Travel in China: Gansu PartII
Gansu’s ethnic and geographical diversity is extraordinary. From Northwestern University for Nationalities, where 48 of China’s 56 ethnic groups are in attendance, to the Bing Ling Buddha, I have been nowhere else on earth so vastly varied. It is a cultural feast of sights, sounds, and culinary delights.
My first day in Lanzhou, a modern city near the head of the Yellow River, followed a 90-minute plane tip from Beijing. We flew almost even with the tops of several distant peaks and chased west after the Great Wall which long ago took a bit more time to make the trek.
The picture above was taken from a boat while riding to the Bing Ling Temple at the Maijishan Grotto. The Grotto, known as an ancient Oriental sculpture gallery, among the 48 tentative sites along China’s section of the Silk Road selected for inclusion as a World Heritage Site . About a mile to the right of this scene are remnants of the Great Wall standing watch over the lake created by the Yellow River dammed for an enormous hydroelectric project above Lanzhou.
Around Gansu are relics of times past, but not so easily forgotten. This picture is of a shelter built to escape the Japanese during their incursions into China. This bunker was 100-meters below one of the area’s first Qing-era Taoist temples and next to a modern Villa built for a visit by Jiang Jieshi (known to many westerners as Chang Kai Chek) and left untouched as a monument despite less than two weeks of use by the the general and his wife.
It is not unusual to at once see a Lama playing with a pup and living near Sui, Qing or Ming dynasty dwellings or relics being tended to or re-constructed by ethnic Muslim workers.
China was once known for incredible dialectical theological and religious traditions and a capacity to comfortably subsume them into a worship style that was uniquely Chinese. It was not uncommon to see, as in the picture below, a monk reading the Sutras and wearing both Buddhist and Taoist garb. The sign below him solicits donations for animal protection.
My hosts, during my four day stay, were professors of history and Archaeology from the Nationalities University. With the mountains as a backdrop both the old and ultra-modern new campuses are magnificent. The new school, with enviable modern facilities, encompasses an incredible 20,000 mu (48,000 acres), but I preferred the traditional architecture of the older, smaller campus within the city limits of Lanzhou:
A few of my gracious guides in front of the 27 Meter Buddha near the Bing Ling Temple:
Part III Tomorrow…..
[/caption]
to see them on the blog of dreams.
Subscribe to our feed