Tues, 4/17. Drove into the “country” to visit a “village”, passing a long park between lanes where various persons practiced Tai Chi, one with a big sword.  Drove down a four lane road crowded with buildings, turned right for a minute and suddenly we were in the village.  A high rise apartment towers over you not 100 yards away.  But it has it’s own pretty welcome gate.  We get a minor welcome from gaily dressed town folk beating drums and playing pipes.  Just too odd.  The village is famous for art, including paper cutting art, which we dabbled in.

We spent most of the day buying veggies, then helping to prepare lunch and eating said lunch, followed by a Q&A.  We’d split into two groups to visit two families. Buying the food was a challenge because Jacky thought it would be fun to give us the Chinese names of what we should buy, without the English.  Jacky likes games.  Cooking was okay.  The main dish was fried gyoza that tasted exactly like home.  The combined Q&A was interesting.  The other group visited a family who were proud Party members.  Our group never even talked about it.  The Party host was very pushy, which I considered both probably stereotypical and disturbing.

After returning to the hotel I again passed on dinner and went for an evening walk.  Began with a short subway ride, which was simplicity itself.  Machines had an “English” button.  The city is laid out in a rigid N-S, E-W pattern, which makes navigation easy.  I walked back.  Beautiful lights.  I passed at least eight groups of ad hoc dancers.  Videos below of the two strangest ones.  Mind you, this is a Tuesday.

Power lines ruin so many photos.

Noodles out to dry.

The old village, vacated in 1996. The new village’s homes seem built to be B&Bs. Many bedrooms, oversized kitchen.

Pepper spice production, old style. Not allowed until recently (too entrepreneurial).

I waited an hour for the lights on the dragon to go on. No luck.