Journal - 09/22/2000

JOURNAL FOR 09/23/00

adoption site | contacting me by e-mail | Jiangmen main journal page | home page | Meredith's page

<== Last episode, our hero...
In our next thrilling adventure ==>

(09/23/00)
Susan: Meredith is feeling better and woke up happy. Today is the first time she woke up and played quietly in her crib for 10 minutes before she wanted a bottle. With Meredith, she doesn't care what she gets, or how it is fixed. What's important is that she get it NOW! I think that she may have been carried around in a sling/backpack in orphanage. They told us that what makes her happy is to hold her. She is not one to hide her feelings. If she doesn't like something, you definately know it. She can be such a troublemaker when she's not happy. She says 'aieyah' a lot. In cantonese, it can mean anything from "oops" to "Oh, crap". We figure that she must have heard her nannies say it to her a lot. I'm learning that she has a fakey cry that means "I'm bored, play with me." If you don't, it turns into a mad cry with tears. We'll have to work on that when we get home.

We've also found out that she is crawling. She just doesn't like the floor. We got her to crawl around once, but usually she screams if you put her on the floor, even if you are down there with her.

Jim: We've heard back from some people that they just can't imagine that things are as bad as all that in regard to the reception we got at the Qingping Market, and that they'd gone around in China without those kind of reactions. Part of it may be that Susan and I are both big people - I'm 6' 5" and a BIG guy, and Susan's 5'8" and chunky. I have seen no heavy people in China other than the foreign sorts, and I'm sure that's part of it. And throughout the trip, we did get a few people who were very nice, curious about us and the baby, and so on. The people who gave us the worst time were the people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, and the people who gave us the best reaction were the more educated, more exposed to Westerners sorts.

Also, some of this is an odd love-hate relationship with Chinese have with the West. The stores are full of things that advertise designer this and Western influence that. The main places that I saw old-fashioned Chinese stuff was in the gift shops in the hotels or outside them (designed for tourists and especially for adoptive parents)!

And everywhere, you see people flashing on NEW NEW NEW and not much interest in the old. I saw virtually no big show of Chinese flags anywhere throughout the trip. I saw virtually no sign of Chairman Mao on anything aside of a small picture in a bookstore or the picture of him on a 100 Yuan note. Younger people here are less interested in yesterday, and more interested in tomorrow. (Picture to the right is from a torn down area in the Qingping market area. - a new business sign going up.) However, I did see a lot of bits and pieces of traditional Chinese influences, mostly in art stores, and in lucky this or that trinkets and tokens.

The only cheongsams I saw were on staff at restaurants and hotels; people on the street dressed roughly like people would in America, given their socio-economic standing. Which given China's levels of poverty, meant that most dressed in short sleeved work shirts and work trousers. Except for a e-commerce meeting thing at the White Swan, I saw practically nobody with ties and suits. People who are middle-class or better dress pretty casually to our standards. Also, we've seen no children in split pants. We didn't even see any in the stores, even the ones that cater to the locals. The nurse at the quarentine center, however, did ask why the Americans liked to dress the babies in one piece outfits. She said that 2 piece outfits (like the Chinese use) are easier.

(The picture to the right is a good example of a study in contrasts. This was taken outside the Six Banyan Temple, at a parked (and very new car), with a bunch of people reading a copy of the local paper that has been posted on the wall opposite the temple.)

And something to remember about Guangzhou in particular: It's bloody hot and steamy here! Nobody in their right mind would dress all that warmly here, and the heat takes a real toll on people who aren't used to it.

Cleanliness/tidiness is an odd mixture in our experience here. There's not as much spitting on the street as I expected. It is common at eating establishments to give you a wet clean handcloth to wash off your hands and face - this may be repeated several times, depending, with a person coming along with a pair of tongs to pick up the remains. Even the middling establishments had something resembling a cross between a 'wet-nap' and a disposable washcloth packaged up for your use. When we bought books, everything was properly packaged. In one case, they wrapped them up carefully with paper and string.

And at the Qingping, the meat and produce stuff was out there for the flies to get at (and they did) and that none of the hotel's tap water is potable.

Susan: A couple of people here have been sick with what appears to be E-Coli contamination. Our neighbor Pat got very sick and then got dehydrated. Also, her baby is sick and had a temperature of 104 for about 36 hours. Fortunately, Pat's travel companion was not sick and was able to take care of the both of them. Also an orphanage mate of Meredith's (not with our group) was starting to have blood in her stools just as she was getting close to leaving. The local clinic said probably Ecoli. Her mom was very glad to be going home. We hope she is ok. The babies mom was pretty careful about using boiled or bottled water in her bottles, and is not sure where she would have picked it up. We've been very careful with Meredith and double or triple boiling the water. I really miss Chicago water (It may taste funny in the summer, but it's not going to make you sick). I'm also getting very tired of boiling water to wash dishes in the bathroom sink.

Jim: Speaking of Chinese Culture, we arranged with Shasha to take off to see the Six Banyan Temple today. It's about 1000 years old, and the real bright spot (a huge towered pagoda) was under construction, so we ended up going through the subsidiary temple areas. One of the more striking parts of the temple is in the picture to the left...three Buddhas in a past-present-future set.

Shasha's assistant Susan (not her real/Chinese name; she's Cantonese, and a student in Beijing, and was corralled to help with this group of adopting parents) has very decent English, and took us on a tour of the temples. It was a little perfunctory; she wasn't all that keen on the joint and wasn't a believer. It would have worked better to have someone with who was a bit better versed in what this or that meant. However, it was nice enough.

We went with another couple and their daughter; the husband was probably Buddhist, and took the place with a good deal of reverence. Both couples had the babies (and themselves) blessed by the bonze (rhymes with da Fonz), who chanted out a prayer while striking a nutshell-like device.

Aside of the main statues, it's obvious that a lot of the place was cleaned out in the years of war and revolution, and that what's there has been restored somewhat in the last twenty years. (The picture on the right is of worshippers lighting incense sticks to take into the temples. The bluish haze is the smoke from the incense.)

We zoomed through the temple pretty quickly, actually. We were all drenched in sweat, and the other couple went back to the White Swan by Taxi, and we went on to Beijing Lu.

Susan says to mention that the whole experience was highly underwhelming - that it's a tourist trap in her experience, and that Westerners would find it being Not Much unless they were worshippers. I think she's a bit harsh, but without a better guide, you aren't going to get a lot from the experience.

We then went on to the main shopping area of downtown Guangzhou - the Beijing Lu, or Beijing Road. Think of a very very busy broad street totally lined in many small shops, all relatively modern-looking and fairly nice. The street had been blocked off for the weekend to make it a mall for strollers, and the stores were all packed, with a ton of people rumbling through the streets.

In Guangzhou, you don't have much in the direction of specific walk-don't walk stuff. People stroll out into traffic. Traffic is an incredible dance of cars, buses, taxis, trucks, motorbikes and bicycles, and you wonder that there's not a ton of traffic deaths. In the heavier traffic areas, people are forced to stay off the roads and onto huge pedestrian overpasses. So we ended up going up and over these a few times. (Picture to the left is of Susan, Meredith and Susan, Shasha's assitant.)

The reaction we got from the crowd was not as nastily mocking as the last time at Qingping, but there was enough of it to be unsettling. A few were very nice - usually women who would make noises at the baby, and wave. We stumbled around and finally went up a flight of stairs to the Foreign Language Bookstore.

The reason I'd come here was to find cheap copies of the grat classics of Chinese Literature, cheap. Books like A DREAM OF RED MANSIONS, OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH, JOURNEY TO THE WEST - standards of Chinese literature - are hard to find in the US, and expensive when you do! I managed to get hardback copies of RED MANSIONS and JOURNEY for about 140 Yuan - about $18 for a seven volumes. In English.

Paperback copies of these works were available at the White Swan - for 400 yuan. Bit of a markup.

Susan (the assistant) then took us off (at Susan the momma's suggestion) to a nearby department store to do some baby clothes shopping.

Susan: I wanted to get Meredith a couple of long pants. I brought mostly short outfits and only a couple of long pants. We didn't see much. Most of the long pants were very heavy-weight. I guess they were for the locals getting ready for the winter. It was odd to see winter jackets on sale here. Then again, when I visited my Dad in California for Christmas one year, I was wearing shorts and a light jacket and the locals were wearing winter coats. I did buy 3 Pooh outfits and a pair of little red shoes mostly because they were inexpensive and Disney stuff is expensive in the US. Shopping is an interesting experience. You get LOTS of attention from the sales staff, more than I really wanted. Susan (the guide) helped me make my purchases and we left.

Jim: I was basically not interested in having her get a bunch of designer duds for US prices. The department store was packed, and very heavy with ads for designer this and that. Disney, Givency, Versace, Ralph Lauren, etc., etc. Being someone who has next to no interest in such things - to the point of avoiding them as kitsch - and too big for anything I'd find in there - I didn't have much interest in what was in the store. (Picture to the right is from a brewery right across the street from the Six Banyan Temple.)

Note: most escalators in China (where they're available) are the narrow sorts, and deep. The sort you may be used to in the US where they're two-people wide are rare. Also, air-conditioning is not a standard thing, and what someone there may consider air-conditioning you may consider too darn hot or totally inadequate.

On the street as we left the department store as we made our way out to get a taxi, I saw some beggars out on the street; two guys with wasted legs dragging themselves flat along the pavement with rags for clothing. All around them was a galaxy of passersby, and everyone zoomed by them, taking care not to step on them. Including us.

Note: Taxis are dirt cheap in Guangzhou. Seriously. We never paid more than a couple of dollars worth of Yuan at any time, and the taxi drivers we ran into were kind, courteous, and nice. Note of them spoke a speck of English, and the only way to travel by taxi is to make absolutely sure that you have the address of where you came from and where you're going to with you, in Chinese. Do not ever expect that you'll be able to say 'White Swan' or 'Six Banyan Temple' and that they'll understand you. Oh, yes - there are air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned taxis here. Get the former.

Susan: Taxi's were very small cars so Meredith and I rode in the front seat and Jim rode in the back. There were no car seats, but the taxi drivers were all wearing seat belts and insisted that I wear mine, too.

Further Note: Everyone in Guangzhou that we ran into spoke Cantonese, rather than Mandarin Chinese. Unless they came from somewhere else. Trying Mandarin on Cantonese speakers may or may not get you anywhere. Some of it is relatively cross-transferable (Ni hao -> Nei ho) but a lot of it is not, and the pronunciation tricks you have to pull in Cantonese is murder to get right - instead of four different ways of pronouncing each syllable tonewise, there's *six*. Acquaintances say that getting Cantonese right is sheer murder.

Susan: We bought our chops at Sherry's Place. We were buying them for gifts for people back home, and ordered 8 sets. For the nieces and Jim and I, Jim came up with Chinese names for all us and had the characters written down. Sherry, the shop owner, thought this was very amusing and was impressed that Jim knew a little Chinese. She kept trying to get him to say something in Chinese. Jim couldn't come up with anything on the spot, but Sherry was enjoying herself. When we went in to her shop later to pick them up, she remembered our names --our Chinese names.

JOURNAL FOR 09/23/00
adoption site \| contacting me by e-mail \| Jiangmen	main journal page \| home page \| Meredith's page
<== Last episode, our hero...	In our next thrilling adventure ==>
(09/23/00) Susan: Meredith is feeling better and woke up happy. Today is the first time she woke up and played quietly in her crib for 10 minutes before she wanted a bottle. With Meredith, she doesn't care what she gets, or how it is fixed. What's important is that she get it NOW! I think that she may have been carried around in a sling/backpack in orphanage. They told us that what makes her happy is to hold her. She is not one to hide her feelings. If she doesn't like something, you definately know it. She can be such a troublemaker when she's not happy. She says 'aieyah' a lot. In cantonese, it can mean anything from "oops" to "Oh, crap". We figure that she must have heard her nannies say it to her a lot. I'm learning that she has a fakey cry that means "I'm bored, play with me." If you don't, it turns into a mad cry with tears. We'll have to work on that when we get home. We've also found out that she is crawling. She just doesn't like the floor. We got her to crawl around once, but usually she screams if you put her on the floor, even if you are down there with her. Jim: We've heard back from some people that they just can't imagine that things are as bad as all that in regard to the reception we got at the Qingping Market, and that they'd gone around in China without those kind of reactions. Part of it may be that Susan and I are both big people - I'm 6' 5" and a BIG guy, and Susan's 5'8" and chunky. I have seen no heavy people in China other than the foreign sorts, and I'm sure that's part of it. And throughout the trip, we did get a few people who were very nice, curious about us and the baby, and so on. The people who gave us the worst time were the people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, and the people who gave us the best reaction were the more educated, more exposed to Westerners sorts. Also, some of this is an odd love-hate relationship with Chinese have with the West. The stores are full of things that advertise designer this and Western influence that. The main places that I saw old-fashioned Chinese stuff was in the gift shops in the hotels or outside them (designed for tourists and especially for adoptive parents)! And everywhere, you see people flashing on NEW NEW NEW and not much interest in the old. I saw virtually no big show of Chinese flags anywhere throughout the trip. I saw virtually no sign of Chairman Mao on anything aside of a small picture in a bookstore or the picture of him on a 100 Yuan note. Younger people here are less interested in yesterday, and more interested in tomorrow. (Picture to the right is from a torn down area in the Qingping market area. - a new business sign going up.) However, I did see a lot of bits and pieces of traditional Chinese influences, mostly in art stores, and in lucky this or that trinkets and tokens. The only cheongsams I saw were on staff at restaurants and hotels; people on the street dressed roughly like people would in America, given their socio-economic standing. Which given China's levels of poverty, meant that most dressed in short sleeved work shirts and work trousers. Except for a e-commerce meeting thing at the White Swan, I saw practically nobody with ties and suits. People who are middle-class or better dress pretty casually to our standards. Also, we've seen no children in split pants. We didn't even see any in the stores, even the ones that cater to the locals. The nurse at the quarentine center, however, did ask why the Americans liked to dress the babies in one piece outfits. She said that 2 piece outfits (like the Chinese use) are easier. (The picture to the right is a good example of a study in contrasts. This was taken outside the Six Banyan Temple, at a parked (and very new car), with a bunch of people reading a copy of the local paper that has been posted on the wall opposite the temple.) And something to remember about Guangzhou in particular: It's bloody hot and steamy here! Nobody in their right mind would dress all that warmly here, and the heat takes a real toll on people who aren't used to it. Cleanliness/tidiness is an odd mixture in our experience here. There's not as much spitting on the street as I expected. It is common at eating establishments to give you a wet clean handcloth to wash off your hands and face - this may be repeated several times, depending, with a person coming along with a pair of tongs to pick up the remains. Even the middling establishments had something resembling a cross between a 'wet-nap' and a disposable washcloth packaged up for your use. When we bought books, everything was properly packaged. In one case, they wrapped them up carefully with paper and string. And at the Qingping, the meat and produce stuff was out there for the flies to get at (and they did) and that none of the hotel's tap water is potable. Susan: A couple of people here have been sick with what appears to be E-Coli contamination. Our neighbor Pat got very sick and then got dehydrated. Also, her baby is sick and had a temperature of 104 for about 36 hours. Fortunately, Pat's travel companion was not sick and was able to take care of the both of them. Also an orphanage mate of Meredith's (not with our group) was starting to have blood in her stools just as she was getting close to leaving. The local clinic said probably Ecoli. Her mom was very glad to be going home. We hope she is ok. The babies mom was pretty careful about using boiled or bottled water in her bottles, and is not sure where she would have picked it up. We've been very careful with Meredith and double or triple boiling the water. I really miss Chicago water (It may taste funny in the summer, but it's not going to make you sick). I'm also getting very tired of boiling water to wash dishes in the bathroom sink. Jim: Speaking of Chinese Culture, we arranged with Shasha to take off to see the Six Banyan Temple today. It's about 1000 years old, and the real bright spot (a huge towered pagoda) was under construction, so we ended up going through the subsidiary temple areas. One of the more striking parts of the temple is in the picture to the left...three Buddhas in a past-present-future set. Shasha's assistant Susan (not her real/Chinese name; she's Cantonese, and a student in Beijing, and was corralled to help with this group of adopting parents) has very decent English, and took us on a tour of the temples. It was a little perfunctory; she wasn't all that keen on the joint and wasn't a believer. It would have worked better to have someone with who was a bit better versed in what this or that meant. However, it was nice enough. We went with another couple and their daughter; the husband was probably Buddhist, and took the place with a good deal of reverence. Both couples had the babies (and themselves) blessed by the bonze (rhymes with da Fonz), who chanted out a prayer while striking a nutshell-like device. Aside of the main statues, it's obvious that a lot of the place was cleaned out in the years of war and revolution, and that what's there has been restored somewhat in the last twenty years. (The picture on the right is of worshippers lighting incense sticks to take into the temples. The bluish haze is the smoke from the incense.) We zoomed through the temple pretty quickly, actually. We were all drenched in sweat, and the other couple went back to the White Swan by Taxi, and we went on to Beijing Lu. Susan says to mention that the whole experience was highly underwhelming - that it's a tourist trap in her experience, and that Westerners would find it being Not Much unless they were worshippers. I think she's a bit harsh, but without a better guide, you aren't going to get a lot from the experience. We then went on to the main shopping area of downtown Guangzhou - the Beijing Lu, or Beijing Road. Think of a very very busy broad street totally lined in many small shops, all relatively modern-looking and fairly nice. The street had been blocked off for the weekend to make it a mall for strollers, and the stores were all packed, with a ton of people rumbling through the streets. In Guangzhou, you don't have much in the direction of specific walk-don't walk stuff. People stroll out into traffic. Traffic is an incredible dance of cars, buses, taxis, trucks, motorbikes and bicycles, and you wonder that there's not a ton of traffic deaths. In the heavier traffic areas, people are forced to stay off the roads and onto huge pedestrian overpasses. So we ended up going up and over these a few times. (Picture to the left is of Susan, Meredith and Susan, Shasha's assitant.) The reaction we got from the crowd was not as nastily mocking as the last time at Qingping, but there was enough of it to be unsettling. A few were very nice - usually women who would make noises at the baby, and wave. We stumbled around and finally went up a flight of stairs to the Foreign Language Bookstore. The reason I'd come here was to find cheap copies of the grat classics of Chinese Literature, cheap. Books like A DREAM OF RED MANSIONS, OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH, JOURNEY TO THE WEST - standards of Chinese literature - are hard to find in the US, and expensive when you do! I managed to get hardback copies of RED MANSIONS and JOURNEY for about 140 Yuan - about $18 for a seven volumes. In English. Paperback copies of these works were available at the White Swan - for 400 yuan. Bit of a markup. Susan (the assistant) then took us off (at Susan the momma's suggestion) to a nearby department store to do some baby clothes shopping. Susan: I wanted to get Meredith a couple of long pants. I brought mostly short outfits and only a couple of long pants. We didn't see much. Most of the long pants were very heavy-weight. I guess they were for the locals getting ready for the winter. It was odd to see winter jackets on sale here. Then again, when I visited my Dad in California for Christmas one year, I was wearing shorts and a light jacket and the locals were wearing winter coats. I did buy 3 Pooh outfits and a pair of little red shoes mostly because they were inexpensive and Disney stuff is expensive in the US. Shopping is an interesting experience. You get LOTS of attention from the sales staff, more than I really wanted. Susan (the guide) helped me make my purchases and we left. Jim: I was basically not interested in having her get a bunch of designer duds for US prices. The department store was packed, and very heavy with ads for designer this and that. Disney, Givency, Versace, Ralph Lauren, etc., etc. Being someone who has next to no interest in such things - to the point of avoiding them as kitsch - and too big for anything I'd find in there - I didn't have much interest in what was in the store. (Picture to the right is from a brewery right across the street from the Six Banyan Temple.) Note: most escalators in China (where they're available) are the narrow sorts, and deep. The sort you may be used to in the US where they're two-people wide are rare. Also, air-conditioning is not a standard thing, and what someone there may consider air-conditioning you may consider too darn hot or totally inadequate. On the street as we left the department store as we made our way out to get a taxi, I saw some beggars out on the street; two guys with wasted legs dragging themselves flat along the pavement with rags for clothing. All around them was a galaxy of passersby, and everyone zoomed by them, taking care not to step on them. Including us. Note: Taxis are dirt cheap in Guangzhou. Seriously. We never paid more than a couple of dollars worth of Yuan at any time, and the taxi drivers we ran into were kind, courteous, and nice. Note of them spoke a speck of English, and the only way to travel by taxi is to make absolutely sure that you have the address of where you came from and where you're going to with you, in Chinese. Do not ever expect that you'll be able to say 'White Swan' or 'Six Banyan Temple' and that they'll understand you. Oh, yes - there are air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned taxis here. Get the former. Susan: Taxi's were very small cars so Meredith and I rode in the front seat and Jim rode in the back. There were no car seats, but the taxi drivers were all wearing seat belts and insisted that I wear mine, too. Further Note: Everyone in Guangzhou that we ran into spoke Cantonese, rather than Mandarin Chinese. Unless they came from somewhere else. Trying Mandarin on Cantonese speakers may or may not get you anywhere. Some of it is relatively cross-transferable (Ni hao -> Nei ho) but a lot of it is not, and the pronunciation tricks you have to pull in Cantonese is murder to get right - instead of four different ways of pronouncing each syllable tonewise, there's six. Acquaintances say that getting Cantonese right is sheer murder. Susan: We bought our chops at Sherry's Place. We were buying them for gifts for people back home, and ordered 8 sets. For the nieces and Jim and I, Jim came up with Chinese names for all us and had the characters written down. Sherry, the shop owner, thought this was very amusing and was impressed that Jim knew a little Chinese. She kept trying to get him to say something in Chinese. Jim couldn't come up with anything on the spot, but Sherry was enjoying herself. When we went in to her shop later to pick them up, she remembered our names --our Chinese names.