Here it is, almost the end of November and there has been no hard frost here. It is glove and muffler weather, but we didn't expect that we'd still be able to ride our bikes this time of year. How lucky we are that we can ride out of the campus and be in a country village in minutes. We can get local vegetables and eggs for dirt cheap, the villagers are always happy (amused?) to see us, and we can see the China that is disappearing quickly.
We've also found the local village cemeteries. Maybe if you're not "into" cemeteries, you would find my interest in cemeteries to be morbid. One reason I'm interested is that cemeteries were not spared the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. Can you imagine how you'd feel a government-sponsored mob came and smashed your grandmother's headstone because "ancestor worship" was among the "Four Olds" that Mao tried to eradicate?
I think all the headstones we've seen are post-Cultural Revolution. But some people don't have headstones, they have anthill-shaped piles of dirt. (below, center and right) A rock placed on top holds down a piece of paper. And some tombstones are knocked down and scattered around, but that could have been done more recently, as part of the vandalism that our own cemeteries suffer from.
Close by the campus, the Xiao Fu river flows. On "our" side of the river, you pass by the aforementioned villages and the little vegetable plots, and goats and, in a word, Old China.
Sorry so many of these pictures are hazy, by the way. The pollution levels really vary from day to day.
People gather to fish all along the river, but they only seemed to catch (and keep) minnow-sized fish. Ross snapped a picture of this young fisherman.
On the other side of the river is New China. High-end gated communities are springing up in the fields around the villages. Public parks with winding paths lead to large empty plazas.
Huge amounts of money have been poured into cycle paths, parks and public spaces. There are extensive plantings along the highways as well. All of this costs a lot of money to do and it takes a small army to maintain it,
We figure it's one way that China keeps everyone employed.
People gather to fish all along the river, but they only seemed to catch (and keep) minnow-sized fish. Ross snapped a picture of this young fisherman.
On the other side of the river is New China. High-end gated communities are springing up in the fields around the villages. Public parks with winding paths lead to large empty plazas.
Huge amounts of money have been poured into cycle paths, parks and public spaces. There are extensive plantings along the highways as well. All of this costs a lot of money to do and it takes a small army to maintain it,
We figure it's one way that China keeps everyone employed.
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