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To A Small Town In Eastern Gansu

The typhoon that tried to dissolve Taiwan is now in Nanjing, washing the city in a manner that is downright obsessive/compulsive. Even this far inland, the wind is strong enough to overturn a baby carriage. I care enough about you to hope that you are not out there tonight pushing a baby around Nanjing.

Escape from LanZhou

Following directions in a book, I went to a bus station and asked about tickets to LuoMen in eastern Gansu. They directed me to a bus station on TianShui road, where I was directed to another station, where I was directed to another station, where I was finally sent back to the station on TianShui Road.

The problem there was that while many buses ran to my destination, foreigners are not allowed to ride those buses for insurance reasons; the people at TianShui Road station decided not to tell me that on my first visit since it was funnier to send me off on a goose chase when they knew that theirs was the only station in town with service to my destination. They claimed that only two other foreigners had taken a bus to LuoMen in the last two years; those foreigners had insurance. So did I, but I had no proof. I went to a travel agency and tried to buy insurance, but my ID number didn’t have enough digits–Chinese ID numbers are long, as you might expect.

Finally, a driver told me to wait a few hundred meters away and get on after the bus turned a corner; that’s how most people do it. Only one passenger got on at the station. For several kilometers on the way out of town, a guy stands in the doorway of the rolling bus and shouts, “LuoMen!” Upon seeing their bus, some people wave their arms wildly, but some just nod and pick up their belongings off the street. You can learn a lot about people from watching them flag down buses in Lanzhou; I was having the time of my life.

After an hour or so on the freeway, we entered a network of small roads through hills that shouldered the remains of many mud forts. When I came through this area last time (without bus hassles), the bus had to detour around mudslides, adding hours to the journey, but this time, the bus was just slow, stopping in every town to wait for more passengers, driving over roadblocks made of wheat, slowing down at every cluster of homes that could harbor charming children who run out into the road without looking first. We didn’t reach LuoMen until after dark.

LuoMen had a beautiful moon and clouds, a sight not seen in Nanjing. The hotel was super cheap and had a basic but spacious room with a view of the sky. When I went out to find food, two young women approached; one had just graduated but was unemployed, while her friend was home on summer break. They wanted to practice English, and of course the conversation was very boring, for the most part. They showed me where to catch a bus in the morning and offered to lead me to a good restaurant. The roads were under construction, as the town is being developed for tourism. I asked about all the people burning garbage at the edge of the street, and they said this was standard practice throughout the town.

“That’s really bad,” I said involuntarily.

“We’re just starting to develop!” one of the girls pleaded.

After a ten minute walk, the restaurant was closed. The girls were embarrassed.

I was in LuoMen to see Water Curtain “Grottoes” (ShuiLianDong) after reading about the place in a travel book. I wouldn’t call them grottoes, since the art is simply protected from the elements by rock overhangs that are more like windowsills than caves.

Located among honeycomb hairdo bluffs, Water Curtain Concaves has a giant painted relief carving that dates back to the Northern Wei period (4th to 6th centuries), when much of northern China was ruled by Tuoba Turks, or the Turkic Tuoba, who came out of Manchuria and Mongolia back when Turkic peoples lived further to the east. Today, the most easterly Turkic communities are in southern Gansu. Wow, huh?

Anyway, all the art at Water Curtain Concaves was behind scaffolding, the trails to the best views were closed, and so I took pictures of the workmen. It was easy to see that I was missing great pictures of the largest Buddha cluster.

The second concave was oddly barren. Later, a cab driver later told me that, over the last decade, locals had heisted most of Water Curtain’s art; he said this as if it were common knowlege.

“How much do you think that stuff was worth? Quite a lot. You went to 1000 Buddha Concave, right? It was called 1000 Buddha Concave for a reason, but how many Buddhas did you see–three or four? That should tell you something.”

He said that locals knew the area would be developed sooner or later, and once the higher authorities moved in, it would become impossible to steal the art, so they took while the getting was good. He could remember when the 1000 Buddha Concave was spectacular. He didn’t need to mention that back then, the town had a real attraction. Now they have one Buddha that is too big to steal; the rest of the site could serve as a crime museum (check out the photos). The whole town lost money in the long run, but somebody got rich.

This is a modern desecration that can’t be blamed on the Cultural Revolution. Art theft on such a scale probably required the help of corrupt local officials. What makes LuoMen Water Curtain Concaves interesting is that it is the most incompetently managed historical site I’ve ever seen. A group of people robbed the future of a struggling town while ruining a cultural relic, and nobody did anything about it.

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Eastern Gansu Fort

Eastern Gansu Fort

Shui Lian Dong

Shui Lian Dong

Shui Lian Dong

Shui Lian Dong

Shui Lian Dong

Shui Lian Dong

Helan Shan Yan Hua Xi Xia Script

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