I've put up some photos from our brief trip at the weekend to Luoyang, the Longmen grottoes and to visit my student Nancy - you've met her: was wearing bizarre tights when we made dumplings. The photos are here but I may end up replacing them, doing something black-and-white-and-arty with them as, because the visibility was poor, they all look like a very similar grey shot of a crumbling Buddha statue...
A cab dropped us at our hostel not far from the station. Nancy's mother looked less than impressed: the entrance to the place was between two kebab shops, to the side of an old church. This definitely wasn't what my students have been talking about when they've told me, time and again, that Luoyang is "very, very beautiful".
Onwards, and downwards, to the best restaurant in Luoyang. The special: 24 assorted local delicacies, edible to varying degrees, all served in hot salt water. They call it "Running water" or something. Honestly, it very nearly had me running for the bathroom. Mercifully, we only had six of the 24 dishes, but that was enough: unidentified seafood product (Nancy couldn't explain, I didn't really want to know) in hot salty water; battered then soft boiled meat product in hot salty water, lotus flower with radish, pepper and I've-no-idea-what in hot salty water, and a few other dishes less appetising than those. Honestly, I've never put so much effort into keeping a straight face while eating.
Worse still, Nancy and her mother only ate two small servings, put down their chopsticks, sat back and watched. Oh, and did a running commentary on what they thought we were enjoying (clue: none). You see, we were going to their home for lunch the next day, and I understand Mrs Nancy wanting to see what kind of food foreigners enjoy - she's never cooked for laowai before - but if there's one way to make a terrible meal worse, it's to say things like "Ooh, I don't think he likes that", or "Why isn't he eating the boiled brain?" or "He's been chewing that ox tail for a very long time."
The next day, having had KFC for breakfast, we caught the hour-long bus to the Longmen grottoes. They are, as my photos inadequately show, a collection of Buddha sculptures carved into the rock on either side of the Yi River. Some are no taller than a ballpoint pen; the largest is 57 feet. Some were crafted as birthday presents for Queens, some thanking Buddha for victory or plentiful harvest, some because it's not fair for the Shaolin Temple to get all the tourists in Henan.
They really are impressive; some caves hold ten thousand Buddhas; on others you can still see the original colourings and others, unfortunately, have been hacked to pieces by - you guessed it - those foreign Devils, the colonial overlords, drumroll please............ The British, French, Americans and the Japanese. Boo hiss! There are signs all over Longmen showing what the sculptures originally looked like for comparison. I've photographed one, and the next two photos are what the Imperialists left behind.
Disappointingly, though unsurprisingly, there's no mention of why some of the statues were stolen/ saved.
After Longmen we went, with much trepidation, to Nancy's home for lunch. I realised on the bus back that I may have made a terrible mistake the night before at dinner; Nancy's mother was looking for clues as to what we liked and disliked. I couldn't help her on the former, but my keeping a straight face would've been useless for telling her the latter. Nightmare! What to do? I'd have to get KFC on the way back to the station.
Fortunately, Nancy must've had a word, and shown her pictures of us cooking with students. Mrs Nancy put out a great spread with Kung Pao chicken (but not as good as mine), chicken & potatoes, broccoli, red cabbage, beef, and some kind of inoffensive-tasting river fish. When we got back to Zhengzhou that evening, I didn't even need dinner :)
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