Just one week ago my daughter, Nicole, and I were
privileged to make a trip out to one of the poorest provinces of China: Gansu. We met some wonderful people, ate some interesting food, and were in awe of all the "work" that remains to be done in that part of the country.
With this post, I want to simply copy some parts of the journal I took while on the trip. I hope it inspires you to remember this specific province when you think about China.
May 7-
It's difficult to soak in all of the natural beauty that I am seeing in western Gansu province. We arrivd in Xiahe yesterday around 12:40 in the afternoon after a very bumpy 4 hour busride from Lanzhou. This morning I had a truly international breakfast: Tsampa (sp?) which is yak butter mixed with ground barley along with western style pancakes. After breakfast, Nicole and I went for a walk along the prayer wheel lined wall of the Labrang monastery. Very moving to see all of the Buddhists praying and spinning the wheels. After we checked out of the hotel, we caught a taxi and were fortunate enough to be able to sit next to an old Tibetan Buddhist monk who gave me the thumbs up when he saw I had bought some Tibetan style hats as souvenirs. We are on a bus now to Linxia. About half the population of Linxia is Muslim (Hui) and the city is said to have 99 mosques. ... After a late lunch at a local Hui Chinese restaurant we went to climb the 300 steps (an exhausting experience at 6,000 feet elevation) to the top of a local Daoist temple that sits on a cliff overlooking Linxia. We learned that Daoism is the city's 2nd most practiced religion next to Islam. It is about 6:00 in the evening and the large mosque here in the center of town near our hotel is blaring the call to prayer. It feels oddly out of place here in China, but nevertheless it is a striking reminder of the millions of people in China that adhere to the faith of Islam. May 8-Today is our third day of this four day trip. This morning before we leave we plan to go to a mosque and ask to climb to the top of it's minaret. Then we are going to rent a car and go back to Lanzhou through Dongxiang (Chinese minority from Mongolian descent) country. Climbed to the top of that minaret in Linxia today and counted more than 20 mosques within our line of sight. The drive back was fast and furious. Our Chinese driver was making both Nicole and I sick. We had to stop a couple of times so Nicole's stomach could settle down. The scenery (in Dongxiang country) was breathtaking, however.
