Time, Trains, and Agriculture
It’s 10:30 in the morning here, and Daniel’s still asleep. We have internet access in our hotel room at this hotel, so he’s been staying up late talking to his buddies back home. I guess I can’t blame him too much; he asked me the other day, “do you realize you’re the only person I’ve talked to in over 2 weeks?!” I should admit, too, that I only got up 45 minutes ago. It’s been absolutely wonderful the past three weeks not having a cell phone or an alarm clock, and having enough time to get everything done. After this last semester at school, getting this much sleep feels sinful.
One of the nicest parts about this kind of trip is that we have more than enough time to see all the sights and can take a leisurely pace with it all. I’ve read 4 books since we’ve been here—5 if you count the travel guide book, which I’ve read most of in planning our grand tour of the country. It’s been wonderful. I’ve also enjoyed just wandering around the neighborhoods we’ve stayed in in Yangzhou and Shanghai. The things I enjoy most about China are not the temples and museums and other tourist sites, although those are nice, and I’m happy that I have the opportunity to see them. My favorite things, though, are eating at the hole-in-the-wall noodle shop, or playing peek-a-boo with the 4 year old in the train station, or pausing to watch a vendor make dumplings on the side of the street, or chatting with someone who stops to ask me where I’m from. Even successfully arranging hotel reservations and train tickets or ordering food at the restaurant can give me a thrill, because I’ve handled all of that in a foreign language.
Train trips have been especially fun. I love watching the countryside pass by, although I wonder if “countryside” is the right term; there is no empty space anywhere that I can see. Grain field is next to rice field, maybe divided by a strip of land where fruit trees have been planted. The fields run right up to the train tracks. Small burial markers are sometimes on little plots of land in between the fields, usually white tile with red sloping roofs, about 3 feet tall, maybe. Occasionally I’d see an ox grazing on the side of a canal, or sitting in the corner of a field that had already been plowed. This scenery would be interrupted occasionally by a small town center with 2-3 story apartment buildings and some businesses, but some of these areas looked like they did not have paved roads. No wasted space though. Maybe we’ll see some of that when we go out west.
On our trip from Yangzhou to Suzhou I tried to figure out some of the planting cycle. It’s time to harvest one of the grains (wheat, maybe?); we passed farms in each stage of the process, I think. In some places, the people were cutting the crop with scythes and bundling it into piles, where it was left to dry I think, or maybe just left while the people took a break. In other areas, the piles had either been taken to a concrete floor or put on a tarp, and people were beating the piles with a long pole that had a paddle which flopped back and forth on the end. After it was beaten, the grain was sifted from the rest of the plant in big shallow baskets. The chaff was then burned in the field. (Daniel and I had wondered why it was so smoky at times in Yangzhou—this was the reason, I think.) I kind of wish I’d paid more attention to farming practices at home, so I’d have something to compare this with. Everything is labor-intensive here, I guess because there are so many people and people need jobs, and it’s cheaper than buying expensive machinery.
Rice is another big crop in this area. As near as I can tell, the rice is planted in a muddy field, and then after a certain period of time, moved to a field under a foot or so of water. During our train ride, many people were busy in the fields planting the shoots in the water fields. I wonder if it’s possible to just flood the original field…it looked like a lot of work had been invested in the irrigation ponds and creeks and such. Bet it’s not too much fun to spend a couple of days wading through a giant puddle, bending over to stick plants in the mud.
One of the nicest parts about this kind of trip is that we have more than enough time to see all the sights and can take a leisurely pace with it all. I’ve read 4 books since we’ve been here—5 if you count the travel guide book, which I’ve read most of in planning our grand tour of the country. It’s been wonderful. I’ve also enjoyed just wandering around the neighborhoods we’ve stayed in in Yangzhou and Shanghai. The things I enjoy most about China are not the temples and museums and other tourist sites, although those are nice, and I’m happy that I have the opportunity to see them. My favorite things, though, are eating at the hole-in-the-wall noodle shop, or playing peek-a-boo with the 4 year old in the train station, or pausing to watch a vendor make dumplings on the side of the street, or chatting with someone who stops to ask me where I’m from. Even successfully arranging hotel reservations and train tickets or ordering food at the restaurant can give me a thrill, because I’ve handled all of that in a foreign language.
Train trips have been especially fun. I love watching the countryside pass by, although I wonder if “countryside” is the right term; there is no empty space anywhere that I can see. Grain field is next to rice field, maybe divided by a strip of land where fruit trees have been planted. The fields run right up to the train tracks. Small burial markers are sometimes on little plots of land in between the fields, usually white tile with red sloping roofs, about 3 feet tall, maybe. Occasionally I’d see an ox grazing on the side of a canal, or sitting in the corner of a field that had already been plowed. This scenery would be interrupted occasionally by a small town center with 2-3 story apartment buildings and some businesses, but some of these areas looked like they did not have paved roads. No wasted space though. Maybe we’ll see some of that when we go out west.
On our trip from Yangzhou to Suzhou I tried to figure out some of the planting cycle. It’s time to harvest one of the grains (wheat, maybe?); we passed farms in each stage of the process, I think. In some places, the people were cutting the crop with scythes and bundling it into piles, where it was left to dry I think, or maybe just left while the people took a break. In other areas, the piles had either been taken to a concrete floor or put on a tarp, and people were beating the piles with a long pole that had a paddle which flopped back and forth on the end. After it was beaten, the grain was sifted from the rest of the plant in big shallow baskets. The chaff was then burned in the field. (Daniel and I had wondered why it was so smoky at times in Yangzhou—this was the reason, I think.) I kind of wish I’d paid more attention to farming practices at home, so I’d have something to compare this with. Everything is labor-intensive here, I guess because there are so many people and people need jobs, and it’s cheaper than buying expensive machinery.
Rice is another big crop in this area. As near as I can tell, the rice is planted in a muddy field, and then after a certain period of time, moved to a field under a foot or so of water. During our train ride, many people were busy in the fields planting the shoots in the water fields. I wonder if it’s possible to just flood the original field…it looked like a lot of work had been invested in the irrigation ponds and creeks and such. Bet it’s not too much fun to spend a couple of days wading through a giant puddle, bending over to stick plants in the mud.
posted by Mike and Jean Anne at 7:05 PM
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