One nice thing about China’s time zone is that you don’t have to wake up early in the morning to check your email and see if you have the download link for Radiohead’s new album yet or not.
As China heads towards the Olympics the government claims it is making great efforts to clean up what is called ‘Chinglish’. Chinglish abounds in various public places in China - it is poorly translated Chinese that results in confusing, hilarious, or gibberish English. I think I have most often found it in restaurants, although certainly there are plenty of funny public signs one can find. A google search will turn up plenty, for example the sign that says “slip carefully”.
On Sunday I grabbed the local 107 bus and went a few China blocks (much bigger than american city blocks) down Donzhimen Nei to meet up with some friends for the Nanluoguxiang festival happening at this newly redone hutong. Hutongs are kind of like alleyways, except that instead of leading to the backs of housing they lead to all kinds of lower income housing, small businesses, hole in the wall restaurants, etc etc. Many of them are getting torn up / removed / rebuilt ala gentrification in the US (and with often the same political / economic / social implications and for often the same reasons (lack of political / economic power by those who live in certain parts of society)). Anyway, Beijing is under constant construction as I have mentioned and needs a lot of new housing - so many of the hutongs are going the way of the sabertooth tiger.
China Loves Autumn. Or at least I am so far. The temperature has been cooler since I have been back (as opposed to the oppressive heat and humidity when I left). Today there is a slight cool wind which seems to have blown yesterday’s pollution away (as much as it ever can be blown away). This means that when I was leaving our 14th floor apartment today and heading down our back hallway to the elevator I was able to see mountains in the distance over the other apartment building tops. Quite a site! I haven’t ever lived anywhere where one can see mountain tops in the distance (at least not for anymore than a few days)…its quite nice, something to remember if I can ever get over my addiction with Chicago.
I’m back from being back and about over the jetlag (just in time to leave tomorrow for Europe).
Saturday I went out for a day long Beijing Ultimate adventure. Some of the folks here did a great job lining up a day long hat tournament now that all the local university students are back. So there was about 80 folks split into 6 teams for a day of playing at the paint fume fields we played summer league on.
Sunday began like many in the past 6 weeks. Plenty of heat, time spent cramming some food into myself in the early afternoon to make it thru the long summer league day; and hoping that I remembered to wash my summer league jersey before the crowded van ride to the fields (not that Beijing doesn’t provide enough smells to mask any offending odor my jersey may contain).
Datacenter move for meisenwang.com so photo galleries seem to be temporarily down.
Should be up again soon….sorry for the dominance of text 
China loves to feed the animals.
As Peggy blogged here we went to the zoo last week on the 15th. The 15th is (was) our one year anniversary and while many couples would choose to celebrate in more traditional ways (which while no doubt romantic, I also find to be clique) Peggy and I prefer to go on adventures and save the nice dinners out at nice restaurants for surprise evenings.
Like most ‘lines’ in China the line to buy tickets to get in the zoo was utter chaos. Basically 10 ticket booths with masses of people in front of them waiting to slam there money into the ticket window slot to claim their spot as first in line. Luckily the masses were only 2-3 deep on this day and Peggy doesn’t mind throwin bows.
The zoo was surprisingly nice with a few exceptions. Peggy had scared me into believing we might witness animals tied to walls and things of that nature. Just when I got over the fact that ’surely Chinese weren’t that ignorant and wouldn’t be that cruel to the animals’ we got to the brown bear exhibit where it was highly in question which species (bears or humans) was the more evolved. While the bears spent their time sitting and begging and walking around in a circle on their hind legs the humans spent their time tossing various food at the bears beneath signs clearly reading (even in english) ‘bears don’t eat people food and feeding them people food will no doubt be harmful to their stomachs’ (I’m paraphrasing). Judging by the look of things (how ‘ready’ the bears were to beg and be fed) I imagine this happens throughout the day, everyday. I have no idea on the actual impact this will have on animals, but I tend to trust that there are reasons we are told not to feed animals. The bears were amazing and it would have been enjoyable to watch their antics if it didn’t mean I had to watch the guy next to me pour Coke down the bears throat from twenty feet up (’I don’t even think Coke is good for you,’ I was thinking). Sadly, stories like this regularly occur in China. Maybe mocking (and doing much worse to) parents and teachers wasn’t a good way to setup a country.
Unfortunately the panda bears were sleeping for the most part, but they were still pretty amazing.
The other great thing we saw was a water show with sea lions which are pretty amazing creatures.
And what trip out into Beijing would be complete without some Chinglish (or at least a bit of ‘lost in translation’)? I decided to pass on the ‘Children Burger’ for lunch and just order some french fries. (Shouldn’t it read kid’s burger? or at least children’s burger?)
China loves uniqueness on your doorstep.
As I blogged about weeks ago, I was going to try and write a bunch of posts with photos of what one sees daily out in Beijing streets. I dilly dallied for a few days and next thing I know Peggy was beating me to it on her blog and (more to the point) in this photo gallery.
Definitely check out the photos to get a feel. The skyscraper building cranes here are more numerous in Beijing than they are in the South Loop of Chicago. I can see about 6 of them if I just walk out to my local street corner, no kidding.
The other thing one sees a lot of is piles of bricks or stacks of dirt or other construction waste / junk up and down sidewalks.
Needless to say, all of Beijing (and from what I have seen most other Chinese cities as well) is under constant construction.
China loves coal.
Well it appears my two favorite countries have both suffered mine disasters at the same time, and it looks like both will end tragically. Sad to see.
Regardless, the coal man continues to make his deliveries. And the coal man happens to drive my favorite Chinese vehicle (there are many different vehicles on the streets, most being bike hybrids).
* NOT FOUND *
