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Mogao Caves I believe
There are about 492 caves, though you should look that up if you want to know for sure since I'm not entirely sure where I pulled that number from, and the third largest Buddha in China...so big. There were living caves which were very plain as well as the painted caves that we went into. We couldn't really take pictures in the caves because they were dark and a flash would ruin the painting, and its kinda frowned upon to take pictures of religious figures and stuff, so if you want to see pictures I am sure there are some online that I don't feel like finding for you all :)
We learned the Nine Colored Deer story because it was painted on the back wall of one of the caves we went into. Each cave was commissioned by a different people in different times, I think this cave was from the Tang Dynasty maybe, that's me remembering something from a few weeks ago though.
There was once a deer with 9 colors on its pelt so it was well sought after by humans. One day the deer heard a man calling for help and found the man drowning in the river. The deer carried the man to safety and had the man promise not to tell anybody were the deer was. The man promised but one day the queen told the king she wanted the 9 colored deer's pelt. The King told his people that he would give half of his land to the person who could catch the deer. The man from the river gave into his greed when he heard this and led the king to the deer.
The deer awakened to find itself surrounded by the king and his hunters. The deer saw the man and told the king that he could not kill him because the deer had saved one of the King's men.
For saving one of his people the King spared the deer. The man from the river somehow ended up with spots all over his skin and I guess the deer was supposed to represent reincarnation. It was hard to follow the story completely.
Our last cave at the Mogao Caves was the Hidden Library Cave where about 50,000 documents were found. The Chinese are rather angry because white explorers went through the area and bought the documents and brought them to their home countries until only about 8,000 were left when the Chinese governement finally interviened and took the last of the documents.
The Chinese are also upset because the explores came and took some of the cave paintings...destroying most of what they took.
When we left the caves I slept and slept and slept and then went out with Jeff, Laura, and Cora to a dance and acrobatics play about Deer Goddess and her daughter Deer Girl. There were Fire Demons and the death of the Goddess and the journey of Deer Girl and her cat girl friend, Ajie, across all seasons and a desert and up mountains. They had odd ways of crossing the deserts and climbing mountains on each other's hips and heads and legs and stuff all in weird contortion acts.
Two characters in the play mysteriously disappeared with no explanation other than "Grandma and Father were gone."
I'm pretty sure Ajie's death was more violent than it had to be. We watched her get stabbed by fire demons then stabbed again and again as she continued to fight, then fall and get surrounded by all the fire demons and get stabbed multiple more times.
At the end Deer Girl poured magic water that brought snow or rain and killed the fire demons and brought life back to the land.
Those are in fact camels on the stage.
"Deer Girl. We will embalm her forever."
The English at the beginning was fine, then steadily worsened until we were embalming Deer Girl instead of remembering her. And Ajie, who did as much as Deer Girl did on that journey, we get to forget because she died and was therefore not important.
The best part about the show as the as soon as it started Jeff got a bloody nose that continued for over half the show.
Back at the night market I got mistaken for a Xinjiang person again. When I walk with white people I somehow become their translator, regardless of if the person I am with has better Chinese than me. Also, if I shop with men the shopkeeper assumes that the guy is buying the thing because I want it and so direct their sale at me.
I Love Bargaining
your pictures are prettier than mine
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