"Jesus Christ the Son of God"?
I often see this e-bike livery in Kunming. I wonder if they realise they are advertising
"Jesus Christ the Son of God"?
0 Comments
This weekend Jiajia and I booked JD in for 30 basketball lessons at a nearby club. He seems to enjoy learning the new skills and the 2-hour sessions hopefully burn off some of his excess chubbiness! He fell asleep on the sofa after yesterday's session, so it must have left him pretty exhausted! Basketball is easily China's most common participation sport - a lot more popular than table tennis or football. I got this huge Lego build as a Father's Day present last week. It's made by the Chinese company who used to make the pieces for the Lego company , but now do their own "same-quality" models at 10% of the official price! It was 1500 pieces and took me over 3 hours to complete. Loved it though. Very detailed and full of cool functions.
JD is already a Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet fan (though he prefers the CGI versions to the original puppet shows) but I thought the other day it was time to introduce him to Stingray! He loved it.
Yesterday Mr Sun, his wife and son (who JD knows from school) invited us to go climb a nearby mountain and see a partial solar eclipse.As we climbed,the sky was covered by dark rainclouds but, as the eclipse time neared, the skies suddenly cleared and we were able to see the sun being "eaten" by the moon very clearly. We continued exploring the mountain before returning to our cars and sharing a nice restaurant meal together. The last eclipse I saw was when I was in Primary School, so this will be a very special memory.
Banquets sound great, right? Free, quality food, good company, no washing up, etc. Well maybe, but this term I’ve been averaging a banquet a day (including weekends) as a result of all the school visits I make, and they can sometimes be a real pain. The conversations can be all in Chinese for long periods, the food is often too spicy/bitter/sour or just downright odd (we had “tree leaves and crushed bones” yesterday!). There’s usually the toasting session at the end (being tee-total takes some effort in China) and there’s always a handful of men who see nothing wrong in puffing on their fags whilst others are still eating. However, I’ve become quite adept at pitching in to conversations, spotting the “dangerous” foods and avoiding alcohol without giving offence. Here are my top tips for surviving Chinese banquets:
Jiajia, JD and I enjoyed a lovely Summer's day last weekend at DouNan Park. It was less crowded that when we went before, and we managed to find a quiet area to have our picnic, play frisbee and go fishing Although JD failed to see, let alone catch, any fish, he did spot a water-logged Asian Long-Horned Beetle which he proudly scooped out of the water. We let it dry off on a branch before saying our goodbyes as it slowly crawled up a tree. After the park, we drove to a friend of Jiajia' whose family has recently moved into something of a mansion; 4 storeys, 6 bathrooms, 4 wide-screen TVs, etc, We shared a lovely meal. JD was given a toy electronics kit for Children's Day the other week and together we've been working our way through the 1000+ experiments outlined in it. Unfortunately they are all in Chinese, so we just follow the circuit diagrams and try to guess what each is going to produce! We started with lighting bulbs and then adding a fader switch. Next came a speaker which played "Happy Birthday", and the fader became a volume control. After various other increasingly complex experiments, we took a chance, skipped to the back of the instructions booklet and, to our surprise, managed to build a working radio! All great fun! Good to see China in the top ten "safest countries to be living in at this time in the COVID19 pandemic"... ...bit worrying to see the UK limping in at number 68.
A fairly common sight here - an e-bike carrying a huge load of ...something! This one was dumped in the middle of the street while the driver ran back to pick up another huge bag that had fallen off the bag. Oh, how the cars hooted!!
JD and I spent this weekend making a castle for "Whitey" and "Bitey".
JD's science teacher asked all the students in the class to get two snails for a future experiment. Amazingly, Jiajia found some for sale online and we duly had two large snails delivered in the post. That was three weeks ago - no further news from the school. I think they've forgotten all about it! Anybody want two snails?
|
AuthorPaul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and regularly updates this blog about his life there. Past blog entries
February 2024
Tags
All
|