Signs of the times--Chinese style

After a couple of months I realized that signs in China are delightful. Often they are literal translations from Chinese into English. Since the Chinese language and English are not expressed the same at all, it makes for some interesting signs. So I decided to take pictures of signs. Here are some signs from my collection. They are in no special order. I hope you find them as intriguing as I do.

Do you wonder what a toilet with a decorated gateway looks like?







Keep off the grass











Interesting thought












This was on a narrow hillside path up to the Three Gorges Dam viewpoint. It took me a minute to figure out the sign means to be especially careful because the path can become slippery during thunderstorms. It may even mean that no one is allowed to climb in the rain. You decide.

Don't cllimb over the chain and walk on the rocks.

Another way of saying, "Keep off the grass."

These chairs were in the waiting room for the Star Ferry in Hong Kong. Don't know if they are ever used because it is hard to find a old, weak, sick, disable, and pregnant person.

Doesn't this sound better than, "Pick up your trash."

Ran across this poster advertising the Red Orchid Restaurant. How do you verify food?

Another "Keep off the Grass" sign.

And still another one. I love the expressions. They are much more colorful and descriptive than signs we see in the West.

How do you "dress" a fire to keep it from being naked?

I love it!!!!

Keep off the grass again.

No explanation needed here.

Sometimes spelling gets a little creative.

I saved my favorites for last. This was also at the ferry and was warning people that when the tide was out, the ramp would slope down to the ferry boat. I don't think the water would be slopping over the ramp but it makes a great image in my mind.








Finally, a sign on one of our tour buses. It took me a minute to figure it out. Can you guess what it means?

When the bus is moving, please don't walk around.

Yangtze River Cruise

Last week we went on a cruise through the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. We flew to Chongqing to begin our trip on the river. Chongqing is technically the largest city in China, but it covers a large area so includes the surrounding countryside. Nevertheless, there are over 30 million people who live in Chongqing. During WWII it was where the Americans had their presence with Gen. Stillwell in charge. It was also the wartime capital of China. This picture is of the government building, "The Great Hall".

We visited the Three Gorges Museum which showed how the gorges used to look before the dam was built, and told about the building of the dam. This area used to be a treacherous passage with rapids, rocks, and other difficulties. The cargo boats had to be pulled through some of the rapids by hand, meaning men attached ropes to the boats and literally pulled them through parts of the area.

This is a statue of the men who pulled the boats through the rapids. It was literally back-breaking work.

This is an actual rock that shows the rope burns where the ropes were pulled so much that the rock was worn away. It reminded me of the wagon wheel ruts that the pioneers in the US left as they traveled west--a lasting monument to the difficulties and hard work faced by courageous people in both countries.

The first day we stopped at the "ghost city" of Fengdu. Fortunately, it had been built on the top of a hill and will remain uncovered by the water behind the dam. It is supposed to be an area where spirits go after people die. There they can still see the world while they wait to be judged. It is an ancient area, first Daoist and then Buddhist. The stories about it had interesting parallels to beliefs of Judaism and Christianity.

We saw several interesting sites there including this demonstration. This man was able to spin the stone around the groove where his feet are and then heft it onto the point and balance it. Doesn't look too hard until you realize that the stone weighs over 400 pounds!

This man is cleaning the roof tiles on one of the buildings at Fengdu. He used a bamboo pole to push the leaves and dirt (that had accumulated in the tile grooves) off the edge of the roof. An interesting way to keep a roof clean.

At the top of the mountain at Fengdu there was a nice pagoda. Pagodas in China are like cathedrals in Europe. They are everywhere, each location is proud of its pagoda, and soon they all begin to look alike to travelers.

On the way down a group of students stopped Jim and wanted to take his picture. This happens often because we are so tall. This girl was especially interested in having her picture taken so while her friends took her picture with Jim, so did I.

This is one of the bridges that is being built across the lake made by the Three Gorges Dam. When there was only a river, the people were able to cross in small boats, but now with a huge lake, that is not so easy and the government has invested a considerable fortune in building bridges from one side to the other.

A few facts about the Three Gorges Dam Project:
It cost over $75 billion dollars. That includes not only the dam, but moving over 1.5 milliion people whose homes would be flooded, building them new houses and giving them a new livelihood, constructing these bridges and roads, and preserving historical sites and artifacts that would have been lost in the flooding. Even then many historical sites have been covered forever. The young people do not mind, but some of the older peasants have had difficulty making the change. One story told about people who now had nice two story apartments in the "new" towns, but who only used one floor because that was what they were used to. The second floor stood empty. Another story we heard was that the farmers had worked for centuries to build up the soil on their farms. When told they would have to move to the top of the mountains to farm, they literally carried the soil up the hills in baskets and put it on their new land. What a monumental task!

At one point we moved from our large boat to a smaller boat and went up the "lessser" gorges. Then we transferred to an even smaller sampan-like boat and went up the mini-gorges. This is our boatman with Jim. The hat and coat on Jim's back are woven from palm fronds and are used by the local people to keep the rain off. As you can see, it wouldn't do much for Jim. The "wings" you see are actually the shoulders, but he couldn't even get them on his large body. They fit the boatman nicely, however. While we were on the small boats we could see monkeys running around on the hillsides. I tried to get a picture, but as you can see, the weather was rainy, and no details turned out in the pictures.








This is one of the better pictures showing what the area looks like. The water will eventually get to be 175 meters above sea level. It has been as high as 172 meters last Dec. and now is about 161 meters. The water fills in the winter and they let it out for summer, just opposite what we do in the western US where we want it full in the summer and empty in the winter. Here the rainy season is in the summer, so they lower the water in the spring to make room for the summer rains to fill it again. I wish we could have seen the area before it was covered with water and again now. It would have been fun to have the comparison.



The dam will generate electric power, but not enough to serve everyone--only about 7-10% of China's power. There are also nuclear power plants, with more planned in the future. However, most of the power, for now, comes from coal. There were many coal mines in this area. The coal is mined and stored on the hillside in these large bins. When a barge pulls up to the bank to get a load of coal, the bins are opened and the coal shoots down the hill and onto the barge. Interesting!

Because of the rain it was hard to get very good pictures. However, I did manage to get this photo of the Goddess Peak. The Goddess is the tiny little projection to the right of the high peaks. I'm sure there is a story behind the goddess, (there is a story for everything in China), but I can't remember any details.

In the evening on the boat, we were treated to several shows given by the crew. One evening it was Chinese historical costumes, the other evening was a talent show. The next couple of pictures are from the costume show. One of the nice things about the show was that our waiter and the girl who cleaned our room were in it. It was not "professional" like on large cruise ships, but it was very nice and refreshing not to have to worry about whether the material was risque or not.

A close-up of the shoes on the model in the above picture. I don't know how she kept her balance and moved as fast and graceful as she did. Must take some practice!

When we reached the dam, we went through the locks to put us downstream on the river. The locks are huge and can accommodate several boats. These boats were in the locks with us. It was a little like a boat jigsaw puzzle. Our big boat went in first and then they put smaller boats in around us and behind us until there were many different sized boats that were able to fill the lock. It took us over four hours to pass through the five locks.

Here is a picture of the locks from a hill overlooking the dam. They are massive!

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest, all cement dam in the world. Interestingly enough, it is not the highest, nor the biggest, nor does it have the largest lake, but it makes its claim based on the amount of cement used. Because of the way the spillway works, spraying out in the center of the dam, it reminded me of Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River.

This picture is about the best I could do. It is taken on a hill overlooking the area of the dam. The rain had stopped and the mist was lifting, but it was still hard to see to the other side.

After we left the dam, we went by bus to Wuhan and then flew home. The holiday for our trip was "Grave Sweeping Holiday." It is similar to our Memorial Day in that it is a day to honor the dead. People put sticks with banners on them by the graves, burn paper money and remember their ancestors. As we were driving I tried to get a picture of the graves we saw along the way. This is the best I could do.

When we left the Three Gorges Area, the river valley opened up into a flat plain covered with farms, and fish ponds. I snapped this picture out of the bus window. The fields were green with new crops or yellow with the blossoming rape seed, used to make canola oil. It was a beautiful end to our trip.

Winter Trip--South VietNam

We arrived in South Viet Nam and took a trip down to the Meking River Delta area. We went out to a little island and got into some small sampans and were poled down a canal which led from one side of the island to the other.

To give us the "real" Vietnamese experience, we were given the pointed hats to wear while on the boat. I don't think Trent thought it was "cool" to wear a pointy hat, so he shed his and went bare headed.

This bridge was just completed and had only been open for a few days. It is actually three parts. This is the first one which leads to the island--out of sight on the left. Then the other two are on the far side and cannot be seen. n One is a tunnel so the boat traffic can go over the top of it. The Meking River is VERY wide. No one could tell us how many miles across, but we never got to see the other side.

Next we visited the tunnels where the Vietnamese and the Viet Cong in particular hid out during the war. They would come out of hiding, attack the US and then melt back into their holes. As you can see, the entry was small--but then the Vietnamese are small people--so it was difficult for the Americans to follow them--even if they could find the entryway.

Going on down. Kevin and some of the boys followed the tunnel for about half a mile. I went a short way and was glad to get out--dark, no light, shoulders brushed both sides, tunnel curved--very claustrophobic.

From hiding out to eating out. We had dellicious food in South Viet Nam. And it was presented in such artistic ways. I know this looks sort of gross in the picture, but the fish was actually quite tasty. We have learned to eat things that look back at us--not the heads or eyes though, just the meat.

In case you can't tell, this is fried rice shaped like a dragon. Not only did it look good, but it was quite tasty.

Here are a couple of ways to decorate with pineapple. This is a fruit bowl that looks like a chicken.

Here is a pineapple that looks like a rooster. And, yes, those are onion rings. They were quite tasty.

So now you have a taste of our winter trip--just in time for our spring trip. We leave this week for a 4 day cruise on the Yangtze River through the three gorges area. We are looking forward to that.

Winter Trip--Cambodia

After Viet Nam, Cambodia was a breath of fresh air. We loved it. The people were friendly--although they were all over us to "buy" things. Many children were selling goods. I was amazed that most of them could speak relatively good English. I finally asked one girl why she wasn't in school. She said she went in the morning and sold things in the afternoon. I later found out that schools in Cambodia only last a half a day. Too bad.

We stayed near Angkor Wat. I had assumed that it was one temple, but there were dozens of temples in the area. We visited several. This is the first one we saw. The statues are impressive, as are the carvings on the walls.










Sometimes you run across interesting things. This brings a whole new meaning to the term "nose to nose."









One area we visited had huge trees growing through and around all the walls. This particular temple was the site of the movie Tomb Raider with Angelina Joli. The guides were sure to tell us every place that was in the movie. Since I haven't seen that particular movie, it didn't mean much to me, but some people were suitably impressed.

We finally made it to the "real" Angkor Wat. This is take on the way in. It is a huge structure! We are quite far away.

Now we're getting closer. As you can see, there were people everywhere. In fact some places were so crowded that it was hard to move through the area. I had no idea that we would find so many people visiting the ruins. To show what a small world it can be, here we ran into two families from our church district. They both live in Shanghai, but we are acquainted with them.

The moat surrounding Angkor Wat was almost as impressive as the temple itself. I thought it was a river when I first saw it. Now it is peaceful and calm, but when the temple was in use, the moat was filled with alligators, making a good barrier for those who wanted to get into the structure.

We were told that the sunset was beautiful from another ruins at the top of a hill. Since it was almost time for the sun to go down, we, along with a thousand other people ran (well, hurried anyway) to the top of the hill to catch this sight. It was a little hazy, but still quite spetacular and worth the climb--not sure about the walk back in the dark, however.

The next day we visited my favorite temple. I think I liked it because of the red stone and the intricate carvings. At any rate, I could have spent more time here. It wasn't so crowded as the other places and one could get a real sense of history. I liked the leisurely pace better.

On the way back to town, we stopped and our tour guide showed us how they get sugar from palm trees. They cut this fruit and let the sap drain out. Then they boil it down and get sugar. Not quite like sugar maples in New England, but a new idea for me. I didn't know there were some kinds of palm trees that were grown for their sugar content.

The sugar was a family affair. For $1 they let me take my picture with the grandmother and the children. The inside of their house is in the background. Many of the houses were up on stilts. I hadn't seen houses built that way since we lived in Guyana.

Our last stop in Cambodia was a village built on the water. The people are mostly Vietnamese who settled here when the Vietnamese drove Pol Pot from power and sent their people over to Cambodia. Everything is on the water--houses, churches, schools, stores, etc. Here is someone out mending his net.

This was one of the better decorated houses.

Here is the basketball court for the school. It is on the water and is surrounded by wire mesh to keep the ball inside.

We visited an alligator farm in the water village. They are grown for their skin as well as for food.

A fisherman and his net. I'm not sure I'd want to eat something from this water, but it is a good way to feed a family and maybe sell a few fish on the side. Now on to South Viet Nam.