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Fluoride
Trad climber
West Los Angeles, CA/Joshua Tree
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Love this thread. Keep posting pics Randisi (and ghost).
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Dec 13, 2013 - 12:57pm PT
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Been lurking and enjoying this thread for a while now. What an interesting and beautiful place. Air doesn't look any worse than Reno the last few days actually. cold high pressure has been sitting in our bowl for about a week now. Fortunately that is unusual for us.
Noticed that China is planning to land a rover on the Moon tomorrow. Is that big news over there? Do you know if they will be streaming anything live on it?
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Dec 13, 2013 - 03:36pm PT
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Fun stuff! My son who is half Chinese went to China when he was 15 (2005) as part of the Youth Climbing World Comps (his girlfriend was the one vying for Worlds). He was so excited as he said "I'm going to go and be among my people". I laughed, since he is more American than I am since he grew up in California. I asked him what he ate and he said mostly "Pizza Hut". He was a little taken aback by the air quality...he said "Mom everyone wears masks". Whenever I would call his hotel I was routed through a Chinese "sports host". Oh yeah, I'm sure. They kept tight reins on the comings and goings, but they were not "restricted" in the traditional sense of the word.
In 1978 I traveled to China just after it opened with a contingent of 20 others on an education and humanity "mission". We were TOTALLY restricted. No picture taking allowed. There was 1 Chinese "guide" for every 3 people. We had no freedom whatsoever although they took us to see many sights and treated us well. We never got to see any of the peasants or working Chinese. Our bus had bars on the window and were very darkened. There were some creepy feelings about would we be allowed to leave. Many Americans at the time called us un-American for going since China was still regarded as an enemy state.
My former Chinese husband, who grew up in America of Chinese immigrants spoke Chinese until he was 5 and went to kindergarten in Santa Rosa. His father then said "you will speak English now". No ifs, ands or buts about it.
I would love to go back and visit China now, but it's not likely to happen.
Please keep posting...it's lovely. The culture is such a contrast.
Susan
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Dec 13, 2013 - 04:29pm PT
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We were TOTALLY restricted. No picture taking allowed.
Susan, I'm sure Randisi can give you a more complete picture than I can, but on my trips to China no one has paid any attention whatever to what I do. I'm sure there are places off limits, but on my trips, once I leave the airport, I've been completely free to do whatever I chose to do. No different than Europe or North America.
Maybe you'd run into some kind of restrictions if you tried to buy a ticket on a domestic flight, or rent a car... Randisi?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Dec 14, 2013 - 11:25am PT
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Thanks Randisi for this wonderful thread! I just moved from Japan to Colorado and you are making homesick!
I am always impressed when I go to China how there are still beautiful and somewhat wild places there in spite of 6,000 years of heavy habitation and over a billion people there. It's also very impressive each trip to see how much things have changed. I mainly go to conferences in the southwest (Kunming) and in even two years, the modernization is amazing (I first went there in 1979 when everyone was still wearing Mao jackets and riding bicycles).
One thing that surprised me from your photos was how much vegetation there is and how green everything looked for that time of year. The Korean peninsula is much less forested and much colder and more somber it seems.
Please keep posting!
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Dec 14, 2013 - 12:24pm PT
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Unfortunately, the Chinese education system focuses on rote learning and not effective usage of knowledge.
might as well replace that with the US k-12 education system, now. NCLB and the scantron overlords pretty much have most kids in their iron grip.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Dec 14, 2013 - 01:31pm PT
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Sullly
Merleau-Ponty is not what I would expect to find in the little red book or in most books about logic..., but he could be relevant for climbers - the rock and climbing gear as extentions of our bodies... rock-body... body-gear-rock...
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Dec 14, 2013 - 02:17pm PT
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On the subject of dual language signs...
Here are a few shots taken twelve years ago on my first visit to Guangzhou. If there's one thing striking about these it's that there's nothing striking about them. Could be pretty much anywhere...
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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So I take it you like it, then?
It's not what Americans think it is Dingus.
Go back in time. Way back. To when what is now the US was in its infancy. People in Europe believed it was an uncivilized place with a guaranteed-to-fail political system, full of savages, dirty, dangerous...
That's how people in the US now think of China.
Am I saying that China will blossom in the way the US did? No. Am I saying that it might? Yes.
What many people forget in this discussion is that people who live in China are...
wait for it...
People.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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LA Times reportedtoday that people are really pissed at Walmart because what they thought
they were eating their esteemed donkey snacks but, in fact, they were getting fox. Ewwww!
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justthemaid
climber
Jim Henson's Basement
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Jan 13, 2014 - 09:25am PT
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Nope.. no varicose veins in these propaganda posters either;)
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Jan 13, 2014 - 12:41pm PT
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Looks like our advertising from the 50's.
I wish I had gone to China instead of Saudi Arabia!
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Guangzhou
Trad climber
Asia, Indonesia, East Java
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Jan 13, 2014 - 08:09pm PT
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who knows, we might meet and climb together soon. On the short list for a position in Xian. Would be nice to go back to China.
I have to agree, minus the pollution, China is a great place to live.
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Jan 14, 2014 - 11:05am PT
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Sometimes the Chinese are just strange. I was married to a Chinese man for close to 20 years…he was 1st generation born and raised in US so he was as American as apple pie. However his sister once asked me "do we really all look alike to you?" I was kinda stunned….I said "no, not if I'm looking at your face, but if we are in a banquet hall and all I see of those sitting in front of me is the back of their heads, then generally all I see is black hair."
The revering of the males, especially in the older generation is still very profound. My Chinese sister-in-law and I were pregnant at the same time. Her husband was also Chinese. But at banquets all the elders would flock around me and fuss over my pregnancy, even though I was blonde and blue eyed, simply because I was married to a Chinese male. My son and his cousin born several weeks apart had a joint Red Egg and Ginger baby banquet. I loved all the banquets and the symbolism for each one.
There was a wonderful family history book that my former husband's family kept up. It probably went back 100s of years. Or as my former used to say "when we were still monkeys in trees". However, very interesting is that only males were listed in the book until about the 1930s then they started to include females.
Jewelry is a preferred wedding gift and it is expected that you will wear every piece at the wedding banquet. It was interesting wearing multiple necklaces, bracelets, rings etc. My husband received many pieces too. And of course nearly all of the them were either jade or 22K gold or both. As the bride and groom would move amongst the banquet tables there was great pride taken for the "gifter" to point out the gift they had given…a little competition going on… And when my son was born I was astounded at so much beautiful baby jewelry. He was beautiful little Baby Buddhas, jade and gold pieces too. So tiny, so beautiful.
Susan
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this just in
climber
north fork
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Jan 28, 2014 - 10:59am PT
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Great pics Randisi. Happy Chinese new year.
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this just in
climber
north fork
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Jan 30, 2014 - 12:03am PT
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Take some pics, it would be cool to see what a Chinese New Year looks like. I know, not gonna do the justice of the real thing. Cheers.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Jan 30, 2014 - 03:09am PT
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Thanks for this thread Randisi. It's really cool to see pics from the other side of the world and get to know you a little better!
Happy New Year!
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Evel
Trad climber
Nedsterdam CO
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Feb 19, 2014 - 09:44pm PT
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YOWZA!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Feb 19, 2014 - 10:03pm PT
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Thanks for all pictures and words Randisi. Xiamen is important in the industry I work in and I hope to get there some day. For the immediate future the closest I'll get is HK in about a month from now, but it'll be all work and not enough time for play.
Your comment about the trees with the exposed roots brought back memories of Guangzhou. Wandering around in areas just full of trees like that. I don't think I got any pictures of the root systems, but here's some Guangzhou trees.
For those of you who don't know it, Guangzhou is a huge industrial city. 11 million in the city itself, and close to 45 million in the urban agglomeration. But my memory of the place is trees everywhere.
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