A new way to spend Thanksgiving

We didn't yet post about our final full day in China, which featured a fantastic trip to the Great Wall, and brief visit to the pandas at the zoo, and a long-awaited feast of Peking Duck. The first 2 experiences happened in 2009 as well, but were marred in varying degrees by massive crowds. The open spaces this time were much appreciated. As was a rare reprieve from the haze and smog.

Impressions

One of the purposes of this trip was to give Seth some broad impressions of his homeland.  I'm not sure how deeply he'd be able to express those just yet - maybe we'll prompt him to post about that - but I certainly came away with some.

1.  The one-child policy is going to go down as one of the dumbest public policy decisions in history.  But traveling in a country of 1.45 Billion people, you do at least gain a little understanding of why they did it.  There are people everywhere.  We visited Xian, which has 8 million residents, and they describe it as a mid-sized city.  It's bigger than NYC, FWIW.  We took a cruise on the Yangtze which exposed us to a little "countryside", but even then we passed through 3-4 cities with dozens of high-rise apartment buildings along the riverbanks.  And the traffic in Beijing is beyond obscene.  The bicycle riders we saw 7 years have been all but vanquished-  there is no room for them.  It regularly took about 30 minutes to go about 2 miles anywhere within the downtown core.  Most streets are lined with fences to prevent pedestrian crossing, and tunnel underpasses are built for walkers.

2.  I'm not thinking of becoming a Communist, but state control has its benefits.  Not being able to access Facebook or our blog (directly) was aggravating, but an internet without porn can't be a bad thing.  Nearly every public restroom had both hand dryers AND paper towels (though not always toilet paper - I can't quite figure that one out).  Oh, and I don't think our silly bathroom wars have made it to China.  They also claim to not have a terrorism problem, and they have the stats to back it up.

3.  Apparently etiquette is cultural.  Chinese generally don't understand the concept of queuing.  I realize there are other countries that also suffer from this blindspot, but it really is quite amazing to have people repeatedly shove (literally) right past you to get ahead.  And watching a kid drop her drawers and pee in public wasn't something I would have been surprised to see in an African village or Indian countryside, but seeing it in line at Shanghai Disney was a bit jarring.

4.  Come to think of it, they ignore a lot of rules.  There are signs in all the airports not to push those luggage trolleys up against the baggage claim carousels.  Completely ignored.  The signs at Disney prohibiting photographing or videoing the shows?  Also roundly ignored.  Somehow they must have figured how in a police state to know which are the important rules, and which ones you can just flout. 

5. Another consequence of the high concentration of people is the smog.  We saw very little of the sun during the 2 weeks.  In fairness, some of that was due to plain cloud cover and fog (much of which along the Yangtze seems to have been created by the massive Dam project).  But in Xian and Beijing in particular, the air was suffocating.  Kathleen and Josie were going to run one day in Xian, but bagged it because they were going to suffer a coughing fit right out of the gate.  We had decent views of downtown when we went up the Shanghai Pearl Tower, but anything beyond a mile or so was pure haze.

6.  I do have a newfound appreciation for the Chinese people's resilience.  Be it the Mongols, the Brits, the Japanese, the "central kingdom" has been getting knocked around for years, and still manages to be a significant player on the world stage.  They seem to be moving (slowly) past the damages down by Mao; let's hope they continue to do so.

Chinglish

I have great respect for native Chinese speakers who have mastered English.  I'm sure the linguists out there could tell me 2 languages that are more disparate, but these 2 seem pretty extreme.  In particular, our tour guide Yuan was fantastic, fielding all manner of questions adroitly, and covering topics from history and politics to pop culture, society, current events, gardening, agriculture, sports, and technology.

But there is a much larger subset within China that apparently takes a more thoughtless approach to translation.  What follows are just a few samples of signs where something seems to have been lost in translation (though the
last one just may be a poorly named ship).

Terra cotta warriors

Today was fabulous fantastical glorious enlightening day! We saw the "8th wonder of the world," today!
We road a mini cute bus to the first building called PIT 1! But first we talked to our tour guides and they told us how long we had and people trying to Scam us! We walked and had nudge through the small crowd of people to see the warriors.  The stone army was amazing, each one were but still different! Some had no head others had no hands or arm. We walked all around and took pictures. There was one spot which they used for putting the Terra Cotta Warriors. Then we met up with the tour guides again and we went the the next building called PIT 2. The second one want all that exciting. All there were was rubble and clay body parts and sticky notes, but it was still exciting.
Then we went to PIT 3, the last of the PITS. The third one was exciting with a few stone carcasses, but there were alot not destroyed warriors. Some were even covered in Saran wrap! We saw some cool horses and people in glass walls to protect them. We then to a boring building with bathrooms and glowing floors. Right before it was time to go we went back to PIT 1 and took a family picture. We traveled back on Foot to our bus and we passed through a market and I Seth De Both bought a panda!

Orphanage pictures

Orphanage Visit

The visit to the orphanage yesterday went well and was worthwhile. We were particularly happy to correct some erroneous information, find out additional details, and get to see and copy a few new pictures of Seth as a baby and toddler. They were quite accommodating, translating sections of the account of the man who found Seth (and writing down his name for us) and showing us around a few parts of the building. Hearing the man's account was particularly touching for us as it was the first time we've heard these details of him finding our boy. As it turns out, our hotel is very close to the location where he was found.

Both the director and one of the caregivers remembered Seth and seemed pleased to see him these seven years later. They took lots of pictures and encouraged us to stay in touch and send them photos.

We were able to visit two rooms where about 20 children with special needs live and the cafeteria. It is a large faculty, housing about 1,000 children so we only saw a small part.

Seth asked several questions ranging from what he would have eaten there (Chinese food) to what happens to the kids that aren't adopted.

On the whole, it was a positive visit and we are glad we had the chance to do it.

Tuesday - Beijing arrival

We got to Beijing by 10 on Tuesday - the math backward from there for wake up and departure for the Xian airport was not pretty - which gave us time for an early lunch at a local restaurant. Here we had our first of many encounters with a salesman who hauls his little trailer around town following groups from this travel agency. He sells hats, shirts, bags, etc, and almost everyone bought something from him eventually.

We had the rest of the day on our own, and went back to the neighborhood we stayed in back in 2009. We found a park, hotel, restaurant, and grocery store that we frequented then.

Xian - Monday

The rest of our day in Xian, besides the Terra Cotta warriors that Seth told you about, was not uneventful. A little Tae Chi, dancing, and music in the morning, and a return trip to the street market for dinner.

Chongqing

As lovely as the Yangtze River was, I think by Sunday morning most of us were ready to move on from the, uh, elegance of our tight quarters. The ending port was Chongqing, which has been the capital of China at various points in its history. One of those times was during WWII, or the War of Japanese Aggression, as its known in these parts. We visited a few museums in town honoring the American contribution to they Chinese, including supply flights over the hump from India, and US military service alongside the Chinese military.

What passes for towns, cities, mega cities around here also requires some translation. The Chongqing region has 33 million people, and the city proper has 9 million, and yet it is called a medium-sized city. They have a very modern downtown shopping district complete with ridiculous prices. We did enjoy a super lunch at a restaurant here, complete with a catfish staring at us from the center of the table.

An afternoon flight took us to Xian in north central China. I was ready for a ride straight to the hotel but thankfully I didn't get to make that choice. That's because the night market we visited was fascinating. Food of all sorts - lots of meat on a stick and full animal carcasses, pomegranate juice, naan, persimmons, and on and on. We had a feast of dumplings - 18 different varieties, many of them shaped to match their contents (chicken, cabbage, pork...).

The hotel here was built 3 years ago to cater to government and business travelers. 2.5 years ago, the government initiated an anti-corruption campaign, drying up the customer flow for the hotel! Their loss is our gain, as apparently rooms can be had cheaply for travel agencies booking groups.

One day, two stops

Grinding corn at the mud house

Saturday we had stops in two different "villages". At the first we climbed up the nine levels of the red pagoda called Shibozhai. It was really amazing to see a wooden structure built onto the side of a mountain without the use of any nails.

At the second stop, in Fengdu, Josie and I went on an extra tour to visit some local residents and a market. The home visits were a contrast between a 50 year old mud home that predated the flooding for the Three Gorges dam reservoir and a 17 year old brick home built to accommodate a family relocated because of the dam. The market visit following was especially interesting thanks to the great range of products available and the amazing quality of the vegetables on display. (If I could grow a cauliflower as pretty as what I saw I might be too pleased to eat it!) I've enjoyed seeing all the terraced gardens and fields so it was fun to see stall after stall of fresh eggs and produce.

Other than the tours, we've had lots of down time these days on the boat. It's given us more time with our fellow tour members and it's been especially fun to travel with so many people from Ontario (half the group or so?) After two years of not knowing anything about most MN cities people reference, it's been a treat to have a conversation with someone born and raised in Sudbury and currently living in Niagara on the Lake and know where those places are and have memories there myself. I've found a fellow Pelee Island fan and another University of Windsor grad in the group! Josie and Seth were the only two kids on the boat (and the only kids we saw most days in the ports) which has been an interesting social experiment. Seth is getting plenty of practice in adult dinner conversation and our tour mates are getting insight into the randomness of an 11 year old male mind with his topics of conversation ranging from King Tut to cat poop in quick succession. Getting off the boat there's the promise of wifi and electronic connection with some friends.

We're at the airport now to move on to the next city and ready to wear ourselves out a bit more walking for the rest of the trip.

Kathleen

Wednesday - leaving Shanghai

Wednesday was our last day in Shanghai. After breakfast, we took the subway to one of the local IKEA's, mostly to see what they sold different from American or European versions. K made a few nice finds.

We returned to the hotel to depart with the group at noon, and immediately the day got discombobulated. We were supposed to fly out in the evening to Yichang, where our cruise on the Yangtze River began. But fog canceled the flight which meant, among other things, that our afternoon activities were canceled or severely curtailed.

We got about 20 minutes into our tour of Yuyuan Gardens before the final flight arrangements were determined, so we were hustled away. The silk market was not what we expected - though there was lots of exquisitely made artwork. We didn't buy any of the "deeply discounted" merchandise either.

A final authentic Shanghai meal was replaced by Subway (yes, that Subway) at the airport, as we had to fly out mid-afternoon to Wuhan. Since you're all intimately familiar with Chinese geography, I don't need to remind you that Wuhan is a 4+ hour drive away from Yichang. That meant a lengthy late-night bus ride on a rainy, foggy evening. We finally boarded the ship around midnight, and got to bed a little before one.

Friday - Shennong tributary/Badong and Fengjie

All these areas above the Dam are completely changed by the reservoir. In most places it seems the water level is 60-90 meters higher than it was before 2003. So at each stop along the way, the buildings we see on the hillsides above the river/reservoir have all appeared in the last 20 years.

I wonder, when they started holding up the water and the flooding started, how many places the water went that they said "uh oh, didn't expect that".

We took a small ferry this morning up a tributary about 10 miles. Lots of steep rocky and forested slopes. Thousands of years ago, this area was inhabited by the Ba people, whose burial practice was to get the bodies as close to the heavens as possible. This was done through "hanging coffins" - suspending them in crevices in the rock. Because of the dam, most of the coffins are now underwater, but a handful are still visible.

While sailing up this remote stream, we saw a huge bridge perhaps 200 feet above the river, perhaps a mile long. The guide said it connected two large cities, but we didn't see any cars on it, and I had flashbacks to the Bridge to Nowhere scandal in Alaska a few years back. They definitely are proud of their ability to build lots of things quickly here.

We've started buying little whatzits here and there, all probably mass-produced in a factory around the corner. We've decided none of us is the best negotiator in the world, but Seth may be the worst. Twice now I've been bargaining for him to a price I know we can get, and he pipes up and says he'll be happy to pay their higher number. Shrug.