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Published: October 27th 2006
a beautiful place
The pond was beautiful.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 that are familiar to Americans, the Chinese also package milk in small bags. My students are often drinking milk or yogurt for breakfast. To see the production line, we watched live camera video in an observation room.
After the factory, we drove to the Nanshan farming village near Jurong, checked into our very nice hotel, ate lunch, took a nap, and headed
the leopard by the pond
Good looking leopard, but I wonder what his story is. He was beside the pond. out to go fishing at a rural development project. We caught a lot of fish, although I didn’t catch any. I said I was catching photographs. The poles are hollow and the lines are tied at the end. There were no reels. The ponds are stocked and the facilities man threw some muddy stuff in to attract the fish (chum?). It was beautiful, very peaceful, clean air, birds, rabbits, etc. I was glad to get out of the city. That evening we ate at the restaurant at the pond site—of course, we ate our fish. Absolutely delicious.
The next day we left for Zhenjiang and visited Jiao Mountain, a Buddhist temple on an island. Much of the temple was destroyed during the cultural revolution, but it’s been rebuilt. This site is known especially for its collection of antique calligraphy. These are rock slabs with carvings and ink. You can see the progression from old simpler characters to elaborate ones. I’m totally ignorant of this historical field; I could just tell it was an art and there were many artists over thousands of years.
In one of the gardens there was a bonsei competition and in one building, a
2 of 3 Japanese teachers
We have 3 Japanese teachers; 2 from Japan and one from China. floral arrangement competition. I was interested in the gardens, the use of buildings, rocks, gravel, trees and flowers, water and bridges. A small space seemed large and varied. (I wonder if I could do that at home.)
The Buddhas were beautiful. Many different ones. I don’t remember enough about Buddhism to identify most of them. Look at the photos.
All together it was a great field trip—even though I didn’t catch any fish.
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Taina
non-member comment
What calm, beautiful photos! I'm glad you were able to get out of the city for a bit, too. =)