{"id":392,"date":"2014-11-17T22:00:04","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T22:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/?p=392"},"modified":"2022-10-21T21:05:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-22T04:05:04","slug":"with-apologies-to-monet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/?p=392","title":{"rendered":"With apologies to Monet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"water<\/a>
With apologies to Monet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aiwan Lake and the Central Campus<\/h3>\n

Claude Monet once told how, appalled at his own behavior, he was gazing into\u00a0his dying wife’s face when he\u00a0realized that he was also analyzing the changing colors in her complexion as she slipped away.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I feel like that. Everyone does not have to be taught. Yet\u00a0thoughts and strategies arise in my mind unbidden.<\/p>\n

It’s been quite a while since I’ve sent out anything through this channel. \u00a0The picture shows Aiwan Lake, the closest pond to my apartment. \u00a0The once-abundant summer lotus bloom has\u00a0shriveled into scribbles. \u00a0The willows, last to turn yellow each fall, blaze through the water under the retaining wall. Above the wall stretches\u00a0a straight street, mysteriously plagued by drainage problems.<\/p>\n

I recently had dinner with an old friend of mine, who actually grew up on these grounds. It was an exciting time. In this small patch of park, he and some\u00a0other boys once discovered a buried stash of old coins, sequestered\u00a0perhaps fifty years ago, but never recovered.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/a>
Built up in every direction, but it remains.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Things have changed so much since those days\u00a0that he feels a bit of two minds\u00a0when visiting the campus\u00a0now. \u00a0Yes, it’s the same place. No it’s not the same place.<\/p>\n

The lakes are smaller, for one thing. Turtle Pond hasn’t seen a turtle in years. \u00a0They don’t even call it that, anymore.<\/p>\n

The canals are gone. That road along Aiwan Lake is actually an old filled-in canal. In the old days, it was part of a watery network that ran for miles. Not only could you sail across campus, you could even sail out\u00a0to the distant “Water Park,” Tianjin’s answer to New York’s Central Park.<\/p>\n

My friend’s father (who is actually a bit younger than me) is\u00a0the man who named Aiwan Lake.\u00a0 It comes from two characters that mean “love” and “evening.” \u00a0It’s meant to honor the pensioners who lived (and still live) next to it. As I ride my bike to class in the morning, I can glance through the iron fence and see such\u00a0old guys, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone, sometimes with younger men, practicing their Tai Chi to warm up in the coolness of morning.<\/p>\n

The Old Man and the Hut on Campus<\/h3>\n
\"huttese\"<\/a>
The old guy just stepped out<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the edge of that pond, for many years, lived an old man in a small tent. At least he lived there during the warm-weather months. He embodied the spirit of Aiwan. \u00a0I took this\u00a0picture of his tent during the spring of 2009.<\/p>\n

He raised ducks and geese on the pond, grew roses and other flowers \u00a0in a stone flowerbed, and studied Japanese in his copious free time. \u00a0Most times that I passed the tent, he seemed to be hosting visitors. \u00a0I used to write about him when I first arrived here, and about his ducks – Moe, Larry, and Curly. Yeah, Curly was the first to go. In the grand scheme of things, isn’t it always Curly who’s first to go?<\/p>\n

\"sidewalk<\/a>
clean and clear<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This\u00a0old man was not the last to go, though. One day, I suddenly noticed his tent, crushed to the ground\u00a0as if flattened by\u00a0a steam roller. \u00a0It maintained\u00a0that state of shock for weeks, until one day, it finally picked itself up and wandered off. \u00a0 Neighbors fed the remaining ducks. \u00a0They reported\u00a0that the man’s daughters had fetched him. So now he lived with them. So I guess he’s doing okay. His departure seemed to mark the passing of an “old guard” — not just the person himself, but a way of life. Now, even the ducks have vanished. Maybe they’re off visiting \u00a0the turtles.<\/p>\n

I snapped\u00a0this picture at the same spot this week. \u00a0The “new guard” here is parents walking their kid to kindergarten. I wonder, though. Will they walk this plane much longer?<\/p>\n

The Impending move to the New Campus<\/h3>\n

Our university’s\u00a0big move to the countryside, involving thousands of people, is coming soon, probably over the summer, but nobody has officially announced how it’s to be done. \u00a0Nobody knows precisely who’s staying. Nobody knows precisely who’s going. \u00a0We only know that most are moving\u00a0on, a few will remain, \u00a0while\u00a0a fortunate even fewer will make Lotso\u2122 money from developing\u00a0a large piece of this old campus into a business park. \u00a0In fact, it’s the same piece where my friend once lived and grew up.<\/p>\n

Some teachers have purchased homes out near the “new area.” They won’t be as convenient as the homes they have now, if only because they’re located much further from the job site, and a heck of a lot further from the city. There’s not much public transportation out there, yet, either. “Some day” there will be. \u00a0But, whatever. Shouldn’t the burgeoning automobile fleet take care of such minor\u00a0details, and tide everybody over for a few years? \u00a0It’s too far for walking, but driving’s no problem. Hmmm. \u00a0Where have I heard that before?<\/p>\n

The Tianjin Water Park<\/h3>\n
\"water<\/a>
plenty of space at the water park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well, the thought\u00a0of the “water park” inspired me to stop by there over the weekend. What a great perquisite to living in this city!<\/p>\n

When I first saw it in 1998 it was surrounded by a high fence, and charged an admission fee. That all changed a few\u00a0years ago. \u00a0The fences dropped, leaving a little short frill of painted ironwork\u00a0that even oldsters could vault. \u00a0It makes the grounds seem an accessible part of \u00a0the city, and not a walled-off facility.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A swelling in the corridor.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And\u00a0vaults aren’t necessary to \u00a0gain access. \u00a0The ticket kiosks were shuttered. Now anybody in the city can wander in without cost, and so, many of them do. And at the same time, the landscaping and structures have been upgraded.<\/p>\n

These new facilities attract \u00a0a constant flow of strollers whose warm presence is what gives the place its real meaning. There aren’t quite so many now that the season\u00a0is turning colder, \u00a0but there are still plenty, their population\u00a0dwarfed in the picture by the huge expanse of the grounds.<\/p>\n

\"lots<\/a>
lots of corridors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s a place for birdwatching. \u00a0It’s a place for you and your twenty friends to practice ballroom dancing. It’s a place for clubs and organizations to set up displays. It’s a place for just you and your one friend to hang out.<\/p>\n

It’s a place for men to gather around unending public games of chess. \u00a0And if it rains, you can all duck under some traditional long corridors, spacious enough to conduct dance sessions or almost any other activity.<\/p>\n

And adjoining the water park is an amusement park for the kiddies. \u00a0The ferris wheel appears in the picture above. There’s also a double-decker carousel, a little Casey Junior type mini roller-coaster, and even my childhood favorite – the bumper cars.<\/p>\n

\"Bumper<\/a>
Bumper Cars – the old stand-by<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And all this festivity is infused with snack and souvenir shops, including the venerable favorite — cotton candy. \u00a0Little plaster statues of cartoon-like characters overrun the place, blazing\u00a0smiles of amusement and friendship.<\/p>\n

There is only one plaster human figure among them, a character that I had hoped would have disappeared by now. Alas, he was still lurking out there this weekend.<\/p>\n

\"Blue-eyed<\/a>
First glimpse of a foreigner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sole\u00a0human plaster figure sprawls\u00a0just inside the park entrance. It’s a blue-eyed foreigner, fat and drunk but not afraid of\u00a0further intoxication.<\/p>\n

In fact, he’s drinking beer from a bottle when all the time he could have had draft! \u00a0How daft.<\/p>\n

I don’t know. I watched people taking souvenir portraits with it, and reflected that for many kids, this would be their first contact with the apparition of a foreigner. \u00a0To me, it mars\u00a0what’s otherwise a superlative experience in a well-thought-out park. But maybe for most folks it’s just not that big of a deal.<\/p>\n

\"General<\/a>
The general oversees the construction of the ramparts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had also come to the park that day to snap a picture of an equestrian statue, located just down the block from the entrance. It’s General Nie Shicheng. He led the Chinese Army in this area about a hundred years ago. \u00a0 The general had\u00a0come up in conversation recently because of his role in the “Boxer Rebellion,” when he also lost his life to a foreign bomb right here in Tianjin.<\/p>\n

It always seems odd\u00a0to us Californians to \u00a0actually stand at the location a major event featured in a high school history book so long ago. \u00a0To us in California, except for the Bear Flag revolt, history is something that mostly takes place out of state, Jedidiah Smith notwithstanding.<\/p>\n

Yet here I was. Tianjin stood\u00a0literally in the middle of the Boxer rebellion, whose major actions took place just north and just south of us. \u00a0 For those Californians who may have forgotten the event, think of an army of Bruce Lees. You can learn more about the general here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Well, I think I’ll close now before I give in to the dark side of pedantry. Actually, you’ve been spared. I’ve written quite a bit more than what appears here, but I keep erasing it. \u00a0Meantime, the government continues its stepped-up blocking of ever more web sites and Internet access from outside the country, so you could be forgiven if you thought you hadn’t heard from me because of that.<\/p>\n

I hope then, that you enjoy the pictures and that it might give you some insight into what life’s like here “on ground zero.”<\/p>\n

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Aiwan Lake and the Central Campus Claude Monet once told how, appalled at his own behavior, he was gazing into\u00a0his dying wife’s face when he\u00a0realized that he was also analyzing the changing colors in her complexion as she slipped away. Sometimes I feel like that. Everyone does not have to be taught. Yet\u00a0thoughts and strategies … Continue reading With apologies to Monet<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=392"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3711,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392\/revisions\/3711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macbob.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}