When it comes to wiping, China is a paper tiger.

Bathrooms don’t have toilet paper, restaurants don’t have napkins and paper towels are an endangered species. People carry around their own toilet paper to use when needed and they bring tissues to restaurants to wipe their faces. And you’ll only find paper towels in stores that specialize in Western products.

It’s a neat freak’s hell, but a Tree Huggers’ paradise.

***

China likes to build things on a grand scale.

The man-made lake that is being constructed behind the new library at Henan University of Technology will be roughly the size of Lake Michigan. Right now, it’s just a few puddles surrounded by mounds of dirt. But when it’s done, I think it could be a future venue for the America’s Cup.

***

When I first saw the big Einstein bust near the campus, I was puzzled by the inscription below his head: = X + Y + Z.  I did some investigating on the Web and found out that one of Einstein’s famous sayings was, “If A is a success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z. Work is X; Y is play; and Z is keeping your mouth shut.’’

I’m pretty good at X and Y, but I’ve never mastered Z.

***

I finally got the Internet in my apartment.

It took 12 days, two technicians, three routers and a half-dozen trips to China Unicom to get the job done, but I’m now happily typing away in the confines of my cozy abode.

The connection is much faster than the one in my office, where it can take 10 minutes to send an email and an hour to upload a video. Everyone on the campus uses the same Internet system so, like many problems in China, it’s caused by too many people sharing a limited resource.

***

If Zhengzhou had Eyewitness News, this would have been the lead story:  A 38-year-old Henan Province woman was rescued after being trapped in an empty well for more than two weeks. She reportedly survived on rainwater and a few cornstalks that she grabbed as she fell into the abandoned 12-foot well while searching for medicinal herbs.

Film at 11.