Monthly Archives: February 2019

A Message from the Publisher

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March 2, 2019
To:          Whom it may concern
From:    John S. Porter, Publisher of WWW.TOURGUIZHOU.COM

Re:         Support for www.tourguizhou.com and the video: “Robo Cars of China”

The Tour Guizhou system of web blogs and chats is intended to create space online information about Guizhou people (including foreigners) our shared culture, food, education, natural beauty, technology, doing business, wine, minorities, and many other things. I have been coming to Guizhou, helping teach English and sharing the culture of Guizhou. I like informing western, English speaking, peoples about Guizhou. I have been coming to Guizhou for nineteen years (first visiting Guizhou to teach in the year 2000) and  I have actively promoted Guizhou online through the www.tourguizhou.com web site for the last seven years. There is also a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tourguizhou/

My background in the USA has included data processing, community leadership, and, as a community leader, I helped create a transportation authority which provides bus transportation to the Grand Traverse Bay (GTBay) region. GTBay is in Northern Michigan of the USA. For a period of time, I was Chairman of the Bay Area Transportation Authority (BATA).  That is why I am so excited about the Big Data and transportation innovation in Guizhou.  I recognize its potential in bring us all closer together by advancing the quality of our lives, not just in Guizhou, but also the world.

The video “Robo Cars of China” is an attempt to merge many of my ideas about China and the West into a coherent concept of cooperation, friendly competition, and inspiring young people to engage the new technologies. I want the young people to prepare themselves in an enthusiastic and collaborative way. A key element to this cooperation is “Technology English”. As engineers work together, they soon discover that their English teachers didn’t prepare them for collaborations on technical issues using English. English teachers are typically not engineers. For almost a year I have worked on this video about Guiyang and its robotic car basic research.

The video is staged in Guiyang, promoting Guiyang to the tech community, but also it teaches “Technology” English.  It blends technology English with an interesting cooperation and competition, all taking place in Guiyang. It is an English teaching document, a technical document, and an effort to inspire the young. It is also a promotion of Guiyang, China, and  the cooperation that is growing between and among different countries.

The Tourguizhou web site stresses the lifestyle in Guiyang which is geared to young professionals who want to live in an interesting and progressive culture. Guiyang combines tourist attractions with a progressive technology culture. I have enjoyed telling this story on the web, and the video is my most ambitious effort yet. Unfortunately, I have been forced into retirement by operation of law. At age 68 I am faced with returning to my home country to find work in order to sustain myself. My work in promoting technology and Guizhou will draw to a close unless I find support from the Chinese government and the Chinese businesses that value collaboration with the West. I think Westerners should also have an interest in promoting this kind of cooperation as well. Any thoughts on grant ideas or other support are requested and appreciated.

usainfo@yahoo.com

usainfo@yahoo.com

Robo Cars of China

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This video ties together many years of my activity here in China. I have multiple objectives in the creation of this video:

  1. Inspire young people to get involved in technology.
  2. Teach “Technology English” in a relevant format.
  3. Allow English learners to listen and “catch” informal English conversation.
  4. Introduce Guiyang/Guizhou as a legitimate technology center in China. It is also known as China’s “Big Data Valley”
  5. Introduce the “Pixmoving” company as a small research company with big ideas for Autonomous Vehicles (AV).
  6. Demonstrate how innovative competition can take place between people of countries from all over the world, making the world a better place through technology. Vigorous competition and friendships between countries is good.Please contact me at USAInfo@yahoo.com with your comments.

Long Li Ancient City and Jin Ping Countryside

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Long Li is located about four hours southeast of Guiyang in an area of Miao and Dong minority people. The walls around the city, the water system and the fortress are all intact.  It doesn’t have the tourist pressure like some old cities closer to Guiyang. It is surrounded by the beautiful countryside of Jinping County.

San Cha You Farming

Jinping County has a new product called San Cha You, which is a cooking oil. The mountains of Jinping County are covered with these oil bearing plants. It is an incredibly beautiful sight. You can also directly drink the oil.  It is still expensive, but has been shown to be very good for high blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar diabetes conditions. It has also been shown to raise immunity to some cancers.San Cha berry trees are in great supply. The locals have actively planted and cultivated these crops for many years.

There is a new factory under construction and it is hoped that as production increases, that the price will come down and the product will be more widely known and distributed.

Jin Ping County is also famous for blueberries. There are blueberry farms in many places with very attractive prices in season, around August of each year.

 

 

 

Bloody Pigs

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I am not going to post a video of butchering pigs. Yesterday I had an experience that will always stick out in my memory. I was at a friend’s house for dinner and the matriarch of the household, very old (older than me), was watching a video on her cell phone. She was laughing hysterically. This is Ms. Wang’s mother for those of you who know the Wang family. They are charming people.  I have often come to dinner for authentic Guizhou food, very good food.

So I happened to call Ms. Wang about suppertime and she immediately invited me to dinner with her family.  I was quite hungry and I was nearby the Zhongtian Gardens, where Ms. Wang’s mother lives. I was quite hungry and dinner was about ready. Ms. Want’s mother was looking at her cell phone and laughing, a lot.  She brought the phone over to show me and it was a frantic pig, a bloody pig, bleeding from a cut throat and running all over the room. I was somewhat horrified. I kind of agree with this PETA group that wants us to be kind to animals. So I was laughing too, but not at the hurt pigs, at the elderly lady who was enjoying the video so much.  She kept pushing the video in front of me to watch more. I did.

I was very hungry when I showed up for dinner, and I recovered from the trauma enough to have a fine Guizhou dinner, but it really showed me the culture difference.  Perhaps every older Chinese who lived on a farm once has seen the pig butchered. They have also seen their share of screw ups. I like to watch the dog videos where dogs tip the canoe over or push somebody into the swimming pool etc. Funny. Well this was a compilation of pig slaughters gone bad. The common them was they had the pig indoors ready to butcher, and they cut the pig’s throat. Somehow the cut wasn’t clean and  the pig got away. So this was a compilation of pig slaughters gone bad and people were getting knocked all over the room, covered in pig blood.  Trying to catch and kill an angry bloody pig isn’t so easy.

It usually took several men to catch the pig. A bloody pig seems about the same as a greased pig. After catching it they had to cut his throat and with the pig struggling, it took several slashes and stabs. The bloody pigs were eventually caught and killed but every video had all the people in the room covered in blood, room full of blood, and an angry pig. If you are accustomed to seeing pig blood because you have slaughtered pigs before, the video seems quite funny. My laughter was very nervous because that the old lady was having so much fun watching it. Also, I was on the verge of spoiling my dinner. I just mark it down to a cultural difference, but I won’t soon forget it. Funny.

 

Tourguizhou Gets “Salute”

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The tourguizhou.com web site and tourguizhou wechat group received a “Community City Creativity Award” on December 31, 2018. In front of 400 members of the Guizhou Community Alliance. Jack Porter received a commemerative certificate,trophy, and a picture with flowers and the lovely MC – Yusi.

Jack gave a little talk about his nearly twenty year history with Guizhou Province and the seven year history of Tourguizhou. He explained how to use the search box and menus to find exclusively local information, all English content, about Guizhou Province.