https://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/file:Gansu_Museum_2007_257.jpg
The capital of Gansu Province, Lanzhou, is located on the banks of the Yellow River. In 2012, Lanzhou was designated as a Special Economic and Administrative Zone. When we visited Lanzhou’s Gansu Provincial Museum (甘肃省博物馆 Gānsù Shěng Bówùguăn) in the early 2000s, to see the famous Flying Horse of Gansu (馬踏飛燕), our middle schoolers were not all that impressed. What they were most taken with was an almost completely intact Ancient Huang He elephant (Stegodon Huanghoensis) skeleton. Jurassic Park was not even a decade old and it was still fresh in the minds of these middle-schoolers. On a later trip into Sichuan, we visited the Zigong Dinosaur Museum 自贡恐龙博物馆 (Zìgòng Kǒnglóng Bówùguǎn ), China’s first special museum dedicated to dinosaurs. A May 2018 article in Smithsonian.com called China the “the epicenter of paleontology.” A portion of that article likened the scope and magnitude of recent Chinese finds to those dinosaur discoveries in the American west in the late 19th century.
It was at the same museum, we saw our first “apsara” in an exhibit on the northern silk road. The word “apsara” was new to me. Like fairies, apsara inhabit both the sky and the water and are found in both Buddhist and Hindu cultures. In both cultures, apsara are female. In the images we saw, they were young, playful, nubile, and appeared as graceful dancers and gifted musicians. Chinese call the nymphs,飞天fēi tiān. We looked forward to learning more, but it was time for some la mian.
There’s a rumor that Lanzhou La Mian is currently the largest fast-food franchise in the world. Not sure I believe that, but I’m pretty sure it’s in the running for top spot in China. What’s so special about兰州拉面 lán zhōu lā mìan aka 兰州牛肉面lán zhōu níu ròu mìan? The character 拉 (lā) means “pulled”. The noodle recipe is simple: water, flour, and salt. The right amount of salt is the critical ingredient to get the noodle dough to the proper consistency. Proper lamian chefs then do their magic by stretching and folding and pulling until the initial rectangle of dough becomes beautiful thick tasty noodles. Lanzhou Lamian is made by putting slices of beef, turnip, scallion, and cilantro into a special broth (recipes easy to find.) Many people like to add chili sauce to make these noodles even tastier.
With a population of about 3 million, Lanzhou is not a particularly large city, but it is a historical gateway city to the west. It also serves as a major hub of the Belt and Road project linking China’s prosperous eastern region to Central Asia. Formerly one of China’s most polluted cities, it has taken great strides towards cleaning its air by planting trees in the eastern edge of the Gobi desert.
Chinese Odyssey 55
In the morning I wandered
the streets all alone.
In a Lanzhou museum,
a dinosaur bone,
some caveman graffiti
inscribed on a bow.
There were apsara flying
in warm desert glow.
The Panda in the Room PD 
