Sunday, July 31, 2005
Hanging in Nanning
Hi!
Things continue to move smoothly here in southern
China. The weather has given us a break today, with
some clouds, light rain, and cooler temps. The
humidity continues to be impressive, but our outdoor
adventures are, quite honestly, fairly limited. Today
we ventured to an open air flea market of sorts, and
saw everything from various animals (cats, dogs, fish,
birds, chicks, bunnies) for sale to trinkets, jewelry,
pottery and plants. Obviously a troop of americans
coming through get plenty of extra glances from the
locals, but a bunch of "big nosed" americans with
chinese babies in tow draw stares. Some are brave
enough to come up and start 'conversations' with us in
broken english, and smile and touch Mia and the other
kids. Mia responds in turn by starting to cry :( but
actually this is good as I feel she has really bonded
with us. Lisa is definitely the point person in the
Mia care, and I'm doing more bottle washing etc, but
we can pass her back and forth now without a fuss. She
has pretty much kicked the upper respiratory
infection/ congestion, but now has a little heat rash.
Baby benadryl (for the itch) last night had her conked
out in minutes.
Yesterday included some fun for the 'boys' in the
group. Myself and another dad ventured off to find
some recordable discs for his camcorder and grabbed
takeout from China's version of McDonald's. It was
amazingly similar in menu choices and taste to the US
version - and the place was simply packed. For better
or worse, greasy US food seems to be catching on big
here. We also took the babes to a local "park" which
actually turned out to be an amusement park with games
and rides, etc. I jumped into this tent with two other
dads and we took control of air cannons launching nerf
balls back and forth at each other. The Chinese kids
in the tent thought it was hilarious, and immediately
took aim at the 'crazy' Americans.
We also saw a local village yesterday, about an hour
out of town. They have electricity and propane for
cooking, and plenty of mopeds/motorcycles/trucks. But
otherwise it was what you might have expected the
village to look like a few hundred years ago. I
suspect if the village was a bit further from the big
city (Nanning) of the province, it would be even more
primitive. 3 harvest times a year (rice, soybeans,
corn, etc) means exceptionally hard work. Very few
little girls running around...which is clearly to be
expected here, but it seems that the 'one child' rule
is somewhat more lax if you are a member of a minority
ethnic group here. One village woman I talked to
actually had 3 boys. The kids were cute though,
running up to us with hands palms up, expecting candy.
(they weren't disappointed).
Anyway, tonight we're on the town for another group
dinner and some ethnic dancing and singing. Our guide
told us that the women dancers pick a few men from the
audience and we are included in the performance, which
apparently includes us actually carrying the women
around for a stint! (I'll try to keep a low profile,
but fortunately it doesn't look like any of the women
here weigh over 100 lbs. Still looking for my first
sighting of an obese local...don't think it is going
to happen). Tomorrow - off to Guangzhou! the last
stage of our trip....I'll hopefully be able to send
some pictures from the famed White Swan hotel's
computer station. Until then, take care, thanks for
the support,
Mark & Lisa & Mia
