tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-345954272012-01-31T02:01:00.561+08:00A log of a year in Jiangsu Nanjing, from August 2006Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.comBlogger381100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-48717056886826886662007-06-01T13:49:00.001+08:002007-06-17T01:02:40.290+08:00

Military Eugenics hospitalIn a backstreet filled with small jewellers, food stalls, brothels and fruit sellers, by the crossing of Changfujie and Taipingnanlu, is the Nanjing Military Command eugenics centre. It's lovely to know that these things are practised to this day!

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-74492575981436059062007-04-20T18:58:00.001+08:002007-04-22T23:48:22.514+08:00

Butterfly in the Ming public parkHuge black butterflies glide across the park for 8 months of the year. They've just come back and are all over campus!

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-53382808984401838332007-04-20T13:45:00.000+08:002007-04-20T14:06:26.940+08:00

After a good solid meal of ten "lamb-on-a-stick"s and four "duck-heart-on-a-stick"s, something to soak up the meat is often good. This being China, a simple bowl of rice seemed the best and easiest option. So, in search of this basic staple, I went into a nearby restaurant, where a few people were being served food.The conversation went as follows:"Could I have a bowl of rice please?""Don't have

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-47268573934742022622007-04-20T11:09:00.000+08:002007-06-09T19:38:41.971+08:00

Recently, due to a reduced timetable and a little inspiration, I've started working on a charity project.There's a huuuge poverty gap here, and people in the countryside can't afford good schooling, so they move to the city to do really underpaid hard work, and their kids go to school in the city. The problem is, cos they're from the countryside, workers can't register as residents in the city,

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-21836906911131579182007-03-30T17:25:00.001+08:002007-03-30T17:25:56.150+08:00

CIMG0706-smallThe campus here is filled with tree-lined avenues, that create a warm soft roof to walk under in the evening, and a sunshade for the hot days. Each tree forks into a V-shape, and over the years they've grown leaning toward the sun.

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-84111417851222297282007-03-21T13:36:00.000+08:002007-03-22T08:52:59.013+08:00

Nanjing's Presidential Palace is a beautiful historic site. Nanjing was the capital of China for a long time, around five dynasties if memory serves, and so of course its seat of power is the location of many historic events. It's also rather plush.Rulers and residents have included Dr Sun Yat-Sen, the Japanese (when attempting a coup with the puppet Emperor - around the time of the rape of

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-42117772337198949232007-03-19T22:10:00.001+08:002007-03-19T22:17:12.790+08:00

blue-dragonflySo is the puke blue, or the dragonfly? This is the cover to a deck of playing cards. Note the manufacturer - I've heard of a niche industry but that really takes the biscuit!

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-30526141362154069182007-03-15T14:08:00.001+08:002007-03-15T19:26:08.365+08:00

Water storage heatersLarge shiny water tanks litter the roofs of Chinese "suburbia". These great little devices are a side offect of the small size of a residence, which often leaves as much as possible outside the windows or doors or even on the roof, and also a great way of boosting efficiency and keeping bills down. It's hard to buy non-energy saving bulbs, and public transport is always

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-75274435319609641822007-03-14T17:48:00.000+08:002007-03-14T17:59:56.880+08:00

I've been the victim of bicycle theft!Well, not quite. They opened the lock, and then decided that the most valuable thing they could take wasn't my trusty, solid and speedy bike, but the actual lock (which in fairness did cost £1). So they left the bike. Now I have no bikelock. Buggers.

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-82585522254349416432007-03-12T12:42:00.000+08:002007-03-12T18:19:21.903+08:00

Today I held a lesson on first dates. This kind of topic is bound to result in some kind of awkwardness among Chinese students. The minimum age for marriage here is 22 for men and 20 for women, and I'd estimate that around 80% to 90% of my first- and second- year university students are virgins. Half of the younger generation still holds traditional values of no sex before marriage; the other

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-37666353452673596682007-03-11T15:19:00.001+08:002007-03-11T15:19:34.696+08:00

We went to Heilongtan, a beautifully calm Daoist temple in the outskirts of Kunming. One thing they had was a carp pool. This in itself is barely worth mention - every tourist site in China worth its salt has a large pool of carp, and a sleeping person who will sell you a modestly sized bag of special fish food for a kuai or two. Anyway, there were loads here, and they were all very greedy fish.

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-5728586110602230622007-03-11T09:57:00.000+08:002007-03-11T11:35:53.599+08:00

All Chinese university students have the first 4-6 weeks of their tuition off from lessons. Instead, they are trained by the Chinese army, using university ground and facilities. Uniforms are provided, as well as weapons. Training begins at around 7.00-7.30am, and finished at 5pm, with an hour or two for funch. Training activities include, in no particular order: marching on the spot, sitting in

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-36590551179076224422007-03-10T12:01:00.000+08:002007-03-12T13:30:52.604+08:00

China is under construction. Every street corner that you visit has a new building underway, with older houses being ripped down to make room for another enormous skyscraper. Nanjing used to be home to China's tallest building, the Jinling hotel, in 1990, with around 18 floors. Now, that honour falls to the Jin Mao tower in Pu Dong (Shanghai), which is also the fourth tallest building in the

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-28685470778903009702007-02-28T22:08:00.000+08:002007-03-01T12:12:01.733+08:00

China's enormous. All the cities are massive. People refer to a town of one or two million as "small". This kind of population requires a fantastic transport system, and the powers hat be are well aware; massive areas to the north, south and east of Nanjing (there's a river to the west) are mainly incomplete, but already have a complex and advanced system of wide roads ready to take all the

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-23736659327488637852007-02-26T13:15:00.000+08:002007-02-26T15:39:03.617+08:00

The chicks are growing! They love to sit by anything warm, as they're used to keeping hot beneath their mother. We've called them Soup and Curry. Chickens - even newly hatched baby chickens - peck at the ground constantly; as soon as one of them find something, the other runs over. So, if you tap on the floor lightly, like a beak pecking, they'll hear and run. (Press the play button in the

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-1604038430443922992007-02-26T12:16:00.000+08:002007-06-17T01:10:24.024+08:00

The Chinese also have a saying about the importance of lunch as the main source of energy in a day: "早餐吃得好，中餐吃得饱，晚餐吃得少" (at breakfast eat well, at lunch eat until full, [and] at dinner eat just a little).The strangest thing happened when I first arrived here (and still does, every day): everybody in the office stopped doing everything at around 11.45, and ate (not too strange..), but when I

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-40407502179374290852007-02-25T14:43:00.001+08:002007-02-25T14:43:11.685+08:00

P1040857Yesterday, in Fuzi Miao, there was a lady with a polystyrene box filled up with baby chicks. We bought two (and got bulk discount!). They're barely bigger than eggs and need to be kept warm, and are only a few days old. And cute!

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-10281070837420535992007-02-12T13:51:00.001+08:002007-02-22T10:30:11.891+08:00

Bizarre fruitThis cheery lady offered us some very strange fruit on Ruijinlu (the main road just round the corner). I've no idea what they are! Any ideas?

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-72950314988414608282007-02-12T13:49:00.001+08:002007-02-21T10:58:26.709+08:00

FIRE FIGHTING JURY EXCITER LAMPA whatnow?!

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-7515227681143727682007-02-12T13:38:00.001+08:002007-02-26T12:57:27.432+08:00

China, from BurmaWe're in Burma! Kids were playing in the border control station behind, and the crossing point is a hole in a barbed wire fence about 4 metres to the right of this photo. Sophisticated, eh? The guy who took us here wanted 150RMB for the service, which consisted of a 5 minute walk through a park and then a quick foot tour around some good Burmese monuments, such as the Museum

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-67425158559051311132007-02-12T13:31:00.001+08:002007-02-18T17:18:20.451+08:00

Horse and cartThere were a lot of horse-powered carts around Kunming, especially on the motorway. This one clattered by down a minor road from the airport, with another two carts in front. It's obviously owned by a rich-ish (or lazy-ish) guy - the plastic pipes look light enough to be bundled and carried between two people without any kind of vehicle at all. Nice to see!

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-57422076153931417002007-02-12T13:26:00.001+08:002007-02-22T10:30:46.055+08:00

Good steeringWhere is he going? Nobody knows! Leaving Xuzhou, there was an enourmous tailback down a 5-lane road. This truck was the culprit. You can see the feet of the driver and his mate on the other side of the truck. Oncoming traffic moved onto our side of the road and starting squeezing round the back of this truck, leaving us no way to go. Of course, everybody starting on their horns -

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-72150361458576649452007-02-12T13:20:00.001+08:002007-02-16T12:38:12.337+08:00

Meats on a stickEating various meats on a stick is a great way to pass time. Lamb on a stick (yang rou chuan, 羊肉串) was the first meal I ordered on my own! Meat on a stick sellers can be found everywhere! The style of cooking often comes from the Xinjiang province in the west, which is very Muslim (relatively speaking). This is a picture of an outdoor meat on a stick restaurant; you pick what you

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-48980760196399379922007-02-12T13:03:00.001+08:002007-02-14T12:53:00.669+08:00

FIAE EVACUATION CHARTA huge amount of broken English looks like someone's glanced at what should be written, and then tried to copy the shapes of the letters, with no real knowledge of English. Sadly, Beijing seems intent on stamping out all the hilarious Chinglish in advance of the 2008 Olympics - I read in China Daily that the Chinese think foreigners are insulted and can't understand the bad

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-34459252093760688662007-02-12T12:33:00.001+08:002007-03-15T20:53:51.730+08:00

Busy Fuzi MiaoFuzi Miao gets busy! This is just a Tuesday afternoon. The population here is immense, so much so that almost every business seems to succeed, no matter how much or little it's advertised - there are simply so many people going past that sooner or later, enough of them will provide some income. The Chinese seem to have a much reduced sense of personal space - probably as a direct

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-234269362519622642007-02-12T12:14:00.001+08:002007-02-12T12:37:23.897+08:00

Caramel StrawberriesAround most towns in China, there are vendors selling hawthorn fruit stacked on a stick and coated with crunchy and sticky caramel (you can see one just outside Smart Noshery Makes You Slobber - the vertical red sticks toward the bottom left). Well, over Christmas, we found a delicious variation on the theme; as strawberries were in season (£2 would buy you about 5kg), you

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-59289939753898892262007-02-11T20:27:00.001+08:002007-02-12T12:38:50.220+08:00

Smart Noshery, originally uploaded by leondznanjing. Some minor things like leaflet footers here come up with fantastic Chinglish, some just annoying; usually, things as important as shop signs have the odd missing letter or spelling mistake. But this neon-lit restaurant sign's excellent - almost looks like it's been crafted by a native speaker with a sense of humour, right?

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-11168524683665464812006-12-11T12:56:00.000+08:002007-03-15T20:53:51.731+08:00

Geoff and Sara have put up an excellent post about the little (it's 1km long, but very narrow!) street we live on - Li Fu Jie. Laetitia's also put up a Lifu Jie photo album.

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-35521268598878501942006-12-08T13:33:00.000+08:002006-12-08T17:31:51.876+08:00

It's said by some that the Chinese will eat anything. They'll certainly serve it up for idiot foreigners and boyishly proud men to devour! A market stall (at the same market where sugar dragons were found) was serving various deep fried insects. Having heard that starfish was not the nicest of dishes, I tried scorpions - one stick of little ones, and one stick with a big black one on. The stings

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-63154174950969947892006-12-05T23:14:00.000+08:002006-12-07T12:43:20.934+08:00

On the way back from Fuzi Miao the other day, I stopped for a delicious and cheap meal of jaozi, which are essentially small meaty dumplings. It cost 1RMB, ar about 0.07 GBP. The guy cooked seven for me and served them. Boiling hot meaty goodness is fantastic after a hard afternoon's browsing at the market. For table service on hot food cooked to order, it doesn't get much better!The bottles you

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-14037508878604817272006-12-04T13:36:00.000+08:002006-12-04T13:42:53.727+08:00

You can get sugar dragons made in front of your eyes here! While visiting the nearby lake, we found a small market, selling all kinds of unusual goods; skinned coconuts full of milk, deep fried scorpion, fresh Muslim lamb skewers from the far west, and sugar dragons!A practiced Chinese gentleman will produce a board stuffed with little paintings with a spinning pointer at its centre, and ask a

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-77744344835165134532006-12-04T13:23:00.000+08:002006-12-10T11:36:10.830+08:00

The Sea of Bamboo is a large natural forest of bamboo near the town of Yixing, Jiangsu. We visited it with a class from NUAA. It's a sight just like you'd expect from any cheesy brochures of China, or perhaps - more gratiatingly - high budget Chinese gong fu (kung fu) films; hordes of gently bowing white-ringed bamboo stalks, crowned with a handful of tiny spring green leaves, for as far and as

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-10663770857991726672006-12-04T12:47:00.000+08:002007-03-12T18:07:28.236+08:00

Yixing, in northern Jiangsu province, is known throughout China for its dark clay. Many local businesses revolve around manufacturing earthenware goods from Yixing's "purple sand", either via mass production or by hand. Often, Chinese artists who work with clay will build their pieces out of material from this region. Yixing clayWe visited a teapot factory in Yixing, where people meticulously put

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-1161914563074344432006-10-27T10:00:00.000+08:002007-07-20T14:52:41.470+08:00

Fuzi Miao, the old Confucious temple, is now a shopping area and great tourist destination near the centre of Nanjing. Fuzi Miao has three official entrances, each of which is marked by a large heavily ornamented oriental-style wooden gate. It's quite a sprawling area and there are many other ways in, but these are the big ones.Fuzi Miao gate 1Fuzi Miao gate 2Fuzi Miao gate #3Finding new parts of

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-1161582512042901942006-10-23T13:43:00.000+08:002006-10-23T13:48:47.383+08:00

There seem to be some rather interesting sweets available - is this stuff really OK for kids?From 20061022-dump

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-1159671647664366892006-10-01T11:00:00.000+08:002007-03-12T17:58:20.919+08:00

Green TeaGreen tea is good for you! Loads of people carry around some kind of jar or pot, with a handful of green tea in the bottom, and water in the rest. Once you've drunk the tea, the jar's refilled. They must've been doing this for a while because you can now get purpose built tea jars, with a strap, and an inbuilt filter to stop the leaves getting in your mouth while you gulp it down. I have

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-1159668001634277112006-10-01T09:59:00.000+08:002007-03-14T17:59:03.981+08:00

Everybody in China has a bicycle. Mine's a model that was popular about 25 years ago, it's black, built very strongly, and feels like it's made of cast iron.Ace bike! This one will beat a VolvoThey use to be called "Weight Plus" because they'll take a lot of weight. You'll often see people with two metre stacks of boxes piled onto the backs of their bikes, wobbling through the streets! Most roads

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34595427.post-1159667659999462152006-10-01T09:52:00.000+08:002006-12-08T17:26:00.330+08:00

Although there are many traffic rules and regulations in China, and the roads are wide, well-surfaced and laned, the actual driving experience is pretty much total chaos. Cars are fairly recent and up until about 3 years ago everyone had bikes, so they drive like cyclists - very aggressively, and into any space they'll fit! It's pretty good fun getting an "insane" taxi driver who's more than

Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10339391715730317550noreply@blogger.com1