I was flipping through the English Chinese newspaper – China Daily – when I came across an article entitled “4 Chinese Mugged in US County”. As I began reading, I half jokingly asked myself, “I wonder if this was in Columbia?” I didn’t really take myself seriously, but I had to read on to find out. Within the very first sentence, my question was answered. It read like this: “Four Chinese were mugged in similar fashion in the north west area of Richland County in South Carolina.” I had to read it twice to make sure that I had read it correctly. Apparently, the people who were mugged worked at Chinese restaurants and had been targeted by armed gangs that knew that they carried large amounts a cash on them. That wasn’t what surprised me though. This did . . . and I quote:

“It’s not unusual for Chinese to be robbed, raped or even murdered in some crime-ridden areas of the US, Chinese People’s Republic Security University Wang Dawei said, attributing their vulnerability to their traditional virtue of tolerance.”

No wonder so many people I talk to think that the US is dangerous. I mean, I would think so too if I read articles like this and had never been there. Richland county may not be Eden, but man, this article makes it out to be an awful place to live or visit and really exaggerates the crime rate. Raped? Murdered? Common? Geeze. That’s pretty harsh.

I guess it’s a good thing that I live in the less crime-ridden county – Lexington – which is right next door. 🙂 Phil is the one that should be afraid. He’s the one that actually lives there . . . in mini Los Angeles. 🙂

During May Week, Phil and I decided not to try and fight the billion and one other people trying to travel, so we stayed in Xiamen for our vacation instead. During our time we went to many of the tourist spots Xiamen has to offer including the Wanshi Botanical Gardens. It is a very beautiful place and much larger than I thought it would be. The entire time I was walking around and up the mountain side – I had a hard time believing I was actually still in the middle of Xiamen because it sure as heck didn’t feel like it. Here are some of the pictures that we took. If you get a chance, I would go. Bring nice walking/hiking shoes with you if you to walk the entirety of the the park. It’s that large.

Oh, and watch out for creepy looking, possibly infected cats with rabies. One tried to attack me, but I’m not sure if he was old or sick. I’m just glad he wasn’t able to bite me and have me find out the hard way. I get shivers just thinking about it.

The rain forest mist and the rays of the sun. I say rain forest because it was all an elaborate hoax to make you feel like you were somewhere you weren’t. There were sprinkler heads every where spitting out mist to give it that rain forest feel. It was called Rainforest Valley or something like that and made me laugh.

The Spider Flower of Death! Heh. It was purple. It was pretty. I took a picture. 🙂

For a second, I thought that this odd looking wall of fog was coming to get me like that mysterious, evil smoke that likes to kill people n “Lost”. But then I remembered it was just the massive amounts of mist being sprayed from the army of sprinkler heads.

If you look closely, you can see the outline of the mosquito that Phil slapped dead.

A pretty purple flower lily.