Longyan

So, I made it into Longyan this morning. Longyan has interested me for a long time - part of it could be the mixture of cultures here - there is a large Hakka population. Something about Hakka people is "cool" to me - they are a bit like the Jews of China - they have been scattered throughout China and around the world and were often persecuted in China. Despite being Han nationality, the Hakka have historically had different customs - for example, Hakka women would never bind their feet, and Hakka men wanted to have a tough wife rather than the delicate woman that other Chinese men sought after. Anyways, the area around Longyan has a lot of Hakka and they have unique "tulou" architecture as well that I have been told by many people to check out. Elder Hung, one of my mission companions from Taiwan, told me that he thought the Hakka were "lihai" (that's the double fourth tone lihai), meaning, roughly "hardcore."

Anyways, another reason that Longyan is interesting to me is because of a particular coincidence back in Ottawa when I was attending the single's ward there. On one Sunday, three Chinese investigators came, and in the investigators class, the first of them introduced themselves as being from Longyan. Then the other two (who also didn't know each other) exclaimed that they were also from Longyan. It was really random - they didn't know each other back in China, all three separately came to Ottawa Canada, met with the missionaries and randomly showed up at church and they were all from the same hometown back in China. Really random. Also, when I went to Xiamen last time in China, I met this kid while I was hiking in the hills behind the Nanputuo temple there and he was from Longyan and he was Hakka and pretty spunky.

Anyways, enough about my fascination from Longyan. Today I bought myself a bike. It cost a total of 300 yuan - about 35 dollars American. Not bad! It's not a great bike, of course, but I only need it for a month anyways. I think that it will work well. While there, I was able to mix with the local Chinese mountain biking crowd. It turns out they know some foreigners who are teaching English here, so I'm going to meet them tonight. It should be nice to talk to someone face to face in English.

My plan is to head out tomorrow to a township not far from here called Yanshi. However, the forecast tomorrow is for rain, so we'll see what happens. If it is raining badly, I'll probably hold off for a day.