felt aches and stiffness in ankles, chests and knees. It's hard for me to picture myself doing this for hundreds or even thousands of times a day for two months.

' I had it 24 00 times today,' he felt satisfied when we were on the way to lunch. We noticed his place soon occupied. 'This stone here belongs to Master Zong-ke-ba, the founder of the yellow sect.' In the shape of a tree leaf or the hat of the master lama, it is big enough to hold the whole body when covered. And for technical reasons, a very polished stone allows least friction and smoothest prostration operation. With more and more prostrations accomplished, Tsasi felt better and better, seeing the soul of his sister ascending to the pure heaven.

At lunch Tsasi had only vegetables. He told me he 's been vegetarian for three years already. This is not common,at such a high attitude, it's hard to sustain oneself only by vegetables with adequate nutrition and calories. Buddhism doesn't require complete vegetarianism, but forbids killing in Tibet.

'At 6 pm, the door will be open, free of charge to pilgrims only,' as informed by him, I arrived on time and after long waiting with hundreds of Tibetans, I was sort of pushed to the face of the holy statue and seconds later pushed away by those excited Tibetans surrounding me. Inside the air was heavy, stale and with strong smell of yak butter. 'Seeing this statue is like being blessed by the Buddha himself 2500 years ago. Try and listen,' he put his ear onto a small hole in a rock, in great smiles and purity,'it's waves from the sea.'



Tsasi invited me to his very small room, which was rather a small shelter under the stairs, however he was very happy with it.

It was some day three months later, I got a call at home. The number was a strange one but from Lhasa. It was him, after completing 100,000 prostrations and traveling with other three lamas to many places in Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim. He was ready to go home.
'How are you? It's been quite hard, hasn't it?' I inquired.

His answer was,' Well. Happiness at heart, it is the best happiness. I wish you well and happy. Tsaxi-delek!'

pilgrams (old pics 2)

pilgrams (old pics)

The other day got a call from a friend in Lhasa. She, a Chinese from Sichuan province originally, was happy that the situation was returning from riots to normal. 'But still, all the damages are around and it's so hard to forget those terrible days...The tibetan people suffered too. Now, Lhasa now has very few visitors. And according to news, maybe even in May, groups of foreign tourists are not allowed in here.'

The bargor streets, in front of the holiest temple Jorkang, used to be always busy everyday with tourists and pilgrams but now empty almost and highly guarded by police. I wonder, this year the buddha should be feeling lonely too?!

in a garden

why not venture two questions related to this photo ,if you are fairly bored?

1. what's the name of the garden?

2. what's the name of the man?

a joke

Feeling horrible, an alligator goes to the veterinarian. 'What seems to be the problem?' the vet asks. ' I just don't have the drive I used to,' the alligator says. 'Used to be, I could swim underwater for hours and catch any animal I wanted. Now all I can do is let them swim by.' Concerned, the vet gives him a thorough examination and hands him a few pills.
'What are these?' the alligator asks.
'It's a pill very similar to Viagra,' te vet answers.
'Hold on, I don't have that kind of problem,' the alligator protests.' What exactly is wrong with me?'
'Well,' the vet says,' you have a reptile dysfunction.'

a tailor-made tour for me

Oh, what a tailor-made tour it is for me! I was saying to myself when my manager handed over his June tour itinerary to me this morning. The tour is definitely going to be a long and tiring tour, lasting for a total of three weeks, but excitement still won me over because I was to travel to the places I haven't been but have been dreaming about, like:

Northeast China, including all the three provinces and all those famous spots;
Shanxi province, the Yellow river;
Guiyang city in southwest China, with colorful minority cultures and the largest waterfalls in China;

But, since the group is supposed to speak Cantonese, while many local tour guides are not able at it, so I have to polish my poor Cantonese up during the next two months. Besides, I have to grind in order to present myself very experienced with all those places.

nightmare

As a tour guide, I experienced my most horrible nightmare the other day in Shanghai, when it saw one of most windy and rainy day in this spring. After I guided 23 Croatian visitors to brave the rain, wind and crazy traffic crossing the road from our dinner restaurant at the bund to the parking lot, I noticed that our bus wasn't there at the small make-shift lot.

So I took out my phone trying to call the driver, only to find its battery had died off completely. Although the kind staff there offered me to use their phone, stupid me couldn't find the driver's number, which was saved on my phone. Realizing I wrote down it also on my program paper, stupid me, after searching every corner of my bag, failed to find my program too.

I felt so bad about myself, especially when watching, all my miserable group crowding to try to shelter from the falling rains and wind under a small corner of a bridge. I almost passed out because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember any number of my coworkers to turn to help.

Fortunately, about 5 minutes later, I was rescued by our smart driver, who phoned me about the changing the parking space but find my phone switched off. So he ventured to drive back to our original space to pick us up.

p.s. some info. about croatia:
bordering Italy, Hungary, it's a former yugoslavia country. Having only 4.5 million population, the small country has many beautiful beaches and islands as well as old towns, like dobravnik, a world heritage town.
capital:zegreb
time difference: 7 hours
greeting: dobra-u-tre, ( good morning); dobra,( good), i-de-mo ( let's go), ai-de-mo ( let's hurry up); i-de-mo-da-mo ( go that way); i-de-mo-o-wa-mo ( go this way).

missing him every april

How perfect spring would be if he hadn't left!

to play the policy of a stick, story 5, tour to shitang

Next morning around 5:30 I woke up to notice the sky was still dark, and soon, I was joined by H. and W.. However, ZZ insisted on staying in bed for a little more time, complaining about hard bed, H.'s snores and noises from next room.

Outsides of our hostel we witnessed a few people strolling or stationing their tripods shooting morning pictures. Even though the rain had stopped, and birds were chirping, a sunrise was still doubtful. Unhappy with the practice of a farmer charging 3 yuan each for climbing on his terrace for good view, we followed a guidance intruction by a photographer to try stumbling down a muddy track across mulberry and tea bushed to the bottom of valley. We managed but we were no more neat. So quiet and peaceful it was there, except a couple of farmers fertilizing their vegetables so early. We soon realized it was time for breakfast, not from our watches but by white smoke coming up from roofs.

We met ZZ just out of our hostel, back from her morning strolls too. She couldn't sleep either, due to loud music and talks through thin wood walls from our next room. We checked out and said good bye after thanking Mr. Wu for his breakfast and explanation of hiking routes.

Xiatai was actually the first post of the round-the-hill trekking, which is in total about four hours, first to Huli village then, Beishan village then back to shitang. The hill tracks were really muddy after rains but the air refreshing and fragrant. On terraces more farmers, mostly old ones and women , were busy planting chrysamthuman and picking tea leaves. Our guess was that young male villagers may have migrated to work in cities. The mulberry trees, occupying large portion of terraces, were geminating well.

The farmers were all kind to show us the directions, while shyly shielding away from our cameras. The mountains in the mist looked mysterious and picturesque. ZZ lagged far behind, and we had to slow down to wait. Calling herself a leading flower and others supporting, she even adventured into fields with new plants, and almost caught by an angry old man.

At Beishan village we were caught up by the family, sitting the same table with us at the hostel. One couple and their eight year old son. Naturally we teamed up and the little boy, polite and energetic, volunteered to lead the team. Disappointed by the slow speed of ZZ, he found a big tree twig and pretended to be herding her.

About 10:30, after three hours' hike, we finally came back to shitang, the hill foot. A tour is not complete without shopping and bargaining for best deals. At the market, we bought salted pork, sausage, dried ferns, sweet potato noodle, before saying goodbye to the family. Instead of returning directly, we drove further west to Shexian for the view of Xin an jiang river. The idea turned out just great. The clear river flanked by blue mountains, reflecting yellow flowers, with rowing boats, presented a perfect scene.

After a quick and boring lunch, we were on the way back now. During the drive, the sky seemed under random control of a switch, changing frequently between bright sunshine, dim overcast and rain drops with wind.5 p.m. was the time I opened my door. Five minutes later, in bed. So exhausted, I fell asleep almost immediately after hitting the pillow.

The peach tree is a legend,story 4,tour to shitang

We saw a man standing under the red flag. We immediately knew he was Mr. Wu, the owner of the little hostel we were going to stay this evening. He welcomed us into his house, a large but a little old building but with a large courtyard, now sheltered due to the rain under sheets of plastic.

Our room was on the third floor, with four beds inside with no facility other than a dim light. And the only restroom and shower were on the first floor. We had a little quick rest, sipped the chrysanthemum tea Mr. Wu kindly made for us, and then we decided to go out to explore the small village and the legendary peach tree in the rain.

There were only about 50 families in the small village called Xiatai, some of which have been turned into inns and hostels in names of ' photographer's home'. According to Mr. Wu, every year they have two busy seasons, one during this season, the other being in late fall when all the trees change colors. The air flowed with mixed smell of grass, flowers and animal compost. On many walls we noticed t here were slogans from Mao's times.


The legendary peach flower tree was behind the hostel, up on the terrace. H. explained this tree had appeared so many times in photos and movies about this valley. Fortunately, our legendary tree was in full blossom and we took many pictures there with big farmer's hat we borrowed from Wu. The colors were striking, with pink in front again green and yellow in the background.

About 4 pm we were already back, sitting in the courtyard,munching and playing cards while curiously asking about dinner and watching groups of trekkers exploded in, excited although they were soaked wet, between games and debates by H. and ZZ over different game rules.

Since it was raining and no other entertainment ( no tv, no internet, no marjoon) to do, the only thing left for us was to wait for dinner time. Around 7, dinner started when all of us, 5 tables in total, were hungry enough. Dinner included, salted pork, beancurd, tomato soup, fish and chick soup ( at extra expense, not included in 45 yuan set.) My friends liked the meats, for good texture. In their words, they were from very sporty pigs and chickens. ( They decided to take back Hangzhou next day from the local market before we leaved, because the owner declined shyly our offer to purchase from him directly.)

Early bedtime but long night. Some adult topic from girls and from next sound-free room). ZZ collected some nudity pictures of Edison Chen and his friends ( big big news early this year) on her cell phone but only censored to show some healthy albums for me to browse.

Night fell, wind and rain singing all night long.

perfect timing, story 3, tour to shitang

Soon our car drove into a small town. It's lunch time now and we pulled over in front of a small restaurant, where we were welcomed into the kitchen to order, since it had no menu. Local foods including fenpi, (a glutinous jelly), wild ferns, wild celery ( with strong parsley smell), scrambled egg and spring onion, and pig large intestine, tasted a little spicy and too salty. The girls wanted much to try farm chicken soup but had to cancel,concerning the long stew time.

We joked again the three-li story and then we agreed on staying on the hill for the night must be better idea. Luckily I did some homework, I dialed to one hostel up on the hill and managed to have a room for four of us,at some discount. We never thought we were lucky, because we later found out it was not the only the last room, but it was actually already booked out. But the owner failed to reconfirm due to bad phone connections, we had it at 45 yuan off from 50, including dinner and breakfast.

We were supposed to make a left turn at xiajing, but after twenty minutes' driving, we were again and again so attracted by the rapeseed blossoms on all the fields to our right hand-side... We finally found out we already went too far, so we turned back and checked several times about the ways until we saw a very narrow corner, followed by a narrower path,but with busy traffic of many cars and tour buses, on the paths and small parking lots.

Some guy offered 30 yuan to guide us, but we decided to discover by ourselves, for sake of freedom and also losing direction should not possible, considering so many hikers and photographers around.

It was close to 2 p.m. and the sky seemed darker, clearly with rains coming soon. Despite we reminded us to hurry up a little for the one-hour-long trek, however, great views as well as fresh air and fragrant flowers aroma made us stop a lot. We soon ascended to the half way, where the deep valley, about a hundred meter deep, dotted by yellow flower sea and white houses did look like 'a wonderland', as some photographers on the way described.

We said good bye to eight hikers from Hangzhou we just met on the way. They were a little disappointed to hear our hostel, easily noticed with a red flag on roof, was just 50 meters away from such a wonderful sight when the big rain began pouring down.

three li, story 2 of tour to shitang

To be frank, we don't have good sense of directions, and even the husband, H. is a pretty new driver. And soon our first obstacle was how could we drive out of Hangzhou then onto the highway to Anhui province.( shitang is within xiakeng town, anhui province.)

We drove on westwards till ZZ remembered a new cemetery nearby. And we were at wrong direction. Hurriedly we turned around and drove back to the intersection and corrected to the opposite way, till we were relieved to read the sign to the highway.

The sky was still overcast although the rain kinda stopped. Along the road, more fields and hills appeared into our sights. On terraces were green bushes of tea and bamboo, with occasionally some patches or dots of pink peach trees and yellow rapeseed flowers.

Soon we came to linlong a tollgate of Hangzhou-anhui highway, where we witness many private cars or tour buses. We know most of them were going to Wuyuan, a becoming popular destination for ancient anhui-style architecture and for rapeseed flowers too. ( Good thing is years ago, we have visited there before it's too touristy now.)

H. decided to have a short rest, for he didn't sleep much. We, so concerned, comforted him by making no time limit. ZZ had big events break too, while W. the wife and I reconfirmed some info I got from the internet, from which outlet we should drive off the highway to xiakeng town.

H. woke up and continued driving; while listening music and enjoying great foods, we soon found the outlet Sanyang and the ticket woman confirmed our direction. However, when we were running on the hill path to xiakeng, we had to stop every intersection for some help. Also it was on the half hill-way, we stopped by the edge to take some snaps. Under the hills were large patches of yellow flowers against background of white village houses.

Feeling the cool breeze, welcomed by such a great view, we were excited that we made right decision to come. We caught sight of a middle aged man, on his motorcycle.

ZZ acted very polite and with her sweet smiles, she asked:
'please, how long is xiakeng away from here?'
'xiakeng town? about three li.'
'Three li?' ZZ continued,' is it three gong-li? ( gong-li is the Chinese for kilometer.)
'no,no,no gong-li; it's three li.'
'no gong-li?' The rest of us began to laugh about why ZZ was so surprised.
The man was half amused and half angry, 'no gong-li, it's three li, three hua-li.'
Hua-li, is Chinese-li, half the distance of a kilometer.
So we couldn't help but burst into laughters.

After thanking the man for his great patience, we started the engine; we were marching to a place some distances away. Who really cared how far exactly away, if we were on the correct way.

big events, story 1 of tour to shitang

I am a punctual person, for it's not only respectful gesture but also it provides extra chances of observing the world. On Saturday morning, our excursion day, at 7 am, I'd already got to the square, where I was to be picked up half an hour later. It was a chilly day and the drizzle began to fall. But still there were many 'early birds' exercising Taiji. While having breakfast under the roof of corridors, I enjoyed watching their graceful and slow body movements. And I bet when the rain began bigger, if they would stop immediately and then run into the all shelters. But nobody did.

Sitting next to me was a man in late 20s, who obviously was one of migrant workers coming to cities for a job. He gazed into the sky, motionless and emotionless. Wondering he might be cold ( after a whole night 's stay at the square) and hungry, I guarded attentively my breakfast and my full bags of snacks for the tour.

The couple showed up on time and we then drove together to the north of city to pick up ZZ. She is not a easy pickup. (we have many experiences with it.) So ten minutes before our arrival time, we sent her a message to act quick and get ready. But even after we got to her community she didn't show up yet. So we called again. Seconds later, she got the beep back. Her sms read:

'I am having big event. Coming soon.'

But not until 20 minutes later, she appeared, happy after her 'big event'.

We joked about her story and before long, we started discussing our own big events too. The excursion, supposed to be escape for us, didn't begin as any relief well. The top issues were that helpless and hopeless we were in China's stock market, since it had slumped to eight month low with our stock value lost by over 30% already.

Such is a healthy outlet of our stress. Also, we decided to stop further complaints in order not to destroy tour.