A six hour train ride got me up to Zhongwei where I spent two nights in the $28 (cash only) Yixing Hotel. I met a couple college girls anxious to practice their language skills with a native speaker while touring the Gao Temple complex. One had an amazing command of English and told me they were not permitted to discuss certain subjects with foreigners. A third year University student, she has plans to become a lawyer. Circumspectly, she strongly hinted students hate the government restrictions on their freedoms and the constant "spying" on any activities construed political. The other girl smiled to show teeth badly stained brown from something in the local water. The problem has now been fixed so younger kids don't look like ghouls when they smile.  I found an excellent history of central government educational policies and practices on the Internet. Reading it, I better understand the rational behind the Chinese Communist Party central planning strategies, not that most Westerners would agree with them.  

It is amazing how many fancy stores selling packaged tea can be seen in the downtown shopping district. I have tried some of the more expensive teas and can't say I'm all that impressed with what people pay way too much money to drink. This is fresh corn harvest time and girls with bags of roasted corn-on-the-cob roam the streets singing "I pneumonia" At first, it sounded like they were warning people of their illness.  

The city buses travel quite a distance out into the surrounding farming communities. On several trips I watched wheat harvesting in progress along the highway. Companion planting means all harvesting is done by hand; people cut bundles and carry them from the fields to the highway where they are stacked for pickup by a wagon. The wagons take the bundles to a central holding lot to wait for a hand threshing machine to arrive. People hold the bundles over turning blades of the thresher which knock out the individual grains of wheat... all very labor intensive. Along the highway donkey carts filled to capacity with bags of processed grain move to consolidation points where large trucks wait to transport the wheat. The Kodakgallery photo album for Zhongwei is here.

That's it for this short stop.

Peace,