Friendliness and Floods

I've stumbled upon the "Land of Super-Friendliness." Did anyone realize just how friendly Kansans are? Even when you are walking, you must say hello to the one person walking clear on the other side of the street. Everyone in the grocery store smiles at you, even those who aren't employees. During the "meet and greet" minute at church, people walk around hugging practically all 300 hundred people. The older the people are, and the higher waisted pants they have, that means they are even friendlier! :)

There was also an article in the paper that seems to affirm the friendliness and helpfulness of people around these here parts. The other day a small film crew was filming a few people downtown for a short movie. The actress had (fake) blood all over her, and was lying on the street. Bad idea in Topeka--because everyone's going to try to help you, even if it's not real! And that's exactly what happened. Apparently tons of people stopped to see if they were okay, and many people called 911. The film crew was impressed at how much people cared and tried to help.

In other news, I started taking ballet classes again, which is fun. After an absence of about 5 years, everyone's grown up so much, and some of the dancers in the advanced class are half my age. I feel like the old, washed-up ballerina. The teacher every once and a while would sigh in the middle of class and say things like, "Laura had such beautiful legs!" "Oh, Laura's feet were incredible." "Watch Laura, she was such a nice dancer!" Even though I'm past my prime, I still enjoyed it a lot-- I forgot how much I missed dancing, and I could still hold my own in that class of young, energetic whippersnappers.

And in China news, I've been in touch with a few students. If you've been reading the news at all, there always talk of the floods and landslides in China. Our province, Jiangxi, has been one of the affected areas. It started raining the day after I left, and apparently hasn't really ever stopped. A dam broke, destroying tons of houses. One of my students said that the premier, Wen Jiabao, who is a very popular leader in China, even came to Nanchang to tour the destruction. People are sort of used to flooding, it seems. Many of my students have already lost their homes in previous floods. I think they were just excited that the premier came to visit the fair city.

So I'm leaving you some pictures from the flooding in Nanchang.


A guy riding his bike in Nanchang.


A guy wading through the flood waters with a guy on his shoulders.


This is the Ganjiang River in Nanchang. The river is covering that small house.


This isn't in Nanchang, but it's still a crazy picture of the flood's intensity.