Our Adventures in China

2010-02-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

The Bus.

Big, rickety behemoth, lumbering down the road, the city bus has become one of our closest friends this year. Even though the number of personal cars is rising every day in China, the public bus is still the most common mode of transportation. For the equivalence of 30 or 44 cents (depending on whether or not it has air-conditioning) you can ride anywhere in the city. The buses don’t run on schedules, but rarely do you ever wait more than 10 minutes for one.

The buses spew forth exhaust, the gears grind, and the shocks moan like a woman in labor. Occasionally the driver pulls into a gas station to fill up the tank, oblivious to the deadlines of his passengers, but the buses never break down on the road.

The swaying and sudden stopping are minor annoyances when sitting down, but major concerns when standing for 10, 20, or even 40 minutes. On evenings, weekends, and rush hour you have no choice but to join the mass of people entering the bus. You think not one more person can fit, until the driver yells to everyone to move to the back. As you stand sandwiched together hanging on to the plastic hand loops hanging from the ceiling, you all shuffle a little tighter together and more people climb on.

Happiness is a day when you get a seat on the bus. It’s even better to get one near the back. This way you are less likely to have to give up your seat to old people or parents holding young children.

Noise is the backdrop to all the bus dramas. People chatting on their cell phones in loud abrasive voices. Chinese pop music over the loud speakers. Jangling of construction jackhammers. The hum of thick layers of cars and buses on the street. The constant metallic rattles of the bus.

Visual noise outside the window fills the senses. Billboards and store facades yell at you to buy. Banners float from half finished apartment high-rises promising a good life if you move to their elegant grounds. Vegetable and fruit vendors lay their goods on mats and tables that line the sidewalks. Bicycles and pedestrians weave in and out of the traffic. Garbage lines the streets, even as tired looking men and women in conical straw hats and fluorescent orange safety vests slowly sweep it up.

People from all social classes and age groups ride the bus. Teenagers in their baby blue sweat suit school uniforms with backpacks, pigtails, and ear buds. Wiry, muscular workers in olive green jackets and muddy boots. 20somethings women in fashion boots and short skirts. Hip young men with orange hair, a long baby fingernail, and a cell phone. Bored businessmen in the standard white button down shirt and gray dress pants. Tired housecleaners with their hair pulled back in straggly ponytails. Severe old women with no nonsense shoes and a glare that can make a grown man cower. Sweet girls freshly arrived from the rural areas, ready to try out their broken English and exchange cell phone numbers with you. Ancient old men with sun weathered skin, carrying buckets on bamboo poles. Fishermen in rubber boots carrying pails of freshly caught fish.

On a bright sunny day, happy that I had a good seat on a rush hour bus, a sad young woman sat next to me and began to weep. This was no small sniffle, but deep sobs that went on for 30 minutes during which time I pondered the proper response. Pretend to not notice? Nod and look sympathetic? Place a gentle hand on her?

Foreigners make up only a small percentage of the population in Zhuhai and thus are prime targets for intense stares. Passive faces that give no clues to the thoughts behind them calmly look you over. One night Nathan rode the bus home from a Halloween party with fake blood dripping down his cheek, open wounds on his arms, and a torn, blood spattered T-shirt. The teenage girls stared and chattered about him. He understood bits and pieces of their conversation as they discussed the odd ‘meiguoren’ (American). The middle-aged fisherman seated directly next to Nathan stared a long time, looked away, stared again, his eyes uncomprehending what he saw.

The last bus to the university area leaves downtown around 10:30pm. On a Friday or Saturday night the college students hop on the 10:00pm buses back to campus from the bars. The smell of alcohol fills the air as they stand arm and in arm, swaying more than usual with the turns and bumps, laughing hysterically at each other’s clever observations.

Is it motion sickness or viruses that cause people to vomit on the bus? A five-year-old boy, looking tired, falling asleep against his grandmother, suddenly rushes to the window next to me. He doesn’t make it to the window and leaves an offering at my feet. A college student stands leaning over his girlfriend, shielding her from stares as she throws up on the floor in front of her. 8:30am an exhausted woman, returning from a night shift, discretely throws up into a plastic bag as I stand hovering over her on the rush hour bus. Everyone turns away and shifts as far from her as possible. No one wants her seat when she leaves.

From your place on the bus you look down on private cars and taxis rushing to their destinations, their passengers ensconced in air-conditioned luxury. You shift in your stance, feel the bags of groceries balanced between your legs, take a tighter grip on the passenger hook above you, and feel the pulse of the city around you.

Pearl Land

2010-01-23T18:41:00.000-08:00

Every day for the past five months as we ride the bus to work we pass the faux castle towers of Pearl Land, a large amusement park. The huge parking lot in front of it is always empty except for a few tour buses. The Ferris wheel never seems to turn; the roller coasters stand idle. Occasionally we see the fountain inside the front gate spouting water. Why doesn’t anyone go to Pearl Land? Could it be a front for a communist party extortion scheme?

Our 21 year old daughter, Sarah, here for a month, convinced us we needed to check out Pearl Land. So on a beautiful sunny Saturday in January (temperature in the low 70’s) Mike, Nathan, Sarah, and I hopped on the city bus, hopped off at the first stop and entered Pearl Land. Three itinerant vendors greeted us at the entrance selling baked sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, chestnuts, and bottled drinks. Regardless of the weather, if the calendar says it is winter, the Chinese eat winter foods and dress in winter clothes.

We walked across the cavernous parking lot, stepping over the weeds growing between the cracks. Buying tickets was easy since no one else was in line. 80 RMB per person (about 12 dollars) got us in the front gate. Here are Sarah and Nathan standing in front of the entrance fountain.

The park was equipped with everything an amusement park needs: ice cream shops, roller coasters, bumper cars, go-carts, haunted house, house of illusions, kiddie rides, merry-go-round, souvenir shops, and live music shows. Every shop and ride was staffed with two or three workers. The park could accommodate a couple thousand people, but we were joined by maybe a total of 75 throughout the day. Like so much of Zhuhai, buildings lie empty, waiting for an influx of people from the countryside. Luxury condominiums, office buildings, and parks stand empty, ready for the arrival of a new middle and upper class. The ticket price for Pearl Land is too high for the average factory worker in Zhuhai. The wealthy would rather take their children to the more sophisticated and modern Disney World in Hong Kong.

The roller coasters were fun – especially since we didn’t have to wait in line. We found the scariest part of the ride was wondering if the rusty tracks would actually hold the cars as they sped around the bends.

We came upon a live music performance by a rock band. A handful of people sat in the large outdoor amphitheater listening. We hurried by since the lead singer sang flat and strained. Chinese children must get no training in correct vocal singing in school, learning their singing techniques from karaoke. Everywhere I go I hear bad singing!

“Experience World” was a strange combination of haunted house and faux reproductions of famous places in the world. The Sphinx leered down at us from the ceiling as we walked down a dark narrow hallway. In another section, there was a miniature cityscape of New York City that still had the twin towers standing in Manhattan. We couldn’t decide if “Experience World” was supposed to be scary or just weird.

Bumper cars were the most popular spot for a school group of 25 teenagers. Dressed in their polyester pants suit uniforms they loved driving these “Dodg’em Cars” as the sign called them. True to the name, the students tried hard to avoid hitting each other. What’s the point of bumper cars if you don’t bump into each other??! It didn’t take long once the four of us got behind the wheel for the Chinese students to discover the fun of crashing into each other.

Another favorite spot for the school group was the largest roller coaster. We had to wait a few minutes in line to ride this. The Chinese understanding of queues was quite evident here. Sarah, Nathan, and I had been waiting in line for 5 minutes behind about 10 students, when the roller coaster cars stopped in front of us. About 30% of the students didn’t bother to get out because they wanted to ride again. The other 70% understood the rules and raced out the exit and back up the entrance steps. Like good Americans we stood in the line waiting our turn, while the Chinese students ran right ahead of us. Our mistake was to leave a gap in front of and beside us. To Chinese people, if there is an empty space near the entrance to anything (the bus, the concert, the store, the check-out counter) that means they can move into it. They don’t consider it cutting in line and they don’t consider it rude. It’s just how things are done here. Quickly Sarah, Nathan, and I moved into a cluster behind the Chinese students and with a little pushing, found an empty roller coaster car.

Our afternoon at Pearl Land satisfied our curiosity. It is indeed an amusement park -one in need of a few coats of paint, but mostly in need of more customers.

Nathan's School

2009-11-14T03:08:00.000-08:00

Every morning, Monday through Friday, Nathan wakes up at 7:00am and after a shower and a long session sculpting his hair, he flies out the door with an egg sandwich in his hand and his backpack over his shoulder to catch the 7:45am apartment shuttle bus to the south end of Zhuhai. After a 40-minute bus ride through busy morning traffic, he has a 10-minute walk to school. The walking route takes him down a very busy highway lined with little shops and new construction of office buildings. He sees the Muslim Restaurant, the Stationary Supply store, the corner grocery store, many fume-spewing city buses, a defunct telephone booth, rust-stained apartment buildings with laundry hanging from every balcony, and bicycles carrying an endless variety of people and objects. On one small open square he sees the bicycle repairman who runs his shop from a toolbox on the sidewalk. Nathan sees him changing tires, adjusting brakes, and tightening screws. When the man isn’t repairing bikes he is squatting on the sidewalk playing a game of Chinese Chess with a friend. Often other men are gathered around, arms folded across their chests, dressed in blue factory shirts, to watch the game.

On the way to school

Bicycle Repair Shop

As Nathan turns the corner to reach his school he passes a car repair shop with 6 garages, a tiny grocery store with chickens pecking in the broken cement out front, and a few impromptu vegetable sellers with their goods laid on woven mats on the sidewalk

Nathan’s school has a security guard who greets everyone as they enter. Many days he checks everyone’s temperature with an ultraviolet sensor pointed at the forehead. This is one of China’s attempts to control the H1N1 flu virus.

The school is a 4-story white cement building with a large track/playing field out front. The building was originally a Chinese elementary school. A year ago Quality Schools International bought it and remodeled the bottom two floors. They hope to grow into the building as more and more westerners move into Zhuhai for business and academic reasons. As Nathan enters the building he walks through a wide-open foyer with one side open to the outside. In a tropical climate it is crucial for the children to have a space with a roof in which to play and be shielded from the hot sun or the rain. Children have plenty of room to play tag, hopscotch, foursquare or ping-pong.

Front of the school

Track/Playground in front of school

Entrance Foyer

Nathan’s school day begins in Mr. Lang’s homeroom with Geometry. Nathan is the only student in the school studying Geometry, so Mr. Lang helps him get started on the assignments and then Nathan works independently. At the same time Mr. Lang is helping Kyoka, a 16-year old Japanese girl, work on Algebra II, and Anthony, a 13-year old Chinese/Thai/American boy work on Algebra I. This is the entire high school student body! Mr. Lang is a 60-year-old American, originally from South Dakota. He has a PhD in economics, along with a secondary teaching license.

From Geometry, Nathan segues into World History with Mr. Lang, Anthony, and Kyoka. At the same time Mr. Lang is also teaching the 7-8^th graders – a group of 5 girls and one boy who are from Germany, France, USA, and the Philippines.

Next Nathan, Anthony, and Kyoka walk downstairs to the office of Mr. Farwell, the principal. He is also the English/Writing teacher for the high school kids.

Lunch begins at noon and is eaten in a large multi-purpose room with the usual long lunchroom tables. Some children bring food from home that is stored in a refrigerator at one end of the room. A Chinese woman comes at 11:30am and heats up each child’s lunch in a row of microwaves on the counter. Some children opt to eat a hot lunch catered by a local restaurant. Fried rice, chicken feet, noodles, sushi, and soup (with various things floating in it) are often on the menu. The entire student body consists of 49 students ranging in age from 3 to 16. They all eat together, sitting with whomever they choose. After eating, the older kids mingle with the little ones, everyone talking, playing ping-pong or soccer, throwing balls, chasing each other, etc.

Ping Pong at Lunch Time

To start the afternoon Nathan heads to Biology with Miss Joanie (Mr. Lang’s wife). She is the main teacher for the 9, 10, 11 year old students, but she doubles as the biology teacher. The school has a nice science room with lab tables and plenty of fetal pigs to dissect. Chinese class comes next with Miss Helen, who doubles as the office assistant and Chinese translator for the principal.

Nathan’s day ends with alternating classes picked from Technology in the computer lab with Mr. A (a young man from Portugal), art with Mrs. Anderson (who doubles as the 7-8 year old teacher), Phy Ed with Mrs. Tina (a young Chinese woman), or music with his mom. The 12-16 year old students are grouped together for these classes.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays academic classes are not held during the final hour of the day (2:55 - 3:45pm) and the students choose from a variety of fun activities. Nathan has chosen bowling for the first session at school. Next week, board games or Chinese paper cutting will be the activities.

After school, a line of cars waits on the curb to bring children home. The drivers of these cars are not moms and dads, but rather Chinese hired drivers. Nathan’s driver is Charlie, a friendly man in his 30’s who speaks a fair amount of English and likes to sing pop songs as he drives. The trip home takes a total of 35 minutes.

Nathan enjoys the camaraderie of the school and the easy-going and caring demeanor of the teachers. Luckily he likes the other high school students, Anthony and Kyoka, and is sure he will treasure their friendships for a lifetime.

2009-11-03T06:21:00.000-08:00

From Rebekah….

My office mate at United International College tells me, “Never try to do anything in a hurry in China. Everything takes longer than you think.” I must learn to recite, “Everything takes longer than you think” in the morning before I start the day.

On a Wednesday morning I leave the apartment at 11:15 am in order to teach a 2:00pm workshop on song writing. The college is only a 15-minute bus ride from home and I am prepared except for printing three handouts for my 20 students. Will 2 hours and 45 minutes be enough time?

I stop at the grocery store next to our apartment to quickly buy cookies to share with my students. I find the Oreos with no trouble and am the only person in the checkout line. I’m thinking I am making good time, when I discover the clerk is out of change. I don’t have my Chinese debit card with me, so I am stuck standing at the register while the manager saunters over, has a long discussion in Chinese with the clerk, disappears to the back of the store, then reappears with money.

Now I am on my way to the bus stop across the street. Bus Number 68 passes; bus number 10 passes; bus number 14 passes. Where is a 69 or 10A? Eight minutes pass when a 69 comes. I’m on the bus; I have a seat; I’ll be at the college in 15 minutes. But what is happening? Why is the bus turning into the gas station? How can a city bus run out of gas in the middle of the day?

Finally I am at the bus stop near the college. I hop off and walk very quickly the 10 minutes to the college, up four flights of stairs, down the hallway where I switch on my computer and - nothing happens! The worksheets I need for my class at 2:00pm are attached to an e-mail missive I sent myself from my laptop at home. It’s 12:15pm and everyone from IT department is at lunch until 2:00pm. I find another professor down the hall who is willing to let me use his computer to download the worksheets, edit them, and print them. Oh no! The documents don’t print! They are wandering somewhere in the mysterious world of computer-space. Back to the colleague’s office to try again. Back to the printing room – ah it worked this time. Now all I have to do is copy them. Humidity is not so high today so only one paper jam and I am ready for class. It’s only 1:15 and I have time to reflect on the saying, “Everything takes longer than you think in China.”

Walking tour of Tangjia

2009-10-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

At the end of September, on a hot and sunny Saturday, Mike and I joined two dozen faculty and staff on a walking tour of our neighborhood, which is called Tangjia. Our group contained a mix people from the U.S.A., Hong Kong, India, Israel, and China. Three Chinese college students, who had studied museums, accompanied us to be our tour guides. With shade umbrellas and water bottles in hand, we began our walk outside our apartment complex. We walked by a banana farm, turned down a dirt pathway, and soon were at the entrance to Tang Jia Wan Park. Shaoyi Tang was born in 1862 and became the first prime minister of China in 1912. At age 12 he was sent to America to study, where he graduated from Columbia University at age 19. Upon returning to China he became active in national politics, trying to bring ideals of western democracy to his country. In 1921 he opened his gardens to the public and in 2008 his home was opened as a museum.

His gardens are a lovely park, with old decaying buildings set among shade trees and stone sculptures. We paid our 20 yuan entrance fee ($3) and walked through the gate where we were immediately struck by the beauty of proportion and harmony in the layout of the grounds. Some of the highlights include:

A 9-corner bridge recently built across a pond near the entrance. The nine corners make it difficult for evil spirits to enter the park.

Nine corner bridge

An old two-story observatory with an open area on the roof for looking directly at the night sky. Tang loved to come here with varying combinations of his 17 children and three wives.

A 20-foot tall, brick structure with five stories – a home for Tang’s carrier pigeons. Each room had stone archways for the birds to enter.

Huge old Banyan trees. These have roots that hang down from the branches to support a wide canopy.

Banyan tree

Bamboo groves with delicate golden stalks and leechee trees with gnarled trunks shading the pathways.

Entrances to buildings flanked by beautiful panels of calligraphy. The words welcomed visitors and proclaimed the wisdom of preserving beauty.

As we made our way through the park, looking at the buildings and trees, our Chinese student guides tried to tell us about the history of the Tang family and the garden. One student would begin to speak, stumble on a word he or she couldn't remember in English, another student would fill in the word and then all three of them would argue in Chinese about the proper word. We couldn't follow the complete train of thought; we could only catch a fact here and there. But the students were always willing to join a camera shot.

After about an hour of exploring the park, we left the grounds and hiked through narrow city streets to a small alleyway that led to the actual home of Tang. The lane that led to the home was a small stone passageway, no more than 6 feet across, with entrances to people's small houses radiating from it.

Street leading to Tang's house

At Tang’s home we met two Chinese UIC professors sitting under a shade tree in the front yard with a small old Chinese man. He was no more than 4 feet 10 inches tall, with no teeth, no hair, a hearing aid, and dressed in a blue T-shirt and purple paisley pajama pants. This 86-year old man, with bright sparkling eyes, and a spring to his step, was the great-grandson of Tang. He gave us a tour of the building, showing us the rooms and telling us the story of the Tang family. On one wall, we saw a photograph of him as a 4-year old boy with his mother and sister, dressed in western clothing in 1927. His mother was Chinese-American, and his grandmother was Chinese-British, so he spoke English quite well. He lived his whole life in China, which meant that during the Cultural Revolution he spent many years in prison. His crime was having a mother from the west. Most of his relatives fled to Taiwan or the U.S.A.

UIC student, Tang's great grandson, 2 UIC professors

During the Land Reform at the beginning of Communist Rule, the Tang house was taken over by the government and given to peasants. All of the original furniture disappeared during this time. During the Cultural Revolution the beautiful artwork carved in stone along the upper part of the walls was destroyed. The museum curators have found period furniture to put in the house so visitors can see what it was like.

Destroyed artwork

From the Tang house we walked through many small narrow streets of Tangjia in search of a temple. Impressions from this walk include a woman standing in the street, potato and peeler in hand, staring at the foreigners' parade; four sun wrinkled men playing mah jong in small dark room; a shop with two red barber chairs in front of a mottled mirror; tiny shops with bottles of soda, water, sweet fruit drinks, and junk food; a man with a power saw, cutting tree trunks; a wedding car decorated with a flower wreath and red bows; bicycles everywhere; a child sitting on a grandma's lap; laundry hanging out every window; motorcycles parked by doorways.

Wedding car

Soon we were at the temple, an old structure with one entrance leading to a Buddhist altar and another to a Daoist shrine. As we entered we passed a wooden screen which kept out the distraction of the street. Behind the screen was a raised table with sand for lighting incense sticks. Just as Catholics dip their hands in a fountain of holy water upon entering the sanctuary, here one lit incense.

Daoist Temple

Behind the temple we saw a huge banyan tree with many red ribbons tied to it, each symbolizing an answered prayer. Two dozen bonsai trees were in pots on small tables. Local retired people tended to the trees.

The tour ended with a traditional Chinese meal at a local restaurant. The tables were outside under a tin roof, while the kitchen was inside the ramshackle building. The Chinese speakers amongst us ordered the food – white fish, cuttle fish, tofu, rapeseed vegetables, chicken, lotus root, taro root, duck. We ended our excursion in Chinese fashion – with great food and good conversation.

Restaurant in Tangjia

A trip to Macau

2009-09-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

On the southern border of Zhuhai lies the city of Macau. Originally a Portuguese colony, it became part of China ten years ago and now exists in a limbo land as a half Chinese/ half independent special economic zone. Chinese nationals can only go to Macau once per year and everyone needs a passport to go there, yet it is officially part of China.

All the signs in Macau are bi-lingual in Portuguese and Chinese. The architecture is a whimsical mix of old Portuguese, old Chinese, and modern casino. The first casino, The Sands, was built in 2004 and now the city is littered with massive casinos. It is a bigger gambling center than Las Vegas.

Our trip began with a 40 minute shuttle bus ride from our suburb, Tangjia, to the southern edge of Zhuhai where the border crossing is. We walked to the border crossing, which is a very large building with many lines. The first line took 20 minutes and when we reached the counter, we discovered we needed to fill out a form. Since we didn't bring any pens with us, we borrowed the clerk's pen and took turns filling out our official information. Once through that line we encountered the health officials who were handing out the ubiquitous health form you see at every airport. I can't imagine who would ever check the box saying they had a sore throat or fever, since that would mean massive delays and a possible denial of entry. I also can't imagine where all these forms are filed since thousands of people fill them out every day. I wonder how they are filed since we used English, but most people write their Chinese names with characters. Oh, the mysteries of China.

Once we were through the health gauntlet we had to get in another line to get through the Macau border. Again, we filled out a form with our official information and hoped the clerk would stamp our passports with her red seal. It all seems rather silly and a waste of time and money, but what do I know?!

After an hour in the border crossing building we walked out into Macau and were greeted by casino workers dressed in smart looking uniforms, handing out coupons and ushering us to casino buses. Since the buses are free, we headed to the Venetian Casino.

The Venetian is not only the biggest casino but also the largest building in the world. It needs a huge space to hold a Venetian canal, complete with gondolas and singing gondoliers.

Inside the building, the sky is always blue with white fluffy clouds; it's perpetually approaching twilight; and you are surrounded by old Venetian buildings and squares. The bathrooms have beautiful brass fixtures. The shops are filled with expensive clothes and jewelry while bored looking shop clerks wait for customers. The hallways are filled with camera clicking Chinese tourists.

The Venetian is on a smaller island just south of the main island of Macau. So our challenge was to figure out how to get back to Macau Island. No worry - the Sands Casino supplied a free shuttle back over to their establishment. We rode the airconditioned coach bus to the Sands and then hailed a taxi cab to take us to the old section of the city.

Senada Square was being decorated for a big celebration with large colorful fruit hung on wires across the street. We set out walking, attempting to keep track of where we were on the small winding streets that radiated out from the square. We came across St. Mark's Cathedral. We stumbled upon a cemetary with a lovely chapel and a mix of Portuguese and Chinese names. Around every turn were interesting shops and restaurants.

Senado Square

Street Near Senado Square

Can you see the tiny street between the buildings?

St. Mark's Cathedral

Cemetary

We ended up at the Ruins of St. Paul's. St. Paul's Cathedral was the largest church in the city before it was ruined by fire in the late 1800's. All that remains is the massive front wall and grand steps leading to it. The front wall is carved with the obligatory Catholic saints, but also a Chinese dragon and a skeleton. By the time we reached the Ruins, we were exhausted from walking for two hours in the 100 degree heat. Rebekah climbed the steps to look out of the window and then hiked to the back of the ruins to see the crypt of the priest who planned the church. The crypt was worth the walk since it was 25 degrees cooler inside it.

Ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral

Next to the Ruins was a gift shop where we saw figurines made of amber. The proprietor proved to me they were authentic by putting his cigarette lighter to the bottom of one. I guess that proved they weren't plastic - but couldn't they have been red glass too?

Wandering the streets a little longer we were greeted by people giving out samples of food, jostled by the crowds, and overwhelmed by the sights and sounds. We stopped at a MacDonalds to use the restrooms (some things never change no matter where you are in the world).

We found a little Portuguese Restaurant for supper and were happy to find a menu we could read (in English, Portuguese, and Chinese) and great food. The salad was grated carrots and oranges, the soup was potato and spinach, the main dish was pasta and beef or pork. Only the dessert was a disappointment. One always has high hopes when a dessert accompanies a meal. But when the waitress placed a plate with a small round piece of wiggling white jello in front of us, our hopes were dashed. It tasted faintly like almond jello. Nathan took one bite and then played with the rest.

The street our restaurant was on

Nathan anticipating that great dessert!

Here it is!

We asked the waitress how to take the city bus to the Macau Tower where we wanted to watch the International Fireworks Competition. She gave us good directions back to the MacDonalds and told us to take bus 32. After a few wrong turns, we found the bus stop, but no Bus 32 was listed on the sign. We asked a woman if she knew the way to Macau Tower. She waved us over to a man who spoke English. He directed us across the street to Bus 18, which delivered us to the waterfront across from the Tower.

Macau Tower is a huge "space needle" type building on the southern edge of Macau Island. It is filled with shops, restaurants, and offices. By this time of the day it was dark and the lights from the surrounding casinos reflected across the water. People can bungy jump off the top of the building for $400. One can also walk along the outside edge of the building (with a safety harness hooked to a track in the ceiling of the overhang) for $200. Maybe the next time we visit we'll try that!

Yes, it really is that tall!

(Check out the bungy jumping here)

The fireworks were stunning, but the music accompanying it made no sense and echoed incoherently down the water front. We stood eating ice cream and pastries, watching the display along with thousands of Chinese in the heavy tropical night air. The final burst floated in the sky with little red Chinese lanterns in the shape of a Chinese character.

As we watched the fireworks, the thought hit us that all these people would be trying to catch a bus or taxi home at the same time and place as us. Sure enough, after the fireworks ended at 9:30pm, a massive crowd moved to the bus stop in front of the Tower. Over a hundred people were in line for the taxis so we tried our luck with the city bus. Earlier we had asked the Tower information desk which bus to take, so we surged forth with the crowd when Bus #9 arrived. Mike led the way as we became part of a mass of marbles all funneling into a tiny shoot. Only two teenage girls got between Mike and I, but when I turned around on the bus Nathan was a dozen people behind me, still on the sidewalk. This was no time for Minnesota Nice. Nathan pushed along with the other people and was one of the last people to climb on the crowded bus.

One young Arab man, lucky enough to find a seat, clutched a city bus map (I wonder where he found that?) and looked frightened. He asked a man standing near him where to get off for the ferry back to Hong Kong and discovered he was on the wrong bus, going the wrong way. He was adviced to get off at the next stop and take a taxi if he wanted to make his ferry.

During the 30 minute bus trip back to the border, we stood the whole time. It turned out that 80% of the people on the bus were headed to the same place, so no seats opened up.

Back at the border we had to fill out the same set of forms, for all three sets of bureaucrats. Unfortunately when Mike and Nathan picked up the health form, they filled out the one for entering Macau rather than entering Zhuhai, so they had to redo that one. This meant we missed the shuttle bus back to Tangjia by 10 minutes.

As we walked across the wide open square outside the border building, a young, cleanly dressed woman carrying a 2 year old approached Mike and said, "Hello. Thank you. Hello. Thank you." over and over. Apparently she wanted money and even though Mike ignored her and kept talking to me, she kept saying, "Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Hello." with a smile on her face.

Eventually we reached the city bus stop, exhausted. It didn't take us long to decide to hail a taxi for a 25 minute airconditioned ride home for the equivalent of $13 rather than stand for 40 minutes on the city bus for $1.50. The ride home was a roller coaster experience where our lives flashed in front of us at least twice. The driver wove in and out of traffic, changing lanes, zooming through intersections, honking his horn to warn pedestrians and bicycles.

11:15pm we arrived home. Even though we experienced a lot, Macau has many more things for us to explore such as art museums, historical museums, Chinese Lion dancers in the Square by the Ruins, and many more churches and parks. Our next visit to Macau will be easier with our newly gained knowledge. We'll also wait for cooler weather. Maybe we'll even take the ferry around to the side entrance and avoid the long border crossing lines....

Typhoon

2009-09-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

We experienced our first typhoon this past week. On Monday children at school were excited because a big typhoon was predicted. Typhoons here are like blizzards in Minnesota - they carry the potential of canceling school for a day.

Monday evening the winds picked up and the rain started. At first it was a typical thunderstorm, but then the rain came down in torrents and the wind had the trees dipping and waving. In our cement block apartment building with study windows we were safe and dry.

Monday evening the public and private primary and secondary schools canceled classes for Tuesday since the brunt of the storm was to reach us by Tuesday afternoon. Ferries stopped running, flights were delayed, and businesses closed early.

The college didn't decide to close until Tuesday morning, which caused a lot of confusion. Some faculty road the city buses to campus at 8:00am. Others waited for the college shuttle buses to pick them up at their usual spots, standing with umbrellas in the wind and rain.

The college e-mail notice told us to keep checking for more messages because if the warning level went down, classes would resume in the afternoon. At 12:00pm we received notice that classes would start again at 2:00pm. As I headed out at 12:30pm to catch the shuttle bus to campus, the rain was coming down in torrents and the wind was still blowing. My pants were soaked by the time I got on the bus. Amazingly, 38 out of 50 students showed up for my class.

By 3:00pm the storm had passed leaving lots of small branches and signs blown over, a number of big trees uprooted, and a few flimsy buildings without roofs. Now we understand that the braces around the trees on the boulevards are there to stablize them during a storm.

One of the nice things about typhoons is that the temperature drops and the wind feels good!

Tennis

2009-09-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

Tennis is not a big sport in China, but our apartment complex has two courts and Nathan loves to play. On our second day here we met Giff Searls, a man who works in career development at UIC, but whose passion is tennis. He is trained as a Peter Burwash tennis coach and has coached many famous people like Bill Gates and Harrison Ford. He invited us to join a group of people who play tennis every Monday, Wednesday, Friday afternoons from 5:00 - 7:00pm.

Giff loves to teach and coach tennis; Nathan loves to learn about tennis, so they have been a perfect match. Nathan's tennis game improved more in 15 minutes with Giff than it did all last summer. Giff has a marvelous positive attitude and friendly demeanor. He also plays a mean game of doubles. Power is not the key to his game - control is. If you play him, be ready to run around the court alot.

The tennis group is an interesting mix of people. Steven Chen pays for and reserves the courts for us. He is a retired business man; originally from Hong Kong, lived most of his life in New York City, and retired to Zhuhai. A few years ago his wife became ill with cancer and he came to China to try an alternative treatment. He knew there were risks and the treatment caused her to have a stroke. Soon after that, she died. When Mr. Chen goes to Macau, he can stay at the largest gambling casino, The Venetian, for free because his son, an investment banker in NYC, helped with the financing of the casino. When Mr. Chen lived in NYC, he and his wife would often fly to Las Vegas to gamble all weekend, taking the red eye flight home on Sunday night. When Atlantic City opened up gambling, they flew down there in a helicopter for the weekends. Mr. Chen plays a good game of tennis, but since he smokes and carries about 20 pounds too many, he has to rely on skill rather than speed.

Mrs. Lui is a tall, athletic Chinese woman in her 30's with buck teeth and a ready smile. She is Mr. Chen's housekeeper. Elan is a petite, Chinese woman in her 20's with a bobbed hair cut and sparkling eyes. She is Mr. Chen's cook. Mr. Chen supplies the women and their families with their own apartments in Horizon Cove. Every M/W/F afternoon the two women play tennis with Mr. Chen. For many years they played badminton every day and now they play tennis like it's a badminton game, popping the ball high in the air. They almost never miss, but the ball never comes fast and strong towards you, only high and looping. They speak almost no English so when Giff tries to organize a round robin game with extra players, they never understand what he is trying to do. They just smile and keep playing their tennis/badminton.

Clare is an American ESL teacher at UIC. Marya is an American business teacher at UIC. Clare can play a decent game of tennis so she is matched with the better players. Marya joins the badminton players. It is all a lot of fun and no one keeps score.

New Food

2009-09-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

Embracing the adventure of a new culture, we have tried a number of new foods in the past 2 and 1/2 weeks with rather mixed results....

Durian Fruit - Commonly called Stinky Fruit. This football sized fruit looks like a spiny sea urchin and its odor greets you at the door of every grocery store. It smells like spoiled milk. We have been told that people get addicted to the taste of the fruit inside. At a restaurant in the Gombei underground shopping mall, we ordered a durian fruit, vanilla and coconut ice cream dessert. The flavor was a unique blend of banana, peanuts, and rotten potato. We think it must be an acquired taste. We left the durian fruit on the plate and focused on the ice cream instead.

Hua Long Guo - Fire Dragon Fruit - This beautiful fruit gets its name from its red outer skin. It looks like a very large artichoke in beautiful pinkish red. The fruit inside is white with many little black seeds and a texture like kiwi fruit. The flavor can be summed up in one word - bland. It really tasted like water - and what's the point of eating that?!

Frog legs - Yes, frog legs really do taste like chicken, but they have many little tiny bones. So why not just eat chicken?!

Squid - This was part of a large dinner of many different dishes. It was chopped into small pieces and stir fried. It had a mild flavor with a definite rubbery, chewy texture. Nathan gave this a thumbs up.

Red Bean Buns - Imagine a soft white creamy dough on the outside and a thick red bean paste on the inside. Heat them up in the microwave or fry them on the stove. We were all in agreement that red bean paste is another acquired taste....

Beef buns - Imagine Grandma Hvidsten's barbeque on a soft white bun and you will know why Nathan loves these.

Shrimp Pringles Potato Chips - A bad idea on many levels....

Sweets from the Danish Pastry Shop - Who could go wrong with a European Pastry Shop? We chose three sweets. First we had an angle food cake with spun sugar on top. It must have been in the shop for weeks since it was dry and tasteless. Our next choice was a sugar cookie. Again, it was old and stale and none of us finished it. Finally we tried a puff pastry with a filling that looked like apple or maybe almond paste, but it turned out to be durian fruit. Ach! Lesson learned - just because it sounds like western food, doesn't mean it tastes like western food.

Fish - We live on the ocean and ride the bus past acres of oyster fields every day. The boats of local fisherman line the harbor so fresh fish is abundant. We don't know what kind of fish we are eating but it sure is delicious. Yesterday we bought fish at the "wet market" - a very large farmer's market where you can buy every food imaginable in China - bananas, apples, grapes, lemons, bok choy, broccoli, onions, carrots, potatoes, egg plant, many kinds of greens, beef, pork, chicken (you can choose a live one and have it butchered while you wait), and fish. The fish are in small cement ponds built into the floor. You choose your fish and the fisherman or woman retrieves it for you, whacks it on the head, descales it, guts it, and puts it in a flimsy plastic bag for you to carry home. My fish kept flopping around in the bag the during the rest of the morning shopping. Cooked with a little green onion and ginger root, the fish was wonderful!

Piano Rental

2009-08-31T06:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning Rebekah headed out with an American colleague, Kitty, to rent a piano. Kitty had lined up a driver to pick us up at 9:15am outside her apartment. At 9:15am no driver appeared. Kitty called him and he had misunderstood 9:15 as 9:50 - a common mistake when working in a foreign language.

We soon arrived at a piano workshop on the fourth floor of a small building. The owner, Mr. Wu Fa, greeted us and ushered us into his showroom. He showed as a Pearl River console that was ok, but not a great piano. Then he showed us a better brand that I had never seen before. Kitty and I started uncovering pianos and trying out Yamahas and Kawaiis. I found an upright Yamaha with a beautiful mellow tone and great touch. The rent would be 200 yuan per month (approximately $30).

Mr. Wu Fa disappeared into the building and returned with his 14 year old son. I thought he was there to translate for us, but he spoke almost no English like his father. His father wanted him to play for us. He sat down with a sigh, adjusted the bench, closed his eyes, and with a deep breath played a Rachmaninoff Prelude with passion and technical perfection. Wow!

In Mr. Wu Fa's office we discussed details. Kitty and I were stunned when he wanted 15,000 yuan for a deposit ($2,150). Immediately we said it was too much. Finally he agreed on 10,000 yuan with a delivery fee of 150 yuan. He could deliver it that afternoon at 3:30pm. Throughout this transaction his son, his wife, and another teenage girl were in the room watching and trying to help with the translation of my address, the time, the amount. Twice Kitty had to call bi-lingual friends to help translate.

Later, on the bus home, Kitty called a Chinese colleague, Lucia, and discussed the high deposit. Lucia called Mr. Wu Fa and discovered that he didn't really want to rent the Yamaha to us. He was hoping to sell it soon. Thus he wanted a lot of money to cover his overhead costs for the year. Lucia negotiated the deposit down to 8,000 yuan.

At 3:30pm I met a delivery truck outside the apartment. Five average size Chinese men hopped out of the truck and lifted the piano onto a piano dolly. Our apartment is on the fourth floor, with no elevator and two tight stairwell turns. I highly doubted anyone could get it past those two stairwells. I tried to get the men to come look at the situation before starting up the stairs, but they just stared at the first set of steps, jabbered in Chinese, and then strapped themselves to the piano. Chanting in unison, they marched up the steps with the piano strapped to their shoulders, not even hesitating at the tight stairwells. They were up the four flights in less than two minutes. I was stunned.

The delivery men disappeared and Mr. Wu Fa appeared with his briefcase in hand. We signed the contract, but not before a long confusing discussion with lots of numbers written on paper, and finally a phone call to Lucia. Mr. Wu Fa wanted the 8,000 yuan, plus the entire year's rent and the delivery fee. Kitty had loaned me the 8,000 yuan (since we can only get 2,000 yuan out of the ATM per day), but I only had the first month rent and delivery fee with me. When I said, "Wo mei yao" (I don't have) and pointed to the 2,000 figure on the paper, he waived the rent money away and indicated I could pay the balance in October.

We ended the transaction with smiles and a hand shake, and we became the happy owners of a new piano for a year.

The Easy Part

Up The Steps

Around the Corner

Almost There

Our New Piano!

First Impressions

2009-08-28T22:11:00.000-07:00

We have safely arrived in Zhuhai, China and our first impressions go something like this...

1. The tropics are beautiful - palm trees, rhododendrum bushes, banana trees, lush green.

The view out our living room window

Another view from our apartment

The Club House (Community center for our apartment complex)

2. Zhuhai in August is hot, beastly hot, walk 10 minutes and you are drenched-in-sweat kind of hot.

3. The Chinese smile a lot, nod a lot, are friendly, and know very little English.

4. The ex-pat community is warm and welcoming.

5. Everything takes a lot longer to do when you travel by city bus (and bus maps don't exist), don't know where anything is, can't read the road signs (if they even exist) and can't speak the language. On the other hand, we don't have a lot to do yet! Every day we feel great when we have accomplished one new thing successfully and many days we have managed to accomplish more than one thing.

6. So much here is confusing. Why did the apartment complex security men come to our door and jabber Chinese at us the first two nights? How do you cross the street when the traffic doesn't stop? How do you start the washing machine when all the knobs are in Chinese characters?

Which button should we push on the air conditioner remote? How do you tell the shuttle bus driver you want to get off? How do you communicate to the grocery clerk that you are looking for cooking wine? How do you install a wireless router using directions in Chinese? The answer to these questions is with help from bi-lingual staff at the college (cell phones are a neccessity), with a dictionary, with a sense of humor and with lots of patience. Every day we solve another small piece of the puzzle of how to navigate the city and culture. Every day we feel more comfortable.