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Showing posts from 2017

Yuan's Bike

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My friend Yuan and I go out on her bike around Qingdao. She bought it for 700 RMB – 60$; it dates back to the late 70s. I love the freedom, the old leather seat and Yuan’s road cunning. She told me how you see things so differently on a bike, how intimate life becomes. On the road Life is different, perhaps more compelling. We push along the pavement, weaving in and out of the Harvest Moon celebrating crowds. Little kids press sticky, fishy-licked fingers into our sides, a baby pulls at Yuan’s hat, the seafront pavement lost and bewildered amongst the loud and happy throng.   A bucket of food Meat line Chair time I might leave China next year. I think about this as we fly along the backstreets which look more Central Asian than the main Qingdao drag. I begin to ache as if already saying goodbye to my dear loved ones. I feel a real pain in my heart.  So why now, so soon…the journey seems to have only just begun? Is it the upheaval in Europe that is

Spring into Summer

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Pretty is the tea they serve Spring in China is a time when most teachers enter a workaholic phase. It is also the time of the black tea. High up in Shandong's Laoshan Mountains, experienced pickers work nimble fingered to bring us curative, black, Shandong tea. Time has been divided carefully, like tea leaves, between Qingdao and Beijing, then back to school, running up, down, and along the corridors, trying to locate classes that are last minute changing…students rushing along with us, puffing on sweet-smelling cigarettes. And as we rushed, spring went wild with flowers trilling and singing, tumbling down, entwining with other plants, going anywhere their tiny branch fingers can go - a form of social flower consciousness. Midnight flowers Roadside flowers in Beijing Zhou Gu Jing - celebrated brush painter The other day I leant some words in Chinese to describe Qingdao flowers: Savage, 狂野 - Kuángyě, Willful, 任性 , Rènxìng, Restive: