I love the Minions. And so does the rest of the world, including China. Here, the name "Minions" has been blandly translated as "Little Yellow People." So when the topic of the Minions comes up, I tell the older kids to look up the word "minion" in their smart phone dictionaries so that they can understand that the humor of the name. Minion means: "a follower or underling of a powerful person, especially a servile or unimportant one." 

The third movie featuring the Minions came out this past summer. But not in China. In China, the government suggested* that the movie theaters refrain from showing Western blockbusters to give a boost to the Chinese feature film industry. The government wanted the kids to go see the adorable little monsters in the domestic movie "Monster Hunt" instead. And they did.

Regardless, the McDonald restaurants in China rolled out the tie-in campaign -- little Minion toys -- with their Happy Meals in the summer, but the Chinese kids had to wait til late September to see the movie. 

A cosmetics and personal care chain, Watsons, also offered Minion memorabilia. I got some Minion fans. I mean fans that have Minions on them, not fans of the Minions. 

I don't even know how to write about this topic -- animal rights in China. Whenever I think about describing some of the disturbing things I've seen, I think of my lovely nieces who work with animals. I could see them charging, Carrie Nation-like, into the fray if they were in China, to rescue some dogs bound for the dinner plate, or to berate some owner who left his puppy for hours without food or water, tied by a very short leash to a lamppost beside the highway. I don't want to distress anyone by discussing this.
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These are little turtles for sale, in little plastic containers, in the hot sun. There are gradations of sympathy -- from animals with big soulful eyes, like dogs, to these poor trapped turtles, to crickets, which are kept as pets for fighting with other crickets, to bugs, which are of course fried and eaten. I was going to ask if sympathy, or sentimentality, for animals is a luxury that only more prosperous countries can afford, than I thought about Hinduism. I don't think Confucius ever spoke to the question of animal rights. He didn't even think about women...

When I was a smart-ass kid in high school it never occurred to me that teachers might doubt themselves or feel discouraged. They were adults, after all. I know better now. Some days, when I'm walking down the stairs after class, the little voice goes off... Do the kids think I'm a fun teacher or am I a figure of fun? Am I actually accomplishing anything here? How can I get them to talk more? But while standing in front of the classroom, it's part of my job to look like I know what I'm doing.

You know that term, Imposter Syndrome -- when you feel like a phony and you're afraid that somebody is going to call you out at any minute. Excuse me, what are you doing? Do you call yourself an educator? (In China we're actually called foreign experts, fer pete's sake.)

By "sizzling" I mean, hot.  Chinese summers are hot and humid. Shanghai is the farthest south we went this year and although places like Guilin look absolutely breathtaking, there is no way I'm going to visit there in the heat of summer. It will have to wait for some fall or spring when I'm not teaching, if that ever happens at all.

Anyway, I spent another day and a half in Shanghai solo after seeing Ross off to Canada for an extended home visit. By then I had picked up some tourist brochures and found all sorts of places I wanted to see but didn't have time for. I chose Yuyuan Gardens, which was easy to reach on the subway. I took my sunglasses and an umbrella, which ladies use here as parasols. I was also wearing the water-absorbent gel-filled neck cooler things I'd bought in Weihai and slapped sunscreen on the back of my neck.