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Pandas & Painting

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This morning we got up and headed out to Huxian County to see pandas and peasant paintings. Our first stop was the provincial rare wild animal preservation center. The main attraction was pandas. Supposedly they had 16 pandas at this preservation center. We only got to see 4, 3 of which were cubs. They were the most playful – climbing trees, roaming in the grass. The adult panda we saw was very lazy and was sleeping in the grass. We were told by one of the staff members of the preservation that pandas don't like sun so most of them were inside their caves. We also saw golden monkeys, deer, ox, peacocks, vultures, swans, black bears, and boars.

After the preservation we went to lunch in the Huxian County village. Here we ate in some ones house and tasted the local food. A lot of the dishes were very spicy and the cook kept bringing out plate after plate of food and telling us to eat more, eat more!

After stuffing ourselves we were invited into one of the Huxian Peasant Painting artists houses and studio. Here she had many paintings on display and talked to us about peasant painting. The peasant painting began in 1953 in this area and everyone living in the village now can paint in this style. The images depict everyday peasant and farmer life – celebrations like marriage and new years, farming, fishing, cooking, children playing, washing clothes, etc. The paintings are all painted with vibrant colors. Addy and I got to try our hand at peasant painting. They use the same kind of brush as the calligraphy brush and hold it in the same way too. The paint we used is like gouache where you can paint over areas and not see individual brush strokes. The artist drew a picture of fish and then told us to copy it and then gave us a brush and said paint. That was the whole 'lesson.' So Addy and I did our best to paint the fish she had us draw. I wished there was a little more explanation about the process (which colors or areas to paint first, etc.) and freedom to paint whatever image we wanted, but we only had 30 minutes to do it.

After painting we hoped back on the bus and headed back to the hotel to have some time to pack our bags up for check out and the train tomorrow. Tonight we are having a dumpling dinner and watching a Tang Dynasty show.

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