Barbara & Bruces' Asia Adventures continue (China, Hong Kong and Korea too!!!!)

Minneapolis Art Shanties  It is snowing outside, a beautiful Minnesota winter snow-- not too cold but definitely not a day to drive anywhere. It feels like a fairly gentle return home, the long, dark nights make getting back on a local sleep cycle easier. The weather has been cold but the snow is beautiful. As always, it has taken time to adjust to a house with many rooms to inhabit, many more ‘things’ than we need, many tasks, responsibilities and meetings as well as reconnecting with friends and community.   But, before signing off for this particular visit, I want to end with some additional food thoughts and details. Eating in Hong Kong and Beijing is a fun and at times,   We got to practice being flexible and taking our time reading menus, pointing at photos and using our phone apps that could translate spoken and written Mandarin to English. And always there were lovely surprising food adventures: Shopping Mall Market in Beijing  Markets in Hon...

We've been back home for some days now, though we may have left behind some of our body rhythms in China.  Still adjusting to here rather than there.   But we have our memories.  One day our friend Ming-Ming and I explored a small but wonderful "hutong" museum.  Hutongs are the older style of housing, often just one story, sometimes in a large square with a courtyard in the middle for an important family. At right we see a model of a typical "courtyard house."  To our surprise, a local grade school boy with lots of English had trained to guide people such as I through the museum, which I enjoyed while Ming-Ming chatted with his mom.  One of the residents of this neighborhood was the artist who created the bas relief work in the photo above, of the May 4th movement (1919), unrest when the western allies, after World War I, returned rights to some of China to the Germans (Germany, Britain, the U.S., and France had taken "concessio...

Greetings once again.  A recent visit to the National Art Museum of China with our friend Ming-Ming (who's been generous with her time and friendship) left me with new thoughts and questions. Ming-Ming told me that much of the work on the floor we were then on reflected the government's effort to reach out to isolated rural communities to better their lives.  Here we see a large sculpture (behind us) of a joyful farm family with their large harvest of squashes, grains, and other essentials of a rural diet.  They are presumably benefitting from efforts made on their behalf for more secure lives. A painting also suggests the central government's role in nurturing rural communities.  Here we see (at left) a community in the lower right, now connected by modern bridges over a deep gorge, and a small city at the top that's been reached by similar bridge and highway projects.  Local people should now be more able to access markets, jobs, health care, and sc...

Wangfuxing Walking Street  Wagfujing Food Alley Buying at bargain prices and conspicuous consumption seems to be something everyone does all the time here. At times it feels like a national or, even religious avocation. Getting the best deal for the best material- whether fruits, fish, clothing or cars is something everyone seems to desire-elders at a fruit and veggie market pick over berries to select only the best ones (discarding the ‘not up to standard’ ones for anyone else who might be shopping. Shirts and jackets are often covered with logos (some familiar some not). The cars parked helter-skelter on the sidewalks are usually new SUVs, BMWs, Mercedes, Volvos or Saabs. (The cars get washed frequently, even if the temps are sub-zero.) While shopping, a friend makes sure that the price I am paying is ‘good value’ and even tries bargaining it lower for me. At restaurants, although we often see people eating in smaller family groups, as couples or individually, there are ...