The neighbourhood

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I have developed an irritating fondess for this city. It's grown on me like some variety of mould.

Today I sat in appreciation of Jinan. Near my apartment is a small park where I found a flat, comfortable rock near a statue of Hotei (Laughing Buddha) to study Chinese and sunbathe (or rather sunbathe and study Chinese...). I love visiting the parks and squares. I love having the time to visit the parks and squares. This little park in particular is so warm and peaceful. Old men shuffle past with walking sticks and carry fold-down stools. I'd love to be an old Chinese man. They're such great characters. And when they get tired or find an interesting foreigner to have a look at, they can just set-up their little stools and enjoy a good stare. They're too old to know 'hello' so they just give wide toothless grins and beckon to other old Chinese men to shuffle into the group and set-up their stools. So there I was with the sun in my face, enjoying the pretty red roses and watching toddlers totter about while the old Chinese men laughed soundlessly on their wooden stools. It was lovely, and then I saw the familiar glint of sunlight reflecting off camera lens, and realised I was being video-recorded. Neither me or any of my friends can fathom why the local people want to have photographs or in this case, x minutes of film footage, of people they don't know. I went to Beijing for one day, I had five photographs taken, and that's only the ones I knowingly consented to.

There are numerous poor people in Jinan. We leave our rubbish bags on a wall across from our apartment for collection, but they get raided every time I put them out. Waste toilet paper isn't flushed here so we also have to leave that out and it just shames me to see these people rake through our used toilet paper.

But like I said, this place has nevertheless grown on me.

Cxx

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