Ningbo Postcards – mid summer edition
Last year I missed them by a few weeks, this year I have finally managed to see them in all their glory, live on campus: Nelumbo nucifera – the lotus flower.
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The industrious and untiring indolence of the Chinese
These pictures were taken over the period of 3 days during my travels in China – Xi’An, Shanghai and Beijing to be exact, so it is safe to say that this is not a regional phenomenon. And funnily enough, they were not taken during lunch time, or perhaps in the evening either, but in bright daylight, often at their work place – one whilst buying tickets for the great wall. Economic boom anyone? … And … they can sleep on anything … anywhere!
The Forbidden City and the Temple of Heavenly Awesomeness
A couple of days ago I watched Bertolucci’s ‘The last emperor’ again and now the Forbidden City makes far more sense than it did when I went to see it last weekend. It’s such as a huge place and unfortunately as it is only a stripped down version of its former glory, when thousands of people lived in it, it looks rather triste and empty and is thus quite difficult to take in.
Day two of my trip to Beijing and this time I was on one of those Chinese adventure tourism group things. By Chinese adventure tourism things I mean going on a Chinese tourist tour is an adventure, rather than it including bungee jumping and the likes. The previous day I had bought a ticket to go and see the Great Wall of China with a tour and was now (8am) anxiously waiting for the tour bus to pick me up from the hotel.
So having overcome my shock and horror of missing out on the solar eclipse of the century!!!!! I know! I thought I’d report back on my latest travels. Went to Beijing last weekend, well, the weekend before, to see what Beijing has to offer. I had always been of the conviction that for some reason I would not like it there and that Shanghai was much nicer, so I finally, the weekend before last, I had the chance to find out. And guess what: I do like Beijing … just not as much as Shanghai … it’s a Chinese city thing.
well … it’s been in for a while, and they have even started organising official tours to see it: Shanghai and Ningbo will see a full solar eclipse on Wednesday the 22nd July 2009. This solar eclipse is special not only because it will occur in a place that I actually know and live in, but because it will be the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the 21st century. It will last up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds and guess where I will be to see it? On the other side of the planet! Yeah trust my luck to be in the right place at the right time … nothing exciting happens in this backwater that calls itself Ningbo for decades and then the one time that something exciting, monumental and in fact historic does happen … I’m not around to see it! Cheers, thanks for that … Below a picture of the solar eclipse from the NASA website, in case you’re interested:
Ningbo Postcards – early summer edition
Following the old cliche: Ningbo is a little bit like a box of chocolates … you never quite know what you will find when a) you open your curtains in the morning and b) when you leave campus.Â
Seriously!? This is your brand name? … do Chinese businesses realise that their made up brand names are strangely hilarious to foreigners? Don’t they care about meaning in a blind race to signal international-ness? If these brand names really are all their own doing why don’t they ask some professional marketer for help to avoid being the laughingstock of us laowai? Or maybe they have and some foreign consultant has just been incredibly obnoxious? Who knows, but the debate on that one has been going on ever since I arrived in China …
Last weekend I went on a short trip to Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors. Xi’an itself was not the most exciting of places that I have been to; the most interesting sites were the Muslim quarter, the city walls and the Terracotta Warriors which were all quite spectacular, but the city itself was just like any other big city in China: a mixture of bad air and dusty, grotesque, grey and unfinished skyscrapers.
After searching endlessly on the internet for a picture of one and finally giving up and coming to the conclusion that I might just have to go out and take a picture of one myself, I do feel the need to make another marketing related observation of China:Â