Monday, August 01, 2005
Curiosities in China
Today was amazingly boring and amazingly exciting --
On the latter : Mia is really letting loose with the
laughter and giggles, and is now handing out smiles
regularly to Lisa and me. She is still a quite timid
little girl, but who can blame an orphan for that? The
boring part is that there was nothing on the agenda
for today other than pack and get ready for our flight
to Guangzhou around 7:30 tonight. So, I'm simply
posting to the blog some random thoughts. For others
more worldly than I, these tidbits won't seem very
interesting, but they are details that struck my
curiousity anyway.
-- China is all on one time zone...that is amazing
really given the huge size of this country.
-- Chinese cuisine here is generally excellent, but we
are all at the point of not only craving our old
American favorite dishes, but also craving the
'chinese' food we get at home, which usually involves
large quantities of white rice, and dishes with lots
of sauce and nuts that you ladel over the top. Oh, and
no fortune cookies here....and Chinese regular cookies
suck.
-- I was looking for baby Benadryl for Mia's heat rash
(itching) and couldn't find it at the little pharmacy
at the hotel. What I did find was alot of 'sheep
placenta' supplements; yikes wonder what that is for!
Oh, and antibiotics like amoxicillin are readily
available over the counter here. Cool if you are a
nervous parent or hypochondriac. Not cool if you are a
public health official trying to curb antibiotic
resistant bugs floating around through the population.
-- Alot of young boys find work as security guards at
the tender age of 15, 16, 17 etc. While American teens
are flipping burgers at fast food joints, these guys
are standing in the lobby at banks, hotels, etc. They
don't seem to do very much other than just stand
there...saw a few of them sleeping. Would be hard to
imagine them actually intervening in a 'situation'.
China in general seems 'overstaffed'. Obviously this
would fit with the huge population as well as with the
fact that we are staying at and dining at extremely
nice places, but when Lisa was breakfasting early this
am and the restaurant was still empty, the staff were
falling over themselves to 'service' her...'are you
done with that Miss? actually no, thanks, really....'
-- Charades is a fun and useful game when you are
trying to communicate across a language barrier. In
Beijing, Lis needed more toilet paper and I flagged
down a maid with her cart in the hotel hallway. She
got 'paper' pretty soon, but went for a notepad. I
then had to act out wiping my butt (!) - fortunately
no one else was around - she instantly got it "TOILET
paper" and handed a roll over with an embarrassed
smile.
-- I haven't seen one 'mountain bike' here despite
their popularity back home. The bikes look to all be
vintage, and old, like the old Schwinn my dad used to
use. And many are rigged up with all kinds of
platforms and carriers to haul an unbelievable amount
of stuff. In the heat, you feel sorry for the riders;
many of the women carry umbrellas for a sun shield
while they bike. But I have seen more brands of moped
and motorcycle then I ever realized existed; they are
everywhere. Yesterday in the rain, almost all the
motor bikers had a plastic shroud that not only
covered the driver, but also the front of the bike,
like a dress, with holes for the handlebars to go
through and a small transparent spot for the
headlight. Chinese ingenuity!
More bloggin' tomorrow I'm sure....off to Guangzhou! :)
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