After a damp and humid Friday the weather has become pleasantly dry and predictably hot. Yesterday was another early rising one to go off on a 'Mystery Tour'.
Phil, another Welsh colleague from one of the schools in Juhua, and I were invited out to join a group of Chinese friends, all of whom we'd met before, but the cause of the gathering - about a dozen in all - and the destination we knew not!
We boarded a bus and soon realised we were heading off towards the Nine - Dragon Lake area again. It is so vast and fjordic that we never re-traced the steps of two weeks ago. It was a superb day of interest and variety. They had especially included a visit to a farm for me.
Newly acquired by a couple in their forties, it was in a beautiful location at the head of a lake inlet. They grew citrus, rice on a terraced system, (2 crops a season) and not an inch of ground was wasted. Every ridge and furrow between the cereals was planted with vegetables and beneath the citrus they were growing peppers, squashes and anything else that could be squeezed in.
There were muscovies swimming about in the newly planted paddies with fleets of little ducklings in pursuit of mum! Everywhere hens were escorting their chicks around and it really was an idyllic scene though I had no illusions that in reality, it's a very hard life indeed.
I was asked what I thought of the place and could I give the farmer some advice! I assured him that he could not be farming in a more efficient way (it's obviously a good place anyway as all the farms we walked round looked well.) I had to admit that it seemed an ideal location for a tourism enterprise however.
This was duly translated to him and his face lit up. That, he said, was just what they hoped to do, ... whereupon we were all escorted into a room in their house and provided with a wonderful meal almost entirely comprising of their own farm-grown produce plus some freshly caught fish from the lake!
I would love you to see the place, though if I coud ever find it again on my own I doubt. It's a bit like finding your way round Rhandirmwyn by water if you can imagine that!
After lunch, a protracted affair in this country which includes long conversations and noisy card games, we left in another boat to see a different island, equally fascinating and at the little quayside there was an elderly lady with a beautiful traditional wooden craft which Phil and I admired.
She insisted that we got in and handed us the appropriate one oar a-piece. There was no alternative but to appear as though we were well acquainted with this system of boatmanship! We rowed back to our original location. The lady called to her son-in-law, (our original host, the farmer) and apparently told him that my rowing was so good I should have a go in the family's tiny lake-fishing boat.
A very different kettle-of ... (well, you know what I mean!) Small and plank built, shallow and narrow therefore alarmingly easy to tip, it is propelled by short paddles like elongated ping pong bats. I knew the water was exceedingly deep but it was warm and the shore accessible from anywhere so off we set.
As always in this country, the spectators gathered and watched our progress. The farmer talked non-stop in Chinese of course but by watching his paddles I reasonably guessed on the correct moves to make and thoroughly enjoyed this very new activity, as did the watchers on shore! When we got back he shook hands and I was told he was very impressed with his new foreign friend's boating skills. Nice of him to say so, but left to myself, I'd probably still be out in the middle of the lake!
Kyra Somerfield
