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See girls and seagulls

13/11/2013

Nanny and I took JD to Green Lake Park yesterday afternoon as the weather was warm and breezy. The park is in the centre of town and an easy bus trip from our flat. It's particularly popular at this time of year as it hosts hundreds of seagulls who fly here annually from Siberia. People visit from all around Yunnan to feed them. JD watched them attentively for 2-3 minutes before deciding it was, afterall, quite a scary thing and threatening to cry! So we walked on to other areas of the park, which was buzzing with life due the fine weather. It really is a top-class place for people-watching and interacting. Let me share a few moments of our time here...

Large areas of Green Lake Park are occupied by singing, dancing and instrumental groups. Some are clearly well-rehearsed and enjoy having an audience [see JD enjoying one, below]. Others are more amateur, inclusive and spontaneous. One of the largest consisted of a tape-player hanging from a tree playing a simple ethnic minority tune, surrounded by 50-60 people in a circle, doing simple dance steps to the rhythm. As gaps appeared in the circle, passers-by would join for a few minutes before moving on. Even JD had a try. It's clearly popular as a social and exercising activity, yet not one of the dancers showed even the slightest smile. Odd.

So, ethnic music, traditional Chinese music, musicians practising alone, disco music, warbling soloists, 10 piece bands, buskers - all doing their thing within eyesight and earshot of each other. Like a free musical smorgasbord. Very strange, yet immensely uplifting.

At one point, a young monk ran up and gently touched JD on the forehead, handing over a small plastic amulet. "For luck", he intoned. "For free?" I asked. "For good luck...", he smiled. "And no money?" I pressed. "For your son. For good luck". "Hmm, no thanks", I decided. "Then BAD luck!", he snarled and stomped off. I saw him later with three other "monks" sitting under a tree, having a smoke and counting the proceeds from more naive day-trippers.

Most of the folk in the park seemed to be senior citizens or mothers/grandmothers with babies. (I find myself close to being in both camps!) Half a dozen Chinese ladies with babies held their nerve to make a connection with the "foreigner baby" and exchange coos and boos. The baby in the picture above is just 3 weeks older than JD, complete with 4 teeth. You can sorta see why the Chinese doctors say that JD is not growing fast enough (and no teeth yet, either). But on the positive side, JD always seems to have so much more energy and social skills than the similarly-aged babies he meets; bouncing up and down, waving, smiling, maintaining eye contact. Other kids seem almost zombie-like in comparison.

Later, four students sidled up to us and, in broken English, asked me a few "standard" questions before rather sheepishly asking if they could take a photo with me and JD. No problem. And moments later, one of my own students from Robert's School and his English-speaking mum spotted us and came running over to see the baby. No wonder JD fell asleep towards the end of our visit. And so, bus home, bottle of milk and straight to bed (...for me, while the Nanny looked after JD!).

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Lake it or not

15/8/2013

Jiajia and I spent this afternoon walking round Mengzi's famous lake (after a very lazy morning snoozing in the hotel). This bridge is reputed to be the one where, in the mists of time, a devoted wife used to bring her husband his lunch each day as he studied on the lake's small island. But regularly finding the noodles cold by the time she got there, she hit on the idea of bringing him a piping hot bowl of broth with a thin layer of oil to retain the heat, and then adding the ingredients (thin meat and vegetable slices, etc) once there, to cook in the still hot soup. Thus, "cross-the-bridge-noodles" was invented.

After the lake, we headed into the old town where I started to recognise certain buildings and shops from my time there, 17 years ago. We also spotted some ladies in their distinctive minority groups clothing, though a lot less than I used to see. As clouds darkened, we headed for the new museum.

The HongHe Prefectural Museum was huge and largely deserted. The first few floors were a little dull, but the last floor had some excellent displays of ethnic minority clothes, musical instruments, tools and traditional ceremonies. Ava particularly loved the embroidery and silver decorations on the various costumes and baby-carriers. Outside, there was a huge thunderstorm and we spent a few minutes watching the lightning, from the safety of the museum!

Intensive road

26/5/2012

I tried to take that local train again yesterday, but apparently the one I keep aiming to catch is now permanently cancelled. I'll have to change plans and try for another one, another day.

Instead, I headed down into southern Kunming, partly to visit another park which I'd seen on the map [see photo left] but never visited before and partly to track down more Chinglish [see photo top]. This park was free, and the lake there had a surprising amount of water considering we're in our 4th month of drought, but it was quite small and the little paths had an annoying number of speeding electric bikes to dodge.

This was another park littered with "Emergency" signs. Emergency toilets, Emergency fire extinguisher, Emergency medical treatment, Emergency powe [sic] supply, Emergency goods supply, etc. What sort of emergency are they expecting, exactly?

Our "one hour of trickling water a day" has turned into four days without any water at all. I'm glad I was never able to persuade Jiajia to replace our overlarge bath with a modern shower - baths make a great water storage device. But it won't last forever. We're firmly in the rainy season, so WHERE'S THE RAIN??

No train, so Tan

20/5/2012

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I had a day off recently and headed to the North Train Station. It only has 3-4 trains a day, serving the suburbs, but I'd been told it was quite fun watching the city traffic come to a standstill as your train passes through the railway crossing, and then seeing city gradually turn to countryside, all for a 2RMB (20p) ticket. In any case, the journey only lasts 40mins and, after shunting the engine round for 20mins, heads back. However, on arrival I found my chosen train had been cancelled and the next one was due 3 hours later.

So instead, I pulled out my map and decided to walk for an hour to TanHua Park. I'd spotted it on the map before, but never made it. The 5RMB (50p) entrance fee was a bargain - a surprisingly nice find. Old folk were sitting in the many nooks and crannies, playing cards or mahjong [see photo above], but otherwise the park was quiet and pleasantly uncrowded. At the top of the hill was an impressive pagoda tower, sadly locked [see photo right]. The grounds were well kept, though the rusting funfair rides had seen better days! Another hour's walk and I returned home trainless, tired but tanned.

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Lotus? Not us!

14/3/2012

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I spotted a nice looking park from a bus I'd not taken before whilst heading towards a friend's house the other day, and decided I should return and explore it sometime. So yesterday I found my way back to "Lotus Park", only to discover that I'd been there before but had entered through a different gate! Still, it made for a nice afternoon out in the sun, amongst the blossoms of trees and flowers and with the screeching sounds of amateur Chinese Opera never far away!

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With relative safety

28/12/2011

Jiajia doesn't have much family. In Kunming there's just her Mum and an "adopted" Uncle. But there are a few distant relatives in Shanghai

(and one in Laos!) and this week a Shanghai cousin was visiting Kunming on business. We met up with him for a couple of meals and a walk in the park. Bizarrely, the park seemed to be expecting an imminent disaster with almost every sign referring to some unspecified "emergency". Thankfully, we managed to escape with our lives!

Car'nt get enough bumps

20/3/2011

While I slaved away teaching at school, Ava took Mum and Dad out to DaGuan Park. They had a blast - riding bumper cars, merry-go-rounds, and enjoying a picnic in windy, but warm, weather. And Ava bought Dad a toy monkey to cement her new nickname for him!

Zoo..m!

9/3/2011

My parents and I spent this morning in Kunming Zoo, with Jiajia and her Mum [see photo]. The zoo has recently (thankfully) had many of its larger animals removed (they were not at all "comfortable" last time I visited, some 12 years ago), shipped off to a new safari park to the North of the city.

The main attraction now, at this time of year anyway, is the amazing cherry blossom. We also liked a garden containing 15-20 peacocks, who were very happily showing off their plumage. Dad also enjoyed the WW2 American fighter plane!

Big Day

8/3/2011

Today is Ava's birthday. A few weeks ago I managed to smuggle her favourite childhood doll out of her flat, and took it to various locations around town, photographing its "Big Day Out" as I went [see photos]. I put the resulting 50 photos in an album and gave it to Ava yesterday. She really seemed to like the cheap, but unique, present!

Improbable but botanical

1/1/2011

Today was a sunny, if chilly at times, day. So Jiajia and I decided to drive out to Kunming's Botanical Gardens. We had been warned it wouldn't be at its best, with leafless trees and no flowers but, as we arrived, it seemed busy with visitors and we hoped for the best. Unfortunately it was as dull as predicted, although fresh air and birdsong are always better than Kunming's traffic and noise pollution.

As a fan of the bizarre, my highlights were the "possibly-a-bit-crazy" belly dancer who wandered around the park doing random dances [photo, top left], and the Herb Garden which, despite barbed wire and imposing locked gates, also had a massive hole in its wall which was all too easy to walk through [photo, top right]. Later I started chatting to some youngsters who wanted to practise their English, one of whom turned out to be a student at my school (albeit a different branch). Jiajia showed her disinterest at my "working holiday" by flaking out on the lawn, before being told off by the "lawn guard"!

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