July 4 – No Fireworks For Us…Independence Day in Xi’an

Xi’an is an ancient ‘small’ city (only 8M people) built within an enormous and intact city wall, one side of which is flanked further by a river. It contains ancient bell and drum towers, neighborhoods of minority groups (formed when people from Persia travelled along the Silk Road, helped to fight for the emperor, and then rewarded with the privilege of marrying Chinese women and settling in Xi’an). These minorities still practice Islam and eat no pork. Today was a whirlwind of art – first to an art museum to learn about calligraphy, traditional painting, and folk art (followed by the children being taught calligraphy). Eliza was the only one who knew how to hold a brush and paint characters (thanks to Chinese Culture Camp) and so she was invited to help the teacher. We then had a delicious lunch at one of the oldest hotels in Xi’an (where the Clinton family dined in the 90s)..then off to the Muslim neighborhood where we toured an ancient home replete with courtyards, female sleeping quarters, male sleeping quarters, and even an ‘introspection room’ where children were sent if they were naughty, to think of their bad actions – for 3 days! We heard a beautiful concert by 4 girls playing traditional instruments (2 wind, 2 string), then went to see a shadow puppet show about the monkey king. The children were told of how shadow puppets were formed (out of donkey skin) and how watching shadow puppet stories was like ‘TV’ for the emperor and his family.







Tonight all of the families except us are attending a traditional musical show, with 18 courses of dumplings served. We were surprised at the hotel by Lincoln (Zhao Fengjhou), one of the Finance Ministry officials who came to Indianapolis in 2004 and became our good friends. Lincoln is truly one of the nicest men we have ever met – he reminds me of Chen Zhe, from graduate school. He drove us in his car to a shopping square near the ancient bell tower to an incredible dumpling area, where we chatted (his English is excellent, despite his protestations to the contrary). He gave us beautiful gifts of calligraphy and paper cuts and basically treated us as if we were princesses. He delivered us back to the hotel, told us what an honor it was to see us (to which we pathetically tried to out-honor his honoring), and then he insisted on escorting us to our elevator car. Worst (best?) of all, we called my friend Qing (Zhang Qing) on his cellphone (it’s so good to hear her!) and she will be meeting us in Chengdu at our hotel (which I knew) …but will be joined by David, Scott, and Chenhui - - 3 other friends from 2004 – who are flying into Chengdu to see us as well. My pathetic stash of Indiana State Museum stationery is dwindling, and I fear we are the object of some ‘face-gaining’ competition…not to mention that we look like celebrities to the rest of our tour group. Eliza is being a trooper about all of this (despite the fact that she couldn’t swim when all the rest of her friends went to the pool). If the Chengdu entourage indeed assembles, I’m going to see if I can squeeze her into the Evans family for a day so that she can see the pandas…and I’ll hang out with Qing, etc. If they ever come back to the United States we will need to deploy Dylan in a plane to fetch them from New York (or wherever) and fly them back to the Conrad Hotel for caviar and champagne …or something.