Cats aren't pack animals, but they seem to be at USTC.
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I attended my first wedding in China this weekend. My friend Betsy married in Hefei in a type of ceremony that's becoming common among young people: it keeps a few old traditions but otherwise is an amalgam of photo orgy, game show and huge feast. Chinese weddings are highly informal for the guests, most wearing the same kind of clothes they'd wear to go to a market or the park. The groom, however, is tuxed up, and the bride might change into three different types of dresses. (Betsy started out with a Western-style wedding gown and then switched to a red gown when the time came for toasting.) An emcee is hired to host the wedding. In this case it was a man, who spoke into a booming microphone. There seems to be a standard order of "rituals" that take place. First, the couple walk in and are introduced. (All the while there is music playing loudly, music that's unrelated to weddings.) They then bow deeply to the entire collected audience. Then they bow deeply to their parents, who are seated at the head table. Then, they turn and bow deeply to each other. The bowing finished, they pick up a kind of Roman candle, which when lit burns intensely bright. They use it to light the "candle of love." After this they move to another area and pour a bottle of champagne into a series of cups. I asked the woman next to me, an English teacher who lives in Nanjing, if we'd get to drink any of it. No, she informed me, it's just for show. Meanwhile, all our tables had one bottle of wine upon it. But it could not be opened until it was time for toasting at the end of the dinner!! So, we ate a large dinner without the benefit of wine. The couple exchanged rings after the champagne pouring, after which they walked back down the way they'd walked to the front of the room, then turned around and walked back. (Not sure what that was for.) And that was it. They then sat down to eat at the head table. Betsy went to change into her red gown at one point, and then she and her husband and their parents moved around the tables to toast the guest. They were drinking baijiu, the high-alcohol spirit popular in China. Most guests toasted with soft drinks , a few with wine. I would imagine that Betsy was quite hammered by the time she drank all that baijiu. The entire affair was done in less than two hours. And, no, there was no dance and no band. There was, however, sushi, turtle, roast pork leg, shrimp, chicken, tripe, beef and many more dishes served at each table. Here are some photos. Click on Read More to see them all. This past weekend I had the chance to visit a couple of the more notable sites in Anhui Province: the ancient village of Sanhe and one of the four sacred Chinese Buddhist mountains, Mount Jiuhua. Sanhe, as it stands, is about 1,000 years old, but it was a village going waaaaay back. Mount Jiuhua is about a three-hour drive south of Hefei and is the site of 99 temples, from the mountain's foot to its peaks. (Seemed like a lot more than 99, though, as I walked miles of paths and steps.) The smoke from the incense rivals the smog of Beijing. Below are some pics. Click on Read More to see more photos. One of the biggest problems I encountered as a journalism teacher in China was that students had no true understanding of history -- particularly their own. That's because for the past 60 years, the Party has carefully fashioned the narrative of China's history to its advantage, and it often has little to do with reality. The following is an exerpt from today's South China Morning Post about a dustup over the Party and historical truth -- at least the quest for historical truth.
<<A magazine publisher has been demoted and a journalist suspended after the publication of an interview with a Taiwanese historian who accused "Father of the Nation" Sun Yat-sen of trying to make deals with Japan and who criticised China for trying to stir up nationalist sentiment. The question-and-answer-style story featuring Professor Tang Chi-hua from National Chengchi University in Taiwan was headlined, "The rising China must say goodbye to `revolutionary diplomacy'". It was published on July 25. The reporter said officials from the group's editorial committee had visited the magazine on Monday to announce the decisions on Chen and Zhao. The officials also criticised the story as "anti-government and anti-Communist Party". They said Tang's comments about Sun were defamatory since Sun was a "true revolutionary pioneer". Tang was quoted in the article as saying that Sun, having failed to win the support of warlords, suggested to Japan that he was willing to cede China's sovereignty over Manchuria and Hainan Island in exchange for Japanese officers leading the National Revolutionary Army against the Beiyang warlord government in Beijing. Later, to get Japan to send an army to help him, Sun offered to cede control of policing and taxation, and of Beijing, Tianjin and Inner Mongolia, Tang said. These weren't the only points the committee took issue with. There were three others: First, Tang said the historical narratives of the Communist Party and the Kuomintang might not be factual, and that they sometimes put party interests ahead of the country. >> I think this last point speaks volumes. I took a few photos of posters publicizing lectures to be held at USTC. As you'll see below, it's not much easier to understand the English any more than understanding the Chinese characters. Now, I don't know if this is a matter of Chinglish, bad translation or just my woeful ignorance about science and all things quantum. Judge for yourself.
The west campus of USTC has an unusually large number of cats, perhaps because this is where much of the faculty housing stands. Most of the cats are semi-feral; teachers put out leftovers for them, but I've yet to meet a feline that's willing to be petted. None have been spayed or neutered, so spraying and strutting abound. Here, then, is the first of an occasional series of the cats of USTC. More cats after the jump! My Hefei friend Betsy took me to the Hefei Museum on Sunday, which is a combination historical/natural science museum -- although it did happen to have an exhibit of the paintings of Pan Yuliang, a Chinese artist who spent most of her career in France in the early 20th century. The highlight of the museum was the collection of dinosaur bones, which are plentiful in the outcroppings of the nearby Yangtze River. And the lowlight was the cheesy diorama room. The ever game Betsy was willing, however, to rescue a wee 'saur from the jaws of a T-rex. (see below)
Later we joined her husband/almost husband/it's complicated and two of his friends for a hotpot meal of spicy shrimp. The meal was better than thumbs up. It was a mealtime victory! Last night I had the privilege of dining with five brilliant and lovely scientists during a kickoff dinner for a two-week training seminar at USTC sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the U.S., science is dominated by males, so it's heartening to see young ladies in China taking to the field. And I had five of 'em to myself, at least for one meal! Pictures of the scientesses below.
A fascinating story in today’s South China Morning Post in Hong Kong about the mainland China censors putting the kibosh on any coverage of the train crash that killed about 40 people. The timing of the hypocrisy is exquisite: the country’s premier, Wen Jiabao, visited the crash site three days ago and vowed transparency and openness in investigating how and why it happened. A day later the government’s censorship department banned all reporting and publishing on the crash. Specifically, the department wrote: "After the serious rail traffic accident on July 23, overseas and domestic public opinions have become increasingly complicated. All local media, including newspapers, magazines and websites, must rapidly cool down the reports of the incident. "[You] are not allowed to publish any reports or commentaries, except positive news or information released by the authorities." Mind you, this kind of censoring of the country’s newspapers, magazines and websites goes on every day, but this edict was so last minute that some newspapers had only a couple hours to find replacement material for seven or eight pages. It’s also a topic that’s been roiling the Chinese public. That public I've moved into a newly refurbished apartment on the USTC campus in Hefei. I'm on the sixth floor of this walkup, so I'm getting plenty of exercise. The kitchen has what amounts to the only "picture" window in the apartment, which is a shame because the only time I really look out it is when I'm making something in the wok. A few days ago I heard a loud tweeting and saw the bird pictured below on a pipe outside the window. She seemed to be staring at me, but perhaps it was her reflection that so enamored her. She did a little dance, bobbing back and forth, bending way ahead, then bending back. She'd shuffle sideways along the pipe. She finally disappeared into some ivy at the window's end, so I don't know where she went. One of neighbor's birds who was looking to get back in? A pet gone feral? A reincarnated friend? Now I know how Poe felt.
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Crane
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