Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Stories

The mother has come, and the mother has gone. The Aunt was here with her, and together we made a trifecta of American might. That said, there were obviously some great occurrences along the way. These: are the China files.

Frank - The Meeting
I took the fast train to get to the airport, but since I didn't know the terminal of the continental flight I was unsure of which terminal to get off the train at. I exited the first one we came to in order to check the board, and discovered two other guys that were headed for the same flight. One spoke good Chinese and was from Shanghai, the other was apparently from Singapore, spoke very little Chinese, was leaving for America instead of waiting for people to arrive, and thus was quickly excluded from our cool kids club.

The former was Frank, and due to the plane from America being late we had a long time to discuss every aspect of China. I seem to have a habit of doing this with strangers, it is how I have met most of my friends with connections in China. After exchanging what we did in China, what the people we were picking up did in America, and why the people were coming to China we proceeded to hit up a Starbucks to pass the time. I, being a pansy, opted for orange juice, and he followed suit in typical Chinese fashion. We spent the next hour discussing various things, most important to the story being our plans for our guests. He was showing an important cardiovascular doctor around in a giant convention, and thus we were swapping ideas on where to take foreigners in China. He invited me to come eat with him at a nice restaurant on Friday, and since I wanted to return I invited him to come eat with us on Wednesday.

I should mention at this point that he is attempting to recruit me to help edit his medical journal, and as such it added a bit of pressure for me to look good at the dinners. The first dinner went over without a hitch, I ordered the food well and had a good variety and balance. The second dinner, however, is the true story.

Frank - The Dinner
So I told that story to get to this story. The place he invited us to go to on Friday was a very, very fancy restaurant that featured classy food with performances during the meal. There was Beijing Opera, Beijing Face Changing, Kung Fu, and some other instrumental performances and singing. The most important performance to tell you about was the girl with the pot. She started by laying on her back with her feet straight up in the air and then spinning a big pot around on her feet. After awhile they changed out the big pot for a gigantic 160 pound pot, and I have to admit seeing her spin and juggle that was really impressive due to the imbalance in the pots shape. They then asked for a volunteer from the crowd, and Frank told me that I had to go and thus I did. What happened next was caught on video and will be uploaded in the next few days. They had me sit in the pot, then 6 men lifted the pot and placed it on her legs. She then spun me around for the audience to see before setting me back down. I wasn't concerned about her dropping me as much as I was concerned at the trouble the 6 guys were having with letting me down. Video is coming, I promise.

But I digress. I had originally been under the impression that the dinner would just be the 5 of us again, but upon arrival we discovered that there were in fact 12 people. We were eating with leading cardiologists from two American hospitals, Frank (who is a doctor), two leading cardiologists from China's two most important and largest hospitals, a cardiologist from Singapore, and the guy in charge of a Chinese medical journal. We quickly realized that we were sitting at a power play meeting of Chinese trying to woo American doctors, and we felt extremely awkward and out of place. The other people at the table seemed to be looking at us with the, "Why exactly are you here? Who are you here with? You are important...why?" I proved my usefulness through my Chinese and my knowledge of Chinese culture and food, and thus helped the Chinese and Americans bridge some of the gaps, but the question still remained of why we were here and were we just freeloading off of all the important doctors.

Thus, the place he took us to cost far more than the place we treated him to, but I feel it was fair for him putting us in that crazy situation. It was excellent because the whole dinner it felt like Sarah and my mother were on their best behavior so I would look good in front of my important friends, and I finally understand what my parents had felt like taking me to meet coworkers or important people at dinners. It was a recurring theme, I was basically the parent the entire trip.

Bonus tidbit, I also had to basically feed Sarah to keep Frank from yelling at me in Chinese to take better care of them and make sure they were enjoying themselves.

Ito Yokado - America 1 China 0
The conquering of the Ito Yokado cashier! So Sarah and the mother decided they wanted to purchase some jade, and once they discovered they could pay with credit card got extremely excited.

We make our way from the place were you select what you want to buy to the cashier counter, wait in line, and then present our cards for our purchases. Sarah's goes over without a problem, but Kelly hadn't signed the back of her cards and the cashier lady (who let's be clear now is a antagonist here) refused to accept them.

We were a bit rankled by this, but we decided we'd just walk away, sign them, and try again. So we did that, and upon returning to the counter she grew indignant and said, "You signed these just now didn't you!" I thought to myself that she sure had made a brilliant deduction, and went into Chinese confrontation mode. We argued for a bit, but she refused to take the cards and when we walked away in defeat looked very proud of herself.

The lady at the jade counter, angered by why she couldn't make a sale, went over to raise hell on our behalf. While she did so, I told all the other clerks around us our story, and they were all on our side and ready to back up the big jade lady. Managers got involved, and since China loves their rules and technicalities we were unable to win despite the jade lady being on our side.

We went up a floor to shop for some toys while trying to think of how to buy the jade, as coming back the next day with our cards signed was not very convenient. We were thinking of pooling our cash and then going to get money out of the ATM, but instead mother and Sarah came up with some complicated deal and that involved Sarah buying the jade on her card for Kelly.

Excited about our new plan and determined to defeat the cashier, Sarah and I walked over and got in line. The lady saw us behind the person she was helping, and shook her head and said to herself that foreigners never learn. I am fairly certain she thought that Sarah was Kelly (sisters + all white people look alike), but upon getting to the front of the line she realized what our new strategy was. She panicked, and in her desperation to not lose to the foreigners after taking Sarah's card got on the phone to call the manager from before. She didn't want to sell it to us, to which the manager responded asking if there was a problem with this card, when she admitted there was no problem the manager told her to sell it because duhhhh money and sales are gooood. After having us use her system against her and being beaten by her own rules, she angrily swiped the card and loudly stamped the receipts. It was our turn to be proud of ourselves as we walked away from the counter.

America 1, China 0.

Tiananmen Closed

This is just a small side story really, I don't think it even needs its own bold title as I am fairly certain I figured out the mystery behind the story, but seeing as how I need to have something to offset the good stories, I'll let the story feel special and let it keep the title.

We went to Tiananmen following our trip to the Forbidden City, but I was confused at first by the lack of people and the presence of cars. I checked to get my bearings, and was certain that we were at Tiananmen. All the underground pathways to cross the street and enter the square were closed, so I asked a nearby guard what the deal was. He apologized, and then said that he was sorry for the inconvenience but was unable to tell me why. When I pressed him for if it would be open tomorrow, he responded with, "Not necessarily." Though I was happy that I was learning the Chinese methods of secrecy and confidentiality, I was sad that I couldn't take my family to the square.

I am fairly certain it was closed for the Asian-European summit due to top European leaders being in China. Though who knows...perhaps there is a bigger story here.

Guest Post: Mother In China

All -- this is a guest blog from Chris' Mom. I arrived in China last week Tuesday and this morning am packing to leave. I can not believe that a week has flown by so quickly. And, what a week it was!!

We arrived with Chris waiting for us outside the gate. He had met a friend waiting for our one hour late plane. It turned out to be a coup for us as he joined us for dinner that evening and then invited us to a dinner and a show on Friday night.

Hotel Man -- Robin/Sean was waiting for us at our Hotel. What a grand Hotel. Marble and gold everywhere in the lobby. We checked in ran upstairs to put together the gifts we brought for Hotel Man/Robin/Sean and then presented them.

It was muggy and foggy before we arrived. The calm before the storm. It rained that night on our way back to the hotel and then turned chilly. But a nice chilly. Absolutely perfect weather -- crisp air, blue skys, awesome. Thank you China.

The food has been absolutely tremendous!!!!!! Stupendous!!! Delicious!!!!! Day one was Peking Duck. Day 2 Purple Bread, Fish Stew, and Dumplings, Beers on the Lake. Day 3 Corn Yogurt and Purple Bread, KFC on Wang Fu Shen Shopping District, Peking Opera Dinner. Day 4 Red Bean Yogurt and Purple Bread, Fragrant Pot, McDonalds at 9pm (got caught on subway and Chinese Restaurants had stopped serving). Day 5 Dim Sum, Hot Pot! Day 6 Hotel Buffet Breakfast, Snacks at the Mall (Green Tea Bun and Crab Custard Bun), Noodles at 'The Hallway'. Day 7 plan is for breakfast at Hotel and Lunch with Hotel Man. Suffice it to say we ate VERY well!

We saw The Wall, The Malls, Carrefour (think Chinese Walmart), Forbidden City, Tiammen Square, Chris in a terra cotta pot upheld by a small Chinese girl on a bench, Pearl Market, Nanlougu Market, Arts District, Night Market, Hutongs (Sarah and I did a bit of our own off the path exploring),Beijing Zoo and the Pandas, Tea House, Beijing at night, Beijing in a cab, Beijing on a Bus, Beijing on a subway and Beijing on foot. We got around.

We have had a lot of fun, laughed a lot. This city is incredible. Chris was an excellent tour guide. He negotiated the subways and buses with ease. He helped us our purchasing. He laughed at our poor attempt at Chinese yet worked with us to improve. We were in awe (and increaingly stay in awe) of his language and cultural skills. His friends are amazing .

We enjoyed the people and people watching. The people, cars, buses move as one and no one waits on the other. People in travel are one minded -- get out of my way. Yet, as we pondered over a map or tried to figure out where we were in a mall, people would stroll over and help us out. It is a very quiet and clean city. We didn't see a laundry mat. We heard very, very, maybe one siren. For a city this large, no fire trucks and ambulances dispatched every 5 minutes. Honking is done to gently make aware the presence of a car to walkers and bikers. Cars use all the lanes on the freeway, even the invisible lanes between lanes.

Sarah and I were a bit leery of the toilet situation. We are converts now! We love the squatters. Our first squat was on The Wall.

We love split pants. We love to see families in power squat position resting. We love to say Ni Hao and practice our Shey Shey everywhere. We love to torture Kelly with the question game.

I have left a ton out, so those who know me ask for the great stories, I took notes in my journal daily. I also took close to 500 pictures and several videos. And Chris, from the bottom of my heart and Sarah's -- Xiexie.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Great Wall

The great wall is far too large. The first character in the Chinese name for the great wall is 'long', and I feel that is a much more honest description of what the Great Wall is.

We took a 3 hours bus to get to a section of the wall that was a bit out of the way and not the usual tourist spot. This spot had not been repaired yet, and some of the sections were downright dangerous - there were moments were I was climbing at a 75 degree incline.

The wall was impressive, I guess. I'm not really one to get impressed by it, and after hiking for 3 hours all good feelings had turned to fatigue and smoldering hatred. It was interesting to think of how it was built though, it was so massive and if climbing it made me so tired I can't imagine building it. In some of the parts where the stones were loose you could pick up a flagstone or two and realize it was not light labor. In addition, people not only had to live up here but do patrols and move military equipment. Thinking about that blew my mind a bit, but since I was racing to be the first to hike from our starting point to our ending point I didn't have time to stand around like an idiot.

I was, of course, the first one to get to our destination. We descended the wall and went into a nearby village where the program had arranged hotels for us. We didn't have to stay in the hotels if we didn't want to, but it did provide a good place to place our bags and hang out until nightfall. Our hotels were the historical Chinese houses that were all the rage a century ago, and the architecture was beautiful. It was cool to see these housing complexes in movies come to life before your eyes. Even cooler was the Mahjong table we had inside our sleeping room. I'm not sure why, but we were the only group with the table in our rooms, and thus we became the social hub. To top it off, the magical Mahjong table was electric, and it sorted all the pieces for you and racked them and wow it blew my mind.

I had videos of the Mahjong table, pictures of the unrestored portions of the wall, and more, but sadly my Camera bugged up and erased all of those pictures. We discovered this when I took out my camera to take pictures before going to bed, and had to take a few panic pictures of the wall before we left in the morning. Sadly this was the restored portion, so you only get a general idea. In addition, due to the lighting most of those pictures turned out crappy, so there's that.

Night at the great wall is cold. Too cold. We were all wearing multiple pairs of socks, pants, shirts, hoodies, and jackets inside of our thermal sleeping bags, and it was still cold. The only thing that kept me excited enough not to freeze to death were the updates of the OU game being texted to me by Sam back in Beijing. (Hook 'Em by the way)

Despite the cold, we did manage to sneak to a darker part of the wall and pee off the wall into the abyss below. It had to be done. It was premeditated. It was awesome.

At about 3 in the morning we all woke up from the sheer cold and discovered that the sky above was just a mass of shooting stars. I had never seen nighttime sky like it before, it was magical.

I think that covers the basic great wall. Figured I'd write something despite my frustration with the internet and the pictures before I forgot everything. Here is a picture of me and my burnt orange sleeping bag, a picture of me on the wall, and then a video of the surroundings of where we slept in the morning.


Friday, October 10, 2008

The Internet

Does not want to cooperate. We've been having internet problems the last few weeks, and the internet has thus only been available when I don't need it. Every time I actually find time to sit down and write the internet is not working, lately it's been down about 90% of the time during the day/night.

I have backlogs to write that probably won't get written as I am preparing now to go to the Great Wall tomorrow morning, and I feel that writing about that will take precedence.

Here's to hoping I have a great adventure.