Thoughts on China

Well, nobody has complained about the load time for the blog, even with all the pictures I’ve added in, so I’ve added a few more in this post. I figure this is because a) everyone has broadband and doesn’t notice, b) nobody is reading the blog, so they don’t notice or c) those that were reading the blog stopped reading it when it slowed down due to all the pix and didn’t bother sending an email. If this page loads too slow for you, please let me know and I’ll cut down the number of pics I include.

Here are the rest of the pics…

Peking Chicken???

Well, I got a late start this morning and was on the street at about 9:30. At 10:00, I saw a KFC (yes, that means Kentucky Fried Chicken…I guess the Chinese have General Tso’s chicken and the US has Colonel Sanders’ chicken, I’m not sure what it is about the military and chicken, but that’s another story)…anyway, I had to try something I saw on the web before coming to China. My coworkers will know what I’m talking about. It was a press release from KFC China noting that they were going to start serving an item that is basically serving KFC chicken strips in a manner similar to the way Peking Duck is served: with the meat, cucumber (substituting for spring onion) and hoisin sauce wrapped in a thin pancake. Well, here it is:

OK, so that was breakfast this morning. Oh, how was it? It was OK, I suppose, but nothing really memorable. It was kind of like what I thought it would be, but I just had to know for sure…also, if you look at the other pics, the side dish was interesting. It had more mayonnaise than I thought would suit most Chinese tastes, but it was good.

Master-of-the-Net Garden (MONG)

After breakfast, it was off to the Master-of-the-Net Garden. This is supposedly the most cleverly done garden, since it incorporates all of the elements of a Chinese garden in a much smaller area than is normally necessary. It was very nice, as you can see in the pictures, but I thought the Humble Administrator’s Garden was much nicer to be in. This one gave me the feeling of being in a smaller space, which is not what you want if you are trying, at least in part, to give the feeling of being in nature…

Here are some pics of the MONG:

A quick aside…

In a post I did about Hangzhou, I tried to explain the feeling of having a relaxed mind. Well, there was a sign in the MONG that tried to explain the same thing….

I’m not quite sure what “absolute blessedness and serenity free from secular concerns.” means, exactly…but it sounds like they are talking about the same thing, anyway…

Lunch

OK, I stopped by a noodle shop (again, no English on the menu or spoken by the staff. This time, I thought I ordered noodles with pork (猪肉, or zhÅ«ròu) but got noodles with chicken (鸡肉, or jÄ«ròu). Understandable, since they sound very similar and I do have a bad habit of getting lazy with my pronunciation of the tones (especially u). Since, in pinyin, the “zh” sounds a lot like “j” and I might have not really pronounced the “u” strongly enough, I can see why I ended up with chicken…

But I also got something extra…which I know I didn’t accidentally order. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it was about a handful of what could be snake, or eel, or I don’t know what. You can see it in the picture below. I tried it and it was good, so I ate the whole bowl…

The Lingering Garden (LG)

One of the things a Chinese Garden designer does is to give you a series of views that are pleasing to the eye. There are many elements they use to direct your attention. Moon Gates (the round holes in the wall that you’ve seen in the pics) are one way they do that. A well done garden makes you feel that you have many more cool views than the space of the garden should allow, since many of the elements in the garden are used in more than one view. It’s like an intricate puzzle that fits together just right, to give the visitor a feast for the eyes no matter where they happen to be. I really liked the LG.

One thing that many Chinese Gardens have is an area with what we know (from the Japanese) as bonsai, miniature trees. The Chinese bonsais are actually quite a bit larger (maybe 3 or 4 feet high) as compared to the really small Japanese bonsais (which are rarely over 2 feet high). The LG had a great collection of these, as you can see in the rest of the pics.

Here, then, are some of the views from the LG:

One final thing I’d like you to see is the attention to detail that is paid in these gardens. The paving of the walkways is not simply done in a red brick, for instance…here are a few pics of some of the patterns in the LG walkways:

Once again, if the page is taking way to long to load because of the pictures, please let me know and I’ll include less in the blog (you can always see them in the more pics link)…