Sunday

April 22, 2007 Sunday

We had a tremendous rain storm in the predawn hours. Since yesterday was almost unbearably muggy, the rain really helps to bring the temperature down again. Unfortunately, the smell of drains in the bathroom has intensified.

We watched the sports channel on TV. Today it was synchronized swimming and the NBA playoff between Houston & Utah. Everyone here roots for Houston because of Yao Ming. The other popular sports channel offerings have been the world snooker tournament, synchronized diving, soccer, and golf. They do show the other NBA games if Houston isn’t playing.

Fireworks were going off like World War III. Hongfang said later that there was a wedding in the building across from her.

Between the raindrops, I took Chuck to the supermarket across the street from the campus. He likes to choose things to try and it is nice to have someone else to help carry. You may notice that I am going to the store A LOT! That’s because I am limited to what I can carry up 4 flights. Now, I am training Chuck to ask if I need anything, when he calls to say that he is coming home. (4flights)

We have been invited to dinner by Prof. Zhang and his wife. The original plan was to take a walk in the Arboretum near his apartment, but the rain has squelched that plan. Instead we met Hongfang at the East Gate (that’s the one nearest our abode) to take a taxi to his new apartment. (He also has a place on campus that he lives in during the week. It took us a big 20 minutes to get to his new place.)

This is how some real people live in China. (I think that they think that I’m a little strange asking if I can take pictures of everything. But, they happily give me tours and let me snap away.) (1 flight)

The living room area with Hongfang Chen. Behind her you can see the drying porch. We were having fruit and tea before leaving for the restaurant.

A 180 degree turn to the dining room.

Through a door across from the table to the kitchen. It is quite spacious and has a two burner cook top and a lot of drawers and cabinets.

Bathroom with washing machine. The sink is open to the hall.

Guest bedroom.

Built in closet. The picture is of Prof. Zhang’s daughters when they were little. They both live in the USA now and are in their early thirties. We saw the wedding photos of one daughter. She looked exquisite. She wore several very formal dresses and a wedding dress in the photos. They explained that everything is rented for the photos. The groom gets to dress up in fancy costumes (Louis XIV for example) also.

During the picture showing I brought out my photos of Calder & Branwen. They are very intrigued by Branwen’s looks. She is more Asian looking, but has grey-blue eyes.

The master bath.

The third bedroom is a lovely office.

The outside of their building. Mrs. Zhang is looking back at their balcony. It is on the 2^nd floor and you can see the clothes.

This is in a gated apartment community with walkways and fountains etc. Each of these communities has a guard at the gate.

We walked out of the gate and down the road apiece to the restaurant.

The fake flowers and leaping fish lit up after dark.

Here we are with Hongfang and Prof. Zhang.

The ladies went down to choose the fish. (They don’t seem to know any more about it than I do. We seemed to be picking based on which ones had fewest bones.) (2 flights)

We had the skin of a green radish (pickled), snails with green onions, beef, peanuts, wood ears (black mushrooms), dried tofu, green beans (they looked like limas, but didn’t taste quite the same), stone frogs (in the black caldron), fish soup (1 fish in each bowl), sticky rice soup with little colored balls of sticky rice and for “main food” a pancake. And of course WATERMELON. The “main food” thing is really funny. When you have had lots of different dishes and you are stuffed to the gills, they come and ask what you would like for “main food”. The choices seem to be: rice, pancake, noodles, dumplings and bread. This is why we never get rice when we are alone – we don’t understand what they are asking and just signal for the check.

We had tea and beer to drink. Zhang asked if we wanted White wine. I said that I had not seen white wine in China and it would be good to try. Hongfang then said – that white wine is their name for the white lightning liquor. I changed my order to beer.

During dinner, they told us about the time when USTC moved out of Bejing. It was decided that it would be safer to have it away from a big city, so they moved everyone to a very very small town. It was horrible. There was no place for anyone to live. Faculty families were sharing the stage of the auditorium with blankets hung up to separate their areas. Zhang said that he had just received his degree, so he just got off the train and went home instead of going to this place. This was in 1970, so it was during the “disturbances”. Since this place was impossible, the government emptied the Normal University in Hefei and moved the Science & Technology University there. I think that however bad it was, the other possibilities were worse during this time.

A fine time was had by all. We flagged down a taxi and went home. (4 flights)

11 flights today