Bad News! Heard about the 80 mph wind and rain storm to hit Eau Claire late last week. Good News! My house is still standing with no damage to it, and only parts of trees down in the yard "but nothing too terrible" according to my AWESOME housesitter Charlotte. Thank you Charlotte for your email and report. I can now rest easier. And hopefully, my yard guy Mike has come by to clean up the branches and use the chain saw if necessary. Charlotte is also posting the blog since I'm not able to connect with Google here in mainland China. (BTW, I knew that. It's just interesting to actually experience it in Chinese.) And I heard Google bought Motorola Mobility, the former cell phone business at Motorola, where I used to work.
Now back to Jinan University-Zhuhai. I'm back in the computer lab with my darling buddy Rainey. We were assigned two buddies the first day, and I am so blessed with Rainey and Teresa. They tag-team me based on their school schedule. And their English is excellent. My Chinese not so great! But we make everything work. Once I get back to the states, I'll upload their photos. As I mentioned before, it's problematic in the computer lab. Heh, but at least I have access to a computer.
Since I last blogged, which I think was last Friday, we had a three-day weekend cultural tour. Our tour guide and bus driver were topnotch. Driving here can be quite a challenge. As can walking. Pedestrians do not have the right-of-way like in the states. So we need to keep an eye out when we cross the street. I can understand now why many expats working here have drivers. Mike from the International Business office and Robbie, another student buddy, accompanied us. They are excellent guides, all of them.
The first day, we traveled to Shenzen, the hometown of Kate Wang, my "adopted" Chinese daughter. I LOVE IT! It is China's fourth largest city, and its population is 13.5 million. So it's definitely a big city, about four Chicagos, if you can imagine that. There we traveled to the Shenzen Museum. We were there about an hour. Definitely not enough time to see everything, but it gave us a good taste about Chinese history, and how Shenzen was created. My classmates had a blast taking lots of hilariously staged photos. Shenzen in the 1970s was a fishing village. Today, thanks to stimulus funding from the Chinese government, it is a thriving, bustling metropolis, with tropical greenery aligned with high-rise office and residential buildings everywhere the eye can see. From an economic development standpoint, it's amazing to see such growth in about 40 years.In the afternoon, we visited H &T (Honesty and Trust) Shipping Company, which handles the logistics but not the actual transportation by air and sea. Melody, our host, was very accommodating, as the office has a resident office-cat, and a couple of our students are allergic; so we moved conference rooms three times. After she answered our questions, we headed to the Yantian Port, which reminded me of working for USEC, when I "visited" ports on the west coast. Sea to land shipping containers for as far as the eyes could see...everywhere.
On Sunday, we traveled to Guangzhou, also known as Canton, and the capital of the Guandong Province. There, we had lunch with David Schroeder, the economic attache to the U.S. consul. Very insightful visit. What I noticed the most along the road on the bus trip was all of the factories, and of course, all of the transmission and distribution lines. When I worked for Com Ed in Chicago, we actually sold a coal-fired plant that we were shutting down, lock, stock and barrel to an organization in China. So somewhere it is producing electricity for all the factories that are producing all of the exports. We also visited the Memorial Hall of Sun Yat-sen, sort of like China's George Washington, prior to Mao. Guangzhou is known as the city of flowers, and they were everwhere. I'm going to rely on classmate Alexis' photos of the flowers. We also visited the Chen Clan Academy which was created by the Chen familyh in 1894 during the Qing Dynasty. Its purpose was to educate all the Chens. I'll add photos to this blog later, as words simply do not do justice to the architecture and craftsmanship. We also visited the site of the Asian Games in 2010, and the highlight was the Pearl River Night Cruise. What a light show from all the buildings and the tower there. Since I used to work for an electric utility, of course, I wonder about the light bill.
Monday, we were back in Zhuhai, but on the way, we visited the home village and home of Sun Yat-sen. He was educated in Hawaii, and designed the home himself. Being a huge Frank Lloyd Wright fan, I was interested to see how he incorporated the two architectures of Hawaii and mainland China. In the afternoon, we also visited the Meixi Royal Stone Archways, and our guides then Dr. Fong and Frank shared that one of these archways was destroyed during the cultural revolution, but the people of the town banded around the remaining archways, and saved the two that remain. We also visited the home of Chen Fang *(1825-1906) who was China's first millionaire. He had two wives (one from China and one from the States) and 16 children. The more children you have, the closer you can get to heaven. In the late afternoon, we visited the Hengqin New Area, which is a new economic development area. My grandfather, father, and brothers would be very impressed with all of the construction going on. I took lots of photos to share with them. Lots of mud, and an interesting rebar and concrete on the sides of the new expressway going in. Hengqin in essence will connect Hong Kong, Zhuhai, and Macau.
Well, I better stop by as I need to get back to the hotel for a tour of GREE, which makes air conditioners. I would say they definitely have a monopoly on the market. They are everywhere. The food here is delicious; typically nine plates, and we never can finish everything. And yes, the squatty potties leave a lot to be desired. It's not that different from camping and going in a hole in a ground in the woods. You just need to go with the flow. CHI. Ying. Yang.
Barbara
No comments:
Post a Comment