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Net Bar
Having ones own computer is a luxury among Hubei University students. There are a few scattered around in the library and dormitories for general use; old PCs with slow network connections. But if you’re out for some serious surfing, the ubiquitous net bars are the place to be. That these establishments run all night, I […]
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Proletarian Sensitivities
The premise behind my being in Wuhan is simple and sound. My earlier sojourn was in Hangzhou — a town which I really come to like. But it is clearly not your typical Chinese city, nor is Zhejiang University your typical Chinese university. Both are among the elite in their class. If am I to […]
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Public Displays of Disaffection
In these beautiful spring evenings Hubei University campus is alive, indeed, writhing with couples enjoying mutual affection. In some of the (never very) secluded areas innocent pedestrians have to step carefully as they would to avoid squashing earthworms after a saturating spring shower. There is considerable public discussion on the impropriety of such “public displays […]
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Scaring Crows in Wuhan
The balcony of my apartment on Hubei University campus faces south, and overlooks a tract, of several acres I would guess, obviously serving some experimental agricultural purpose. What purpose, or under whose aegis, I have yet to ascertain, but even the students from farm families agree, that, though the crops are commonplace, the personnel are […]
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Valedictory to my Students at ZheDa
My Dear Students: My year of working with you in Hangzhou has come to an end, and I am back at my home in Atlanta. Inevitably, these first days far away from the year’s events demand my reflection and analysis, catalyzed by the questions of my friends and colleagues here: “So, how is life in […]
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The Ambitious, but Honest, Rat
[click on photographs to enlarge them] It is no coincidence that my arrival in and departure from China a year later are linked to the Lunar New Year. The festival is the most important in China, such that its vacillation with respect to the solar calendar — for all official purposes China uses the Gregorian […]
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Lutheran Karaoke
karaoke |ˌkarēˈōkē| noun a form of entertainment, offered typically by bars and clubs, in which people take turns singing popular songs into a microphone over prerecorded backing tracks. ORIGIN 1970s: from Japanese, literally ‘empty orchestra.’ To add to the general festivities at year’s end, Prof. Yang sent his minions off on a Friday afternoon, at […]
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What’s for Dinner II
[No prurient photos along with this posting] In College, my favorite professor was an anthropologist, Earl Count by name, lately deceased, who also held a divinity degree. One of his hobby-researches was into the practice of placentophagia. The dots Count connected were these: 1. the abrupt transition from the pregnant state to the post-partum state […]
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Caught in the Act
[left-click on any image to enlarge it] Now that the rampage of year-end feasting has subsided, I take time to consider the spectacular Chinese art of eating. Not of cooking, of eating. First of all disabuse yourself of your mother’s admonition that what goes into your mouth is not intended to come out. Your mother […]
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Shock and Awe in Hangzhou
[click on a photo to enlarge it] “Xixi Wetlands” is a laudable attempt to preserve some of the original marsh environment in northwest Hangzhou. That has been the direction-of-choice for Hangzhou urban expansion — you’ll recall my earlier note that the new Zhejiang University campus is built on a swamp. The Xixi effort seeks to […]