The Changsha experience.

Cities in China have terrible air quality. We were immediately aware of it when we arrived in Beijing and as we traveled from city to city it didn't change: until we got to Changsha. The air or smog in Changsha was truly the worst. Hence Val's hospital visit. Besides Val, two other units in the collective were operating at below acceptable parameters.



It proved to be a real discomfort for several of the party

Of course the visit to the orphanage was the high spot of Changsha and the essential reason we were there. But we had a wonderful interaction with lots of Chinese people one morning when we went to the park along the river. It was filled with people, mostly older retirees but not all. When we got there we found a large group of people listening to two older men playing erwus
(two stringed instruments _'er' meaning 'two'), while two other old men sang along.

Joy and Jane (our local guide) both tried a hand at playing the instrument and did quite well. Of course Jane plays the erwu and Joy plays several instruments. It happens that we have a very musical group which has added a lot of fun to traveling together.

Further down the promenade there was a man playing a flute in a small pavillion. We stopped to listen. We were soon surrounded by curious people and several women were very curious about Clay and made quite a fuss over him. We sang our Chinese lullaby that Nuse taught us and then everyone in the pavillion joined us for a second go around. It was a lovely moment.

Cleo and Emily were also very popular, with many people asking to have photos taken with them. But we were all the center of much friendly curiousity. We agreed that we really felt that we were in China and not just another big city.