Reading Xiangxi (Jishou Chapter)
Jishou Chapter: Jishou Street. The streets have little shade and much dust, crowded with passersby, among them slender beauties. Only when they speak, glance about, and smile brightly like hibiscus blossoms, revealing their delicate brows, do you recall the legend of Xiangxi women's passion and catch a whiff of Xiangxi's subtle charm. The seat of Xiangxi Prefecture is Jishou, from Zhangjiajie...
This article has been compiled from historical materials on 'Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network' (33519.com · Specialty Foods / Cuisine / Customs section). Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated. Before traveling, please refer to the latest announcements from merchants, scenic areas, and local competent authorities; the parts involving folk legends and folk customs are local historical and cultural anecdotes, provided for cultural reference.
Jishou Chapter
Jishou streets have little green shade and much dust, pedestrians weave like fabric, slender ladies interspersed among them. Only when they open their mouths to speak,
and in a glance break into a radiant smile, blooming like a hibiscus, do you see her very fine eyebrows, and only then does it remind you of the legend that Xiang women are full of passion,
only then do you catch a whiff of the subtle breath of Xiangxi, released inadvertently.
The seat of Xiangxi Prefecture is Jishou
From Zhangjiajie by train, after about two hours, you can reach Jishou, the seat of the Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture. For travelers coming to Xiangxi,
especially those seeking Shen Congwen's world, it is merely a transfer station, with no other meaning. Indeed, in the eyes of any passerby,
this is just a mediocre city, with no cultural sites of note and no natural
scenery. It is also called a mountain city, though its scale is naturally far inferior to Chongqing; within the city there is Huaguo Mountain, but it is not Sun Wukong's Water Curtain Cave; there is Dong
there will be no graceful women washing rice by the water.
Jishou is like a shrunken clone city, its version seemingly Guangzhou—this is what a Beijing friend of mine said. Now
teahouses, taverns, karaoke halls, and specialty shops stand in abundance, as if a southern metropolis had sown its seeds in the belly of the mountains.
Because of the soil and water, and because of the space for growth, in the process of growing up it did not completely become its parent body.
But now this city of neon lights and wine, of peace and pleasure, haunted by the sound of mahjong, breeding laziness, holds in my childhood a different
set of memories, and all those memories are connected to a street called "Hong Kong Street."
Entering Xiangxi
Jishou is the seat of the Xiangxi Prefecture. Tourists can reach Jishou via Changsha, Zhangjiajie, or Huaihua. After flying or taking a train to Zhangjiajie, you can transfer to a train to Jishou, a ride of just over two hours; from Huaihua to Jishou by train takes about one hour; from Changsha to Jishou about nine hours. Within Jishou, besides buses going everywhere, there are also taxis, starting at 3 yuan, and anywhere within the city the fare does not exceed the base price.
Street Life of "Hong Kong Street"
I carried my backpack through Hong Kong Street searching for traces of its motley trades, but Hong Kong Street today is still prosperous, though mostly clothing stalls and specialty shops. The shopkeepers are almost uniformly young women, in tight tops and jeans, all with straight hair from ionic straightening.
Everything from the past seems like another lifetime. The street noise and the sound of chopping and killing are like an old record player slowly spinning—distant, hoarse, never to return.
Every city has a bustling street that showcases its street life and common folk. Jishou's landmark street is called "Hong Kong Street." When I was very small, I often came to Jishou, and under the pretext of visiting my maternal grandmother and uncles, I experienced its prosperity as a city. Besides the colorful dresses and skirts fluttering in the wind like a sea of national flags, Hong Kong Street's allure lay in its all-encompassing nature. There were ear-piercers, necessarily men, who at first used silver wire as fine as a hair. First the man would grab the girl's earlobe, rub it with alcohol, and watch as the earlobe grew redder and thinner, seemingly transparent like jelly in the sunlight, then thrust the silver wire through, and afterward put a tea-leaf stick in the hole to guarantee no infection. Later it evolved into laser painless ear-piercing, where the stall owner held a gun against the earlobe, and while the person being pierced shut her eyes and endured the pain, with a "pop" the ear stud was shot directly into the flesh. There were also those who removed moles and corns, with a red cloth on which a human face was drawn in ink, covered with countless moles, or a foot drawn on it, also dotted with corns, and beside it a row of glass bottles containing medicines of various colors—who knows whether they were deliberately made gaudy to attract attention, or whether the medicines themselves were bizarre. There were also rat-poison sellers, who had somehow caught countless rats, dried them, and hung them on sticks for display, as if they had all been poisoned by his medicine. There were also mountain-song singers, mostly men, gathered in a group, lighting pipes, propping their chins, and singing, the final notes drawn out long. When I was in primary school I once boarded for a time at my aunt's home. My uncle was quite fond of this pursuit, and would often find excuses, put down the plow and sickle, briefly wash his mud-stained hands, not even roll down his pant legs, and come to join in. My aunt would be somewhat uneasy and often sent me along as an attendant. I was happy to be a follower with songs to listen to, feeling the uniquely moving quality of my uncle in song, so unlike his silent, taciturn self at home.
In the old days that street also had the fierce slashings of youths. Often right beside a rice-noodle stall, a plain-looking person sitting next to you would suddenly yell, fling down his bowl, and then an iron rod would swing over, then more iron rods, and cleavers all slashing together. The person being chased could only flee, not beg for mercy—that would only bring a worse beating. So amid a flurry of footsteps and shrill cries for help, the bloodshed gradually receded. The stall owner, having seen all sorts of characters from far and wide, remained unruffled, shook his head, washed and swept up the broken bowls and dishes, and everything returned to calm, without a trace. Later, watching many Hong Kong gangster films, all about gangs of youths burying their youth and love in bloody feuds, I thought of the youths on "Hong Kong Street," and wondered whether they had grown up uneasily.
Busy Fortune-Telling on the Dong River Bridge
As soon as you get off the train and walk toward the city, you inevitably pass the Dong River Bridge. On the Dong River Bridge there is a spectacle: the "Fortune-Telling Street." Behind this city's prosperity there is also a benighted side. Whenever a household is unsettled, quarrelsome, or when someone wants to build a new house, choose a grave site, or when elderly people can find no comfort among their descendants, they always come here to find fortune-tellers and feng shui masters, to divine their fate and check their luck. Then, with a smile or a frown, carrying the gods' opinions they have secretly glimpsed, they return to their lives. Whether their lives will change, outsiders naturally have no way of knowing.
Along the Dong River, several hundred meters of roadside are all fortune-tellers' stalls, men and women, some in Zhongshan suits, refined and polite, some with oil-stained clothes, down and out. There are old women in loose Miao clothing, eyes clear and hands steady, gazes sharp; there are also blind bone-readers leaning on canes, waiting for the willing to take the bait. They never hawk or grab customers, only sit and wait. Seeing a passerby, they often give a meaningful smile. Those who cannot resist that smile and want to unravel the mystery will naturally stop before them. And he, with a slight smile, says calmly,
"Please sit," then asks: "Character divination or reading the eight characters?" Neither hurried nor heated, in that ambiguous attitude establishing his mystery and authority, exuding the professional spirit of a mysterious practitioner peering into the fullness and emptiness of heaven and earth.
Nearly ten years now, every time I return to Fenghuang and pass through here, I find the lines getting longer. I don't know whether business is so good that everyone wants a hand in it, or whether times are hard and people come to do this costless trade. It is said there is a great immortal at the Dong River who never goes out and only does readings at home. Because he is accurate, people come in an endless stream to have their prospects and marriages read, and so he imitates politicians and VIPs, seeing only those with appointments. A friend tried several times to take me, but I didn't believe in it, so I didn't go. Because I have a prejudice against fortune-tellers. When I was little, my grandmother worshipped Bodhisattvas and believed in ghosts and gods, and once invited a divine calculator to our home. She was a Miao woman. She looked at my birth date and eight characters and immediately said, this child is extremely clever, whatever he does he will succeed, and he will be either rich or noble. At that time I did bring honor to people in my studies, and my grandmother was overjoyed, thinking the reading accurate, and immediately kept her to talk heart-to-heart, foot to foot. At night I went to the toilet. Our toilet was a shed built separately outside, with a water pit in front, glinting silver in the moonlight. Suddenly I heard a splash, and a person flailing with both hands, shouting for help. I ran home and called my grandmother. When we fished her out, it was the fortune-telling woman, bedraggled and weak, saying: "I thought it was a smooth threshing floor, and stepped right in." Although I was very grateful for her kind words about my fate, the thought that she could calculate everything but couldn't calculate her own fall into the water made me disbelieve fortune-tellers ever since.
Sour and Spicy Radish, a Supreme Love
In a small town, one can live very comfortably just shuffling around in slippers. So the people of this small mountain city, when they have leisure, if they don't go play mahjong or wander, apply themselves to the character "eat." Thus the snack trade in Jishou is very developed, and the easiest problem to solve is filling one's belly.
Let's start with the snacks. People of Xiangxi love spicy food, and among them, the people of Luxi love it the most. The Luxi dialect is the hardest to understand in Xiangxi, but they are very proud of their ability to eat spicy food. They have a saying that goes like a folk rhyme, boasting: "If you don't eat spicy food, there's no flavor; if you do eat chilies, they'll burn you to death." Snacks must be dipped in chili to be eaten. Pickled radish is the most distinctive. In winter, with red hands, they wash it clean in cold water, cut it into slices, leaving the skin on where it has skin, and with each knife stroke creating a decorative pattern, all connected and unbroken, then soak it in rice water,
add Sichuan peppercorns and edible red coloring, and in about a day or two it can be taken to the streets to sell. It's not expensive—when I was a child, it was one cent per slice; 20 years later, the price went up tenfold, to one jiao. When choosing, pick the ones with skin, as they're crisp, then add a little saccharin, and in a huge porcelain bowl filled with chili powder, toss them over and over until they are completely red all over, no longer showing their original color but entirely the color of chili—then they're ready to eat. In addition, fern sprouts, toon tips, lettuce, cucumber, and even potatoes can all be fried or cold-tossed, all mixed with chili to eat. Except for pickled radish, all the others also need vinegar added; this is girls' favorite. At every stall, no matter the time, you'll see several pretty girls standing and eating until their lips are red, with both runny noses and tears, shaking their hands and crying "spicy!" while saying, "Boss, fry the chilies a bit more fragrant next time." The pickled radish sellers often make money this way. Because it's not much, it's called "earning penny by penny." Though saved one cent at a time, not only can they live without worry, they can also prosper and become wealthy. I heard that in front of the Jishou Nationalities Cinema, several people who sold pickled radish for decades have built multi-story buildings. If a family has a lazy, gluttonous wife who relies on her husband working outside to earn money and only cooks a bit of rice for three meals a day, the neighbors will surely point fingers, saying, "Look at that lazy woman—just setting up a pickled radish stall could support a whole floor of people." There are also children who do poorly in school; when the mother gets anxious, she says, "See what you'll do in the future—go sell pickled radish!" This shows that selling pickled radish is quite a profession for supporting a family. Later it disappeared, but there are still some in front of a few cinemas, naturally with crowds of eaters.
Xiangxi Rice Noodles Are Fragrant and Delicious
Jishou is also famous for its rice noodles. Outside, everyone knows Guilin rice noodles and Yunnan rice noodles, but no one has heard of Xiangxi rice noodles. In Xiangxi, rice noodles are everywhere, but in my opinion, Jishou's are the most delicious. The deliciousness lies in the "saozi" (toppings), the most famous being beef, somewhat like Guangzhou's beef brisket, but cooked with chili. There's also bone broth. In a huge coarse porcelain bowl, the rice noodles are blanched a few times in boiling water, scooped up, and a ladle of bone broth is poured over. Besides that, cilantro, Sichuan peppercorns, pepper, and pickled chilies are laid out in a colorful array for you to add as you like. There are also pig trotter noodles, chicken noodles, and intestine noodles, all glistening with oil, bright red, and fragrant. Jishou has an "Old Noodle Shop." When it first opened, the storefront was so small it could only fit two tables, but the pot for cooking beef was bigger than any noodle shop in all of Jishou. Crowds of eaters gathered—countless people squatting on the road, standing on the nearby steps. Rice noodles are eaten as breakfast, so after 10 o'clock, you can't get any. At the door, often dozens of people line up in a long queue. Even the most polite person, looking at the line, would threaten the proprietress, saying resentfully, "Proprietress, I've been in line for ages; if you don't serve me soon, I'm leaving." But despite saying that, they obediently take a bowl and wait.
Miao Women Selling Baba
Besides, on the streets, there are also sellers of leaf-wrapped baba and mugwort baba. If you come across new corn, there's also corn baba. This is not a business for city people; it's all sold by Miao women from the surrounding areas. Some have extremely heavy earrings hanging from their ears, with the holes stretched as big as a little fingernail, dangling and swaying. In front of them is a back basket, with not much goods—just a bamboo winnowing basket holding about 10 pieces. More would not sell and would easily spoil; a small business can't afford the loss. The baba are steamed at home, then carried several miles, or they take a one-yuan bus to sell them. By the time they arrive, they're still warm. Bite into one, and it's sticky and sweet—city people love it. But I often look at those women with big ear holes and think, maybe one day an ear will be torn off, and along with the earring and a bit of ear flesh, it'll all get mixed into the glutinous rice cake. So the thought of whether to eat or not always wavers.
Selling baba doesn't bring in much money, not as popular as sour radish. They just earn a little pocket money to supplement the household, buy some stationery for the kids, or get a new piece of clothing for the New Year or other festivals. If their children are in school and come home every weekend for their allowance, they can rustle out a cloth bundle or thin pouch wrapped layer upon layer from a pocket close to their body, unroll the ten-odd yuan tucked inside, and take out one or two yuan, letting the child go off happily, so they won't "fall behind others when grabbing a snack outside." This is one use of the hard-earned money that brings them great comfort. But if they happen to be married to a husband who loves to stand at the counter and have a few drinks, then no matter how much money there is, it all gets drunk away, two or four liang of corn liquor or rice wine a day, and he always has to finish with a candy to sweeten his mouth, another one jiao. So they always resent the people who sell liquor to their husbands, and quite a few have gone to those shops to pick fights over it.
Jishou feels very much like a big supermarket, colorful and dazzling, but after a stroll, all you get are daily necessities. If you want to find some scenery beyond daily life, it's rather lacking. So its most appropriate role is as a supply station providing food and lodging, letting you rest and regroup, then leisurely journey onward.
Dehang
Dehang is 20 kilometers from the western suburbs of Jishou City, the capital of Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, and is a provincial-level scenic area. Here the mountains are rugged, cliffs tower high, and peaks overlap, forming many precipices, stone walls, waterfalls, and virgin forests. It is known as "Little Zhangjiajie." If you go during a non-dry season, you can fully appreciate the charm of "Liusha Waterfall," the largest waterfall by drop in the country. Snacks include peach blossom insects, peach blossom fish, and small river crabs, all extremely delicious. There is also the Zier Miao Village with simple folk customs, where tourists can personally press oil, make paper, weave cloth, and husk rice, fully experiencing the ancient folk customs.
Staying in Jishou
Jishou has many hotels, both state-owned and private. The main hotels and guesthouses include Biancheng Hotel (three-star), Minzu Hotel (three-star), Huayin Grand Hotel (quasi-three-star), Jida Hotel (quasi-three-star), Sunshine Grand Hotel (quasi-two-star), Jindie Hotel (two-star), Military Region Guesthouse, Salt Industry Guesthouse, etc. The standard single room rates at Biancheng and Minzu are around 180 yuan, with specific prices adjusted according to peak and off seasons. As for ordinary family inns, rooms are available for 10 or 15 yuan, but for safety's sake, it's best to stay in state-owned guesthouses, where standard rooms cost around several tens of yuan.
Jishou Specialty Foods
Pickled Fish: Around the train station, there is a cluster of popular "pickled fish" restaurants. The ingredients are fresh carp slices, pickled vegetables, and chili. The method is similar to Sichuan's "boiled fish with pickled cabbage," about 30 yuan per portion, enough for four or five people. The most famous is "Zhao San Fish Restaurant" near the north train station, which also has a branch in Fenghuang.
Duck Hot Pot: In spring, autumn, and winter, duck hot pot is not to be missed. Around Hong Kong Street, duck hot pot restaurants line up one after another, all priced around 30 yuan. The famous ones are "Auntie Duck Restaurant" on Renmin South Road and "Xiong Family Duck Restaurant" in Shijiachong. To get to these places, just hail a taxi for 3 yuan. Also in Xiangxi, Miao sour fish, Xiangxi cured meat with corn sour chili, ground fungus, and porcini mushrooms are all not to be missed. They are available in ordinary restaurants. In small shops, meat dishes are only eight to ten yuan, and vegetable dishes are only three to five yuan.
Snacks: They are concentrated around Hong Kong Street. As dusk approaches, countless malatang stalls are set up. Beef skewers and pork skewers are one yuan for six or seven skewers, fragrant and spicy, making your mouth water. In summer, eating river snails and shrimp is popular; four or five people can eat and drink their fill for just a few tens of yuan. However, pay attention to hygiene and whether the food is fresh to prevent diarrhea. If it's discolored or has an off smell, absolutely do not eat it.
Shopping
The top local specialty of Jishou is Jiugui Liquor. Others include kiwi fruit, ponkan (should have the wood radical), Guzhang Maojian tea, Tujia brocade, etc. Although they can be bought everywhere, beware of counterfeit alcohol and tea (it's said there are many fake one-jin bottles of Jiugui Liquor), so buy from designated dealers. There is a local products store on Renmin Road with genuine goods at fair prices; you might consider it.
Climate
Xiangxi has a subtropical monsoon humid climate. The climate within the region is mild, with four distinct seasons, ample sunshine, and abundant rainfall. The average annual precipitation is 1300–1500 mm. The average annual temperature is 12°C–16°C. The hottest month, July, averages 24°C–27°C, and the coldest month, January, averages 1.7°C–4.3°C. The frost-free period reaches 240–288 days.