Henan Province; ZhengZhou and Kaifeng Government Building

To my honorable friends and family,
The moment has finally arrived for a brand spanking new post. I have a lot to report so this one is gonna be a multi-parter . Last week, our class embarked on our week long vacation to the Henan (河南）province.

This is a map of the Henan Province. Henan is to the left of the Shandong（山东）province which is where I am currently. On our "vacation" we visited 3 cities within the province. The first city, which is in red print, is called ZhengZhou(郑州），pronounced JengJoe, and is the capital of the Henan province. ZhengZhou is one of the largest cities in China and is certainly the largest in the Henan province, which is pretty large itself.
ZhengZhou's history as a city exceeds 3500 years making it a city rich with historical significance. As an important trading center for the Imperial court, ZhengZhou has been influenced by the rules of at least 10 dynasties, each with its own customs, architecture, and contributions to the city. Like many old cities, the once great city of ZhengZhou has now fallen victim to economic downfall Whereas many parts of China are developing rapidly; ZhengZhou reached its peak years ago--but to tell you the truth, it feels more like China then Qingdao, which recently has been flocked by foreigners anticipating the Olympics.**by the way, the torch is making its way right along the outside of my school in Qingdao on Monday**

Our tour was led by a young woman who stayed with us the entire trip. The basic formula for a Chinese tour company is a large bus+tour guide=educational fulfillment (which always comes before actual fun, in china)Each day, we would begin our trip around 8 a.m. after a nutritionally lacking breakfast. If in China, I suggest never going to a hotel in henan for a breakfast buffet, its more likely an option then one would think---stay away. After breakfast and on the bus, we would travel at lengths ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours and it was not uncommon for the tour guide to talk and talk and talk for the entire time (most of which was nigh impossible to understand) *in different parts of China, there are different colloquial ways of asking common questions, for instance it is not uncommon for a Chinese person to say hao bu hao （好不好）when asking if something is okay or do you understand, but in Henan the colloquial equivalent is Zhong bu Zhong (sounds like jong boo jong) except they say it like its part of a rap song, imagine Lil John speaking Chinese and that is how irritating it was to hear Zhong bu Zhong all the time.*
The only other thing on the trip that was standardized was the lunch and dinner we ate everyday.

Each day was the same, go to the second floor of this restaurant which looks remarkably like the last restaurant, sit in two tables of 10 each, the meal consists of tea and about 10 dishes of which 4 are soup(a henan specialty), 1 is rice, 1 is bread, and the others are some sort of meats and veggies cooked in the most curious ways (but for the most part remained untouched by most everyone). The variety came in with the specific animal which was desecrated for our benefit, one day we ate donkey and another rabbit, yet another day there was an entire chicken defeathered and but into a boiling soup, head and all. Needless to say I lived on rice and after hours McDonald's.

On the first day we went to the city to the right of ZhengZhou, Kaifeng（开封）pronounced k-eye-feng, There we saw an example of Henan's importance to the imperial court and visited an ancient government building in the midst of the modern city. Here are a few pictures from that place. You can click on one to bring up a bigger picture.

This is part of the compound, its pretty well preserved. Some famous cases took place in the courts of this Imperial courthouse. One such is the case of a land owner who was sentenced to death for killing a peasant's son. Where those people are crowded there was a demonstration of a Chinese wedding.

This is the door way into the main courtyard. In the distance you can see a pretty huge pagoda. From the top of that pagoda is where the first picture was taken. Inside was a large statue of a famous Imperial official as well as several 500 year old court documents.

On the second floor of the pagoda. That's the pretty side.. the other side is more or less greyish communist housing projects.

By the way, I'm going to mention Colour Revolt a few times in these posts because I really want this blog to come up whenever you google blog search Colour Revolt. So if you haven't bought it yet, go buy Plunder, Beg, and Curse... its all the rage in the Chinese bootlegging racket.

Coming soon to a blog near you:

100000 Buddhist statues and the Chinese fountain of youth!!!!