2016 Photos from Asia

• Bento box lunch: Takayuki Hibi, me, and Lili Mu in Kyoto.
  
  
• Dinner with Christos Athanasiadis and Lili Mu at an eel (unagi) restaurant in Kyoto.
  
  
• Learning to make cloisonné with Atsuko Kida, Kyoto.
  
  
• Cloisonné item made by me.
  
  
• Lili Mu giving a talk at JCCA 2016, Kyoto
  
  
• Okonomiyaki, Kyoto.
  
  
• Shanghai skyscrapers. In the clouds is the Shanghai Tower, the second-tallest building in the world at the moment (2073 feet or 632 meters).
  
  
• My shoes, looking down from Pearl Tower, Shanghai.
  
  
• Opium den, Shanghai.
  
  
• Height loss of Jiyou Li and me at Pearl Tower, Shanghai.
  
  
• Longjin tea plantation, Hangzhou. The yellow sheets are flypaper.
  
  
• Curious creature, Shanghai.
  
  
• Hongqiao Railroad Station, Shanghai. "Hongqiao" means "rainbow bridge."
  
  
• Macaque monkeys from Tribe of the Three Gorges (scenic area along the Xiling Gorge)
  
  
• Scene at Tribe of the Three Gorges.
  
  
• Inverted tetrahedron at Three Gorges Dam.
  
  
• Me with Three Gorges Dam in background. The red characters say "Three Gorges Dam" (Sān Xiá Dà Bà).
  
  
• Three Gorges Dam.
  
  
• Xueshan (Teresa) Li practicing painting inside a bottle on the Victoria Jenna cruise ship.
  
  
• Cruising through Three Gorges on Yangtze River with Xueshan Li.
  
  
• Inside second lock (from the east) of Three Gorges Dam. There are five locks, but the first was not needed due to low water level on the Yangtze River.
  
  
• From a show on board the ship. All the performers are part of the crew. They do the performances for fun in their spare time.
  
  
• Three Gorges scenery.
  
  
• More scenery.
  
  
• Chinese characters made to resemble the leaves of a bamboo tree. For a clearer picture, see the next item.
  
  
• Rubbing of characters from previous item.
  
  
• Astrology observation pavilion of Zhuge Liang at White Emperor City (Baidicheng), near entrance to Qutang Gorge.
  
  
• Temple at Baidicheng. The Three Gorges Dam made the location of the temple into an island.
  
  
• Another view of part of the temple at Baidicheng.
  
  
• Qutang Gorge scene.
  
  
• Another ship performance.
  
  
• Western end of Qutang Gorge. The scene (from a different viewpoint achieved by a helicopter) appears on the back of the Chinese 10 yuan bill.
  
  
• Precious Stone Fortress (Shibaozhai) in Zhong County, Chongqing. Although Chongqing is a single city, its area is over three times that of Massachusetts, and it functions more like a province than a city.
  
  
• Some female divinities at Shibaozhai.
  
  
• The cruise ship Victoria Jenna at Shibaozhai.
  
  
• Traditional method of washing clothes, next to cruise ship at Shibaozhai.
  
  
• Dining room table companions on the Victoria Jenna. The ship has a capacity for over 400 passengers, but only 77 were on this cruise.
  
  
• Chongqing hotpot. The bowl in the center of the pot is mild (no hot peppers), but I managed to eat about 3/4 of the meal from the hot compartment. The items surrounding the bowl are boiled in the pot. The white ovals in the bowl at the bottom left are quail eggs.
  
  
• Xueshan Li with long-necked companion, at the Chongqing Natural History Museum in the Yuzhong District of Chongqing. The museum opened in 2013.
  
  
• Some residents of Chongqing still live in a traditional way.
  
  
• Roast fish, another Chongqing specialty.
  
  
• One of the Three Natural Bridges (Tiansheng San Qiao) in Xiannüshan Town, Wulong County, Chongqing. They are part of the Wulong Karst and are named after dragons, namely, Tianlong (Sky Dragon), Qinglong (Azure Dragon), and Heilong (Black Dragon).
  
  
• Wulong Karst scene.
  
  
• Holding knife. From a certain perspective one of the bridge holes looks like a knife which I am holding in my hand.
  
  
• Another scene at Wulong Karst.
  
  
• Waterfall at Wulong Karst.
  
  
• Mist spray at Wulong Karst.
  
  
• Fish hole. The same hole as the knife hole above, but from the other side. Now it looks like a fish.
  
  
• Furong Cave in Wulong County. It was discovered in 1993.
  
  
• Another scene from Furong Cave.
  
  
• Yet another scene from Furong Cave, with colored lights. The structure on the left is called Wild Goose Pagoda. The actual pagoda is located in Xi'an.
  
  
• Me at People's Liberation Monument at center of Chongqing. It was built on March 12, 1940, to inspire Chinese people to struggle for victory over Japan.
  
  
• Xueshan Li at a sculpture in center of Chongqing.
  
  
• Xueshan Li and Shishuo Fu at Dazu Lotus Manor, Chongqing. It includes mutated lotuses grown from seeds sent into space.
  
  
• Ringing a monkey bell at Dazu Rock Carvings, Chongqing. There are twelve bells, one for each Chinese zodiac animal. I am a monkey. Fortuitously, 2016 is a Year of the Monkey.
  
  
• Me at Dazu Rock Carvings. The bottom part of the scene behind me shows some torments from a Buddhist conception of Hell.
  
  
• Xueshan Li at Dazu Rock Carvings.
  
  
• Another Chongqing meal.
  
  
• Drone at Chongqing University being used to take photos of new graduates.
  
  
• Typical hotel elevator buttons in China. Why no numbers 4 and 14? This is because the word for four is "sì" (四, which is also part of the word for fourteen), the same as the word for "to die" (死, sǐ) except for the tone.
  
  
• Talk announcement at Chongqing University.
  
  
• Cranes on the bank of the Jialing River.
  
  
• Chongqing skyline. The bridge is the Qiansimen Jialing River Bridge. The Jialing River is a tributary of the Yangtze. The confluence of the two rivers is in Chongqing.
  
  
• Me at the Qiansimen Bridge.
  
  
• Outside my hotel room in Chongqing. What is the point of this photo? The room number has the property that it begins and ends with 1, the interior numbers are greater than 1, and each interior number divides the sum of its two neighbors. The number of such sequences with n interior numbers is the Catalan number C_n (!). This is item 92 in Chapter 2 of my book Catalan Numbers. This remarkable fact was pointed out by Shishuo Fu.
  
  
• Choosing a meal from a traditional Chinese menu.
  
  
• View from cable car across the Jialing River.
  
  
• Hongya Cave, along the Yangtze River in Chongqing. Its architectural theme is called Stilted Buildings.
  
  
• Old and new in Chongqing. In the foreground is part of the Hongya Cave.
  
  
• A sign in Chongqing. What is the significance? It contains twice what may be the most complicated Chinese character still in use (also the only character pronounced "biang" in any tone), a kind of noodle from Shaanxi province. It has 57 strokes. See the subsection "Rare and complex characters" of this article. I don't know why one of the two biáng's has an additional two strokes at the bottom left.
  
  
• Painting from a student exhibit at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing.
  
  
• Me at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.
  
  
• Talk announcement at Sichuan University, Chengdu.
  
  
• Chengdu scene with Jinjiang River.
  
  
• TV screen in my hotel room in Chengdu.
  
  
• Panda antics at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding (mp4 movie).
  
  
• Infant panda at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. When they first started breeding pandas at this research base (in 1987), the survival rate was close to 0. Now it is near 100%.
  
  
• Xueshan Li, me, Guoyou Qian, and Jiuyu Fan at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
  
  
• A calligraphy expert at a show in Chengdu. During the show his calligraphy was auctioned off.
  
  
• Outdoor ear cleaning service in Chengdu. The three large characters say "scoop ear" (tāo ěrduo).
  
  
• Interesting activity at People's Park (人民公园) in Chengdu. Mothers and grandmothers who are worried that their daughters and granddaughters won't find a husband post descriptions of them in the hopes of attracting a suitor. See the next item.
  
  
• Example of some descriptions of marriageable women.
  
  
• Entrance to Department of Mathematics at Sichuan University, Chengdu.
  
  
• A Sichuan analogue of shish kebab. The object on the right with holes in it is lotus root.
  
  
• Deceptive food. Contrary to appearances, this object is a kind of roll.
  
  
• Delicious Sichuan meal with some hot dishes.
  
  
• Elegant lobby of the CYNN Hotel Chengdu.
  
  
• Some of my hosts in Chengdu: Xueshan Li, Jiuyu Fan, Feiyang (Iris) Wen (daughter of Yuhong Wang), Yuhong Wang, Guoyou Qian.
  
  
• The weir (and complicated currents) at Dujiangyan. This is an amazing irrigation system built in 256 BCE to control flooding on the Min River. It is still used today to irrigate over 5300 square kilometers of land.
  
  
• Yuhong Wang at Dujiangyan.
  
  
• Near the Anlan Bridge, Dujiangyan: Jiuyu Fan, me, Wenqin Du, Guoyou Qian.
  
  
• My opponents Jiuyu Fan and Guoyou Qian just after I played my first game of mahjong. Beginner's luck was in effect so I won the game!
  
  
• Buddhist deity at Mount Qingcheng (Qingcheng Shan), near Dujiangyan. One could see a lot of damage along the trail from the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province. It was recommended not to use the last part of the trail (to the peak) due to damage. See the next item.
  
  
• Earthquake damage on Mount Qingcheng.
  
  
• At Mount Qingcheng: Jiuyu Fan, Wenqin Du, Yuhong Wang, and Guoyou Qian.
  
  
• Me at Mount Qingcheng.
  
  
• Interesting creature on Mount Qingcheng.
  
  
• Deer on a tile roof, Mount Qingcheng.
  
  
• Stamp of Chuan Zhao.
  
  
• Chuan Zhao with homemade fan. The fan says "combinatorial mathematics" (zǔhé shùxué).
  
  
• Two yak meat dishes at an authentic Tibetan restaurant in Chengdu.
  
  
• Napoleon birthday cake purchased by Yuhong Wang.
  
  
• Blowing out candles with Xueshan Li in background.
  
  
• Celebrating birthday at the Tibetan restaurant: Feiyang (Iris) Wen, Yuhong Wang, Xueshan Li, Jiuyu Fan, me, Guoyou Qian, Chuan Zhao, Qinjia Yang.