Blogs from Jiangsu, China, Asia - page 110

Taizhou's economy is almost totally dependent on agriculture, and rain is an important part of the next successful harvest. Over the last 2 weeks, down-pours have been very heavy in the district, and much of the farming region is now underwater, threatening the crops and lifelyhood of its farmers. I see them standing, their pants rolled up, as have peasants over the centuries, in their water-soaked parcels of land, looking in dismay and helpless. Driving through the very fertile but flat country-side, I was left speachless by the waters across the fields, and the amounts deposited by the rainstorms, which I experienced in the safety of the city and in the comfort of an apartment. These rains are causing, and will continue to cause, true hardships for these farmers. In areas, it is not possible to ... read more

So the Chinese are always bragging about their civilization being so many thousands of years old, and how they where the first to invent everything, and how they knew this and that before anyone else did, but I am still taken aback by how backwards this place is sometimes. On the 28th I went out to the airport to meet Emma’s flight into Shanghai. On the way out there I once again took the Magnetic Levitation train that I took in from the airport when I first arrived in China. This is a train with no wheels or rails that floats on a cloud of air. This is caused by reverse magnetic polarity being generated between the track and the train. It goes 430 kilometers an hour and makes the trip from downtown to the airport ... read more

The customs from country to country are never quite the same, but in China there are additional surprises to ponder. To a new resident and "virgin-observer" from the West, the medium sized city of Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, offers challenges not known to a three-week tourist, who is securely insulated from true-daily-life of China's 1.4 billion. Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong are no more China than New York, Los Angeles, and Miami are America. To understand America is to look beyond the city-sprawl, to imagine China is to visit beyond its mega-cities. Opportunities to experience these less explored areas of China, such as the city of Taizhou, are emerging for teachers from foreign countries (and especially from English speaking nations), for whom a semester long stay, or even a year long contract with a school in China, could ... read more

For the first time I ventured out on public transportation, rather than on foot. Bus #9 makes a stop at the corner of our street, and my Australian collegue Sue and Vivian, one of the English teachers at the college assigned to assist us, and I took a lengthy ride into the city to check out one of the major shopping centers on the other side of Taizhou. It was a good day to buy a set of umbrellas, each costing about $3. Any public bus in the city costs 1 Yuan (12 cents), a bargain for enjoying the city scenes. Though we have been having serious rains, Taizhou on a bus offers a new perspective on the size of this expansive community of some 5 million, rather small for Chinese standards. The construction of "major" ... read more

It’s the end of term and I decided to take a few days off and slip away to Suzhou again. However, Suzhou City itself was not the main reason for this visit. Instead, I wanted to visit a small town only 18km away perched on the Eastern shores of Tai Hu (Tai Lake), the town of Tongli. Tongli is a very well preserved water township with a history of over 1000years. I had been told it was well worth exploring here rather than its bigger cousin Zhouzhuang, as it has a similar history and natural scenery but is much less crowded. That’s all I needed to hear! Tongli is divided into seven (7) islands, intersected with about fifteen (15) canals and five (5) lakes. Consequently, almost all of the buildings in town are located along the ... read more