slender west lake

spring has sprung, the grass has riz...

a reply to comments:

I can't reply in the comment in the comments section due to the great firewall of China so I'll start my latest report with a couple replies.

Kent: Try as I might, I cannot muster the same horking sounds that my Chinese counterparts have perfected over the years so no retaliation is in my future.

For anyone worried about me getting arrested: I am keeping my opinions and most of my burning questions to myself. The student who sent me the email is talking to me again but keeps referring to China as "our China". It is starting to creep me out a bit. We may have to end our meetings soon. Needless to say, we do not talk about Tibet.

For the most part, the students here have no idea or no comment on Tibet. We attended a student night where students have an opportunity to practice their English. One of the profs reported that his group did not understand why we couldn't get into Tibet. I guess they are too busy studying.


And for an entertaining read, you should continue to follow the China Daily coverage and compare it to the Free Press or Globe coverage. It is an amazing example of how a few words can completely change the feel of a report on the same events. For example, China Daily report of the monks who rushed the reporters while on a guided tour of Jokhang Temple reads like this:


Organizers of the media tour, including officials from the State Council Information Office, did not interrupt the interview, letting it continue for about 15 minutes, the same duration as other on-the-spot interviews on the itinerary.


from the Canadian Press:

Officials tugged at the journalists to leave and shouted "Time to go." After the outburst subsided, the monks filed away upstairs.

Long live freedom of the press.


Now on to lighter things. We kicked off the weekend with a fabulous road trip a couple hours outside of Nanjing to the city of Yangzhou, home to Slender West Lake. The lake was created from a river by a group of salt merchants in an attempt to impress the emperor on his visit to Yangzhou. The emperor's commented during the visit that the park lacked a dagoba, a bottle shaped Budhist monument. So they built one of those overnight for the ungrateful sot. (my comment not Fodors). The lasting effect is this beautiful park with flowers and bridges and an odd looking white dagoba ( the Aladdin lamp thing in the background of the picture below).










The funniest part of the day began with the simple act of sitting on a rock to wait for my group to catch up. There were hundreds of school kids at the park on Friday. Most of the kids study English in school but rarely have the opportunity to practice so when this little boy wandered by staring at me in the typical manner I asked if he liked the flowers. Within seconds I was swarmed by the grade five class of Yangzhou Primary School.









We had a great conversation mainly centering around the theme of "how are you?" and "how old are you?"with a couple "where are you from?". While I was talking to the kids another crowd gathered to take pictures. It seems that one white person surrounded by school kids makes a great photo op for the average Chinese park goer as well. So once again I will be featured in a few Chinese photo albums as the token Westerner they saw in a park one day.

The rest of the day was spent templing (the verb form for viewing temples)




and wandering around a garden courtyard once home to some rich mucky-muck from the Qing Dynasty (we didn't get a very informative tour).







In other news: my suit fits so I ordered more custom-made clothes. You can't beat the price or the fit. One jacket and two pairs of pants, lined, light wool - $95 Cdn. I'm getting two pairs of capri's for $15 each. Yippee!

Today I am heading to the grocery store today to pick through the vat o' chicken with the other 6000 people shopping. Tonight is pot luck. I am going to attempt to make some lemon chicken. And somewhere in there I have to plan our alternative travel to replace Tibet. There are so many options.
... and I have work to do.