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Looking down from the apartment to the primary school exit. No crossing guards. I witnessed a close call.
Crossing the street from school. A lesson in traffic negotiation is required of Chinese citizens.
The frieze on the entry wall of the provincial library.C
The school near our apartment has begun its musical reminder that classes are beginning. The song repeats and repeats until I think it will drum through my brain for ever!
Later I hear a rhythmical clacking of what looks like bamboo sticks. The children have laid them along the ground side by side and have chosen two teams. The first team takes a stick in each hand and the second team forms two parallel lines, jumping between the sticks in a hop scotch fashion trying to avoid being struck in the ankles by the students' sticks. They are well coordinated children from what I see. Nobody seems to get struck.
At noon we watch the kids walk from school for a two hour recess. They go home to rest until 2 pm. There are no crossing guards. We watch a sea of kids wander into five lanes of traffic that relentlessly intersects their route. We note a few very close calls, one involving a bus. I wonder at a woman on the school side holding an umbrella over her head and turned to the school-standing motionless. What is her role??
At 1 Nathan and I leave. He wants pizza. We go to a French shop down the street. We sit outside and are soon approached by a young beggar and soon another. He enters the shop to beg from the Foreign tourists who frequent the place. He is turned away by a waitress. Thirty minutes later our pizza is here. Very good. Tin crunchy crust. I have coffee. Its been ages since I've had any-days and days.
A truck pulls up to the shop next door and delivers loads of supplies. He piles the boxes waist high at the curb. Waitresses run out to carry them, groaning with the weight, into the shop. I tell Nathan to import dollies into China and make a million. He says he remembers seeing only one or two since living here.
Later Nathan and I return to the provincial library to take pictures of the frieze.
