{"id":179,"date":"2010-06-04T17:50:19","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T23:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/laowaiteacher.wordpress.com\/?p=179"},"modified":"2010-06-04T17:50:19","modified_gmt":"2010-06-04T23:50:19","slug":"you-are-never-too-old-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/2010\/06\/04\/you-are-never-too-old-to-work\/","title":{"rendered":"You Are Never Too Old to Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/laowaiteacher.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/2006-september-153.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-180\" title=\"2006 September 153\" src=\"http:\/\/laowaiteacher.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/2006-september-153.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"357\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first September in Changzhou, we got to see how a group of women would take their small scythe-like tools in order to cut grass. \u00a0This group of women were cutting the grass on the grounds of the Changzhou Software building which was home for Google and a few other enterprises. \u00a0I guess the best thing I could say about this process is that it keeps a lot of people busy and earning money. \u00a0I am sure the grass gets sold to feed local livestock as an additional source of income.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/laowaiteacher.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/2006-september-158.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-181\" title=\"2006 September 158\" src=\"http:\/\/laowaiteacher.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/2006-september-158.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The older woman was busy planting a new crop in her small market garden on the land that surrounds the little lake near the C.I.T. Xinbei campus. \u00a0Her garden was a decent size, larger than some of the many such gardens in the area. \u00a0Many of these gardeners are apartment owners in the area who use the income from their gardens to make life just a bit easier. \u00a0Some do this gardening out of habit after years of need had cultivated a strong work ethic. \u00a0One needs to feel useful and contributing in all kinds of ways.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/laowaiteacher.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/2006-september-174.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-182\" title=\"2006 September 174\" src=\"http:\/\/laowaiteacher.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/2006-september-174.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"273\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But not all find a useful way to spend their time in their senior years. \u00a0Some turn to passive begging. \u00a0Fortunately we didn&#8217;t see much of this in Changzhou. \u00a0Most found some way to earn their few jiao \u89d2\u00a0and yuan \u5143\u00a0without having to resort to begging (q\u01d0\u00a0t\u01ceo &#8211;\u00a0\u4e5e\u8ba8). \u00a0Most people we saw had a high level of pride (\u81ea\u5c0a\u00a0&#8211; z\u00ec\u00a0z\u016bn)\u00a0in themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first September in Changzhou, we got to see how a group of women would take their small scythe-like tools in order to cut grass. \u00a0This group of women were cutting the grass on the grounds of the Changzhou Software &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/2010\/06\/04\/you-are-never-too-old-to-work\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,23,28,33,38,41,49,50,74,75,100,103,104,108,123,124,141,182,217,236,238,247,251,274,255,81,86],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-begging","tag-c-i-t","tag-changzhou","tag-china","tag-chinese","tag-chinese-language","tag-communicate","tag-communication","tag-esl","tag-esl-blog","tag-foreign-teacher","tag-ft","tag-gardening","tag-grounds-keeping","tag-jiangsu","tag-jiao","tag-mandarin","tag-qi-tao","tag-teaching-esl","tag-work-ethic","tag-xinbei","tag-yuan","tag-zi-zun","tag-274","tag-255","tag-81","tag-86"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rglongpre.ca\/pilgrim\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}