My day started at 3:30 am, which was much too early and since I couldn’t sleep I got up and wrote about what Mike and I did on Friday. After Mike got up, at around 6, we got ready for breakfast and decided to bus across the city to visit the Yellow Crane Tower. We got on the 521, which begins in front of the apartment complex, and rode it to the last stop. From there we walked a very short ways back to show Mike where Jiajing’s parents live. We walked another block back to the river and then a short ways to our left to the bridge. (See the picture below, which was taken from the top of Yellow Crane Tower.)
At the bridge we turned left and walked up to the tower, paid our 50 RMB each and acted like tourists. The photo below is the tower as seen from the entrance.
The next photo is the tower up close.
Near the tower was an interesting arrangement of flowers.
It was noon when we finished and so decided to stop at a KFC to see how it compared to one in the US. It was a good match. After our meal we got back on a 521 and rode it to the mall that we were at on Friday. We got off there so I could get some bread and money. With money in hand, temptation kicked in, good sense fell by the wayside, and we felt ourselves being compelled by some strange power to enter a Dairy Queen we just happen to be passing and got an ice cream cone. We got back on the bus and finished our trip back to our apartment for a nap. After our nap it was back to the coffee shop, then to dinner or supper, back to the coffee shop, and then back to the apartment for some sleep.
At one point during the day I asked Mike if he found it difficult to distinguish between the faces of the Chinese people he had met. He said it was as if they all look alike. One day Jiajing told me that she couldn’t tell Americans apart. She could not see differences that I could, just like we could not see differences in Chinese faces that she could. As we talked about this Mike made a comment that I felt was significant on this topic. He said language is just a lot of different sounds that have meaning if you know the language. The Chinese language has sounds that we don’t recognize as being different. The English language has sounds that we recognize as being different. As the American recognizes the sound differences, we also recognize facial differences. These sound and facial differences are missed by the Chinese person just as we miss the differences with the Chinese.
At the bridge we turned left and walked up to the tower, paid our 50 RMB each and acted like tourists. The photo below is the tower as seen from the entrance.
The next photo is the tower up close.
Near the tower was an interesting arrangement of flowers.
It was noon when we finished and so decided to stop at a KFC to see how it compared to one in the US. It was a good match. After our meal we got back on a 521 and rode it to the mall that we were at on Friday. We got off there so I could get some bread and money. With money in hand, temptation kicked in, good sense fell by the wayside, and we felt ourselves being compelled by some strange power to enter a Dairy Queen we just happen to be passing and got an ice cream cone. We got back on the bus and finished our trip back to our apartment for a nap. After our nap it was back to the coffee shop, then to dinner or supper, back to the coffee shop, and then back to the apartment for some sleep.
At one point during the day I asked Mike if he found it difficult to distinguish between the faces of the Chinese people he had met. He said it was as if they all look alike. One day Jiajing told me that she couldn’t tell Americans apart. She could not see differences that I could, just like we could not see differences in Chinese faces that she could. As we talked about this Mike made a comment that I felt was significant on this topic. He said language is just a lot of different sounds that have meaning if you know the language. The Chinese language has sounds that we don’t recognize as being different. The English language has sounds that we recognize as being different. As the American recognizes the sound differences, we also recognize facial differences. These sound and facial differences are missed by the Chinese person just as we miss the differences with the Chinese.
