Once again, Liuzhou has opened a building at the last minute to host an important event. We had the horticulture expo where they were still sticking the carpets (and VIP guests) to floors on the opening day; we had the barely finished expo centre for the ASEAN car expo a couple of weeks ago and [...]
I am not a cynical type of person. Well, yes I am. So I don't believe a word of what I have just read. According to local news sources, at 5 pm yesterday, a Liuzhou No. 57 bus spontaneously ignited. That wouldn't surprise me. The report continues by informing me that, due to the prompt [...]
It’s been a bit quiet round here. In the sense of not much happening. It’s never quiet in the sense of no noise. The last three to four weeks has seen utterly miserable weather – the worst being on Tuesday this week. So, apart from brief raids on the supermarket for essential sustenance, I have been [...]
Along with the rest of China, we have been going through something of a heatwave with temperatures in the high 30s centigrade. This has resulted in a number spontaneous combustions. Not people (as yet), but cars and buses. In the latter case maybe it should be comBUStion. So far, no one has been injured. I've been keeping [...]
I was strolling through town earlier today, enjoying the unusual warm sunshine, when I passed the bus stand for the No. 3 bus. This is a bus I use from time to time and I noticed that there was some kind of sign attached to the entrance door of each bus. Thinking it may be [...]
We're used to the occasional fireworks display round these parts – New Year, China's National Day etc. But a couple of days ago we had an unexpected display. It seems this truck carrying a load of fireworks caught fire while on the Liuzhou-Nanning expressway and the cargo did what the cargo was designed to do. [...]
A somewhat dramatic picture from Liuzhou. This three year old boy was home alone when a fire broke out in his apartment. He was rescued by the local fire fighters. I don’t understand Chinese parents. On one hand, they spoil the children terribly; on the other they expose them to danger all the time.
One of Liuzhou Prefecture’s main crops is sugar cane. In fact we are in the centre of one of the world’s largest sugar cane producing areas. You can buy sticks of it everywhere – a poor man’s candy. Can’t stand the stuff myself. Most of it is used commercially though to make sugar products. The [...]
I’ve solved the mystery of the huge increase in the number of fires being reported in Liuzhou. It seems that there are not more fires, but more reporting. I get most of my local news through Chinese search engine, Baidu’s news service. The Chinese Fire Service has opened a website featuring fires all over [...]
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Fenghuang disaster is that we are hearing about it at all. Instead of following their usual practice of saying nothing and actively banning press coverage of anything negative, this story was all over the media, with front page reports in almost every newspaper in the country. Even my local newspaper dropped [...]
Google News – Liuzhou