Domestic air travel in China

I know, I know- I've been slacking on the blog. Thanks for the reminder Grandma! Anyway, I've been meaning to blog about this for a long time- domestic air travel within China. It is yet another culturally eye opening experience for most Westerners. Everything starts off innocently enough. Very routine- get in line to check in, check your bags, go through security. But then the fun begins. It usually goes something like this: Boarding announcement is made and there is a mad rush to the boarding doors. Sometimes, on a good day, a line will form but inevitably, several people will pretend that there is no line and just cut in front of everyone else. At the gate, not one but two airline employees will check your boarding pass. Then you are ushered onto a waiting bus to go out to your plane. Again, the usual China "area cram" ensues with as many people as possible being loaded onto the bus. Bus drives to plane. Bus doors open and there is a literal stampede to get to the plane. Come on people- everyone has a seat assigned- no need to push! At this point, there is no chance of a line, just a scrum of people fighting to get up the steps onto the plane. The group is held up by not one but two airline employees who once AGAIN check your boarding pass. If you are keeping count- that's four people who have now checked your boarding pass (I am convinced this goes back to the communist principle that everyone needs a job...but I digress).
Ok, on the plane now. If you have an aisle seat, the person in the window seat will not ask you to get up when they get into the row, they will simply climb over you. I am not making this stuff up, I swear! From here, it's pretty much normal except that there is often someone who gets up to go to the bathroom as we are taxing down the runway for take off. Oh, and also normally someone who tries to sneak a cigarette during the flight. And then you have the people who let their kids play video games at full volume with no headphones. And the TV monitors that come down from the ceiling have NO volume control so unless you have your ipod, you are forced to listen to a bunch of very annoying Chinese programming blasting during the entire flight.
And let's not forget about the guy in the next row who keeps hocking spit balls into a plastic bag (better than on the floor, I guess).
Finally, we descend for landing. Once again, someone will get up to go to the bathroom just minutes before we land. Then, the second we hit the ground, several people will stand up and try to get their baggage down. And, last but not least, my ultimate pet peeve. Once we arrive at the gate and the plane stops, everyone will try to squeeze into the aisle and push their way off the plane. If there is nowhere to go, they will just push up against you with all their strength in hopes that somehow, that will get the line moving. I finally learned how to say "please stand a little further from me" which I think will be a very useful phrase for the next time I fly within China! Is it any wonder that Sev and I usually need a drink the minute we get off the plane?

The Chinese Countryside

After living in China for a year and a half it dawned on me that I haven't really been outside of a major city here.  So I talked my friend from Hong Kong into taking a little mini-vacation with me (minus the kids) to the town of Yangshuo in the south of China, along the Li River.  We rented bikes for two days and peddled around the countryside.  To be honest, I was expecting worse living conditions than what I saw.  People's lives are simple- work the fields (mostly rice and peanuts), take care of the chickens and water buffalo, and take your scooter/bike wherever you need to go.  Cars were few.  Most homes have no running water (they use a well) but I did see plenty of electric poles running through so at least they have electricity.  The majority of the homes are built by the owners themselves, made out of bricks.    I think the pictures tell the best story of our trip so enjoy!

Men selling chickens in the market (they are inside the bamboo cages).  

A grandpa uses his granddaughter to balance out his basket.  He was selling yellow beans at the market.

Ladies sewing with the old fashioned pedal sewing machines.

Fuli Town is famous as the maker of paper fans.  Here is a shot of a fan makers house.

I couldn't resist getting my fortune told by this little old guy.  Several locals gathered around to hear my fortune as well!

Fiona and me on the Li River- we cruised around on a "bamboo raft" which actually turned out to be made of PVC piping!

Ok- I couldn't resist being a cheesy tourist and taking a picture with the Cormorants.  These birds are used by the local fisherman to catch fish at night.  There is a string tied around their necks to prevent them from swallowing the fish (although they are allowed to eat every 7th fish).  A well trained bird is worth as much as $700!

A traditional fisherman on the Li River (his raft is real bamboo).

A shot of the cormorants fishing at night. The light attracts the fish and then the birds dive under the water and catch them.

Here the fisherman is extracting the fish from the birds mouth.  For the pleasure of the tourists in this case!

A typical view of the rice fields and "karst peaks"- this area of China is famous for these beautiful peaks.

This lady on the moped was herding her buffalo down the street.  I couldn't help but think "ancient China in a modern world".

On the other hand, here is a shot of a man with his cow along a tiny village street.  I asked how much the water buffalo cost and was told about $600 for a grown cow, already trained.  It takes one week to train them how to walk straight while plowing the fields.  I did not see one tractor the entire time I was there.

A group of school girls in the village.  They were thrilled when I showed them the picture on the digital camera!

A graveyard in the countryside.  I asked our guide if there were designated areas for graveyards and she said no, you can bury your dead wherever you want.  Interesting... and yet a little worrisome!

The kitchen in a typical village home.  The lady we rented our bikes from let us in for a look around.  No running water, no stove, no oven.  I am still not really sure how she cooked her food.

And finally, no blog is complete without the scary food story.  I thought this was a veterinarians office until I noticed the giant iron woks.  Then the light bulb slowly came on and yes, it was a restaurant selling dog, cat, cow, and pig.  Lovely.

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!

Fortune Kindergarten

Just last month we had the pleasure of attending the kid's kindergarten Christmas concert. As I sat there in nervous anticipation of our own children's performance, I couldn't help but notice one of the reasons I am so glad we accepted the opportunity to live in Shanghai: an amazing expat community. And nowhere is there a better example than our kid's school, Fortune Kindergarten. Looking around the room I counted families from the following countries: China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Israel, France, Germany, USA, Canada, Senegal, Ireland, England, Czech Republic, Australia & India. I feel so lucky that we can give our kids a multicultural experience on a daily basis. They learn about other cultures from their classmates and teachers everyday. In fact, Grace was watching TV the other day and Dora the Explorer was on- in Filipino. After a few minutes, she asked me "Mom, what English are they speaking?" I told her Filipino, from the Philippines. "Oh, just like teacher Rose at school,
right?"

Another thing we love about Fortune Kindergarten is their approach to bilingual education. When searching for schools, I found that most international schools here teach only in English with a 30 minute Mandarin language lesson each day. I didn't feel like the kids would really learn the language with such little exposure. Fortune teaches one full day in English, and the next full day in Mandarin; however, both the English and the Chinese teacher are present in the classroom at all times. And when Grace finally spit out a full sentence in Mandarin today, I felt pretty good about our choice.

Of course, there are some drawbacks at the school but understand that these are issues in nearly all schools in China:

1) They like to keep the windows open even when it's 30degrees outside and there is no heat/ac in the hallways- just in the classrooms (and in the local schools, even the classrooms aren't heated). I think Grace froze her little butt off last year until I realized I needed to dress her in multiple layers!

2) No guidelines on peanuts, home backed snacks, or other big no-no's in the US. Again, doesn't bother me but I chuckled as I handed out snickers for their Halloween party thinking about how this would never fly in America.

3) Sometimes if I call the office in the mornings, nobody speaks English- Oh well, just gives me a chance to practice my chinese!

Anyway, overall it's a great little school and we plan on sending the kids there next year as well. Enjoy the pics from Fortune's Christmas Concert and Grace's 4th B.day celebration at school last week.

Audrey and her dance partner during the xmas concert.

Grace looking a little bored during the xmas concert.

Grace's Toy Story Cake (her latest obsession)

The Birthday girl blowing out her candle

The two pre-k classes looking at Grace and waiting patiently for a piece of cake (there are 15 kids per class).

The front of the kid's school

The Shanghai Zoo

This weekend we made our 3rd trip to the Shanghai Zoo. It's a pretty good zoo- lots of animals and nice open green spaces. But, as with most things in China, there are some drawbacks. First off, this zoo would never cut it in the "sue happy" USA. Of course the enclosures for the dangerous animals are adequate but a lot of the other enclosures feature low walls and wide gates (which my weaselly 4 year old can easily slip through). I just kept wondering how many stupid people have stuck their hand into one of these enclosures and gotten bitten. Honestly, if you really wanted to walk right up to an elephant, you could. On the other hand, one cool thing about going to a zoo on the other side of the world is that you get to see some animals that most American zoos don't have- giant pandas, really cool vultures, asian tigers, sun bears, and red pandas. The funny thing is that some of our common animals in America are a novelty for the Chinese- as evidenced by the huge display of seagulls. Yep, the same old seagulls that crap all over the beach in New Jersey are one of the most popular displays in the Shanghai zoo.

The seagull enclosure.

There are some really weird things going on at this zoo as well. Namely, "Pet World". I must admit we skipped this exhibit on the first couple trips because we assumed it was a standard petting zoo. Not so. It's actually a display of dogs and cats. Yep, each breed has it's own cage- collies, beagles, poodles, huskies, afghans, etc. and a display sign attached explaining the breeds attributes. It's freaky.

The Collie display at the zoo. Weird.

Ok, the next bizarre thing we noticed is that they have an area where you can pay to have your picture taken with a stuffed zebra. Not the toy kind- a taxidermy stuffed zebra. Which is old and showing it's age. Yuck.

The "stuffed" zebra

But the thing that bothers us above all else at this zoo is the behavior of the Chinese visitors. It's always the same. There are signs all over the zoo "Don't feed the animals"; "Don't throw garbage into the enclosures". Common sense in the US, right? Not so in China! If I had a dollar for every time we have watched someone throw food into a cage, we'd be rich. Of course the primates are the favorite critters to feed but I've also seen people toss crackers to the foxes, bears, birds, pretty much no poor creature is exempt (except for the ones you can't get to like the pandas and lions). On top of that, we have watched people throw their garbage down into the enclosures as well. "Hmm, let's see how this sun bear will react if we throw our empty soda cup into his cage". Sev and I have made it our personal mission at the zoo to reprimand people when they do this but I'm pretty sure it's a lost cause. And it's hard to teach the kids to respect animals and the rules when every adult they see is behaving in the exact opposite way. Oh well, we will keep trying.

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year - my resolution is to keep up the blog a little better this year! By the way, for some reason, I can now access the blog so I can see comments- and comments are welcome! Also, I added a voting button at the end of each blog so you can let me know if you liked it or not.