Jia Tang Jia (Home Sweet Home)
by Al Stone, L.Ac. |
Soon after, however, Guang Qin, the lady of the house in which we are guests, decided to take us on a grand tour of all of her friend's apartments. The pictures that follow are what we saw.
Here's Linda talking to the locals. It was still overcast and very cold when this picture was taken, however, the weather report called for clearing skies, the first in about five days, and so everyone had done their laundry that morning and you can see all of it drying outside. There are no dryers here. There are some small apartment size washing machines though. Most people seem to wash their clothes by hand, in the kitchen sink, which is, in our neighborhood, often times the only sink in the house. | |
Here's the lady of the house asking us to follow her to her friends' houses. Guang Qin has an amazing ability to communicate with us, even though she knows no English and I have a lot of trouble understanding her Chinese. She does, however, use her hands and gestures when she speaks, and she always expresses herself only when there is a clear context. It's neat to communicate with her. Words only carry the message, they aren't the message. | |
In one of the homes that we visited, the 69th Annual Academy Awards were playing. These are not the current awards, but one year behind those that play in the USA. Here's Venessa Williams singing the song from Pocohantus. In front of her is the little girl of the house singing a nursery rhyme she learned in school. The sound on the TV is turned down. Interestingly, during the commercial breaks in the television program, they didn't insert commercials, but rather, the played music videos. | |
Here's what we saw, looking out the window of the many apartments we visited that morning. Notice the really old building that are only two stories tall. Then the kind of old ones, that are up to six stories high. There are newer ones springing up everywhere as they tear down more and more of the two story jobs. You may notice that the buildings don't follow a strict directionality. I have the hardest time maintaining a sense of direction in this city. Especially, when I'm among the housing structures. | |
Bicycles get stolen around here like cars in Los Angeles County. That's why so many people rely on this man, the guard at the bicycle station. For one penny, or so, he'll watch your bike at night, and even lock it up in the garage behind him. We only paid him one jiao, which is about a cent and a half. And apparently, we get to park our bikes in this garage for the duration of our stay. He's a really nice guy. Kind of the town crier for our neighborhood which is fenced off by tall brick fences from the other neighborhoods. These fences make it so that everyone in our ten or so buildings must enter and exit from the same driveway on to the main street outside. We're not sure why they divide up the neighborhoods as such. |
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