The View from Steve's camera: August 2011

We have returned from our 3 weeks in China -- about a week and a half in Yunnan (southwestern China) and then about the same in Beijing and Xian. China was breathtaking in every way -- size, physical beauty, depth and richness of the history and culture, architecturally, and on and on.

For a start, here are some pictures of people in Yunnan province.

We saw street vendors selling huge piles of beautiful fruit

and many selling smaller piles of fruit that we suspected were picked in public places on the way into town.

We saw people making all sorts of street food.

We saw people working in shops everywhere from the biggest cities to the smallest, dustiest towns. There were few shop windows -- when a shop was open, its front was wide open.

We saw people herding their animals

And countless people working in rice fields

We saw people carrying huge loads on bicycles and motor bikes

and on their backs

We saw people getting married (in this case, a wedding party in a restaurant; it turned out that beautiful tourist destinations were also prime locations for wedding photos. We were informed that wedding photos are taken a month or more before the wedding and sent with the invitation.)

We saw many, many people waiting ...

We saw lots of people chatting on cell phones

and chatting as they passed

We saw people outside Buddhist temples having their prayers for a good future written out for them by scribes

and we saw the well-tended fiery ovens where those prayers are sent aloft

We saw people praying and chanting inside and outside temples

and people rubbing ceremonial objects for good luck.

We saw many Chinese tourists getting their pictures taken (the places we went in Yunnan are much more popular with Chinese than with Western tourists)