Its been a while. On Feb 19th Rosie and I went to the Town of Chen Lu. It has been making pottery and ceramics for about 3000 years. We saw walkways and doorways from the Qin and Tang Dynasties.
We left the apartment at about68:35am. Walked to the bus stop and at 7:00am caught city bus K616 to the long distance bus terminal. I have a student from the area that volunteered to be our guide. Her name is Qiao Chen and English name is Nadia. She sent me an email with the instructions to give to the ticket agent to help us get on the right bus. There were hundreds of people at the bus terminal. We final got help from one of the employees there. She took us to the boarding gate and had us wait while she went and bought our tickets. Then escorted us thru check in and onto the bus. the cost was 32RMB each. The bus left about 8:15 and we arrived in Tong Chuan about 10:20am where Nadia met us. The trip is about 70km. She then got us a taxi to Chen Lu, about 10 miles away. We met a friend of hers (I forgot her name) and 2 Japanese friends of her friend. They took us to the friends home there in Chen Lu and fed us. They then escorted us around the town to visit a few of the homes where the pottery and ceramics is made. We did not visit a factory only family businesses.
One note, Chen Lu is built in the mountains so the roads are going up and down. The only flat road was the main street, about a block long. After 3 hours up and down roads looking a things, they took us to the local restaurant for a meal (#2 remember). This is about 2:30pm. We then walked a little more and caught the city bus back to Tong Chuan. The buses are really 8 passenger vans. the roads are so narrow and have many switchbacks so a regular bus would not be able to go there. When we got back to Tong Chuan, we went to meet Nadia's parents. We had a 20min bus ride and 15 minute walk to the school where they live. Her dad is a teacher at a middle school and her mother maintains the boiler that generates the hot water for cooking and heating the school. the boiler is about 6 feet in diameter and 15 feet tall. She feeds coal into it to keep it going. We had a meal (#3) in the boiler room. This was about 5:30pm. The other rooms are not very warm. This area is still in the mountains so it is colder than in Xi'an. We were so stuffed, we could not eat very much. They kept on trying to get us to eat more and wanted us to spend the night. Very delightful, friendly and helpful. their apartment only has 2 rooms and 1 bed. I am not sure where everyone would sleep if we took them up on the offer. But the bed was blankets on a platform, us soft westerners would not be comfortable on it. Nadia escorted us on the bus back to the bus station and helped us get on the right bus. Bus ride back to Xi'an. The bus dropped us off a block or 2 from the bus terminal (I have no idea why), after we all got off, he drove down towards the bus terminal. We walked to the bus stop to catch the k616 back home and walked from the bus stop to our apartment and arrived about 9:30pm. A long day.
Below are pictures of the activity:
Looking out over the city.
An ancient Chinese character, this has been here for a 1000 years.
I think this goat was lost.
The walk ways are all made of broken potter and designs of all kinds in the pavement.
One of the trash cans(??!!) on the street. Yes it is ceramic or porcelain.
The display room in this persons home.
The following are taken at people's homes where then do the ceramics/pottery.
This is Liang Baolin, Rosie and Qiao Chen(Nadia).
This is a mud mixers They make the mud from the clay deposits in the area, and all the other steps to create the items that they sell.
This entrance way is a couple of 1000 years old(new Red decorations forthe holiday.
These are the start of teapots, the design is a couple of thousand years old. The elderly gentleman here has won awards and recognition for his work on maintaining the methods of making these pots. An interesting note, you put the water in a hole in the bottom and when you turn it right side up it does not leak out the bottom. Only pours out the spout.
We bought one of these. It whistles when you pour.
Ceramic pillows!
Another trash receptacle
An old table from the Tang Dynasty period still in use.
You see the pots lining the roof of this establishment
Ceramic garden table and stools. Hard to see the top because it has ice on it.
This is the friend Liang Baolin, and her mother that feed us 'elevensies'.
Their 1 room home. the toilet is down the hill.
Entrance to the Laing home. Remember Chinese list their surname first then given name and are usuall called by their surname. Nadia really smiles if I use her chinese name instead of 'Nadia'. You pronounce her name Ch-ow, ch following my an 'ow' (it hurts) and first name Chun(e sounds like u in bud). I believe she is named after the town. She was born here.
I am not very good at remember to take 'people' pictures. This is Nadia, Liang, Liangs Mom, and 2 Jamanese students that are friends of Liang that came with us.
This is Nadia's parents, picture in their 2 room apartment at the school where he teaches and she maitains the boiler, feeds it coal, gives out hot water, etc. Probably the only source of hot water at the school.
