Making Noodles

There are couple of pics today.

I forgot to mention a really cool point of our lunch yesterday. We had noodle soup. The cool thing about this soup was that the noodles were made entirely by hand. I watched the guy make noodles entirely with his hands, and I still don’t understand how he did it. It’s magical. If you want to see a video of Chinese noodle making, you can see one here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64fu1ZHiMP8

Today the weather was cool and rainy. It was a nice change of pace from the hot, sunny weather we have experienced up to now.

Zhao Jing (Cindy)

This morning we started off with another fabulous breakfast buffet. Then we went to hear a lecture about Chinese cultural history at a local university. Professor Zhao Jing (English name: Cindy) gave the lecture. She did a fabulous job of condensing all of Chinese history down to one 2-hour talk. After having taken my course, I learned quite a bit. The end of the talk was about “New China”, as Chinese sometimes call the Peoples Republic of China. She told her family’s story during the food shortage, then the Cultural Revolution. It was a moving talk. You can see Cindy here holding up her parent’s Red Guard band and medallions.

Oracle Bone

After lunch at the University, we went to the Xi’an Historical Museum. There were plenty of people at the museum, but we got in during the lunch hour, when they stop selling tickets. So it was a little less crowded while we were there. There were plenty of artifacts. I’m including the picture of my personal favorite — an Oracle bone. Between 1200 and 1000 BCE, kings wanted to know the future. They would compose a yes/no question such as “Should I launch the battle tomorrow?” The question would be inscribed on a turtle shell or ox shoulder bone. They would drill a hole in the bone, then apply a hot poker. The bone would crack. A diviner would study the crack to come up with an answer, then inscribe the answer on the other side of the bone. This represents the earliest written Chinese history.

We opted out of an optional stop at a jade jewelry store so we could relax at the hotel for an hour. After a dumpling dinner tonight, we’ll see a Chinese musical performance.