Due to the large masses of Chinese people, recycling is a national pastime. Every morning at dawn, poor people are up pouring over the remnants of last night's rubbish. Everything from paper toilet rolls to reinforcement rods broken out of old concrete, from glass bottles to styrofoam, from cardboard to cigarette packages, especially the foil, are collected and sold for pennies. Door and window frames are almost never replaced with new ones if a building is renovated; instead the old ones are simply scraped, old wood hopefully replaced, repainted and reused. Nothing goes to waste except styrofoam food containers by the thousands, plastic bags, and used coal cooking rounds, for want of a better description. (Coal is crushed and then shaped into short round cylinders for use in cooking stoves.)
I was struck anew though, on the Chinese ingenuity for recycling when we visited the local lantern festival in Xiangtan. I don't know who put on the festival. We visited it after dark one evening. The small park in town was hung with lighted paper lanterns. In the ponds and secluded areas, sculptures of various kinds were lighted to better show off their beautiful colors and shapes. As you came in the gate there was a large white dragon, with gold trim looming above, made entirely of bamboo, wire, and tissue paper. The vitality and beauty of the dragon was incredible, and it radiated a white light from inside its body. The next corner unfolded a lake scene of four dragons in the middle of the lake facing each other. They were in four brilliant colors, complete with movable limbs, open mouths, and fierce eyes, again solely of tissue paper and glue, with a motor or two thrown in.
You then came upon a scene out of a Disney movie, with queens, princes, etc. Paper mache this time on a movable track, so they went into a castle and out, over and over and over again. Later you were also introduced to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Chinese style; oriental features and dress, but the same track, same paper mache. Interspersed throughout the exhibits were typical games of ring tossing, shooting balls off the walls with a small cannon, bumper boats, etc. Down another walk, then over a small bridge and you came to traditional Chinese figures.
All over China you see two stone carved figures, one resembling a sitting lion and the other a boxy type of dog. Both have curled lock around the head, sharp teeth, bulgy eyes, and an open mouth with a stone ball held in the jaws. I have been told these protect the businesses and buildings from difficulties. They are most often seen in front of banks. It was the dog figurine that we met at the next bend. Six of the beasts stood magnificently arrayed in porcelain white and royal blue, literally. Standing looking at them, Tim, with his irrepressible sense of humor, proclaimed, "Now that's really china!" Held together with wire, the dogs were made of sets of dinnerware; the body of dinner plates and bowls; the neck and larger parts of the limbs of cups and saucers; and the tail, ears and feet of shot glasses. It left us shaking our heads in puzzlement. Why would someone do this? We don't have a clue as to the reason, but the results were very interesting. A picture was a must so Ingrid, one of the new foreign teachers at our college, paid 3 yuan to have a photo taken, to be picked up in two days.
We then proceeded over another bridge and past a series of animals. The upper parts were made of tissue paper and the lower parts of small, recycled glass herbal medicine bottles. The Chinese like to take tonics, which are given in individual doses in 1-inch tall glass bottles with a plastic top. These bottles had been wired together to form the lower extremities of the different animals. Interesting, we thought, looking at them, but hardly what we would consider art.
We spoke too soon. In the next alcove in all their radiant glory, stood two peacocks, about 7 feet tall. Their tails were aglow with the all the colors of the rainbow, with lighting from behind playing in patterns over their tails and bodies. Their eyes were green light bulbs; the rest was made from these same little medicine bottles, filled with colored water. The outcome was breathtaking. We stood for over five minutes just watching them as various parents positioned children in front of the peacocks for pictures. Everything that came after refused to stay in my memory as there was no room left for more images. My brain was filled with peacocks.
It reconfirmed in my mind again how little we know of these people and what incredible potential lies within them, waiting to surface when the first opportunity arises. Oh, by the way, if you are wondering about Ingrid's photo, we actually did return two days later. There wasn't a photographer at the site of the dogs, but before we could cross the bridge we were hailed by a lady down the sidewalk. She recognized Ingrid, and within seconds handed her a photo of herself and six china dogs.
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