We were told by Evelyn (our tour guide) that Nanchang is not
really a tourist city. It’s about 50 or 60 degrees now, but in the
summer time, it gets very hot—in the low 100 degrees. Cold winds blow in from
the mountains surrounding Nanchang. There are a few things to do here. Today
(11/28/12), we went through a tour of the Tengwang Pavilion, a beautiful place.
It has been re-made many times (29 times), the original made 1400 years ago and
out of wood (Made year 653).
The
Emperor Taizong had thousands of wives, and therefore, hundreds of sons. His 23rd
son, Prince Teng, was the only one not
interested in politics, and loved nature, music, art, and dance. His dad
strongly disapproved, and told him he could go do whatever he wanted, because
he was rarely seen by his father. Even though he was different, he still was
very rich. He built this building for entertainment for the villagers. The Yin
Yang sign was painted on the entrance, surrounded by the symbols of the 8
elements to represent balance and necessity. Statues of Lions were made out
front, one on each side of the entrance. The one on the right, facing away from
the building, is the male, and in his paw in the sphere, to represent the
world. On the left, there is the female, and in her paw is a baby lion.
We
climbed up 6 stories and watched a theater show, with three parts, all
traditional themes to match the style of life at the time this building was
originally made. First, there was singing, then dancing, and finally music.
Gianna actually fell asleep during this, which I am amazed by. This is because
it is extremely loud. Then we went through and looked at paintings and rooms in
the building, but one stuck out to my memory. It is a painting illustrating the
poem Peony Love, written before this building was created. It displayed a rich
female, who had a dream where she fell in love with a peasant boy, but since
marriages were arranged, she knew she could never be with him. She woke up, and
killed herself. This boy, during this time, was traveling to the capital to
become an official, when somebody recognized him and told him about this girl,
and he went to visit her grave, and she became alive again. The painting is all
in blue tones, and the people’s eyes are closed to represent it’s all a dream.
That
was about 40 hours long, so we stopped at the gift shop on the way out, and
Gianna woke up about now. She seemed pretty happy, looking around and smiling.
We went out to eat a traditional Nanchang meal, which was pretty spicy. Gianna
ate rice and her formula, and everybody else was burning their tongues off at
the food. We left from there to go back to the hotel and we were all beat. Dad
and I ran to the convenience store across the street and got us all some
noodles. People were stopping me everywhere and saying “hello” or “hi”, even
“Where are you from?” clearly testing out their English. Most people are pretty
nice. We returned to our room to find Mom and Gianna playing. It’s
pretty late here, and Gianna is playing with Dad. I figured out today that she
likes to go through my purse and play with everything inside. I thought it was
pretty cute, but can see in the future that this may pose to be a PROBLEM. J
Love,
Brittany
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