Hello, Liu

Our new driver, Liu, has been with us for a week now. We like him, but we don't know much about him. The language barrier makes it difficult to have any conversation beyond "hello." He seems to be about 30 years old. Next time I'm in the car with him alone (so far I've only been out with Mike and the kids), I plan to ask him if he is married or has kids.

I think that he used to be a taxi driver based on the way he drives. A little fast, but totally in control. He is constantly looking and aware of all of the cars around us. And, best of all, he is an expert at anticipating what the traffic around us will do (a skill our old driver never had). So even though we are driving faster and more China-like, I feel safer with him.

I am definitely using my Chinese more and he is working to learn more English. With the help of technology (electronic translators), we have managed to communicate our needs so far.

One of the key components of building relationships in China is guanxi. At the most basic explanation, this involves doing favors or other nice things for people in an effort to build the depth of the relationship. The expectation is that then you will give back to them.

So when Liu picked Mike up from work yesterday, Liu gave Mike a bottle of blueberry juice (the label actually said bilberry). When Mike said he liked it and he thought the kids would like it (although I'm not sure how he actually said this!), Liu stopped and bought him 4 more! Of course, the complicated part of this is that Mike would have said he liked it even if he didn't just to give face (or make Liu feel good) and would've felt obligated to accept the juice even if it tasted awful. In return, I sent some homemade muffins with Mike to give to Liu this morning....and I'm sure he'll tell Mike they were great even if he didn't think so.

We like that he is making an effort to build a relationship. Since I feel safe with him, I hope he will stay with us for awhile.
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Goodbye, Mr. Wang

As I've mentioned before, Mike's company doesn't allow us to drive in China. So the company provides us with a car and driver. Our car is leased by Mike's company and is parked in a car company lot at night. It's a silver Honda Odyssey minivan (yes, we think it's funny that it's the same as our old van).

It's been an interesting experience having a driver. We are never, ever alone in the car. No private conversations. No singing out loud to the stereo. I actually held the car key for the first time last weekend.

We've had the same driver, Mr. Wang, since we arrived in China...literally...he was there to pick us up at the airport last June. His last day with us was yesterday - he took a new job with the government where he can make more money. Mr. Wang spoke pretty good English, so we learned a lot about him in our rides about town.

Every morning, Mr. Wang (rhymes with long), went to the lot to pick up the car, then drove to our house (30 minutes) to pick up Mike for the ride to work (20 minutes). Mr. Wang is single, 27 years old and lives with his mother and father in a small apartment in KaiFaQu. To get to the car lot each morning, he took the bus, a taxi or rode his electric bicycle. Some mornings he was lucky and his dad drove him to the car lot.

Here is how we will remember him. He's like a 16 year old in a 27 year old body. He loves cars. He talks about cars all the time. His dream car is an Audi. It will take him many, many, many years to save up enough money to buy an Audi.

He loves computers. As young boys tend to do, he wants the fastest and the best of everything. He just borrowed money from his father to buy a new computer. It will take him many, many, many years to earn enough money to pay his father back.

Although he has had a few dates with girls, he's not sure that he's ready to date or settle down. He'd rather have more money than a girlfriend (his words!). His parents really want him to get married! He keeps saying he's not ready yet.

When he first started working for us, he was very inexperienced. Driving around China is scary enough, but driving around with someone who drives like a 16 year old boy is even scarier!! Thankfully, he listened to our coaching and learned a lot in the past 10 months!

We think he's had a pretty easy job working for us because we don't go very many places. Mike carpools to work regularly and I only go out once or twice a week. That means that although he was paid to be available to us 12 hours a day, he only worked a few of those hours. During the day when he wasn't driving for us, he would go home and play computer video games. I hope he likes his new job even though he'll have to work 6 days a week and be much more available.

Mr. Wang and just some of the vans waiting in the morning:




Our new driver started today. His name is Liu. So far he seems very experienced and a good driver, but he doesn't speak much English. I think we'll be OK. :)
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Dandong

We went to Dandong, China this weekend - a 3 hour drive north of Dalian. Dandong borders North Korea. There's so much to say about our 32 hour trip, I'm not sure where to start...

How about with this quote from Mike? "This blog is just writing itself..." said as our driver was driving through the McDonald's drive-thru in Dandong the WRONG WAY! Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a drive-thru in Dalian, so likely he didn't know it WAS a drive-thru. Luckily, the people of Dandong don't seem to use it either, as we didn't meet anyone coming the other way (at 12:30 on a Saturday). Just one of many interesting adventures on this trip.

Top 3 Scary Things That Happened:

3. Having two little dogs follow us down the path near the Great Wall and then attempting to follow us up a cliff. We were all very afraid that the little dogs would fall and get very hurt.

2. Taking the shortcut from the end of the Great Wall back to the parking lot. The first part was a dirt trail but then it turned into a metal pathway hanging off a cliff over the river. Most people take the boat ride on the river to get back, but the boat wasn't running. We chose not to look at how the pathway was built until AFTER we finished.



1. Our driver nearly falling asleep at the wheel 1 hour into our trip home. Eyes closed, head nodding. Luckily my sixth sense from mothering had kicked in about 10 minutes before when we were slowing and drifting in the lane, so I had started watching him from the backseat. I said his name to wake him and then kept him awake (by kicking the seat and talking) until the rest stop 10 minutes later. Then we changed seats and I sat in the front and talked to him for the next 2 hours.




The Best 6 Parts of the Adventure:

6. Playing on the "exercise" equipment in the park near the hotel. We have seen these exercise stations in different parts of Dalian, but they have been in places that are not convenient to stop. So this was the perfect opportunity to try them out and the kids had a blast.



5. Walking the half of the bridge that still exists on the China side of the river that separates China and North Korea. North Korea tore down their side after it was damaged in the Korean War.



4. Visiting the Museum to Commemorate US Aggression. A huge museum with the history of the Korean War (which the Chinese call the The Campaign to Resist American Aggression and Aid the Korean People). This is the Korean war from the Chinese point of view (they were on North Korea's side, BTW). Talk of US Imperialists, pictures of smiling troops of US soldiers who apparently had just surrendered, and lots of details about how the Chinese helped bring peace. No mention in the museum that North Korea started the war...

3. Staying at a beautiful hotel. For just $75 (US), a beautiful room, with a view of the darkness of North Korea at night (a little eerie), luxurious towels and a TV that I could see from the shower.



2. Finally walking on the Great Wall of China. It was a rebuilt and refurbished section, but still it shows the magnitude of the task of building the wall. We were on the easternmost section and walked about 1 km to where it ends at North Korea. Lots of steps, tall towers, sheer cliffs. Amazing.



1. Coming home. When we've come back to our home in China from our vacations in other countries, I've always felt a little bit of regret - wishing I could stay longer, eat more, etc. This was our first time coming back from a vacation within mainland China. And it felt good to be home (safely) and when we came in the house, it even smelled like home.

More pictures are here in a Picasa web album. Double click to view the album.

Dandong

If you want to read more about the history of Dandong and North Korea, here is a link to a brief article.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2008/04/165_10839.html

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No Leaf Blower Needed

No leaf blowers needed here...where so many people are actually willing to do manual labor.



This guy is picking up very small bits of trash and leaves on our field...the WHOLE field.



China is so much different than the US in so many ways.
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Stick Tree Pics

Since the brain camera doesn't work, I was lucky enough to see more "stick trees" today while I was out with my real camera.




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Brain Camera

I wish I had a brain camera...then I could just download what I saw today on the drive home from the store. I didn't have my real camera with me. But even if I did, the scenes passed by too quickly for me to capture them on camera. So, I'll give you a written description, but I know it won't come close to the real thing...

- Bus, bus, truck crash. Luckily we were there after the people were taken away.
- Man standing with large plant on a flat wagon being pulled by another man through one of the busiest intersections in town, right among the cars and buses.
- Old lady and bundled up baby in the back of a 3 wheel motorcycle. Motorcycle is turning left through oncoming traffic. No helmets.
- Bus on the sidewalk.
- A truck full of stick trees. Trees that are about 1 foot in diameter and 15 feet tall. All branches are cut off. Stubby little roots only. About 50 of these in a truck being dropped off to be planted. Once planted they look like big sticks in the ground. We'll see if they grow.
- Torn down ruins of a village (brick rubble and trash) to make way for new high rise apartments.
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China Post

How does our mail get delivered in China? Well, for the past 10 months I knew that the guards from the main office bring it to our building and put it in our mailbox downstairs (about 1 letter per month!).

But how does it get to our housing complex?? Now I know. By motorcycle, in saddlebags. Even on Sunday.







Notice the Barbie hand warmers on his handlebars :)
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Easter in China

While Easter goes relatively unnoticed by the Chinese, we are enjoying a three day weekend due to the Chinese holiday of Qing Ming Jie (or Tomb Sweeping Day). The Chinese visit their family graves and clean them of weeds and dirt. They also set out money and food for the spirits.

However, the Easter Bunny does come in China for those who believe! This morning the kids found chocolate in their baskets and candy filled eggs hid in new and exciting places in the house! After 12 years of finding eggs at our old house, this was a new adventure!



We also enjoyed watching the giant Easter egg hunt at the school for our community (about 60 kids participated) and we ate a yummy Easter brunch at our community cafe.





Kiana and Kevin helped hide 800 (!) eggs for the hunt!!


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Hong Kong

I think of our Hong Kong trip as "Planes, Trains, Buses, and Boats"! It was certainly an experience of public transportation at its best.

On the first day alone: Car to the airport, bus from the airport terminal out to the plane, plane, bus from airport to downtown, 2 metro trains to get to Disneyland.

Add to that: Ferries to get across the bay between islands, taxis, a funicular train (a cable train up a steep hill pulled by a cable), the longest string of escalators in the world, and more metro trains.

Hong Kong is a beautiful big city. We stayed in Kowloon (upper red), the main downtown area is on Hong Kong Island (lower red. Disneyland (dark yellow spot) is on Lantau Island (blue). And we flew into Shenzhen (top light yellow), which is in mainland China. Flying into Shenzhen was much cheaper because we were coming from mainland China so it was a domestic flight. Most people fly into Hong Kong International Airport which is on Lantau Island (the dark yellow strip).



Because it's hard to find rooms for 4 people in Asia, we ended up booking a suite (king bed plus a sofa bed). This worked out great for us for two reasons. First, we had more room to spread out and also because our room had floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the downtown area (all this for about the same amount that 2 rooms would cost in other hotels). We stayed at the YMCA...seriously...(got the song stuck in your head now?). When Mike suggested the YMCA, I thought he was joking. But it turns out that the YMCA runs regular hotels. Here is our view.



Hong Kong presents a 13 minute light show every night at 8 pm, so we had front row seats in the comfort of our room. Forty-four buildings participate!

We also enjoyed the Hong Kong science museum. The kids really miss OMSI, so they were super excited to go there. And guess what we found...an OMSI exhibit on loan to the museum!



We had great fun going up the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. The escalators take people from the sea level downtown area up to "mid-level" Hong Kong (midway up the mountain). The mid-level is a place where people live and there looked to be lots of good restaurants (we had Subway - it smelled too much like "home" to pass up). In the morning until 10:00am, the escalators run down the hill, then they reverse and run up the hill until midnight. They cover a distance of one-half mile and elevation of about 450 feet. It takes about 20 minutes to get up the hill.

At the top, we had our picnic lunch in a city park. The kids miss playgrounds too :)

Then we walked to the funicular to ride to the gap between the two peaks in the mountains behind the city. Awesome view.



We took ferries, enjoyed some good food, did a little shopping, and walked about the city.

Hong Kong is an interesting mix of China and western influences. On some streets you feel like you are in China (small indoor malls with individual small stores and other small stores opening out to the street) and in some areas you feel like you are in a modern city (elevated walkways and the fanciest, nicest malls I've ever been in). As an American living in China, it was a little strange to feel like I was traveling back and forth between China and the Western world in a instant.

We definitely could have spent more time in Hong Kong. So much traveling to do and too little time off work and school!

Here are more pictures.

Hong Kong City

And, I will admit publicly that Mike was right. Traveling light is better. Only two small suitcases meant that packing up was much quicker and public transportation was much easier. We limited the souvenirs we brought home, so unpacking was easier too!
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Hong Kong Disneyland

We had a great time at Hong Kong Disneyland. It was interesting because it feels a lot like Anaheim - the entrance is almost identical and the layout is basically the same. However, it has fewer rides and is much less crowded (at least when we were there). It's like a baby or beginner's Disneyland - great for first timers or little kids because you can actually do it all in one day. We missed some of our favorite rides that aren't there, but still had a fun two days! The best part was that we were able to walk on most rides with just a short wait (we hate waiting). The kids managed to go on Space Mountain 15 times!!

Here are some pictures (double click to see the whole album). The days we were there Hong Kong had the worst pollution levels ever because of residual sand from the sandstorm in northern China that blew south.

Hong Kong Disneyland

Four Disney resorts accomplished, only Paris to go!
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