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Horses - the concept of "saving face"
Again, I'm out in the countryside.
I was wondering why the director of the center out here is always wearing leather pants. I quickly put it together after seeing the pony being brought into the courtyard.
There is a very famous ranch near where I stayed where they've bred horses since the Han dynasty. This ranch has bred military horses for centuries, and probably has supplied enough cavalry to overthrow many an unsuspecting warlord. Thus in addition to normal Chinese ponies, and fine Arabians, they have their own unique breed known for it's sturdiness, it's unique gentle walk, speed when galloping and exorbitant price.
The director of the conference center right now he owns two of the normal variety, of which he paid about each. Despite all the new roads, given the remoteness of some of the far villages in the country here, he might have a point when he says that horseback the best way to meet the people. However, there is a bit irony envisioning a man riding into your village on horseback to tell you that the wants to bring computers and the internet to your school.
He stables them in the local village. Not surprisingly the owner of the stable and his relatives have probably been keeping horses since the Han dynasty as well.
He was debating whether he should keep his own stable of horses for his guests at the conference center he's building. He wonders about the liability involved in it. During a visit by a dignitary, he invited him for a ride. Since the horses were still quite young and a bit wild, the man unfortunately fell off, and required four stitches on the back of his head.
Now, I thought it might be kind of neat to ride a horse out here, after hearing the director's story about how beautiful it is to ride over the mountain into the next valley to see a remote village. I'm inspired to go out on this excursion. The leader of my group, after hearing the above story thought otherwise. I still wanted to hear stories about the horses, so the director continued, and kept mentioning to my leader that I should come along during his daily ride.
The director continued to tell stories about horses, and insisted the we should come along riding. Although, I was drooling at the opportunity, my leader seemed to get more and more uncomfortable with the conversation, Happily we broke for lunch. I'll have to come back to this place to ride into the sunset.