Amoy Wanderings

The last few months, I have been relatively silent for many reasons, not the least of which is all the changes in our lives which seem very insignificant when compared with the issues many of you have been facing in the States. The COVID crisis seems largely to have passed, which is what benefits the political situation here, although there are significant monitoring policies still in place. In our previous city, Xiamen, students have been allowed to return to their universities for the new school year, but they have been locked on campus and must apply for permission to leave campus. Over the most recent break (which should have been at least a week long) the students merely given a long weekend vacation which was designed to prevent them from returning home and bringing the virus back with them. In our current situation, we are merely facing occasional mask requirements and a few health code checks, though that may also be because we are living in a much more rural setting. As to...

One goal Sandy and I have had is to get our Chinese driver's licenses. Now, there is little desire on my part to drive (much less own) a car here in China, though Sandy is somewhat interested in it. However, our main focus is to get our motorcycle endorsement so that we can drive motorcycles here (something we have really wanted to do). So, we figured that this was a great challenge to take on while life has slowed down because of the virus. We looked into the process -- well, actually we had friends who looked into it for us -- and figured out that it was a fairly straightforward process: have our passports and Oregon driver's licenses officially translated, go to the motor vehicle office to fill out an application, pay a few fees, and then take a knowledge-based test. Since I have my motorcycle in Oregon, that will be the end of it for me, but Sandy may face some type of driving test -- we'll tackle that problem after we finish this initial process. So, last week we set o...