Blogs from Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, Asia - page 30

Only in China do your humiliations get broadcast on the city news and at the same time give you advantages in banking. I am ashamed to say that I lost my bank card to the ATM again today. If it weren’t for the China Agricultural Bank’s great system of sucking your card back in after 30 seconds if you don’t take it, I’m sure I would have been drained of every RMB to my name by now. When you make a withdrawl the ATM first gives you your money and then you have to select whether to continue with another transaction or eject your card. It’s easy to just take the money and leave - if you’re Lisa, that is. Well, I was hurrying off to the Jin Run Fa - sort of a Chinese Walmart ... read more

A Greener China I’ve spent this last week battling or coddling a cold. Finally, I stopped by the University Foreign Affairs office and coughed my way through the request, “I (hack, hack) need a (hack, hack) doctor.” They responded immediately and I was at the university clinic at my requested time with a translator. I have amoxicillin and three Chinese meds that seem to be a generic cold pill to dry me out, a cough depressant pill that tastes like licorice, and several miniature bottles of teeny-tiny pills, like seeds, that numb my mouth and throat. I’m a lot better today. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Today, 11/24/06 we will have a potluck meal at Gimling College with the American and Chinese teachers, maybe other westerners too. Now that I’m feeling better I have a lot to ... read more

I was going to write a blog about how I almost got hit by cars, motorcycles and bikes three times today but as I was thinking that time number four occurred. On a day when the close calls occur one or two times I will usually remember the excuses. There really are too many people and not enough space. The cars are allowed to turn right at the one time pedestrians are allowed to cross the street ( at least they have crosswalks now!). There are no lanes for bikes, but luckily the side of the road is fenced in just for bikes. I almost run into people too, but I always stop in time. But today I just had enough. I was on campus at Nanjing University crossing a not-so-busy street. There were about ten ... read more

Fishing, Milk, Buddha Field Trip The university foreign affairs office took us (the foreign teachers) on a field trip for two days (Oct. 14-15). We left the Suiyuan campus and took a van ride about two hours to the Chunhua grazing ground and then to the Weigang Milk Company factory. We had to put on white lab coats and plastic over our shoes, then walk through a room with purple lights before we could look at the cows. I assume this was to protect the cows from mad cow disease. Chunha is a large dairy farm with automated milking machines. I enjoyed it. I like visiting farms. We then went to the Weigang Milk factory to see the raw milk arrive, get pasteurized, homogenized, bottled and bagged. In addition to the glass bottles and milk cartons ... read more

The Pedestrian Mall and Hunan Road After the experience in the fabric store, the Bububu, we walked out past a lot of bikes. Someone had put flyers in all the bike baskets—you know, like the flyers people put on our windshields at home. We walked around the corner and down the street. Hunan Road has big signs, WELCOME TO HUNAN ROAD. All the signs and lights and color make the area very exciting. We walked for a little while, then turned on the pedestrian road. It’s a shopping area with no cars. Each end of the street has a carved arch with stylized lions and other figures. There were bronze statues at the beginning, like the statues in Decatur, GA and downtown Atlanta. These are life size models of old time street vendors. One is blowing ... read more