Asian Culture in Texas

Every time this country gets involved in another military misadventure, it changes the nation. The current war in Iraq will undoubtedly do the same. One of our earlier interventions into the affairs of another country resulted in many Vietnamese refugees coming to the United States to escape the Viet Cong Communist regime. Over the years, as people have settled into life in the U.S. and had families, the Vietnamese community has grown.

Houston is one city that has large numbers of people from all over the world. Even though there is undoubtedly assimilation occurring, there are also sections of the city with large ethnic populations. This gives Houston one of the things I like about it; authentic food from all over the globe is available. Restaurants offering every type of cuisine you can imagine are there. This often results in humorous word usage to those of us native to the United States. Signs proclaiming "Doo Doo Cafe" or "Pupuseria", or "Hello to Rent This Sign" can be seen.

Last October when I was back in town, I was surprised to find another result of international culture in far southwest Houston. A large campus housing a Vietnamese Buddhist temple was there. Now, this seems rather out of place to me, since I moved away from the bayou city in 1992 (wow, has it really been 15 years?). Yet, it is a very beautiful oasis of water, flowers and ornate buildings that is a little bit of Asia in Texas.

I don't know a lot about Buddhism, however I do know that it is a peaceful outlook on life. There are several varieties of Buddhism, and some are more of a philosophy than a religion, in that they are basically a non-theistic belief. In general, Buddhists don't proselytize either, but seek to achieve Enlightenment and Nirvana.

These photos I took in Houston last October should give you an idea of how beautiful the grounds of this temple are.

Arched Bridges

It seems that arched suspension bridges over freeways are the latest thing. These bridges have large arches on each side of the bridge, anchored at the ends, and cables to suspend the surface of the span over the freeway. Here are some examples.



I took this first photo last October on northbound US 59, the Southwest Freeway in the museum district of Houston, not far from the downtown split. Even though the highway is northbound, it actually runs east and west here, so you are looking east. These bridges replaced older, standard bridges that used to cross the freeway at Hazard, Woodhead, Dunlavy, and Mandell. The old Hazard Street bridge was appropriately, though inadvertently named, since that bridge didn't have quite enough clearance for some 18-wheelers, and there were frequent trucks hitting the bridge and getting stuck under it. Part of the problem was that the freeway goes into a trench at Hazard, so the pavement was descending about where the bridge was.

This part of the Southwest Freeway is also a Texas rarity, as it is like freeways in most other places, in that it is lacking what Houstonians call "feeder streets", also known as frontage roads or service roads. The trench keeps the noise down for the residential community on the sides of the highway.

This stretch of the freeway was reconstructed in 2000-2001. For another view, CLICK HERE to see it on the texasfreeway.com web site.



Here is another example of a suspended arch overpass. This is in the Denver area. The big difference here is that despite the similarity to the design in Houston, these are pedestrian bridges rather than vehicular ones. They were recently completed as part of the TRex, or Transportation Expansion project that widened I-25 on the south side of the Denver metropolitan area, and added a light rail line. There is a series of these bridges south of I-225 to permit people to get across the freeway to the trains which run on the west side of the freeway; on the right side of this photo. The photo above is at the Belleview Station.

There is one of these bridges that is different than the others. That is the one near Park Meadows Mall. It is a double arch, and is in the photo below.

Given the similarity of the designs of the Denver and Houston bridges, it would be interesting to know if they had the same engineer, or if this is just a common design that is well known. Either way, I don't recall seeing this type of bridge over freeways anywhere else but in these two places.