GaoJia Courtyard

We first visited the GaolJia Courtyard which is in the China ancient capital city of Xian - This city was the capital city of China for 1,062 years - 13 dynasties and 73 different emperors. This city has a 950 city wall that was built during the early Ming Dynasty with a core of mud and covered by 3 layers of bricks. This city wall is the only city wall that remains intact in china today. (Tomorrow we would ride the wall on bicycles ) At the GaolJia Courtyard we enjoyed a traditional puppet show which used shadow puppets. The puppets are made of ox leather - made paper thin and cut and sliced and colored - almost translucent. they are on sticks and are behind a screen. In ancient times the screens were back lit with lanterns - of course today they use an electric light. The woman puppeteer did all the story telling, voice overs in Chinese. With her was a man who did ancient Chinese music and afterward the story was explained. The pictures below are photos of the puppets. Each child was given a gift of a real puppet as well!

These ladies below gave a demonstration of ancient musical instruments to all of us. These are nothing like any instruments used today and included a type of flute that was first used 7000 years made of clay with holes in it. There were various string instruments as well.