Agricultural Festival
One of our visits was to the Agricultural Festival, a harvest festival held at the mausoleum of one of the Emperors high in the hills north east of XIanyang [I fear I have forgotten which Emperor]. Amazingly enough, we were the guests of honour for this opening. Many of the local people had never seen foreigners before, so we were of great interest to them. Many people crowded around us staring, but as always the crowds were gentle and completely unthreatening. The sky was clear and the sun was hot. The air was fresh and pungent.
Of course, the harvest was particularly evident here in rural China. All along the streets and lanes corn [maize] was growing in endless fields, and was cut and dried in the sun along every street and lane. Apples were the next most prolific produce followed closely by sweet potatoes.
We had some lovely meals during this trip, all organised by Daoxuan. Frequently lunches were in what seemed like villagers’ homes and the food was wonderful. The dishes seemed more varied and interesting than our experience so far in Beijing, and being vegetarian was no problem at all with Dao’s myriad choice of dishes. We had a lot of vegetable dumplings [my favourite and hard to ask for without language], some wonderful aubergine preparations, green beans, chilli tofu hotpots, noodle soups and so on and so on. This is the best Chinese food I have ever tasted, and what’s more it is so healthy. I always feel good when I eat Chinese food. Chinese tea [cha – where ‘a cuppa char’ so obviously comes from] is served at every meal.
