Anhui Province – Chrysanthemums, Needles and Landscapes

The Huangshan area of Anhui province is the misty mountain landscapes and red-lanterned villages of Asian paintings.  It’s the water buffalo in rice paddies and the farmers with conical hats picking chrysanthemum flowers for tea.  Every vista is postcard-worthy.  Our original draw to this area was to visit Master Zhou, a Chi Gong and Chinese Medicine practitioner and friend-of-a-friend.  Many Westerners travel to the city of Tunxi to get treatments from him and he has come to the US to teach and treat.  Our friend put us in touch with Master Zhou’s interpreter and we planned our stay around an introduction to the Master.

 

We had some Chi Gong movement demonstrations and even saw the master do a “trick”.  (You’ll have to wait for the YouTube.) The kids each had a private session with the Master and the three adults each had two treatments.  This is not whimpy needling.  His needles are an inch and a half long and he delights in showing you just how deep he went in each session.  When he described his technique, he said that you need to “chop up the blockages, like with a knife”.  And even before this was translated to us, his enthusiastic hacking motions made it plain for all to see what would be translated.  Master Zhou’s family took in a Shaolin Master during the Cultural Revolution and Zhou became his apprentice from a young age, preserving a lineage that spans eight generations of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

We stayed near Tunxi, in the well-preserved ancient village of Hongcun.  The town was full of selfie-taking Chinese tourists, art students sketching and locals, beeping their scooter horns in frustration at the crowds.  The movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed here and we could imagine the rooftop fight scenes.  Grand halls and intricate drainage systems traced back the 1400’s.  Vibrant green vegetables grow in every available piece of real estate.  We remind Lucy (adopted from China) often, that while Europe was wallowing in plague and mud, China was thriving – creating sophisticated art, philosophy and architecture.

On the off day between acupuncture treatments we hiked in the Yellow Mountain area of Huangshan.  It was a cold day, which I think kept the crowds at bay; but, it was still a popular spot.  We clocked 21,000 steps that day and that included a tram ride up and a gondola down.  The paths are cement with perfect steps cut into the hillside.  Although it was beautiful, the mountains felt like a cross between a national park and Disneyland.  Six hotels and snack stops peppered the mountain park, requiring porters to carry food, laundry and other supplies.  These porters not only carried leg-wobbly weight, but had to navigate their bamboo poles through the packs of tour groups.

 

The area is picturesque and the clean mountain air was wonderfully refreshing but the word is out, and you will share the Huangshan area with many, many other people.