Henan Countryside
This post is a back post that I actually meant to write last week, but was too busy. Since things are a little slower today, I thought I would write it.
On Wednesday, March 18th, we drove to LuoHe City to visit Katie's first home the SWI. This was a 2.5 hour drive that allowed us to see a bit of the Henan countryside. We saw a lot of greenery. There were many, many green fields of wheat growing. Our guide explained that wheat is the primary grain in Henan and the stable food is noodles from that wheat. We also drove past large vineyards near ZhengZhou and many fruit trees. The peach and pear trees were in bloom but there were others as well. We also saw what appeared to be "tree farms" or at least many rows of orderly trees. Actually, orderly would be the best description of the countryside in general. I had to look hard to see even one randomly growing plant! It was really very beautiful.
The people who farm this land live in little villages of 25 to a few hundred houses with the farmland surrounding them. These villages looked a lot like the village we saw near Beijing. The houses are all oriented the same direction. There would be one large building and 1-2 smaller buildings on the edges of a walled-in courtyard. There would also almost always be a large red gate/door that opened into the courtyard. The traditional style large building was usually taller then the buildings in Beijing, either 1.5 or 2 stories. There were also many "modern" style buildings with two stories. The most consistent thing about the villages was the construction everywhere! It seemed every home had some construction going on and if not, it was needed.
We also saw a lot of grave sites as we were driving. In Henan the graves are either next to the village or more commonly in the center of the family's fields. The graves have huge heaps of dirt on top and some are marked with a large stone tablet. Many graves also have an evergreen tree (or two) growing from the edge of them.
Here are some pictures of what we saw; they're not the best pictures since they were from a moving car!
