Living in China and witnessing the break-neck speed in which it is changing into a better newer modern different place, it is good to see nearly forgotten things pop-up to remind us how it has been not too long ago:

When coming home from shopping today, an old man put up is little knife-sharpening business in front of our compound. There were many people around, including many families but only a very few brought knifes to sharpen. The rest just pointed and explained their young ones: “Look, this is how it has been in the past”.

While sharpening our knifes we talked to him and while he didn’t tell us his age he said he is doing this business for over 50 years. Originally coming from Anhui Province he told us with pride that  he sharpened “many 10.000″ knifes in his life.  But nowadays business is not good for him anymore. People have their own electric sharpeners or buy cheap new knifes instead of giving him the business.

So, when you see him in front of your house, or you hear him calling out for business, don’t be cheap and let this old guy sharpen your kitchen knifes (for RMB 2 a piece). Maybe it makes an old profession survive a few years longer.

On March 22 the construction of the official “Flying Tigers” Memorial Park has begun in the outskirts of Guilin. The park area will include the remains of the former Yangtang airfield where the volunteer group, commanded by General Claire Lee Chennault, has been stationed from October 1941 to the end of the war. The group consisted of 99 pilots, 200 ground crew man and 10 army flight instructors which were hired as check pilots for Chinese cadets. Several of these would ultimately join the AVG’s combat squadrons. The group derived their name from the brightly colored paintings on their airplanes. While the actual average strength of the AVG was never more than 62 combat-ready pilots and fighters, Chennault’s strategy, also called “Chennault’s fighter doctrine” proved to be highly successful against the Japanese airforce. On 297 destroyed enemy planes, they only lost 14 pilots. The US$ 23 million project will include the reconstruction of the command post and barracks as well as a museum. There is a second small “Flying Tigers”Museum in the mountainous area around Guilin, consisting of the wreckage of a downed B24, dragged out of the mountain it crashed into. The museum was privately taken care of and currently does not have English descriptions. It is not known if the two places will be combined after the park opens to the public. Here a link to the original news in Chinese and here a link to the official web-page of the Flying Tigers Heritage park

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