China Musings

It’s still raining, so we haven’t really been up and about much. This morning, I was truly cold… I haven’t felt naturally cold in months. Yesterday we hung out at Second Sister’s house most of the day. She cooked lunch and dinner for everybody, giving Ma and First Sister a break. Their complex, at the People’s Bank of China, has a basketball court and we shot hops for a couple of hours. Ba gave me a schooling in Chinese Chess. I can still beat my two nephews, but I’m hopeless against anyone older than 16.

The food here has been great as always. It is very hearty, salty and oily, with strong flavors that I am not quite used to. There are also some strange vegetables that I have not seen anywhere else. One is a purple half cabbage half onion that is about the size of a head of garlic. It tastes like, well, a vegetable. Vegetables here are really fresh, really good. They aren’t big and pretty like the ones we buy in the market in Guangzhou, but they look much more real. They have bad spots, they are smaller and twisted. They look like they were grown in the real world.

We put together a movie from the footage we took while in Baokang. If you don’t know the people, it might be kinda boring, and if you’re hungry, well don’t watch. Itis a homage to the food and my Baokang family.

http://desandies.com/baokang.mov

Enjoy.

Sunday morning we rolled into the Xiangfan Train station, ready for another trip out to Baokang, Alison’s hometown. Summer is the rainy season out here, and it shows in the mountians; green on top of green. The pristine blue-green lakes, the green rice paddies, and furry looking green mountains. The bus ride was a beautiful as ever, passing through these mountains and up the hills. We took the new raod that isn’t finished yet, with a very long tunnel, but it didn’t seem to save any time.

As always being in Baokang is about being with family. This time, we have a new arrival in the shape of a 3 year old fireball. He Feiyang’s little brother (under the one child policy, first cousins become brothers and sisters) Yuanyuan is staying with his grandparents (actually, great-aunt, but who’s counting). The last time I saw him he was a little ball of flesh bundled up against the cold during 2003 spring festival. At that time he seemed very quiet, and very lazy, taking in the world around him at his leasure. Now, he is a dynamo running around on newfound legs and getting himself into anything he can. He is pretty well behaved though, and listens when we speak to him. He really only speaks dialect, so I don’t really understand anything he says, but we get along well. I’m teaching him english, but I don’t think he’ll remember.

It has been raining here, for 2 days non-stop. The main street flooded yesterday and now it is full of mud. The river in the center of town is huge and rushing. The town is much the same, with a few new stores selling more “fancy’ looking things. Everyone seems to be doing well, and is happy to see us, which is a good sign.

by Kathy Junior Middle School Grade 2, Clas A9

I was born in Guangzhou. And I have lived in Guangzhou for 14 years. I love it very much. I think Guangzhou is the most beautiful city.

Guangzhou is a “Food Paradise”. You can find different kinds of food here, the special food, the wonderful food. All the food tastes delicious. Everyone can find some food they like here. Everyody likes eating in this “Food Paradise”.

Guangzhou has a long history. So it has many historical places for people to visit. If you visit it, you will know many things about Guangzhou history and you wiill like it very much. So you can see many foreigners visiting it.

Guangzhou is a beautiful city. You can see flowers and trees everywhere in Guangzhou. And you can see tall buildings in the busy roads. When you see Zhujiang in Guangzhou at night, you will feel Guangzhou is very beautiful. When you sail down on the river and see Guangzhou’s reflection. You will think Guangzhou is really a wonderful place.

I like Guangzhou very much. I believe Guangzhou will be better and better.

We released the new front page of backstreet last week, it is backed by a new Wordpress plugin we wrote. WP is a great piece of software. Craeting the plugin was a snap, and allowing the client to have a unified inferface to update all the content in the site is very helpful.

The design is a berak for the original. The problem was that although the previous design was “pretty” it did not have enough space for up-to-the-date info. So we let it go a little bit in terms of style, and we make it up by giving more space to the bar to advertise it’s acts and events. This is the whole form vs. function debate. And in this case, I think we made a good compromise.