Huang Shan. 4 (黃山之四. 古徽州市府)

The Huang Shan National Park originally formed part of the area under the jurisdiction of  Huizhou town (徽州府). But it could never forget its heritage. Perhaps even more likely, it could not resist the lure of the tourist dollar which could be generated from both its natural and historical heritage. Hence the local government decided to change the name of the town to Huang Shan and restored its ancient municipal government building complex here together with its surrounding protective walls.

The old city wall of the ancient Huizhou town, which first started life in the Qing Dynasty (秦) in BC 221 as She County (歙縣) , was  given township status as Shezhou (歙州) in the Sui Dynasty (隋) (581-619)  which in AD 1121 during the Song Dynasty (宋) was renamed Huizhou (徽州 ). So this old town, one of the best preserved in the whole of China, has been around for some 1,400 years! According to the explanations accompanying the Guided Tour Map of the old town, the main tourist attractions here are: the Hui Government Building (徽州府衙), the East Watch Tower (東譙楼) , the South Watch Tower ( (南譙楼), the old town wall (古城牆), the Stone Memorial Gate of Xuguo (許國石坊), the Doushan Street (斗山街), Zhongshan Lane (中山巷), The Memorial to Tao Xingzghi (陶行知) Memorial Museum , the 2 residences of the Cao clan(曹氏二宅), Taibai Tower (太白楼), the Xin An Memorial Park (新安碑園) and Yulang Ancient Street (漁梁古街), the 2 Song Towers (宋代二塔) and 3 Ming Bridges (明代三橋). But we did not have time to visit them all.

Huang Shan. 3 (黃山之三)

The second day at Huang Shan, we had to change hotel. That means plenty of steps to walk up and down. As on the first day, there was absolutely no sign of any sun.

 

Right opposite to our first hotel is this huge boulder

One look up these steps is enough to cause an instant fall in my moods as I thought of the amount of legwork I got to do on our snow spikes.

Something to brighten up our day

Huang Shan. 2 (黃山之二)

After getting off the cable car station, we had to walk  more than an hour to reach the place where we were to have lunch.

I had come for the snow. This is my first sight of the snow amongst the moss along a streambed.

A Forgotten Corner: Lai Bin West Village of Nam Hoi (一被遺忘的角落: 南海獅嶺黎邊西村)

It's always been a great pleasure for me to be able to visit old Chinese villages. I don't really know why. Ruined and abandoned buildings to me are not just bricks, stones, timber, pillars, girders, eaves, staircases, doors, windows, pedestals etc. They all seem to want to tell me their own stories: who built them, who lived there, what their lives were like and after they're gone, what took over and what the descendants are doing or not doing to them... and a million and one other things.They are silent witnesses of the history or biographies of their former owners or occupiers. Some time ago, I visited an abandoned village in Guangdong Lai Sai Village (小塘獅嶺黎邊西村), a village of less than a few thousand people which produced a number of political and academic luminaries and some Communist revolutionaries. It forms part of Nam Hoi District ( 南海).

It shows signs of some Western influence in the way it put together some of its buildings. Perhaps some of its former residents went to West Europe and brought back the roman columns, the portico and arch reliefs, put in as decorative features?

Lotus (蓮花 )

The Lotus

On the day when the lotus bloomed, 
alas, my mind was straying, and I knew it not.   
My basket was empty and
the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again, a sadness fell upon me, and
I started up from my dream and   
felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance
in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and
it seemed to me that is was
the eager breath of the summer    
seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near,
that it was mine, and  
that this perfect sweetness had blossomed  
in the depth of my own heart.

Rabindranath Tagore.

蓮花

蓮花綻放那天
唉，我心神恍惚，而我竞不覺。
我的籃子虛空着
無人留意那花。

但不時

哀傷垂下

我從夢中驚醒

感到一絲奇妙的芬芳

在南風中。

那莫名的甜蜜

使欲望疼我心

彷彿那是夏日

熱切的氣息

   索求其滿全。

那時我尚未曉得它這麼近

那是我的

那完美無缺的甜蜜

已在我心深處綻放。

泰戈爾作
愛梭羅(El Zorro) 譯

 

Christmas Tour.1 Floating Moon. Toi Shan (聖誕之旅 1 台山浮月村碉樓)

Christmas usually means  agonizing over dresses, accessories, jewelry, hairdos, handbags, shoes, lipsticks, eye-lashes, eye shadows, face powder, nail polish and deciding which parties to go to and whose to politely refuse and dreams of meeting the right guy for teenage girls and similar sleepless nights over what gifts to buy for whom, when and how to give them away and fussing over the Christmas lunches and dinners for married couples, and shopping, dinners, cinemas or mahjong parties for the junior office workers and looking forward to being rejoined by their children and grandchildren for the older folks. But for me, Christmas this year meant a new adventure: a short trip to nearby Guangdong with fellow amateur photographers.

The trip meant meeting at the Futian Port Station across the border from Lok Ma Chau MTR station 7 a.m. in the morning. I arrived early and waited for the late comers but didn't have to wait long. We had a tour leader and a local guide. Our tour leader was a lovely young lady trying her nervous best to look self-confident and competent. Our local tour guide was her complete opposite: a seasoned loud-mouth, no nonsense tom-boy whose jokes about some of the things which could happen would make us gasp for breath from belly aches from  laughing too hard. One of her "would-you-believe it?" tales concerned her anxieties during one of her many tours: after several hours of urgent telephone calls to and from the hotel management and her, one old couple who vigorously denied having left anything important inside a combination-lock operated hotel room safe deposit box despite a message requesting for combination lock number code from the hotel manager for their locked safe deposit box, something nobody expected was discovered after the they called in an expert locksmith: a "pineapple bun" which the old couple bought from a restaurant where they lunched earlier in the day because they mistook the safe deposit box for a micro-wave oven and then decided to abandon their pre-bedtime snack because they couldn't remember the combination number a minute after they put it in!