For many teachers, I suspect most young teachers, the major drawback of living on campus is that the campus is often on the outskirts of the city. Here in Zibo, for example. bus service from the school to the city stops around 6:00 pm. If you go downtown for dinner or to visit friends, you're looking at a fifteen to twenty minute taxi ride home.

So I think that's the main drawback to moving to the campus -- we're farther away from all the things we enjoy in the city.  Just as we are really getting into the swing of exploring the city by bike, we'll be moving too far away to continue doing so. At least, it will take a long bike ride to get to the city and back again. We'll see what other drawbacks only become apparent after we move. 

Advantages are many. My commute (by foot and bus) is currently 40 minutes. If we move on campus, it won't take ten minutes to get from apartment to classroom. This will be especially pleasant come wintertime. We will get a better shower, instead of the weak gravity-fed trickle shower. I think we're getting running cold AND hot water.  The fixtures, fittings and furniture are all better. Goodbye to the tiny toy kitchen, goodbye to the evil sofa.  The campus will supply all the furniture we need -- bookshelves, desks, bed, sofa, television, washing machine. We'll be able to sit in a sofa or armchair and watch TV and read a book. Instead of three flights of stairs, there's only one -- easier on Ross's knees.

After a very enjoyable hour winding our way through the large hills, or small mountains of Boshan, (the peaceful getaway that borders the city where we live,) our hosts for the weekend guided us down a very steep and unpaved single lane road to an outdoor restaurant under the trees. The tables were set up here and there beside the lake and the owners had even slung a few hammocks between the trees. 

In this relaxing and quiet spot, we enjoyed another meal selected by our hosts who, as usual, refused to let us pay for anything: We had fish served three ways -- in soup, fried and poached with sauce, we had chicken, (in fact we witnessed the chicken's demise in the side yard and his reappearance 30 minutes later in a tureen of soup), tofu with a tangy chive sauce, various vegetables and sundry other dishes. (By sundry, of course, I mean "cicada." See my earlier post. "This is about bugs.") And this was lunch, remember. As usual, when we had sampled everything and could eat no more, the host asked if he should order more food -- (noodles?  rice?). 

I've been writing about my life in China but of course like everyone else I am following the depressing news from other parts of the world. 

Fifty years and one month ago, a 15-year-old black teenager was shot and killed by an off-duty white policeman in Harlem. The policeman, Thomas Gilligan, later testified that he was acting in self-defense because the smaller, slighter teen, James Powell, was coming at him with a knife.  (A fact not mentioned in this photographic recap of the riot.) I am just trying to briefly recount the known facts. I do not know whether Gilligan just decided to shoot a black kid down in the street, or whether Powell would still be alive today if he had been a white boy, or if Powell was showing off in front of his friends and decided to challenge the white man, not knowing he was a cop.  

A radical communist group, the Progressive Labor Party, saw an opportunity for enlisting more people to the cause of Marxism-Leninism and they distributed flyers in the streets which said, "Wanted for Murder: Gilligan the Cop."  Their leader, Blll Epton, ambitiously called for outright revolution and advised that "we're going to have to kill a lot of cops." Angry protests and rallies spun into riots and looting that lasted for four days. A grand jury declined to indict Gilligan...