Yang Guifei (Xi'an)

楊貴妃の墓

今日は西ルートを観光。
楊貴妃の墓の土は、美容にいいという事が発見され、墓の土を持っていってしまう人が増えたため、現在のように石で覆われるようになったらしい。

この辺りは温泉が出る（10元で温泉に触れた）。

Shanxi Sheng Local Food (Xi'an)

陝西省のローカルフード

fish with white flesh, zan thoxyli fructus seeds, red chili pepper, etc...

隣の水槽にいた魚がクックされたので、鮮度抜群。この辺りで獲れる川魚とみた。 山椒の種がたくさん入っていて、よけてもよけても野菜に絡まって一緒に口の中に入れてしまう。一個でも口に入るとジンジンするーー。 透明なヌードルや、血あいのようなものが入っていて、なかなか具だくさんの盛りだくさん。

さすが初めての陝西省。ローカルフードも広東省あたりとは全く違う。 （このプレートは、直径45cmくらいでビックなひと品。あとはビールと白飯を頼んだ。）

A Chinese calligrapher (Xi'an)

On the way back to hotel, we stopped by at one calligraphy shop. While waiting for my aunt to shop and beating price down (she was actually good at it), I enjoyed watching local people buying calligraphy brush. After people left, store clerk's attention now turned to me. (In China, even you tell them you are not going to buy anything (there is no consideration of "JUST looking". ), clerks will anyways keep showing merchandise at a great pace until you leave the place.) The clerk recommended many expensive brush to me, and asked to try out. At that point, I no longer protested that I wasn't going to buy anything, and just asked for the size of brush I could write and copy out MI FU's ink rubbing.

There was an old Chinese man looking at me the entire scene . He looked gentle, tipical old man in China, wearing Mao氏 jacket (looked like). When I wrote my name with trying out brush and turned my face to him, he said, "Hao-da, Hao-da (good)" with a gentle smile.
I know that Chinese!
Whatever I wrote and turned my face to him, he said, "Hao-da, Hao-da". I was happy to see him smiling.

Then, the clerk told something to the old man and he hold the brush. One second before he wrote something on paper, my aunt and I saw his concentration, in an instant. His posture, eyes, hands, arms, everything had changed the one's of a calligrapher. He wrote 西安 (Xi'an) in the demotic semi-square style（隷書）and showed it to me.

Before water on the paper went off (try out brush was used water, instead of black ink), I took the picture. He wrote something again in the demotic semi-square style, and read it to me. Again, I tried to take the picture, but he stopped me. Instead, he told I could take pictures of a piece of writing he was holding. It was a big piece of writing, beautiful Chinese calligraphy. Sofisticated and decent. "Did you write this??" Yes, he was a calligrapher! He showed his work and read all the characters for me. I was the one saying, "Hao, Hao" this time.
Until this moment, I didn't feel this much regret for not speaking or understanding Chinese.

Now, his work (picture copies) are in everywhere around me, the wall of my room, computer desk top, my work desk, and I also carry with me.
I didn't realize this until I brought pictures home and took good look at them, his writing is amazing!! And I know that not many people could write in the demotic semi-square style. There must have considerable knowledge and work needed behind this.
Hope to see him again someday.

MI FU (Xi'an)

First, the purpose of my trip was to sightsee "Terracotta Warriors and Horses (UNESCO)（兵馬俑）" in Xi'an, but I happened to see the most beautiful piece of work of Chinese calligraphy there. I found it in "Xi'an Stele Forest Museum（西安碑林博物館）", which was located inside of the walled-in city of Xi'an.

Road to the museum from the gate of calligraphy street was pretty long and definitely interesting to calligraphy learners. There were so many tools such as brush, seal impression, ink, and ink rubbing sold on both sides of street. I was curious about the price of large brush (weight approx. 1500g) so, asked in one shop how much the big brush would cost. It was 400 RMB, less than 1/10 of Japanese price.... My aunt who was traveling with me said, "Calligraphers would dribble saliva to be here."
We could've spent hours there, but hurried the way to the museum before it's closed. Museum had a great number of steles and stone sculptures of old times, and beautiful Chinese characters were carved on the stones. Some works were done by famous calligraphers, such as Wang Xizhi and Yan Qinli （王義氏、願真卿）. To me, it was incredible to see, "what you see in textbook is now in front of you". The place was quiet and there were only a few tourists. We had looked a great number of steles one by one. You know, handwriting shows personality. So, my aunt and I were guessing the personality of people who had lived and depicted them hundreds of years ago. When we entered the last hall, I smelled strong ink. Don't you love the smell of ink? Ink rubbings were taken in that hall.

Here comes my encounter with "MI FU", in the very last hall. When I first looked at his work, I didn't know what was happening. I saw something incredibly beautiful and perfect. What is this? That's how I felt. The piece of work was just PERFECT, no doubt. When I got good look at it, I found them even more admirable. Every words engraved there was so beautiful and written in cursive writing（行書体）. I am usually fond of printed style of writing（楷書体）, may be because I had never seen MI FU's cursive writing before, I thought.

On my way back to the hotel, I bought MI FU's ink rubbing next to the museum. Now, it's posted in my room. I feel happy just looking at it every day.

Terracotta Warriors and Horses (Xi'an, China)

Xi'an, China 19/04/06 - 23/04/06

Terracotta armies were located far east of Xi'an city. So, my aunt and I chartered a hotel car and driver. The driver was Muslim and best driver, I would say. He only spoke Chinese, but we communicated very well.

We hired him again, next day to go to far West of Xi'an city, where my aunt and I got lost and made him worried a lot.
On the last day in Xi'an, again we asked the driver to take us to the Xi'an airport.

Thank you Mr. driver for taking care of my aunt and me!

一体一体、顔や体つきが違っていた。洋服も背丈も。
びっくりしたのは、馬の足からおしりにかけての筋肉のつき方。本物みたいだった。