While we were staying in Wenxi for Spring Festival we went to a newly rebuilt to tower that overlooks the yellow river. And by rebuilt I mean that nothing remains of the original. So while very nice and clean, the whole thing was totally fabricated. But apparently a famous poet (not Li Bai, who apparently wrote a poem about every damn thing in China except this tower) had stood at the top of the tower and writing a poem about the river. Anyway, the most impressive thing was that there was an ostrich farm right next to the tower grounds. And you could walk right up to the fence and check it out. Which we did.

Ostrichs are huge! Taller then I am (6′1″). Notice that the male has black feathers and the female gray feathers. This is important for the rest of the story. The male started to follow around the female in the usual mating bird style, only to catch her directly in front of us, maybe a foot away. This quickly went from “Oh my god this is hilarious” to “Oh my god I’m going to die” as another male came over and challenged the mounting one. They both stood up to their full height, maybe 7 feet, and beat their wings and made this crazy “Angry Ostrich Sound!” The female ran away at this time with both wings spread out, and I am sure thinking in here little ostrich head “Noooooooooooooooo”. As you can see in the picture above the fence is maybe two bamboo poles, not really something I would trust to hold back two crazed males enraged with mating hormones. Someone later stated it was at this time that i ran away like a little girl, but I think it was a sensible retreat.

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Try out this end of the world virus game. It’s bird flu fun!

Pandemic: EOM The sequel to the Pandemic game.

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Recently CCTV8 has been showing 2-3 hour blocks of the television show “Everybody Loves Raymond”, Chinese name 《人人都爱雷蒙德》. This is good for a number of reasons.

I was watching it last night and they showed an episode about Christmas. Strangely whenever they mentioned it in the show they dubbed and subtitled it as “春节”, Spring Festival/Chinese New Year. Now its obvious from the Christmas tree, presents and Peter Boyle’s santa hat that this show is about Christmas. Did they think that the audience wouldn’t know about Christmas? Or that this is how Americans celebrate Spring Festival? It seems that every one here knows about Christmas as there were decorations everywhere. I think it’s more likely that this is the work of Chinese censors. There was a big debate this year about how the Western imperialistic holiday of Christmas was invading and eroding traditional Chinese culture. Censors have also been known to cut out scenes they deem inappropriate for Chinese viewers. I remember reading about how when they showed “Desperate Housewives” they cut out a scene where one of the characters comes out of the closet. Although I really don’t know how controversial it is showing Americans celebrating Christmas. Oh, wait, showing it is ok but it has to be called Spring Festival or else Chinese culture will be destroyed!

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I decided at some point during this trip that I am just going to eat anything that people put in front of me, as when am I going to get a chance to try these things ever again. But when you ask someone, “What kind of meat is this?” and they respond with “Pig head” it makes you pause for a minute. If you think about it objectively, there is nothing inherently dirty about eating pig head. I mean its not like eating pig assholes, which I am sure I have unwittingly eaten at some point in my life before (hotdogs). And if you look at the pig head on Jenn’s blog, then at least it looks clean if not nightmarish. They shave it!
I am not really sure how the meat is removed from the head, as it is served in strips like bacon. And also like bacon the pig head meat itself is almost entirely fat. It tastes very good though. I think it really depends on the way it is prepared, as the meat really picks up the flavor of what it is cooked in. Luckily our friends mom is a really good cook and every pig head meat dish was totally delicious.
Also, pigs blood tastes way better then ducks blood. This might have something to do with the preparation as the ducks blood I have had was boiled while the pigs blood was fried. Although they both have this firm tofu like texture that is not pleasant but I think is just the way that blood congeals.

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I was browsing through some of the articles from New York Times Online and came across this interesting story:

China Warns on Spying

By The New York Times

BEIJING, Aug. 8 — China has executed a senior official convicted of spying for Taiwan and distributed a video of his trial as a deterrent to other civil servants, according to reports on government Web sites.

The official, Tong Daning, was a department head at China’s $26 billion national pension fund, the National Council for Social Security Fund.

Shouldn’t there be more information on this?

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I have sighted the pleated butt pants on many occasions. While not as common as other fashion trends, they can be seen on a pretty regular basis in any downtown area of a Chinese city. I’m not really sure of the purpose, other then they make the butt a little rounder. This was taken outside the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. You can’t really see the pleats very well. But this is interesting for another reason, being that while I was being stealthy, I think that you can see in this picture that her boyfriend totally knows that I am taking a picture of his lady’s ass.

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This was probably not allowed but I took the oppurtunity of no one being there to ride this ox. Although there was no sign telling you not to, so it was unclear. I can’t remeber where this was exactly but it was somewhere on the bank of the yellow river.

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This site is in need of some serious updating, I am aware. But I swear I will do it after we return to Nanjing in a few days. Many things have happened, some interesting and some not so interesting. I will try to sort of out the wheat from the chaff.

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I’m in a internet cafe typing up this short update. This place has the worst smelling bathroom I have been in that doesn’t have visible poop in it. It literally made my eyes water.

We are at our friends family home and will be there until spring festival. After that we will travel to Beijing or back to Nanjing, depending on what we can get tickets for. Spring Fesitvel travel is the worst. I will post more of an update when I have more time.

Wow it smells in here.

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With lack off Internet for a few days here and then more time once we get to Xian I won’t be able to post for a while. Instead of my usual away kitten picture I’m changing things up a little. This is from a mural here in Macau.

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