Getting to work

One good way to restart a narrative, at least if I remember the writing classes that I took a long while back, is to start with the setting. And what better setting than our walk to school every weekday?


Yes, I know it's terribly cliched to start with your main character wake up and look out the window. So sue me. Besides, this picture represents a special occasion. See those buildings under construction way off in the background? Not usually visible. Ditto on the sunlight and shadows.

Fast forward a bit, and it's out the door, around the corner, and up the street for a fifteen minute walk to school.

 

You'll note the seasonal variation in the photos, which are a compilation of the relatively rare times when A) I've had my camera with me, and B) the bright morning sunlight (fairly rare) has inspired me to take a few pictures.

 

 


Most days, we see Hat Man somewhere along the way. He's very distinguished, with a neatly trimmed grey mustache. That's him with the black overcoat.


Then it's past the abandoned commercial building of some kind ... (snarling barking Doberman not pictured)


...past the breakfast cart...


...and the entrance to the girls' boarding school. (Said girls, who tend to travel in clumps and screech in delight whenever they see a "cute!!" little foreigner, being the bane of my childrens' existance..) 


Xander and Zekey on the final stretch.


And here we are! The bell rings in another ten minutes, so finish your breakfast and get to your classroom.

Taken at the crossroads

A couple of pictures from the main intersection just outside the side gate of the university where we live.

Ordinary Stuff - Grinding away

- Six to eight students per dormitory room.
- Around fourteen, and sometimes up to twenty, different classes in the course of a single week.
- An educational philosophy that emphasizes the mastery of an existing field of information, often accomplished by memorization.

= People Studying Everywhere. 

Here, an unused lecture hall in the first floor of the fourth teaching building that I pass on my way back home after my Tuesday class, which gets out at six.  If it's cloudy, which means most always, the class gets out right around dusk.  The classrooms are the most brightly lit spaces on campus, spilling their light out onto the rapidly dimming sidewalks as most of the students head to the campus cafeterias for dinner.

Just when you thought it was safe...

I know this post is a little bit late for Halloween, but may I humbly present...



Yet more scary looking kiddie rides!  Yes, it has been a long time since I've featured them on this blog, but the profusion of scary childrens' rides continues unchecked on the streets of Chengdu, with yet more species being discovered (and more flagrant copyright violations..) every time I go into town.  Besides the Skitch copy above, if that's what it is, there has also been a notable Transformer upswing.  I'm pleased to report, however, that the ever-popular Xi Yang Yang and his cartoon sheep companions continue to hold their own.
 


Also of note - no matter where you go in China, or what the ride, the color palette remains exactly the same.  Don't believe me?  Check out the earlier installments of the series here and here. 

Overcast, with patches of umbrellas and isolated lettuce

A photo from the archives showing a not-too-uncommon sight in China - people finding a patch of land just about anywhere to grow a batch of veggies for themselves.

Octacular! (Octopolis? Octopular? Octopimization..?)

Last Sunday, I went with Zekey and Ysa to meet some of our friends to People's Park, one of my favorite places in Chengdu.  This time around, instead of focusing on the tea-drinking and relaxing part of the park, we did the cheap-but-cool looks-like-some-of-them-are-about-to-fall-apart kiddie rides section of the park.  The kids got to ride on dang near every ride that they wanted to, and I had fun, mingled with a slight longing for our camera, which is still in the States with Jane.

While doing some photo-weeding on the computer, I did find this previously unpublished picture from a visit last spring, so you all can imagine at least some of the clanking tentacley goodness of the place.  Kinda fits in with the day's squiggly theme, don't you think?

Ordinary Stuff - Crowd control

A photo of the entrance to the North Train Station, Chengdu, on a fairly slow day. Since this is where the new (relatively new - it's been around for over a year now) high speed train drops us off when we go to Chengdu. What's impressive is that they get everyone through the security check fairly rapidly - the longest I've waited to get through is maybe 5 - 10 minutes.

the iPad and us (part 4 - the outside scoop)

As the recent explosion at the local Foxconn factory slowly marches its way into the territory that is Yesterday's News, I thought I'd show some pictures I took while biking around the plant on the Sunday after the accident. There's been a lot of coverage of the conditions inside the factory, which I can't really add to, but not so much on what's outside. Herewith, then, some local context...


The Foxconn plant from afar. Note the piles of rubble from construction (or more accurately, destruction of a previous building) in the foreground - a prominent feature in the local landscape.


Another distant view of the plant with the new high speed train in the foreground, and the employee entrance close up. From the outside, I couldn't see any obvious damage to the plant.


That Sunday, there were maybe 100-150 workers gathered around the factory entrance. I was getting some stares from security guards, so I just snapped a few pictures on the sly as I biked by, feeling a bit like a spy...


A construction site that's presumably a new section of the Foxconn factory being built.


Landscaping surrounding the plant, with the new high speed train in the background. Note the ubiquitous double colored hedges, which are all trimmed by workers with orange safety vests and hand shears.


A rice field that's been recently burned off, with what I think are some of Foxconn's worker dorms in the background.


The dorms again with - you guessed it - another pile of rubble, this one also serving as a local garbage dump from the look of it.

If all this strikes you as fairly mundane and boring, it's because - well, it is. The whole area from here to Chengdu, which used to be mostly villages and rice fields as recently as five years ago, looks more or less like this now. I'm guessing that the only thing makes the Foxconn plant significantly different from the hundreds of factories and warehouses that now surround it is that it makes parts for a high-profile American company, and thus gets in the news when something bad happens.

Ordinary Stuff - The Old and the New

A typical example of change in China - some remaining old style six story concrete apartment blocks with a new style thirty story apartment rising behind.

Ordinary Stuff - Mmmm, Cherries...

It's cherry (and mulberry and waxberry) season here in Sichuan...



Hmmm, where have I seen these before...?



Thanks, China, for providing a flashback to a game that I loved when I was... three? four? and haven't thought about since. Take that, Marcel Proust!

Ordinary Stuff - Newsstand

Just a regular newsstand (news stand?) on the street in Chengdu, but like how the photo turned out. Something about how the stand frames the people around it, perhaps? Maybe something about how much of private life is carried on in public? (Or maybe I'm a sucker for shiny red-orange thingies...)

Fashion Sense

Spotted on a recent outing to Chengdu.

Gettin' by with a little help from my...

Oh, and while we're on the subject of Ysa, I couldn't pass up posting this group of photos that Jane took of Ysa taking to the streets with Yan KaiYue, one of her best friends...





Fun, right? As always, click to enlarge...

All's Fair

Every March 16th, our local "village" of 红光（Hongguang, pop. ca. 280,000) celebrates the anniversary of a visit by Chairman Mao, who stopped by this area (then called Hexing) in 1958 to visit a few collective farms and to talk with the locals. He suggested a few changes, told the provincial government to set up a university in the area, and the rest is history. After the visit, the residents of our town changed the name to mean "Red light" - Honguang in Chinese.

The celebration took the form of an immensely long county fair / shopping bazaar, which stretched along ten blocks of a side street not far from the University. Of course, we were there, and Jane and I found ourselves continually asking each other for the camera, because there were all sorts of picture-worthy sights (and sites). Here are a few of the better ones... (as always, click on the photo to enlarge)