University of Nanjing

This is a major scientific and technical university in this country. This morning James and I went for a walk and saw the physics building and the building for industrial explosives.

I knew that most of the high rises in China had been built post- 1980. For example, the Wall Street Journal carried this week an article about China saying that in 1979 Shanhai had 15 high rise buildings, and now has over 3600, more than Chicago and New York combined. I believe it. Visibility was poor as we crawled through Friday evening traffic last night, but there were whole villages of high rise apartments, many of which gave every impression of being empty. Some of them had styling similar to the 24 story monoliths that are sprouting on Panama City Beach, sort of pastel colored concrete, narrow, and every apartment with balconies.

As most of the buildings on this campus were built after 1980, you'd expect to see the sort of bland sameness of Russian polit-bureau buildings from the sixties, but it's interesting how there has been some attempt at architectural style for each building. I would describe the architecture more clearly, but I don't know enough about architecture to describe it.

The street scenes here are very vital. There are cars, vans, buses, bicycles, motor scooters and pedestrians vying for room to move. The streets are lined with vendors, tiny shops stuffed with goods, street vendors baking, chopping, braising, steaming, frying. Noodle vendors often have two or three tiny tables in front, and hungry university students, cheerfully chatting, lean over their bowls, slurping up noodles and broth.

We high end teachers dine indoors at large round tables that seat ten or twelve people. Young women bring tea, juice, milk and beer. Dish after dish is brought and placed on a large lazy susan, and spun around to reach each diner.