*Long post warning — this one goes on for a while, but there’s some pretty funny stuff if you hang on for a while.

(For all the great pics we took during our stay in Luxi, click here)

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It has been weeks since my last meaningful post, and so here is my shot at an act of contrition. Last time I wrote anything worthwhile, we were heading into the southwestern corner of Fujian (福建西南角) right before Spring Festival (春節).

Entrance to Shengwu Lou, falling apart in many places. By Andy

Once we had a night of sleep under our belts, we headed out into the villageside of Luxi (蘆溪鎮鄉村) to scope out the famous sister tulou (姐妹土樓) for which the city is apparently famous, even though most people had no idea where they were. Tulou #1, named Shengwu Lou (繩武樓), the first one we came across, defaced on the side facing the river with Maoist propaganda, was like a miniature Chinese rendition of the Roman Coliseum, made of earth and nestled amongst the rolling green mountains. As terribly magnificent the giant structure was to look at from the outside, it has clearly been the victim of historical stagnation (因凝滯而腐蝕).

The stucco exterior was cracked and falling apart in many places, and on the inside, it was mostly quiet, with most doors barricaded or otherwise locked. A woman emerged from the only open door and, as we were becoming used to, invited us inside her apartment within the tulou for some tea. Shortly thereafter, her husband, Mr. Ye (葉, everybody in Luxi is named Ye) entered the dark, damp, cave-like dwelling and took over tea-pouring duties. As he talked to us, his daughter of six jumped up and down from a wooden chair onto the stone block floor, and his wife tidied the tight apartment of maybe 30 square meters, dumping waste water into the slit in the floor, a feature apparently all tulou share.

Mr. Ye was born in the building, but like most young Chinese moved away to the city — in his case nearby Zhangzhou — to scrape together a living through hard labor (以苦工謀生). A few years ago when his father passed away, he moved back to his ancestral home to be one of only two families living in the giant, three-story structure which previously accommodated as many as 18 families at once. Mr. Ye, who pulls in between 10-20,000 yuan a year on — surprise! — pomelo trees, would love to move out of the “shabby house (破房子),” but he can’t afford to build a concrete home on the outside like anybody else as he doesn’t have family sending money back from the cities. Fortunately for Mr. Ye, a tall, thin man who speaks a rustic Mandarin very slowly, his shabby old house might promise some new revenue soon.

Alexis walking around Shengwu Lou. Big enough for ya? By Andy

“The government wants to renovate this tulou and charge admission. That will be very good for our family.” How would that be good for your family, I asked, since it would mean that the place would become like a museum?

“If they renovate it, they promised to give me a position as custodian, paying me to open and close the gate every day. Then we’ll have a little more money.”

He then took us on a tour of the tulou, not telling us much about its history since he himself knows next to nothing about the place where he was born and plans to continue living on in a functionary role. Before we left, he told us how a Dutch woman had lived with him for a week-long experience and how she had given him money for it. When he told Alexis, “Can you give me a little money? We don’t need much, just a little would be enough,” we knew that his prior offer to make us lunch carried ulterior motives, and we took our leave in the direction of Shengwu’s sister building. Say what you will about Mother Theresa and her kind, there’s something about being asked for charity that makes us uncomfortable, even though we’re clearly aware that our upbringing affords us a hell of a lot more opportunity than our poor host. Something about the lack of dignity in it, I suppose.

Zhibi Tulou surrounded by the expansion corridor were originally intended to house 1000 members of the Ye clan. Nestled between two giant mountains full of green green pomelo trees, it remains majestic to this day. By Andy

So we cut a line across the little village and Andy, never at a loss to spot photo ops (不曾忽視照相良機), led us over the muddiest hill of pomelo trees you ever saw, at the top of which we looked down to see, well, just look at the photo of it! Sometimes when we’re cruising around the armpits of China (such as the Pearl River Delta, from where I presently write), it’s easy to forget that there are some spectacular sights in this country despite its best self-destructive efforts.

Down the mountain, we came across the Zhibi Building (植碧樓), crusted with a very repugnant goddamn red star (which I suppose in reality we should be thankful for, since the place likely would have been sacked by the Red Guards without it). Inside Zhibi, an energetic, short, older gentleman surnamed — get ready for a shock — Ye ran out to greet us. “My nephew from Shengwu called and said you’d be coming! I know everything about these buildings – I can show you around!”

And show us around he did, pointing out every minute detail of the giant round castle covered in intricate wooden carvings in which he and several generations of his family had been born. “This building is 168 years old, a full 13 years older than the younger sister building you just saw, but much less ancient than the Hakka tulou on which our tulou are based.” “Look at the indentations on the doors facing south — that’s to keep the sun from coming in!” “All the drains in the individual apartments run to the local irrigation ditch!” “The well water in here has sweeter water than at the other building” “See that coffin up on the roof — our family has been making mummies for centuries! (我們這裡好幾百年都在做木乃伊!)”

Hold on, did you just say mummies? God knows if he’s full of crap, but he swears on his life that there are mummies on the property and that a book will be released soon comparing them to their Egyptian counterparts. Coming to a Barnes and Noble near you…? Anyhow, he was a swell guy, and after a long tour of the building, which despite being smaller than the first, still houses 5 families, he led us around the back corridor, introducing us to every Ye who crossed our path on the way. Apparently a long time ago the very powerful Ye family planned to fill the equally sized apartments of the round castle with its progeny and then began to build the surrounding rows of houses to take in the overflow. The original plan was to make a giant ring around the original tulou and eventually house over a thousand Ye’s, but their plan was cut short by that pesky Japanese invasion, followed by years of political turbulence. As such, the Ye family compound remains as you see it in the picture.

Eventually Mr. Ye took us around to his own house, which he had built recently to allow his nephew to occupy his own apartment in the tulou, for tea. Mr. Ye is quite the renaissance man actually (as much as one can be expected in rural Fujian at least). Having been a primary school math teacher for years, he speaks Mandarin far better than most people his age. He grows all his own vegetables and rice, in addition to keeping some pomelo trees, pigs, ducks, and chickens. In his storage room, he showed us all his culinary exploits: giant vats of rice, hanging rice cake (米粿), curing meat (臘肉) and sausages, vats of pickled mustard greens (酸芥菜) — a local specialty — and last but not least, two fifty liter plastic trash cans full of fermenting red rice wine (紅米酒) — the other local specialty. What was best was his attitude about development: “Yes, our area is undeveloped, and we don’t have any jobs for the young people, but as for staying alive, we know how to do everything on our own. If there’s development, and the government gives people jobs, then that’s good. If not, we peasants will survive — we don’t care! (我們農民無所謂!)”

Old Teacher Ye pours us some of his finest Tieguanyin while we chat. By Andy

As we talked, his wife, who speaks only Hokkien, scurried around silently preparing us a lunch of rice cakes, pork, pork liver, and duck. After the lunch, Mr. Ye explained that his son would be working in Zhangzhou during the Chinese New Year holiday, and so he’d be honored to host us in his house for Chuxi (link) dinner (除夕年飯), after which we’d really understand the flavor of rural Chinese life (你們跟我們過一個農村春節吧，這樣你們才會了解中國農村生活的味道!)

After an initial idiotic hesitation (I don’t know why we don’t automatically accept such good offers), we decided to accept his offer, and headed back to our hotel for some early rest. The next day would surely be chock full of shenanigans. And boy was it.

Shortly after we woke up on Chuxi (除夕), the functional equivalent of New Year’s eve, the owner of our hotel came up to our room to give us the gifts of: a jar of pickled duck feet, a 2 kilo bag of peanuts, three strings of sausage, and five kilograms (no, not liters) of red rice wine in what looked like a giant motor oil bottle. He didn’t want us to feel left out of the festivities and gave us the traditional gifts for the holiday. Awesome.

The long corridor around Zhibi, much much more full of energy a day later on Chuxi. By Andy

Around noon, we decided it would be a real waste to leave that five kg bottle uncracked and started rocking back the really pungent rice wine, until around 3pm, when we had sufficiently pre-gamed (God knows why we thought this was necessary) the festivities. Then, since we are men after all, we splurged 300 yuan on three of the most gigantic fireworks munitions you’ve ever seen, and slowly trudged through the cold rain toward Mr. Ye’s. On what would have been a dismal thirty minute walk to Zhibi Lou with abusively heavy boxes of fireworks on our shoulders, a very kind man driving a pickup truck told us to pile in and that he’d take us there, since it was New Year and it’s always good to help people in need.

An old woman working in the pomelo fields, a very ubiquitous sight around Luxi. By Andy

Once we arrived at the long corridor around Zhibi, which was teeming with young kids throwing fireworks in every direction, Mr. Ye was waiting for us, having been told by a relative in town who had called him that three foreigners were coming his direction. You gotta love the imbedded information networks out in the villages around here. Unfortunately, I had misunderstood what he had said about showing up “any time after 3pm,” since he and his wife had already eaten at 3pm. We presented our host with the traditional gifts of a jar of pickled duck feet and three strings of sausages (peanuts make a pretty good rice wine snack) and set down the No matter, he said, we’ll warm it all up again! And so his wife, never without a smile on her face, dutifully set about warming up all the delicious plates, pickled vegetables, turnip strips, duck, chicken, pork, rice cakes, and more. It might have been a most memorable meal, except that about five minutes into it, two prominent men showed up in Mr. Ye’s house.

The two new Mr. Ye’s, one in his 30s with a full mustache, and one in his late 50s with a rotund pot belly, fervently welcomed us to their little village and took seats at the table with us. “I’m the village party secretary (我是村委書記),” said the younger one, “and he is the former village chief (他以前是我們的村長)!” Once these two characters joined themselves to the party, the mild sipping of red rice wine which old teacher Ye had entreated us to drink slowly was usurped by wild drainings of the glass (乾杯) every five minutes. The party secretary was telling us with a really desperate look in his eyes about the improvements to local life the government had afforded and some of his experiences in the military in Vietnam (who knew they were still going to Vietnam?), but then at some point in there, we all slipped over the deep end.

“I need to go take a walk,” said Andy suddenly before slipping out of the door. I was seeing double, and old Teacher Ye took me over to the sitting area for some tea to sober me up. Alexis was overflowing with jubilation and got taken on another village tour by yet another relative named Ye. After about thirty minutes of intense shots of tieguanyin tea, I finally remembered that Andy was out somewhere probably face down in the mud, and so I ran out to figure out what the hell had happened to him.

“I’m on the mountain,” he slurred to me on his cell phone. It turned out that he had hidden himself on top of the muddy pomelo mountain and had just been staring at the thousands of little explosions going on everywhere. We managed over probably another thirty minutes to convince ourselves that we were sober enough to rejoin civilization and scurried back into the village to find Mr. Ye. It was at this time, 5pm, just minutes after dusk, that we had all those fireworks.

“You need to set those off now, while all the kids are still excited!” But, but, but… what will we do after midnight, when it’s the most exciting? “Don’t worry about that. You just need to use yours now.” We weren’t accustomed to being told what to do with our own explosives, but the masses of little pyromaniacs assembled outside his door at the time were menacing enough to convince us to drop our complaints. The little brats were so damn excited about our lighting the fireworks that we were forced to light them all in rapid succession, thus watching all 300 yuan of munitions go off in one quick spurt (video), a real disappointment actually. Thankfully we were still drunk enough not to care too much.

The rest of the night was somewhat of a blur, meeting various Ye’s and hearing all sorts of backgrounds and stories, this one manager in a factory in Shenzhen, that one chef in a restaurant in Xiamen, and of course lots and lots of pomelo farmers. Around 9pm, we were starving, and Mr. Ye’s wife again reheated all the food and set it out on the table, never once the whole time speaking to us directly or deigning to sit at the table while the men ate. After our last round of food, the whole place was actually starting to die down, and we realized why he had told us to set off the fireworks so early. It turns out that these country LBXes have a really quiet New Year when compared to the weeklong endless simulated aerial bombardments of Beijing and Shanghai.

So we thanked Mr. Ye profusely and bid his family adieu before trudging through the mud back toward the town, where we figured we might find more action. Another nice man with a truck saw us, and in the holiday spirit gave us yet another lift. What happens next is probably a little too complicated for this blog, since it involves more fireworks, more rice wine, a 2 hour long emotional outpouring of all the grievances of all three of us against the others (it just all gushed out for some reason around 10pm), and a session of drinking Heinekens and eating dumplings filled with tiny, dried shrimp with the hotel owner in his kitchen around 2am. All in all, it was a very interesting day.

We woke up on the day of New Year with the most crushing hangover I’ve ever had outside of the one time I was sent to the hospital in college (never ever ever drink cheap rum or homemade rice wine in large quantities! It’s always a bad idea). All three of us felt like death until late that night, and so the day was devoted largely to sitting in bed and watching movies. On the second day of New Year, now starving because everything in the countryside is closed for at least a week around the holiday, we mustered up all our manhood and strength to brave out into the cold rain and finally leave Luxi, as locational stagnation was already destroying our souls.

From there we wound through Hakka territory for several days without any stories of much interest. I am unhappy to report that the famous Tulou of Fujian have become a commercialized Disneyland-like hellhole full of exorbitant entrance tickets, which we, of course, refused to buy on principal. Thankfully we saw some of the last, unrestored Tulou and got to spend a wonderful Spring Festival right next to one, maybe one of the last such Festivals that tulou will see before it gets restored into tourism oblivion.

Then it was several days across the giant swath of Guangdong that the Hakkas occupy and finally to Shenzhen and Hong Kong, where all the visa chicanery went down. Ok, this is already epic, so I’ll put an end to it and bid all a pleasant March evening.

Time to make up a little lost time. After our time in Anxi, we spent some really glorious days meandering around Xiamen, which I swear is China’s most charming city — that I’ve visited — bar none. If we were urbanists and not LBXists, as it were, I’d spend an entire post writing about how we got lost in the old city’s dense, pulsing alleyways the way men lose their souls in a beautiful woman’s long hair. Alas, our quest is for LBXes, and after only three days Alexis returned from his visa run to Hong Kong, obliging us to part from that beautiful city. [Andy's pics of Xiamen here]

On our first day out of Xiamen, torrential rain stopped us short in Zhangzhou (漳州), a rat hole of a city, where successive sicknesses encumbered us for two days. At least it was in Zhangzhou that I got to see my Saints roll to a Super Bowl victory via a friend’s NFL.com subscription (thanks to Weiwei and Travis!). Three days later than expected, we rolled out of town toward the northwest and the land of the tulou (土樓), or as they ought to be called in English, round earthen castles.

Inside the tulou of Xiazhai. Photo by Andy

That day out of Zhangzhou, I lost three tubes to lesions in the same spot on my back wheel (one before even riding on the $@*# thing) before realizing that my rear Schwalbe Marathon XR, “the ultimate expedition tire,” had been ruptured severely. I threw it away and put on my spare, but seriously, I want my $55 back. Needless to say, that cost us loads of time, and we got only as far as the small town of Xiazhai (霞寨鎮), where the following day I was sick to the stomach… again. As I lay in bed listening to the same five Spring Festival songs on endless repeat at max volume (there will be brutal violence next time I hear the gongxi gongxi gongxi ni [恭喜恭喜恭喜你!] song), Alexis wandered out and found a surprise: a tulou right in Xiazhai, way ahead of schedule.

Here I should back up a second. As we entered Pinghe county (平和縣), we saw a sign welcoming us to the land of the sweet pomelo (歡迎來到平和縣，蜜柚之鄉). We didn’t think much of it then, but as we rode in, we noticed the fields were noticeably planted over in citrus trees (I can pick them out easily since my grandpa used to own orange groves in Florida) and advertisements for pomelo wine (蜜柚酒 – stuff tastes ok but is still clearly a Chinese alcohol, i.e. bad) and pomelo fertilizer (蜜柚專用肥) were everywhere. More on this in a second.

Mr. Zhou getting excited about the "goddamned party" outside his tulou. Photo by Andy

So back to Alexis, he found the tulou and was invited by an inhabitant, one Mr. Zhou (周先生, almost everybody is named Zhou in Xiazhai) for the local specialty tea, Qilan (奇蘭烏龍茶) and a chat. Mr. Zhou makes about 10,000 yuan annually on his pomelo trees (everybody in Xiazhai grows pomelos too), which necessitates regular trips to Shanghai and Hangzhou. He had a great smile and graciously let us tour his home in the tulou, which was comprised of two rooms, one downstairs partially unenclosed, and the bedroom upstairs where he stores his rice. In the downstairs portion, rain water falls through the intentional gap in the ceiling onto a slanted bit of concrete with an opening that leads underground to the waste water canal for the whole tulou, allowing for light and air to pass through each home and providing a convenient waste water outlet that is naturally flushed every time a storm comes through. There was also a communal well in the center of the tulou courtyard. The walls of his nearly 300-year-old abode (from the reign of Kangxi, 康熙) were almost a meter thick at the rear, but the inside wanted badly for repair. His wife had to say only that it was “very broken (很破)!”

Broken though it may be, it was full of life. Kids ran around everywhere, men sat on benches outside their doors drinking tea, and women washed clothes together in front of the communal well. As for the life, Mr. Zhou is happy since the “goddamned CCP (他媽的GCD),” which pretty well screwed everything up before, has become less rigid and “taken away taxes on farm products (免了農業稅).” Alexis asked him if he didn’t like them due to corruption, to which Mr. Zhou gave a most cutting answer through his iffy Mandarin. “They buy houses worth millions of yuan in Xiamen and Shanghai. Where do you think they get that money? Of course, the money comes from the laobaixing! (他們在廈門、上海買幾千萬塊錢的房子是用什麼錢？當然是用老百姓的錢!)” *thanks to Alexis for writing down in long detail his spirited discussion with Mr. Zhou in French and Chinese here [Andy's pics of Xiazhai here]

The tulou of Zhongteng as we saw them from the road. Wouldn't you stop to go in too? Photo by Andy

We left Mr. Zhou and Xiazhai the morning after my day of disharmonious stomach, direction: ancient town of Luxi (蘆溪鎮). Fewer than 15 km into the ride, we stumbled across an even more impressive sight: three huge circular tulou in a row against the backdrop of prolifically pomelo’ed mountains. Of course, we had to stop to investigate the little village, named Zhongteng (鐘騰村). The buildings, a certain Mr. Huang told us, were built during the reign of Qianlong (乾隆帝, 1736-1796, see date carved into wall here), but have fallen into disrepair. We had picked up on the disrepair bit ourselves, seeing as the roofs had collapsed in several places, and the outer adobe (土坯), where not scrawled on with silly propaganda, was cracking badly.

Mr. Huang and his two grandsons at the entrance to their 300 year old tulou home. Photo by Andy

As we winded around the concentric corridors (同心走廊) of the three buildings, it was hard not to stumble upon local courtesy. Andy and I split off and were invited nearly immediately for tea by an elderly man, also surnamed Huang (黃, you guessed it – the big name in town). Mr. Huang sat us down in the downstairs room of his dual-room tulou condo and pulled out a box of some black tea that he had produced himself, a rough tea full of stems but tasty in an earthy way. As we chatted, his two young grandsons fiddled with the DVD player which was at the time playing a cheesy Chinese war drama. Their father, he told us, is a laborer (工人) in nearby Zhangzhou. The room, which was laid out very similarly to Mr. Zhou’s right down to the adobe walls and the gap in the roof through which rain water fell, was dark and smelled of old wood, but felt strangely comfortable to sit in, like a furnished cave.

Mr. Huang, who grew up in the two rooms of the Chaoyang Building (朝陽樓) where we sat, found his dwelling — predictably — to be very humble. “It’s very broken! Soon it will fall in! (很破啊！快要倒塌了!)” Nevertheless, he has no plans of moving out or fixing it since his pomelo revenue isn’t sufficient. Why not fix it up himself? “Who knows how to fix this style of building? People don’t fix these; they move out and build new concrete buildings. Most of my neighbors have moved out of the building and just use their old homes as storage space. (誰會維修這種房子？現在這裡的人不修，他們搬出去蓋水泥房子。外面很多房間都留空著的，人家只是在裡邊放東西的).”

The locals, he told us, are waiting for the government to fix up their tulou and, he hopes, make it into a tourism center like the famous tulou of Yongding (永定縣) and Nanjing (南靖縣). Isn’t he afraid that it will become a circus atmosphere once opened for tourism? “I don’t mind tourism since it brings revenue to our small place. (他們要開發旅游業，我不介意，因為這樣子我們的小地方就有收入了)”

As for survival, the 63 year old Mr. Huang supports his wife and himself solely on pomelos, having ripped up all his rice paddies and vegetable fields years ago. “It doesn’t make sense to grow rice. We make so much on pomelos that we can buy rice and vegetables from elsewhere. (種稻子不合理啊，種蜜柚可以賺很多錢，我們的大米和青菜都是從外面買過來的)” After a long talk, we thanked him for his kindness and praised his tea, at which point he poured the entire tin of it into a plastic sack for us to take with us. You really can’t beat Fujian for hospitality.

A view of the outer tulou, covered in propaganda from various time periods. The pomelo farmer Mr. Huang lived in two rooms inside one of its inner corridors. Photo by Andy

During this time Alexis had been invited for tea by two different pomelo farmers, and while Andy was off on a photographic odyssey, I was invited again too, this time by a 30-year-old woman into a concrete house on the edge of the tulou. After a few minutes of chitchat about how concrete houses are bigger and better lit than tulou over tieguanyin tea and a home-grown giant pomelo, the young Mrs. Huang’s husband, Mr. Huang, entered wearing nice starched pants and a dress shirt. “I love bicycling! Have lunch with us! (我也愛騎自行車！跟我們吃飯吧!)”

This Mr. Huang, it turns out, works in the Industrial and Commercial Bureau of Pinghe County (平和縣工商局) and had just motorcycled in for a day to see his wife, who teaches elementary school math in their native Zhongteng. Young Mrs. Huang’s mother, also Mrs. Huang, who speaks no Mandarin, quietly served us giant bowls of fried rice noodles, pickled mustard greens, and three types of meat: pig liver, fatty pork, and pork balls (to Alexis’s Jewish delight!).

Us with the young Huangs in front of their mother's concrete home in Zhongteng. Photo by Andy's gorillapod

While the women took their food in the kitchen (I do love China), we men ate at the table and as men are wont to do, discussed fruit. “If not for pomelos, the farmers of Pinghe would be poor like in the old days! (平和農民要是沒有蜜柚就會像以前那麼貧困!)” Basically the county had always been known for the big yellow citrus, but only recently have residents of big cities like Shanghai had the extra income to afford the fruit en masse.

It doesn’t hurt that pomelos are widely believed to be very healthful. Once the county government realized its future lay in pomelos, they launched enormous campaigns to promote the cultivation of the fruit, even promoting unusual uses of it, including grinding the skin down to make medicine and  — as we knew — making alcohol from the pulp. At one point, the very energetic Huang even tried to pimp Pinghe pomelos to us. “You should sell them in your America and France. They would sell very well. They’re much better than apples — those are too sweet! And grapefruit are too bitter! Just call me, and we can do some pomelo business! (你們應該把我們的蜜柚拿到你們美國和法國去賣，一定賣得很好。蜜柚比蘋果好，蘋果太甜了！胡柚也太苦了。你們只要找我，我們就做點柚子生意吧!)” His long “shady (曖昧)” pitch, a he confessed to being accustomed to making due to his job, was not too out of the ordinary for what we’re used to, except that it seems like bad business to put down apples so callously.

While we talked, the mayor of the village (村長) came in, said hello, and was fed noodles and pig products as well at another table. We continued as though he and the man accompanying him weren’t there, and after about thirty minutes they left unceremoniously. At the end, we finished the huge pomelo started during tea, truly the sweetest, most delicious I’ve ever eaten — especially impressive considering it had been picked four months prior in October (we are missing the prime season for just about every agricultural product we come in contact with, with the exception of tangerines). As we left their concrete box, the twitchy young village party secretary (村黨委書記) came up, shook our hands, and also entered the house to eat noodles. I still have no idea what was going on between them and the local leadership. We said goodbye to our very benevolent hosts, and after pictures all around, pointed our bikes back in the direction of Luxi.

A look over Zhongteng's endless rows of pomelo trees from the top of the mountain. Really makes me want to head back for flowering season in a month. Photo by Andy

The rest of that day we fought ferocious, unfinished, rocky roads up and down more mountains verdantly veneered with… — are you ready? — pomelo trees. Incidentally, Mrs. Huang told us before leaving that at the end of March, the trees all flower simultaneously, filling the region with sweet fragrance for weeks. If only we had come a month later, but alas. Anyhow, we ended the day with my sleeping bag lost on the road (the bungee must have been bounced free, and the subsequent one-hour search proved fruitless. Some LBX saw a huge red bag (大紅包), assumed since it was Spring Festival, it must be full of cash meant for him, and took it home, or so I imagine), arriving quite late in Luxi under rainfall, only two days before Spring Festival.

A girl flashes us the ubiquitous peace sign as we walk back to our hotel after checking out Luxi Town's tulou.

A man carries his granddaughter piggyback through the courtyard of Luxi Town's Zhibi Tulou (植碧楼).

Ok, this will be a short one, just to let you know that we haven’t died in a horrible rice wine / fireworks accident over CNY.

As I write now, we’ve crossed the border of Guangdong from Fujian, which is arguably the most colorful province we’ve visited so far (in really tight competition with Zhejiang). We’re currently sitting deep in Hakka (客家) territory in an old town called Chayang (茶阳镇), with an old section that seems to have once been very beautiful but is just rotting to pieces before everybody’s uncaring eyes. Other than that, these Hakkas have a unique (that I know of) tradition of hanging red lanterns (红灯笼) over their doors with the family’s last name printed on them. Very cool, but I digress.

Anyhow, after the last post, we entered the southwest corner of Fujian, the home of the famous Tulou, of which Andy has been posting many and several exquisite photos. We’re working on a post about that at present, hopefully to come out soon.

We ended up spending our New Year in a place called Luxi (芦溪镇) with a peasant family surnamed Ye (叶, the common surname to all in the village) right next to a Tulou. It was a beautiful experience, and needless to say is destined to be written into its own post).

Since the jubilation of CNY a few days ago, there has been a doom cloud hovering over our heads, and it’s really beginning to wear on us. First off, it was cool that everything was closed up for the holiday when we had a family to treat us to food. Since then, the lack of open restaurants and open price gouging due to the season has begun to boil the blood. Worse than that, however, is the interminable cold rain that has stretched itself over southern China like a bum in front of a liquor store. We tried to wait it out for a while, but the weather forecast calls for rain for as far as the predictions stretch. In the last two days, we’ve decided to roll through the rain, but the recent loss of my poncho (and my sleeping bag, for that matter) is making runs through cold weather nearly intolerable. We’d stop for a while, of course, but as my visa expires in 8 days, and we’ve got 450 km between Chayang and Shenzhen, we’re going to be caught in a grind between the behemoth forces of nature and PRC immigration policy. If you’ve got weather rockets, please fire them. If you’ve got an open line to the man in the sky, please put in a good word for us. If you’re Irish, please send us some good sad ditties about the rain.

More coming soon. Good night, and happy Year of the Tiger from all of us at PLBX!

A woman prays at a small shrine in the courtyard of Luxi Town's Shengwu Tulou (绳武楼), the larger and more recent of the town's two remaining tulou (roughly 120 years old). The building used to house 24 families, but now only two remain. The others have used money sent back from relatives working in China's cities to build their own homes and move out. But since the building is considered to be of historical and cultural value, the families are not allowed to sell their tulou homes, which are now used only as storage spaces. Each tulou includes a central well for communal use.

With China's schoolchildren off for the New Year holiday, it looks like some parents are taking advantage of the free labor, but not just for shoveling the driveway as is the case when I'm home!

A teenager on a scooter passes in front of the Zhibi Tulou (植碧楼), the older and smaller of the two remaining tulou in Fujian's Luxi Town (芦溪镇). On our way out of town today we finally passed through one of the UNESCO World Heritage Tulou areas. While the concentration of the unique buildings was impressive, the Disneyland-like atmosphere of the area left us feeling extremely grateful for being able to see the tulou in their unrestored form in Luxi.

Two little girls play chase among the tulou (土楼) of Zhongteng Village in Fujian.