Herd on a Hill

At the back of Zu Qiu Park is a garden space where J's father has a small plot for vegetables. Of course it's winter so there's nothing growing there now, but we took a look at the fence he'd built up around the space. It was by far the most impressive of the other plots in the area, of which there were at least 20 others. I told him his was "very nice" (hen hao) and he said thank you (xie xie).

Then we headed past the garden plots and started up a slope through a forested area. It leads up to the top of a river dam, which was actually built by the Japanese during the war. The area J lives in is known as the Western Mountain Dam (Xi Shang Shui Ku), and it has some stunning views from up top. We actually climbed a considerable slope which leads up past the dam, so you can see to the west of Dalian and the river below. I'm not sure how many meters the climb is, but my guess is about 300 or so. It is a pretty steady incline, so nothing too difficult, and longer than it is high/steep. We also saw a number of other hikers on the way, as well as--and this was a bit surprising, but imaginable after some thought--a woman tending a herd of goats. I counted about 20 head of goats, some large and some fairly young. They were all milling about the side of one slope amongst the trees. W spoke to the woman watching over them, and then started digging through the leaves. Soon I realized he was scooping up acorns, and he passed a few to me. W called one over by saying "yang, yang, yang", which I later learned means goat (or sheep, depending on if it's a shan yang/goat or a mian yang/sheep). We started feeding the goats, who nibbled the acorns from our gloved hands quite happily. After that, we continued up the hill and made it to the top about 10 minutes later.

On the way down, the herd seemed to have moved to another area. We had picked up a few more acorns on our way down, so I put a few in my pocket and we threw the others back on the ground for future herds to find. Walking back through the park we saw two old men flying a kite (feng zheng) high up in the sky. They were sitting at the edge of the park chatting, seeming rather nonchalant about it. Further down the path, we saw a soccer team had emerged; about 20 junior high school aged boys were practicing dribbling and passing the ball up and down the field. There was also a young guy playing basketball by himself, and the soccer ball we'd kicked over the fence was no longer on the courts.