Wishing you wonder, adventure, JOY, meaning, laughter, energy, warmth, and many blessings! Yours will be quite the lively household with Emilio and the coming of your twins! How very lucky you are!40 Memories of the Year I met Steve and Maria - in Xiamen, China
1 Steve – Xiamen University (see image at left) teacher of Film
2 Holiday Inn buffet
3 French bakery
4 Pizza Hut
5 McDonald's Romance Nights
6 Salad bar at McDonald's
7 Tofu Restaurant
8 Xia Da – your apartment
9 Gulangyu (view of Xiamen from Gulangyu at right)10 Pianos/Piano music on Gulangyu
11 Geode shops on Gulangyu
12 Aquarium on Gulangyu
13 Jinji Ting Neighborhood
14 Spitting – and spit EVERYWHERE
15 The Goatman – man riding bike pulling goat on platform, people coming to get milk
16 Ballroom dancing at 6am in the hood
17 Karaoke everywhere
18 Monks with cellphones19 Monks in saffron robes lifting weights by the temple
20 White-knuckle taxi rides
21 Ducks/chickens crossing city streets
22 Bikes can carry anything and multiple people
23 Carts of huge blocks of ice pulled by men – melting rivers as they walk
24 Rural China a short walk behind JinjiTing
25 Huts with one electric cord going in – TV on inside
26 Water pipes breaking – water turned off and on
27 Electricity off and on – never any warning
28 City bus breaks down – everyone gets out and walks
29 Being STARED AT
30 Internet Café
31 Baby Bottle building
32 Businessmen leaving banks with clear garbage bags full of Yuan
33 Market merchants with the dirty/ tattered/crumpled/wrinkled yuan in drawers
34 Abbacus for talleying purchases at big department stores
35 Ying Cai school
36 Xiamen International School37 Headmaster (He Who Must Not Be Named) at XIS
38 Maria & Steve, Pete, Diana, & Joseph, Kathy, Mike, & Tao, Shelley, Barbara & David
39 Birth of Joseph (Joefish) – first in vitro baby in Xiamen. Press covers his birth
40 A Century of living in one small city (people living in huts and multi-level discos with light shows all in the same city, and everything in-between)
Written by my Photographer friend, Dwight Cendrowski, who visited Xiamen in 1997:
Welcome to China. Home to one fifth of the world's population. The land of temples and rice paddies, Mao and the cultural revolution, and ping pong. And a surging, charged economy that is changing the face of world trade and the lives of all Chinese. Xiamen is a bustling city of over one million in the southeastern province of Fujian, across the strait from Taiwan. It was one of four original special economic zones named in China in 1980, where foreign investment was encouraged and business restrictions eased. It's now exploding with construction as companies pour money into the region. It's also in the news these days as a staging point for smugglers moving human cargo to the United States.
41 Tai Chi, 6:00 a.m.,42 Babies in Ching Xi hospital
43 Portrait of woman on island of Gulangyu Fisherman in waters off Xiamen
44 Blood pressure checks on the streeet
45 Pedicab driver on busy street
46 Xiamen streetscene
47 Xiamen nightclub
48 Seafood on display outside retaurant
2 comments:
Thanks for the good wishes and the memories, Barbara.
My most vivid memory of our time together in Xiamen is of the night we met. We had dinner at the Pizza Hut with Mari and David and I was moved by the touching story you told me about David's dad. I felt an instant connection with you then and I haven't lost it since.
Looking forward to seeing you in Chicago!
P.S.
I'd love to illustrate your list with a couple of Dwight's photos--which I found on the web--but I am reluctant to do so because of the copyright warnings, even though this site is more of a friends-and family-thing than a general interest site. I have added a link to his site, though.
Well written article.
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