Another favorite pastime here. Drinking tea. And I don’t mean the milky, sugary tea that we Indians are used to. This is green, flowery tea. Yi bei cha (one glass of tea) costs 10 RMB (Rs 50 $1.5). Half the price of a coffee I pay in a Barista or Coffee Day back home. Continuously...

It’s not just Tai Chi that moves the Chinese. Slow dancing to loud but catchy Chinese songs are a rage here. Every morning, from 9.00 am to 10.30, when I am in class, I am treated to some lovely music coming from across the road as women dance to the tunes in a huge square....

If you don’t enjoy calligraphy much, just sing! These were a band of men singing in the park, complete with an orchestra behind them and loudspeakers. The parks here are fun, especially on weekends, as I discovered. Everybody comes to play, sing, dance, chat or just sit and watch all the activity. In India, the...

Apparently, this is one of the ways to pass time. Writing calligraphy in the park, using water. I saw this a few times when I was walking around in a couple of parks. This old man was the first one I saw. He was dipping this sponge tipped stick in a bucket of water kept...

A close up of the ear cleaning implements. They look pretty formidable right? And this was in a teahouse at a park nearby…

One of the funny things I saw in Jin Li Street. There were “ear cleaners” standing with local earbuds, cotton swirled around two steel tongs, calling out to people to clean their ears. I was mighty skeptical of their skills, but these two brave men ventured to get their ears cleaned.