THE MAY DAY HOLIDAY IN SHIJIAZHUANG WITH SEVEN, CHRISTINE AND THEIR FAMILY.

Seven and Christine have invited me to visit them in their hometown and have planned an itinerary over the May holiday weekend: well this is a privilege and an offer I can't refuse! So I order some railway tickets online and cycle to the railway station to collect them: this can be a tedious process as you have to pass through their security check as if you were travelling. I have to queue but it doesn't take too long apart from there being some guy at the front shouting at the ticket attendant for several minutes (presumably because the guy has made a mistake) until some station lady drags him away to another booth, I imagine to get him sorted out. I personally cannot understand why the Chinese actually stand in line to get tickets in the first place as there is a bank of automated ticket machines (they only work with a Chinese ID card) also you can book online and collect them from the machines if you're Chinese or have them delivered, and it seems so much more convenient to me.

I pack on Thursday as I don't have much time and I'm teaching Friday morning. I have to catch the train at 6 minutes past 7pm which gives me time to have lunch, shower and do a little bit of admin. There is a bustle of activity around the campus and there seem to be few taxis about, so I walk to the bus stop where I manage to hail one and the pirate overcharges me: I don't argue as this is what tends to happen during these public holidays. At the station I can't figure out where to stand for the right coach and I ask the inspector on the platform who points me up to the other end, but I'm unconvinced. A young girl who speaks English hails me and asks if I teach at the University as she says she has seen me before. According to her I am on the right spot on the platform: “Wait with me!” she suggests. So we have a a quick chat until the train arrives and I realise she's made a mistake and the inspector was right: I should have listened to him. So I break off and and hurry up the platform with my wheeled suitcase, just managing to gain my seat before the train sets off. I walk back through the carriage to see if the student is still there as I fear she may have missed the train. But she is there and we talk for a few minutes. It turns out we are both going to Shijiazhuang (Seven's home town.) When I arrive at the station Seven and Christine haven't arrived yet so I send them a text message. The young student appears with another student who introduces himself as they both know each other and they offer to wait with me, although I don't need them to, but it's very kind of them anyway. I call Seven and Christine answers explaining that they are stuck in traffic.

Anyway at length Seven arrives and it turns out he knows these students. After a few minutes' chat he takes me to his car which is very impressive with STAR-WARS computer technology in it! It's the first time I've been driven anywhere in China except in a taxi (apart from my railway station transfer in Pingyao.)

They have booked a hotel for me and apparently it wasn't easy as not many hotels in Shijiazhuang can take foreign guests. The air is very warm, its 8pm now and the traffic is very slow. It seems the city is building a new transport network with raised carriageways and an underground railway like the ones in Beijing and Xian, so there are construction sites everywhere. Eventually we arrive at the hotel, which is comfortable and very clean. I'm glad they are with me to help with checking in as it is the usual tortuous process. However it's eventually over and after they take me up to the room I'm hungry: its 9pm by now and I haven't had dinner yet, so we find a little dumpling restaurant nearby where we have dumplings in soup, bread and salad and I have one beer. It's quite filling and I can't polish it all off so I hope they don't mind, and we discuss the itinerary for the weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to meet the family so I'm looking forward to it. They have planned a special menu with me in mind. I guess it is around 10 pm by the time they take me back to the hotel and they've even bought dinner! I feel very well cared for. It takes me some time to fall asleep as the room is warm so I turn on the air-conditioning to cool it down.

The next day I walk around and at length find a little convenience store where I buy some rice wine to take to Seven's family, a bottle of water and some breakfast of steamed buns or baozi: I shower, shave and get ready for the day as they are picking me up at 11am. I wait in the hotel foyer and Seven calls me from outside so we drive to his grandmother's house in a hutong about 15 minutes away. When we arrive Christine waves and calls out to me from a second floor window as she is cooking in the kitchen. I've bought a little food and the rice wine and when we go in I'm greeted by the whole family in turn: It's an unusual experience as the whole family is standing in the living room just inside the door and there is something ritualistic about it. I shake hands with everyone and they are very polite. I'm invited to sit down so Seven and I talk with his father who is a little older than myself with Seven as interpreter.

Shortly after this I am shown how to make a Chinese dumpling so I have a go myself: it's not as easy as I thought it would be and I'm told it's very good for a first effort however clearly there is a knack to this. I add mine to a large bamboo platter of beautifully made dumplings, the staple food of any family dinner in China.

I ask if I can take some photographs and visit the kitchen. Here I can see a traditional Chinese meal being prepared. You have to be very well organised as there is not much room: but as it is sunlit and pleasant this would be my favourite room.

The family members present so far as I can recall are: Seven's father, mother and grandmother (who is over 80) 2 uncles, aunt and a lady who he describes as his sister but who is actually his cousin, plus Christine.

I'm invited to join for lunch and there are many dishes. Everyone is vegetarian so there is no meat or fish: Christine has made a spicy vegetable dish in my honour as I like spices. There is something like a meatball made of tofu (bean curd), aubergine, (called eggplant in China as they tend to use US English) fried potatoes (which don't look like potatoes as they are cut into very thin strips) a version of gungbao jiding (chicken with cashew nuts) but with mushrooms substituted for chicken. And many other things too numerous to recall. There is steamed tofu made by Seven's father, apparently it's his speciality. It's all very pleasant and the one or two things I find unpalatable I don't try. To drink I'm offered beer and and yellow rice wine, which is more refined than the white version. I'm seated next to Seven's father who keeps my glass full throughout!

 I'm asked many questions and am welcomed into the family home. Apparently I'm now an honorary member of the family. There are many toasts and I ask if I can give one myself so I thank them for their hospitality and friendship, and for bringing me into their home. I explain that I'm honoured to be their guest. I'm treated like royalty and this is one of my most extraordinary experiences in China.

There is a custom in China of honouring the family members with a toast, starting with the eldest and working downwards: I am toasted as well because I am the honoured guest. In talking about China I'm often unsure of what to say. Most of the conversation revolves around family values so I'm asked a lot of questions about my own family, how big it is, how often we get together, when are our traditional meals etc. So I end up talking a lot about Christmas. I'm asked if I like China: hard to answer as the experience goes so much beyond such a simple concept. I end up telling stories, it's often the best way to respond. I feel a little humbled by all of this.  

 Eventually we visit Seven's father's house where Seven and Christine stay whenever they come to Shijiazhuang. It's beautifully furnished and has quite a large kitchen, twice the size of the average one in a Chinese apartment. It must be very expensive so I draw the conclusion they are comfortably off. I also see some of their wedding photos which are quite extraordinary as they involve costume and elaborate staging. We have tea together as Seven has a light doze.

  

In the mid-afternoon, about 3.30, we travel out to the mountains outside the city. On the way we pass a lot of hotel developments and something that looks very strange: a mishmash of architectural styles that looks somewhat bizarre. There is a building that looks like a pagoda on one side and a Renaissance style tower on the other: it's as if there is a split in space and time halfway across this building so that half of it is in Imperial China and the other half in the Florence of the Medicis. There are also some houses which are imitations of plantation villas in Southern states of America and. neo-Georgian mansions. Christine explains that this is a series of film sets: apparently they use local people as extras.  

 At length we come to a mansion and Seven asks if I like walking up hills. Well I do but the weather is very hot for this today; I normally do this kind of thing in the early morning if it's hot! So I suggest we don't walk very far. We keep going into the shade as there are some young trees around, (with Christine asking “Do we have to do this? Is there some alternative plan?” I must admit I wonder about this myself.) Anyway we find a gentle slope and it's much cooler as we walk quite slowly and a little while later we round a corner and find that we are almost at the top! So we rest and take a few photos.  

 Seven's plan for the evening is to visit what he calls a “farmer's restaurant” I'm not sure what this refers to, presumably all the produce comes from local farms. We drive to some unfamiliar spot and he gets out to look at the menu. I'm not sure if I'm going to like it here as it looks like an assortment of scruffy shacks, so I follow him in and find a large kitchen with huge pieces of meat being spit-roasted, wide dishes of fish stew bubbling gently on the hob, and some big earthenware pots with lids on them like casserole dishes. Peering around I can see a grove of trees with tables under them. Perhaps it won't be so bad after all.

 So we sit under the trees (they turn out to be plum trees) where we have some salad dishes and vegetables but I also ask for a couple of skewers and some barbecued prawns. The vegetables are much more tasty than the meat. However if I had friends with me who ate meat I would have had one of the earthenware pots. Seven comes with me to the kitchen where we can find out what the dishes are: the pots contain one of the following: pork stew, pigs' trotters, or chicken and potato. Two of them sound good: I'm not a fan of pigs' hooves. But I would have to have a gargantuan appetite or be with other carnivores to eat that amount of food. I also see numerous men walking about bearing half-pigs freshly butchered and some people order pork ribs coming from these carcases. The place gets very busy and and the lights come on so there is a delightful ambience to the evening.  

At about 8pm we need to leave as we have another set of places to see tomorrow and I'm being picked up at 9am, when I have to check out of the hotel. I can never fail to be impressed by Seven and Christine: they are both extremely bright, highly accomplished, deeply humble and unfailingly pleasant. They are two of the nicest people I have ever met.

That night I sleep well and wake around 7.30, so I walk out to the shop where I buy a couple of large bottles of water because of the hot weather, and some more baozi for breakfast. I shower, change and pack then do a little writing in my room and room phone rings! Wondering if it's the hotel reminding me to check out I pick it up: it's Seven waiting for me in the foyer. So he helps me to check out and it turns out he has brought his cousin with him (who he tends to refer to as his sister, I think the word “cousin” may not be used in China) We drive to an outlying district where I can see a section of the city wall: sadly we don't have time to visit this. Nearby there is a Qing-dynasty Buddhist temple complex which I am to be shown around: Seven and Christine often visit this to worship: it is, so to speak, their local church. Apparently parts of it are over a thousand years old.

 Photography is prohibited inside the buildings so I don't attempt it: flash photography wouldn't work anyway. I do see one Chinese gentleman with a tour take a flash photo and be ticked off by his tour guide. I don't do this anyway not just because it's prohibited but out of respect for the custom of the place and for my friends who are devout Buddhists. However I am able to photograph some of the gardens. Occasionally my friends go off to pray so I wait for them while I look around. I ask Seven a question about his faith: as all my life I've wanted and worked to become an artist but it didn't go as I had planned it: should we keep trying to work for a goal we probably can't achieve if it makes us happy to live that life? He believes we should as his faith encompasses a belief in reincarnation so we can achieve our goals in another life. Although I don't share this view, its comforting. My own feeling is that if we are creative spirits we should pursue our creative nature for its own sake. Every artist wants to be successful, there's no point in pretending otherwise. But if we fail, we shouldn't give up, or we will lose our identity and our spirit.  

 The temple is rather crowded as it is a holiday, Seven and Christine do not normally tend to visit when its like this, so they prefer the peace and tranquillity offered on quieter days. We visit one of the older buildings. (apparently the whole site was hidden in a forest for years and found by an archaeologist) Each one houses a different incarnation of the Buddhas, and in this one is a 30m (110ft) high bronze statue. This is a goddess of largesse with something like 30 arms and each bears an object of some kind like a bottle or a book. Seven explains that this particular deity appears to those who pray for aid in times of trouble, and the arms signify the extent and diversity of its power to relieve suffering or misfortune. As I can't photograph it I sketch it from memory and it looks something like this (see figure to show the scale)

 It transpires that owing to the holiday there is a special performance apparently of the foundation of the temple by one of the emperors. I'm skeptical as these sometimes tend to be somewhat ersatz and occasionally embarrassing. However I do have to say it was extraordinary to see.  

 There is a procession where the emperor (played by a local government official) opens the temple, then goes inside to pray. Before he does this there is this dance performance that you can see. The dancers represent the god depicted inside the temple building, and the performance is intended to be seen so that the dancers look like one figure with many arms (it's virtually impossible to gain this position owing to the crowd!)

 We walk around the gardens and have a short rest before lunch, when I am treated to a bowl of local fried noodle with a little beef: (they do not seem to mind even though they do not eat meat) It's a simple but satisfying meal.. I should explain that so far I have not been allowed to pay for the entrance fees or any meals except last night's when I insisted. It's the Chinese way!

 A sweet-looking little Chinese girl comes in with her parents as I am a foreigner it may be the first time she has seen one. So she sits behind Christine and keeps peering round her head to look at me. So Christine has developed a trick of turning round at intervals and starring back at them. She loves kids and would make a great mum! So the the little girl eventually changes seats with her parents so she can't see me!

 After lunch everyone needs a rest, so we travel to the second place on Seven's list. This is a mansion created for a TV production of a well-known Chinese novel. It's writer apparently spent much of his life writing it and died in poverty with the work unfinished. (it's reputedly very long) The story is supposed to reflect the lives of four distinguished families which I imagine are thinly-disguised versions of real ones. It's full of plotting, murder and betrayal as revealed by the plaques in the house. So we find a cool area inside one of the courtyards and have an hour's break. Christine and Seven's cousin sit chatting while Seven has a sleep and I do some writing, and following this we walk around the mansion. This is not an authentic courtyard house: it was created as a set for this TV production and I have to admit I find it hard to be interested in it as it is basically a stage set for a story I don't know anything about. Even Seven admits this kind of story isn't to his taste. However if I hadn't been told this I would have assumed it was real as it does look very old! Also there are numerous workers renovating it so everywhere we go there is scaffolding, hammering and drilling. I have to admit I prefer the temple.

I develop a headache despite the fact I've had a lot of water to drink and very little beer. Seven thinks it may be the wine yesterday. Possibly also the hot sun as it's very warm today and we need to seek shade. So we stay in a courtyard for a while under the shade of some crab-apple trees, and we have to set off for the railway station at 4pm owing to the traffic and allowing time for dinner.

There is little more to tell. We have a simple meal of dumplings and salad, I don't drink beer and this headache has persisted for over 2 hours. It does start to fade later. So they drive me to the station and I travel back to Baoding. I'm overwhelmed by the generosity, friendship and hospitality of my friends and their family. I hope there is something I can do for them in return.