Train Tickets

We arrived in Shanghai on August 6th, a week earlier than necessary in order to go to Beijing for a week before school started. We anticipated we would be unable to get tickets because China’s rail system is such that you can only buy tickets a week before the date of departure. As a result they sell out very quickly. Despite this we decided to try anyway. Sunday morning we arrived at one of the many ticket offices in Shanghai to buy tickets for Monday night. After standing in line for 30 minutes we finally arrived at the front of the line and gave the woman at the counter our hand scribbled note with the potential train numbers and times we wanted to leave. She typed a few things into her computer then without even looking at us said “may yo” (don’t have) and waved us off. We stepped to the side, looked up to the electronic seat availability board and confirmed that it did say “15 seats left.” ???? So we conferred for a few minutes and re-joined another line to try again. Clearly that woman didn’t check properly.

Another 30 minutes later.

We handed the guy our note. This time I could see his computer screen and double checked to make sure he entered all 8 of the possible train numbers, which leave 5 minutes after each other. He did. Then he said “yo.” Aaron and I look at each other and thought “Yes! That woman clearly wasn’t doing her job properly.” We started counting out 1300RMB ($191) for the second class soft sleeper, except the amount on the screen popped up with 2770RMB ($408). Immediately the Chinese surrounding us went nuts. “What!!! Where are they going? Why is it so expensive?? This is absurd.” Then I heard someone say “soft sleeper” and they calmed down and I heard a collective “aaahh” with a few head nods. I thought, well I guess this price is accurate and the one we found online was not. Ugh. We forked over the money and left.

We saw one of our Chinese friends later that day and showed him our tickets and he just laughed then showed our tickets to the random Chinese guy next to him who also started laughing. Great! We’ve been duped, clearly.

After a very long sleepless night during which we spent most of it online trying to figure out what on earth happened and how we could be reunited with our money we learned a few things. To start with we could have flown cheaper even if we bought the tickets for the next day. More importantly we discovered that there is ONE English language train ticket counter in Shanghai. We also learned that you can return your tickets for a small penalty.



Are you curious to know what happened? Well the nice gentleman at the counter decided to sell us the super deluxe first class soft sleeper tickets rather than the second class soft sleeper tickets just because he could. Wasn’t that so nice of him!!!! Next time when the woman says “may yo” we’re walking away!

As a little coda to the end of the story, we have subsequently discovered that after arriving in Beijing we would have been unable to buy return train tickets!!! Apparently train tickets into Shanghai are selling out in a matter of minutes, since everyone wants to go to the 2010 World Expo. Instead we’re saving our money and traveling to Tibet in October.

The Turtle

Eating in China is an experience. It’s not how the food is cooked that takes getting use to, it is how it’s served and what part of the animal arrives on the table. If it is a small animal (typically bird or fish) it will be the whole thing: head, tail, legs, skin. This is to create trust between you and the restaurant or store. It proves to the customer that they are serving you what you ordered. In other cases it also allows you to identify the animal. For larger animals, the meat dishes are served with small pieces of meat with the bone still in it, sometimes the "cuts of meat" are just big chunks of fat, other times there is almost no meat and lots of bone. Fish have the skin, head and bones. If it is a fillet of fish, which is very rare, it will have bones in it. Shrimp comes with its head and feet.

Chinese are masterful eaters. They can take an entire shrimp, put it in their mouth, take the meat outside of the shell and then spit the shell back out, which gets spat onto the table. This is the equivalent to trying to tie a cherry stem with your tongue. They can also hold a piece of meat in their chopsticks and manage to clean the entire bone. I am rather savage-like and must hold mine in my fingers.



One of the things I like about the Chinese is that they do not waste any part of an animal. They like the brains, internal organs, skin, fat, feet, muscle and everything in-between. For me it makes the death of the animal more humane, because most of it is not being wasted. What I don’t like about China is that they eat the whole animal! While I know it’s all edible, I have grown up where you eat the meat of an animal and nothing else.

There are stories of people eating dogs and cats. We have not seen that. The “weird” things that we see are frogs, turtles, fish lips, eel, jellyfish, fungus, brains, pigs feet, chicken feet, intestines, heart and many others.

The worst experience we’ve had so far with food was the Friday during Chinese New year at San Mei’s house. If you remember from the last post San Mei is one of the cleaning ladies from the school (and her name means third sister.) San Mei invited the whole staff and those of us in town attended - along with her entire extended family. We were served so many different dishes, but the one that stands out the most was the poor soft-shell turtle. It arrived on the table and we all looked at it. Seated around the table were 2 Canadians, Kelly, Lulu, Vanessa (from Taiwan), her daughters and us. We all looked at this turtle and every single one of us thought “I don’t want to eat that!” Somehow we discovered that none of us wanted to eat it and Aaron and I were so grateful. When San Mei walked back into the room, Kelly said to her in Chinese, “take this back to your family we don’t want to eat it.” San Mei was clearly baffled and maybe offended. In rapid fire Chinese she started saying perhaps the following: “What do you mean you don’t want to eat the turtle? It’s very yummy! What’s wrong with you people? Here I’ll cut it for you with chopsticks and then each of you can have a bite and see how delicious it is. “



San Mei took two chopsticks picked up the turtle that’s probably 8 inches long and flipped it over onto its back. She then used the chopsticks to slice down the middle and cut it into pieces about three inches square. She picked up the first piece and tried to give it to Kelly, who squealed like a little girl and threw herself backwards as far as she could get from it. Vanessa, who has been brought up well, gracefully accepted her piece of turtle. Aaron, myself and one of the Canadians did the same. No one else had any. Aaron was amazing, he ate all of his. I ate the smallest bite possible and I all I can tell you is that turtle is slightly rubbery and I don't need to eat one again. As soon as San Mei left the room we all took our pieces of turtle and managed to disguise them among the other food scraps on the table.

Chinese New Year

On Monday of Chinese New Year we were invited by one of the student’s families to join them for lunch. At this point we had done the playing mahjong and visiting friends. Now we got to go with friends to visit more friends. The parents are Chinese, but Matthew is an American. The husband was transferred to the US a few years ago and they lived in Atlanta for about 3 years, during which time Matthew was born. Their daughter is now at Princeton and hates coming to visit her parents in China. Matthew, a 6 year-old is the most American student at the school. I felt confused growing up regarding my nationality, I can’t begin to imagine what these kids think.

So the Monday was Aaron’s birthday. The Ma’s had originally invited us out for lunch or dinner because they like us, but specifically on Monday because of Aaron’s birthday. After they had invited us, the Ma’s were invited to Chinese New Year lunch by their closest and oldest friends. When the Ma’s said they were unable to come, the friends invited us out to lunch too! We were very honoured to be included.



I think there were 20 of us at lunch. Including us there were 4 families. 3 Mas, 2 Milburns, 3 friends #1, 7 friends #2, and 4 grandparents. I don’t remember and didn’t really get anyone's name except for the children of family #2, which are: first child, second child, third child, fourth child and fifth child!!! Who names their children one, two, three, four, five???? The Chinese do!!! This is apparently fairly common. According to our Chinese friends the parents do this so they can remember their children's names. What??? One of the cleaning lady's at the school is named "San Mei." That means third daughter. Her sisters names are: Yi Mei, Er Mei and Si Mei, which mean first daughter, second daughter and third daughter! Don't you have to remember that too?

Aaron and I are also a little confused about how many children the Chinese can have, because friends #2 had 5 children, 3 girls and 2 boys. Friends #1 only had one child, a girl. For both families all the children ranged from late teens to late 20s, so they clearly fall under the “1 child policy.” One of the Chinese teachers at school, Lulu, is the oldest of 3 children. I do know her parents had to pay a fine because they had too many kids. Kelly on the other hand is an only child. But we have not met nearly as many only children as we expected.



We had a pleasant lunch. Most of the tables at restaurants are round. They seat anywhere from 8 people to 20. They all have a lazy susan on them, made out of glass, so it makes it easy to get to all the dishes, but can take awhile, because as you’re turning the lazy susan everyone starts helping themselves. Most of the food tasted very good. We did have to eat some weird, clear, slimy, slightly hard, but also soft thing that I think comes from the water. The other food I didn't enjoy too much was a small little fish that gets baked and you eat everything - head, tail, bones, eyes, skin - mmm, crunchy! Aside from those few dishes, the soups, vegetables and fish dishes were good.



Our lunch not only consisted of eating, but also included toasts and singing and kung fu performances. Now these performances were by those of us sitting around the table. Since we don’t know Chinese, we’re not quite sure why this started, because Mrs. Ma assured us many times that you do not normally have to sing for your supper. It was interesting to see what people chose. Children 2 and 4 chose to sing the pop song “Nobody but You” and danced some of the moves from the music video.



After we finished the lunch feast, we went to a Buddhist temple with family #1. It’s very common for Chinese to go to the temple at the New Year to ask for blessings for the coming year. People travel from far away. They bring gifts of money and food. Groups of women will prepare dances which they perform in front of the Buddhas and other idols. It was neat to be there on this day in particular, because normally when we go to a temple we’re there with a lot of other tourists, but this time it was people here practicing their faith.

Chinese New Year's Eve

I’ve heard about the Chinese New Year before, but have never really understood the importance of it until this year. The most important day for the start of the New Year celebration is New Year’s Eve. This year it happened to be Februrary 13th. So February 13th is the equivalent to our December 31st. New Year’s Day was the 14th. They do not celebrate Valentine’s Day here so that was not an issue. Chinese New Year is celebrated by eating, playing mahjong and visiting family and friends. It is not just a one night event either. It is one week to two weeks long event. Think Thanksgiving and Christmas combined. From what we understand the Chinese do not get public holidays plus two weeks of vacation they can take anytime, they just get the public holidays and there are 2 of them, Chinese New Year and one in October. The vacation at Chinese New Year can be anywhere from 1-2 weeks long, so EVERYTHING shuts down. Also, EVERYONE travels. Tickets for airlines and trains are booked solid. Hotel prices skyrocket because you either go home to your family or your family goes sightseeing - the Great Wall, the Terra Cotta warriors, etc. So with this information in mind and 1.3 billion people traveling, we stayed put.

On “New Year’s Eve” we went to one of the Chinese teacher’s apartment to celebrate with her. She’s from the Dong Bei province which is in the very north eastern part of China and it takes her 2-3 days by train to get home (think Maine), so she was unable to go home for Chinese New Year. We asked her what time we should arrive and she said anytime after 12pm. Hmm, does that mean 12:15pm or 6pm??? I tried asking for clarification, but she sort of looked at me like I had 2 heads, because this is clearly a very strange question! In the end we asked one of the other Chinese teachers who was also going to Kelly’s house what time she would arrive and she said 2pm. So that’s what we did.

It was the first time we’ve been invited into a Chinese person’s home. As we walked up the unpainted gray concrete stairs to her 6th floor apartment I was wondering what we would find when we opened the door because there was trash, broken furniture, stains and marks all over the stairs and on the walls. Fortunately we were pleasantly surprised when she opened the door. There was a "wood" floor, more furniture than I expected and it was cozy. Chinese apartments are nice, because they are built so that the apartments have windows opening on both sides. If you live in the middle of an apartment building your apartment will face north and south or east and west. Being on the top floor, Kelly’s apartment also had the equivalent of a roof garden without the garden. She uses it to hang clothing to dry.

We played mahjong for several hours, like 3 or 4. One of the most valuable things that I have done since moving to China has been to learn how to play mahjong. Each area of China has its own rules. I have learned to play both Shanghai and Suzhou rules. It was quite amusing, because Aaron and I were teaching Kelly and Lulu, the Chinese teachers, how to play mahjong with the Suzhou rules and we’re the foreigners! We bought a mahjong set and are going to have Kelly teach us the Dong Bei rules and have Lulu teach us the Beijing rules.

After mahjong Kelly cooked us dinner. The food was very good. Simply cooked, oil, water, salt or sugar but with a nice flavor. There were a couple of dishes with meat, pork and chicken, and then there were quite a few dishes that were just vegetables. Eating in China is a bit like eating tapas. You order many plates, but of a good size, and then eat a bit of everything. You order a chicken and it will come with a few vegetables. The broccoli will just be broccoli, etc. No, we didn’t eat anything “scary,” that would come on Friday, which I will write about soon!

We had a really fun day with Kelly and Lulu. We ended up leaving around 9pm and then went home in anticipation of watching and hearing a lot of fireworks. We've spent quite a bit more time with Kelly and Lulu since then and it's been really nice to make some good Chinese friends. Once we move to Shanghai we will continue to visit them in Suzhou to spend time with them.

A real, warm house!

A few weeks ago we were invited by a Slovenian family, whose children go to the school, for after dinner drinks and desert. They live in a house!!!! A house is a rarity in China. Everyone lives in an apartment or duplex. She made mulled wine. It was amazing. Then she wouldn’t stop feeding us. She brought out chips, nuts, a chocolate cake, fresh made whipped cream (yum) and a variety of other deserts. I think the thing we enjoyed the most was that their house is warm. A very close second was the mulled wine and whipped cream. Their house has insulation, carpeting and siding. Aaron and I are so tired of always being cold. We turn on the heat and it takes the chill out of the room, but it is still cold.

There is some imaginary line in China between the North and the South. The northern part has central heating and the southern part does not. So while the Beijing temperatures reach -20 degrees Centigrade, they have central heating and it doesn’t feel as cold (this is what I’ve been told.) The southern part of China does not have central heating. We have space heaters, blankets and you wear your down jacket, hat and scarf in doors. Aaron and I are not the kind of people who think you should wear shorts and a t-shirt inside during the winter, we like our sweaters, but we do not like to be constantly cold. Just to give you an idea, I am currently wearing thick fleece pants, short and long sleeved shirts, a fleece, down slippers and am wrapped in a fleece blanket. I am about to put on socks and long underwear pants because although I have the heat on, it is still cold inside because it is a very cold day outside, -4C.

The winter temperatures in Suzhou are around freezing. November here was windy and cold. December and January were just plain cold. February has been wet and cold. A week or two ago it was rainy and overcast for 10 days straight. When it doesn’t rain you can’t see the sun or blue skies. It’s not overcast, but there’s cloud cover or pollution cover.

Now some of you might be thinking any or all of the following: “we’ve been dealing with snow all winter long, rain no big deal” or “I live/d in London, I live/d in Seattle” or “I live in South Africa and we don’t have central heating.” We don’t get to just walk the 30 seconds to our cars, but rather have to walk home carrying the bags of groceries along with the umbrella. Let me tell you, I had never appreciated before how heavy groceries are! In South Africa, you walk outside and it’s warmer because of the sun (We haven’t seen it since October.) It’s taken us some getting used to and we’ve survived. Would I rather have a car on those rainy days? Absolutely, but we clearly don’t hate it enough to leave, because we’ve signed on for another 2 years of this weather. Not in Suzhou, but Shanghai.

CRASH!

So, the bicycle used to be the thing that tied China together. If you ever saw a National Geographic special in the 80's and 90's about China, you probably saw the streets choked with bicycles. The bicycle is still used a lot, but even more so recently is the electric scooter. You take the battery with you to your house/apartment and plug it in overnight. TONS of people drive these things here and in Shanghai.

You do not need a license to drive these things, and there are apparently no laws governing their driving. If you feel like wearing a helmet, wear one. If you don't, don't. No one is going to stop you. It's very laissez-faire here. I have OFTEN remarked to Kristy how I hate that people stare at me as I am walking to work. I don't hate it because I am a waiguoren (foreigner) but because they are DRIVING A MOVING VEHICLE!!!

This brings me to tonight. Kristy and I are standing at the bus stop, chatting with a co-worker who also happens to be our Chinese teacher when we hear a tremendous CRASH! We turn around to see that one of these scooter drivers has smashed his scooter into a parked car, effectively demolishing his little scooter. He is talking on his cell phone. The entire time. He was very clearly ALREADY talking on it when he crashed. He picks up his wrecked scooter, and a few of his belongings that are strewn about on the ground, and upturns his scooter. Apparently, the thing still goes, and he drives off. We are all speechless. Honestly, I am surprised that this is the first scooter wreck that I've witnessed. Only took seven months.

Hairy, hairy man!

So, as you probably know, I have a full beard. This is probably more of an oddity to my Chinese neighbors than the fact that I'm pasty-white and speak English. I know Kristy used to get a little nervous when she would go shopping without me, because she'd get stared at, but I really do think it happens far less for her when I am there too. The beard is curious to adults and TERRIFYING to little children, which of course makes me laugh.

This brings me to my next observation. Since we have been in China I have noticed on several occasions men and women with moles. Ok, so that's not so weird or different. I have a big mole on my forehead. So what? Well, fortunately for me, I do NOT have weird hairs growing out of said mole. If I DID, I would shave, pluck, wax, or whatever it took to get them out of there. Apparently, the Chinese do not share my sentiment. I noticed these men and women with moles, not because they had moles per se. No, it was because of the TREMENDOUS amount of HAIR sprouting from these moles. The woman I saw had what looked like octopus tentacles growing from the mole. I was waiting for them to come alive, Medusa-style, and attack me.
The second was today as Kristy and I were waiting on the platform for our train to Shanghai. The man next to me had hairs SHOOTING out of his chin-mole that were no less than 1.5 inches long. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?So, I'm interested in this now. The information I've found after my brief research has been that hairs growing from a mole are lucky. A sign of good fortune. Personally, I find it repulsive, but I'm a stupid waiguoren, so what do I know?

Philippines (part 2)

We planned our trip so that the first half was action packed and the second half relaxing and calm. So after we finished swimming with the whale sharks, we traveled to Naga to go hiking at the base of Mt. Isarog in order to see some hot springs and water falls. Unfortunately we were horribly misguided by lonely planet and ended up in the wrong place. So our water falls ended up being a creek about 2 meters wide and then someone built these concrete swimming pools on the side of the creek. They then filled the pools with water from the creek. The hot springs were better, but we didn't know there was a dress code that required you to wear shorts and shirts, so we couldn't go swimming.

After our day of wandering pointlessly around the mountain (although there were some pretty views and it was nice to get out and walk) we caught the night bus from hell to go to our final destination, Puerto Galera. We wanted to take a night bus so we didn't waste a day traveling. Traveling by bus in the Philippines was an interesting experience. They try to cram as many people into the bus as possible before you leave. You think a van is supposed to seat 12 (because that's how many seats there are), that's a joke, you can easily fit 16 in that van. Squash them in! We anticipated that we would have our own seats like a coach bus and be able to get some sleep. Nope, it was a vinyl covered bench seat. Not too uncomfortable, you could definitely sleep on it sitting up, the problem was the driver and the fact that there aren't any highways in the Philippines, so everything is a winding two lane country road. I think we were late for something, because the guy was driving down this road at what felt like 500km an hour. Aaron and I were literally sliding back and forth on our bench seat. I would grab onto the bench to try to stay in one spot and he would hold onto the headrest. That's how we slept, if you can call it sleep! I couldn't decide if I was more scared that we would crash into an oncomming car or flipping as we barreled around one of the turns. It was insane. But we survived!

We finally arrived in the town of Puerto Galera after that awful bus ride (and I'm not exaggerating at all) and a boat ride. The town of Puerto Galera isn't anything to write home about. There are beaches, but the restaurants and hotels have been built right up to the water and there are so many hawkers. Our favourites were the guys selling pool ques. Hmm, that's exactly what I want to buy when on a dive/beach vacation - my own personalized pool que. The people selling necklaces, sun glasses, fruit, shells - that made sense, but a pool que?? That is what we call a bad investment.

We chose Puerto Galera for the scuba diving. The diving was nice. We saw a white tip reef shark, turtles, flounder, angel fish, nudibrachs, a wide variety of soft coral. The water was chilly for diving 27C/80F, but we enjoyed it. When we weren't diving we read either on the balcony of our room or on the beach.

So that was our trip. Not incredibly exciting, but we enjoyed it. It was nice to get away from cold Suzhou and be able to see the sun for two weeks. I don't know if we'll go back to the Philippines, but we enjoyed ourselves.

(I wanted to add more pictures, but couldn't get them to upload.)