Musings from the Far Easy: Autumn and some random musings

Autumn has set in over Beijing almost overnight. At this time last week the heat and humidity were going full bore, and now I need to start carrying a jacket in the evenings. The seasons, like most things in China, change quickly. It truly is a magnificent place with mysteries around every corner, many of which make your eyes get really big as you try to comprehend the thinking behind the things you see...

There is a hallway on the first floor of my apartment building that has a spot where the tiles keep breaking. There is a hole in the concrete beneath these tiles, and they shatter due to someone dropping something on them on a regular basis. You would think that the way to fix this would be to fill in the hole, and then replace the tiles... but the powers that be at my apartment building just continue to replace the tiles. The latest replacement tiles don't even attempt to match the surrounding tiles that fill the rest of the building.

I went with a different Chinese friend to her college campus to have a look around. As she was showing me around, we came to a statue of Confucius looking as wise and impressive as you would imagine. Confucius is surrounded by flowers. Sounds nice right? Well... its not exactly a flower bed... And its not even flower pots. Confucius is surrounded by little flowers still in the plastic potting you would buy at Home Depot or Lowes. My friend says this happens year round, except the winter, and when the flowers die, as they inevitably do due to lack of adequate moisture, they are just replaced. It looks tacky as hell, and they have to buy hundreds, if not thousands, of flowers a year. How hard would it be to buy some more permanent potting? Or, if the school knew it was going to put flowers around him, build a flower bed...

I have seen a grown man on the side of a busy street squatting to go number two. I have seen a mother helping her 7-10 year old boy up onto a trashcan so he can use the bathroom. This trashcan happened to be right in front of where people exit the subway at one of the busiest stops on the line. (its the final stop, everyone has to exit)

Shopping in China is nothing like shopping at home. They have supermarkets and malls, sure, but they are generally overpriced. Instead, this is where you shop:

Its fairly awesome, except that they try to rip off foreigners because they think (or know?) that we are stupid.

China seems to be 5 or more years behind in fashion and activities as evidenced by:

Roller Blading


Notice the crocs....

Did you know that Playboy has expanded into the clothing business in China?

One last little nugget... I have lost 28 pounds since I got here. The following are two pictures... One taken in the states before coming, the other taken about 5 minutes before posting this.

I still need to lose another 10 or so pounds, but its a vast improvement. So much more energy!

Anyways.. the following are pictures from the college referenced above. The campus is quite different than campuses we have in the US, as you'll see.