Earlier in the year, an abundance of sugar cane was available along the roadside: 
I wanted to try it out, so a friend and I stopped to buy some. The seller peels and chops it into a bag:
and then you bite off a chunk and chew to extract the sweet juice:
It’s not too bad… but then you have to spit out the pulp – I’ll spare you a photo of that!
→ 1 CommentTags:
As mentioned in a previous post, our city just experienced the coldest winter in three decades. Many of the trees along city streets were severely damaged, leading to a massive pruning effort:
As expected, all trees were trimmed to a uniform height, regardless of diameter:
In spite of their best efforts, many of the trees were absolutely dead and have now been removed,
but some of them sprouted amazing flowers, almost overnight:
Upon closer inspection, it was clear that fake flowers had simply been tied on by a real estate sales company:
Amazingly, however, real greenery is starting to emerge from some of the tree trunks:
Will they actually survive (and flourish)? I’ll try to post an update in a few months and let you know.
→ 2 CommentsTags:
There are many cute children here in China. We see them on the bus,
in the park,
and at roadside restaurants:
Recently, our youngest son and daughter-in-law, who also live in China, surprised us with this picture of their baby on the way (at 9 weeks):
Then, while Skyping with our daughter the next day, her youngest son was wearing this shirt (it was their way of telling us that she also is expecting a baby):
We’re thankful for children all over the world!
→ 2 CommentsTags:
We’ve lived in China for six years, but we still see interesting things that catch our attention. So to continue a previous post – you know that you’re in China when you look out one of your apartment windows and see people beating a drum and burning a huge stack of gifts (for the dead, I assume),
and you look out the other window and see a team of people cleaning vegetables for sale.
When you see one work crew planting reeds in a drainage ditch,
and you see another work crew painting cartoon figures on sewer covers.
When you see a cheap cow car that reminds you of America’s Chick-fil-a,
and when you feel bad for the poor guys who have to drive the Mercedes SUV’s in a wedding because everyone else gets to drive a Ferrari:
When you walk around the corner of the street and see a group of marching tigers,
and when you walk around the corner of a hiking trail and see a statue with incense.
When you’re disappointed that your egg and bacon wrap at McDonalds looks like this,
but genuinely happy that your “ShuiJiao” (water dumplings) from a cheap, roadside restaurant look like this.
By now, you know that you can expect to see “You know you’re in China when” part 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 …
→ 3 CommentsTags:
Last weekend, we had the privilege of joining our son Timothy and his wife Caitlyn in the nearby city of Dali for the weekend. We stayed at the Sleepyfish Lodge so that Caitlyn could enjoy some time with their two golden retrievers:
On Friday morning, we rode a gondola lift midway up Cangshan mountain. Rain was falling outside, and as we began to cross some deep valleys, the roaring wind made us quite nervous.
Apparently, it made the lift operators nervous too – they shut down the operation shortly after we reached the top. This gave us the opportunity to hike back down:
The walk down was scenic and peaceful, with a blending of new and old structures:
After 4 to 5 hours, we finally made it back to the city and enjoyed dinner at a western restaurant called the Blue Gecko:
The next day, we were thankful that the rain held off, allowing us to rent some bikes and ride through the farmland along the shore of ErHai Lake:
We stopped for lunch at a small family restaurant:
We returned to Dali Old Town to briefly experience the annual San Yue Jia festival, a time when the town’s population swells to a million people. Most of them were on the other side of this gate:
Other than the masses of people, there’s a lot to see (and smell) among the vendors:
But by far the best part of our visit together was just talking about our lives in China. It’s obvious that we’ve lived here a while when you see us squat…
→ 3 CommentsTags:
Continuing with the theme of a previous post – you know that you’re in China when you see old homes being knocked down to make room for new apartments:
when you order fish at the school cafeteria and get this:
when “Natural Beauty” means that you had your eyes, nose, and chin fixed:
when “assorted knives” at the local store look like this:
when a new business opens up along the street and you see this:
when the pink “Hello Kitty” scooter belongs to a guy:
and when “Blue Christmas” refers to some kind of alien encounter in April:
→ 2 CommentsTags:
We recently visited the Black Dragon Pool park on the north side of town to see the azaleas in bloom:
This is one of the nicest parks in our city, with a variety of terrain and things to see. There are some peaceful old places (look for the stone dragon head):
and newer areas, including ponds for fishing and a place to drive radio controlled vehicles:
Since everyone else was taking selfies, we thought it appropriate to do likewise:
It is also traditional to do the “Asian squat” and take close-ups of the flowers with your mobile phone:
On this visit, we saw a royal photo session:
numerous colorful flowers:
bonsai trees:
food for the dead:
And wherever you are in the world, you see children trying to scoop up an elusive goldfish:
→ 1 CommentTags:
For the second year in a row, our university department of foreign languages hosted an Easter Party and invited us to come:
I had the opportunity to share a few thoughts about Easter,
but the rest of the party they planned themselves. They organized a game where students had to quickly memorize words and write them on the blackboard (I’m not sure where they got the word list):
They also had some challenging questions,
some singers,
and break dancers:
Susan also had the opportunity to teach an Easter English Corner. In addition to a video, PowerPoint presentation, and small group discussion, the students played games with eggs
and decorated eggs:
We’re thankful for these opportunities to celebrate this important holiday with our students!
→ 1 CommentTags:
Once again, I am riding the school bus an hour to our north campus to teach this year’s business classes. Our university now has about 10,000 students in our north campus and about 8,000 students in the main campus near our apartment. I have some very good students in my class this year:
I really enjoy our afternoon workshops in the Marketing and Negotiation classes where my students practice the material taught in the morning lecture:
It will be good to spend the year getting to know these young people.
→ 1 CommentTags:
On a recent Sunday afternoon, we rode to the north side of town to visit the new Kunming Waterfall Park. Sidewalk vendors had already staked out space on the entrance road:
Sugar Cane Juicer with a tired child
Fresh pineapples
Some kind of roots and Stinky Tofu
Beans and Veggies
Inside of the park, kids were piloting robotic dinosaurs and other machines:
Down the stairs, a wedding photo session was underway:
We finally reached the falls (with a few thousand other folks):
It’s actually quite impressive to see this completed project (a quarter mile long, 40 feet high, $167 million), which is reported to be either the longest or second longest man-made waterfall in Asia. The project uses about 300,000 gallons per minute of water from the Niulan River, recently diverted to Kunming to try and flush pollution out of Dianchi Lake (a journey of about 60 miles through 10 tunnels).
There is a reservoir at the top of the falls,
but I expect they’ll put up a big fence when someone accidentally goes over the top.
We joined the rest of the crowd in two traditional Chinese ways – taking selfies:
and eating “shaokao” (barbequed meet on a stick) – yum!
→ 4 CommentsTags: