Azaleas

The entire city looks like one big explosion of pink thanks to the azaleas in bloom all over the place. I love them. They serve as even more proof that God likes pink. 

Dragonfly

It smells like sandalwood, and relaxing flute music plays over the speakers. 

You can get a manicure, pedicure, eyebrow wax or massage.

You walk in by crossing a bridge with water running underneath it like a pond.

I could live at this place.

Apparently the sinks don't get scrubbed often at this place. Those rocks are permanently glued in. 

Asia at its best.

Explosion

This morning I was sitting at my kitchen table, Mimi underfoot, when we were jolted by a thunderous explosion.

For perspective, this place is loud. All the stinking time. There are fireworks, canons, subway blasting, and similar loud blasts going off fairly often. I don't even flinch when I hear them. And I try not to show any emotion at all because Mimi would pick up on it and be afraid.

But when the blast went off today, there was no pretending that nothing happened. It is the loudest explosion I've ever heard, and it shook my building.

I looked out the north side of the building, and everyone was walking around as usual. I ran to the south side and didn't see any movement either. I ran back to the north. Nothing. Back to the south...

That's when I saw people running towards the east. The smoke seemed slow to rise above the trees, but soon it was thick and black. I could have seen the explosion site from my house if a few tall thick trees were not blocking my view.

I didn't know what it was. I knew there were dozens if not hundreds of onlookers by now (a few seconds later). I could make no contribution to the rescue. I worried that there might be other things nearby that would catch fire and blow up. A natural gas explosion is what I thought at first, though the building nearest the action was not on fire. It appeared to be something in the street. I was still afraid it could be a truck full of exploding chemicals, and since my building was so close, I thought another explosion might take out my building.

I had to take my doggy and run. I decided this before I heard the first sirens.

We went to the basement to get my e-bike. I couldn't find Mimi's carrier backpack though; I thought I had left it downstairs. I decided to take her by foot, or carry her if I needed to.

We went out the gate, at which point I was able to ask some people what happened. They said it was vehicle that exploded. Not a crash, just a one-vehicle explosion.  I could see from far off what was going on, and it was at this point that I knew for sure that my doggy and I didn't need to run.

By this time, police, firemen and ambulances had all done their initial work.

We walked gingerly down to the intersection and we saw a few twisted strips of metal that used to be a passenger van. It was still on fire. The mangled roof of the van had been blown across six lanes of traffic and the police were pulling it out of the way. Broken glass was everywhere (Mimi was in my arms at this point).

I found two young men who told me what happened. The van had four people in it. They were manual laborers who did interior decoration (paint walls, glue down floors, install cabinets, etc.). They had cylinders of oxygen in the van that they used in their work. And it is believed that someone in the van lit a cigarette.

I had purposely left my camera at home. I did not want a photo. I made sure I arrived late enough to not see any bodies. The young men said that 4 or 5 were taken away. They did not specify the state of the bodies (no one will talk about that here, I've noticed). But no one inside that van could have survived that blast intact. Later someone told me a lady walking home from the veggie market was hit by the blast. She could even be one of my neighbors, since they all go there to buy veggies (I go elsewhere for veggies).

Below is the intersection where it happened, about six hours after it happened. The white car is in about the place of the explosion.

In the upper left hand corner is a hard to see scorched spot on the pavement where the blast occurred. The white mangled mess on the median, by the flowers, is what's left of the windshield. The building behind here has all its windows blown out.

Those are some hardy pansies. (The tape is not police tape. The tape is there to keep people from treading on the newly planted pansies.)

I go by this location often. Thank God I was not there this morning.

My crazy little lamb

Above: Mimi practices early for this year's Christmas pageant.

I've got a new bruise on my arm, courtesy of above doggy, Miss Personality herself. She was so excited to be going outside for a walk that she gave me a double high-five body slam. Unfortunately, it came at a time when one of my feet was off the ground, so I ended up falling over onto my dining room table. Fun times.

The usual recipient of the double high-five is the elevator. Mimi gets on the elevator, then does her victory dance. She jumps as high as she can to double high-five the back and sides of the elevator (three different jumps). I have forbidden her to jump at the door itself, lest it open unexpectedly. She's a little thing, thank goodness, or else I might fear damage to the elevator's function!

Well, she's a happy little mutt. She's 8-years-old with the exuberance of a puppy.

Architecture

View from inside a cultural arts center ... fantastic architecture inside and out! There's a Starbucks and a Coldstone Creamery inside it, which I skipped. Seems to me it would be more fitting to sip a cup of hot Jasmine tea in a place like this.

Seen in the village

Tree blossoms in a village.

Motor bikes and motor trikes -- suitable village transportation. Check out that hat...straw hats are still worn by village manual laborers in the Middle Kingdom.

They're gone

Gone, gone, gone.

I went to visit some people in a village that I met some months back. I regret not returning sooner, because the village is gone. Demolished. Wow. I hate it when that happens. I'll never see those people again.

The buildings still standing have been gutted, awaiting their final destruction.

Pretty soon this corner of the country isn't going to have any villages left. *Sigh* I love villages. I mean, I like to visit them, soak in the ambience, talk to people, take photos, etc. I don't want to live in one. 

Happiness

Here's a friend of mine. She's bubbly and full of joy in person, so this picture seems to capture her essence perfectly. Thank God for sweet friends. And thank God too for a camera to catch these moments!

It's bad to be a bird

I went to a restaurant for lunch, and they were not serving any chicken dishes off of their extensive menu. Maybe this is because the live bird markets have been closed down due to bird flu. Apparently KFC is having trouble keeping its doors open now too. (I bet none of you go to KFC, but in China they have a better menu in my opinion, it is clean and modern, and it is usually packed with middle and upper-income patrons. So for it to be suffering from business is certainly big news in these parts.)

It's not much better to be a pig in China, not unless you're a pig who knows how to swim.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'd say you haven't been keeping up with the news lately. Which is okay. :-) Google pigs river China to find out.

So much white

This time of year, the parks are full of pink blooms, brides and grooms. And photographers.

Brides may or may not wear white dresses at their wedding ceremonies, but they rent them and wear them for their photo shoots. Wedding photos are a huge business in China, and couples usually get them taken 6 months to one year before the actual wedding.

Unexpected

In a country "closed to the Gospel" lies a strange and difficult to explain contradiction ....

Tomb Sweeping Festival

Picnics, mountain climbing and visiting graves -- that's what Chinese people are doing during their three-day Qing Ming (also spelled as "Ching Ming") Festival that runs April 4-6 this year. April 4 is the actual day of the festival (this year) and the other days are tacked on to give people a little time off work to travel or enjoy the spring weather.

The main purpose of the festival is to visit the graves of any family members who have passed away, possibly including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. Chinese people leave plates of cooked food (with chopsticks), fruit, milk tea, and even cans of Coke at the graves, believing the deceased will enjoy the meals in the afterlife. Some burn incense, fake paper money, fake cell phones, and all sorts of fake things for the purpose of providing those in the spirit world material comforts. And it is apparently very important to bow at the graves, which is not seen as a cursory performance, but is considered a serious act of worship to the dead relatives.

In fact, Christians who refuse to bow/worship at the grave sites usually cause a huge rift within their families, with bitterness, yelling, and broken relationships ensuing.

A young Chinese man told me that his cousin, a Christian, refused to bow in worship on Qing Ming Festival day. His family therefore considers him, at age 25, the black sheep of the family. The cousin is tough-skinned though and doesn't care much about what his family thinks. He further annoyed his family by getting a job in Japan and finding a Japanese wife (Chinese people do not like Japanese people, not at all, not even a little bit, I'm sorry to say). They've pretty much written him off.

I am always puzzled by Qing Ming practices because most Chinese I have talked to tell me they do not believe in life after death. They believe that when you die, there is nothingness. But at Qing Ming, they worship the spirits of the dead. I believe there is a contradiction here, and I believe most Chinese would agree that they (many of them) have not settled this contradiction in their own hearts and minds. I do not make light of this, because I believe they sincerely struggle to understand. Until they figure out what is what, they continue to cover their bases by continuing the tradition.

No one is expected to go to great lengths to travel to grave sites. For example, a 25-year-old man who has lost his grandparents, but is working in a faraway city, will not be expected to return to his hometown during the Qing Ming Festival. He'll just enjoy a long weekend. But his parents and other family members who still live in his hometown will go visit the grave.

Anyway, I went to a cemetery last weekend, because I heard that people can start visiting the tombs on the weekend before the actual Qing Ming day. After their "duty" is done, they can enjoy their three-days off work a little better. I wanted to see Qing Ming activities for myself.

At the cemetery, there were people selling incense, candles, fake money, fake cell phones, flowers and food (both for laying at the tombs and for the visitors to eat).

Many cemeteries are built on the sides of hills or mountains. I think this is considered to be good "feng shui." People took their picnic lunches to the cemetery. There were a few picnic tables so people could enjoy their outing.

It seems slightly morbid to say so, but it was really quiet and peaceful at the cemetery. I haven't been to such a quiet spot in such a long time! It was beautiful too, with mountain scenery, pink buds on the trees, a pond and birds singing.

People say it always rains on Ching Ming Festival day, as if the heavens were crying for the dead. This year, the rain came a day late, but they are pretty close to being right. Almost every year it rains.

Pictured above is a Christian grave that I ran across. In the background you can see a group that is picnicking. This was the most beautiful grave marker I saw that day, and it was for two men with the same family name, perhaps brothers. The grave marker (the tall one) has a scripture passage from the Bible, John 11:25, Jesus' words from the story of Lazarus: "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.'"

Amen. And thank God for this beautiful testimony to those who visit this cemetery. 

Annual picnic

Guilt. Yeah, that's it. It's got to be guilt.

No one loves grass and the great outdoors more than my dog. But most of her life is spent indoors, eight floors up from the nearest patch of grass. It hardly seems fair.

So today I decided it was time for my annual picnic with Mimi. The only way to go was by e-bike.

I got my front-loading doggy backpack, dressed her in a sweater to protect her from the wind generated by the e-bike's motion, and drove through the downtown area of this city of several million to take my doggy to a nice big park. I had both hands on the e-bike handles, and Mimi sat in the backpack, leaned against me, and had her front paws resting on my arm most of the time.

As a foreigner, I get stares when I am on my e-bike by myself. So imagine me having a mammal strapped to the front of my body, a mammal that everyone is inclined to think is probably a baby until they get a closer look. We got a lot of stunned looks and laughs. We're kind of used to it though. At least I am.

Mimi was so excited that for the first ten minutes or so I thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown. Then she relaxed and enjoyed every minute of the rest of our outing. 

 I found a good spot at the park where I could let her off her leash. She ran like the wind.

That's a smile on her face, case you couldn't tell. Only a dog momma knows when her dog is smiling, and that dog is definitely smiling.

Trees! Grass! No cats? Unbelievable. When it was all over, Mimi's legs were green from running through freshly cut grass.

Oh look! Water! She didn't drink it of course. I brought bottled water and a bowl, and she drank a lot of that good clean water, even though it didn't seem to stop her tongue from hanging out the entire time.

A fun time was had by all during our 3-1/2 hours away. It was perfect! Obviously I had a little trouble getting any photos of myself, so I hope you don't mind seeing the same things my eyes got to see.

Tonight? Bath time for Mimi!