Welcome to our town...

I'm not actually sure of the name of this place.  The research station is owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is located in Fukang County.  The county seat, Fukang, is about 20 km to the south, in the foothills of the Tian Shan Mountains.  I haven't really seen it - we stopped for lunch on our way here the first day, but since then have been here in this "village" of sorts.  This area is considered an "oasis" even though it's on the edge and not technically *in* the desert.  It's interesting - if you look at the satellite maps of this place, there are a bunch of little rivers and streams that come down from the north face of the mountains to feed this area.  So there are all of these little "river delta" looking fans that are populated with farmland.  There is a desert to the north and another to the south of the mountains, and it seems that every inch of farmable space along this razor line is populated.  And this area isn't what you think of as "traditional" farmland.  It's all "collective" farmland.  So this town is one of those collectives.  There are a dozen or so little shops along the "main street" (read: only street) and the big enclosed market with produce vendors, and hair salon, and a mishmash of other shops.  Then the rest of the area consists of several dozen five-story apartment buildings.  They're the sort of apartment complexes that you would seen on the edge of any big city in the US, but they're literally in the middle of nowhere and house the farm workers. There's a sizeable school that probably has several hundred students.  I asked if I could help with their english classes but was told that I wouldn't be allowed on campus.  They're no so fond of strangers - just like any school in the world, they're just protecting their students.  Too bad - I've heard that most students in China don't practice spoken English, and many of them are learning English from Chinese teachers who themselves may have never spoken with a native English speaker. 

All around the perimeter of this town there is the old collective housing - single story row houses made of brick and mud falling into a dismal state of disrepair.  It appears that there are still quite a few people living in them.  The new housing must be full or too expensive and not subsidized or I can't imagine why people would choose to continue living in a home that looks at risk of collapsing around you.  Many of them already have been reduced to a pile of amorphous rubble.

The fact that this is a farming collective serves to be a bit of a problem for us.  We had great plans to hire a lot of local people to work in shifts collecting rodents for us at night.  We're paying per animal, but it's apparently not enough compared to the farming salary.  So there are a few workers at the forestry bureau who have been working for us.  I hope this lasts.  It's really hard work chasing after crazy hopping rodents for four hours in the middle of the night, night after night.  I can't blame them if they decide that this is for the birds, but it's really our only way to get them alive.  They're apparently trap-shy and won't walk into live traps, and kill traps sort of defeat the purpose of collecting live embryos.  Wish us luck.  So far we've gotten about 35 animals but only 9 embryos.  That's not a great percentage, but for some reason the majority of today's capture were boys.  Hopefully tonight will be better. I'll stop there at the risk of this blog turning into a repeat of my lab notes, which I can imagine that very very few of you are remotely interested in reading.

So that's it.  A grand cumulative one square mile of dense housing with not much to do.  I ran the entire length and back again this morning.  I'm trying to go running in the mornings to keep the stir-crazies away.  It made me feel a lot better.  Just a bit of time outside by myself where I feel a bit more free.  Even if my shock collar will likely off me if I cross the invisible barrier.  Oh well.  The birds here are cool.  There is some species that I can't identify that sounds like a cuckoo clock.  And there is some flowering plant somewhere that has the most amazing perfume.  

A note added in proof - I have chocolate and coffee!!!  Okay, so I never ever ever thought I'd be excited by the idea of Nescafe and will probably gag a bit in a re-reading of this post once I return to the land of espresso roasts, but it's quite a feat to even find instant coffee in this place.  My plan of bringing a small coffee pot and ground beans from home fell through when other plans took priority at the last moment.  But even instant will do for now.  As for the chocolate, we'll see.  I got two bars of "Dove", but they're made in China and something with a French-sounding name, but that's also made in China.  I do hope it's not like the gag-inducing Indian chocolate I've had.  Lab folks, I'm sure you remember that bile-flavored putridity.