Nose picking and other personal habits...

So I have noticed that nose picking in public is definitely OK here.  Men and women alike engage in this sport of digging for gold whenever the mood strikes them.  The worst is when your taxi driver picks a "Shanghai pollution booger" (as I like to call the black ones) out of his nose and then hands you your change- ewww.  You can observe this behavior pretty much anywhere here- on the street, in restaurants (yep, the servers do it too), elevators, etc.  And since I am on the subject of personal habits, staring at people, picking your teeth, and shouting into your cell phone no matter where you are- all OK here.  Oh, and I would be remiss to mention the Chinese habit of hitting the close door button thirty times the minute you enter the elevator (as if you were the only person in the world), regardless of anyone else trying to get on.  Unfortunately, I kind of like this habit and have adapted it myself.

And I have one other funny story to tell- since I have discovered the joy of taking the bus here, I have almost become addicted- why pay $1.75 for a taxi when you can pay 30cents for the bus?  But I did have my "I am a stupid foreigner" moment this week.  I have always taken the bus in the same direction but as my confidence has grown, I thought I would try a new route.  Mistake.  I didn't know where the bus stopped so I watched as the stop I wanted came and went.  And then, as the next stop approached (already way out of the way of where I wanted to go), I fought my way to the exit doors.  In China, you exit from the middle of the bus and enter from the front.  Well, by the time I got to the middle doors, they had shut.  When I had previously taken the bus in Minneapolis, you could simply touch the handles on the middle doors and they would open but apparently not in China!  So I desperately tried to push the doors open to no avail.  I had to wait and get off at the following stop.  I asked my ayi the next day how to get the doors to open.  She replied that the driver opened them.  "But what if you get to the door and it's already 

shut?"  "Well," she replied, "you have to shout 'Wait a minute, Wait a minute'!".   Oh.  Now I know.  Next time, instead of looking like a clueless foreigner, I'll just look like a foreigner with bad Chinese as I shout out "Deng yixiar!"  That's wait a minute in mandarin!

Singapore & Malaysia

Since everything shuts down during Chinese New Year, and it's cold in Shanghai (well, not compared to Minnesota but 30 degrees here is considered the dead of winter) we decided to head for warmer weather- right around the equator.

First we hit Singapore for a brief stopover on our way to Malaysia. It's a beautiful country in the middle of the rain forest. The city is amazing- clean (no wonder - you can be caned for littering), orderly, and totally modern. The official languages are English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay. So, everyone speaks english which was a refreshing change. Other than the US, I have never been anywhere that was a diverse as Singapore. There are people from all descents which makes for some amazing food experiences. We were only able to spend one full day so we chose to hit the zoo (of course). It's a fantastic zoo with a lot of animals I've never seen or even heard of before: white tigers, Proboscis monkeys, malaysian tapirs, pygmy hippos, mandrills, and jaguars.

The kids loved it and a good time was had by all.

Here is a picture of a sign at the Singapore zoo near the mountain lion enclosure.  Of course, it's only written in Chinese (even though every other sign at the zoo is posted in enlglish) and basically says don't feed the animals or get too close- you WILL get hurt (see previous post on Shanghai zoo for more info).

The next day we headed to Malaysia. This was my first time in a muslim country. In terms of religion, Malaysia is definitely not full of extremists. Although the muslim women did keep their heads covered (but not their faces), they can work and go about daily life unescorted. And, like Singapore, there seemed to be a lot more diversity than I had expected. Freedom of religion is granted even though it may not be encouraged. We saw mosques, along with hindu and buddist temples, and even some churches. After a connecting flight through Kuala Lumpur, we finally reached a small island off the coast of Malaysia, called Langkawi. Situated on the Andaman Sea, we could actually see one of Thailand's islands from our resort. Throughout our weeklong stay, the weather was 85 degrees and sunny. The beach was actually a bit disappointing- although the water was warm and extremely calm it wasn't clear and the sand was pebbly and full of small shells. But it was clean and practically deserted. The resort itself had 3 amazing pools which was where we spent most of our time. We were able to do a 1/2 day boat tour through the mangrove forest where we saw monkeys and eagles. We also saw quite a few large monitor lizards (about 3 ft long) around our resort which the kids loved and Sev and I did not! All in all, we had a great time although I would love to go and spend more time on mainland Malaysia next time.

The view from the beach.  At low tide, a sandbar would appear and you could actually walk out to the rocks in the distance.

A view of our resort from the water.

Malaysian fisherman using the traditional net method to catch giant prawns on the Andaman Sea.

Some of the many monkeys that live on Langkawi.

A giant monitor lizard at our resort.  About 3 feet long...but no worries- we were assured they only eat fish.

Grace posing with another monitor lizard.  A favorite activity for the kids on vacation was checking if the lizard was "home" under the deck- about 50 times a day.

Year of the Ox

Chinese New Year is finally over and we have officially entered the year of the Ox. Turns out that I am an Ox under the Chinese zodiac which means that since this is my year, I am supposed to wear red somewhere on my body at all times to ward off bad luck- and I thought a person was supposed to have good luck in their own year! Anyway, most people choose to wear red underwear in their year but after much debate with myself, I have decided to take my chances and forgo the red undies so we will see what happens...

Chinese New Year (CNY for short) is a HUGE deal here. All the migrant workers return home to their provinces to spend time with their families. I recently read that over 250 million people travel by car/bus and another 5 million by train. That's nearly 75% of the population of the USA to put it in perspective. Crazy. Although the holiday is technically 1 week long, it seems to stretch on for about a month. The kid's school has a big family event so I thought I'd share some pics of the girls in their traditional Chinese clothes (red is the color of luck and symbolizes wealth so you'll see a lot of red everywhere this time of year).

G & A in their traditional outfits.

The girls in A's class: Kitty (China), Aika (Japan), Clemintine (France) and little A.

Another tradition around CNY is the Lion Dance.  There is usually a drummer and several cymbal players who accompany two men dressed in a Chinese lion costume.  One guy is the head, the other is the tail.  In the dance that we saw, the "lion" jumps up on pillars which are about 10 feet high with just enough room on the platform for your foot.  They leap back and forth on the cylinders with one guy holding the other up on his shoulders- scary!  But cool if you're just watching and not participating.  The kids loved it of course!

G with some guy in a Chinese opera costume. No idea what the meaning of the costume it though..

The "Lion" perched on the low pillars.

An action shot of the lion leaping from one pillar to the next.

Here you can see the 2nd guy standing on the shoulders of the lower man.  Now imagine jumping around on the pillars like that!