A few more stray observations and pictures that didn't require an entire article, but nice vignettes.
There isn't a comic alive who hasn't done a little bit of mockery of the Hong Kong exported Kung Fu movies, and their terrible English overdubbing.
Well, I've got news for all of you. It isn't half as bad as the English language movies that are dubbed into Chinese. They're edited badly as well.
Anyway, here's a shot of Princess Buttercup and the Dread Pirate Roberts making their ways through the forest of doom, or something like that from the wonderful movie "The Princess Bride" showing on Kunming TV one night.
Incidentally, they've taken to placing all kinds of distracting messages on the screen while the program is on. Not like the subtle network identification that you'll find on CNN, but a huge colorful icon in the upper left hand corner, where your eye is most likely to see it. Additionally, they include a sponsor's message placed vertically on the right side of the screen, so you'll never forget, even during the program, who paid for it. Yuch.
At one of the parks in Kunming, they've set up some little villages showing the different architectures of the world. I began to sing Disneyland's "Its a Small World After All" when I saw these little buildings.
I was told that this was supposed to be an American village. I don't know which village it could possibly be. Perhaps my host misunderstood its intent or something. Fact is, I can't figure out what country's architecture looks like this.
A little bit about the parks here. Hey, they're kind of nice! Well laid out with a kind of random sense about how the paths lead about, cool buildings, great gardens. Gotta admit that what the Chinese lack in interior design, they make up for it in their exterior design.
When I say exterior design, I'm certainly not talking about their modern architecture. Here we see one of hundreds of lots currently under a state of demolition or construction. I'm amazed at how young the buildings are that are torn down to be rebuilt. Fifteen year old buildings are torn down daily to build new buildings that will get torn down sooner than later.
The apartments in the background are probably less than ten years old, though from looking at them, you'd think that they were built in the 50's.
The Hi-Ohs have arrived. These are gulls from Siberia which migrate here for the winter. There's a big festival at their favorite lake in the middle of Kunming on the weekends during December. It's kind of the Chinese equivalent of the swallows arriving at San Juan Capistrano.
The common decoration all around the lake is the umbrella. They have colorful umbrellas everywhere.
It wasn't until the next day that I realized why the umbrella was the symbol for the return of thousands of Hi-Oh's. Its for protection from the bird droppings.
This theory remains unconfirmed by official sources.