Out and About in Shenyang

In China, you can have flavored plain yogurt. Take that, world!

In a gray cone?

  
It’s sesame flavored. Knowing that, would you eat it? You should say yes, because it’s delicious.

There is a moon cake hotline!  

Every once in a while I get a phone call from the Falon Gong. The phone call is a recording, relating how the Falon Gong is great, and the Chinese government illegally oppresses the organization. 

The recording opens with how a former president was indicted by the world court for crimes against humanity (not true). Then several accusations follow about illegal incarceration and torture of Falon Gong members (probably true).

I’m always surprised that the Falon Gong is active in China. They risk imprisonment without a trial if they get caught proselytizing and criticizing the government. I imagine that they are using throwaway phone numbers to make the calls. What they’re doing is dangerous.

About three minutes into the call, the recording invites me to renounce my membership in the communist party. I can indicate that I renounce membership by pressing the pound key on my phone.

I was interested in renouncing my non membership in the communist party, so I pressed the pound key, but when I pressed the pound key, the system told me that I pressed the wrong key. Maybe they didn’t test the system before putting it into service, and maybe no one has ever gotten so far into the recording before without hanging up. Well, I did my part and indicated that I was quitting the Chinese communist party, and if their system isn’t capable of recording my vote, or if they say that they’re interested but really aren’t, well then maybe the Falon Gong is more like the communist party than they realize. I’m just saying.

China: where the motto is: “if some is good, then more is better!”

   
 

  

So I’ll just sweep up this mound of  broken glass right next to the stand selling unpackaged bread.

  

Three.

This isn’t a joke; that’s how many people it really took to change a lightbulb in my apartment just now.

  

A street that I walk through on my way to work is undergoing “improvement.” The street used to look something like this: tree-lined.

This is what it looks like now:

Part of the road is finished. This is what it looks like now.

A big improvement, right? Those trees look GREAT, don’t they?

*sigh*