It's a small hill between the fields. Julia's great grandfather is buried with his wife at the top, under a small mound of dirt. a few feet down the hill, his sons are buried with their wives. and so on. First, we gathered around the grave of Julia's grandfather, and placed some offerings: fruit, candy, canned food, and some liquor. Then we burnt sheets of paper that are scored to look like ancient money and placed them on the grave.
Then we climbed back to the top of the hill, and started a sequence of bowing down to every single grave. This made me pretty uncomfortable, since Jews don't bow, but I'm also reasonable, and it seemed like the respectful thing to do at the time. I settled for kneeling behind everyone else, adding a symbolic nod of the head. Crisis averted.
We took some of the food that the dead didn't eat and ate it ourselves as we walked down the hill. We got back into the cars and drove to the village where the family used to live.
It's a shithole. There was nobody around, and everything looks abandoned. We went to the old house and looked around. In the middle of the inner courtyard there's a cage of corn kept by Sanda. I saw a lot of these piles as we were driving around. The corn is dried, then the kernels are removed and sold to farmers who use it to feed their livestock. The abandoned house itself had two rooms, with a large raised surface that is both the stove and the bed, as the fire under it is used to heat both.
When we left the house, somebody was yelling down to us from a close by hilltop. It was one of Tize's cousins who is still a farmer and lives in the countryside. He came down to talked to us - a man in his fifties, wearing blue work clothes with a tanned, wrinkled face. They all talked for a while, and Tize forced him to accept some money. The cousin tapped on Erda's stomach and made some snarky remark about it, and then we left.
Then we drove to a museum that tells the story of the communist revolution and the role of Shanxi in it. Then we drove to a restaurant. Lunch cost 500 Yuan, and Sida complained that the food wasn't that good and claimed that he can do much better for half the price. Well, it's on - the siblings will collect 250 Yuan which will be the budget, and Sida is going to cook tomorrow's lunch.
Then we went to see Yellow River.
We drove back to the city, and Julia and I collapsed on the bed and took a nap. We were really jet lagged, and to be fair, there's not a lot to do here. It's really cold, and there's no heating. They have WiFi, but our phones don't seem to work with it. There's a TV, but something is wrong, and nobody speaks English other than Tize, Julia and myself. Taking a nap is a good idea.
Tize woke us up for dinner. Food is great, even if not very rich, and everything is with vineger, for which Shanxi is known for. We had some kind of a rice liquor, and every time somebody wants a sip, everybody has to clink glasses. Erda wanted to chug a shot with me, so we did that. Now Sida wanted a shot with me, so we did that too. Then I had another one with Sanda. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve by that - I have incredibly high capacity for alcohol, and most Chinese people lack the gene that breaks down alcohol, causing drinking to be an uncomfortable experience for them. Taking shots with me seemed like a weird fight to pick.
Then they taught me a card game, in which what really matters is that when it's your turn, you slam your cards on the table to make as much noise as possible, while you trash-talk in Mandarin.
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