City Mouse: Some people have asked, so here's some extra detail: today I went to Kaiping, an area slightly SW of Guangzhou, Guangdong. It is where many successful overseas Chinese (in the 1840s-1940s) moved from and later built homes. (As opposed to the far more numerous unsuccessful ones that committed suicide when Angel Island interrogators would not let them enter the US, or worked till they dropped on the railroads, etc.) These houses were in 3 forms: shophouses that resemble stone New Orleans buildings, watchtowers to defend a group of family homes, or buildings that are half residential, half watchtower, so tall but more comfortable on the inside. As these Chinese had traveled abroad they brought back ideas and photographs/postcards of foreign architecture, which is why the buildings are so fantastical, with a bizarre mix of Chinese and European designs. I learned this week that one of the English words that come from Chinese is coolie, which comes from ku3li4 which means manual labor in Chinese. Today I saw that word written at least 20 times, before that I think I had only seen it in my Tintins!