Rain Flower Terrace

This Saturday, I went sight seeing with some new friends from Canada. Gladys and Jenny are Chinese-Canadian, here on an internship with our department from York University.

Yu Hua Tai is a park with a museum of beautiful stones, many of them swirly agate. In Chinese style, many of the stones have pictures in the way clouds can be pictures, and ancient stories to go along with these images. The rocks are so plentiful that they used the pretty, Easter-egg-esque stones to line the walk way

From Yu hua tia

From Yu hua tia

There was also a little tea field and a tea museum with equipment for making tea, but the desciptions were in characters.

From Yu hua tia

The Revolutionary Martyrs’ Memorial is also their, a stone statue dedicated to the Chinese students who were massacred by the Kumingtang.

From Yu hua tia

Lots of things to see, but to be completely honest, we spent a lot of time bargaining in the gift shop, where they sold pretty stones and jewelry made out of the stones. My favorite part of shopping, though, was listening to the girls speak in Chinese. I can understand so much better when foreigners speak Chinese, or younger students, but understanding older people is difficult. Foreigners pronounce their words slowly, stress tones, and provide inflection that helps me to make sense of new words. In contrast, middle-aged Chinese people speak quickly, without inflection, and slur their words, which makes it difficult for a beginner like me!