I saw a UFO night before last! Walking back to the hotel about 9pm looked up and this set of green lights in a semi-circular pattern were flashing on and off. It was hovering around and then would change the light pattern into a triangle. I saw the hotel guard and signaled for him to see it. He agreed “UFO”– universal word, as he spoke no English. Other people walked up and some showed me on their English/Chinese hand held computer translator they thought it was a kite or a helicopter. NO way Jose, this is a UFO. It was higher than the skyscrapers and just floated around, maybe twenty minutes. I went to my room and tried to photograph it but can’t seem to get the shutter to stay open long enough. Need to read up on time exposures in my Nikon book! Alas no proof, darn!
Woke up to a Chinese cooking TV show this morning. Ok sauté some garlic, add some chili powder and water, looks like soup we are making, um. Now the main ingredient oh my gosh it is a fish head! They sprinkle it with a dark vinegar (No soy sauce is used here at all! Surprise, that must be a Japanese custom) and fry it. Then plop that head in the soup and add some fresh eggplant, tomatoes, green beans with a corn starch thickener. Ok I am going to pass on cooking or eating this!
Infomercials are here too. I saw one for buying uncirculated Chinese yuan, probably proofs. Another was a rubber set of breasts with a hole in them to increase your bust size, yet still have nipplies and the last was a Blender-Boiler to make hot soy milk! My favorite TV show is the Spanish Bull fights translated into Chinese! I’ve never really seen a bull fight — so this has been a new education, watching the matador get pierced in the leg by a bull’s horn. He tries to save face and not look like he is dying from severe agony and continues to hobble and coax the bull to ram his cloak. I think the Chinese like “blood and guts” on TV. I saw a news show with a child that was backed over by a car and the driver just didn’t see him. He then proceeded to drive forward, hit him again, open the door jump out then the car rolls back over the kid. What a mess, I never could figure out if the child survived. In America we just wouldn’t see all the gory details.
Walking toward the back entrance of the University I meandered by a sweet little pond, with huge red-orange goldfish. I heard the sweetest melody, someone is singing a Chinese opera song. I saw a very old gray haired lady just strolling around the pond singing I guess to the fish. I was transposed and couldn’t move. She looked up, saw me, smiled and kept on singing. What a charming moment in time! Walking on, I come to a tunnel with a ten inch thick cement door. Ok now what is this? I walk in and see the light at the end of the tunnel. (Spiritually I am looking to see the light at the end of my tunnel!) As I walk though, I realize it might have been a bomb shelter, damp, dank, with exposed wires running the length of it for lights and a trench on the sides collecting water and what ever else is wet and smelly.
Leave the tunnel, and hop on a taxi. Today it is sunny and I notice my cab driver has on a short sleeve T shirt with pull on sleeves he has added that tie at the wrist and upper arm, plus white gloves. Well this is an interesting fashion statement! Later I learn that the Chinese want to stay light complexed and I am wearing a tank top to get what little bit of direct sun I can find to tan. We have the windows down even in the heat, and we drive past men pulling carts with piles of Styrofoam packing pieces, one with used cardboard boxes flattened and tied down, and another with old lumber pieces bouncing around. All of this looks like trash to me, but may be someones treasures, I don’t know. I see a biker with twenty or so helium brightly colored balloons, maybe he is going to the hospital down the road. Another man is walking balancing two large bowlfuls of fruit on ropes with a stick across his neck. Then out of the blue we stop at a red light and I hear this god-awful coughing up and hocking of a loogie right next to my window. Seems this is quite accepted and I hear and see this many times a day. The thing is, don’t step on it when walking! Another reason to leave your shoes at the door of your home.