Bits and Pieces

Shopping

 About ten days ago I took the bus into the main city area to hunt for a cable. After several bus rides and shops/shopping centers I was still without my cable. However, I did get to view Chinese commerce from an angle I hadn’t explored before. One place looked like a department store on the outside. Upstairs it consisted of numerous very small drab shops selling various components relating to computers and electronics. The majority of the shops were empty. The building is set in what I would consider prime real estate and the road outside had been completely renovated earlier in the year so maybe its preparing for the ubiquitous closure and demolition.

 Next I went to a large electronics/home appliance store remaining amid the rubble of neighbourhood destruction. It consisted of four or five floors of bright and shiny necessities for the modern home. It had a few computers but no accessories.

The large  electrical shop is close to this.  A new six lane road is being constructed, hence the destruction.

I noticed a department store nearby that I’d never been in before so I took a quick look around downstairs and rode the escalators up. It too was missing what I wanted. Winter clothing was in stock with what seemed like thousands of wool coats. Clothing in combinations of mainly drab tertiary colours abounded. It’s unusual for me to see a woman wearing a top consisting of a single primary colour, especially if she’s middle aged or older. I’m about the only one walking around in unadorned white or bright coloured tops. I could write a whole post on clothing, but not today.

Streetscape

While I was out I noticed that electrical boxes in the streets had been painted and even saw some of the painters in action; a new development to improve the streetscape. The boxes were still noticeable, probably more so, but the focus was different. Designs included some sort of moral message and simple pictures. The same thing happened in Canberra a couple of years ago. There the design emphasis appeared to be more on an artistic statement, places of interest or intrinsic Canberra entities.

Two of the boxes taken from a bus.

Another from street level.

 Chinese Tea

I remember being fascinated by our driver in Beijing drinking his tea from a screw top jar during my first trip to China. This still happens but now days most people have a purpose made jar or container. I bought some tea bags in Beijing when I first arrived and they lasted a long time. Eventually I had to shop for tea, couldn’t find bags and had to buy leaves. The leaves are tightly bound in some way and expand in water. There are numerous types of tea available ranging from cheap to very expensive. It can be bought in sealed packets or by weight from jars or boxes. Tea in Yunnan comes in all shapes and sizes as described in an earlier post. There are various tea rituals if one wants to spend the time and effort. The tea I bought was cheap and I actually preferred the taste of the teabags.

My cheap tea leaves before adding water.

The same tea leaves after the addition of water.

College Life

 The first year students have had two weeks of life at college. During that time they wore khaki clothing and spent their time learning marching, chanting/singing songs and how to adapt to college life. The college resounded to the sounds of marching and chanting. They start classes tomorrow.

This was taken from my office window and shows some of the new students and their second year student trainers in action.  I have four classes each week  on the fifth level in the pink building.  There is no lift.   

This was taken from the eigth level of a teaching building on a grey day. The small coloured containers lined up to the left of the lower group of students is their thermoses and drink containers.  At the top of the photo is part of the new entrance to the college.

The college clinic and the health centre I visited for another round of cupping did a steady trade in ailing students. On one of the days I visited for cupping I saw brightly coloured and differently sized commercial pills being spooned out onto small pieces of paper on the counter for waiting students. More traditional organic mixtures were being taken from boxes and weighed in the background.

Some of the cupping containers and glass jars applied to my back.  The staff at that clinic are much more competent at applying the containers than those I encountered in Kunming, although I’ve had containers fall off and break in both locations.   I’ve seen new cupping containers on a desk  at the massage therapy clinic.  I’m not sure how a blind or partially sighted person goes about such a procedure given that it involves fire and eye hand coordination. No doubt it could be managed with practice and a set layout.  Don’t think I’m prepared to try it given the language issue.

The sound of basketballs again is common this weekend although the weather has not been kind to basketball playing students.