Dandong has a beautiful park along the river, and like all the parks I saw in China, it was filled with people sitting and chatting, playing cards, roller skating, flying kites, and listening to a band playing traditional music.

It’s something of a tourist town for the Chinese. One of the main attractions is the Museum Commemorating the War to Resist American Aggression and Aid Korea, which is what the Chinese call the Korean War. I visited the Museum, which was quite interesting. I liked the big blow-ups of newspaper photographs and the old-fashioned full-size diorama displays. I didn’t like listening to the tour narration, which was all in Chinese. I don’t understand much Chinese, but I know the words for American, Korean and Chinese, and I know tone of voice, so I felt like I got the gist. Especially when everyone turned to look at me every time the word meiguoren, American, was mentioned. It was a little awkward, but I kept my China face on, the one that says “respectful observer” and it was OK.

There are two bridges in Dandong. The China-Korea Friendship Bridge carries pedestrian, road and railroad traffic between Dandong and the city of Siniju, North Korea. Nearby, the “Broken Bridge” extends only halfway across the river. It was damaged by bombs during the Korean War, and is now open as a memorial. You can walk out to the end, which has been secured by railings but still shows twisted pieces of metal. They sell refreshments and there are telescopes for viewing the North Korean coast.

But the most popular tourist activity in Dandong is taking a boat ride along the Yalu River to get a glimpse of life on the other side of the river. We took a ride on a boat that was much smaller and faster and went much closer to the coast than I expected. We saw a few fishermen, and a lot of old, broken-down looking wooden boats. But what we mostly saw were dozens of young kids, nearly all boys, running around, swimming and playing in the water. They sounded like kids at play anywhere in the world, and they clearly accustomed to having boatloads of gawking tourists observing them. Some ignored us and some waved to us. Here and there we saw thin young soldiers standing guard with rifles, looking only a couple of years older than the kids in the water.

That was five years ago. All those boys I watched playing in the river on that hot summer day — what are they doing now? Are they fishermen, or soldiers? Is one of them on board the Kang Nam right now, the North Korean cargo ship that may or may not be carrying weapons? Impossible to know, and maybe not useful to think about. But every time I read about North Korea or hear it mentioned on the news, I am trying to follow the story but it’s those kids in the water that I’m picturing.

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During the three summers I spent in the beautiful, seaside city of Dalian, China, I loved watching the yangge dancers performing in various squares and parks. Yangge is a style of folk dance that’s performed for recreation and exercise in squares and parks, especially popular with middle-aged and older women.

In Dalian, I had a a few favorite groups in Zhongshan Square and Renmin Square, and I loved watching them perform and taking photographs. They always seemed so happy, laughing and showing off for the camera, and I really wanted to pick up a fan and join in.

I found this great and joyful video on YouTube, a short film called “Yangge Dancing in Shenyang.” (Shenyang is the capital city of Liaoning, the province where Dalian is located.) It’s about the Shenyang Deaf Yangge Troupe, a lively group of hearing-impaired performers. The Danwei Music film was produced by Luke Mines, Jeremy Goldkorn and Anna Sophie Loewenberg for Goldmines Films. Enjoy!

In the summer of 2002, my daughter Kristin, her friend Alejandra and I went to China. My daughter Meg was a Peace Corps volunteer there, and we met her in Beijing and took the long train ride together across China to the city of Deyang in Sichuan province. Meg had lived there the previous summer during her training period, staying with a wonderful family who had become her true Chinese family.

We had a wonderful time together in Deyang, riding around in the bicycle cabs, drinking tea and playing Mah Jongg in the park, and eating amazingly spicy food. Miss Qin and I stayed up late at night just talking and laughing like old friends. My favorite memory of that visit was making jiaozi with Waipo, Meg’s Chinese grandma. She doesn’t speak English and we had no Chinese but language wasn’t really needed as she patiently showed us how to make the perfect little folded dumplings, and then inspected our efforts. We could convey all we needed to with smiles and gestures and laughter.

Then we went on to Chengdu for a few days, visiting the temple and Dufu’s Thatched Cottage. This was the first week of my first trip ever to China, and it seemed so magical, just being there. At the end of the week, Kristin and Alejandra went off backpacking to Thailand, Meg went to a summer assignment in Beijing, and I went to seaside city of Dalian in the Northeast to teach English at Future School, the first of three such summers.

News of the earthquake in Sichuan was so horrifying. It took a few days before Meg could get a text message through to her Chinese family, and learned that they are safe and unharmed but living outside like so many in Deyang. The latest figures I have seen put the death toll in Chengdu at over 4,000 and the toll in Deyang over 10,000. Who can imagine such a thing? “After the first death, there is no other.”

My mind can’t comprehend such grim arithmetic. The Myanmar cyclone death toll is about four times higher, by the last figures I have seen, and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 killed over 225,000 people. Sometimes it seems like natural disasters are like buses, there’s always another one coming along. That sounds horrible, but it does seem that as each new one comes along, the last one becomes old news, and earlier ones just sort of fade into generalized memories of misery. We watch the scenes of horror, we read the stories, we feel the pain, we send some money, and then we turn away. What else can we do? Life goes on.

It’s much harder, though, to turn away when it’s a place that you’ve been, and people that you know have been affected. It all seems so much more real, because it’s so much more imaginable. Afghanistan, Iraq, India, Indonesia, Rwanda — I’ve never been to those places. I know they’re real, but I’ve never been there, can’t visualize the place, can’t picture the people. But China — it’s just too real.

This is a collection of photographs of chairs, stools, benches, walls and other places where people in China sit. There are seats of every type, from the elegant to the makeshift seats Chinese people use to sit along the street and eat, sleep, work, talk, play cards and otherwise observe the street life. Old chairs, tied together with string, stools padded with rags– images of the way that the Chinese make do. This book reminds me of my time in China better than any book of scenery.

I suppose this doesn’t really count as part of my reading life, since it’s a book without words, but it’s definitely a book I recommend.