Fly Boys

One class full of very serious and responsible future pilots:



A few guys from another one of my classes. Adorable, no?



The uniformed pilot students walk to their next classes in neat rows of ten. The bridge has just enough room for one class to move in each direction.

The Black Cars

One of the things that fill me with fear when travelling is getting into a car or taxi - I always worry that the driver is some kind of criminal. In the city cabs are easy to identify, if not always easy to grab. On the outskirts of the city or near a school or software park, the official taxis are much rarer. Places like this often have a cluster of vehicles with their drivers hanging around waiting for passengers - the illegal taxis. They are called 黑车 (hei1che1, black cars) or 野租 (ye3zu1, wild rental). Anyway, I'm sufficiently used to life here that I now hop into the illegal taxis without another thought. No meter, so you have to fix the price ahead of time.

The next driver in line moves his car ahead by hand to save fuel.

The Neighbourhood

My street - two rows of six-storey walkup teachers' apartments, with fields on the other side. (I'm on the third floor.) When I arrived a few months ago the fields were all brown but I could see farmers sprinkling something white on the ground by hand. I asked a student what they were doing and he said they were seeding, which I didn't really believe - who plants crops in October? But now there is stuff growing there so he must have been right.