Around The Peninsula

The Moon Festival is coming up on September 22.  In preparation for this second most important holiday for the Chinese, this week workmen have been putting up red lanterns around the walkways here at our apartment complex, The Peninsula.

In her book Dreaming in Chinese, Deb Fallows describes gazing through binoculars at tai chi groups from her 22nd floor Shanghai apartment, before choosing one to join.  A few days after  arriving here, I was thrilled to discover what I thought could be my tai chi group right here at The Peninsula, overlooking Shenzhen Bay.  But alas, it's actually a dance group that practices here every morning, using this glass building as their studio mirror.  They seem to warm up with tai chi and then put dance music in the boombox, everything from traditional to Chinese pop.  They're quite good and fun to watch.

Shenzhen is a busy port in the Pearl River Delta.  In the distance you can see the red-orange cranes used to load containers of "Made in China" goods onto cargo ships, goods that you may be buying in the U.S. in a few months.

These men help keep the grounds around the apartment buildings  looking beautiful.  Most seem to carry the army green water canteens you see here because it's hot and humid all day every day, pretty much from May through September.