You’ve already heard about squat toilets. Now a few words about squat trees. Twice in the past few days, I’ve seen young boys squatting next to a tree on a busy street near my hotel with their pants pulled down. That’s right, they were taking a dump in public. One of them was even having his rear wiped by his mother. I saw several other children peeing on a tree. When I asked my Chinese friends about this, they explained that when children have to go and there’s no bathroom around, they are taught to use whatever’s available. They’re supposed to put their gifts in a bag, but that’s not always the case. So yes, shit happens.

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Not everything is cheap in China. I had a bag of dirty clothes cleaned at my hotel and was charged 334 yuan ($54.57), which is more than I paid for my hotel room in Beijing. No wonder so many Chinese are in the laundry business.

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Students at my university get a 2½-hour lunch break. And it’s not because they’re slow eaters. Chinese students traditionally take a nap after lunch. When I was in college, I took my naps DURING class.

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So here’s the story behind the Einstein bust near my campus: The university is located in a High-Tech Development Zone. Thus, the tribute to a scientific genius. If I give all my students A’s, maybe I can get my own statue.

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I’d like to open an electric scooter business in Zhengzhou. There are more scooters here than cars or bicycles. Businessmen ride them, Grandmothers ride them. Teenagers ride them. They’re cheap and you don’t need a license to drive them. Plus, they’re a great way to navigate the city’s ubiquitous traffic jams. Safety is another matter. Nobody wears helmets, and you see little children riding on tiny backseats with no safety belt or other protection.

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Before I came to China, I was warned to expect a lot of spitting and staring. Fortunately, I haven’t seen much of either. Public spitting used to be very common in China, but maybe they’ve cracked down on it to improve the country’s image. As for staring, Chinese people who aren’t used to seeing foreigners often stare at them because they’re considered exotic. For whatever reason, I haven’t experienced that more than a few times in Zhengzhou, even though tall white men are as rare here as blue skies.

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I got a massage the other day at a local health club. While all the massages were given by men, there were a bunch of cute female workers dressed in pink nurse uniforms. I’ve read that many massage parlors in China are fronts for prostitution, but this place seemed legit and was recommended by my hotel concierge. I was hoping one of the nurses would take my vital signs. No such luck.