Fen River Lights

Walking Across China

This guy wandered by the bike shop one day and caused quite a stir. He was in the process of walking to Lhasa, Tibet (西藏拉萨) from his home town of Langfang, Hebei (河北廊坊), which is just outside Beijing to the south. He was hoping to complete the trip in about 3 months time. That's a pretty impressive goal; that's like walking across the United States. He chatted with the gathering crowd a while and then was on his way. If all goes as planed he should arrive in another months time.

Shanxi Normal University (山西师范大学)

Buildings 10, 11 and 12


Buildings 10 and 11


Buildings 11 and 12


Building 4


Building 4


Building 4 and 8




Departmental basketball tournament.


English Singing competition. I'm a judge.

Linfen Nightscapes

HuaMen (华们)

The Windmark

Check out that sweet box I was able to strap on the back. Carried groceries all the time with that thing. Here it's full of a few of my students writing notebooks.






Peach blossoms a week before they bloomed


The Fen River (汾河) south of Linfen (临汾)…waterless.











My beloved Giant Windmark that I had to leave behind in China. This little 8-speeder with down tube shifters cost me about $250, and I put somewhere in the vicinity of 1,000 miles on this baby. I was able to see a good portion of the surrounding areas because of this bike. I took this thing on dirt roads, gravel roads, off road. I also used it to commute to campus 2 twice a week in the spring, and I didn't get a single flat tire. I ended up selling it for a little more than half what I paid for it; the student I sold it to said he was going to ride it to his hometown of Taiyuan (太原).

Linfen Street #3

Chinese Drive Through

While in Xi'an (西安) for a few days I came across the first drive through I had seen in China. This also happened to be the first drive through my two friends had ever seen, so in response they immediately swung a U-turn, pulled up to the window and ordered three ice creams.