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A rare glimpse into Ma's previous life as a professional, and fairly famous, Beijing Opera star in Shanghai.  You'd think she might now enjoy participating in one of the multitude of park-based dancing groups that attract so many old people in Kunming, but she dismisses them as "amateurs" and prefers to spend her time gambling with her mahjong friends.
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We took JD to a huge play centre yesterday, meeting up with a couple of his old Kindergarten classmates and their families. The kids had a blast, exploring all the rides and activities for over 3 hours [JD coming down the slide, top left].
My University lessons are back in full swing after an unusually long, but very welcome, two month Summer holiday. This was one of my classes earlier this week doing a "Running Dictation" exercise...  The Chinese Government have been rolling out a series of education reforms over recent months to "reduce the burden" on young students in China. These include banning online tutoring with teachers based abroad, removal of western printed textbooks, regulating after-school and weekend training classes and reducing homework and exams in Primary Schools. However, JD's school seem to be largely ignoring the "less work" parts. Completing his daily homework is taking longer than ever. He didn't finish until after after 10pm on Monday/Tuesday, though Wednesday/Thursday were "only" 8.30pm [see below]. Crazy.  Our ever-changing Lego display, featuring kit and scratch-built models made by both JD and I.  As an end-of-holiday treat, Jiajia and I took JD to an indoor skiing centre about 30 minutes drive away. It's JD's third time skiing. He loves it and has been asking us to go again for ages.
After JD made four descents of the beginner's slope without falling over, I took him up to the Intermediate slope. It's a fair bit faster. He got down without falling over but ended up crashing into the cushioned fence at the bottom! He decided to return to the baby slope after that!  The centre isn't cheap (£20 each) and Jiajia had to pay full price even though she only wanted to watch. So we persuaded her to at least have a try. Let's just say it wasn't her strongest showing!!
 The "ancient" temple we visited last week allows you to donate with fruit, sweets, cash or ...online bank transfer!
If the Europeans struggle so much with my name, it's no wonder the Chinese do too!  We got back yesterday from an overnight stay in a village on the outskirts of Kunming. On arrival we headed for the fossils up a nearby hill, somewhere we'd been once before with friends.  Jiajia quickly found a small, but complete trilobite. I later found a large but incomplete one. After a few hours, JD was starting to get frustrated by his lack of luck when he suddenly stumbled across this beautiful, blue-stained trilobite. That cheered him up for the rest of the day! We headed back down to the village with a dozen fossils in various states of completeness. We'd found a traditional, old house online which offered a homestay bedroom. It was very pretty and the hosts couldn't do enough for us. Unfortunately, there were a lot of biting mosquitoes during the night, despite our precautions, which led to little sleep.
The next morning, we went to the weekly market, but it was a bit disappointing - just half a dozen Yi minority women with fruit and vegetables fresh from their fields. Afterwards we found a carpentry workshop which offered craft lessons to children. So JD spent 4 hours making a wooden knife and sheath, with the help or his patient teacher. He loved it and was very proud of his work.  We drove back to Kunming later in the afternoon. We stopped at a car wash as Jiajia has a lot of vouchers for free valets. While they were cleaning the car, we headed for a nearby Pizza Hut as - you guessed it - Jiajia has a lot of vouchers for free pizzas. The benefits of being a VIP customer at the bank of China!
It was a fun little trip and we think we might go back again some day to explore a little more, in and around the village. Meanwhile, JD has to prepare for his imminent return to school. We saw a lot of wild marijuana plants at the Safari Park the other day. This guy wears his love of drugs on his sleeve - in a country where drug possession is a life or death risk!  Jiajia, JD and I spent today at the Yunnan Safari Park. Forecasts of heavy rain kept the crowds away and, as it turned out, we only needed our umbrellas as we were returning to the car park to leave. The park itself is huge - 10km to the most distant enclosures. Some of the animals are caged, but most are in large open-air enclosures and seem well looked after. You can pay extra for a bus to take you to the different areas, but we opted to burn off some calories and it was fun to explore the walkways and suddenly bump into unexpected creatures, some just arms length away (think giant tortoises, peacocks, zebras, llamas, ostriches etc). We saved a lot of cash by bringing a picnic but blew it all on various kids' rides and entertainment for JD at the end of our visit! Still, it was a nice end to the day, as the heavens opened.
On the way back we suddenly saw a large, wild rabbit! It seemed totally unperturbed by our arrival, and lazily hopped off as we approached! Quite a surprise though.
Phones here get regular unsolicited texts from "the powers that be". Translating them gives a little insight into the 24/7 propaganda that is part of Chinese life (especially if you can read Chinese characters!).  JD's been desperate to return to the reservoir I took him to a few months ago, to try and catch more clams. To that end, he spent some of his pocket money on a snorkel mask last week which he has been keen to try out. Unfortunately, my eye doctors said swimming was forbidden for a month after my operation, let alone in a dirty reservoir, and Jiajia doesn't enjoy swimming.  So instead, we tried out a swimming pool not far from our house which I found on the map recently, and invited JD's friend "Johnny" to come along with his mum, who was happy to look after both of them in the water. JD had a great time, though the mask wasn't quite as water-tight as he'd hoped.
Jiajia loves her gadgets and we have recently bought two robots. One cleans windows and the other cleans floors. I'm not convinced either saves a lot of time, but it is fun to see them scuttling about the house!  |
 About the blogger
Paul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and updates this blog about his life there every other day. Past blog entries
August 2021
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