Reflection of the trip to Hei Shui

This week we had a fantastic trip to Hei Shui, and I have enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the cultural elements of Tibet. We have traveled along Wenchuan, Heishui and experienced the local geology and humanity of certain areas and they makes me think about the culture related to the unit we are studying now in Language Arts.

It is really a pity that I missed the Sichuan earthquake museum since I was coming to Wenchuan later by car. When I arrived there, we had a talk on the top of the mountain, we observed the rock and those quartz and Mr. Brian told us it is even possible for us to find a sea shell on the top of the mountain, since they are all hidden under water thousands years ago, and finally form such mountain by continental drift and the tectonic plate converge and the subduction happened followed earthquake or tsunami occur.

Under the mountain, there was a tribe belongs to one of the fifty-five minority in China called Qiang, they have their own language and their own belief. They also share different cultural customs and habits. They prey with the white stone and goat and they are considered luck and a representation of god. They wear their own dress and live in the house of cool styles. Especially we have visited the house of a local man, he is so excited about his house, his culture and his ancestors. He introduce us with intense tone and we can feel his passion, too much.

After Wenchuan, we took 5 hours to achieve Heishui, we soon finished the lunch and went to a monastery on a top of a mountain. Interestingly, on the cliff, they have ten stars bathroom, which we can feel the nature closely. The monastery is a Buddha one, and the monks in the monastery are preying to some of the Buddha, includes the Buddha who bring Buddhism to China and Tibet called Sakiyamuni. The master and our boss Syria explain the Buddhism to us specifically, the monks put water and money besides the statue of the Buddhas, and they prey to the Buddhas and wish them can purify the dirty and bad things of human nature and evil occurrences in the world. They read and prey every morning and they have a huge library which contains all the books they need as monks. It is interesting that the monks will conduct the debate in order to increase their knowledge and try to become a master in the monastery. We played frisbee in the front of the monastery and the monks are too bad with this game.

The third day, we went to the Dagu glacier. In the mountain range, there are many wild animals and the scenery is beautiful. We played flipping stones in the lakes and try to achieve as many times as we can. We drive along the street and we climbed on the top of the mountain by gondolas. We feel hard to breath on the top since the altitude is 4600 meters. On the way back, I have seen some colorful prey flags and Syria told me that different colors represent certain elements. Like blue means sky, white means air and so on.

Finally, we went back to school in the last day and finish this meaningful trip.

PS. Thanks to Abu who take care of the hotel and daily routines and Syria who introduce the culture of Buddhism to us.