Pijiu???

Here is the tile wall on my walk to the studio each morning. Just inside the gate is one of Mr. Jin's water jars that has seen better days. A third of the bottom is gone probably from neglect or ice. What a fabulous big jar it must have been!
Inside the gate is my friend the gatekeeper. He attends the gate and sells us water, coke and beer. No matter what time of day or night he always responds to me "Pijiu?" which means beer. I don't know why that is all we have to say to each other? Some of the students drink a beer with lunch and buy a case from him for their poker games at night. Beer is probably the safest thing to drink here. I get a bing pijiu (cold beer) from him every night at beer thirty (4:30). Here he is showing off his new fake Nike's with the red stripe. We all think he bought them on the beer profits from this group. His wife who is one of our cooks drops by the studio with her Chinese Harley trike to pick up the garbage. Here is the gatekeeper in Chinese high security alert. They are both wonderful people and we love them both dearly.