China, So Far...

So, here we are in China! I know I'm slightly behind in my blogging, but that is due only to the fact that we have yet to get internet in our apartment. I'm now typing in word hoping that it will come by the end of the day and with a back-up plan of uploading my post via my neighbour's computer! Obviously, there is way too much to say so rather than try to recall it on a day-by-day basis, I will break it down into categories and tell you all a little about each one...


Travel & Transportation

The first leg of our journey (27 hours of travel to reach a layover in Japan) began early Wednesday morning when we were greeted by a $800 bill for overage fees at Air Canada. Because the school had neglected to book our two flights together, making our flight show up as an international flight in their system, our baggage allowance was at one bag each weighing 50lbs. Well, because we were moving our lives to China, we had 3 bags each mostly weighing somewhere near 70lb. We were charged for two second bags at $25, two third bags at $100, and five overweight bags at $100. Eeepp! Upon arrival in Vancouver, we got another $350 bill for overages, this time only paying for our two third bags. Luckily, the school is supposed to reimburse us for these charges, although it may take several months.

Our flight to Japan was very pleasant. Although long, it gave us time to watch Kung Fu Panda (how fitting),What Happens in Vegas, and Iron Man. I have to note the astonishing difference in service between Airlines. I have great respect for flight attendants on all airlines but EVERY attendant on Japan Airlines had outstanding customer service skills. On top of that, the food was wonderful (although there are some not so adventurous folk in our group who may disagree!).

The final flight to China was short, but rough. Luckily, during our entire flying time, I only got sick three times! YIPPEE!

Travel within China is quite interesting. There are a few ways to get around – taxi, train, and bus. So far, I haven't braved the bus system, but only because I have yet to have the need. I have mainly traveled by train (Chingway) to and from the Kaifa Qu (Development District) and Dalian. This is quite the interesting experience. I can only imagine it being quite the shock for some of the Vancouverites here who have never traveled on the Subway in Toronto of Montreal. It is actually worse than either of those, but at least the Subway begins to prepare you for the Chingway. There is literally no such thing as a line up. You get as close as you can on the platform to where the doors are and stand your ground so nobody pushes past you. You then sprint (seriously) for a seat or spend the rest of your ride standing. When it comes to the Chingway, chivalry really is dead. You will very rarely see a man get up for a pregnant woman or an elderly person. I have, however, been lucky enough to see several women give up their seats – most for older folk, and one for me (the pregnant lady hauling 100lbs of groceries all the way back from Dalian!). The one young man I have seen try to give up his seat to an older woman was pulled back down offer and over by the old man sitting next to him. He eventually fought him off and gave the woman his seat.

The other way we have traveled so far is by taxi. There is the option of the motorcycle taxi, which is cheaper, but I have yet to meet a North American who is that brave. We have travelled by good ol' car taxi thus far. Let me tell you – for the weak of heart travelling to China, I implore you to cover your eyes anytime you ride in a taxi. Let me tell you the rules of the road as I have seen them, thus far (no exaggeration, whatsoever):

1) The largest vehicle gets the right-of-way. If other vehicles aren't abiding by this rule, the largest vehicle takes the right of way.

2) Crosswalks are non-existent. A pedestrian wishing to cross the road shall choose a clear(ish) spot and walk. If traffic starts while you are in mid-cross, simply wait in between lanes until you are free to go again. Tip for New China Pedestrians: DON'T be afraid while crossing the road – the can smell it! Stroll casually and you are unlikely to be hit.

3) Horns are ever drivers best friend. One should use their horn to alert someone (another vehicle, a pedestrian, a stray dog) that they are nearby, to alert other drivers that they are passing, to tell someone to move, to let someone know that they have made you slow down, and any other time you see fit.

4) Speed limits are non-existent unless otherwise posted (I am very serious about this).

5) Red lights and traffic signs are merely suggestion. While driving through a red light simply honk a few times in case someone is coming in the other direction.

6) Any lines on the road are also merely suggestion. Feel free to drive in the oncoming lane, pass on the shoulder, or fit three cars (and maybe a bike or two) into two "lanes"

7) Merging is on a "first shove, first through" basis (much like line-ups of any kind). While merging, fit as many cars as humanly possible into the smallest number of lanes, drive on any surface that is drivable, and, of course, use your horns as much as possible!

8) Seatbelts are only decoration (if you can find them at all). If you feel the need to buckle up while in a taxi, you must first spend 20 minutes trying to find both pieces of your belt. By that time, you're likely to have arrived at your destination.


Now, with that said, I have to say that the drivers here, although extremely aggressive, are actually the best drivers I have ever seen. Where else can you get within two centimetres of someone's vehicle over and over and never even get a scratch?



Food

Let me start by saying that I am still undecided as to whether I like Japanese or Chinese food better. As I said before, our food on the plane to Japan was absolutely wonderful! While in Japan, we unfortunately could not find an open restaurant at the late hour that we were looking, but we did manage to find several conveinience stores (including a 7-Eleven) and get ourselves a wonderful meal of noodle bowls, dumplings, teriyaki chicken, and parfait. Never has conveinience store food tasted so good. I do have to question, however, their choice of snack foods. On the shelves, among other unidentifiable items, were dried squid, dried seaweed, and some sort of strange, green, gelatinous desert that looked like a giant booger. I stick with my parfait, thank you.

In the morning, before leaving for China, we had a wonderful breakfast meal. Daniel took the comforting North American choices, whereas I opted for fruit, mixed mystery vegetables, and miso soup, among other things.

The food in China has been equally as good. In fact, the couple of times we have eaten out (before we got groceries) were so enjoyable that I really have to force myself to cook everyday instead of walking to town for supper! This is also fueled by the fact that eating out is so extremely cheap (7-28 yuan or $1-4 for a dish)!

So far, we've not eaten out with adventurous people, but the most interesting thing we have had was "Broccoli and French Fries" - surprisingly, very good! We also ordered some "mystery dumplings, at some point. Pregnant lady was wanting dumplings and none of us knew our meats. We tried to tell the waiter that he could choose which kind but he didn't quite get it so I pointed to a completely forgein symbol and hoped it would work out. Luckily, I don't think cat of dog were among the options...

The other end of the food spectrum is the North American chains that seem to be quite prolific. So far, we have seen a KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and Dairy Queen. I am ashamed to report that we have tried both of the latter. McDonald's we tried because we were on a bus trip with the school, starving, and nearly out of time. If you are not a McDonald's fan now, you may be once you try Chinafied McDonald's. The food is much better – less greasy, more flavorful, and overall more edible-looking. Careful when ordering a combo though. If you think you're getting a soft drink (or maybe an ice cream float once you see the picture of icecream atop a dark liquid) you will be sorely dissapointed with you overly caffinated iced coffee!

Dairy Queen we tried because we had heard online over and over that the icecream there was much better than Canada. Also true. The icecream is less sickeningly sugary, more creamy, and the portions are much smaller. So far A+ for Chinafied North American food!

Another thing to note is that there are a few grocery items that are not quite what you would think:

Milk - Often kept out of refrigeration. This is due to most Chinese being lactose intolerant, therefor having extremely pasturized milk. Also, it generally comes in small bags of 220-500ml which you can buy individually or by the case.

Yogurt - Very thin – more like North American "Yop".

Bread - Much sweeter than you may expect, unless you can find a bakery that specializes in North American baked goods.

Beer - Yes, it is sold as a grocery item and, no, it is not what you'd expect. It looks like beer, it smells like beer, and it even tastes like beer (so I'm told). However, it is only 3% alcohol!!!! How dare they?

I'm sure there are more that I have either forgotten or will come across in the near future!



People

So far, the people both at the school and out in the community are extremely friendly. Everyone who works at the school is wonderful and treats each other like family. Unfortunately, we have yet to do much socializing, as we go to bed by 9:30 every night!

The people out and about in China are also very friendly. I have had someone help me get through the Chingway gate and also give up their seat for me while I was loaded down with groceries. It's also interesting to note that there will always be someone looking at you, talking about you, or laughing at you (all in a very nice way) because you are white. What can I say – we're interesting! Contrary to what some people tried to tell me, there is a very sparse cauccasian population in our area. I have managed to travel around for three hours and not see one other white person.



Living Arrangements

Let's just say that they could be better, but they could certainly be much worse! Unfortunately, the building manager was unaware that the new teachers were coming in two groups and gave the two bedroom apartment we had reserved to a single person. In fact, we were first given the apartment with the smallest amount of space possible. We then saw our neighbours apartments and asked to be relocated. We are now in a slightly larger one bedroom and waiting patiently for someone to move into Kaifaqu and out of their big apartment!

We have been very lucky in the sense that the building management staff is fantastic. Things seem to get fixed very quickly. On day one we had a river flowing into our bathroom everytime our upstairs neighbours used their water. It was fixed within minutes of reporting. On day two we realized that our door was sticking and nearly impossible to open – fixed within the hour. Realized that we had no propane for our gas stove – brought at 8 in the morning after reporting the night before. The one thing that is not so fast is hooking up services. It's been over a week and we only now have inernet and phone...

We had origionally planned to look into moving into the Kaifaqu but have decided that we actually quite like it on campus. It's quiet, the management is great, we're a short walk to the market, we're close to the beach and a couple of attractions, the air is cleaner, and it's only a twent minute train ride to get to the city. So, campus for us unless we find some pressing reason to leave.



Plants and Animals

I'll talk very breifly about vegetation first. It's interesting to see that, due to similar climates, most of that plants you see in our area you will also see back home. Upon arrival, it seemed like we were simply driving through a costal BC city. The one very nice thing to note is that, because it is a national tourist resort area, all of the hedges and gardens are kept in superb shape, making any trip a beautiful one.

Another interesting tidbit is that every spare pack of land seems to be covered in vegetable gardens. Even along the side of the highway, you will see people out farming their crops.

As for animals, there seems to be nothing yet that is much different from Canada. There are, however, some very large spiders, reaching up to three inches in diameter, with legs. They seem to be quite docile so far, and haven't minded me encrouching on their territory and taking pictures of them.

Appearently, there are also a large number of bird species in our area. There are two birders on Campus who have agreed to take my along on one of their birding trips. They say they have photographed 180 species of bird since being in Asia.



Language

Last year, when I was planning a trip around the world, I decided that it would be useful to learn some basics in a few extra languages to get me by. My list consisted of French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Arabic, and Mandarin. I happily learned my way through a week of learning each until I came to Mandarin. I spent ten minutes on an online lesson website and declared that Mandarin was a language I never wanted to learn, no matter how useful.

More recenly, I was looking through children's websites while building a homeschooling curriculum and came across a websitepromoting global awareness for children. It included a section on Madarin laguage. I got a far as number "5" when I switched it off and declared, "Never!" ... twelve hours later, Daniel was offered a job in China and I began my Madarin studies! The moral of this story is, "Never say Never!"

So far, the language has actually been much easier that I expected. In case you have no knowledge of Madarin, let me give you the basics. There are four different tones that you can use when speaking. One the is high and straight, one that rises, one that falls and then rises, and one that falls in inflection. There is also the neutral 5th tone which is, well, neutral. This is what origonally detered me from the language. I did not like the fact that, by messing up what tone you use, rather than telling your taxi driver you would like to go to Orient Road you can end up telling your taxi driver you would like to go to the bedroom. I think I'll just take my uncle Micheal's advice and avoid Orient Road altogether, just incase!

To my relief and suprise, I have actually been able to pick up the tones rather easily, due to my musical background. Once I had them, I was able to teach them to Daniel, so we're well on our way! So far, when it comes to spoken language, we have learned our numbers, pronouns, basic conversation phrases, opposites, and some verbs. I have also been learning to read and write a little and have learned my numbers, as well as the characters for call, big, together, give birth, name, writing, small, friend, people, and no. There are also several I can read but have not yet learned the proper stroke order to write them. I plan to learn five or so characters a day using my handy, dandy "The First 100 Chinese Characters" book and it's subsequent titles.

I have been using the language I do know as much aspossible while out and about. Our second day in China, I went out the the Market shopping for groceries. I was able to use "hello" and "thank you" about a hundred times that day! It was also when i realized that, if I was going to be out in town shopping and trying to communicate, I would be much better off accelerating my mandarin studies!

The proudest moment I've had so far (and when I began to feel like I was actually in China) was when I had my first full (although short) conversation with someone in Mandarin. The day we were to go get our medicals, I learned how to tell someone that I am pregnant, mostly due to the fact that I knew were were supposed to get an x-ray and I would not be able to. I did get to use it for the x-ray technician (and he understood me, which was great!) but that was not my crowning glory. The highlight of my week was when I went for my ultrasound. My very short conversation was as follows(but in Mandarin, of course):

Sarah: Hello
Doctor: Hell. Sit.
S: I'm pregnant.
D (to Ulrasound tech): Oh! She's pregnant!

We then proceeded with the ulrasound in which she told me "Daughter, Daughter" in English I could barely understand, even though that is terribley illigal in china. We figure it was ok for me because I am not yet a perminant resident and she was probably bursting to tell someone!

S: Thank you!
D: You're welcome!

I have had several mini-conversations since then, but I was extremely proud of myself that in under a week, I had had my first full conversation in a language I thought I would never be able to learn!

Daniel is also progressing very well and taking every opportunity to use the words and phrases he already knows. By the time we come to visit Canada, we may have forgotten English altogether!



Baby Related

Everyday, I am less and less concerned about having a baby here (although I was quite unconcerned to begin with). Before coming, I did some reasearch and found what I thought to be the best place to give birth in our area – a very nice Maternity Hospital in Dalian. I had read alot about iton forums from people who had given birth there and was quite happy with that. Now, I am even more happy. Just on our flight over, I met two returning teachers who have given birth at that hospital (one who is pregnant again and will be giving birth there a seconf time). There are also several others whom I have come accross since. All seem to speak very highly of it! I haven't seen the hospital yet, but I am planning a trip in within the next couple of weeks.

I also happy to relay that one factor in our decision to stay living on campus is that we're not the only family here! There are several others (at least 6 that I have counted) and many of those with babies!

As for baby items to be bough in China, Walmart was a pleasant suprise! While toys are only slightly under par, price-wise, everything else is considerably cheaper. We have found a beautiful two level adjustable crib and bassinette (complete with mosquito netting) for $100, strollers from $40-100, and outfits similar to thise we bought while in Canada, but for ¼ the price! Overall, I think we will be very happy with the experience of starting a family in China!



Shopping

Shopping in China is very interesting, even in large department stores. As soon as any employee sees that you are looking at something, they are right at you r side, rattling off in Chinese about said product and it's competitors. It is very helpful, while shopping, to know how to say, "Just looking..." or "I don't want it, thank you." This probably won't make them stop, but at least you've tried.

When it comes to shopping most places, barganing is the norm – people actually quote their prices a little higher because they expect you to do it. I, thus far, have not caught onto this particular custom. I find it very difficult to bargin for my onions, garlic, and ginger, when I am paying less than a dollar for them all to begin with.

It's important to note that prices to change according to the color or your skin. While shopping in the market, it can be useful to watch the person on front of you and see what price they get. Appearently, many people will double or triple prices if they think you are Russian. I think I aught to learn the phrase, "I am Canadian."
One other thing to note about shopping in China, especially in the market, is that you never know what you might see. During my first trip out alone, in a bin alongside the vegetables I was buying, were some very large moving creatures that looked distintly like very large larvae or some sort (I later found out they were worm larvae). I find that the best thing to do in these situations is just pretend to didn't see it, and continue with your business...

So, on the whole, we are both having a fantastic time in China and are extremely happy with our decision to come and our experience so far. We do, however, miss everyone back home and are looking forward to seeing you all soon!