China Segment

A few days ago I was privileged to attend the wedding of my wife’s cousin and his fiancée, who had been engaged for about 9 months. It was held in the home of the groom’s father’s mother (his grandmother). She has a farmhouse in Fengxian district 奉贤区, in the countryside of Shanghai. [...]

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Marriage in China still befuddles me. It is for sons (and daughters, but preferably the former). It is for joining families. It is for the good of the bride and groom.
I witnessed an engagement party today. It was a banquet-style luncheon in what can only be described as the [...]

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The other day I was talking to a friend here. She’s not going home for Spring Festival. She can’t afford it.
It’s not the train ticket that she can’t afford, or the time off work - every business pretty much shuts down over the break, save for restaurants and hotels. She can’t afford [...]

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Squatting is a rather ingrained habit among many people in China. Go out into the countryside and you’re guaranteed to see people squatting by the roadside, watching the world pass them by.
But in the uber cities of modern China, many of the migrant people from the countryside retain their ways – spitting, rolling up [...]

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That said by the ministry in charge of films here in China.  No surprise, really, as the government often treats the people as a mass of children that need nannies rather than leadership.
In a sense, it’s merely a continuation of the kind of thinking that goes back centuries in China.  Ruler treats subject like father [...]

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Well, well, well. It’s a well and the cover’s off. With no one around.
I came across this well while walking around the farms nearby my wife’s grandparents’. It speaks to the lack of safety consciousness in China. Despite the fact that each kid is treated as if the entire race depended [...]

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Stooking by hand is a rather labor intensive, right? This dude must be 60, but he’s still doing it on his own. Actually, most of the farmers near the village of Qingchuan, a couple hours away from Qiandao Hu (Thousand Island Lake, which leads to many jokes about salad dressing), are in [...]

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Out at the wife’s grandparent’s farm the other day, I suddenly found myself with plenty of work between lunch and supper. Yeye (your father’s father - in this case my wife’s father’s father), had disappeared for a bit, when suddenly he returned with a cart full of freshly cut sugar cane.
This particular type of [...]

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