You’ve probably heard a lot about the rapid pace of modernization in China. Here is a photo of a nearby street where things haven’t changed much in a few decades:
When you walk to the end, you step out into the new world of China. Looking to the right past the pyramid of sugar cane, you can see our apartment complex:
The rate of change is staggering, especially for some of the older folks who are probably still trying to figure out what happened to their predictably simple lives of the past.
A few more photos of interest. Here is a shot from our apartment window of the street below where parents drop off their children for school:
It’s hard for the picture to convey the amount of honking and chaos while kids weave their way through traffic – quite a bit different than some of the highly coordinated systems in the west.
We took a group of students hiking up the nearby mountain last week, stopping for this picture at the ancient gate of a temple:
One of the students brought her two month old Siberian Husky (actually, a good little hiker). Susan was excited to be able to hold the puppy in this photo.
A few more random pics: While selecting food at a local restaurant last night, a friend reminded us that it wasn’t so strange to make a diet of locusts and wild honey:
Also, we came across this suction-cup bowl while looking for ways to make the best use of space in our new apartment. I often wonder who comes up with these translations:
Even if the product is mediocre, who can turn it down if it enables you to “enjoy your life”?!
Did you try eating the bugs? Looks tasty… kind of like fried shrimp?
We still haven’t eaten the bugs, but I expect it will happen soon. Very late on Friday night while eating street food with some students, I accidentally uttered those fateful words: “I’ll eat whatever you’ve having.” It was the first time that I ate roasted chicken butts…
Awww, such a cute puppy, mom! That is what you can bring us back from China 🙂