It is almost 5 o’clock on a Friday afternoon. And no matter how much you love your job (and believe me, I do, I get to spend my entire week playing around with Chinese stuff, corresponding with some of the brightest minds in the field, and chasing banana’s with Molly!), we all know what that means: It’s weekend! Time to take that hard earned break and do absolutely nothing! On my last trip to China 3 years ago, I visited the hometown of the “Father of modern Chinese literature,” Lu Xun 鲁迅. The town, called Shaoxing 绍兴 (also famous for its rice wine!), is located not far from Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province (Southeast China). As a devout student of Chinese literature, I was very excited to see where Lu Xun lived, where he sat in class, where is mom cooked dinner, and several more places that probably only crazy fans like me would be interested in seeing. There weren’t a lot of foreigners around, and even the amount of Chinese tourists wasn’t very high on that warm spring afternoon. So I’m not judging these boatmen that used the occasion to take a nap in their own boats. It might seem contrary to what some people think of as the Chinese work attitude, but wouldn’t you do the same if you had the change?! A little nap in the afternoon and you will feel refreshed for the rest of the day! Maybe I should try that next week instead of cups of coffee, heaps of sugar and walks around the block? Simply “休息一下” xiūxi yīxià!
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