Kids in Ancient China (Part 6): The Fake City Part 2

 Part 2

Shortly after moving in, Xi Jing and her mom were busy making their house feel like home. Although they didn’t have a lot of money, with some creativity and with the belongings they brought with them, it felt like home by the end of the week.

Mr. Xi and the dad in the other family started looking for work and ended up working as carpenters in the same shop. Xi Wei, Xi Bing, Chen Min, and Chen Yang met up every day and started exploring their new city. By the end of the week they knew every little street in the city. 

After they explored the streets of the city, they set about exploring outside of the city.

“Hey, have you noticed that there are no big gardens here? Where do they grow their food?” Xi Bing asked his brother and friends when they were out one day.

“Maybe they are hidden underneath the city,” Xi Wei suggested.

“No, don’t be silly, they have to be here somewhere,” Xi Bing said,

“Our old city had lost of gardens outside of the city. Each family took care of at least one, sometimes 3 or 4 fields,” said Cheng Yang.

“Yes, ours did too,” put in Xi Bing.

“My favorite thing to grow was the tomatoes. It was so fun to pick them off!” Xi Wei said with a smile on his face.

“Yes, I know! We hardly got any tomatoes because you used to pick them off when they were still green!” Said Xi Bing.

“The gardens must be somewhere outside of the city. For a city this size, they must have a lot of gardens- somewhere!” Said Chen Min. 

“Let’s explore!” Xi Wei said excitedly. 

The four boys left the city just after lunch and started walking around the mountain. The mountain was full of trees, which was great for the city: it made it hard for any army to find where the city was! This also meant that the boys had to be careful to remember where they walked so they could find their way back.  

“Let’s do something so we won’t forget out way back. I’m afraid we might get lost,” Xi Bing suggested.

“I know, what if we take this stick here,” Xi Min said as he picked up a stick. “We can make a mark on the trees that we go by so we can find our way back. Or if we find the right rock, we can use that to mark on the trees.”

“That’s super smart! We can take turns marking the trees,” Xi Bing said.

Xi Bing became the unofficial leader of the four of them. They walked about ten minutes until they came across a small patch of spinach growing by some trees. 

“Wow, this is strange. I wouldn’t expect to see spinach here,” Xi Yang commented.

“Look over there,” Xi Wei said as he pointed out to an opening in the trees. There seemed to be things growing in the opening. 

“This is what they must do,” Xi Yang thought out loud. “They must grow food in openings in the forest like this.”

“But what about the spinach?” Xi Min asked.

“I don’t know,” said Xi Bing. “We’ll have to have a good think about it. Why is there spinach growing way out here?” 

“Well, we’re not that far out of the town. What if someone purposely planted spinach here?” Xi Min suggested.

“Hmmm, now that is an idea,” Xi Wei said with a smile on his face. He liked to smile. 

“Let’s keep walking,” Xi Bing suggested.

The group came across more places where other vegetables like carrots and potatoes were growing in between the trees. Finally, Xi Wei saw some tomatoes growing!

“Di Di, (“little brother”), don’t pull any of those tomatoes! They don’t belong to us! Someone must’ve planted them here. They obviously don’t naturally grow here in the midst of trees like this!” Xi Bing said.

“What if they just plant their vegetables here and there in the forest where they can. So, instead of each person having their own field, they just plant some things where they find room and sunlight to grow their food.” Xi Yang said.

“Yes, that’s probably it. However, we saw fruit in the market and I think it must be hard to grow fruit in the middle of these trees! They wouldn’t get enough sun! Where are the fruit trees?” Xi Bing thought aloud.

“What if they just buy them from other cities and have them sent here?” Xi Wei said excitedly. “Ohh, a good, juicy apple sounds great about now!”

“Yes, you’re right, Di Di. We should start heading back,” Xi Bing said.

“Can we come out here again tomorrow?” Xi Wei asked. He always loved exploring and adventure.

“Well, we still haven’t figured out where they’re growing all the fruit yet, so I think we should explore some more tomorrow,” Xi Bing said. They followed the trees with the marks back to the city.

The next day they went out again, marking the trees as they went. Xi Wei got this job because he enjoyed it so much! They walked a different direction and ended up climbing more up the mountain. They came across a wall. 

“What do you think this is? It doesn’t look like a city. Can it be another city so close by?” Xi Yang asked. 

“No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t make sense,” Xi Bing answered. 

“Quick, hide. There’s someone coming,” Xi Wei said.

Although they didn’t know why they should be hiding, but their instincts told them to hide. They each hid behind a tree. Sure enough, they saw a man walking by and disappear behind the wall. 

“There must be something there. Why else would he go there?” Chen Min asked.

“Let’s check it out!” Xi Wei said.

The four boys slowly walked to the wall. Oddly enough, this wall was just as big as the wall that surrounded the city. However, the more they walked around it, the more they thought that it couldn’t be a city because it was so quiet. Finally, they found the door. It was a simple wooden door that was closed, but not locked. 

“Di Di, wait,” Xi Bing said to his brother as he was about to open the door. “Remember, we just saw the guy go this way, probably inside! Let’s wait a few minutes.”

The few minutes seemed to go at a snail’s pace, but finally they agreed  that was it was ok to go in. They were surprised when they opened the door to find fruit trees! There was one or two small buildings, but inside the walls were rows, and rows of fruit trees. 

“This is where they grow their fruit,” Chen Min said. 

“Yes, look at those apples!” Xi Wei said.

“Di Di, they are not our apples and they aren’t ripe!” Xi Bing told his brother.

“Ok, fine,” Xi Wei said. 

They walked around for a few minutes until they heard a voice.

“Hey, what are you kids doing here?” Said a man’s voice. 

Fear seized them. 

‘What do we do?” Chen Yang said.

“It’s ok. I don’t think we’ll be in trouble. Let’s just try and be friendly,” said Xi Bing.

“I’ve never met you kids before. Do you live in the city?” The old man asked. “Well, you’d have to live in the city because there are no other towns that close. You might be from families that are moving to the town.” He started to say to himself. “There are so many new faces and I don’t particularly care to get to know any of them.” 

After a minute of silence, Xi Bing said, “Yes, we are. We are from the city.”

“Did you just move here? What families are you from?” He asked.

“Yes, we did just move here,” Xi Bing answered. The four boys took turns introducing themselves. 

“What exactly is this place?” Xi Wei asked.

“It’s a garden, of course,” the old man answered.

“But why are there walls around it and why is it so far from the city?” Chen Yang asked.

“We’ve lived in this area a long time. In the last ten or fifteen years there have been many new families, like yours, that have moved to our town, which means that we have to be careful and make sure that we can protect ourselves. Having food to eat is one of the most important things, so we made a wall around this garden to make it a little harder for bad people to come in and take the food.”

A visit to the beach

 We are so thankful to live so close to the beach...at least for this season of life. We might be moving someplace else in a few months...but for now, we are a 10-15 minute walk from the beach. This particular beach has lots of beach glass, seashells, and tide pools. Yesterday we had a short break in the rain so we went to the beach in the afternoon. It was lovely and a great time with the kids (who climbed the rocks and looked for crabs under the rocks). 

Beautiful Sunsets

 We went to the beach two times this week and met up with another family there. The kids had lots of fun. We moved earlier this month to the other side of town and this beach is the closest one to our house (about a 10-15 minute walk away). We'll probably go often to this beach. There's another beach that's about a 20 minute walk away as well. It was low tide so the kids got to explore the tide pools and the rocks. They found lots of tiny crabs, seashells, beach glass, and other marine animals. 

The sunrise down the street

Kids in Ancient China (Part 6): The Fake City Part 1

Here's another story in our "Kids in Ancient China" series. This story is really long and is in parts.

The Fake City 

 

Part 1

“Where are we going now?” Xi Bing groaned to his parents.

“Up to the mountains. We’ve told you this many times before.” His dad answered.

“How much longer?” Xi Bing’s little brother, Xi Wei, groaned.

“We’ll get there when we get there,” His dad answered again.

“We should take a short break,” their mom suggested.

“Yes, and I’m hungry!” Xi Wei smiled and rubbed his tummy.

The family sat down on the ground and enjoyed some steamed bread. By this time, it was a bit old, but it was all that they had. 

“I wish I had some honey to put on top of it,” Xi Wei complained.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. We should be at the city soon and I’m sure they’ll have some honey,” their mom said.

“Try to imagine that there’s honey on it. Here, I’ll give you some of my own honey,” Xi Bing motioned with his hand. It was only pretend honey, but it worked to lighten up the mood.

“Hey, mom, I think I see someone. Wait, there’s more people. It looks like a family,” Xi Jing said. Xi Jing was the boys’ older sister. She was usually quiet and shy, and she understand the reason why there were moving: to be safe. 

The country was in chaos. The Han Dynasty was almost finished, but there was no real government set up in its place yet. If you were lucky enough, the city you lived in had its own army to protect the city from all of the other small armies going throughout the country. However, the city that they lived in had none. With each passing day, it got more dangerous. Their whole town could be destroyed. Over the year, the family had seen many of their neighbors move to other cities, leaving the town largely deserted and empty. The family knew that they, too, had to leave in order to be safe. 

The city they chose to move to was up in the mountains with a wall around part of it because it was thought to be safe. They had already been walking for 2 days and had another day or two to go until they reached the town.

“Yes, I do think it’s a family, dear,” said their mom.

“Look- boys! There are 2 boys!” Xi Wei said, excitedly.

“They look like they’re the same age, so they might be twins.” Xi Bing said. 

The family waited to see who these people were. 

“Hi, my name is Chen Min,” said one of the boys to introduce himself. He held out his hand to Xi Bing. 

“And I am Chen Yang,” said the other boy as he reached out to shake Xi Wei’s hand. 

“Are you both, twins?” Xi Bing asked hesitatingly. They didn’t look like twins, but they looked like they were the same age.

“No, I’m actually his cousin,” Cheng Yang explained. “My dad had to fight in the local army. Our town and the town next to ours had an army. Every man had to fight in this army for at least 5 years. Sadly, my dad died fighting during these 5 years. A few months later my mom got really sick and died. I, too, got sick. Thankfully, my aunt and uncle lived in the same city and took care of me. By this time, a lot of the families moved out of the town and they, too, decided to move. So, here we are.”

“Sounds like us,” Xi Bing and Xi Wei’s dad explained. “Our town doesn’t have an army so many people were moving out. We were one of the last few left in the town and finally decided to move out as well.”

“It’s nice to meet you all. It’s great to see a friendly face,” The mom said as she shook the hand of the mom in the other family. This was to be the start of a long friendship between the two families, who were both moving to the same city in the mountains. 

It’s a funny thing, but when you travel with friends, even new found friends like these, time goes faster. The 2 days it took them to finish their journey to their new city went by so fast. 

“Wow, dad, is that it? I see something over there, between the trees,” Xi Bing pointed out to his dad. 

“I suppose it is,” he answered. 

“I wonder if there’ll be lots of girls my age. It would be great to have more friends. I’ll settle for friends that are younger or older than me too, of course,” Xi  Jing said.

As they got closer to the city, Xi Bing said his thoughts out loud. “What kind of a city is this? It’s so disappointing. I only see big walls. I don’t even see the gate to get in? Where is it?”

The city was much larger than the towns either of the families came from. Walls surrounded the city and the gate was slanted on the hillside. This was supposed to make it hard for any army to come and attach them. The gate was open all day and closed at night. The whole mountainside was full of trees, which was a great help in keeping the city somewhat hidden and hard to find for any army that might come against it.

“Wow, this city is huge!” Xi Wei said. 

“Let’s go in,” Xi Bing said. “I’m sure there’s a market where we can get something to eat- I’m starving!”

“You’re always hungry!” His mom said.

“Tell me about it. These two are also always hungry! It must be something about boys,” the other mom said.

The market place was the first thing in the city. Stalls of vegetable and fruit  sellers, meat sellers, and a myriad of other small shops lined the sides of the main street. They got some snack food and found a place to sit to eat. 

“Right, the next job is to find a place to live. Would your family like to live close to ours if we can? I don’t know if we can find two houses next to each other available to rent or not, but we could try,” Mr. Xi (Xi Wei, Xi Bing, and Xi Jing’s dad) suggested to the other dad. 

The two fathers started walking around the city while the rest of the families stayed and finished their snack. Although they wanted to walk around and explore their new city, they didn’t because they didn’t want to get lost! Also, if they stayed put, the two dads would know where to find their families. Finally, after two hours, they came back.

“No luck. It’s getting late. We’ll have to sleep outside the city. There aren’t any hotels or logging for guests available. We’ll try again tomorrow.” Mr. Xi broke the news to them.

They set up camp outside the city walls. This was the fourth night they slept like this- under the stars. The first night or two were exciting for the kids, especially the boys. However, by the third night it had lost its newness and they longed for home. Their bags (with the one change of clothes they each brought) were used as pillows and they had a blanket or two as well to keep warm. It wasn’t that comfortable, but after a long day, sleep came fast. 

The next day they explored the city’s streets together. The boys loved their new city, but Xi Jing didn’t. She was quick to point out how the city lacked all the trees and flowers their old town had. Actually, overall, there weren’t much gardens around. Where did they grow their food? 

People were generally welcoming to them, but assumed they were just travelers because they all still carried their bags with them. Finally, after another full day of searching, they were able to find two homes. Although the two families weren’t going to be neighbors, but would live only a few streets away from each other instead.

Chinese Magazine

 It's almost spring...or feels like it should be! The Spring edition of the Learning Chinese in America magazine is out. You can find it here. 

Here's the description: 

This is our first issue of the year: Spring 2025. This magazine is meant to help families who are learning or trying to keep up their Chinese while they live in America. In this issue we’ll learn continue learning about ancient Chinese history, a famous Chinese poem about the sound of the birds, and finish a famous story (the fox and the crow, part 1). There are also several Chinese characters to learn, a story entirely in Chinese characters, and an interview about someone who lived in Xi’an, China. The animal we’re talking about this time is the ladybugs and the food we’re looking at is eggs (Chinese style).

Sources

 I thought it might be worthwhile to mention some of the sources I've used for the Chinese books I've written. When I started to research and write Storybook of China (and later books), I used about 4-5 books together as well as some online sources:

A Storied History of China, compiled by Lu Qianfei, 1988, Tourism Education Press, printed in Beijing, China. This book has lots of details, some maps and pictures, and stories. This book would be super hard to find; I found it when I lived in China and it's no longer in print. 

A Short History of The Chinese People by L. Carrington Goodrich, 1963 by Harper and Row. Something that was interesting about this book is that the Terra Cotta soldiers (the clay soldiers that were buried underground close to Xi'an, China) weren't discovered yet so they are not in this book. 

Chinese History Stories, Volume I and Volume II. Volume one is Stories From The Zhou Dynasty and volume two is Stories From The Imperial Era. These are a few stories from a different book that have been translated into English by Renee Ting. Published 2009 by Shen's Books. These books are also really hard to find and out of print (as far as I know). They are based on a Chinese book (also Volume I and Volume II). My husband helped me track down and find one of the Chinese books for this (中国历史故事). There's a 下 and a 上 part of it (Part 1 and Part 2).  We were only able to find the 下 part. The Chinese books were published in 2007. They have a lot more than the English versions.

There's another series of Chinese history books in Chinese that I had back in China but weren't able to bring them with me when we moved.

Wikipedia was also one of my sources. 

Something to keep in mind is that over history, several emperors tried to burn all the history scrolls to make it seem like their dynasty was the first one. They wanted to, essentially, wipe out all of Chinese history to that point. There's one school of thought that says that most of ancient Chinese history (before the Xin Dynasty, the same dynasty that put together the Great Wall, unified the country, and made the Terra Cotta clay army) is different than what people are taught today. Also, many of the stories from ancient China have been passed down through oral retellings so it's sometimes hard to tell how accurate they are. In modern Chinese history sometimes people want to emphasize some parts while completely ignoring or purposely forgetting other parts. 

My books about China are available here. 

Kids in Ancient China (Part 5)

 Here's another story in our "Kids in Ancient China" series: 

The Red Eyebrows

Last month my dad joined something called the Red Eyebrows. What are they? I didn’t know either so I had to ask him. At first, I thought he was joking: the Red Eyebrows? What kind of a name was that? Do they all have red eyebrows?  He said the Red Eyebrows are a group of people that live along the Yellow River that fight together. I wanted to ask him more about it. He didn’t want to tell me at first.

My family live in a small village along the Yellow River, but I hate it.  Actually, when I was a toddler, my family had to move villages because the river had changed its course. I miss my old home and all of my friends. Although many of them moved to another village, my family decided to move to this one. We’ve been here two years now and I don’t have many friends. Every time I complain about this, my mom is quick to remind me that I still have my older brothers and sister, and that they are lifetime friends. 

When the River flooded, many people, like my family, moved because our homes were ruined. Then the locusts came. I remember the locusts. They didn’t come through our village, but I heard about them coming through the village  next to ours and some of the fields outside of our village. Have you ever seen a locust? Well, seeing just one of them is bad, but can you imagine the sky being filled with them? They eat and eat and eat. They ate so much that there were hardly any leaves left on the trees or plants in the fields. This was horrible because not only had we lost our home and had to move to a new place, but now it was hard to find food! Our village has a market where people can buy and sell vegetables, fruit, meat, and a few other things. It used to be full but since the locusts came, it’s more than half empty. 

Then last month my dad said he was joining some kind of army. He told me that it wasn’t a real army, but a group of people that were fighting together to get food for their families. They were also helping keep us safe because a lot of other bad guys were out there. Although my dad said that the Red Eyebrows were a good thing, I wasn’t entirely sure.

When I talked with my grandmother, she told me how things were when she was a girl and how different everything is now. She told me that a few years ago the Han family were ruling the country. However, now someone from a different family is in charge, a man named Wang Mang. Before he was the Emperor he was called the Marquess of Xin. 

When he took over the country, everyone liked him at first because he seemed to be very humble. He loved Confucius and often dressed up as a  teacher of Confucius instead of an Emperor. My grandmother remembers something he did: he took land that the rich people had and gave it to the poor. My grandmother told me a story of how one of her friend’s families didn’t have a lot of money. They worked on someone else’s farm but always wanted a farm of their own. When the Xin Emperor took over the country, my grandmother’s friend was one of the families who got new land to have a farm on. Ever since then, my grandmother has really liked this new emperor. Sadly, she doesn’t think it’ll last that long.

There were also big floods on the Yellow River (which I talked about earlier), and then locusts. Many people didn’t have food and didn’t like how things were going in our country. Soon groups of bad guys went from village to village, taking food and other things from people’s homes. That’s when my dad joined the Red Eyebrows because he didn’t want our home to be one of the homes that this happened to. 

Epilogue: Wang Mang was the emperor of one of the shortest dynasties in China (AD 9-23). When the Western Han (the earlier Han Dynasty) started to lose control of the country, Wang Mang stepped in and took over. The Wang family worked in the government and had a lot of influence, but he wanted to do something even more. When he took over the country, he made a few changes: he took everyone’s gold money and changed  it for copper. This was supposed to help the country’s economy. He also took land from the rich and gave it to the poor. Later in the Xin Dynasty the Yellow River changed it’s course and flooded many villages (like the one in this story) and locusts came and ate a lot of the food that was left. People were hungry and unhappy, so many of them started going throughout their villages and other villages taking food and other things. The Red Eyebrows were one of the main groups of people like this who worked along the Yellow River. At the same time, the Xiongnu, one of China’s neighboring countries, were trying to take over China. In the end, many people weren’t happy with the Xin Dynasty, which made it easy for the Han Dynasty to come back and rule the country (and start the Eastern Han Dynasty, or the “later” Han Dynasty). 

Favorite Illustrators/Authors

 Over the last few years our family has found some favorite illustrators. I thought I'd share about some of them. I often like to look up one author and then borrow as many books from that author/illustrator as our library has and do interlibrary loans (which I'm relatively new to, but love!) to borrow more books. That way we can really see their style since we read so many of their books at one time. These are a few of our favorite picture book authors/illustrators. I'm sure there's more that we love but this is a start.

-Barbara Cooney. This is the latest author/illustrator we've enjoyed. I love her books: Emily (about Emily Dickinson, the poet), Eleanor (about Eleanor Roosevelt), Ox-car Man (the first book we had of hers a few years ago; our introduction to her art), and Miss Rumphius. She also has a few Christmas books.

-Madeline books. The older ones are written by Ludwig. He had so many ideas for Madeline books and wasn't able to finish writing them all before he died. His grandson took his notes and partial illustrations and turned them into the rest of the Madeline books. Growing up, I watched the cartoon Madeline and loved it. I love how the books are all told in rhymes

-David Macauley. This is my oldest sons' favorite (well, all of us like his books but my oldest son absolutely loves his books). It started when we got my oldest the book Underground because we lived in a big city at the time. Our oldest was so curious about manhole covers and the pipes that went underground so this book hit the spot. A few months ago we also did some interlibrary loans to read more of his books. I love his detailed drawings (they must've taken so much time!) and creativity. 

-Tomie de Paola. His books have been recently introduced to our family. We have a few of them; he has some that are about traditions (like a tradition in Italy). 

-Helen and Thomas Docherty. They also write books in poems and have beautiful illustrations. Some of our favorites are the Storybook Knight and Snatchabook.

-Pamela Allen. She's an Australian author/illustrator and we don't have a lot of her books. We love the ones we've seen of hers. We have Share! Said the Rooster and Waddle Giggle Gargle (a favorite that we've read many, many times- about a magpie. There were lots of magpies where we used to live so this was a favorite.).

Seagulls at the Beach

 Today we went to the beach; it was beautiful. We counted the rings on a redwood that was by the beach and saw some seagulls. 

Schools in Finland

 I had heard of schools in Finland being really good earlier. The last few weeks I read a book called Stolen Focus. It was really, really good. It's about a journalist who realized that being on his phone and social media so much was causing havoc. He couldn't concentrate like he used to and didn't enjoy reading books anymore. He did something extreme: put away is cell phone and went "off grid" for a few months. He found that he started to enjoy reading again and enjoyed being outside more. In this book he interviewed numerous people about why people today have less ability to focus (largely because of technology). Towards the end he mentioned education and talked about the schools in Finland.

Schools in Finland rank as some of the best schools in the world all around. The students are smart, enjoy learning, and many of them go off to college or trade schools. Why? Part of it is that the teachers are really dedicated. They also have an underlying theme that kids should have time playing and being outside. For so many hours of learning they should have so many hours of play. The way they teach also inspires kids to want to learn. If any student struggles, they go out of their way to help them as much as they can. School doesn't start until a child is 7 years old. They do have a type of "pre-school" but it's almost all games and playing. Students also learn English as a second language early on (starting in 3rd grade) and start Swedish the following year. It seems like overall it's a really good system. There are few tests and it seems like the focus is preparing students for life and to enjoy learning.  

Blueberries and Ocean

 Over the last year I took pictures of the blueberry plants. It's been my first time working with blueberries and I love how they don't have thorns. The kids LOVED picking them when they were ripe in the summer (and eating them fresh). 

We've also gone to the beach a lot these last two weeks...when we can get a break from the rain! There's been some beautiful sunsets and the beach changes so much with the storms...parts of trees and rocks (and other stuff) that have been washed up on the shore.