Classy!

Look who came by to visit us at the bar one night! A possibly drunk security guard!

How To: Dental Care

Dental care doesn't really seem to be a top priority in rural China, which is why it makes sense that the back of my toothpaste includes instructions and diagrams.

Describing Differences in English

A friend left behind some old ELL curriculum books in our office, and I've been having fun looking through them. Here's the first entertaining excerpt:

The rainstorms here are magnificent, powerful, and expensive.

So, in my previous post, I mentioned how a residual typhoon couldn't come close to our usual rainstorms. I will elaborate.

Summer is the rainy season in Yancheng. And to my dismay, this is no Pacific Northwest, continuous, fluctuating density, rain-is-annoying-and-I,-Chelsea,-hate-it-so-so-so-much-but-I-can-usually-avoid-it, and-I-can-manage-because-I-have-a-waterproof-jacket-and-a-contained-vehicle, rain shower. No, this's something else entirely. Here's a 30-second video I took of a rainstorm. The thunder roll on this clip isn't as loud as some that came before and after, but the lightening (about 20 seconds in) is amazingly brilliant. And it comes right before the thunder, so it had to have been wicked close.

[The loud white-noise sound is the rain.]
I love leaving the curtains open and watching the lightning.

If you're out, and it starts to rain, it's better just to suck it up and pay for a taxi/sanlunche to take you the rest of the way to your destination: it can go from a sprinkle to a deluge before you can think to pull out an umbrella. I made the mistake of thinking I could reasonably walk from the bus to work during one downpour, and I had to stop half-way and buy fresh clothes because the ones I was wearing became soaked through in a matter of minutes. My walking sneakers didn't dry for two days; I had to leave them in front of the heater. I am not a rainboot wearer, but I've had to purchase a pair out of absolute necessity.

Typhoon-Shmyphoon

We were supposed to experience a typhoon at the beginning of this week. The school even canceled classes on Sunday and Monday, which it does with university-grade reluctance. But then nothing happened. The usual summer rainstorms are worse than the flutter we got from the non-typhoon. I was disappointed.

A classic Toothpaste for Dinner comic about another kind of storm.

btw: In case you were out of the know like me, "typhoon" is the name for a hurricane that occurs in the western Pacific.

I sure wish my camera could take better nightshots...

Every night when I walk home from work, I cross a canal with an insect population substantial enough to attract a swarm of bats. And every night when it's not raining, and there's not a crowd watching old men fish, I stand on the bridge and try to get a close up photo of a bat. It shouldn't be hard- there are so many, and they swoop so close you can hear them. Alas, my camera absolutely blows at taking photos at night, so I've been extremely unsuccessful.

I won't keep posting lame bat photos, but here's one that turned out kind of interesting:

Adventures in Chinglish

From the pillow I just bought:

You know you're jealous your pillow doesn't accompany you to go to sleep.

"10 Chinese Women Executed Over the Past 30 Years"

Via chinaSMACK: 10 Beautiful Chinese Women Executed Over the Past 30 Years. (I don't see how "beauty" has to do with anything, but whatever, I didn't write the article...)

 

ugh.