Olympic news China Daily, the official English newspaper, had a story about water. The Olympic visitors will have drinkable (potable) running water. I wonder how that will be accomplished. No one in China drinks faucet water. Water is drunk hot to be sure it was boiled. My visitors do not want cold water, even on hot days, and none of my guests has ever said 'yes' to the offer of ice in the water. In Beijing, one day a month is queue day. Everyone in Beijing has to line up for the busses, elevators, etc., on that day. As it gets closer to the actual Olympic date, queue day will probably happen more often, e.g., every week, then every day. Before the Cultural Revolution people used to be very polite and would line up; but the ... read more

Jiansu Province Kun Opera It’s not the Beijing Opera, but it’s great to be in the audience. The operas are staged in an old Confucian temple and a small theater so you can really see the details of the performers’ costumes and make up, as well as the emotions they project. This is a long blog, but my sons and daughter-in-law are coming this week for ten days, so I want to get caught up on these blogs. After this one I want to tell you about the incredible cave paintings in Dun Huang in Gansu province in the desert. But for now, read on about the magical Kunqu (pronounced koon-chew) opera. We went twice, March 24th and 31st. The first night we met a woman from the Nanjing Normal University staff (my university) who ... read more

Spring and Yuntai Mountain, Spring has come to Nanjing Nanjing is a beautiful city now, but it wasn’t always so. Back in the 1930s and 40s after the Japanese had invaded and occupied Nanjing, killing hundreds of thousands of Chinese, the city was a mess. Many destroyed buildings, ruined roads, etc. and no money to fix it up. To hide the destruction, the Nanjing natives planted trees. After I heard that story, I wondered about Beijing Xie Lu (Beijing Street West) which has beautiful old plane trees (from the sycamore family), all pruned to shade the street on both sides. The housing for the military was in this area. Are these trees some of those that were hiding destruction? Nanjing is the same latitude as Atlanta, GA and a lot of the plants are the ... read more

My blog Anniversary & New Year’s Eve (Lunar) Hello World! On April 5, I will have been blogging for one year. That's the first milestone. The others are that my blog has had 5,610 hits and this is the 45th journal entry. I never expected to reach those numbers. I swear I have not been going to my blog several times a day to get a high hit count! Thank you, world of supporters! I missed telling you about Hong Kong. So far, I think it's my favorite city in the world. I used to say Paris, but I haven't been there in 30 years, so now it's Hong Kong. This is the city of the future. On Hong Kong island, pedestrians have their own bridges in the sky. No competing for walking space with ... read more

I've been asked questions about the civil service examinations, because I showed you photos of the examination rooms, in my last blog. This tradition is really the basis for Chinese education today. Although the first examinations were in the Qin dynasty, the examinations fully based on the Classics began in the Tang Dynasty (618-896AD) and continued until 1905, and for that thousand years, was the scope and breadth of Chinese education. All officials were recruited through the examinations. Men could aspire to a position regardless of class position by studying the Classics to prepare for the Imperial Civil Service Examinations. The classics pertain to the so-called Four Books and the Five Classics (四書五經 Sì-shū Wǔ-jīng), which were the mandatory texts for the exam. (C.f. Michael Nylan. The Five “Confucian” Classics. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2001.) ... read more