A Few Observations From This Week….


First: The Yangshuo powers-that-be are making changes. Last October they moved the night market out of the downtown parking lot. The night market was where you went for local delicacies. Vendors moved in every evening with their wagons. They set up their small eateries serving frogs, fish, snails, dumplings, etc. But after October the night market was banished from the lot, no one knows to where. The parking lot became a full time parking lot. Now it looks like the motorcycles that used to park on the sidewalk have been sent to the parking lot. I suppose now that the sidewalk is clear the powers will want us, the pedestrians, to walk on the sidewalk instead of along the edge of the street! This is no doubt all is for the betterment of Yangshuo….but somehow it feels like we’re losing some of Yangshuo’s color.

During Spring Festival in February the sidewalk was crowded with motorcycles, bikes, and chicken vendors special to the holiday but few pedestrians.
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Last week the sidewalk was clear...the motorcycles are banished to the parking lot across the street.>>>>>>>>>>>







Second: The Li River made a marked change Wednesday evening. We had a heavy rain that day after several smaller rains on previous days. So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised Thursday morning, but I was. The vast bank on the DuTou side had literally disappeared. Mind the shoreline was already up some from the picture taken last fall. However from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning the last nine to ten feet of beach were covered by the river.

In September the dock on the DuTou side of the Li River was quite a piece from the stone stairs which you can just make out in the distance on the right.<<<<

On the Thursday we stepped from the dock to the stone stairs.>>>>>>>








And on the FuLi side the dock was underwater a foot or two.

The FuLi side of the Li River in September. The stone dock is substantial.<<<<<<<

On Thursday the boats slid over the larger portion of the stone dock and tied to the steps.>>>>>>>>>







Third: On Tuesday I left the DuTou staff room to teach my fourth grade class. When I returned forty minutes later Peter, the principal, had changed a piece of bamboo into this puppet. Now isn’t it clever!

Peter the principal with his pieces of bamboo on a length of string.
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The puppet performs on a chair.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>