China

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post.  Life has been nothing short of crazy.

China was spectacular...
Some highlights:

Wet markets lined the filthy streets contributing to the putrid aroma of seafood and human waste.  Despite the horrible blast to my olfactory senses, I greatly enjoyed looking at all of the different organisms being bartered off.  Abalone, live eels, turtles, crabs, shellfish, and many different species of fish were to be had.

After only a few hours of sleep since arriving in Zhu Xai, we piled into a car and were escorted by a woman named Asha and her husband through the rural neighborhoods of her home as well as the prominent temple in the area.  The Chinese people come to places like this to light incense and pray for their ancestors.  The exquisite architecture, artwork and presence of white pigeons and turtles cultivated a sense of immense beauty and awe inspiring calm.  

  

On the grounds of this temple also stood a tree of ribbons.  When the breeze made the red ribbons dance, it carried off with it the prayers whispered for the individual's name inked onto the ribbon in gold.  

This little guy was at the temple with his father to listen to a traveling monk speak.  

Our apartment was located in a very nice gated area of high rise buildings, koi ponds, swimming pools, and lovely traditional Chinese structures.  

On one of the beaches about an hour drive from the Gardner family home I asked this woman if I could take her picture.  As with many of the Chinese, asking this question includes me pointing to the camera then at them with a questioning look on my face.  The language barrier poses no problems with the use of my adequate hand signals and most individuals are more than happy to have their picture taken.  This woman scours the beach for old cans, bits of string, and any other material that catches her eye.  From all of the years of doing this, she has morphed a prominant hunchback.  She forms a dramatic figure with head down and back curved like a tortoises shell.  Surprising to most, she is probably only around sixty years old.  

Some of the places we went to were nearly completely abandoned.  Old towns that had been erected by the Portuguese are now only littered with trash, feral dogs, in-the-wall shops, and the elderly playing board games.  Notice how the woman sweeping the street below is wearing red arm guards.  The Chinese find pale skin beautiful.  Dark skin is indicative of laboring in the sun- low work.  For this reason, everyone wears hats, covers their skin when they are outside, and the women carry parasols.  

 

This was one women of about six that were crammed into a tiny hot room sewing clothes to be sent across seas.  In front of her lying on a mat on the floor was a child that had fallen asleep to the whirring of the sewing machines.

In China it is disrespectful to not eat at least half of any food offered you.  This bean soup tasted like charcoal- something near to what I expect western hospitals use to detox overdosed systems.  

Maybe someone can explain to me why these bricks are laid the way they are?  Notice how they are diagonal in the foreground and lain horizontally and straight farther off in the wall.  Odd.

Old people nap everywhere and anywhere.

Asha took us to the top of her parents' house where they grow a lot of their own herbs, dry food items, and use as storage and for sleeping. The rafters are tied together with whatever they can find.  Inside, they cook on a low brick wall with a wok heated from beneath by a wood burning fire.  They have no refrigeration, no microwave, but there is a color television in the small living room.  

An ancient place of prayer we came upon had walls made of oyster shells.  The plaster that had covered the natural insulator has eroded away with time to reveal the textured surface beneath.