China Tour: Part 2 - Hunan (Zhangjiajie, Wulingyuan, Lixian, Changsha)

Next, a very different chapter of the trip.

It’s always different and unexpected when travelling to new places, especially somewhere as majestic, mythical, ethereal as the Zhangjiajie National Park. Those magnificent, formidable rock columns reaching into the sky, the celestial, god-like Tianmen gate perched at the top of the 999 step “Stairway to Heaven” - there’s a kind of unutterably solemn, noble grandeur. A grandeur that inspires such awe.

Every stone has a legend, a soul, a lore that is inscrutably poetic, elusive, wise, and fantastical. Every name of every stone contains a whole universe of ancient folktales, myths, characters (Monkey King, Journey to the West <3), and meanings from thousands of years of history (or recent blockbuster movies … Avatar ‘floating islands’ were filmed here!). The land, the air, the sky - they all held such terrible, sublime power.

It was truly an astonishing experience to spend two days hiking through these extraordinary landscapes. I know I use the word magic a lot. But here, it doesn’t quite suffice. This was not my ordinary, small, daily magic. This was a phenomenal, miraculous, breathtaking, astounding kind of gravitas.

I could see why people for centuries honoured the divinity of these lands.

But what was equally wondrous and breathtaking for me, as always, were indeed still the small magics. The little moments in between those big odysseys, those epic journeys hiking up 2 summits a day, meeting the gods and legends.

What captured my heart was the little charming town of Wulingyuan—like a dream sequence, transporting back in time to Han dynasty China, strolling at night along the lantern-lined stream, picking up skewers and fresh fruit from the street market, flashing a coy smile at your lover, hand in hand. A little surreal, as enchanting as the place was, it was almost like we were in the film set of a historical drama. The perfect daze of that quiet, sweet, secluded getaway. Even our hostel was in a beautiful old traditional building with the most exquisite carvings along the roof rims, bamboo doors and windows, and an open view of the mountains, gardens, grandmas working in fields out back. A real gem of a romantic hideaway.

So much happened along the way as well, aside from just soaking in the stunning views and the landscapes. There were the encounters. People, strangers, locals, fellow travellers, each living soul we crossed paths with that also made the trip what it was. From the first moment we arrived at the Zhangjiajie train station, we found ourselves sharing a bus with a local girl who could not stop staring and giggling. She was exhilarated to sit beside a foreigner. Shy as she was, she asked in English, “Can I sing you a song?”, and proceeded to belt at the top of her lungs a tune about her hometown Zhangjiajie. We were laughing, and cheered her on. Some fellow passengers awkwardly turned away, another yelled at her to be quiet. But she just continued, untethered, voice cracking, chanting this song as we sped past cars on the highway towards Wulingyuan, the bus driver fiercely honking and nearly running over several smaller vehicles. It was all bizarre, and most curiously special. At the end of the journey, she was gleaming, jumping off the bus and waving to us, “Welcome to Zhangjiajie! I wish you a wonderful trip!!!”

Precious. People. Southerners, their openness, hospitality. The people of my mother’s lineage. And we’ll only get to experience more of that when we went to visit 老家，the Old Home. Now, that visit was a lot. In a very different way—personal, familial yet strange, touching yet distant, perplexing, moving, a little ‘too much’ to comprehend.

An aunt of mine from my mom’s side whom I haven’t spent a great deal of time with but nonetheless dearly adores me came all the way from Shanghai to take us back to visit mom’s 老家 in Lixian, Hunan. She lived with my family in Langfang for a year when I was only 6 years old, and had countless stories of the fun, mischievous, nostalgic times she spent taking care of me when she was just herself 18.

My mom has only taken me back to her 老家 in Hunan once when I was 2. And going back there, that village where I still have aunts, grand-aunts and uncles, cousins many times removed but whom still remember me from when I was that rowdy, extroverted, trouble-maker of a tomboy Tongtong—that was incredibly heartfelt in way I could not have anticipated or prepared for at all.

It was so precious—the return home, the instantaneous, open-hearted welcome. A homemade family meal.

Gathered together there at the round table, dish after dish made by my grand-aunt (my mom’s mom’s youngest sister, the matriarch of that house), all these familiar Hunan recipes passed down from generations that made me remember, miss, see my mom in a new light, alongside the stories told by everyone so fondly of her, the stories of her upbringing, her childhood, her favourite foods and places—it was so tender, so raw I wanted to cry there and then. And afterwards, visiting the smiley grandma down the street whom fed the whole village’s kids when there wasn’t enough to go around to eat, trekking to that now abandoned old brick building where the family used to live, where so many of them were born, were married … digging out a medicine pot from the dirt pile to bring back a piece of this Old Home, this land back to my mom in Canada … all of this, each and every moment, was so deeply personal, so touching. This place, these people, something I always only imagined, was real. It really still exists here. To realize - that I am indeed connected to a larger whole, that these people are related to me, that they are so true, so warm, so loving. To share a meal, to share stories, baijiu, time just spend lounging, chatting, laughing, arguing, sitting around, existing. So necessary. So precious. Like that famous Chinese song, 常回家看看。That’s what matters. To return. Simply, come back often. “Come back and look at your Old Home.” You have a home here.

I felt so lucky. As always, to be able to experience moments like these. To understand, even if the tiniest bit better, where I came from. Where my mom came from, how she grew up, how she struggled, loved, was loved or not loved. Every piece of collective memory lived through the food we eat now, the bowls we use now, the stinky tofu, the pork knuckle, the rice noodles, the kid her, the kid me, the streets, the house, the remaining rubble.

Ah, and how could I forget. Most coincidentally (or perhaps meant to be), is that we happened to visit right at 端午节。Dragon Boat Festival, celebration to honour the dead. In the afternoon, auntie took us into the mountains to visit the graves of our great-grandmother and great-grandfather, and the great-aunt that raised my mom. We performed the ‘grave-sweeping’ ceremony—burning stacks of paper money, praying to the ancestors, kneeling and bowing, setting off fire crackers. It was solemn yet also lighthearted.When the paper money wouldn’t keep burning in the rain, Auntie joked with the ancestors, “do you not need the extra money to buy alcohol?!” She told them their great-grand daughter came back all the way from Canada to visit them. She thanked them for all their sacrifices, for giving us this life, and asked for their blessings. And then, after we each knelt down on a cardboard box and bowed 3 times, my uncle and cousin lit the fire crackers—a little too soon before the rest of us could run away. The explosions shocked the breath out of us. They were loud.

My mom and dad’s names were inscribed there on the stone, 王伟，王明明. Alongside mom’s siblings, the 4 children of grandma. They were part of this long lineage. There. That was the resting place for them someday in the future. It was surreal to see those names, those characters one above another. To kneel at the grave. To bow. To feel the land, the spirits, the emptiness and fullness within. The whole experience left me in a kind of daze. Silent, inner, grateful. Just soaking it all in. Mud, rain, ashes and all.

There is still so much to reflect on, to process, so many details to honour, so much to be overwhelmed by. But there is also a kind of simplicity in all this attempt at meaning-making. So let me leave it at that for now. For a future time, a future child Tongtong to understand and remember again. Someday.

Hunan, Lixian, Old Home. Thank you, I will be back. It’s important. It’s necessary. To keep these memories in our hearts, to visit in person, to ‘look’, to share a meal, to remember, to give and to receive.

Thank you.

通通

Day 1 Wulingyuan, Destination Youth Hostel, Tujia cuisine