Dream Left on Covered Bridges 廊桥遗梦

by Maple Xu

Note: Today let's take a short break from political topics and current events. My younger sister Maple, an avid traveler and photographer who resides in Shanghai at the moment, just sent me another interesting travel log. It makes you wonder how many mysteries exist in Chinese cultural history, just like the Yuyuan Taiji Celestial Village she wrote about last time. – Xujun

Immortal Resident Bridge, built in 1453

[In translation]

Many years ago I read 廊桥遗梦 ("a dream left on covered bridges" – the Chinese translation for The Bridges of Madison County). That little book touched me deeply, even today I still remember some of the words Robert said to Francesca.

I was young and couldn't understand why Francesca would choose to stay instead of go with Robert. I felt sad and dejected for Robert. I took the novel as a true story, and wanted to go look for that covered bridge with blooming butterfly flowers at its foot.

At the time I did not have any idea what a covered bridge was.

Wenzhong Bridge, 1745

Three years ago when I traveled to Nanxi River, two backpack travelers from Beijing told me there were over a hundred covered bridges in Taishun County (泰顺县), located on the border between Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. This information gave me palpitations; for a while I was speechless. I couldn't imagine what the landscape would look like with so many covered bridges scattered in the fields. Would there be butterfly flowers blooming by them? Would Robert's love be there waiting? Even though this is a different country, covered bridges are covered bridges, right? Their existence itself suggests romanticism more than utility.

Today I'm in Taishun. Traversing the quiet villages one after another, looking for the different charming bridges one after another, I am baffled. Why has this remote, rather poor countryside assembled the largest number of covered bridges in China? Who designed them? Who first got the idea? Who built them? Were they for practical use or for recreation?

Three Woods Bridge, originally from Tang Dynasty, rebuilt 1843. An ancient poem inked on it

Records show that, fleeing from disasters or war, bit by bit many historical figures and worthy people had migrated to Taishun, an unfrequented area with undulating mountains, a utopia. They created many pastoral local cultures, and the covered bridges are representative of those.

The Taishun Transportation Chronicle records that a total of 476 bridges built before 1949 still exist, including over 30 covered bridges made of wood or stone from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Six of the covered wooden bridges hold important positions in world bridge history.

Here what amazes me the most are the flying wooden arch bridges built without pillars. They are constructed of relatively short pieces of wood, horizontally and vertically woven, with beams interpenetrating and pinned to shape the arch. The ingenious structure is simply marvelous!

I run into several old men sitting sunbathing on the stone steps of Yongqing Bridge. This bridge is unique in its beams carved with carp feelers.

Yongqing Bridge, 1797, including 12 bridge houses; carp feelers carved on beams

One of the old men, with an expression resembling a smile yet not smiling, asks me, "Is the bridge good to look at?" "Yes!" I answer. "Nothing that good," he says. I want to question more, but he turns his head and says nothing further.

I think he means NOW the bridges are no longer good. Long, long ago, when there was no highway, the air was clean and fresh, the mountains were bright, the water was beautiful, the woods were lush, and the meadows were green. It was to this other-worldly place the covered bridges added rosy color.

Perhaps the old man wanted to tell me the bridges were good to look at only then.

Now the covered bridges are beaten and mutilated. The branches of the old camphor tree at the bridgehead are wizened and the leaves sparse. The most sorrowful scene is the assortment of plastic garbage thrown in the river under the bridges, and the white ceramic tile walls of the cement houses surrounding them.

But all that seems no longer important. The important thing is the covered bridges are still here. Like Robert's love.

Sister Bridges – East Bridge, 400 years old

Sister Bridges – North Bridge, 300 years old

Liu House Bridge, 1405, the oldest "flat" wooden bridge

Wenxing Bridge, 1857, asymmetric structure, 51 meters long, 5 meters wide; the most well-kept

Yuwen Bridge, 1839, stone arch, wooden corridor; the most beautiful

Claiming Clouds Bridge, Ming Dynasty, Zhengde Reign

(Photo copyrights 2008 Maple Xu)

Maple's Travel Log: Fierce Animal

by Maple Xu

(This is one in a series of travel logs by my younger sister, Maple. - Xujun)

[In translation]
Entering a hotel in the Xingchang County of Zhejiang Province, a majestic lion stood fiercely in my face, it startled me. I looked again and it was a lion specimen in a big glass case.

This was strange. I have traveled everywhere through China, and stayed in countless hotels, but never have I seen anyone placed a stuffed fierce animal in the lobby to greet guests.

Asking around with the staff, I learned that the hotel owner was a member of the animal protection society, and was especially fond of big cats. This was the only big wild animal specimen imported into China, and the owner had spent a fortune to acquire it from South Africa. The staff told me earnestly that this was approved by the "endangered animal import and export office," and officially imported through Shanghai customs.

After checking-in, my husband and I drove to a nearby lake. All the way we talked about the lion and the unorthodox hotel owner.

We had recently read a report that, in Sichuan alone, during 2007 over 20 pandas were killed by poachers. The poachers expected to sell panda skin at high prices. A reporter told a poacher that Panda skin had no practical use and thus was inexpensive. "But foreigners like to collect Panda skins for specimens! Selling to foreigners is what makes us big money," the poacher refuted plausibly and volubly.

It takes a buyer to make a seller. Was this African lion dead of natural causes, or killed by poachers? If it was the latter, what was the hotel owner doing as an animal-protection society member? Could it be because of his hobby that this lion was no longer running freely in the African wild?

Suddenly my husband shouted, "Look!" Where he pointed to, on the farm house's wall were four big words painted in red: WE BUY WILD ANIMALS, followed by a cell phone number.

I was again startled. My first thought was: "Are there wild animals living in the mountains around?" It seemed impossible as we were only tens of kilometers from the city, and it was a densely inhabited area.

However as we drove along, the same slogan repeatedly appeared. Some gave a cell phone number, some a house phone number. Apparently they were written by different people.

How many local people were purchasing wild animals? Were they stimulated by the high-priced African lion, or did the hotel owner want a dish of lion paws or tiger tails? It couldn't be because the animal protection society was collecting specimens of all kinds of animals!

Wild animals can hurt humans, but that is for survival. Humans, on the other hand, would kill animals for recreation. Which is the most fierce and brutal kind?

The animals probably already knew the answer. We drove in the mountains all day, but didn't run into even a rabbit.

(Photo copyrghts 2007 Maple Xu)

Taiji Celestial Village

by Maple Xu

Note: My younger sister, Maple, is an avid traveler and photographer in China. I savor her travel logs, which are always unusual. Here I'm sharing with you the latest she sent me last week. Any translation error is mine. - Xujun

Yuyuan is a little known village in China's Zhejiang Province. For many hundreds of years, the villagers surnamed "Yu" worked and lived peacefully there. A first glance at the village would reveal no difference from any others around.

One day, by chance, someone flying by in an airplane looked down and saw it. He was so shocked that he broke out into a cold sweat. The eleven hills surrounding the village, together with the Taiji Yin-Yang Fish, constitute the 12 signs of celestial zodiac. Arranged in the classical Eight Diagrams, the village's 28 building blocks correspond to the 28 Celestial Mansions, with seven old wells forming the Big Dipper. The Yu clan's ancestral hall is located in the center of the constellation. A complete Taiji Celestial Diagram on earth!

The news spread, and brought in curious visitors. They found the oldest man in the village, who told a legend.

An ancestor of the Yu clan, Yu Lai, was friend and classmate of Liu Bowen (1311-1375), the great war-strategist from the Yuan Dynasty. Yu Lai had no interest in fame and wealth, and loathed officialdom. He lived all his life in the country, fishing, gardening, composing poems, and teaching children. Liu Bowen deeply respected the lighthearted classmate, and kept close contact with him even after Liu had became one of the highest officials in the emperor's court.

Every time Liu Bowen visited his home, which is not too far from Yuyuan, he always came to see Yu Lai first and stayed for a few days. Liu Bowen was a learned man, conversant from a young age in the art of war, works of Confucian and other ancient Chinese classics, astronomy and geography, Yin-Yang and divination. He was also fond of geological exploration, and had deep attainment in hydraulic engineering.

At the time, Yuyuan constantly suffered either drought or flood. Epidemics occurred frequently; people lived in dire poverty. Liu Bowen rearranged the Yu clan's generational names according to celestial constellations, and designed the Taiji celestial diagram for the village's reconstruction. Under his guidance, the villagers changed the straight stream into a curved one, and used the new stream as the Yin-Yang border in the Taiji diagram. The houses and wells were relocated accordingly. From then on, Yuyuan Village became free of disasters. Now the Yu clan's incense has passed to the 28th generation. Most of the over two thousand residents are surnamed Yu. The village is the largest Yu clan inhabitant in China.

The Yuyuan Village Taiji Diagram measures 320 meters in diameter, and has an area of 120 hectares, or 720 acres. The village preserves over 400 ancient buildings, with refined woodcarving, as well as stone- and brick-carving. In the eyes of the old residents, every tree in the village has a designated location that can't be moved. Any move would break the Feng-Shui, and the person who causes such a break would suffer retribution.

Shortly after the Liberation in 1949, someone attempted to fill a well so he could build a house over it. As soon as he finished filling the well, his house was on fire. Digging to reopen the well put out the fire. Any attempt to refill the well brought the fire back. Several attempts later, he gave up and did not dare to be impetuous any more.

That well is one of the seven stars in the Big Dipper. I found it following the village map faithfully, as if searching for treasure. So many years have gone by; matters are the same, people are different. In the well, clear water still bubbles.

An old lady was washing a bamboo board by the well. She told me an ancestral temple in the village has a beam that unfailingly makes the correct forecast for the weather.

I asked around along the way, and finally found the somewhat beaten old house. The keeper pointed to me the legendary beam, with nine perfectly preserved carps carved on it.


But when I first saw the carps, I counted and counted but could only find eight. "This is what you don't understand," the keeper twisted his lips complacently, "in the old times only the emperor was entitled to the number nine. If nine fish were obviously carved on the beam, wouldn't it risk the suspicion of competing with the emperor's 9-dragon pillar? That's why our smart ancestor honored the taboo and carved the 9th fish in the mouth of the eighth."

After seeing the light, I indeed found a lovely brisk little fish in a big fish's mouth.

It is said that the fish turn crimson for a sunny day, but khaki under an overcast sky. Rainy days, they are brown. That day when I visited, the weather was uncertain: after being cloudy for a while, it drizzled. Then it turned overcast again.

"Is that why the fish show alternating khaki and brown?"

The keeper responded to my question with an unfathomable smile.

(Photo copyrights 2007 Maple Xu)

T-Shirts and Mayan Ruins

High Priest's Grave

Seven is everywhere in the ruins at Chichen Itza, our Mayan tour guide Santos Yah tells us. Now toward the end of our tour, we stand in front of the High Priest's Grave. Santos counts the step-pyramid temple's stone walls, "One, two, three, four, five…seven walls. When it was explored, 1993, 1997, that's how we know, it's a tomb. In the tomb was found skeletons. Do you have an idea how many skeletons?"

People murmur. An American man's confident voice raises above others: "Seven thousand!"

"Seven," says Santos.


A Mexican T-Shirt

Bob went running early in the morning outside of our Cancun hotel, as he did daily at home. A Mexican man in his thirties ran ahead of Bob. The man wore a T-shirt with text around an airplane, like this:

Bob, who learned enough Spanish in his youth when he bicycled through Latin America jungles, described the T-shirt to me afterward and said the text translated as "Authorized Terrorist." Then he commented, "People apparently are more relaxed about these things in Mexico."

Cancun Surprises

Tailbone

Mayans have Chinese blood, a local man tells us. The man has mixed European and native Mexican blood, and speaks nearly perfect English. Any evidence? I ask. "See that woman?" He points to one of the hotel staff walking by. "See her eyes?" I glance at her as she glances back at me, suspicious. Indeed, the Mayan woman's eyes look more like mine than his or my husband's. Further, the Mayans have names such as Chu, Chen, and Qi. "Those are Chinese names," our companion says positively. I find myself unable to dispute.

And the Mayans have Mongolian blood, he adds. "You know about the Mongolian spot, right?" "No." "You don't know?" He is genuinely surprised. "The Mongolians have a black spot here," he places his palm on his lower back, where the tailbone might be. "And the Mayan kids have it too. It disappears at twelve." Some Mayan children will even offer to show their black spots to tourists.

Doll in Bread

Last night, we bought a loaf of fruit bread from a Mexican supermarket. This morning when we sliced the bread, a tiny white plastic figure emerged from within. We brought the figurer to our hotel concierge, Andy. Her eyebrow leaped. "You found that?" She said something about a child who finds the doll is responsible for bringing food to the celebration on February 3rd. This is what I found on the internet afterward:

Rosca de Reyes

Three Kings Sweet Bread

Rosca is the name given to any ring-shaped bread or cookie. This sweet bread was once used by the friars to evangelize: a small doll, representing the Christ child, is baked right in the bread- "hidden", to symbolize the hiding of the infant from King Herod's troops on the day of Los Santos Inocentes, the Holy Innocents. This treat is traditionally served on the festive Three Kings Day, when the children receive their toys. Whoever gets the slice of rosca with the doll in it has to provide the tamales and atole for the next party, on Candlemas.

Caribbean Blues

"How many blues?" A Mexican girl named Pamela asks me. We are looking at the blue waves of the Caribbean crashing on the beach below the balcony. Surprised by the question, I turn to gaze at the soaring waves again. Before the question was asked, there was one blue; now there are many shades.

"Fifty six," Pamela says.