---------Thursday, May 18, 2006--------------
I woke up with stomach problems again and had to stay home (more for safety than because I didn’t feel well) while Sally and her mom went shopping. I figured no big deal, I’ll hang out, watch soccer, catch up on my writing, go to the bathroom every ten minutes, a laid back morning. And it was, for the most part. The only thing worth noting was that the postman came by to deliver a package and needed a signature. I didn’t feel qualified to provide it so I took a message. I have several Chinese names and am never sure which one is appropriate to use. Besides it was for her father so it might have been top-secret Chinese government stuff. So I just took a message and went pretty proud of myself for being able to do so.
After lunch me and Sally decided to go climb one of the nearby mountains. However first we decided to sit for a bit and digest (we were really full, we’re always really full, we’ve both gotten fat since we’ve gotten here) before we left. I fell asleep. When I woke up Sally fell asleep. She told me to wake her up in half an hour, so I did. She wanted another 15 minutes. I gave it to her. This continued until it was time to go for dinner. Sally’s parents and we went to Jiajia for dinner.
After dinner Sally’s dad went to a tenets’ meeting for their building. I guess the land that this building is one belongs to the military and they’ll be tearing it down soon to build a bigger complex. Everyone who lives here will still get an apartment in the new place but they don’t want to have to pay if the new rooms are bigger than the current ones. Sally and I took a set of keys and went out for a date. It was nice not to have to worry about getting back in time for her parents to let us in and still get enough sleep.
We went to the big mall where we waited for her friends a few days ago. We shopped a bit and went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. The ice cream was good but the proportions were not so much. When I pay 16 kaui for a single scoop, I expect something softball sized. I’ll accept a baseball if it’s really good but no smaller. All we got was a racquetball. I guess they count on Americans being desperate for a taste of home.
Speaking of Americans being desperate for a taste of home, we also checked out the ice cream at KFC (we weren’t just two crazy people wondering the streets looking for frozen dairy deserts, we did other things too, I just don’t think you want to here about us looking at Chinese CDs). I know that when people talk about how American culture is taking over the world they always mention that McDonalds is everywhere. This is true, there’s a Mackers (Aussie slang) in every major shopping center in Dalian. But in the war to conquer the world’s taste buds, it’s better to follow the orders of a colonel than a clown. I’ve mentioned before that KFC is everywhere and I meant it. Every time we go out, I count the KFCs that I see. Four is the average. Like most international fast food franchises, KFC adapts to fit local tastes. In Sydney (we Kentucky Fried Chicken is even more popular than it is in China) one of the things that struck me with the most culture shock was the fact that they gave you French fries with everything (because you can’t have chicken without chips, it’s the law). Here it’s a little healthier with a seasonal vegetable side dish. The ice cream wasn’t very good, but at least you didn’t pay much for it and the size was what I expected.
-----------------Friday, May 19, 2006-----------------
Today we mostly finished getting ready for the party tomorrow. We went to the Carrefore (which Sally wanted me to explain is French, not Chinese) to buy some drinks for the dinner and some small luggage for our trip to Shanghai (which, it turns out, starts Sunday, more on that later, if I remember). We bought a pair of small, personal suitcases that will fit easily in the overhead compartment. We also bought a whole lot of Pepsi and 7-up. With the exception of Smart and Fanta, which enjoy a much smaller market share, most of the pop here is either cola or lemon/lime. No root beer, no Doctor Pepper, no cream soda, nothing. Coke and Sprite are the clear winning of the Chinese soda wars. Sally told me that until recently there wasn’t any 7-up here at all. It was all Coke products. I guess Pepsi has spent a lot of money advertising (I see it everywhere) and while the flagship drink has started to gain traction, 7-up has not. So much to the point Sally’s parents almost went with two cases of Pepsi rather than one of Pepsi and one of 7-up because they were afraid the guests wouldn’t drink it. Also, the cashier confirmed with us that we knew we were buying 7-up, not Sprite. We would have gotten Sprite, but they were out.
I like going to Carrefore. For one, I always see at least two other non-Chinese people there. I never talk to them, it’s just nice to be reminded that I’m not the only one. Also we usually get a zhenzhunaicha on the way out, because they’re cheap and are hands down the best drink this continent has ever produced.
This trip we also got me so clothes. We figured out my pants size in Chinese and bought me a pair of shorts. I didn’t get the color I wanted because for some reason all the ones in my size in the right color were lacking the hole that you put the button in the front through. I was relived to fine that it was just these few and not some new Chinese style so I decided that the ability to do my pants up was more important than fashion, so we went with a lighter shade. As a souvenir, I also found the T-shirt with the worse English on it I could find. Every since I’ve learned Chinese, I’ve been hyper critical of the Chinese characters that people put on T-shirts, hats or permanently on their body. Usually their choice is OK, but more often than not it’s not exactly what they were expecting or isn’t written quite right. Here in China, it’s the Latin alphabet that is mysterious and cool looking. English is written on a lot of clothing and advertising for no reason other than to look neat Other languages like French, Spanish and even Greek pop up from time to time, but usually it’s English and usually it’s really bad English. I’ve never claimed to be the best speller or to have the best grammar (which I’m sure these letters have proven) but sometimes it gets a little ridiculous. The funniest part is, they don’t even know. So I got a shirt so that I can always remember it. I won’t tell you what it says, I’ll just tell you that it beat out “Brave hovers in water like fish.”
Like I said, we’ve finally figured out our trip to Shanghai and we’re going on Sunday and we’ll be taking the train. At least, Sally, her mom and I will be. Her dad will be flying down a couple days later to join us. We ordered him a plane ticket over the phone and they delivered it to our door, just like a pizza! It came while Sally’s dad was at work, her mom was out running errands and Sally was in the bathroom. The money was on the table though so I was able to handle the transaction without concern and increase my usefulness in the family.
This train trip should be a lot less painful than the last one. Even though it’s a lot longer, 23 hours, we’ll be riding in what’s called a soft-sleeper. Soft-sleepers are supposed to be a whole lot nicer than the hard-seaters we took to and from Shenyang. I’m certainly hoping it is. I’ll be taking “Speaker for the Dead,” the next book after “Ender’s Game,” a copy of the “Dao de Jing” the Taoist book of scripture and the conference Ensign, so I should have plenty to keep myself busy. And we’ve got magnetic chess so Sally can pass the time beating me at that. She’s really gotten better and I still tell her when she makes a bad move so I’m pretty much doomed from the first move. It’s still a lot of fun though. So while I’m not busting with enthusiasm for the journey, I’m not dreading it. Plus I really want to see Shanghai so it’ll be worth it.
Once we got everything for the near future worked out we focused our attention on more current matters, dinner. Both Sally and her mother were suffering from upset stomachs so it was just her dad and I eating. We were looking for a wonton place but decided to eat what they called fast food instead. It was a lot like the Chinese restaurants that are popping up in supermarkets in America only a lot cheaper and whole lot dirtier. We just ordered a couple dishes from the guy behind the counter and sat down and ate. The food was like you would get at a Chinese place in America too, only a bit more authentic. I thought it was really good and at 14 kaui total for four dishes and two bowls of rice, the price can’t be beat. My favorite was the lazi jiding (spicy, cubed chicken), which is a fairly common Chinese dish. Think tiny spicy chicken, now make it without that crappy breading on the meat, real chilies and better sauce, then make taste a thousand times better. Now you have lazi jiding.
After dinner Sally’s parents went home and we went for a walk. We went back to the park we’ve visited several times. It was busier than ever, probably because of the weekend. It was still a little light out, so there were still a couple old guys playing Chinese chess on the ground. Most people were walking or jogging for exercise with a few doing Tai Chi or other, similar forms of exercise. We even saw one guy practicing kung fu. We also found a place were old couples were dancing together to music being played over any old stereo. There were many schools of dancing being practiced – from the waltz to country swing – so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an organized event by any means. It was still fun to watch and made a relaxing end to the day
Steve’s interesting bit of information about China for the day: Like America, China uses their athletes in a lot of their advertisements, especially those who succeed on the international level. There’s one athlete who appears in more adds than any other though, and no, it’s not Yao Ming (although he is everywhere here). Remember in the last Olympics when the Chinese dude got the gold in hurdles? Yeah, I didn’t either. This guy is an icon over here. I see him all the time of billboards and on TV. I guess it makes sense though. He won big time in an event that China hasn’t won before and did so in big way. Still, not what I was expecting when I got here.
In China Post 5
------------Tuesday, May 16, 2006--------------
Today we took a few minutes to get ready for the wedding party. A friend of Sally’s mom came to help us. In Chinese, you generally refer to people much older than you as aunt or uncle. We were preparing some gifts to give the guests. We wrapped little packages of candy and cigarettes. This may seem a little strange but is quite traditional in China. It’s just there way of saying “Thank you for coming to our party. Here, have some tooth decay and a tumor.”
In the evening Sally and I headed over to Anne’s house for dinner. Liu Yang wasn’t there because he is out of town on business. We bought some dumplings at a mall near her place. Like most people in China, Anne lives in an apartment complex. Hers is part of a collection of large complexes in a rather nice community on top of one of the hills here in Dalian. China is different from American in that the rich prefer to live in the valleys, making hill top property some of the cheapest available. Anne and Yang both work and don’t have any kids yet so they live in a very nice place. Our apartment back in the US would probably fit in their living and dining rooms. It was probably a little bigger than Sally’s parent’s place. They had a lot of nice things too. I have to reassure Sally that someday, we’ll have jobs and not live in the tiny little place we live in now.
Not a very busy day on the whole, but still fun.
--------------Wednesday, May 17, 2006------------------------------
Today was a busy day. We slept in a bit, which gave us a late start. Once we got going we ate breakfast and then Sally and I went to the office where she used to work. Before she left China to come to American and get her doctorate, Sally worked at a company as an office assistant. Most of the people she worked with were still there. We didn’t have a lot of time to stay and talk because we told her mom we’d be back by 1 p.m. so we just dropped off some gifts and left.
On the way back we saw a bit of a disturbance on the street though the bus windows. All I saw was a guy running down the street and a lady and a guy on a scooter chasing after him yelling all the way. Once they caught up with him a loud and vocal argument ensued. Even more so than that time at the train station, people gathered around for the show. Some of them even took part in the shouting. Sally explained to me that in all likelihood, the guy was a bag snatcher or a pickpocket of some kind. He ripped off the lady and took off counting on his ability to out run her. However she was able to enlist someone with a scooter to help her chase him down. Now in front of everyone, he would have to deny any wrongdoing. It was good to see that many people concerned for a fellow citizen, but I was glad to see a cop walking over to restore order as we turned the corner.
Back when I was just a country bumpkin who had never lived in a big city, I used to be terrified that as soon as I got to any town bigger that Ogden (and yes, this included Salt Lake City) I would get mugged, pickpocketed and murdered, all at the same time. It took me a month or so do not be paranoid all the time in Sydney. I’ve gotten used to Dalian faster, but I’ve had practice. I actually feel a lot safer here than I did there, but that’s probably because I don’t have drunk Australians coming up to me to explain the purpose of life all the time.
We had to be back so early because we had to eat lunch and get ready to go sightseeing with Uncle Wu and Monica, the father and daughter from Friday night. We drove along the road that went on Friday. It turns out there are parks and scenic overlooks the whole way. And here I was thinking it was just a long and windy road. We started at a beach park that is popular for tourists here. Proving they really know their market, the builders of the park provided plenty of statues for people to take pictures with. Actually, most public places around here are just full of statues and people standing in front of them, flashing the peace sign, getting their picture taken. The statues where we started were of a “western” nature and included everything from a Dutch windmill to African folk art to a Pacific coast Native American totem pole.
It was also at this part of the park where I learned that I am the true Lord of the Pigeons. There was a flock of pigeons there (pigeons are not all that common around here, you hardly see them just flying around) and a couple guys selling packets of corn to feed them (they mopped off the area to help you forget the normal side effects that come from playing with pigeons). Monica asked her dad for some money and she bought us all some seeds. At the mere sight of a folded up newspaper the white pigeons went into a feeding frenzy. Some would fly up to attack the bag, hoping to get first picking of the food inside. Others wait below counting on the person holding the bag to freak out and drop the goods. This is what Monica and Sally did. I on the other hand, was the lighthouse in the storm of feathers. I truly ruled over the Pigeon Kingdom. I divided the seeds equally among my subjects and there was peace and harmony in the land. Once we ran out of seeds, using my years of teasing dogs with an empty hand as a template, I learned that if I held my hand out like it had seeds in it, a pigeon or two would jump up and sit in my hand for a bit. Outsmarting a lower life form is always a good feeling. After we were done with the pigeons I noticed a slight residue on my shoulder. Not enough to make me need to change shirts or anything, but enough to remind me that pigeons aren’t the cleanest thing to be the lord of.
One major difference between this place and Sydney can be found in the pigeons. Sydney is like most large city, absolutely covered in pigeons. I have many humorous anecdotes from that time in my life involving pigeons. The few pigeons that they have here are healthy and attractive birds. Usually white or at least mostly so. In Sydney, the pigeons are all kinds of colors and every flock usually has several sickly looking birds in it (Australia doesn’t have any birds of prey to pick them off, as far as I know). For reasons I never understood, at least half of the fowl were missing at least one two; many even hopped around on toeless stubs. I can also assume that the lack of competition here makes the pigeons more docile, I haven’t seen any picking on each other and they don’t fly away when you get close enough to kick them.
We continued along the road, stopping from time to time to take in the scenery. There were a lot of rocky cliffs descending into the raging sea and tree covered mountains. We’d occasionally hear the call of a bird from deep in the woods, which Sally’s dad said was a pheasant. I didn’t see any so I don’t know for sure if they were ringnecks like we have back home, an import from China. There was also a so called, “Magic Road” that will propel your car forward in neutral, in either direction.
There was more on the road than just trees and rocks. There was a stretch of road covered with statues of every sea creature imaginable. There was also a compound with some deer in it surrounded by statues of deer. If deer in the wild could somehow summon the power of the plastic deer, they would live forever while wolves and cougars chew on the dummies.
At the other end of the road was Tiger Beach, so called because the coastline curves like a tiger’s tail. We watched a Mongolian performance troupe perform dances, singing and playing traditional string instruments. There were also people flying strings of at least 30 small kites and men bull whipping wooden tops. It was the first public performance that I’ve seen here in Dalian, another difference between here and Sydney, which was crawling with musicians, martial artists and modern “artists.”
After we finished touring, we picked up Auntie Wu and went to dinner. Again it was Korean Barbeque. Uncle Wu is a very nice but stubborn man (as are many people here in Dalian), and despite our protests, ordered way too much food. Even though I ate myself sick, I still like Korean food, especially kimchi, a traditional side dish consisting of preserved rotten cabbage. Let’s just say it’s an acquired taste at best, but I like it. We also had marinated beef and lamb, shrimp, fish, cornmeal and some tendon, which was really chewy and tasted like a dirty diaper smells (they like it though, so it’s perfectly legitimate, it’s just different from what I’m used to) all with the texture of wood. Still, with the spicy food and the hot coals in the table made me sweat. It’s not often you need to take a shower after dinner but I sure did.
Today we took a few minutes to get ready for the wedding party. A friend of Sally’s mom came to help us. In Chinese, you generally refer to people much older than you as aunt or uncle. We were preparing some gifts to give the guests. We wrapped little packages of candy and cigarettes. This may seem a little strange but is quite traditional in China. It’s just there way of saying “Thank you for coming to our party. Here, have some tooth decay and a tumor.”
In the evening Sally and I headed over to Anne’s house for dinner. Liu Yang wasn’t there because he is out of town on business. We bought some dumplings at a mall near her place. Like most people in China, Anne lives in an apartment complex. Hers is part of a collection of large complexes in a rather nice community on top of one of the hills here in Dalian. China is different from American in that the rich prefer to live in the valleys, making hill top property some of the cheapest available. Anne and Yang both work and don’t have any kids yet so they live in a very nice place. Our apartment back in the US would probably fit in their living and dining rooms. It was probably a little bigger than Sally’s parent’s place. They had a lot of nice things too. I have to reassure Sally that someday, we’ll have jobs and not live in the tiny little place we live in now.
Not a very busy day on the whole, but still fun.
--------------Wednesday, May 17, 2006------------------------------
Today was a busy day. We slept in a bit, which gave us a late start. Once we got going we ate breakfast and then Sally and I went to the office where she used to work. Before she left China to come to American and get her doctorate, Sally worked at a company as an office assistant. Most of the people she worked with were still there. We didn’t have a lot of time to stay and talk because we told her mom we’d be back by 1 p.m. so we just dropped off some gifts and left.
On the way back we saw a bit of a disturbance on the street though the bus windows. All I saw was a guy running down the street and a lady and a guy on a scooter chasing after him yelling all the way. Once they caught up with him a loud and vocal argument ensued. Even more so than that time at the train station, people gathered around for the show. Some of them even took part in the shouting. Sally explained to me that in all likelihood, the guy was a bag snatcher or a pickpocket of some kind. He ripped off the lady and took off counting on his ability to out run her. However she was able to enlist someone with a scooter to help her chase him down. Now in front of everyone, he would have to deny any wrongdoing. It was good to see that many people concerned for a fellow citizen, but I was glad to see a cop walking over to restore order as we turned the corner.
Back when I was just a country bumpkin who had never lived in a big city, I used to be terrified that as soon as I got to any town bigger that Ogden (and yes, this included Salt Lake City) I would get mugged, pickpocketed and murdered, all at the same time. It took me a month or so do not be paranoid all the time in Sydney. I’ve gotten used to Dalian faster, but I’ve had practice. I actually feel a lot safer here than I did there, but that’s probably because I don’t have drunk Australians coming up to me to explain the purpose of life all the time.
We had to be back so early because we had to eat lunch and get ready to go sightseeing with Uncle Wu and Monica, the father and daughter from Friday night. We drove along the road that went on Friday. It turns out there are parks and scenic overlooks the whole way. And here I was thinking it was just a long and windy road. We started at a beach park that is popular for tourists here. Proving they really know their market, the builders of the park provided plenty of statues for people to take pictures with. Actually, most public places around here are just full of statues and people standing in front of them, flashing the peace sign, getting their picture taken. The statues where we started were of a “western” nature and included everything from a Dutch windmill to African folk art to a Pacific coast Native American totem pole.
It was also at this part of the park where I learned that I am the true Lord of the Pigeons. There was a flock of pigeons there (pigeons are not all that common around here, you hardly see them just flying around) and a couple guys selling packets of corn to feed them (they mopped off the area to help you forget the normal side effects that come from playing with pigeons). Monica asked her dad for some money and she bought us all some seeds. At the mere sight of a folded up newspaper the white pigeons went into a feeding frenzy. Some would fly up to attack the bag, hoping to get first picking of the food inside. Others wait below counting on the person holding the bag to freak out and drop the goods. This is what Monica and Sally did. I on the other hand, was the lighthouse in the storm of feathers. I truly ruled over the Pigeon Kingdom. I divided the seeds equally among my subjects and there was peace and harmony in the land. Once we ran out of seeds, using my years of teasing dogs with an empty hand as a template, I learned that if I held my hand out like it had seeds in it, a pigeon or two would jump up and sit in my hand for a bit. Outsmarting a lower life form is always a good feeling. After we were done with the pigeons I noticed a slight residue on my shoulder. Not enough to make me need to change shirts or anything, but enough to remind me that pigeons aren’t the cleanest thing to be the lord of.
One major difference between this place and Sydney can be found in the pigeons. Sydney is like most large city, absolutely covered in pigeons. I have many humorous anecdotes from that time in my life involving pigeons. The few pigeons that they have here are healthy and attractive birds. Usually white or at least mostly so. In Sydney, the pigeons are all kinds of colors and every flock usually has several sickly looking birds in it (Australia doesn’t have any birds of prey to pick them off, as far as I know). For reasons I never understood, at least half of the fowl were missing at least one two; many even hopped around on toeless stubs. I can also assume that the lack of competition here makes the pigeons more docile, I haven’t seen any picking on each other and they don’t fly away when you get close enough to kick them.
We continued along the road, stopping from time to time to take in the scenery. There were a lot of rocky cliffs descending into the raging sea and tree covered mountains. We’d occasionally hear the call of a bird from deep in the woods, which Sally’s dad said was a pheasant. I didn’t see any so I don’t know for sure if they were ringnecks like we have back home, an import from China. There was also a so called, “Magic Road” that will propel your car forward in neutral, in either direction.
There was more on the road than just trees and rocks. There was a stretch of road covered with statues of every sea creature imaginable. There was also a compound with some deer in it surrounded by statues of deer. If deer in the wild could somehow summon the power of the plastic deer, they would live forever while wolves and cougars chew on the dummies.
At the other end of the road was Tiger Beach, so called because the coastline curves like a tiger’s tail. We watched a Mongolian performance troupe perform dances, singing and playing traditional string instruments. There were also people flying strings of at least 30 small kites and men bull whipping wooden tops. It was the first public performance that I’ve seen here in Dalian, another difference between here and Sydney, which was crawling with musicians, martial artists and modern “artists.”
After we finished touring, we picked up Auntie Wu and went to dinner. Again it was Korean Barbeque. Uncle Wu is a very nice but stubborn man (as are many people here in Dalian), and despite our protests, ordered way too much food. Even though I ate myself sick, I still like Korean food, especially kimchi, a traditional side dish consisting of preserved rotten cabbage. Let’s just say it’s an acquired taste at best, but I like it. We also had marinated beef and lamb, shrimp, fish, cornmeal and some tendon, which was really chewy and tasted like a dirty diaper smells (they like it though, so it’s perfectly legitimate, it’s just different from what I’m used to) all with the texture of wood. Still, with the spicy food and the hot coals in the table made me sweat. It’s not often you need to take a shower after dinner but I sure did.
In China:Post 4
------------------Monday-May-15----------------------------
Today we just hung out around the apartment until evening. Then my and Sally went to meet with the local branch. Since it was just dinner rather than a church meeting, I was allowed to attend. Because of schedules, only a few members were able to come. It was the older members who aren’t busy with school and classes. They were awesome. There was the Yang Family. Brother Yang is the branch president and has been a member since 1998. He joined the church while visiting family in Hong Kong. His wife, mother and children have since joined the church. There was Max Huang, from Taiwan. He is also a convert who came over to China for his work for Ferrari. Until last year he wasn’t able to meet with Chinese members either but since then the Chinese government has decided that since Taiwan is part of China, so are Taiwanese people. His wife is a recent covert from Kunming in South China who wasn’t able to join us. There was also Sister Teng, a sister in probably her late 50s early 60s. She’s the one who got her mission call to Toronto. We all met in the apartment of the Zhou Family. Brother Zhou was baptized ten years ago in Singapore. His wife spend most of the time in the kitchen so I didn’t get to hear her story but their daughter Zhou Lin was adorable. Brother Yang bragged of how she would be the first child baptized at eight here in Dalian.
The Zhous lived on the other side of town close to where Sally went to college. We met the Yangs at the soccer complex where I was yesterday. From there we took a taxi to the Zhous’. Since a cab can only hold four people and there were five of us, I got to live out one of my lifetime fantasies. We got into a cab, pointed at the one in front of us and said “Follow that car.” The driver did a good job at this, despite the fact that the other driver was a fair bit more aggressive than he was. This led to many “movie car chase moments” when we would try to catch up, weaving in and out of traffic. It was scary, but awesome at the same time. At one point we ended up in front of the ca we were following. I don’t know how it happened but it was pretty funny.
Once we got out of the cars we walked to the Zhous, who lived in a huge complex of modern apartment complexes. All I could think was how glad I was that I didn’t have to tract them. As soon as we walked in the door, I could feel a real difference in the Zhous’ home. Maybe it was the Chinese proclamation to the world on the wall.
We sat and talked. They asked me questions about my mission and Sally about here conversion. They told us about the history of the church in Dalian. I was stunned and in awe of their faith and testimony. They haven’t had the easiest time here, but they have thrived. Together we ate potstickers and laughed. They seemed to like to play a game the members in Sydney would play “Wait until the white kid puts food in his mouth to ask him a question.” They were awesome people and I really have a feeling like this won’t be the only time that we see them. It’s good to know that when this country opens it’s doors, there will already be such a strong base to build one.
After dinner we walked to Sally’s college and took the bus that she would ride every week to get home. It was a long bus ride through a couple different parts of town. The size of this city continues to catch me by surprise.
Today we just hung out around the apartment until evening. Then my and Sally went to meet with the local branch. Since it was just dinner rather than a church meeting, I was allowed to attend. Because of schedules, only a few members were able to come. It was the older members who aren’t busy with school and classes. They were awesome. There was the Yang Family. Brother Yang is the branch president and has been a member since 1998. He joined the church while visiting family in Hong Kong. His wife, mother and children have since joined the church. There was Max Huang, from Taiwan. He is also a convert who came over to China for his work for Ferrari. Until last year he wasn’t able to meet with Chinese members either but since then the Chinese government has decided that since Taiwan is part of China, so are Taiwanese people. His wife is a recent covert from Kunming in South China who wasn’t able to join us. There was also Sister Teng, a sister in probably her late 50s early 60s. She’s the one who got her mission call to Toronto. We all met in the apartment of the Zhou Family. Brother Zhou was baptized ten years ago in Singapore. His wife spend most of the time in the kitchen so I didn’t get to hear her story but their daughter Zhou Lin was adorable. Brother Yang bragged of how she would be the first child baptized at eight here in Dalian.
The Zhous lived on the other side of town close to where Sally went to college. We met the Yangs at the soccer complex where I was yesterday. From there we took a taxi to the Zhous’. Since a cab can only hold four people and there were five of us, I got to live out one of my lifetime fantasies. We got into a cab, pointed at the one in front of us and said “Follow that car.” The driver did a good job at this, despite the fact that the other driver was a fair bit more aggressive than he was. This led to many “movie car chase moments” when we would try to catch up, weaving in and out of traffic. It was scary, but awesome at the same time. At one point we ended up in front of the ca we were following. I don’t know how it happened but it was pretty funny.
Once we got out of the cars we walked to the Zhous, who lived in a huge complex of modern apartment complexes. All I could think was how glad I was that I didn’t have to tract them. As soon as we walked in the door, I could feel a real difference in the Zhous’ home. Maybe it was the Chinese proclamation to the world on the wall.
We sat and talked. They asked me questions about my mission and Sally about here conversion. They told us about the history of the church in Dalian. I was stunned and in awe of their faith and testimony. They haven’t had the easiest time here, but they have thrived. Together we ate potstickers and laughed. They seemed to like to play a game the members in Sydney would play “Wait until the white kid puts food in his mouth to ask him a question.” They were awesome people and I really have a feeling like this won’t be the only time that we see them. It’s good to know that when this country opens it’s doors, there will already be such a strong base to build one.
After dinner we walked to Sally’s college and took the bus that she would ride every week to get home. It was a long bus ride through a couple different parts of town. The size of this city continues to catch me by surprise.
In China: Post 3
----------------Saturday May 13, 2006---------------------------------------
I woke up this morning with a stomachache. Rather than get up and force food into a pained belly, I decided to stay in bed instead. This turned out to be a good idea because when I woke up a couple hours I felt a lot better. I had some fangao [a kind of steamed bread that I really like] for breakfast. The stomachache came back with a vengeance a hour or so later but after I went to the bathroom I’ve felt good for the rest of the day. Sally’s dad thinks it was because I ate the raw fish without dipping it in wasabi sauce first. Wasabi is a Japanese sauce that uses mostly horseradish. Because of my infamous horseradish experience in Vegas, there’s only one thing on earth I hate more than Bob Sagat, and that’s horseradish, so I think it was worth it.
After getting rid of the pain the only way I know how to deal with nagging stomach discomfort we slugged around the apartment for a while. We had plans to meet with a couple of Sally’s roommates from college who are still living in Dalian. We took a bus down one of the bigger streets called ZhongShan Street to a big mall. This same street is the one I’ve gone down many times. It has the train station, XingHai Square and many other important places on it. The buses hear are different from the ones I’m used to from Logan and Sydney. First off you have to pay and they have a lot of people riding them, which makes them totally from anything LTD has to offer. Here the buses stop at each stop to pick up and let off passengers, which with as many people riding as they have, is a pretty safe bet. In Sydney the buses will blow right by every stop unless on one there flags them down or someone on board presses the button to get off. In Australia you have to know where your going and they charge you accordingly, the further your stop, the more your ticket is. If you don’t have exact change, the driver will break a 10 or a 20 for you. You get a receipt and need to carry it with you for the duration of the trip incase the transit authority gets on to check for fare bludgers. Here you drop one kuai in the bucket and your good to go. For as long as your on the bus, you’re fine. In Australia people, with the exception of young punks who don’t count because they’re not people, are generally civil and will offer they’re seat to an elderly person or a mom with kids. Here, with so many people, you can’t always afford to be nice.
We went to a big mall by the train station. Like most big malls around the world on Saturdays with one was packed, mostly with young trendy people. It also had the most American places that I’ve seen in Dalian, including a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut and a Baskin Robbins. Sally and I were weighed down with three bags of soy vitamins that Sally’s friend wanted us to buy for her so we couldn’t walk around too much until they found us.
Sally’s two friends soon met up with us. They were Anne and Judy. Anne brought her husband, Liu Yang, and Judy brought her boyfriend Bryan. These, with the exception of Yang, are obviously their English names used for the sake of simplicity. Our original plan was to go to a big nice buffet of the fifth floor of the mall. We slowly forced our way through the crowd and up the escalators to the restaurant. The mall was like a bigger version of a mall in, you guessed it, Sydney. It was the confusing layout (it took forever to find the next set of escalators) and the awesomely Asianness of the food court that reminded me so much of the mall in Chinatown. Once we made it all the way to the top, the hostess informed us that the buffet was only open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from to 10 p.m. Since it was 3 we decided to find another place to eat. Someone suggested YiXin (one heart or love) Barbeque, a Korean barbeque that wasn’t far from the mall. So we hoped in a couple of cabs and headed over.
I don’t think I’ve ever really explained what a Korean barbeque is. If you’ve never eaten ate one, I highly recommended it. So much so that I’ll take you to one in Salt Lake sometime if your willing to pay. It’s kind of a do it yourself joint. The waitress brings you plates of sliced, raw, marinated meat. In the middle of the table is a hole, the waitress then brings a bucket of hot coal and places it in the hole. She caps it with a grill and you’re good to go. This means everyone can have their meat as done as they like it, and it slows the meal down allowing for better conversation with family and friends. However, it’s the marinated that really shines in this show. The meat is usually dripping with sauce and therefore dripping with flavor. I can’t really describe the flavor and usually just say it’s loaded with Koreany goodness. My friend Ryan Robbins once said it’s so good that he’d throw it up just so he eat it again.
We got a room and sat and ate and talked. It was different than the other people I’ve met since I’ve been here. These were Sally’s friends, not her parents so she was excited and the conversation was lively. Also because we were all of the same generation there was more to talk about. I understood pretty everything that was said because they spoke with good clear accents. I enjoyed it. After we finished eating, Sally gave the girls some of the vitamins that she had brought for gift and the guys some Pringles that we were originally supposed to ship to a friend’s family but the post office wouldn’t let us. I’ve never seen anyone so excited to get a tube of Pringles.
Afterwards we made our way home. We took the 11 bus which is a route that goes through the neighborhoods rather than down the main street. The bus was smaller, only had one seat on each side and seemed to be a slightly older model. Ironically, it was also equipped with TV. The driver grinded the gears a lot and even sent some kids flying from their seats. It was good for me though because it help me get my “bus legs” back.
We got off the bus at the park where we walked off dinner a few nights ago. As we walked home Sally called her parents to let them know we were heading back (we didn’t have a set of keys so we needed them to buzz us in). They weren’t home so Sally wanted to go to the nearby Carrefour store (think Chinese Wal-Mart) to buy some bread that she has been craving for a long time. It’s this really thin Indian Style bread called paobing (thrown bread). While we were there we also picked up a couple of drinks, a zhunzhunaicha (pearl milk tea, not really tea, and quite tasty, next time you’re in Logan I’ll take you to get some, my treat this time) and a suanmeitang (sour plum soup, to my knowledge you can’t find it in America because it doesn’t make it through customs because of the no disgusting drink law). When we got home Sally’s parents were back as well. Apparently they had a similar idea and had bought a bunch of snacks too. They had lychees, cherries and dried hawthorn (my favorite, it tastes like fruit leather). We snacked and then played cards. They tried to teach me this ridiculously complicated but equally popular card game. I’m still trying to learn and not doing terribly well yet.
-----------Sunday, May 14, 2006-------------------------
Sally called Elder Jia, the go to guy in China for members to find a local congregation to attend. To our surprise and delight, Dalian had one. We really weren’t expecting to be able to go to church here. There was only one problem: Non-Chinese citizens couldn’t go. We still wanted Sally to go to church so we headed out. The plan was for me to hang out at Olympic Electronics City while she went to church. Not my ideal Sunday but it was better than hanging out at home. Electronic City is a two-floor electronics free for all underneath a soccer complex. It was a lot like the clothing expo but with computers rather than skirts.
It was pretty cool. I don’t know how much any of the stuff cost because it wasn’t labeled. I didn’t have any money so I didn’t ask. They had a wide variety of stuff though, everything from TV’s to computers to light bulbs. I spent most of my time looking through the movies. Everyone seemed to want to sell me DVDs (I blame the white guy factor). China is known for it’s movie piracy and I was smack-dab in the middle of it. If I wanted to I could have bought Mission Impossible Three or the new 9/11 movie that just came out. Trying not to look like too much of a foreigner, I spend most of the time thumbing through the TV series. Chinese TV aren’t open ended like ours are. They usually feature one major story arc and several small ones over the course of 20 to 50 episodes. These are very popular and I really like them. I’ve watched a couple of them back home and really like the way the stories can be more drawn out and how there’s usually a whole lot of kung fu. Fortunately there are other places where you can buy not pirated versions of these and I intend to stock up.
We were originally thinking they would only have sacrament meeting but they had a full block so I had even more time to kill. Exhausting my desire to have people say to me “Hello, DVD” making a circle with their hands (the universal sign of the DVD) I wend back top side to watch soccer for a while. While soccer is popular here, they’re not one the same level of play as Europeans or South Americans. Still, it was fun to watch for a while until it got too hot. I wandered around Olympic Square for a while watching little kids roller skate and then went across the street to hide in an air condition Internet café. Finally, Sally called me and we were able to go back.
She said she really liked the branch here. It was small, with only 12 members, but bigger than we were expecting. One of the members even just received a mission call to Canada. which is really exciting. I guess Chinese members can go to serve in five countries. We’re not sure of all of them but the US, Canada and Australia are all on the list. Sally also said the members were very friendly and happy to welcome her into their group. She said she had the same feelings at this branch as she did at an American ward and I explained that was because the truth is the same everywhere.
We went home and had lunch. I took a quick nap while the rest of the family watched the Korean soap opera. I guess Sally’s dad slept through it too. Sally’s mom sure didn’t, she cried. She really gets into this show. Sally says this is a pretty common occurrence.
After the mandatory viewing of the Korean soap opera, we went to the Labor Park here in Dalian. This time we were prepared and finally took a camera. Unfortunately the light wasn’t too good so the photos aren’t the best. We’ll be sure to take a lot more. The park was really pretty. We were there for the end of the annual peony festival so there were a whole lot of fragrant flowers in bloom. They also had a lot of statues including one for each sign of the Chinese zodiac. They had some birds in cages and ponds of gold fish where people could fish for pets. I wanted to take a picture of it but Sally wouldn’t let me. I’ll show the pictures I was able to take when I get home to a fast Internet connection. The park was a really pretty place though, and I liked it.
On our way out, we bought so lamb kabobs from a street vendors for a kaui each. This place lives and dies by its street vendors. They’re everywhere selling everything. It’s an extra bit of fun that we just don’t have back home.
I conclusion, I like China.
I woke up this morning with a stomachache. Rather than get up and force food into a pained belly, I decided to stay in bed instead. This turned out to be a good idea because when I woke up a couple hours I felt a lot better. I had some fangao [a kind of steamed bread that I really like] for breakfast. The stomachache came back with a vengeance a hour or so later but after I went to the bathroom I’ve felt good for the rest of the day. Sally’s dad thinks it was because I ate the raw fish without dipping it in wasabi sauce first. Wasabi is a Japanese sauce that uses mostly horseradish. Because of my infamous horseradish experience in Vegas, there’s only one thing on earth I hate more than Bob Sagat, and that’s horseradish, so I think it was worth it.
After getting rid of the pain the only way I know how to deal with nagging stomach discomfort we slugged around the apartment for a while. We had plans to meet with a couple of Sally’s roommates from college who are still living in Dalian. We took a bus down one of the bigger streets called ZhongShan Street to a big mall. This same street is the one I’ve gone down many times. It has the train station, XingHai Square and many other important places on it. The buses hear are different from the ones I’m used to from Logan and Sydney. First off you have to pay and they have a lot of people riding them, which makes them totally from anything LTD has to offer. Here the buses stop at each stop to pick up and let off passengers, which with as many people riding as they have, is a pretty safe bet. In Sydney the buses will blow right by every stop unless on one there flags them down or someone on board presses the button to get off. In Australia you have to know where your going and they charge you accordingly, the further your stop, the more your ticket is. If you don’t have exact change, the driver will break a 10 or a 20 for you. You get a receipt and need to carry it with you for the duration of the trip incase the transit authority gets on to check for fare bludgers. Here you drop one kuai in the bucket and your good to go. For as long as your on the bus, you’re fine. In Australia people, with the exception of young punks who don’t count because they’re not people, are generally civil and will offer they’re seat to an elderly person or a mom with kids. Here, with so many people, you can’t always afford to be nice.
We went to a big mall by the train station. Like most big malls around the world on Saturdays with one was packed, mostly with young trendy people. It also had the most American places that I’ve seen in Dalian, including a McDonalds, a Pizza Hut and a Baskin Robbins. Sally and I were weighed down with three bags of soy vitamins that Sally’s friend wanted us to buy for her so we couldn’t walk around too much until they found us.
Sally’s two friends soon met up with us. They were Anne and Judy. Anne brought her husband, Liu Yang, and Judy brought her boyfriend Bryan. These, with the exception of Yang, are obviously their English names used for the sake of simplicity. Our original plan was to go to a big nice buffet of the fifth floor of the mall. We slowly forced our way through the crowd and up the escalators to the restaurant. The mall was like a bigger version of a mall in, you guessed it, Sydney. It was the confusing layout (it took forever to find the next set of escalators) and the awesomely Asianness of the food court that reminded me so much of the mall in Chinatown. Once we made it all the way to the top, the hostess informed us that the buffet was only open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from to 10 p.m. Since it was 3 we decided to find another place to eat. Someone suggested YiXin (one heart or love) Barbeque, a Korean barbeque that wasn’t far from the mall. So we hoped in a couple of cabs and headed over.
I don’t think I’ve ever really explained what a Korean barbeque is. If you’ve never eaten ate one, I highly recommended it. So much so that I’ll take you to one in Salt Lake sometime if your willing to pay. It’s kind of a do it yourself joint. The waitress brings you plates of sliced, raw, marinated meat. In the middle of the table is a hole, the waitress then brings a bucket of hot coal and places it in the hole. She caps it with a grill and you’re good to go. This means everyone can have their meat as done as they like it, and it slows the meal down allowing for better conversation with family and friends. However, it’s the marinated that really shines in this show. The meat is usually dripping with sauce and therefore dripping with flavor. I can’t really describe the flavor and usually just say it’s loaded with Koreany goodness. My friend Ryan Robbins once said it’s so good that he’d throw it up just so he eat it again.
We got a room and sat and ate and talked. It was different than the other people I’ve met since I’ve been here. These were Sally’s friends, not her parents so she was excited and the conversation was lively. Also because we were all of the same generation there was more to talk about. I understood pretty everything that was said because they spoke with good clear accents. I enjoyed it. After we finished eating, Sally gave the girls some of the vitamins that she had brought for gift and the guys some Pringles that we were originally supposed to ship to a friend’s family but the post office wouldn’t let us. I’ve never seen anyone so excited to get a tube of Pringles.
Afterwards we made our way home. We took the 11 bus which is a route that goes through the neighborhoods rather than down the main street. The bus was smaller, only had one seat on each side and seemed to be a slightly older model. Ironically, it was also equipped with TV. The driver grinded the gears a lot and even sent some kids flying from their seats. It was good for me though because it help me get my “bus legs” back.
We got off the bus at the park where we walked off dinner a few nights ago. As we walked home Sally called her parents to let them know we were heading back (we didn’t have a set of keys so we needed them to buzz us in). They weren’t home so Sally wanted to go to the nearby Carrefour store (think Chinese Wal-Mart) to buy some bread that she has been craving for a long time. It’s this really thin Indian Style bread called paobing (thrown bread). While we were there we also picked up a couple of drinks, a zhunzhunaicha (pearl milk tea, not really tea, and quite tasty, next time you’re in Logan I’ll take you to get some, my treat this time) and a suanmeitang (sour plum soup, to my knowledge you can’t find it in America because it doesn’t make it through customs because of the no disgusting drink law). When we got home Sally’s parents were back as well. Apparently they had a similar idea and had bought a bunch of snacks too. They had lychees, cherries and dried hawthorn (my favorite, it tastes like fruit leather). We snacked and then played cards. They tried to teach me this ridiculously complicated but equally popular card game. I’m still trying to learn and not doing terribly well yet.
-----------Sunday, May 14, 2006-------------------------
Sally called Elder Jia, the go to guy in China for members to find a local congregation to attend. To our surprise and delight, Dalian had one. We really weren’t expecting to be able to go to church here. There was only one problem: Non-Chinese citizens couldn’t go. We still wanted Sally to go to church so we headed out. The plan was for me to hang out at Olympic Electronics City while she went to church. Not my ideal Sunday but it was better than hanging out at home. Electronic City is a two-floor electronics free for all underneath a soccer complex. It was a lot like the clothing expo but with computers rather than skirts.
It was pretty cool. I don’t know how much any of the stuff cost because it wasn’t labeled. I didn’t have any money so I didn’t ask. They had a wide variety of stuff though, everything from TV’s to computers to light bulbs. I spent most of my time looking through the movies. Everyone seemed to want to sell me DVDs (I blame the white guy factor). China is known for it’s movie piracy and I was smack-dab in the middle of it. If I wanted to I could have bought Mission Impossible Three or the new 9/11 movie that just came out. Trying not to look like too much of a foreigner, I spend most of the time thumbing through the TV series. Chinese TV aren’t open ended like ours are. They usually feature one major story arc and several small ones over the course of 20 to 50 episodes. These are very popular and I really like them. I’ve watched a couple of them back home and really like the way the stories can be more drawn out and how there’s usually a whole lot of kung fu. Fortunately there are other places where you can buy not pirated versions of these and I intend to stock up.
We were originally thinking they would only have sacrament meeting but they had a full block so I had even more time to kill. Exhausting my desire to have people say to me “Hello, DVD” making a circle with their hands (the universal sign of the DVD) I wend back top side to watch soccer for a while. While soccer is popular here, they’re not one the same level of play as Europeans or South Americans. Still, it was fun to watch for a while until it got too hot. I wandered around Olympic Square for a while watching little kids roller skate and then went across the street to hide in an air condition Internet café. Finally, Sally called me and we were able to go back.
She said she really liked the branch here. It was small, with only 12 members, but bigger than we were expecting. One of the members even just received a mission call to Canada. which is really exciting. I guess Chinese members can go to serve in five countries. We’re not sure of all of them but the US, Canada and Australia are all on the list. Sally also said the members were very friendly and happy to welcome her into their group. She said she had the same feelings at this branch as she did at an American ward and I explained that was because the truth is the same everywhere.
We went home and had lunch. I took a quick nap while the rest of the family watched the Korean soap opera. I guess Sally’s dad slept through it too. Sally’s mom sure didn’t, she cried. She really gets into this show. Sally says this is a pretty common occurrence.
After the mandatory viewing of the Korean soap opera, we went to the Labor Park here in Dalian. This time we were prepared and finally took a camera. Unfortunately the light wasn’t too good so the photos aren’t the best. We’ll be sure to take a lot more. The park was really pretty. We were there for the end of the annual peony festival so there were a whole lot of fragrant flowers in bloom. They also had a lot of statues including one for each sign of the Chinese zodiac. They had some birds in cages and ponds of gold fish where people could fish for pets. I wanted to take a picture of it but Sally wouldn’t let me. I’ll show the pictures I was able to take when I get home to a fast Internet connection. The park was a really pretty place though, and I liked it.
On our way out, we bought so lamb kabobs from a street vendors for a kaui each. This place lives and dies by its street vendors. They’re everywhere selling everything. It’s an extra bit of fun that we just don’t have back home.
I conclusion, I like China.
I'm in China post 2
Yesterday was very laid back. After our quest to Shenyang we weren’t really in the mood to do too much. We lounged around the apartment, watched TV and, of course, ate. After dinner we went for a walk. I’m feeling a lot more comfortable walking around. I can cross the street all by myself now and everything. I even know am starting to know my around a bit. Not enough that I would want to wander around on my own, but it’s still nice to not feel lost all the time.
Our walk led us to a park not far from Sally’s home. I was a nice place with a small lake in the middle of it. There were some blossoms on the trees which added a nice fragrance to the air and bats flying around which added awesomeness. Even though it was getting dark, the place was full of people enjoying the evening. Some were fishing in the lake. Many of them were walking their dogs. There are a lot more dogs in China than I would have imagined, I’ve even seen the running free on their own, but all of them are small. I’m probably only seen two or three bigger than a sheltie. The kids around my age were mostly in small groups playing a game similar to hacky sack but with metal disks tied together and feathers coming out of one side. I think it’s a new fad because no one seems to be very good yet.
Today we went shopping again. This time it wasn’t to a shopping center like we’ve been to before, it was more of a crowded warehouse full of small wall-to-wall shops selling all kinds of clothes and other things. With so many vendors in such a small area there is a feeling of high competition in the air. The people running these stands are literally willing to sell you the shirts off their backs. Most of them wear this merchandise so that you can see it on some one. With everyone competing for your money, smart consumers can really take advantage. Sally’s mom is an expert haggler. She was able to get one vendor all the way down from 190 kaui to 100. I would say it was amazing to watch her in action but I actually wasn’t able to see it. My job was to disappear as soon as she and Sally started asking some one about the price or quality of a piece of clothing. This is because they were afraid that people would try to rip them off if they had a “rich” foreigner with them. But hey, I’m a ninja, I’m used disappearing on commanded.
While they would haggle I’d walk around the expo and explore. It was weird to see the different levels of excitement of the part of the vendors. Some would shout at you, trying to convince you to buy from them. Other just sit back and wait, reading, cross-stitching or even napping to pass the time. There were no dressing rooms like in a real mall, but who needs a dressing room when the merchant can just hold up a sheet for you while you change behind it? Like I said the people running the shop would often wear want the sold, tag still attached, so you could tell what they sold, even if they weren’t at their stand. If they had a nice shirt, they were from a shirt stand. Nice pants were from the pants shop. I can only assume what the underwear vendors were wearing. I figure it didn’t affect me. Actually underwear was probably the most commonly sold item there, which kind of limited what I could do while I waited for Sally and her mom. If I’m looking at pants, feeling the different materials and comparing them, I’m a discerning shopper. Do the same thing at the bra shop and I’m a pervert.
After we bought a bunch of stuff for various people back home, we went to eat at a restaurant called Jiajia (rough translation: Good good). At the entrance they have plates with all the meat and vegetables for each dish with a price tag set out so you can see exactly what you are getting. What you actually eat is still in back unless you order something that requires they pick a fresh fish or lobster from the many tanks on one wall. The whole place was booming. It was one of the loudest, most exciting places I’ve ever eaten. The food was really good too. We had Chinese style ribs, a Sichuan style fish and some egg and vegetable soup. The ribs were actually a cut of meat from the top of the rib, right up against the spine, not as far down as Western ribs. It’s funny, while we were staying at my Grandma’s right before we went to the airport I watched a show on the Food Network about an annual rib cook off in Reno. While I was watching it and drooling at the different ribs, I thought to myself that ribs were a truly great, truly American invention. I had forgotten that once again, the Chinese beat us by 4000 years, give or take. Sichuan cooking is one of the five traditional styles of cooking here and is one of my favorites. Basically it means cooking with a couple handfuls of dried red chili peppers and everything dripping in oil. It was delicious and just what I needed to clean the pipes.
After lunch we went to a world even more foreign to me that the streets of Dalian. A world I’ve never gone before and about which I know nothing about, a beauty salon. Sally has decided that while she’s here she wants to get her hair cut so we shopped around a little. I tried to avoid Chinese barbers in Sydney. My hair is so different from Chinese hair that the few times I strayed from my rule I suffered for it. They should do OK with Sally’s though.
Sally didn’t feel to well so she napped for the rest of the afternoon, giving me a chance to type up the day so far while watching soup operas imported from Korea with Sally’s mom. She’s kind of addicted to them. She was more fun to watch her than the TV.
Once Sally’s dad came home we all went out to eat with a friend of her father’s family. They took us to a buffet at a nice hotel here in town. In exchange me and Sally were supposed to speak a little English with their daughter. This sounded like a fair trade to me. The hotel obvious caters to foreigners and seemed like a really nice place. They decorated the place with Italians flags and boasted Italian cuisine but all I could find form Italy was pizza and a couple pasta dishes. Still that’s better than I normally get. They did have a lot of Western dishes, including roast beef, pork chops and even venison. All this was along side many traditional Chinese dishes. I tried to eat a wide variety of dishes but our hosts kept giving me meat so I had to keep eating it, you know how it is. They also got a bunch of sashimi, raw fish, for everyone to eat, but it turned out I was the only one who would eat it. I was so full I could hardly walk.
In China there is not nonsmoking section in restaurants. While more and more parts of the country are prohibiting smoking, restaurants aren’t any of these parts. Our host and many of the nearby tables’ guests smoked continually throughout the meal. While I’m still not about to take up smoking it doesn’t bother me as much as it used too. If I come home smelling like smoke, don’t go rifling through my stuff looking for the rest of the pack to make me eat it. It just means I’ve been to China. Fortunately for health reasons, neither of Sally’s parents smoke – or drink for that matter – so we haven’t had to had those orders at home. This is doubly good since Sally has been sick lately and smoke has been sending her into coughing fits.
One funny thing that happened during dinner, I was waiting for the server to cut me a slice of roast beef. The meat looked just how I life it, brown all around but a nice shade of pink inside. This two Chinese gets were staring at it wondering what on earth it was. “It’s raw meat,” one said. “No way, that’s not possible,” he friend explained. “Now that’s how the foreigners eat it,” the first boy added. “Yep,” I explained” and it’s delicious.”
After dinner we went for a drive to see Dalian at night. Since we’ve been usually been going to bed by 10:00 p.m., this was my first real experience with Dalian nightlife. Despite being as long fro east to west as the US, China doesn’t use time zones. This means an extremely eastern city like Dalian gets dark early, like around 7:30 these days. We drove along a windy mountain road that from what everyone told me is very pretty during the day. To me, it just looked dark. Then we went to XingHai park to walk around. It was really pretty at night, with good lighting on all the statues and the nearby buildings.
This is when I learned that you have to pay to use the public restrooms here. This is a whole new experience for me. The only other time I’ve paid to do my business was in Australia and that was just once to use the “Toilet of the Future.” This was not the toilet of the future. It was more like the bathroom of 50 years ago. I’ll spare everyone the gory details of the revolution I’m planning on starting if they every start charging to use the restroom in Logon. Let’s just say it’s disgusting.
The whole bathroom experience is very different here than it is in America. Here it’s not as relaxing. All the have are squatters and the walls are lowered to match. Also, with the exception of the Shanghai airport, you have to take your own toilet paper.
Our walk led us to a park not far from Sally’s home. I was a nice place with a small lake in the middle of it. There were some blossoms on the trees which added a nice fragrance to the air and bats flying around which added awesomeness. Even though it was getting dark, the place was full of people enjoying the evening. Some were fishing in the lake. Many of them were walking their dogs. There are a lot more dogs in China than I would have imagined, I’ve even seen the running free on their own, but all of them are small. I’m probably only seen two or three bigger than a sheltie. The kids around my age were mostly in small groups playing a game similar to hacky sack but with metal disks tied together and feathers coming out of one side. I think it’s a new fad because no one seems to be very good yet.
Today we went shopping again. This time it wasn’t to a shopping center like we’ve been to before, it was more of a crowded warehouse full of small wall-to-wall shops selling all kinds of clothes and other things. With so many vendors in such a small area there is a feeling of high competition in the air. The people running these stands are literally willing to sell you the shirts off their backs. Most of them wear this merchandise so that you can see it on some one. With everyone competing for your money, smart consumers can really take advantage. Sally’s mom is an expert haggler. She was able to get one vendor all the way down from 190 kaui to 100. I would say it was amazing to watch her in action but I actually wasn’t able to see it. My job was to disappear as soon as she and Sally started asking some one about the price or quality of a piece of clothing. This is because they were afraid that people would try to rip them off if they had a “rich” foreigner with them. But hey, I’m a ninja, I’m used disappearing on commanded.
While they would haggle I’d walk around the expo and explore. It was weird to see the different levels of excitement of the part of the vendors. Some would shout at you, trying to convince you to buy from them. Other just sit back and wait, reading, cross-stitching or even napping to pass the time. There were no dressing rooms like in a real mall, but who needs a dressing room when the merchant can just hold up a sheet for you while you change behind it? Like I said the people running the shop would often wear want the sold, tag still attached, so you could tell what they sold, even if they weren’t at their stand. If they had a nice shirt, they were from a shirt stand. Nice pants were from the pants shop. I can only assume what the underwear vendors were wearing. I figure it didn’t affect me. Actually underwear was probably the most commonly sold item there, which kind of limited what I could do while I waited for Sally and her mom. If I’m looking at pants, feeling the different materials and comparing them, I’m a discerning shopper. Do the same thing at the bra shop and I’m a pervert.
After we bought a bunch of stuff for various people back home, we went to eat at a restaurant called Jiajia (rough translation: Good good). At the entrance they have plates with all the meat and vegetables for each dish with a price tag set out so you can see exactly what you are getting. What you actually eat is still in back unless you order something that requires they pick a fresh fish or lobster from the many tanks on one wall. The whole place was booming. It was one of the loudest, most exciting places I’ve ever eaten. The food was really good too. We had Chinese style ribs, a Sichuan style fish and some egg and vegetable soup. The ribs were actually a cut of meat from the top of the rib, right up against the spine, not as far down as Western ribs. It’s funny, while we were staying at my Grandma’s right before we went to the airport I watched a show on the Food Network about an annual rib cook off in Reno. While I was watching it and drooling at the different ribs, I thought to myself that ribs were a truly great, truly American invention. I had forgotten that once again, the Chinese beat us by 4000 years, give or take. Sichuan cooking is one of the five traditional styles of cooking here and is one of my favorites. Basically it means cooking with a couple handfuls of dried red chili peppers and everything dripping in oil. It was delicious and just what I needed to clean the pipes.
After lunch we went to a world even more foreign to me that the streets of Dalian. A world I’ve never gone before and about which I know nothing about, a beauty salon. Sally has decided that while she’s here she wants to get her hair cut so we shopped around a little. I tried to avoid Chinese barbers in Sydney. My hair is so different from Chinese hair that the few times I strayed from my rule I suffered for it. They should do OK with Sally’s though.
Sally didn’t feel to well so she napped for the rest of the afternoon, giving me a chance to type up the day so far while watching soup operas imported from Korea with Sally’s mom. She’s kind of addicted to them. She was more fun to watch her than the TV.
Once Sally’s dad came home we all went out to eat with a friend of her father’s family. They took us to a buffet at a nice hotel here in town. In exchange me and Sally were supposed to speak a little English with their daughter. This sounded like a fair trade to me. The hotel obvious caters to foreigners and seemed like a really nice place. They decorated the place with Italians flags and boasted Italian cuisine but all I could find form Italy was pizza and a couple pasta dishes. Still that’s better than I normally get. They did have a lot of Western dishes, including roast beef, pork chops and even venison. All this was along side many traditional Chinese dishes. I tried to eat a wide variety of dishes but our hosts kept giving me meat so I had to keep eating it, you know how it is. They also got a bunch of sashimi, raw fish, for everyone to eat, but it turned out I was the only one who would eat it. I was so full I could hardly walk.
In China there is not nonsmoking section in restaurants. While more and more parts of the country are prohibiting smoking, restaurants aren’t any of these parts. Our host and many of the nearby tables’ guests smoked continually throughout the meal. While I’m still not about to take up smoking it doesn’t bother me as much as it used too. If I come home smelling like smoke, don’t go rifling through my stuff looking for the rest of the pack to make me eat it. It just means I’ve been to China. Fortunately for health reasons, neither of Sally’s parents smoke – or drink for that matter – so we haven’t had to had those orders at home. This is doubly good since Sally has been sick lately and smoke has been sending her into coughing fits.
One funny thing that happened during dinner, I was waiting for the server to cut me a slice of roast beef. The meat looked just how I life it, brown all around but a nice shade of pink inside. This two Chinese gets were staring at it wondering what on earth it was. “It’s raw meat,” one said. “No way, that’s not possible,” he friend explained. “Now that’s how the foreigners eat it,” the first boy added. “Yep,” I explained” and it’s delicious.”
After dinner we went for a drive to see Dalian at night. Since we’ve been usually been going to bed by 10:00 p.m., this was my first real experience with Dalian nightlife. Despite being as long fro east to west as the US, China doesn’t use time zones. This means an extremely eastern city like Dalian gets dark early, like around 7:30 these days. We drove along a windy mountain road that from what everyone told me is very pretty during the day. To me, it just looked dark. Then we went to XingHai park to walk around. It was really pretty at night, with good lighting on all the statues and the nearby buildings.
This is when I learned that you have to pay to use the public restrooms here. This is a whole new experience for me. The only other time I’ve paid to do my business was in Australia and that was just once to use the “Toilet of the Future.” This was not the toilet of the future. It was more like the bathroom of 50 years ago. I’ll spare everyone the gory details of the revolution I’m planning on starting if they every start charging to use the restroom in Logon. Let’s just say it’s disgusting.
The whole bathroom experience is very different here than it is in America. Here it’s not as relaxing. All the have are squatters and the walls are lowered to match. Also, with the exception of the Shanghai airport, you have to take your own toilet paper.
I'm in China, post 1
I’m in freaking China!
After the worst chunk of long, boring and painful travel in my life I’m finally in that mysterious land to the East. It’s kind of weird for me. For the last five years I’ve dreamed of coming to the land of great food and Great Walls and now I’m really here. It’s kinda like being able to sneeze after your nose tickles all day.
I’ve only been here for three days now but it seems a lot longer than that. I’ll blame the jetlag and the language barrier for that. Now that I’m over that, I think time should resume its allotted course. And by that I mean the jet lag, I don’t think I’ll ever overcome the language barrier. It’s hard for me to imagine that I ever got by in Sydney like I did. I think the people there spoke a different kind of Chinese. Of course I think a lot of things.
Before we left, I would make fun of Sally because every time I would ask her what we would do here she would talk about how much good food we’d eat while we were here. That was really all I could get her to talk about was food, occasionally she would saying something about going shopping but then she’d talk about all the treats we’d be buying from street vendors while we’re out. Now that I’ve been here a few days I realized why she talked like this. All we do is eat. Occasionally we go shopping, but mostly, we eat.
We start at the traditional first stop of breakfast. I’ve never been much a breakfast eater. A pop tart or toast is more than I normally eat and more than I need. That theory doesn’t fly in this family though. Breakfast is usually a couple hardboiled eggs (usually one from a goose and at least one from chickens) a plate of Chinese cucumbers (thinner and crispier than the English variety), a plate of huge shrimp or a shrimp like animal I’ve never seen before and a huge chunk of this chewy sweet bread that we bought from a street vendor for 5 kuai. One the whole breakfast is okay. A little bland, but okay. The problem is the amount of food involved. By the time I forced it all it, I’m good for the rest of the day. They don’t seem to think it’s enough to get me through the rest of the morning. I’m usually handed a huge bowl of strawberries and told to go watch TV while they clean up and figure out what we’re gonna do the rest of the day.
The rest of the day usually includes lunch. Lunch is usually really, really good, although yesterday Sally made me eat a pig’s foot even though she knew I didn’t like them. Sally loves seafood more than she loves me so we have seafood a lot. We’ve had clams and scallops so far and I’ve sure there’s a lot more in store for me. Sally told her mom that I like meat so we have a pork dish and usually some meatballs for lunch each day. We have Chinese salad (raw radish slices and sauce) and soup too. Add a bowl of rice to this and it’s hard to eat it all. It’s delicious, but I’m only one man, my stomach has limits.
Dinner is usually what we couldn’t each for lunch with a couple other dishes made especially for the occasion. It’s a whole lot more food and my crappy schedule of work and school has left me ill prepared. It’s getting easier though. Largely because I think I’m gaining weight. I was actually hoping to lose a little of that here but maybe (warning: I’m about to give way too much information, you may want to skip ahead to the next paragraph) once I start pooping like normal, I may actually be able to do that. As of right now I’m still carrying most of the food I’ve eaten since we landed.
Fortunately, there’s one thing in this country of tea and beer to help me wash all this food down, Smart. Smart is a Coke product that Sally introduced me to while we were in “Coke World” in Las Vegas. It’s an apple flavored pop that they have here and it is delicious. It’s like I can finally get that flavor I’ve enjoyed all my life without the hassle from all that unnecessary chewing. My life is now complete.
Okay in truth we do do a little more than just each. We have gone shopping a few times already and I’m sure we’ll go again. Shopping is popular activity in China, you have endless opportunities. Everywhere you look there are make shift street markets with people selling everything from produce to electronics. You can get all your shopping done before you even get to the store. Of course these merchants often try to get my attention because I’m foreign but so far I’ve resisted their every business skill.
Things are really cheap here too, when I remember that the prices are in kuai, not dollars. Since one US dollar is worth about 8 kuai, this is a pretty important conversion to make. So far we’ve gotten me a nice pair of shoes and Chinese national soccer jersey. We bought Sally all kinds of stuff, none of which I’m able to remember right now. I may be okay with shopping in China, but I’m still a guy.
Dalian is a very amazing city. Often in travel guides they will talk about the rhythm or the pace of a city. Dalian doesn’t have a pace and rhythm indicates some sort of order. Here in Dalian, they are a chaos, and yet it’s a chaos that works. Everyone and everything is happening completely independent from everything else. There are so many people that everyone has stopped caring. The other people on the street aren’t people, they’re just an obstacle on the way home. Everyone just pushes their own directions and because there’s five million people all going in a different direction, there not enough in any particular direction for anything bad to happen. It’s a beautiful thing to just sit back and watch because even though you don’t know how, it works.
I used to feel the same way about Sydney, but then I became a part of the chaos, rather than an observer, so it lost some of the mystery. Dalian still has it. Now that I’ve had more experience, I’m willing to bet that all big cities do.
There are many other similarities between Dalian and my home down under. Both have brick sidewalks, which are beautiful, but are hard on the feet and harder on the knees. At least I’m not wearing church shoes this time. It’s also really, really humid. If you’ve never lived right by the sea, it’s an experience. Your clothes are never really dry, your sweat just stays on you and you pee a lot more because of it. Both Sydney and Dalian have a growing city feel to them. Dalian has a higher percentage of Asians, but not by much. Both have a lot of restaurants, none of which have tacos and a lot of adult bookstores. I don’t know if the adult bookstores sell tacos and I don’t care enough to ask.
There are differences as well. In Sydney, if you were in a crosswalk, you were the king of Australia. You could step out in front of anyone and they would stop. It was quite the empowering experience to have. Here, it’s every man, woman and child for themselves. You just run out and try to squeeze in between cars because nobody is gonna wait for you, even if you were the king of Australia. It’s scary trying to cross the street, it’s like very high stakes Frogger. So far I haven’t seen anyone lose though. That’s heartening.
I’m sure there are more differences worth mentioning. I’ll have to write them down as they come to me.
I do spend a lot of time here watching TV. This is just to fill the time. We’re not here to travel all the time. First and foremost, we’re visiting family and that leaves some spare time. While I’m still not sure of everything I can usually find something worth watching. There’s usually a movie or a kung-fu series on. In fact the first thing I saw on Chinese TV was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Mostly though I watch sports. Sports are easy because I don’t have to understand everything they say. There big into the NBA here so I’ve watched some of the finals. Best of all, the Chinese ESPN has been gearing up for the World Cup so they’ve been showing classic games from previous tournaments along with plenty of Chinese league soccer. It’s good to have one while I type or draw or do whatever.
The bed that we sleep on is far from comfortable. It’s just a layer of foam on a wooden slab. While it takes longer for me to fall asleep and I have roll around I like, my back hasn’t been hurting me lately which is good. I’ll let you know how it goes.
We’ll that me so far, any questions send them by email. That’s the best way to communicate with me. See ya’ll later.
-----------------------Tuesday and Wednesday, May 10, 2006--------------------------------------
Well it’s been a bad day, but the worst days make the best blog posts.
It’s actually not been that bad, it’s just been long and hard. But like most things that are long and hard, it’s been worth it. Let me explain.
Part of our plans here were for Sally to renew her visa. For students like her that’s just part of coming home. She and her mom were going to leave on Tuesday for Shenyang, the capitol of the Liaoning province (that’s where Dalian is by the way) and would come back really late on Wednesday. The cheapest way to get from city to city in China is by train. They left around noon to catch the train for the capitol.
While they were gone, Sally’s father was going to stay home from work to look after me. I told him that I was fine to stay alone and just watch TV, read, draw and write but he insisted. After our wives left the two of us went to XingHai (Star of the Sea) Park, the largest public square in Asia. It was a really impressive place. There were a lot of fountains going down the center of the square, statutes of various sports around the perimeter (Dalian is a very sports oriented town) and some low budget carnival style rides. XingHai Park is right by the ocean. Surprisingly, there weren’t very many seagulls and only a few pigeons. On the walls of the pier, we could see people scraping off some kind of shell fish (small clams I think). There was also a huge monument dedicated to the 100th year anniversary of the founding of the city back in 1999. It had a thousand footprints leading up to a couple kids playing in the sand. It was one of the many things that I wish I had brought my camera for, but without my wife, I tend to forget pretty much everything. I understand it only gets worse from here.
The square earns its rank of biggest in Asia. It’s pretty darn big. Sally’s dad was impressed with my being able to handle walking the whole thing. Apparently when they take Sally, she has trouble keeping up.
We got to the park via bus. We took a double decker bus and at Sally’s dad’s recommendation sat in the front seat on the top level. It was an exciting and terrifying view of the city. I was actually seated a little bit further forward than the driver so there were several times that I thought we were surely going to crash into a cab or a scooter or an old lady with a cart. However the bus driver seemed to really know his trade. We weaved in and out and no one got hurt. After a few minutes I was able to relax and take in more of the city. There are statues, huge modern shopping centers and KFCs everywhere you go. Even among all the hustle and bustle of modern Dalian, I was able to see glimpses of a more traditional China. These ranged from old people doing Tai Chi in a small grove of trees to playing mahjong on a cardboard box. It’s an interesting dynamic.
We came home from the park and started dinner. We made dumpling. The filling wasn’t made from shrimp or sausage like Sally normally makes, but rather some kind of sea worms. They tasted alright but after a couple their chewy texture got hard to swallow. Her dad taught me a better way to wrap dumplings that is quicker and looks pretty. With practice I will become the best in the world for sure.
While we were eating, Sally called to tell us that she had forgotten an important piece of paper in her backpack and that she needed to have it brought to her if she were to get her visa. So at 10:30 at night we headed to the train station and caught a train for Shenyang. I’ve read in people of travel books about the charm of the Chinese rail system. Well as we took the all night train, I didn’t see any charm. All I saw was a crowded train car with butt-numbingly hard seats, smoke coming in from the area between cars and people constantly jostling for seats. They sell seats by number but they also sell plenty of “no seat” tickets incase some one misses the train because they’re waiting at a bus station instead of the train station or something like that. If you have a “no seat” ticket you have to pounce on what you can as soon as you can so you never have an empty seat next to you. It’s hot, I’m sweating like a Mexican monkey and the train keeps shaking me awake just as soon as I fell asleep.
The train clattered through the darkness from 11:00 p.m.until 4:00 a.m. We got off at Shenyang South station but after an hour we learned we really wanted Shenyang North. While we were sorting this out I saw my first argument in China. Some lady was fighting with the ticket seller about the price of something. I’ve seem such confrontations many times before but what I thought was funny was how here, people weren’t at all trying to hide the fact that they were watching and enjoying the show. It wasn’t like in America of Australia when once a situation turn tense everyone pretends they’re not there.
We took a cab to the northern station where we met up with Sally and her mom. We went back to the place they were staying, a room in some one else’s apartment they’ve turned into a bed and breakfast, minus a breakfast. No sooner than I got through the door than I collapsed on one. This ended my hope that the bed we sleep on at Sally’s parents’ was the exception not the rule for beds in China. At this point I didn’t care, I was asleep within moments. When I woke up, the wives had just come back from something. We all went to get breakfast, breads and milk from a little store around the corner. I’ve had a lot of Chinese friends in America complain to me about the quality of milk and bread we have in the states. For milk, I can see their point. I wouldn’t say it’s any better than our milk, but it’s not any worse either. It’s just different. I guess it’s just a matter of what you’re used to. In the bread department, we win though. These weren’t the steamed breads that China is really good at, these were Western style packaged breads. The first one I ate was OK, but the other one was a sweetbread with pieces of dried ham, lines of cheese and a chewy mayonnaise center. Not a good mix.
After breakfast Sally and her mom went to the American Embassy to take care of everything. I slept more. My sleep here is hardly ever without dreams. When I woke up, Sally came back with good news, all was well and she would be able to come home when this trip was all over. We were actually a little worried that there may be problems because of our marriage. Fortunately for us, it wasn’t even an issue. Prayer works, just in case you were wondering.
Once that was behind us, we were able to go out for lunch. We went to a Korean Barbeque, of which there are many here in Liaoning, which was pretty good. This let me see a little more of Shenyang. It’s a lot more of what I expected a Chinese city to look like, although the only specific thing I can put my finger on is the presence of bikes. Sally explained that Dalian is too hilly for most people to ride bikes.
After lunch me and Sally’s dad went to catch our train, leaving the women to shop and pick up Sally’s visa. On the bus to the station, I met I guy from Nigeria named Miked. The bus was just packed with wall-to-wall Chinese people and there we were this one white guy and one black guy. He was really friendly and spoke good English. It was nice to know I not the only foreign person here.
We missed the train though so we had to switch our tickets for “no seaters” on the same train Sally and her mom were on. Since the train didn't leave until 11, we had a lot of time to kill. I read a bit from “Ender's Game,” the only thing I brought with me to Shenyang, but mostly we just waited. Since there was no guarantee that we'd be able to sleep on the train, we went to a place were you were able to rent a bed for a few hours. They had “rooms” fenced off with particle board with a TV and eight beds in a room. Travelers often pay a few kuai to get out of the waiting room and lay down for a little bit. These beds were also the hard kind but by this point I'm used to them. What I wasn't used to was the TV blaring the Chinese equivalent of the Lawrence Welk Show (I assume it was basically the same thing because there were people singing and bubble, that was Lawrence Welk right?). I still managed to grab a short nap, which made all the difference.
That train left at 11:00 at night and we didn't get back to Dalian until 6 a.m. Even though it was a lot longer than the first right, it was a lot easier to deal with. It's always better when the person sleeping on your shoulder is you wife, not some old man. We made small talk with some to the other passengers. Most were impressed that I spoke Chinese but still preferred to ask them questions about me than ask me directly. This bothered me at first but then I remembered I was too tired to care. I finished Ender's Game and tried to sleep with varying degrees of success. Finally, after blaring the Dalian theme song over the PA system, we rolled into the final station.
From this point it was a quick trolley ride back home. The Zhus all wanted to eat breakfast but I was too tired. I excused myself politely and crashed in bed. I didn't wake up until about 10 a.m. I finally got to shower after 50 plus hours. I finally busted my Gillette Quatro out of it’s packaging. I'll admit, I used to make fun about how the razor company is getting out of control with the race towards infinite blades, but I enjoyed the shave. I could hear my stubble crying in vain for mercy against the power of the fourth blade.
So that's my adventure so far. It's one heck of a ride. I may not be having fun all the time, but I'm enjoying every minute of it. Yeah China
After the worst chunk of long, boring and painful travel in my life I’m finally in that mysterious land to the East. It’s kind of weird for me. For the last five years I’ve dreamed of coming to the land of great food and Great Walls and now I’m really here. It’s kinda like being able to sneeze after your nose tickles all day.
I’ve only been here for three days now but it seems a lot longer than that. I’ll blame the jetlag and the language barrier for that. Now that I’m over that, I think time should resume its allotted course. And by that I mean the jet lag, I don’t think I’ll ever overcome the language barrier. It’s hard for me to imagine that I ever got by in Sydney like I did. I think the people there spoke a different kind of Chinese. Of course I think a lot of things.
Before we left, I would make fun of Sally because every time I would ask her what we would do here she would talk about how much good food we’d eat while we were here. That was really all I could get her to talk about was food, occasionally she would saying something about going shopping but then she’d talk about all the treats we’d be buying from street vendors while we’re out. Now that I’ve been here a few days I realized why she talked like this. All we do is eat. Occasionally we go shopping, but mostly, we eat.
We start at the traditional first stop of breakfast. I’ve never been much a breakfast eater. A pop tart or toast is more than I normally eat and more than I need. That theory doesn’t fly in this family though. Breakfast is usually a couple hardboiled eggs (usually one from a goose and at least one from chickens) a plate of Chinese cucumbers (thinner and crispier than the English variety), a plate of huge shrimp or a shrimp like animal I’ve never seen before and a huge chunk of this chewy sweet bread that we bought from a street vendor for 5 kuai. One the whole breakfast is okay. A little bland, but okay. The problem is the amount of food involved. By the time I forced it all it, I’m good for the rest of the day. They don’t seem to think it’s enough to get me through the rest of the morning. I’m usually handed a huge bowl of strawberries and told to go watch TV while they clean up and figure out what we’re gonna do the rest of the day.
The rest of the day usually includes lunch. Lunch is usually really, really good, although yesterday Sally made me eat a pig’s foot even though she knew I didn’t like them. Sally loves seafood more than she loves me so we have seafood a lot. We’ve had clams and scallops so far and I’ve sure there’s a lot more in store for me. Sally told her mom that I like meat so we have a pork dish and usually some meatballs for lunch each day. We have Chinese salad (raw radish slices and sauce) and soup too. Add a bowl of rice to this and it’s hard to eat it all. It’s delicious, but I’m only one man, my stomach has limits.
Dinner is usually what we couldn’t each for lunch with a couple other dishes made especially for the occasion. It’s a whole lot more food and my crappy schedule of work and school has left me ill prepared. It’s getting easier though. Largely because I think I’m gaining weight. I was actually hoping to lose a little of that here but maybe (warning: I’m about to give way too much information, you may want to skip ahead to the next paragraph) once I start pooping like normal, I may actually be able to do that. As of right now I’m still carrying most of the food I’ve eaten since we landed.
Fortunately, there’s one thing in this country of tea and beer to help me wash all this food down, Smart. Smart is a Coke product that Sally introduced me to while we were in “Coke World” in Las Vegas. It’s an apple flavored pop that they have here and it is delicious. It’s like I can finally get that flavor I’ve enjoyed all my life without the hassle from all that unnecessary chewing. My life is now complete.
Okay in truth we do do a little more than just each. We have gone shopping a few times already and I’m sure we’ll go again. Shopping is popular activity in China, you have endless opportunities. Everywhere you look there are make shift street markets with people selling everything from produce to electronics. You can get all your shopping done before you even get to the store. Of course these merchants often try to get my attention because I’m foreign but so far I’ve resisted their every business skill.
Things are really cheap here too, when I remember that the prices are in kuai, not dollars. Since one US dollar is worth about 8 kuai, this is a pretty important conversion to make. So far we’ve gotten me a nice pair of shoes and Chinese national soccer jersey. We bought Sally all kinds of stuff, none of which I’m able to remember right now. I may be okay with shopping in China, but I’m still a guy.
Dalian is a very amazing city. Often in travel guides they will talk about the rhythm or the pace of a city. Dalian doesn’t have a pace and rhythm indicates some sort of order. Here in Dalian, they are a chaos, and yet it’s a chaos that works. Everyone and everything is happening completely independent from everything else. There are so many people that everyone has stopped caring. The other people on the street aren’t people, they’re just an obstacle on the way home. Everyone just pushes their own directions and because there’s five million people all going in a different direction, there not enough in any particular direction for anything bad to happen. It’s a beautiful thing to just sit back and watch because even though you don’t know how, it works.
I used to feel the same way about Sydney, but then I became a part of the chaos, rather than an observer, so it lost some of the mystery. Dalian still has it. Now that I’ve had more experience, I’m willing to bet that all big cities do.
There are many other similarities between Dalian and my home down under. Both have brick sidewalks, which are beautiful, but are hard on the feet and harder on the knees. At least I’m not wearing church shoes this time. It’s also really, really humid. If you’ve never lived right by the sea, it’s an experience. Your clothes are never really dry, your sweat just stays on you and you pee a lot more because of it. Both Sydney and Dalian have a growing city feel to them. Dalian has a higher percentage of Asians, but not by much. Both have a lot of restaurants, none of which have tacos and a lot of adult bookstores. I don’t know if the adult bookstores sell tacos and I don’t care enough to ask.
There are differences as well. In Sydney, if you were in a crosswalk, you were the king of Australia. You could step out in front of anyone and they would stop. It was quite the empowering experience to have. Here, it’s every man, woman and child for themselves. You just run out and try to squeeze in between cars because nobody is gonna wait for you, even if you were the king of Australia. It’s scary trying to cross the street, it’s like very high stakes Frogger. So far I haven’t seen anyone lose though. That’s heartening.
I’m sure there are more differences worth mentioning. I’ll have to write them down as they come to me.
I do spend a lot of time here watching TV. This is just to fill the time. We’re not here to travel all the time. First and foremost, we’re visiting family and that leaves some spare time. While I’m still not sure of everything I can usually find something worth watching. There’s usually a movie or a kung-fu series on. In fact the first thing I saw on Chinese TV was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Mostly though I watch sports. Sports are easy because I don’t have to understand everything they say. There big into the NBA here so I’ve watched some of the finals. Best of all, the Chinese ESPN has been gearing up for the World Cup so they’ve been showing classic games from previous tournaments along with plenty of Chinese league soccer. It’s good to have one while I type or draw or do whatever.
The bed that we sleep on is far from comfortable. It’s just a layer of foam on a wooden slab. While it takes longer for me to fall asleep and I have roll around I like, my back hasn’t been hurting me lately which is good. I’ll let you know how it goes.
We’ll that me so far, any questions send them by email. That’s the best way to communicate with me. See ya’ll later.
-----------------------Tuesday and Wednesday, May 10, 2006--------------------------------------
Well it’s been a bad day, but the worst days make the best blog posts.
It’s actually not been that bad, it’s just been long and hard. But like most things that are long and hard, it’s been worth it. Let me explain.
Part of our plans here were for Sally to renew her visa. For students like her that’s just part of coming home. She and her mom were going to leave on Tuesday for Shenyang, the capitol of the Liaoning province (that’s where Dalian is by the way) and would come back really late on Wednesday. The cheapest way to get from city to city in China is by train. They left around noon to catch the train for the capitol.
While they were gone, Sally’s father was going to stay home from work to look after me. I told him that I was fine to stay alone and just watch TV, read, draw and write but he insisted. After our wives left the two of us went to XingHai (Star of the Sea) Park, the largest public square in Asia. It was a really impressive place. There were a lot of fountains going down the center of the square, statutes of various sports around the perimeter (Dalian is a very sports oriented town) and some low budget carnival style rides. XingHai Park is right by the ocean. Surprisingly, there weren’t very many seagulls and only a few pigeons. On the walls of the pier, we could see people scraping off some kind of shell fish (small clams I think). There was also a huge monument dedicated to the 100th year anniversary of the founding of the city back in 1999. It had a thousand footprints leading up to a couple kids playing in the sand. It was one of the many things that I wish I had brought my camera for, but without my wife, I tend to forget pretty much everything. I understand it only gets worse from here.
The square earns its rank of biggest in Asia. It’s pretty darn big. Sally’s dad was impressed with my being able to handle walking the whole thing. Apparently when they take Sally, she has trouble keeping up.
We got to the park via bus. We took a double decker bus and at Sally’s dad’s recommendation sat in the front seat on the top level. It was an exciting and terrifying view of the city. I was actually seated a little bit further forward than the driver so there were several times that I thought we were surely going to crash into a cab or a scooter or an old lady with a cart. However the bus driver seemed to really know his trade. We weaved in and out and no one got hurt. After a few minutes I was able to relax and take in more of the city. There are statues, huge modern shopping centers and KFCs everywhere you go. Even among all the hustle and bustle of modern Dalian, I was able to see glimpses of a more traditional China. These ranged from old people doing Tai Chi in a small grove of trees to playing mahjong on a cardboard box. It’s an interesting dynamic.
We came home from the park and started dinner. We made dumpling. The filling wasn’t made from shrimp or sausage like Sally normally makes, but rather some kind of sea worms. They tasted alright but after a couple their chewy texture got hard to swallow. Her dad taught me a better way to wrap dumplings that is quicker and looks pretty. With practice I will become the best in the world for sure.
While we were eating, Sally called to tell us that she had forgotten an important piece of paper in her backpack and that she needed to have it brought to her if she were to get her visa. So at 10:30 at night we headed to the train station and caught a train for Shenyang. I’ve read in people of travel books about the charm of the Chinese rail system. Well as we took the all night train, I didn’t see any charm. All I saw was a crowded train car with butt-numbingly hard seats, smoke coming in from the area between cars and people constantly jostling for seats. They sell seats by number but they also sell plenty of “no seat” tickets incase some one misses the train because they’re waiting at a bus station instead of the train station or something like that. If you have a “no seat” ticket you have to pounce on what you can as soon as you can so you never have an empty seat next to you. It’s hot, I’m sweating like a Mexican monkey and the train keeps shaking me awake just as soon as I fell asleep.
The train clattered through the darkness from 11:00 p.m.until 4:00 a.m. We got off at Shenyang South station but after an hour we learned we really wanted Shenyang North. While we were sorting this out I saw my first argument in China. Some lady was fighting with the ticket seller about the price of something. I’ve seem such confrontations many times before but what I thought was funny was how here, people weren’t at all trying to hide the fact that they were watching and enjoying the show. It wasn’t like in America of Australia when once a situation turn tense everyone pretends they’re not there.
We took a cab to the northern station where we met up with Sally and her mom. We went back to the place they were staying, a room in some one else’s apartment they’ve turned into a bed and breakfast, minus a breakfast. No sooner than I got through the door than I collapsed on one. This ended my hope that the bed we sleep on at Sally’s parents’ was the exception not the rule for beds in China. At this point I didn’t care, I was asleep within moments. When I woke up, the wives had just come back from something. We all went to get breakfast, breads and milk from a little store around the corner. I’ve had a lot of Chinese friends in America complain to me about the quality of milk and bread we have in the states. For milk, I can see their point. I wouldn’t say it’s any better than our milk, but it’s not any worse either. It’s just different. I guess it’s just a matter of what you’re used to. In the bread department, we win though. These weren’t the steamed breads that China is really good at, these were Western style packaged breads. The first one I ate was OK, but the other one was a sweetbread with pieces of dried ham, lines of cheese and a chewy mayonnaise center. Not a good mix.
After breakfast Sally and her mom went to the American Embassy to take care of everything. I slept more. My sleep here is hardly ever without dreams. When I woke up, Sally came back with good news, all was well and she would be able to come home when this trip was all over. We were actually a little worried that there may be problems because of our marriage. Fortunately for us, it wasn’t even an issue. Prayer works, just in case you were wondering.
Once that was behind us, we were able to go out for lunch. We went to a Korean Barbeque, of which there are many here in Liaoning, which was pretty good. This let me see a little more of Shenyang. It’s a lot more of what I expected a Chinese city to look like, although the only specific thing I can put my finger on is the presence of bikes. Sally explained that Dalian is too hilly for most people to ride bikes.
After lunch me and Sally’s dad went to catch our train, leaving the women to shop and pick up Sally’s visa. On the bus to the station, I met I guy from Nigeria named Miked. The bus was just packed with wall-to-wall Chinese people and there we were this one white guy and one black guy. He was really friendly and spoke good English. It was nice to know I not the only foreign person here.
We missed the train though so we had to switch our tickets for “no seaters” on the same train Sally and her mom were on. Since the train didn't leave until 11, we had a lot of time to kill. I read a bit from “Ender's Game,” the only thing I brought with me to Shenyang, but mostly we just waited. Since there was no guarantee that we'd be able to sleep on the train, we went to a place were you were able to rent a bed for a few hours. They had “rooms” fenced off with particle board with a TV and eight beds in a room. Travelers often pay a few kuai to get out of the waiting room and lay down for a little bit. These beds were also the hard kind but by this point I'm used to them. What I wasn't used to was the TV blaring the Chinese equivalent of the Lawrence Welk Show (I assume it was basically the same thing because there were people singing and bubble, that was Lawrence Welk right?). I still managed to grab a short nap, which made all the difference.
That train left at 11:00 at night and we didn't get back to Dalian until 6 a.m. Even though it was a lot longer than the first right, it was a lot easier to deal with. It's always better when the person sleeping on your shoulder is you wife, not some old man. We made small talk with some to the other passengers. Most were impressed that I spoke Chinese but still preferred to ask them questions about me than ask me directly. This bothered me at first but then I remembered I was too tired to care. I finished Ender's Game and tried to sleep with varying degrees of success. Finally, after blaring the Dalian theme song over the PA system, we rolled into the final station.
From this point it was a quick trolley ride back home. The Zhus all wanted to eat breakfast but I was too tired. I excused myself politely and crashed in bed. I didn't wake up until about 10 a.m. I finally got to shower after 50 plus hours. I finally busted my Gillette Quatro out of it’s packaging. I'll admit, I used to make fun about how the razor company is getting out of control with the race towards infinite blades, but I enjoyed the shave. I could hear my stubble crying in vain for mercy against the power of the fourth blade.
So that's my adventure so far. It's one heck of a ride. I may not be having fun all the time, but I'm enjoying every minute of it. Yeah China
Choices choices
So recently I was in the computer lab and some guy was playing high level World of Warcraft and I was trying to sneak peeks to see how he was doing while I did my homework. It was a little too late that I realized there was a girl sitting inbetween us who seemed a little freaked out that I was constantly "checking her out."
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