A Visit to a Town Square with a Mao Nan Sculpture in Guangxi, China

The town square seemed to be very quiet on the early evening we visited.

Day 3

After dinner at the school with the students, some senior students from Rose's class volunteered to take her to visit the town's square where people hang out and dance in the evening, weather permitting. Rose invited me so I went along as well.

The square was only a 15 minute walk from our hotel, and there were a lot to see on the way there.

 A big square and a gathering place for its townspeople, the place was quiet as it was still early.

Standing in the square, we had a good view of the pagoda sitting on top of one of the hills.

A huge stone. cement sculpture greet visitors to the square.

The most eye catching feature in the square was the huge stone sculpture done in the shape of a mask, part of the Mao Nan tribe culture, one of China's fifty plus minority tribes.

We were told that people would normally come to the square around 8:00p.m. after the sun has gone down. We walked around the waterfront for a little while to kill time.









All of a sudden the sky turned grey with huge dark clouds hanging over the square. In minutes, there was a heavy downpour with thundering and lightening.  Everyone in the square scattered and took shelter in the nearby shops. We waited for a little while but it did not seem that it would stop. We had to walk in the torrential rain to hurry back to the hotel. Even though we all carried an umbrella with us, we were all drenched by the time we walked back to the hotel. One of students planned to walk back to her home. But we gave her the taxi fare and insisted that she took a taxi back to her house which was about a 20 minute walk from where we were.

It was quite an experience walking in a heavy tropical rainstorm. I did not expect how fast and hard the rain was pouring down and how high the water level could rise on the streets in a short time.

Watching the news on TV back in our comfortable hotel room, we learned that many parts of southern China have been experiencing heavy rains and flooding. We are thankful that this part of southern China has been spared the flood.

R.T.
Guangxi, China