Maria Rincon

 

City Girl in the Countryside! 在中国的农村

2016-11-27

Hello everyone! 大家好！

On this blog post I wanted to share with you a little bit about my summer trip to China. In August I visited the province of Hunan for a couple of weeks. I had the incredible chance to go to 张家界 and visit the countryside. This national forest park was the inspiration behind the mountains in the Avatar movie:

Here's 天门山 "heaven's door". I climbed all 99 stairs down and it was a thrilling (yet scary) experience. Fun fact: people have actually flown airplanes through the mountain hole! 

Here are pictures from the countryside. It took about 6 hours to get here by car from the capital city of Changsha. 

 

This style of houses is unique to this area and the people here lead very simple and traditional lives. Don't be fooled though, there was high-speed wifi in the houses and everyone carried smartphones. 

I also had the chance to join in on the farm work! I got to experience working in the rice fields, picking peanuts, feeding chickens, and peeling corn. It was tough work but so much fun! 

Turns out, everyone wakes up at 4am to begin working in the fields. I got to hear many beautiful Chinese minority songs while working, as everyone sings to pass the time. I was humbled to see that the people here work very hard but are so full of joy. 

After a day of hard work: dinner time! Every single dish you see below was grown or caught in the farm. And as you can see, Hunan people like their spicy food. 听说湖南人怕不辣！我也跟得吃，哈哈。

今年八月份去了湖南！去了农村，终于了解到 ”谁知盘中餐, 粒粒皆辛苦“ 的意思。售后太大了，我真的爱上了中国的农村！

Overall, this trip was a humbling experience that made me realize that even though people may lead very different lives, there is always happiness to be found in simple things like human interactions and singing. 

I hope to come back one day for sure!

 

Thanks for reading!

Maria 王思思