In America, all of our television journalists, in one way or another, are fairly attractive. At least, they are not difficult to look at. And, as far as I know, most American journalists appearing on television have great teeth. This is because dental health and appearance are very important to Americans, and no one is …
Thanks to those of yall who participated in the little contest we had on this photo: We got a lot of great guesses. The closest one was Anna from Germany. In fact, it is an advertisement for an abortion clinic. Here is a mostly complete translation of the ad that I put together: Xining Family …
Note: Though we normally avoid foul language in this blog, this post does contain a fairly provocative word. In order to faithfully record our goings-on, I have decided to leave the word in, only partially censoring the word. We were coming into Xining. I was in the passengers seat. A stranger pulled up on the …
I thought I was imagining things. We were just about finished with a temple dedicated to Fuxi when I saw a score of oldish people hustling into the temple, orange sashes tied around their waist, all speaking Taiwanese, a language related to Mandarin about as closely as French is to Portuguese. I was only able …
After getting a ride back from Maijishan, Galen and I went to the temple dedicated to Fuxi. Fuxi is an ancient Chinese god/mythical ancestor who was the first at a lot of things in Chinese mythology. According to Chinese legends, Fuxi and his wife/sister, Nuwa, created all humans after a flood washed everyone else away. …
One of the things I found most troubling at Huashan was, despite the fact that we were hiking up through this gorgeous granite mountain, it rarely felt like we were “in nature.” We were constantly surrounded by thousands of other climbers. Along the way, there were stalls where old folks were selling trinkets. Most annoying …
The Terra-cotta Warriors are Xian’s biggest attraction, but the Han Emperor Jingdi’s smaller tomb on the outskirts of Xian is as impressive, if not as grand. Hundred foot tall tomb-mounds dapple the burial site just across the Wei River from Xian. Beneath these hills lie the tombs of the Emperor, his wife and others. Inside …
Just a short vignette: after we got off the bullet train in Xian, we made our way to the subway. For some reason, the Chinese will often dedicate two or three of the five ticket machines as coin-only machines, despite the fact that the coins are rarely used in China and that each of the …