China Fun Events

Posts about China, 3 of 7.

Funny Events.

From a funny event standpoint, nothing much happened in Beijing.  This was expected since Beijing is a very international city.  As for other cities, especially in inland areas, the standard question of 'Can I take a picture with you?' happened often but not as often as my first trip to China.  (Being 6'5" and obvious American does tend to facilitate this.)

The first one really happened in Kunming where I almost took a tour of the cities sewer system.

It was this manhole cover that was either not secured or the inner lip is missing, but when I stepped on the edge of this cover, it flipped up.  Since my feet are big, my heel landed on the outside edge and I was able to catch myself.  The cover did pop off.  This surprised everyone in our party but also provided entertainment for the locals.  I laughed and kicked the manhole plate back into place, then took the picture.  Now the really funny thing.  Jennah noticed that once we left, several of the locals tried to repeat what I did.  Hum not sure what to make of that, Darwin?  But the last I know, they did not succeed.

The second funny event was just a conversation that Jennah overheard.  She mentioned that a boy was asking her mother about Jennah and I,  He thought I was British but his mom thought I was Australian.  (I guess I am not typical?)

The third one was this one.  We where watching some of the other nationalities, of which there are about 30 different ones in China.  Well this was a traditional folk dance done by the elderly.  I took a couple of pictures but decided that a more personal video would be fun.  I knelt by the time keeper, (whistle blower) and took a video of the women dancing and men playing the instruments.

When the dance finished, the time-keeper motioned to see the picture that I took.  I thus showed her the video with sound and she got excited and called over all the other women dancers, thus I was mobbed.  I was kneeling on the ground with my camera in front, surrounded by all these elderly women in garb, laughing and pointing.  The only problem was that Qun and Jennah could not get a picture of the scene.

This is just a fun picture of vegetable transportation, two vans.


And this is a man and his machine.  These things run all over the place, not fast but seem to be rugged and China would come to a complete stop if they were forced off the road..


And these saws are safe.  (Rock cutters.)


The electrical.  I did not take as much as I wanted.  It just gets old, it is almost like the driving, it is so common that it becomes invisible.  But here are a couple of pictures that I just could not resist.  This is the on/off switch for the air conditioner.


And now for the driving.  The North does not drive as crazy as the South so things where a lot less dramatic.  Also people are starting to follow the rules of the road more so there is still hope. :-)  There was no real cliff hangers but I did want to include a couple of videos for your viewing.  The third one is long and shows more of a drive through a town.  One thing that I noticed was everything always looks like it is in a state of construction.