English how about just conversation?

@Yoli

Dear Yoli, here is another chapter for you to read.

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One day´s visit to Chongqing

November 12th

At half past eight, I hear someone knocking on the entrance door. My guide for today. The lovely young student has come, but not alone. There are two more students, another girl and a boy. They ask me whether I had breakfast. Then we get on a bus to Chao Tia Men.. This is the place where the two rivers, the Jialing and the Chang Jiang meet. After about one hour we arrive at another modern part of Chongqing. From here it is not far to the river banks. Everywhere new buildings are being built. High rises. I can see the old pagoda tower of a temple like a dwarf against the modern business towers. I wonder whether they will save this temple, as building space is scarce and expensive. Everywhere old buildings from the sixties or seventies are being demolished and modern, much taller ones, are being built. Then my student guides lead me to the street which is sloping down to Chao Tia Men. This street is very noisy, full of small restaurants with tables and chairs outside in the shade under the trees. The restaurant people are preparing the food for lunch. Chao Tia Men is the platform where we can have a good view of the two rivers. Well, it is another day full of fog and smog. I can hardly see the other side of the river. Some ships are waiting there for tourists who want to get on a cruise to the Three Gorges. There are some small barges, too. On the platform there are lots of obstinate beggars, and people who want to shine the tourists´ shoes or sell Chongqing city maps, postcards and exotic fruits, especially giant grapefruit (pomelo), carambola, lychee, or dragon eye. We buy some hot corncobs, which we nibble while walking down to the Chang Jiang, whose water is low. We can see a fisherman who has netted a turtle. The stones in the shallow water are nice to look at. I find some which I want to take home as souvenirs of Chongqing and the Yangzi river.

Back in the sloping street we sit down and have lunch. We have rice or glassnoodles with lots of chili, and we can choose from about a dozen different vegetables and meats. The assistant gives a spoonfull of each we indicate that we want to eat. I am a little worried because the students invite me to have this lunch. They do not allow me to pay, not even for my own food. Next they take a taxi to the People´s Great Concert Hall. This is the most famous building in this city, built after the model of the famous Hall of Heaven in Beijing. This time I am successful and they do not object that I pay for entering this hall. It is a really great concert hall with more than 4000 seats. It can also be used for political debates. In the circular corridors there are interesting big-size photos of the construction site, the workers, but also of the famous people who have come and visited the hall, both from abroad and from China. The three students are very much interested in all the details. They also love to look at an exhibition of paintings which can be purchased. While looking at the exhibits we talk a lot about art. Outside the beautiful building there is a big park and stone steps leading to a huge square with lots of people and school classes. Opposite, on the other side of the big square, is the museum of the Three Gorges. We go there, and I invite my guides to visit this museum, as they have never been to it before. As an old man, I can have a senior ticket, 10 yuan for me. The university students do not get a discount, they must pay 40 yuan each. So I pay 130 yuan altogether, which is a lot of money in China. The museum is a real good one. We can spend lots of time looking at coins and bills of money which were used in China for the last two hundred years. There are minority people´s costumes and articles used in daily life. One of my two female guides tells me that her home is a tiny village in the very far eastern part of Chongqing municipality. Many of the things shown in the museum are still in use by the villagers there. The other girl tells me she is from Yunnan. She is a member of the Bai minority people in Dali. But as her parents moved away from there before she was born, she cannot speak a single word of the Bai language. In the museum are also interesting rock inscriptions found on the steep mountain walls in the Three Gorges. We can see the changes that the new gigantic dam will bring about. So many people to resettle. Climatic changes. In former times the boats on the Chang Jiang had to be towed upriver. We get a vivid description of the hard life of the people working on the tow-paths. Now most of these paths are submerged and the tow men no longer need to do this job.

Soon it is evening. My guides take me back to Wanghua´s home. I say thank you so very much to them. They really have given me a good impression of Chongqing. My friend tells me about the interview. He is not sure he succeeded to make a good impression. So he is a little depressed. He wants to show me Chongqing at night, the many lights. Together we get on a bus which takes us across the bridge. Wanghua tells me down by the river, along the bank, the view must be wonderful I don´t like the idea. I prefer watching the busy evening hours at a modern part with lots of shops. This is not bad. As I am a little hungry I buy some samosas with hot vegetables and meat, and two cans of drinks. When we come back to my friend´s home, he tells me to set the alarm for the next morning. I must get up very early, take a taxi at six to get to the airport, as my flight to Lijiang is shortly after eight. We chat for a while. Then he leaves for staying at the cheap hotel another night.

At about 1am, my friend knocks on the door. He is out of breath and totally upset. He can hardly talk. He does not know what to do. Little by little he tells me what happened. When he left he did not go to the cheap hotel immediately. He wanted to have some fun with a prostitute. He found a nice one, she was good, talked to him, offered him a cigarette, and so on, doing everything to really please him. But when he left, and was in the street, suddenly three guys surrounded him threatening and asking him to hand over all his money. They searched his pockets. He was so scared, he did not dare to defend himself, did not even call the police. He was lucky, they did not beat or hurt him. They just took the money, however leaving him 20 yuan so that he could get back home. In his pockets he had all the money for the rest of the month. So now he does not know what to do. All his money gone, no success in the interview for a job, and his tutor telling him that the thesis must be rewritten in essential parts. My friend really is downcast and upset. How can he survive the next few weeks. No money, no food. I really feel shocked, too. I offer to sleep on the floor this night, or go to the hotel. No. My friend declines. So I give him 100 yuan, so that he can go to the hotel. He says, he is still so much frightened, his heart beating so heavily. He will not be able to sleep, just sit in the hotel bed, with the TV switched on all night, but not really watching. I promise, in the morning I will help him with some money to survive the next weeks. He tells me he will send the money back to me as soon as he can. OK.

The next morning I get up at half past five, have a shower in the filthy bathroom and get my bag ready for leaving. Wanghua is on time. At six he knocks on the door. I give my friend some money. I will go to the bank soon , so it is no problem for me. We get to the taxi which takes us to the airport. As a good Chinese he insists to say good-bye to me at the airport. The taxi driver wants to know a lot about Germany. I answer all his questions and Wanghua translates.


 

Greetings Udo
I have read the travelling rapport quickly, need more time to look up the various cities and places. I do hope that OTHERS will read your interesting articles well. It is really super!

Dear Yoli.
Your list shows the big difference between white and black very well. 
The sunburn ist really a negativ point for us white people.
In the middle ages, between twenty and fourty I loved the sunbath, and was very often red in this time,  especially when we made vacation with our children in spain or, on the adriatic. 😎
Perhaps one point ist missing, when the white men drink a lot of alcohol he will also be blue.
The black man has many advantages, your list is great 👍.  Phil.

Greetings
yes I loved the Beatles. It was at that time when they first started that I was in England. In the year 1960 when we first sort of heard from them, most people joked about them. At the time though, when the Stones started a bit later, music lovers divided, either Beatles or Stones.
We could jokingly tell the difference. Nicely styled people were Beatles fan the others…yes….Stones.
Not nice is it…It lasted not too long and the difference was not noticeable any more.

NOW.. I neede to now how you knew that the lady did not wear a bra? ...
Of course not as she took a shower, but then she did not wear anything else.Tell me dear Udo.
Do you have snow in your part of the country.?