Lucky

The chinese have so many different ways to get luck.  The pictures are (mostly) from the top of Taishan (Mount Tai), one of the seven famous mountains in China in Tai'an.  The candles are from a Taoist temple at the top of Laushan (Mount Lau), here in Qingdao.  Most of these ways to get luck involve leaving some totem (or money, or both) somewhere very beautiful, and preferably very high.  When you are that close to heaven, I guess you take your chance..

I have asked many people about what they think of luck.  The Chinese view of luck is very different from American superstition, which is basically the avoidance of bad luck and misfortune.  Here, people want to get good luck, good fortune, etc.  Most people don't really seem to believe (literally) in supernatural powers that bestow or withhold luck, but the attitude seems to be 'what can it hurt'?  I take this attitude to be hopeful optimism, which rubs off.  Looking at these offerings makes me happy and optimistic, too.  

Spring

Qingdao is full of flowers in the spring.

Good Morning, Mr. Magpie

How are we today?

Magpies are everywhere in town.  The European magpie is very intelligent, and is one of the only animals that passes the mirror test.  I assume the Korean magpie (what I understand to be the subspecies that we have here) is every bit as smart.

I have always known a magpie was a bird, but I have never lived in a place with magpies, so I never saw them growing up.  Since visiting Europe, I have always known about those large black-and-white birds (Elster in German).  But I never put together the word 'magpie' with the thing 'magpie.'  Of course, in Chinese, there is a third thing -- the character for magpie.

Great wall

We went to Beijing over the weekend, and went to the Great Wall twice.  The two times could not have been more different.  The first time was  by Mutianyu.  The wall here is straighter, and everything was in a deep, thick fog.  There were not many tourists, and the whole thing seemed very calm and erie.

The second day we went to Badaling.  In the snow!  The snow made everything look bright and clear, and at least for the first part of the day, we could see for miles.  The snow made the walkways very slippery, and walking along the wall in huge crowds while trying not to slip on the steep walkways was exhausting.

Faithful readers will notice that this is the fist post where I show something further away than a short walk from the apartment.

Silas looks at things

Stefanie and Silas came to visit us in Qingdao for their spring break.  We took Silas on a walk through the neighborhood, down to the street market down the street, and he looked at things.  First, we saw kids in the day care down the street.  They were practicing some sort of karate; the teacher was quite serious about making sure they did it right.  I see these kids outside doing their morning exercises every day on my way to the shuttle that takes me to the Laoshan campus.

Here, Silas is looking at some chickens on the street.  If it is not clear that these chickens are for dinner, then the feathers coming out the shoot on the right should clarify that point.

The seafood market is really spectacular.  You can get all kinds of fish, shellfish, and other small sea monsters.  My favorite part is the (live) octopi.  They are about as big as my hand, and swim around in a small styrofoam box.

The zipper on Silas' jacket broke while we were down at the market.  A lady (in the red jacket) noticed me struggling to try to zip the jacket up, and pointed us toward the cobbler.  He pulled out some tools and a new zipper from his bag, and had a new (working!) zipper put on in about three minutes.  It cost 3 RMB ($0.47).  

Later that day, Silas and I walked up the mountain.  On our way, many, many people wanted to take Silas' picture; I guess long, blond hair is still a novelty.  Silas is shy with strangers, and would usually hide behind me.  But one time, he asked to have my camera, and took a picture back at the person photographing him.  I thought this was very empowering.  Here is the picture Silas took of his photographer.

A rainy day

The Chinese prefer umbrellas to raincoats.

Molasses

The internet was like molasses today.  This was the first weekend after the semester started.  It was also rainy, so everybody staid indoors.  Doing what?  I think I have an idea.

Last week, I had lunch with Happy, who works at the Sino-German Exchange program at Ocean University of China.  Her English is perfect (thoughtful and deliberate, to be sure, but perfect).  She has worked with a number of people from Texas A&M during her time at OUC, and she seems at least as familiar with Texas A&M (where I work) as I am.  Although she has never lived in the US, or even been there for a visit, she also knows American television much, much better than I do.  Admittedly, this is a low bar, but her knowledge of American television seems to me to be substantial.  So, what does she like to do in her spare time?  She watches American television series, naturally.  She downloads them from some Chinese web site.

Given the syrupy nature of the internet today, I imagine this is a common pastime.

So please, Mr. Comcast, come to China and provide everybody with American cable TV (subtitled, of course, not dubbed -- better for practicing English).  This will free up the internet for my proposals, papers, and tech blogs.  Thank you in advance.