Life in Zhuhai

 

We realized that we should make a post about our general life in Zhuhai, our home city for this month in China.  We are staying at Jinan Gardens, a university apartment complex for faculty.  The rock above marks the entrance at the main gate, and says Jinan Gardens.  Paul’s colleague is Mi.  Mi, his wife Sprina, and their son Eric have been great hosts.

Paul has been teaching in Mi’s “Software Analysis and Design” course each Friday afternoon, and also has had periodic meetings with students and faculty at Jinan University.  He takes the university shuttle bus there which is quite convenient and easy.

 

We attended one day of the university “sports meet”, a university Olympics held every two years.  Students and faculty compete in various events, including running between 50 and 1500 meters, shooting baskets, team rope jumping, long and high jumps, shot put, and a hackeysack-like game played with a shuttlecock.  Mi’s school faculty team placed 3^rd in the rope jumping event, and took 2^nd place in the faculty competition overall.

 

A Jinan University business professor who has been at University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire asked Cindy to talk with her freshman students to give them practice with English.  Cindy met with them one afternoon this week.  The students were happy to talk, and especially pleased when Cindy described Paul as tall with long blonde curly hair, as some of the students had seen him at the sports meet.  Of course students wanted their photo taken with Cindy.

Some of the roads here are torn up as work has started on a mass transit system (some sort of electric tram or cable-car system) – right now the only mass transit in the city is buses.  Most roads have their own street cleaner person riding a bicycle – they seem to work hard.  We’ve seen a number of people carrying plastic bottles that they’ve filled with water from mountain streams (there are several mountains in and around Zhuhai.)  Lots of people bike with their children in tow, going to school and market.  Bicycles and tricycles are also used by food vendors and other workers.

Which was on the bike first, the chickens or the eggs?

We’ve seen some wildlife in the city (quite a few butterflies and dragonflies, plus a few species of birds), but the only wildlife photo we have been able to get is a beautiful dead butterfly.  Hopefully we’ll see more wildlife when we travel to an island off the coast this weekend.