City Trees by Jake Lau

In Shanghai and Beijing, city trees are planted in a similar fashion to trees in the US. That is to say that they choose a tree and plant it up and down every street. In Shanghai, the tree of choice is the Sycamore. You can tell how recently the street was built judging by the size and shape of the trees. The sycamores are pruned using the pollarding system. This allows the Chinese to control the form of the trees. The sycamore is a cool tree to be planted on the street. Even in the winter months, when the tree loses its leaves, the tree still looks pretty. Exfoliating bark is something that always catches my eye. So even though, sycamores might have been the only type of tree in Shanghai, I didn't get sick of seeing it.

In Beijing, there is more diversity of street plantings, but not by much. There are willows, Japanese Pagoda trees, and Gingko. I thought after seeing all the wonderful herbaceous plantings throughout the city that there wouldn't be this much of a monoculture of trees in the city. I am curious to what the Chinese are doing to prevent insects or diseases from wiping out these monocultures like what happened with the american elm and what will soon happen to Ash trees in the States. Good luck with that China, but I'd start planting some other trees soon.

turf! by Jake

Before going to China we had several people tell us that there is not a lot of turf grass in China and the grass that is there is off limits. When we arrived, I was expecting to see two blades of grass locked up behind a fence the whole trip. It turns out there is plenty of turf in China and most of it is heavily guarded. Usually by a sign that reads, "don't trample the grass" or "affection deserves greenness." Or, on instance at the People's Park in Shanghai, a security guard waits along the edges of this huge open space full of turf waiting until two foreigners try to take a step on the lush green grass. Within 3 steps on the grass he blows his whistle and signals us to get back on the path. What fun are paths anyway.

agriculture in China by Jason

| View | Upload your own

Fruit stands by Jake

Fruit stands are common place on large city streets. I like the idea of these stands because they provide fresh fruit to people working in the cities. These little stores are a nice way to stop for a snack or pick something up for later. The availablity of these stands is the key to their success. I wish there were stands like that in the US. I don't think there are enough people walking the streets for these stands to be successful here in the states. Nor are there enough people that would stop and eat fruit.

Bikes by Jake

| View | Upload your own

Ginseng by Jake Lau

| View | Upload your own

biking in China by Jake

Jason and I rented bikes during our time in Beijing and it was an experience. We were equipped with old cruisers that were too small for us, go figure, and sent on our way. We had seen how the bikes maneuvered through the streets so we thought we were ready to take our chances. We got out on the roads and realized that it was pretty easy to do. Once you go over the fact that the speeding car approaching the intersection was going to stop, everything went smoothly.

Beijing has many bike lanes, so bike travel is fairly easy. That, plus Beijing is relatively flat. The largest hill in Beijing might be an entrance to a highway. But, these bike lanes are not just for bikes as we soon found out. Cars will drive on these large bike lanes too. I mean why not, the car fits. Why shouldn't they get to drive there? The cars would weave through bikers, honking their horns as if the bikers were in the wrong place. How dare they bike in that lane? This was annoying and slowed down bike traffic. There were also pedestrians hanging out in parts of the bike lane. I know there is a sidewalk, but why would anyone walk on that when there is this large bike lane to walk in. Sometimes there were just too many people around so some overflow on the bike lane is expected.

We quickly learned that the best way to make it from point A to point B is to just bike. Even if there was a red light in front of us, just go. If there was a large gathering of people on the bike lane, just go through. They have special bike lights on the roads to help move traffic along, but if there is an opening, just go.

After a short stop to repair a loose chain, we made it back in one piece. I would say that biking is a great way to see a lot of the city.

Oh. And locking up your bike. This is different from the US. Rather than having bike racks to lock up your bike, all you do in china is lock your bike to your bike with a chain or clamp. I think this is because there are just so many bikes that it wouldn't make sense to put up bike racks. I mean there are just too many bikes for bike racks to hold. So if you want to lock your bike up, all you do is park it and lock it where ever you like. I don't think bike theft is much of an issue either. Everyone already has a bike to ride. Plus a lot of the bikes are about to fall apart, so it isn't a good investment.

spitting by Jake

tchwoa! Thats the noise, or something like it, that many people on the street in China make. It happens when you have phloem in the back of your throat and you don't want it there. I don't want to come off sounding that I thought China was disgusting because I didn't. This, however, was one thing that got to me. So, instead of hearing that noise and then someone spitting, you don't hear anything else. Maybe it was just me and I was lucky enough to hear that over and over again, but it seemed like people had a bunch of stuff in their throats that they wanted out, but not out of their mouth. Weird. There was also spitting. People spitting everywhere. For some reason I think that there might be a fine for public spitting in the United States. Either way, spitting grosses me out a little bit and is one thing I wasn't fond of in China.

beautiful streets by Jake

What a pleasant surprise it is to find potted plants and perfectly manicured bushes throughout the cities we traveled. That is after you work the knot out of your neck from looking up at all the monstrous buildings. It seems as if there are three uses for land in the urban areas. Roads and buildings are the first two and take up the majority of the space. But the plants have taken what they can get. If an area isn't being used for transportation or taken up by a skyscraper, the area is planted with Petunias, Salvia, Snaps, pansies, along with many others. These areas are usually corners or areas near sidewalks that are well maintained. And the number of these small patches of plants increases around every corner.

Even the roads have plants on them. Potted stands of flowers and bushes run along the edges of the major highways. These stands are connected by drip line which means water automatically flows to the plants. This is safer and easier than using a watering truck or watering crew on the highway.

The medians and strips of land along the highway are used as nursery space. The area on the way into Shanghai from the airport is spectacular. Mass plantings of trees are followed by rows of bushes and then flower beds stretch for what seems like forever. In the United States, we chose to leave the median empty of any plant diversity or attention. However, I seeem to remember the southern US highways being pretty.

Is it tea time?

It is hard to say what my favorite place we visited on the trip was but the tea plantation is one that comes to mind right now. This place was really beautiful. All of the hills and valleys were covered with plantings of Camellia sinensis. I think of this place once in a while when I am at my summer job at the Horticulture Research Center (HRC) here I work with apples in the apple orchards and sometimes day-dream about what it would be like working in a tea plantation. At the plantation tea is harvested, hand dried and packaged. It was a really great place to visit and now I have even more respect for tea after seeing how long the process is from harvest to the first cup of tea.

Did I eat that?

Going to China I expected a vast difference in food. I told myself before I went I would at least try an entrée if placed on the table.
So there I was sitting at our first meal. It was a decent meal consisting of rice, fish, potatoes noodles and mixed vegetables. The meal is usually ended with watermelon or other types of fruit.
All of our meals were set up by our tour company and over the next two days we were brought to “toury” restaurants where we would enter and no Chinese customers would be present. After eating at these restaurants we were walked through some type of gallery and expected to purchase an art piece. One night we were even served French fries at dinner – traditional? I don’t think so.
Most of us were a bit upset at this. Here we were in a different country looking to experience as much of it as we could. After these few disappointments we told the tour company we were disappointed and they rearranged all of the rest of our meals to feature more authentic cuisine.
The most authentic meal we were serves was at Zhejiang Forestry University. Here all nine of us students got to enjoy a dinner with two of the universities grad students. This was helpful because they showed us correct ways to eat our dinner. We were told that the plate was for discards and only if you needed a spot to rest your food to get a better grip on it.
This was the most interesting dinner we were served. Duck tongues were one of the first items to spin around our table and thank goodness I have friends like Jake to insist I take one by placing it on my plate. Needless to say I ate this and it is a delicacy in China. Sea cucumber was the next entrée this was very slimy and very fishy and some people almost weren’t able to swallow this. Also at this dinner were pigs ear, this however, I did not try. Other food throughout the trip consisted of squirrel fish, snails and carp.
I was a somewhat picky eater before this trip but now have a deal with my mother stating she is never allowed to call me a picky eater again or I will serve her a platter of duck tongues.
sea cucumber!
http://www.reefseekers.com/PIXPAGES/Yap-Palau%20'04/Grazing_sea_cucumber.jpg