easy yokes
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This post is about a 26km walk from Xinle to Zhengding. I hang out with some middle-school students in their work unit.
I said good-bye to my friends in Xinleย today. Life in the spa was very pleasant, but eventually I had to get going, no matter what.
On the road I saw someone who seemed to be carrying a lot heavier yoke than me.
The official retiring age in China is sixty. Many a good man is forced to work unimaginably hard until his last breath, though.
And so is many a good woman.
You can see them everywhere.
Living the socialist dream.
I shot wide-angle shots today, obviously, since I had my baby back.
I like the energy.
The generous use of space.
And the feeling of a wide perspective.
At some point, while I was just minding my own business, quietly walking along G107, a group of brave middle school students came to hold me up:
They invited me to their school, which was in the center of a work unit:
Work units often feel like independent little towns. They have almost everything people need in their daily life.
I chatted with the kids for a while, and I found them extraordinarily eloquent and nice to talk to. They spoke standard, dialect-free Mandarin, which is always pleasant to the foreign ear.
We found a place to shoot some fun pictures:
I was trying to explain the word โdramaticโ – since I didnโt know the Chinese expression (shame on me).
Then I took a group picture of my new friends:
I hope theyโll soon get a chance to look at this. From what I know these kids rarely have the time to be idle or play or get online.ย The pressure to succeed in their studies is just too much.
I wish them luck.
When I continued to walk it was already getting dark, and some of the way became a bit of a helter-skelter:
Now Iโm in my hotel room on the outskirts of Zhengding. Thereโs a police series on TV, I have just had a nice and tasteful dinner, and Iโm looking at the photograph above, the one of the old guy pulling his cart.
I guess my yoke is easy and my burden is light after all.
Anand-Gua
dramatic is means ๆๅงๅ็๏ผ้ๅๅฏปๅธธ็,it means exciting and unusual,like something that could happen in a drama.
I like the picture of you standing on the top of steps,it likes a character playing on a stage,a little feeling of black humor.
Christoph
Hehe, you need that many characters to describe a word like "dramatic"?
It was one of the little girls that took the picture of me on the steps – maybe she should become a photographer?
Island Girl
I'm quite touched by the pic of the old woman who was carrying her cart, beautiful diary!
Christoph
…and I'm touched because so many of my friends are really reading this every day!
Ghostie
I'm glad your burden is light (and your feet are healing?)! Your wide-angle shots are amazing!
Christoph
Hey, it's my old friend Ghostie! Now where is my plastic hammer?
Just kidding, hehe…
I'm so happy you are following up on this!
Uncle
ned schlecht herr speschd
mein leben ist weitaus weniger aufregend. anbei gruess von meinem neuen (und einzigen) freund Jack
(–>jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Christoph
Hehe, gruß auch an Jack.
Wie ist eigentlich deine Weihnachtsplanung?
Mallory Meng
Your son JinPing served as county leader in the Zhengding country during the early 1980s.
Zhengding County, located in Hebei Province, has played an important role in the development of Standard Mandarin (Putonghua).
Linguistically, it lies in the core area of the Northern Mandarin dialect zone. The local accent in Zhengding is known for being very close to the standard pronunciation of Mandarin โ clear, neutral, and lacking strong regional characteristics.
During the early years of the Peopleโs Republic of China, when the government began promoting a national standard language, Zhengding and surrounding regions (like Shijiazhuang and Baoding) were selected as key reference areas for phonetic data collection. These areas provided natural, intelligible speech samples that closely aligned with the pronunciation norms based on the Beijing dialect but were often considered more neutral and suitable for nationwide promotion.
As a result, Zhengding is considered one of the representative regions contributing to the phonological standardization of modern Mandarin.