QingMing 清明节

Side B: Celebrate Life

(peach blossom)

Qingming Festival is like a coin with two sides. In the previous entry, I described how one aspect of the festival focuses on honoring ancestors--personal and communal. People go to visit tombs on QingMingJie. In this way, one side of the QingMing coin relates to the dead.

The other side of the QingMing coin pushes us to celebrate life. On this holiday, people are encouraged to take in the freshly budding natural world that surrounds them. They visit parks. They travel to the countryside. They go for boat rides. They go on picnics. They sing. They soak in the energy of Spring at its climax. And these activities are true to the translation of QingMing... clear, bright, fresh, vivid... alive!

Well we did this too. And let me tell you, the experience was stunning. The Chinese countryside in the Spring is painted with the myriad colors of blossoming fruits, vegetables, grains, spices, and seeds. It may be hard for contemporary Americans to imagine what I describe because we come from a culture of mega-farms where the farmer cultivates one single crop over a massive expanse of territory. For Northern Illinois, that means we get to look at a sea of corn or soybeans. And while this has its own unique beauty, imagine what it might look like if instead of one mega-farm there were 1,000 small farm plots each growing 2 or 3 different crops. Orchards of peach trees neighbor wheat, strawberries, pears, kiwis, corn, and vegetable-oil seeds. And the fields extend far and wide--falling all the way back to the foothills of the mountains and then climbing the mountains high into the sky via layers and layers of terraces.

Taking in the Shaanxi countryside is something of a spiritual experience for me. It's not just the colorful, carved landscape. It's the energy of life. It's the energy of labor. The sun, water, and fresh air do their work by actionless-action. Bees do their work. Flowers do their work. Farmers do their work. And each completes each other. It's also the energy of economics! Farmers plant and cultivate peach trees to make income... to improve their quality of life. And we buy their peaches at harvest to improve our quality of life. In every way, the Shaanxi countryside reflects one word: harmony.

Well, I'm going to let you look at the pictures now. I will try to caption things below, but realize that I am no botanist, florist, or farmer. I don't know what these things are, and there's a good chance that the people who told me what they are don't know either. Also remember, staring at photographs for an eternity cannot compensate for what the five senses accomplish in half a second. They merely offer a glimpse.

a special kind of flower tree... has no leaves...

you can see I have no idea what I'm talking about.

wheat, I think: noodles begin here

peach trees make the world safe for pink



my Chinese friends laughed at me for taking this photo...

and you're probably laughing at me for posting it... I just like it

nothing symbolizes the Dao of the Universe like flowing water

water is everything



listen to the water wheel's song

The Good (terraced) Earth



stairway to heaven


climb higher and higher until you can touch the moon

pure China



there will be pears

I just like this picture, okay?



the floating world

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vivid


Zhuge Liang's spirit rests here

vegetable-oil seeds


Do you see the Dao? I do.



QingMing Shanghe ZhaoPian