We’re in Heshang (河上镇) — which basically means ’town on the river’ — and we’re here for the most famous of its 28,042 citizens: Mister Zhufa (朱法). Zhufa is 86 years old but still works every day, and he’s so famous that people drive from nearby provinces to get his advice on Traditional Chinese medicine […]
“I used to work on a boat and we often ate turtles. And I kept several as a pet. One I had for 50 years, but he grew so big and ate so much. Meat. Too expensive. I didn’t want him anymore, I just ate him. What would you do? Oh, release in the wild? […]
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 […]