From Grits to Chopsticks

We’ve reached the end  of our semester here in China and will soon be heading back to the States for the holidays.  With that in mind, here is part one of a blog with some random recent photos.  First, some food related pictures: When I bought what I thought was a carton of orange juice […]

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In preparation for this year’s Thanksgiving English Corner,  Susan made three traditional pies in our “toaster oven”: Pumpkin,apple,and pecan (with nuts brought from the States), We also bought a turkey from our local “Western” restaurant.  Turkeys are not raised in China so they must be imported.  This year the cost was $4.68/lb:After discussing the meaning of […]

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We enjoy walking around our city and through the countryside.  By now, we’ve learned to watch our step (safety tape is very rare here):If we step into a hole and need medical help, it is easy to spot the traditional Chinese medical hospitals:While walking by a park yesterday, we noticed that the migrating seagulls have arrived for winter:  Last week, we […]

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If you haven’t heard about it, November 11th has been declared “Singles-Day” in China (the date is 11/11, like a group of single people).  It is celebrated with a single activity: on-line shopping.  The recent Singles-Day sales of $17.8 billion broke previous records by a huge margin.  Forbes magazine said it exceeded an entire year […]

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While walking downtown last weekend, we saw a woman wearing an intriguing shirt:It’s an interesting and confusing combination of words.  But it applies very well to some daily encounters here.  Like this pile of large rocks we saw in a park last week:Around the corner, we saw that a tree had fallen across the rocks, revealing the truth […]

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One thing that we like about China is the abundance of unique foods available.  A “flower cake” bakery recently opened in our local shopping center.  Fresh rose petals are used as filling:they are baked into small snack cakes (these were a gift to us from some students last week):How do they taste?  Like rose petal pastry. While walking today, […]

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We don’t have an iPhone, but when we recently bought a new toilet seat to replace our old, cracked one, we got the next best thing.  The copy-cat brand name reminded me of the days when we had “flip phones”:While walking, Susan took this picture of a “food pagoda,” a localized version of the old food […]

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Asian people have an amazing ability to squat flat-footed.  This is very convenient, especially since it is often hard to find a clean place to sit.  They start very early: They squat when they fish,while reading their phone on a post near the highway, on a post near the river,or on the elevator.They squat when they’re just looking,when they’re smoking, […]

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China is an “eating culture,” so we spend a lot of time enjoying local food with our friends.  Sometimes, the food is somewhat tame – veggies, spicy meat, and rice:But then, there are other times.  Recently while I was out with a friend, we stopped to have some pigs feet and pig brains: Since this […]

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(Our camera was stolen last week, so I’m posting a blog I had written and saved from earlier this summer). During one of weekly afternoon breaks, we walked around “Lotus Pund Park”:The Chinese people are amazingly skilled at placing a peaceful, small park in the middle of a city:The park is named after the Lotus flower pagoda in […]

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