Picture Book Story Time

I'm going to be a little lazy this week and merely post pictures and short descriptions of some of the more memorable moments in China thus far. There are far more memories than just these ten pictures, but I felt like these were some good ones. Also, before you judge too harshly, I apologize for the low quality of most of these photos: I am no photographer, and I am just now realizing that my phone and its camera are slowly becoming outdated. Anyway, enjoy!

Here I am in all my selfie glory, triple chins and all. This photo was taken on my first full day in China. I was sitting on the back of a realtor's motor scooter, being chauffeured around to different houses apartments that were up for rent. It was also raining a little bit that day (as it tends to do in the JiangSu province), so I'm holding an umbrella for the driver and myself. Most of the places these realtors took us to see were disgusting, dusty, and moldy. Luckily, on the third day, I found the place I live now.

This is what is called the "Xuanwu Gate," located alongside the Xuanwu Lake. Most of the older and larger Chinese cities have city walls (not unlike the Great Wall), and this is what the gates of those walls look like. Pretty awesome. This picture was actually taken the second time I went to the lake; the first time I went involved a sudden cloud-burst that lasted longer than my patience could hold out. I have a picture from that time, too, but this one is more clear.

Here we have some homework, my laptop, and a table, plus a little white-out. In China, they use pens (as opposed to pencils) to write most things, so they use white-out a lot. I found a bottle of it in the Flagship office, and I was trying to use it to fix some mistakes on an essay I had been working on, but the white-out wasn't coming out. After fiddling with the cap for a few minutes to no avail, I decided to pull off the cap entirely and try to pour some out onto a pinhead and rub it onto the paper. We'll just say that was a terrible idea, I wasn't careful enough, and the stuff went everywhere. I ended up rewriting my essay anyway, my computer is fine, and one of the teachers brought some mineral oil to get it off the table, so no long-lasting damage was done.

This is a sign that I pass nearly every day on the way to breakfast. The left side is a nice reminder to respect your parents and so on. The right side is a list of the socialist ideals. Signs similar to this, usually emblazoned with a list of the Socialist Ideals, are everywhere -- on bill boards, on sides of buildings, in the metros -- pretty much anywhere people go, you can find these signs. These are some good ideals (nationalism, honesty, democracy, liberty, etc.), but I find it funny that China takes it upon itself to place these reminders everywhere. It's one way of doing things, I guess.

This picture was taken at the top of Purple Mountain. This mountain is supposed to be gold in the daytime and purple in the evening, but when there is a shroud of mist (or smog?) completely enveloping it, I'd say it's just a plain old mountain. We hiked this for a classmates birthday a few weeks ago. It was a fun hike, but unfortunately we couldn't enjoy the view from the top because of the fog. Oh well.

Here are some of the third-graders that I taught at the school I mentioned last week. I taught some computer basics to this class, and they were quite well-behaved. Cute kids.

There isn't much to say about this picture because I really don't understand what was happening or why. As I was leaving the Xianlin campus the other day, I heard some loud dance music and looked over to see this group of what I assume are students dressed in military garb just dancing away. I couldn't help but take a picture. I didn't bother to ask why they were dancing in uniform.

This is the ZiFeng ("Purple Peak") Building in Nanjing, located about 10 minutes walking-distance from my house. I'm not sure what goes on in there, but I do know that it is the tallest building in the area. That's about it.

These last two pictures are a tribute to my landlord. Last week was Chinese National Day (like the Fourth of July, but the First of October instead), as well as the Mid-Autumn Festival, so we had the whole week off. The time off was great and all, but I got really bored really fast staying in Nanjing by myself. A couple days in, I got talking to my landlord, and he volunteered to be my tour guide for an afternoon. I happily accepted, so he, his wife, and a friend came and picked me up and drove me around the city. One of the places we went to was the ZhongShan Harbor, across from which was the PuKou Harbor on the Yangzte River. We took a ferry across the river and back, during the course of which I got a great view for Nanjing from the river.

On that same river, just downstream from where we took the ferry, there is this bridge. Apparently this bridge was the first ever Chinese-made bridge to cross the Yangtze River. Built during the Mao Era, this bridge has a bottom layer for trains and a top layer for cars. Before this bridge was built, there was a smaller one in the same spot that was built by the Soviets. This bridge wasn't big enough to support trains, so to cross the river, trains had to be taken apart and shipped car by car to the other side. This picture was taken from right on the edge of the river. To get to this spot, my landlord led me through a construction site(which I'm sure would not be kosher in the U.S., but the Chinese workers didn't seem to mind), over some fences and walls, and past some flooded walkways. It was a little sketchy, but it was worth it.

Well, that's it for this week. Hopefully these pictures and stories are evidence enough that China is awesome and that I'm thoroughly enjoying myself here. Happy China Day and Moon Festival!

-小强