Thoughts and Travels

5.09.2008 Cherry Orchard

Today, I started out with breakfast in the cafeteria, and then went to the office to meet Liu Hai Lin so we could go to the Cherry orchard run by Zhejing University.  A couple gentlemen picked us up (one was an administrator, the other I believe was a professor) and we drove to the Cherry and fruit orchard North of Hangzhou about 30 minutes. Traffic was bad, but it was a relatively short trip. We ended up just picking cherries there and then met up with Mr. Dean (the Pepa orchard manager) for lunch. 

I was a little scared of lunch today, as we ate at a restaurant that had it’s own lakes and grew it’s own fish.  It’s not that I’m scared of eating fish, but I’m scared about eating fish from lakes in China.  I got spooned a piece of this fish, and ate a little, but tasted so dirty that I couldn’t eat the rest of what was in my bowl.  Instead, I concentrated on the vegetables this time, and ended up drinking two bottles of beer with everyone at the table.

Then ended up back at the office at about 2:00pm and looked up some information on Deng Xiaoping as Mr. Chen quotes him (his famous “black cat white cat quote was from 1961 apparently) so I figured I should know more about the person.  He really was an amazing person, responsible for helping to open China back up to the world after Mao closed it off.  He did many great things, including diplomacy with the west, but he also did some bad things (such as Tiananmen square). 

I’m probably going to end up talking to Mr. Chen today sometime about the paper I wrote, and we’ll see what he says about it.  I’ve been researching things now for the better part of two days, so hopefully I’ve at least scratched the surface of the topic (there’s way to much to know about all of this). 

Because I’mlooking at China’s problems with the environment, I’m now starting to look at the U.S. issues with our environment so I can determine relative levels and to see whether I should be holding my tongue.