Shaanxi Opera or Qinqiang 秦腔

We were a little bit nervous when some local friends of ours invited us to a Shaanxi opera. We really enjoyed Beijing opera even if our ears had to adjust a bit to the difference in musical scales. However, we had heard some rumors that Shaanxi opera is just unbearable on the ears. This was reinforced by having heard locals listening to this kind of music from time to time on their little portable radios and even hearing local singing it (we guessed) at the park quite loudly and terribly on loud speakers. Nevertheless, we are always up for a new experience.

It was quite nice actually. Our friends explained some of the parts we couldn't understand, and Yellow could catch some of it on his own. There were only a couple times when the woman's voice reached a pitch we weren't comfortable with.  This was a love story that took place between an apprentice at a shoe makers shop and young girl whom he bought wine from for his master each day. We found ourselves laughing throughout. I guess it could be classified as a romantic comedy.

Shaanxi opera is also qinquiang in China and called Qin thousands of years ago. Its melodies originated from rural areas of ancient Shaanxi and Gansu. The word itself means "the tune or sound of Qin". An interesting fact (thank you wikipedia) is that it was banned from "being performed in Beijing" in 1785 by the emperor at the time, Qianlong. It was said that "the sexual suggestiveness of the genre" was the reason for it being banned, but it is believed that the real reason was because the difference in style from prior Chinese folk opera styles allowed social critique of China to be written into them. The ban, however, only ended up expanding the style into more areas outside of Beijing, primarily to theatres in the southeast.

People Watching

People watching in China is one of our favorite hobbies. There's for sure lots to see with the endless amounts of people and the vast cultural and lifestyle differences that can be found here.  In this post we have decided to share some of the people that we have seen around town in their many different situations.

Especially during spring, summer, and fall you can find people (usually elderly) outside playing games around tables or any available surface. In the pictures below, you can see some serious ma zhong happening.

If you go to the Beilin area in Xi'an, you will see calligraphers patiently making their brush strokes on rice paper. Yellow is always very captivated by this.

We also stumble across wedding photo shoots from time to time. The first bride is wearing a modern red wedding dress, while the second couple is decked out in some traditional red clothing.

It's a very common site to see hair cutting stations like this just about anywhere in the city. No need to open your own shop. Just pull up a stool!

 

This last picture is from a cat expo that Yellow found at a shopping mall close to our place. These are the first prize kitties and their audience.

Chinese National Day 国庆节

It's a bit late to be posting about this, but better late than never right? Chinese National Day is always on October 1st, and generally the first seven consecutive days of the month are given as a holiday depending on your job.  As teachers we enjoy the full seven days, although we have to make up some of the teaching days that were not the "official holiday" on the weekend before and after the holiday.  This is a Chinese practice that we still aren't quite adapted to. Anyway, you can imagine that lots of Chinese (and foreigners) are traveling in China during this time. As Xi'an is a big touristy site it's a bit crazy around here during that time.  Maybe not all of the 1.3 billion people of China were in Xi'an, but anytime you were close to downtown or any other site of interest it sure felt like it.

This day is the "birthday" of the People's Republic of China, which was founded on October 1st, 1949 with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.  This National Holiday was one of the first times they had opened Time Square in Xi'an. It's just in front of the South Grate of the Xi'an City Wall and was all done up for the occasion. 

We were very happy to have visitors during that week, even if it meant that we have to brave some hot spots in the city. They are some good American friends from Wuhan who decided to continue the ongoing tradition of being our "Wuhan visitors".  Red was glad she had someone to eat sugar-glazed hawthorns with and Yellow was equally glad to finally try some fried squid at the Muslim Market.

Contemporary Art Museums in Xi'an

Back in October during the National Holiday we visited some art museums in Xi'an and were pleasantly surprised with what we found.

The picture  below is from the OCAT Contemporary Art Museum, which we hope to visit again this month as it has a new exhibit. What we saw back in October displayed a project from a group of artists who had all traveled together to the industrial city of Yulin in the north of Shaanxi Province.  It's a town in a desolate area that borders a part of the Great Wall and the desert. In the past 20 to 30 years Yulin has been transformed by coal mining as well as petroleum and gas drilling.  It has brought a lot of money to some people there and a whole lot of environmental problems to everyone. This group of artists came back and created different works depending on their own interpretations of what they found.

You can see this piece shows something which is probably a common site, some coal left behind from a coal truck. 

We stumbled upon another museum in the same area of the city called Xi'an Contemporary Art Gallery. Here we saw some great paintings and have shared some of them with you below. The first one is a peasant painting that are well known from a town nearby Xi'an.

 

This pictures some of the very common cave dwellings that we have heard so much about but are still waiting to encounter. 

We loved finding these scenes featuring some common and famous people. The last painting is of current President, Xi Jinping, visiting with some construction workers.

Daming Palace

It looks like we haven't posted since August. Eeek! We knew we had been bad bloggers this semester but hadn't imagined it was that bad. Our apologies. We will do our best to improve during these next months, but Spring Festival is coming which means we will be doing some traveling in Southeast Asia and not doing much blogging in the end of January and February.. However, we WILL be posting in the month of January as we have lots to catch up on and more time as the fall semester winds down.

Back in September (yes September!) we visited a site in the northeast of Xi'an which used to be of great importance. Daming Palace or the "Palace of Great Brilliance" was an imperial palace complex during the Tang Dynasty. As it was located in the capital, Chang'an (present day Xi'an), of that dynasty, it housed the royal residents for more than 200 years.

Here are some views of the reconstructed Danfeng Gate which is at the entrance to the site.

 

I'm sure back then it was really something to behold, but today it's mostly a vast plot of land with signs here and there to indicate where things had once been and very few trees. Nevertheless, it is designated as a national heritage site of China.

There are several museums at the site you can wander into. Inside the reconstructed Danfeng Gate, the old remains of the gate are exhibited. There are also ceramic and calligraphy exhibits that we visited. The ceramics were our favorite.

Here is a Tang Dynasty lady with her pet cat followed by another example of the pottery that we saw.

We actually got quite lost walking around, but enjoyed the nice day and blue skies.  Here you can see the lake that is in the north of the park.