Height and weight: What?!

The other day I came across a man on our street with a machine that can gage your height and weight. Cost: 1 yuan (about 15 cents). He walks around town with this thingamajig and gets people to stand on a little platform (the scale) and then measures them with a mechanical arm that descends over your head like a giant caliper. I like spreading the wealth around (thinly in my case) amongst the itinerant workers so I always give these things a try however ridiculous the idea seems. The machine spat out the little slip of paper above and the man promised that the machine didn't lie. But how can I be 157.5 cm tall? If my blog is called "Five Feet Off The Ground" then I am only 152 cm tall, a height I've been since I was twelve years old. The Swedish passport police are convinced that I am 154 cm tall (they measured me in my socks, but don't believe them) and I did have shoes on when being measured here in Chengdu but come on! they weren't platform shoes! I simply refuse to believe I am taller than five feet, I like the neat rounded off number. If anything I should be skrinking like my friend Amy in California who was born on the exact same day as I was in the same city and who has all our lives shared the same height as me. She reported the other day that she has shrunk to 4'11'. We can't afford this kind of backward development. As far as the weight above, unfortunately the machine seemed to have gotten that one just about right.

# 50 Today's Post 090320

Migrant workers playing cards while waiting to travel downstream, hopefully to work and a better future. Chaotianmen Docks, Chongqing 2000 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

The Knife Sharpener

Chengdu 090219 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

The street we live on is full of wonders. It's not particularly beautiful, it's actually quite ugly. But local life here is rich. Hardly a day passes without something interesting happening, and if you are content with experiencing the little things in life you will not be disappointed. On Thursday the itinerant Knife Sharpener set up office outside the front gate. He charges 2 yuan (c:a 2 kr) per knife and has all his tools with him in little baskets and bags carried in his three-wheeled bicycle cart. He has several whetstones of varying surface texture and coarseness at his disposal and little sponges and water to clean off the blade surface. He spent 30 minutes sharpening six of my knifes of different sizes, now they cut as swift and deep as a cruel word from a loved one.