KUNMING

Leaving Stone Drum Village, we take a short sweet flight to the Provincial Capital of Kunming, (Koon-ming) a city of eight million people with another six million in the surrounding territory. On the plane I sat next to a young Chinese man who spoke perfect English. Vicki tells us all Chinese learn English in school since Mau. He and his friend were on vacation in Korea. He claimed it was scary. People on the streets avoid eye contact with you, afraid to look at you and very repressed even in a bar or restaurant. Military guards were in evidence everywhere they went.  They felt like they were being followed. You are not allowed to take pictures of buildings.  He was tempted a few times to take a forbidden picture, but didn’t. Then, when he got to the airport, the guards looked at every photo in his digital camera before letting them go. He was glad he obeyed but, it was an unpleasant vacation.

Our city guide takes us by bus to the center of old town Kunming to see the bird market. We pass by a famous curved building called the Sister Building. He walks so fast, I can’t hear half of what he is telling us because I’m trying to fill my eyes.

I managed to grab a quick shot of this guy selling dog and cat pelts. Argh! I know, we all grimaced. I wanted to stop and buy old Chinese coins from a vendor, but I was getting left behind and had to abandon my purchase and run to catch up with the group.

This area of Kunming has modern ads and minority frescoes on the street wall which is what is left of the old part of the city. The government demolished  most of the older part of town in 1953. It looked like the Hutongs of Beijing,  built on a courtyard with a common well and underground water running back to the river. The old people have to use city water and they hate hand carrying their water home  in big plastic jugs.

At this point, my memory disk is full and my camera bag is back in the bus. The bird market is not to our liking very much anyway because bird flu is in all the news and we see people  wearing masks. We saw birds in cages hanging from just about every business doorway, including restaurants. Stacked tight cages of bunnies and kittens, none of which we were excited to see. Most interesting were very large crickets in beautifully made wooden cricket cages, which they race. Rats, too, which they eat. “White meat”  snails with beautiful striped shells for sale. Vicki tells us this is the poor section of town. We move on to the flower market which is much more to our liking. The rest of the city is quite modern after being rebuilt after the Japanese bombed it.  Kunming  also has the base where the Flying Tigers were cosseted during WWII. And, it was once part of the Golden Triangle, a famous opium growing area.

The City Tour takes us to a beautiful Green Lake  Park, mobbed with people. Huge flocks of seagulls winter here but haven’t come in yet in huge numbers.

We love seeing cute kids. And the Chinese, with a limit of one child, dote on their beautiful children and love showing them off.

It is a lovely place to relax, play cards, dominoes, mah jong. Have tea. Most Chinese have small apartments and houses.  They socialize in their public places.

And  exercise together. It seems such a healthy practice, both, being outside and exercising regularly.

Green Lake Park is beautiful and enjoyable. People watch and feed the birds and koi.

I’m tickled by this Chinese woman dressing her child in a blonde wig cap as they feed and watch the koi.

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We eat at a restaurant that minimizes the heat of asphalt parking by burying cement blocks and growing grass in them.  I  wanted to build my driveway in Murphys that way but the cost at the time, labor intensive, was too high.  We eat an area specialty called fish skin, which is quite spicy and tasty, along with the usual noodles and vegetables. A surprise was watermelon for desert.

Back at our hotel, we nap and read  before getting ready for a very famous evening show called the Peacock Extravaganza that features 200 ethnic peoples. The Peacock Dance is a tradition in this area  from the time of Kublai Khan. Fabulous costuming throughout, but especially this woman peacock dancer with an enormous drum moving in very strenuous  body positions. The dancers have painted bodies, the background is stormy suggesting how early peoples feared  thunder and lightening. They made loud noises to scare off evil spirits and wild animals that also fear storms. The stage settings for all of the dances are rich and dramatic.

In this moon dance, human figures float down from the ceiling appearing to fly,  flapping their iridescent wings like huge butterflies.  They dance a ritual child sacrifice  and a sensual babies birth. They danced the Muslim people bringing Buddhism to China. All done with grace and beauty. This show travels all over the world with its 200 performers.  We paid a $20 bill to see it. Stunning.
Tomorrow-the stone forest.

 

 

Yesterday Was Kind Of A Disappointing One…

for me as far as being a tourist in Albuquerque, New Mexico is concerned.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view...

The motorhome is still parked at the VFW Post #401 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

We took the Bronco and headed out. First stop was at the National Hispanic Cultural Center where the previous evening we saw a very entertaining Nocho de Oro…Night of Gold performance. Yesterday morning’s visit to their Art Museum was to me very disappointing. First of all, no photography was allowed and secondly there wasn’t anything there worth taking a picture of. Have I finally seen too many Hispanic artifacts?

Second visit was to their Mundos De Mestizaje: A vision of History through Fresco by Francisco Vigil. According to their brochure…

He spent close to a decade on this monumental 4,000 square foot work. Over 3,000 years of Hispanic history are depicted  in the broadest sense, from Europe to Mesoamerica and into the American southwest, illustrating the complexities and diversity of the Hispanic experience.

I realize that I am not very sophisticated when it comes to Art and I found his work almost too complicated to enjoy. Also you have to look straight up over your head to see his work…within about 15 seconds I had a sore neck! There are no windows or lights in the building…the only illumination inside comes from a rather small opening in the ceiling and even with a brilliant sunny day…the lighting was poor. Once again…no photography allowed. Boo on them! Here’s their website link to this Fresco…
http://www.nationalhispaniccenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=139

Then it was on to Old Town. The church and plaza both were rather uninspiring…

The only other thing(s) there are 150 gift stores and galleries…get the picture? This place screams TOURIST! However one shop had some interesting hot sauces…

They actually had Marie Sharp’s from Belize which both Mary and I really like…at somewhat exorbitant prices. We bought two bottles anyways.

This place is now a restaurant and art gallery…get the picture???

We decided to try to salvage the day by driving along the old (pre-1937) Route 66 looking for old buildings. Nope…nothing of any significance to be found.

Oh well…if every day I wrote up stunning reports of our travels…you wouldn’t believe me any more. One thing you can be sure of…is when you read one of my Blog entries…you are getting the truth! At least in my humble opinion.

Like the old saying…”Some days are diamonds and some days are dust”…fortunately for us about 99 out of 100 days are diamonds!

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
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