Sometimes, a person does great things abroad and makes history — all while remaining virtually unknown in her or his home country. I guess this happens to some vloggers or gamers now, but my best example would be Henk Sneevliet (马林), who in 1921 guided the formation of the Communist Party of China. Except for […]
Met again with my former design students in the old town of Sijing (古镇泗泾) in Shanghai’s Songjiang district. With the help of the local government, the area is being renovated into a cultural hub with their studio at the center. My former students may still call me 老师 (teacher) but we’re equals now. They’ve graduated, […]
Chinese characters allow for elegant naming. Just take a character from each destination and add what it is. The highway from Jiading to Songjiang: 嘉松公路 (JiaSong Highway). The bridge from Suzhou to Nantong: 苏通桥 (SuTong Bridge). And there’s the HuiHang Ancient Road (微杭古道). The Hui is from Huizhou (徽州) in the Anhui province, the Hang […]
A friend told me her parents, during the 70s, buried gold jewelry to hide it from the Red Guards. Really deep in the ground. They dug for it decades later but couldn’t find it. Their house is now set to be demolished, so they’re about to make a final dig, and see if they can […]
When you take a PCR test in China, it’ll take 3 to 12 hours before the result comes out, so before our trip to the Shandong province, I several tests in Shanghai to ensure I always had a 24-hour result when I left my living compound, took the train to Suzhou, and to take the […]
We saw plenty of cicadas in the forest and Weihai — louder and bigger than in Shanghai. In many parts of Shandong, cicadas are eaten, and we spotted several people ‘angling’ for them — using a rod with some dough on the top — to be taken home to be fried. Everyone asked said they’re […]
After a few days in rural Shandong, Weihai (威海) hits different immediately as we get off the train — people and suitcases everywhere. It’s full of an obvious type of people: tourists. And immediately I wonder if the people in those rural areas who cited covid for the lack of tourism are just wrong, and […]
The Great Wall of China was built over centuries and one of the oldest segments ran through the Shandong province, from Jinan (济南) to Qingdao (青岛): Great Wall of Qi (齐长城). It lacks the fame of the Great Wall in Beijing built in the Ming Dynasty (this is the one that comes to your mind […]
So after Tai’an (泰安) our next stop is the city Zibo (淄博), although more by name rather than perimeter. Luziyu (鲁子峪) is a small town on its own, made up of several villages. From Tai’an we choose to take the taxi instead of the high-speed train. It’s slower and pricier, but the scenery is a […]
Mount Tai (泰山) dwarfs the city of Tai’an (泰安) and is the central attraction. In the park we take the bus to somewhere midway — cheating, I know — but it’s already passed noon and several people told me the whole trip takes ~8 hours. In the bus we’re with other couples, mostly university students (sitting together […]
It is a book by Frederick Forsyth, but it is no ‘The Day of the Jackal’. Some parts are lecturing, some parts feel more like a summary rather than fiction, and other parts are so testostorone drenched that it feels like I’m reading a script of a Jason Stratham or Sylvester Stalone movie. That said, […]
We tried to visit the 贺九岭 temple in Cangshu (藏书) Suzhou (famous for its lamb meat), but it was closed. Because of covid? Because of it being Saturday? Not sure, but we couldn’t go in to burn some incense. Next to it is a mountain though. Eva decided to stay in the air-conditioned car but […]
