From Grits to Chopsticks

During a past visit to our local zoo, we puzzled over the intended meaning of this sign:

It is possible that they are really referring to “word records,” as is evidenced by this hospital name in the north part of our city:

If you have an emergency and need quick attention, it may be a mistake to try and tell the taxi driver to bring you here.

Perhaps the sign is really talking about world records – and China is certainly a land of extremes.  At the zoo, we found a very high concentration of butterflies in their special aviary:

Unfortunately, most of the butterflies weren’t fluttering around – they were trapped in the wire mesh under the skylight:

Other extremes that we recently encountered include the highest teeter-totter we’ve ever seen (at the nearby construction site),

a very large pile of cash to pay for the rent of our new apartment,

and a crowd of extra students trying to squeeze onto busses that are already packed.

We still don’t understand why Chinese brooms are so short (but we do understand why the backs of many old Chinese women are permanently bent over):

Speaking of our new apartment, we bought a bed at the local used furniture market.  For an extra ten RMB, the seller was kind enough to paint it, resulting in one of the worst spray-paint jobs we’ve ever seen:

The final “extreme” is also found in our new apartment furniture.  Since the concrete-walled apartments in China rarely have built-in closets, you have to buy a wardrobe in which to hang your clothing.  We recently bought a 180 cm wardrobe to fit the 185 cm space in our bedroom, never expecting that it would be such a close fit:

The delivery guys insisted that we put it somewhere else, but it miraculously squeezed past the door molding and is now in place:

Talk about “extremely” thankful!