Countdown to 回国: 6 days

Took my last out of town trip today, a return visit to nearby Nanjing (mostly the Nanjing Museum). I was going to use the occasion to reflect on the wonders of high speed rail - 300 km in an hour and a bit - but it's only part of the rapid building out of transportation infrastructure. Here

are the Nanjing Metro vending machine maps from October and today (date upper right). The number of lines and stops open (or at least connected to the network) has increased dramatically! Only the planned light purple line has yet to. (The map design has changed slightly, too.) Just eight months! What can I say, besides sobbing about the non-existence of high speed rail in the US or the saga of the "Second Avenue Subway"? Perhaps ten months is long enough to start to get a sense of people's momentum/whiplash at China's staggering high-speed change.

Countdown to 回国: 7 days

A week to go! I've been feeling myself slowly detaching from my life here, but it seemed a big step indeed this evening when I returned the bicycle which has been my companion (and sometimes teacher) since September. I've loved getting to know the area around Fudan on it,learning how to maneuver the always unpredictable traffic at intersec- tions (and every point of every street is a potential intersection, with people shooting out of alleys, taxis U-turning, etc.), startling people with my yellow 雨皮 yupi bicycle rain poncho... Adieu, trusty steed!

北京－山西 trip omnibus 3

The Beijing-Shanxi trip omnibus continues with the spectacular 悬空古寺 Hanging Temple and the sacred Daoist mountain, 恒山 Hengshan, of which it's part - all just seventy-odd kilometers south of our base, Datong. No wonder the sage at left sat backward as he rode his donkey into the mountain.

The hanging/suspended/floating temple was started in 491 CE. At least since the Song dynasty it's been a multi-faith, well, specifically three-faith (三教 sanjiao, Confucianism-Daoism-Buddhism) temple, though Buddhism predominates in small halls decked out in different styles. Especially after the gaudiness surrounding Yungang I feared a tourist trap but, perhaps because we arrived during the lunch hour on a Tuesday, we had the place practically to ourselves. Magical.

Hengshan, a loud musical loop told us over and over again without cease, is one of Daoism's most sacred mountains. A pricy new ropeway promises to take you where the old one did, though they warn that the map on the back of your ticket still shows the old ropeway... so we drove part way, and climbed the rest. The steep walk actually made arriving at the impressive congeries of temples nestled in the mountain the more satisfying, not that you can visit or even see them all... 

Countdown to 回国: 8 days

Just shy of a week from return to the US (I'll have stayed 177 of the 180 days of my one-entry visa, and it'll have been ten months since I was in the Western hemisphere) I'm tying up loose ends and trying not to get too wistful. No point guessing now what I will be missing soon enough.

I think I'll miss the "dancing grannies 大妈," like these in front of South Qilianshan Station and our Stammlokal 青年公社 Youth Commune (where they serve the New School Boiled Fish); time will tell. I'm thinking the same way about the broader question of "what I have learned in China." 

Shanghai Museum

Went for a final visit to the Shanghai Museum. The paintings gallery disappointed me, as it did the first time I went (but not the second; I guess they rotate their collection), but the ancient bronzes and the small sculpture gallery are a pleasure every time. Old friends and new discoveries, sometimes together.

Of koras

This was the headline of today's Shanghai Daily. Kangrinboqe is, of course, the mountain we know as Kailash. Here it's anglicized from the sinicization of its Tibetan name, Kan Rinpoche - better, at least, than the laughable Kernel Poche we saw on site! Going through Sikkim isn't easier than going, as we did, through eastern Nepal, but the symbolism of opening a border between China and India to pilgrims is significant. (Behold religion as part of China's soft power diplomacy!)

北京－山西 trip omnibus 2

The Beijing-Shanxi trip omnibus continues - piles of photos with a minimal group-caption at the end. These are from Sunday and Monday. And all those spots at right are birds, part of a continuous avian vortex around the ancient wooden pagoda at Yingxian, protectors, I fancied, against insect evil.

The road south from Datong, the 1000-year-old pagoda, arhats in the recently and tackily recreated temple appended, gate welcoming drivers back to Datong, smoke from a streetside barbecue.

Fruit stand. Road west from Datong to Yungang, and some of the faux-ancient horrors built around it, including a fake tree embedded, my friend X pointed out, in the stumps of real trees. But no matter, the 5th-early 6th century CE grottoes are out of this world... the more time-worn somehow especially. To close a sign as we returned to Datong, observed only in the breach (but horse-drawn carriages there were none).