A Funny Thing Happened

Yesterday there was a big meeting in the administration building next to the foreign teachers' apartments. As some of the last folk were leaving late in the afternoon, we heard a big bang, and most of us rushed to our balcony to see what had happened. We looked on with an element of amusement. The driver stood in wonderment at what he had done, and shortly afterwards negotiated his car through the damaged pots and plants. It appears that the driver ofthe small car in the car park, must have "thought" his car was in reverse, but instead, when his foot landed on the accelerator, it rushed forward into the garden, demolishing some of the wonderful plants and pots between the two buildings. Within an hour three garden workers arrived and removed all the damage. This morning when I looked out the window, the damaged plants had all been replaced and there was little evidence of the event late yesterday.

Gardens

I can't wait to be able to get my photos onto my computer - am still waiting for the computer to be returned to normal.

When we arrived in Shaoxing it was only weeks after they had had a snow and very cold winter, and all the trees were without leaves, and the place looked brown, barren and boring. Even then though, there was colour as the gardeners who work from a small plot near the foreign teachers apartments, kept bringing out pots of colour as I have described previously. And they worked laboriously to ensure that all was taken care.

They weeded, they changed the pots and the colours changed. When the weather started to warm up green shoots appeared on the trees and hedges, and not long after rainbows of colour from the various trees and shrubs. The college now looks spectacular, but I know in a few weeks time it will be even more so when the gardenias, and the azaleas are in full bloom. I can see the buds. It is exciting.

Overnight there are great changes - trees are removed and replaced, and the lawn grass around the tree is returned to it is hard to know that there was ever any activity. I have a photo of 7 men and women weeding between the pavers of the car park opposite the apartments.

Down below a "horse" has appeared. Four bushes have been planted and trimmed - and it looks like a horse or donkey eating the lawn. It is a bit spindly yet, but the form of the animal is quite clear. I am sure when the leaves grow and fill in the spaces it will be fantastic. I don't know the reason for the horse to be there, but that is the way it is!

Looking out from the fourth floor of the number eight building there is a spectacular view. Several hundred cherry trees are in bloom, with the green foliage appearing to grow as one watches. Oh, to be able to show you some photographs!

Hard workers

We often comment at the old men and women who work in the gardens of the college. Many of them do regular maintenance and pruning of the hedges and other plants, and they are forever doing things. Many of them are well beyond retirement age - but choose to keep working doing what they love doing. Gardening, odd jobs, carting small items. Retirement for them means boredom!

They have a small plot next to our apartment block, where they cultivate plants especially the many pots that decorate the college. They display the pots near the main entrance, near the West Gate, and in strategic places around the college. I've mentioned the pansies and cinerarias.

As well some of them help clear away the rubbish, (and there is plenty of that when you have so many students and staff) and one elderly gentleman carries our heavy water bottles up to our rooms - for a fee of 1 Yuan. (about 15 cents), and we marvel at him. He's quite a character. Doesn't speak English but always greets us.

We see other men with small carts operating in the college grounds, and some pull carts that look like a horse should be pulling them. There is a constant flow of workers - pulling or pushing one cart or another.

Chinese Gardens about to burst forth in Spring bloom

This is the rose garden - with a few taller spikes of rose branches.

It is obvious that Spring is in the air. Only 3 days into the new season, the plants are sprouting buds. The garden here is tended with great care, and is quite amazing for a school. The gardeners appear to be older gentlemen who spend hours in the gardens, and at this time they would be anxiously looking at their handiwork.

I find some quite strange things that I have not been able to understand. Why, for example do some of the trees have rope neatly wound around their trunks?

In one garden – photo here – looks like a garden of rocks – in an undulating pattern. At first glance it looks like just rocks, but closer inspection shows rows and rows of rose bushes. They may well be miniature roses, but they are pruned so that few are more than two or three inches above the soil. I can see the thorns.

In the last couple of days I’ve seen the reddish brown of new shoots on the roses – and I anticipate a spectacular display in the next month or so. Other plants that I don’t recognize are also starting to sprout new buds.

Along one of the canals in the school grounds are weeping trees, looking a little like the weeping willows that I knew as a child in Adelaide. These too are sprouting and when in full leaf will make a beautiful framing of the canal.

Everywhere there is new growth on plants, and I look forward to taking photos of the blooms that result.

The view of the weeping trees beside the canal.