Voice of Will: An Yang

2004-12-31 - 3:38 p.m.
Ah An Yang.
So crissy gave me a short trip to get away and relax, so I chose An Yang. An Yang is in our province so it is a sort train trip (3 hours), and is supposed to have one of the UNESCO World heritage sites after 2006. Now here is what is important about this. When a place is made a World Heritage site it immediately increases in tourism (in a recent article in China Today, they mentioned tourism increasing by over 1 Million people per year at other UNESCO world heritage sites in china) So I wanted to go there before it becomes a world heritage site/tourist trap.

What I found was a very quaint, quiet city. We got there (me another teacher, and one of her students) and went to the place that Lonely Planet travel guides recommend. at 138 yuan(RMB) per night for twin accomidations, I thought it would be a good deal. We get to the building and it is goregous. New, renovated, large glass windows, and I think to myself, "wow, for 138 RMB a night, not bad."
Can you say 'bait and switch'? Yes the new building is very impressive and has a 4 star ranking, but the 138 RMB a night room, no that is in the old building behind this one. So we go out. 138 RMB a night for standing water in bathtub that is actually covered in mold, 2 beds that are rock hard, and actually being able to see the mold climb the walls. NO. So we go to the higher priced room 158 a night. It looks like someone was killed in the bathroom, and left to rot. Next... 200 rmb a night room, and another 100 for a rollaway bed for the student. Each increase in price we increased in size of the room, but not much more. We decided to see what other accomidations we could find.

After a 15 minute walk in -10 degree celsius weather we get to the other hotel our student had heard about. It is closed for rennovations!! By now even in 5 layers of clothing I'm freezing. I see what appears to be a hotel across the street from an "experimental high school" (I'm still wondering what kind of experiments were going on), and we go into this hotel to check it out. They are for chinese only! Great. Our guide starts talking to the people behind the counter, and he tells us to go outside for a minute or so. After 90 freezing seconds he comes out and gets us. It seems as long as he is renting the room and they don't see us when he signs the contract, its all good. We got a room for 150 RMB a night, with 3 beds and a shower. So I thnk we got the better deal.
That afternoon we ate lunch, and went sight seeing,and we found a buddhist temple/tower. So we go up to the front gate, and it is locked. OUr guide knocks and knocks, and this little old man comes out, and tells us they are closed because of the weather. Our guide (michael) starts this wonderful story about how we were from america, and only in An Yang for 1 day, and we came all thsi way to see the tower. The old guy lets us in! (I swear I want to adopt this 21 year old chinese student, he is great). So we have the whole place to ourselves.

This tower is one of the tallest buildings in An Yang, about 6 stories tall. To climb it you have to go up almost vertical steps. The steps are 30" tall, and only 6 " wide. Lets not forget the roof is only about 5'6". So these builders or monks had to be about 5'4" and with hugely long legs. We managed to explore this tower for about an hour (and boy did my legs feel it the following day)

We come down, and the sun is setting. We are looking around, and there are 2 buildings being renovated/remodeled. The doors are closed, and the workers are moving around inside. Well Michael goes up and tells the same sob story about being here only 1 day, and agian they let us in. It was fantastic. Here we are surrounded by workers who are painting the ceramic sculptures, and who are putting murals on the walls. NONE OF IT IS ORIGINAL! What a sham. But it was a pretty sham.

Next day we go to the Yin Ruins (yinxu). These ruins are some of the oldest in china, and that is why it is being made a world heritage site. I was disappointed to say the least. WE get there, and agian it is cold, and snow is on the ground (we spent 6 hours there, and only saw 2 other tourists). We go to the tomb of Fuhao. She is a very famous emperial concubine who led the army. Ok. So we go inside this building, down 3 levels of stairs to get to this pit full of 'relics'. Ok, it looks really neat, but something is just telling me "WRONG" And I finally figure it out. ARound the ouside top of the pit there are skeletons who were placed there to keep the spirits, and bodies of the dead locked in their graves. OK. But upon closer look, you can see one of the skeletons is a 1980's plastic skeleton (the jaw is cast in one piece with the skull, and it looks very deformed) I reach down and thwack it with my finger. Thunk (plastic). There is a very large bronze vessle, I can barely reach it with my fingers, and pick it up, less than one pound (at it's size... 20 or 30 lbs easily). It is a recreation of the pit!!

Our guide is very very upset by this, and is apologizing repeatedly. He starts talking to another chiese person, and they tell him all the artifiacts were moved to a museum down down years ago, this is just a recreation!
so now we are disappointed, but we keep on, and find the oracle bone pit. Oracle bones have some of the oldest written form of chinese ever discovered. A person would go to the oracle with a question. The oracle would kill a tortise, and write on the shell your question, and then burn a fire in the shell. From the way the fire burned, and the ashes left it would answer your question. So the largest find of oracle bones was on this site too. Ok, that is pretty cool. We get to the site, and it has a recreated bone pit! I hate recreations. at least the pictures on the outside were of the areachological dig, and about what was found. That was pretty cool.
There was also an interesting chariot pit. An Yang was interesting, but I hope by 2006 UNESCO World Heritage site will have "real" artifacts, not the recreations!!

Will