Most Americans know nothing of China. Living in a fog of misconceptions they imagine an Asian “Gulag” peopled by mindless robots, living in poverty. They see images of North Korea, and visualize China as it’s twin.
I was quite surprised by the reality of China, from my first visit in 2015. Surprised by its people, and surprised by its prosperity. There are some aspects of China that are far more modern than America.
Although in some ways China is at a stage of industrialization characterized by “growth at any cost”, there is a clear sense of concern about pollution.
This is not the place to go into great detail about life in China. But since it is night time here I want to mention the garish light displays that awaken after the sun goes down. Modern high-rise building become colorful canvases for messaging or just artistic light shows. Businesses lure customers with bright lights.
All of this comes at a cost. Light-pollution is itself a disruption to the tranquility of the night. And all those lights require electricity. Generating electricity almost always involved pollution of one sort or another.
A building here in Jinan acts as a sort of gigantic billboard. Here, a business projects its logo on a nearby wall. Sometimes twirling logos shine down on the sidewalk in front of a bar or store.
Some subway systems here project bright messaging or advertisements on the walls of the underground tunnels so they can be seen by passengers.
Jinan is the “Spring City”- Here “spring” is not the name of a season… but rather rather the meaning of “spring” referring to water coming up from the ground. (This recognizes Jinan as a town with an abundance of water that springs up from beneath the ground.)
My hotel is a short walk from a number of popular springs, which tend to be wrapped in extended gardens and park areas.
I visited the “Five Dragon Pond” site, and “Baotu Spring”.
Enclosing the old part of Jinan is a somewhat rectangular, spring-fed canal. One tourist brochure uses the word “moat” to describe it.
Next, I visited a neighborhood that includes a large Confucian temple complex and a series of old residential alleys that have been mostly converted to shops. To get there, I rode in a tiny three wheeled contraption (In America we call these “tuk-tuks”, using their Thai name). This bone-jarring ride involved careening from street to street in a vehicle that seemed to ignore all traffic flow rules.
(I placed my knapsack in the photo to illustrated the size of the clay vessel.)
It had been suggested that China’s National Library in Beijing would be a good place to find information on a topic I was researchingThis required that I apply for a “Reader’s Card”. Well, I didn’t find what I was after, but it was an experience!Then I ambled around Beijing’s Bell Tower and Drum Tower neighborhood. (The bell was enormous!) I worked my way through a number of “hutongs” (residential alleys), and reached a small lake area overrun with holiday visitors.And from there went to Beihai lake, which was yet busier, filled with families enjoying the last day of the three day holiday
Beijing South railway stationFirst class seats on China’s fabulous high-speed trainsTianjin is a vibrant modern city with a long history.The city gets it current name from a historical event in a military campaign of Zhu Di 朱棣 – the man who became the third emperor of the Ming dynasty – Yongle 永樂. As emperor, it was he who built the Forbidden CityI visited the Tianjin museum looking for additional informationZhu Di and his troops cross the Hai He (river) on his way South to overthrow his nephew, the second Ming emperor. (Note that in Chinese they use the word for river when speaking of canals)The Stele (engraved stone monument) erected to commemorate the “river crossing”
From the highway in southwestern Colorado, between Durango (where our daughter Mindy lives) and Pagosa Springs, you can see “Chimney Rock”. This distinctive geological formation, as its name implies, looks like a fireplace chimney on the roof of a building.
Because we had a bit of extra time allotted on our way heading east to Alamosa, we decided to take a short detour to visit Chimney Rock National Monument. We arrived at a small building that serves as the park office. Nearby a construction crew was in the process of expanding the headquarters. We parked the car. Rhonda and Kaden sought a bathroom, and I wandered off to take some snapshots of Chimney Rock, a bit closer and at a different angle. I was soon satisfied and started to walk back toward the car.
In the distance I could see Rhonda urgently beckoning me. I quickened my pace to reach them.
“There are ruins of structures of the Pueblo people up on the mountain. We can sign up for a tour, but it leaves in five minutes!” I went up to a ranger and paid the fee for the three of us and we joined some other visitors who were loading into a pair of 4WD park vehicles. The driver ascended a rutted dirt road that snaked its way upward, and after about 10 minutes arrived at another parking lot.
The Chimney Rock area was home to several successive Pueblo peoples. A latter group was connected to the inhabitants of the Chaco Canyon site to the south in northern New Mexico.
The style of layered stonework is similar to that at Chaco Canyon.
Kaden suffered from the heat a bit while we were there, but he stuck with us and had a good time. Later he rated the site “Excellent!”
After our visit, we stopped to buy some water from a pair of women who staffed a booth. Kaden (who starts second grade in August) advised them of the correct change to provide from the twenty dollar bill. The were quite nice to him. Encouraged, he quizzed them with his favorite math problem: “What is two times one googol?” They later cautioned him to “try to not be too much smarter than his teachers.” 🙂
The “Four Corners” area, including southwest Colorado includes extended areas of dry terrain covered with scrub vegetation. “Mesa Verde National Park” is located in this area and includes cultural and archaeological sites of the ancestors of the Pueblo People who still live in America’s southwest. Human presence began about 10,000 years ago with nomadic hunter-gatherers who gave way to early farmers who grew corn and wove baskets.
About a thousand years ago, the residents of this area began to build houses and other buildings above the ground. About 800 years ago complex interconnected structures were constructed within protective openings in cliff walls. Mesa Verde park includes a number of these “cliff dwellings”. The photo below shows a smallish series of buildings in the cliff. Actually, this is the same cliff shown in the panoramic first photo of this post. If you click on that photo to enlarge it, you can see this site in an opening of the cliff at the right side of the image.
One of the most famous complex of cliff buildings is called “Cliff Palace”. Our daughter Mindy had arranged tickets for Rhonda, Kaden, and me to participate in a brief tour of that site, led by a park ranger.
As we began our descent from the rim of the canyon, we got our first glimpse of Cliff Palace.
Our guide had previously worked as a field archaeologist, and was very knowledgeable about Mesa Verde and the people who had lived there. During her explanations, she spoke about the way in which the entire community, including growing children, had participated in the responsibilities of the settlements. Kaden was fascinated to learn that young boys his age would help with the care and feeding of the domestic turkeys. (Much like the way Kaden helps with the chickens and ducks at his house!)
Visitors are fascinated by the buildings and stonework.
(But where was Jack! He and his mom spent the day paddle-boarding on a lake near Durango. Jack had already visited Mesa Verde in 2018 along with Rhonda and our daughter Mindy. The photo below is from that 2018 trip.)
You can see the location of Mesa Verde in the southwest (bottom-right) corner of the map.
A few years ago, “Voice of America” (VoA) produced an audio piece explaining Mesa Verde. I have include an adaptation that you can listen to by using the controls below:
A PDF document that includes the same narration can be downloaded using the link below.
Note: Although in my youth, VoA had been rather notorious for its propaganda broadcasts over shortwave radio beamed to various corners of the world, today they offer a much broader content, including materials designed for English language learners. I have used a variety of their materials in my ESL classes and in many cases reconfigured the content to be most useful to fit into lesson plans. Some of these are published on the Open-ESL.org web site.
Road Trip! Rhonda and I took advantage of a rare opportunity to take both Colorado grandchildren on a road trip. We started in Denver, with our five year old grandson Jack strapped into a car seat and headed south to Peyton (near Colorado Springs) to pick up Kaden who is seven.
Our first stop? Great Sand Dunes National Monument, which is in southern Colorado, almost four hours away from Denver.
Red flag shows location of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument
I’ll be honest, a long car ride with two youngsters is not without its challenges. Luckily, besides being cousins, Jack and Kaden are best friends.
This National Monument, is a strange phenomenon. These mountains of sand are dwarfed by the adjacent Sangre De Cristo range.
The parking lot adjacent to the dunes seemed peaceful, but…
We arrived at the visitor center and then ventured toward the dunes. The area was swarming with mosquitoes! We were not prepared at all, and almost immediately the boys received painful bites. Fortunately some kindly fellow-tourists shared repellent spray and wipes.
Kaden, Rhonda, and JackDo they really let old, feeble men into the park? Well yes! especially when they are carrying a National Park “Senior Pass”!
The youngsters (Jack, Kaden, and Rhonda 🙂 ) took off their shoes and tromped through the wide shallow stream that runs at the edge of the dunes.
Mountains of sand? Seemed like a gigantic sand box for the boys!
Best friends
Eventually it was time to leave and head to our hotel in Alamosa. We would need some rest before the next leg of travel… onward to Durango!
But, before going to sleep we headed into town for some grub at the Purple Pig Pizza and Pub! 🙂
Jack came to spend the day. He and Nana put in some hard work setting up a train track. I had run off to the home improvement store to get materials for a small remodel project in our kitchen. Jack and I were exhausted and took a little nap. (Nana is made of tougher stuff!)
Well, after a bit of rest, we were good as new!
(Notice the 15 year old t-shirt I rescued from the bottom of my pants drawer- ¡¡Che que bo!!)
