After classes Friday morning I went to Ben's place. Ben is the FAO (foreign affairs officer) at Qinfeng, the middle school in Guilin where I end my week teaching four periods of 9th graders. He is one of the nicest men. His English is good. His history includes a summer school in the States. He is a collector of coins, some stamps and orchids. My visit Friday was mainly to see his orchids.


We ate a box lunch of rice, two meat patties, cooked eggplant and cooked cabbage (9Y/$1.10) at a Chinese fast food restaurant near his apartment building before we climbed the seven flights of stairs to the roof of his building to look at his plants. His roof garden includes mulberry trees, a couple fruit trees, a strawberry plant, his award winning orchid (largest orchid in 2007) and a few other plants. He says the fruit are mainly for the birds.

Then we entered his orchid greenhouse. It is equipped with fans, a misting device, gauges that measure the temperature and the humidity, and a tub where water sets for three days so that the impurities settle out before he sprays it on the plants. There are hundreds of plants....or did he say a thousand? Most were not currently in bloom.

But a few were.

Our last stop was their sixth floor apartment to look at the current blooming beauties. Ben's goal is to have blooming plants for their home year round....and he is successful.
Now I was impressed by his flowers. But I also was impressed by the wood floor. I don't think I've seen one of those in an apartment in China. I'm trying to remember if I seen a wood floor here at all. Surely I have? They are rare though. Maybe more rare than Ben's orchids!