Ping'An & the Dragons Backbone Rice Terraces

This was one of the main 'streets' in Ping'an. When we arrived on Wednesday afternoon at the bus stop, we still had a 20 minute walk up the mountain- up flights and flights of stone stairs, to the ridge of the mountain. This is how you arrive in Ping'an. Unless you are a full on tourist who hires the sedan chair at the bottom of the stairs in which case you are carried up in a chair by two Chinese men, and you are probably also having your luggage carried in (or on) a basket of a woman or a few women from the village as well. In which case you should be downright embarassed for A) not walking on your own, and B) Traveling to places that are beyond your abilities if you cannot carry your own luggage. Oh but that's being a wee bit judgemental-I know- blame it on the jet lag. People getting themselves to places like these on their own two feet will keep them looking natural and help to keep their heritage. Too many tourists coming & hiring locals to carry their luggage, carry THEM, and the town may try to make it even easier to get the tourists up there by putting a road in. A road that would no doubt need to take out quite a few rice fields in the process, leaving village families more dependent on the tourist trade than their rice business which has sustained them for hundreds of years. Next thing you know, it's all roads, no rice, and the tourists stop coming because the beauty and tranquility of terraced mountains have been replaced with a nice view of many roads zig zagging up the mountainside. No more tourists, no more rice, families have to move to the city, and China loses one of it's wonders. SO: That is why I am anti sedan chair when it comes to the tourists. Now, I am all for an exception- a family takes an aging relative to see a beautiful part of China...a young person in a wheelchair wants the opportunity to get up there...those are perfectly reasonable reasons to employ a sedan chair. But not wanting to climb stairs for 20 minutes just "because"- is not a good reason. On the upside, I did not see a single person hire a sedan chair in the 3 days I was in Ping'An. I did see a few tour groups hire the porter women with big baskets on their backs though. (Imagine a woman with a big basket on her back, and a big square rolling suitcase strapped to the top of it. What a sight...)

So once you get up the mountain and "into town"- the streets are verry narrow. You see a few wheelbarrows, but nearly EVERYTHING, from hay to rocks to rice, is carried over one shoulder on a bamboo pole. One basket on each end. Subsequently, the roads don't need to be very wide and they are more walking paths than roads. I did not see a single bicycle...and no wonder- the town is on a hill, I don't think there are more than 2 houses on one level, all of them are staggered up and down the hillside. Which means, a whole lot of stairs. It would be impossible to ride a bike in this town. This was taken coming down from viewpoint #1 as the sun was going down- dusk was setting in & the view was beautiful. Unfortunately we were there for the sunset, but it was cloudy so we didn't get a show.
Just before sunset....
This was at one of the shops at viewpoint 1- It was unclear how "Tea Make Coffee"- but I was intrigued by the concept...

There was spying here there and everywhere! The elementary school was just 2 buildings down from the hotel we had gotten rooms in, so I was able to see lots of comings & goings of the kids from the elementary school. I was surprised to see a large number of girls. I was very HAPPY to see a large number of girls in this village. I don't know if it was because the boys were not in school (were off working?) or just because there had been lately more girls than boys.

One thing that dissappointed me on this trip was towards the end I became suspicious when I saw a family with a baby boy or young boy. It's incredibly unfair of me to think this, but I found myself thinking "was that her first child?" The other evil and less than nice thoughts I had were when I saw pregnant women. I had this little evil voice in my head thinking "what will you do if it's a girl?" From my purely optimistic standpoint, I want to believe that 99% of all the boys I saw WERE first children, not 2nd children. And I want to believe that all the pregant women I saw will be ecstatic to welcome their son OR daughter into the world. But the other part of my brain tells me that the likelihood of both of those being true is not very great. I know that views are changing in the cities. But I also know that to change a belief as strong as the importance of boys over girls in Chinese society is not something that changes overnight....not even in a few years. It will more likely take a few generations.
Everywhere we could see rice drying in peoples front yards. On rooftops, on wooden decks, everwhere there was a big flat space. Also lots of red chilis were out in the sun dryng.
Besides spying on the sweet kids, I also found a mama kitty and her babies to spy on. They were toddling along after her and she sat for them for a few minutes, then apparently decided she'd had enough nursing and wandered off...they were adorable toddling along after Mama & mewing for more milk. I don't think they were more than a few weeks old.