I realize I haven't been able to keep up with this blog as regularly as I would like. So many interesting things happen to me here that I don't have time to write them all down. I'll try to get the highlights in once in a while. Though, for the sake of completeness, this will be my last ultra-detailed post about a single day for the next little while. Maybe there will be more in future, but I'm pretty busy here, so we'll see.
We had gone downtown because my students wanted to show me the city and also help me to buy some necessities for my apartment.
After successfully passing through the human hordes writhing through the downtown core, the Er Qi square itself seemed relatively deserted. We took many pictures of the square, the pagoda and each other (Yan took a running video of the whole thing with his phone, but the quality is terrible), then navigated through the ocean of parked bicycles on the western edge of the square.
My students had a destination in mind for buying my stuff - Walmart. I normally refuse to shop at Walmart, since I disapprove of their policies, but I felt like it would be really ungracious of me to drag these people across half the city to help me buy things and then refuse to shop at the store they chose. We went inside the belly of the beast.
Inside, the Walmart's setup was really strange. Unlike in North America, where this kind of building is designed from the ground to be logically shopper-friendly, this Walmart was designed like the Labyrinth. The store is spread out on several different floors and each floor twists and turns in random directions. It is not a wide-open space with aisles, but a maze of products in various deadends.
Somehow, with the help of various clerks, we managed to locate the meager few items I needed. One of my students managed to make me feel guilty and terrible about buying boxes of facial tissue, because napkins work just as well and are cheaper. I bought the facial tissues anyway.
The girls asked: "Are you going to buy underwear?" I thought that was a strange question, but they followed it up by saying: "Please do not embarrass us. If you want to buy things for boys only, we will leave." I assured them I would not buy underwear.
After I found all the things I wanted, we got lost trying to find our way out of the Walmart. Eventually, after a few minutes of turning in circles through the lowest of the basement levels, we found an escalator to take us to the supermarket section and ultimately the checkout counters and the exit.
We emerged into smoggy sunlight unscathed from the ordeal and I found myself in the curious situation of having bought a bunch of things and carrying none of them. My students insisted on each carrying something that I had bought. When I tried to carry something, they danced away from me. This respect for teachers thing makes me feel a little bit guilty and useless sometimes.
At this point it was mid-afternoon and none of us had any desire to eat yet, so I proposed a visit to the 人民公园 (ren min gong yuan; the People's park). I hadn't been there yet, but I had heard it was worth a visit. Before we could go into the park though, I was accosted by an anxious mother who asked me if I would be willing to take a photograph with her little boy. So I now have a random photo of me with my arm around a shy, uncertain little guy.
The rumours about the park turned out to be correct. The People's park in Zhengzhou is beautiful and quite big. It has nothing on Central Park in New York, of course, but it is still fairly large. There are many beautiful tree-lined walkways, secluded benches and beautiful little gardens. At the entrance to the park is a large, artificial pond and rock formation that people like to climb on. I've put a couple of pictures of it in this post. Unfortunately, I don't have any other pictures of the park available yet, but I should get some more in future.
Further into the park, there are many small attractions, including some theme-park style rides, a small open-air bumper car ground, a place to roller blade, a gigantic, creaky old ferris wheel and - my favourite - a tall construction crane embedded in a big pond from which many people were busy bungee jumping. This has to be one of the most bizarre sights that I've ever seen.
We passed by the crane and headed further into the park towards the southwest corner (the entrance is in the middle of the eastern edge, the crane is roughly in the middle of the park, the ferris wheel is in the northwest corner - I never got close to it). In the southwest corner, they have an open courtyard with many little pagoda-shaped bandstand-like pavilions. We were a little bit weary after all that walking, so we sat down for a while to rest. While we were there, a little boy came over to stand in front of me and stare at me intently. He was distracting me a bit, so it was a while before I heard the pleasant strains of a Chinese musical instrument wafting through the air.
In a nearby pavilion, a man was seated with a flat, trapezoidal instrument placed in front of him on the ground. He sat there delicately playing the strings with two small hammers. Later, I found out that the instrument is called a 扬琴 (yang qin), which is a dulcimer-style string instrument. My students and I walked over for a closer look, but as soon as we got there, the man stopped playing. We had disturbed him and he sat there glaring at us until we left.
By that time, we felt rested enough, so we headed back towards the entrance to the park. As we were leaving the pavilion area, I saw a little boy playing on the pavement. This was the first time I saw what might be charitably named "convenience pants". Apparently disposable diapers are too expensive, and reusable diapers are too messy, so Chinese parents give their children pants that have no seats. The little toddlers walk happily along with their naked butts waggling freely in plain view and, when the fancy strikes them, they take a poop on the ground wherever they like. It reminds me a little bit of wild animals or dogs. Certainly it seemed a little dehumanizing to me, but since then I have seen countless little kids with naked butts cajoling in the streets. I guess I am desensitized.
Before leaving the park, we passed by a flower-sculpture garden and took a few pictures. We didn't walk through the garden though, just walked past the outside of it. I hope I can stroll through it on my next visit and get some more pictures.
Once we got out of the park, we headed back to my apartment, where I dropped off all my stuff. That accomplished, we took another bus to get to the school's other campus (where I teach my classes) which is about 10 minutes north of my campus by bus.
Once there, my students treated me to 火锅 (huo guo; hot pot in English). The current fashion in Chinese hot pots is to have a large bowl in the centre of the table that is divided into halves with one side filled with blood red spicy soup and the other side with a yellowish salty soup. All people at the table share the one pot, dipping the foods that have been chosen or ordered into the soup (depending on the hot pot place's menu system it can be like a normal restaurant or a buffet). Some Chinese hot pot places also offer dips that you can put on your food after it has been taken out of the soup. I personally like the peanut and hot pepper dip.
The meal was delicious. Yan Yi Shu also made friends with my students and, since he had an important internship with a doctor in a hospital nearby my school (and far from his own school), my students graciously invited him to stay in their dormitory. I later found out this was a big deal, because the local government was keeping tabs on students due to recent major, disruptive anti-Japanese demonstrations led by the city's university students. Yan had a good reason for not staying in his dormitory though, so they let him go.
I headed home and promptly ignored everything except my wonderful, cozy bed. The next day I had been scheduled to be a fashion model! I wanted to be up early.
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