The Art District and the Stele Forest

The Art District of Xi'an was worth a wander, even if you're not interested in buying duplicated works of art, calligraphy supplies, or over-priced souvenirs. 
Here are some highlights.

neigh!

A hand-less man painting tiny, detailed calligraphy on fan folds.

 A ridiculous lenticular featuring the three "great" leaders of China: Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. [Also, Mighty Morphing Jesus over their left shoulders.]

 

Brushes galore!

A brush seller who doesn't appear too delighted that I was taking his photo.

At the end of the Art District there's a museum called the Stele Forest. For a reason that I deeply do not understand, it's listed and recommended in every 'list of things to do in Xi'an'. 


Why don't I understand? Well, first of all, here's what a stele is:

A big stone slab. 

 
And if you take a closer look...

What do you mean you don't read traditional Chinese? Why would you come to a museum featuring works of Chinese literature and history carved into stone?

Uh-huh. See?


But for me it wasn't a total bust, for reasons that I think only my Gran will also find interesting. Behold:

First, remember that I don't speak Chinese, but I can read an small amount of Simplified Chinese. (One of the few positive changes the Communists implemented was a simplified script in order to promote literacy. I think it's way more accessible than traditional Chinese, which is still used in Taiwan.)
Aaanyway, because of this, I did enjoy studying an ancient dictionary that cataloged and standardized the radicals and the characters they made when combined.

Here, for example, is the character/radical 刀 [knife], and all of the possible characters it was a component of at that time. [reads R-->L, and top-->bottom]

Then there was this slab record having something to do with missionaries, which I don't find interesting in and of itself, but I overheard a tour guide talking about a unique feature of the stele:

At the top you can see the signatures of relevant Chinese people, but the signatures below them are written in Sanskrit, because not all of the missionaries knew Chinese writing. 

Thanks tour guide who I did not pay for!

 Finally, I thought the map of the Yellow River was really cool, because I really like maps.

It's bigger than this, but this is my best in-focus shot.

That's about it. 
I am given to wonder what Chinese people think, because how much traditional Chinese do they read?

Making "rubbings" to sell. (More like blottings, actually.)