I strolled around the neighborhood near my hotel this morning and it was an eye-opening experience.

Zhengzhou isn’t one of those gleaming, ultramodern Chinese cities packed with glass skyscrapers and glistening shopping malls. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s a gritty parochial place that’s just now moving into the 21st century. Everywhere you look, they’re digging up streets, constructing new buildings and renovating old ones. And construction in Zhengzhou is a 24/7 affair. They’re gutting a building right across from my hotel, and the deafening noise never stops. I tried using earplugs last night, but they were about as effective as me eating rice with chopsticks.

The area where I’m staying is lined with small shops, restaurants, and fruit and vegetable stands. Grapes must be in season now because every stand is selling them. But there’s also tomatoes, carrots, onions, celery, cucumbers, green beans, potatoes, lettuce, apples and even corn on the cob widely available. Some foods, of course, I don’t recognize. I stopped at one stand and sampled an orangish melon that looked like cantaloupe. However, it was very dry and bland.

I also walked through a huge outdoor market where almost every food imaginable was being sold from stalls. In addition to fruits and vegetables, there were stands featuring fresh meat, chicken and fish. (You need to come early because there’s no refrigeration.) If you want your protein even fresher, you can buy live chickens from a cage or live fish from little plastic pools. One of the pools was crammed with slimy eels and another was packed with even uglier creatures that looked like a cross between a catfish and a hamster. I’m seriously thinking of becoming a vegan.

Walking the streets requires some agility because the locals like to ride their scooters on the sidewalks. They also park their cars on the sidewalks, which must anger parking lot owners. Speaking of cars, that’s one of the biggest changes I’ve noticed since my last trip to China 25 years ago. Back then, there were very few cars and the rare ones you saw belonged in a vintage automobile museum. Now cars are everywhere and you can find almost any name brand. At just my hotel, I spotted Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Buick and Kia. Based on my unscientific survey, it looks like VW and Japanese cars are the most popular in Zhengzhou.

***

One thing I’ve been craving is a cold drink. The Chinese drink almost everything hot, including water and juice. Some of the stores sell drinks from small coolers, but they’re usually lukewarm. And ice is as rare as an English speaker, at least in Zhengzhou. I searched far and wide today before I found a relatively cold Coke. It wasn’t quite the Real Thing, but it will have to do for now. (A can cost 2 yuan, or 33 cents. Basic goods are very cheap in China.)

I took a lot of photos today with my iPhone. Some people smiled when I took their picture, but many turned away or shielded their faces. I guess I can’t blame them. If I were a local resident and had a tall, white stranger come up to me and take my picture, I’d probably turn away too.

This afternoon I’m taking a bus to the new campus of Henan University of Technology, where I’ll start teaching English next week. It’s on the outskirts of town, in an area that someone described as “where the farmers used to live.” Gee, maybe I’ll plant my own garden.