drilling, digging

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to figure out what the workers in the lawn south of our building have been up to. Of course, I could go and ask, but that would be boring. Watching and wondering is much more fun.

They started by drilling a hole in the lawn. Then another hole, with a ditch leading back to the first hole, and the muddy water bubbling up from the second hole flowing through the ditch back to the first hole. And then another hole and ditch, then another, until the lawn was punctured with half a dozen wholes and scarred with a network of small canals. They didn’t find any oil.

This morning they changed. They dug a trench around the southern, eastern and western edges of the lawn, and an accompanying trench through a patch of concrete that has sat idle since before the Olympics.

I still have no idea what they’re up to, but it’s more fun watching and wondering than it would be just asking.

About the Author

wangbo

A Kiwi teaching English to oil workers in Beijing, studying Chinese in my spare time, married to a beautiful Beijing lass, consuming vast quantities of green tea (usually Xihu Longjing/西湖龙井, if that means anything to you), eating good food (except for when I cook), missing good Kiwi ale, breathing smog, generally living as best I can outside Godzone and having a good time of it.

2 thoughts on “drilling, digging

  1. Half a dozen wholes?! Your latest ailment must be worse than I thought. You’re obviously delirious.

    But I suppose if they’ve drilled half a dozen wholes, then they’re not doing things by halves.

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