Between my hotel and the university was Lvyin Park (绿茵公园). Normally I would take a taxi between Fengleyuan Hotel and Zhengzhou University of Light Industry since cabs are so cheap in China, but on the days when the weather was decent I would walk the 30-40 minutes and cut through the park.

Chinese kids were the only people willing to talk to me. They could tell me their English name, age, favorite food, and where they were from with ease and good pronunciation. After that they just wanted a picture with the extremely rare foreigner. Chinese kids take English courses, but they rarely, if ever, have a native-speaking teacher. I didn’t teach English in Japan, but I asked my students if they had ever had a non-Chinese teacher. The answer was “no.”

One kid, who called himself Sam, claimed to be from Australia, but I think he was a bit confused. Maybe he was the exception, and his teacher was from Australia.

“Ground calligraphy” is very popular at this park. Every time I walked through there were at least three or four working on their characters. Do they write poems? I’m not sure. One guy (not the one pictured above) seemed to be writing the name of businesses.

Music could be heard all over the park. Perhaps six or seven different “groups” were playing, some with a singer.

While taking the above photo a lady approached me and started speaking to me in Chinese. Of course I couldn’t understand a word. I showed her my pictures, and her expression seemed to indicate that she had never seen a camera before. She indicated that she wanted me to take her picture along with her two friends so I did.

Notice in the above photo the tank ride in the background. I zoomed in for a close up.

This was the result. Having children ride in tanks seemed a bit strange, but it wasn’t the last time I saw the military/weapons influence in China.

Posted on March 25th, 2010 under China • Tags: kids, people. • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed