A Day at the Park

Last Saturday we went for an outing to Century Park on the Pudong side of the river that runs through Shanghai (we live on the Puxi side [the u sounds like oo and the x sounds like sh in Chinese]). It was a windy day, so we bought a kite on the way over. The lady sold me the kite and I made the mistake of paying her before we decided what string she was including with the kite :) She tried to hand me a spool of thread, but my driver took it and threw it on the ground. It was very dramatic, and in the end we got a decent 200 yards or so of real kite string on a fishing reel. But I digress...

The park was huge and very cool. It was centered around a large lake and there were all kind of amusements there. We saw a little amusement park, where there was a sign on the bumper cars: "If you are a drunkard, have mental problems or are sick you can't ride the bumper cars." We could have used such a sign at our Gerstner Family Adventure in Florida when my brothers ignored the NO Bumping sign on the go karts ;)

Anyway, we started out by flying the kite - the wind was perfect for it, it took only one failed attempt before I got the kite skyborne, and just as I was letting that sucker pull out as much line as it wanted, Park Security came by and despite speaking no English, made it clear I was breaking some kind of rule.
[aside: I had heard about the kids with the holes in their pants for taking care of business, but hadn't seen it before. This shows very clearly the diaper coming out of the slot that I hear in the summertime is not so obstructed, but is very convenient. Just had to share...]



It took us a while to reel the kite back in and we sadly put away the kite for another windy day in another park and kept walking.

We next came to a booth where they were selling bubble blowers. As anyone who has kids knows, this was a major event. Adam and Jack especially loved running around and popping bubbles with hands, sticks, sandwiches, etc. Rachel was taking photos of Jack in the bubbles and actually caught this photo of Adam in the background... Is he really trying to EAT the bubbles? This candid has made me rethink how much good the old "soap in the mouth when you use potty language" is doing for Adam. He seems to have developed a taste for the stuff...

After getting the kids to move on from the bubbles, we found a prime soccer field. Sort of. At least it was relatively level and but for a few couples hitting the badminton birdie back and forth (yes, this is everywhere and likely the secret to Olympic success), was relatively empty. We settled the stroller, dropped some of our stuff by it, broke out the "soccer" ball and started to play.

It was great to get the kids out and playing soccer. We didn't even need to find anyone to play pickup with. We're a party just waiting to happen :) Before long, we had some other little friends - Chinese kids who are only children: these experiences remind one of what the one child policy has done deprive the children of China from having some built-in playmates at home.

We had a great time playing around with them and of course we drew quite a crowd of people around Grace and the stroller. The photo I included here is not a big crowd, but I love the guy holding up five fingers and the expression on his face. This is completely typical of just about every interaction we have with people when we're out in force. Wu ge. (means 5, as in five kids). Adam knows a few words/phrases in Chinese, and "wu ge xiao hai" (5 children) is definitely one. At one point in the afternoon, he just started chanting it out of the blue.

After a great time playing soccer, we decided it was time to figure out how to rent one of the six-person bikes we kept seeing around the park and go for a spin to see the whole park. It was kind of funny trying to load that thing up with kids and gear. Everything from the stroller went in the front compartment, Rachel held Grace. The six person bike consisted of two three-person benches, with every seat but the middle seat on each row equipped with pedals. We paid the rental, stashed the stroller, and went on our way to explore the park. It was so beautiful with the big lake in the middle of it and with the trees in blossom. We stopped at one point and I made Rachel get out of the bike with Grace and we got some good photos of them with the flowers.

We truly had a blast driving the bike around the lake and the other areas of the park. People would look then point. At one point we had a young couple pass us in a three-seater and the guy gave us that "so long suckers" look, so I got my best pedalers on each of the four stations and we pedaled hard and caught up with them. As soon as they felt the heat of the chase, it was on. They pedaled fast, we pedaled fast and were giving them a run despite the hunk of metal we were pulling along with us, but then we lost a shoe and we had to drop out. Speaking of dropping out, that will do it for this installment, but stay tuned... we have more adventures to share...

sanctity of life

This entry is very close to my heart and so I hope that I can convey my thoughts here.

In February I started doing some volunteer work every Monday in this orphanage. It is the only one that the government will let foreigners in to (so clearly it is the best one) and it was okay. It was clean, but old and so it looked dirty. When I initially began they were not even that happy to see me. The lady in charge was kind of looking at me like I was just more work for her because she'd have to copy my passport and do some paperwork to let me in. When you think they would take all the help they could get. Then I chose the young kids room. It was full of babies just under or around a year. Just like my Gracey. There were probably 20 kids in this room the size of my living room/front entry. All the babies were in bouncers or in walkers. This room had their beds, a small play area with very few toys and that's it. It looked a bit too much like bumper cars with the walkers just continually hitting into each other. Most of these kids had something wrong with them. There were several with hare lips and I was wiping others faces and necks and noticed scars where they had surgery - like heart, lung, etc... The chinese only get one child and so if that child has something wrong (even like a crooked nose or big ears) with them then they want to try for a different one. All of these children had been left somewhere or found and no parents had claimed them.

I went over immediately to the one's in the bouncers. I think I was drawn there because my baby is 8 months and I felt they looked a little more like her size. First off you have no idea if they are boys or girls. They are all dressed the same in several layers and colors does not distinguish the gender. I have had so many people ask me if Grace is a girl or a boy and I feel like saying "seriously you can't tell with her pink striped coat and pink blanket?" But you'll see a boy with a purple helmet and pink bike riding around. You can not tell gender on babies (or adults) by their clothes!! So I really was clueless as to anyone's gender. I went over and started rubbing cheeks and hands and tried to give them as much touch and stimulation as possible. My heart truthfully was breaking and I was really struggling to keep it together. The tears would not stop pouring down my face. It was so hard to see these bright eyes and know that they would never be loved like my baby is loved, and not have the opportunities that we have. I picked up a baby and tried to plow through the tears but I couldn't stop for a long time and my heart was about to burst. Oh, they were so cute!! Many were getting teeth like my baby just got her first two, and still I get choked up just writing about it. There were several with hare lips, but one that kept laughing and laughing and so I could see the roof of her mouth...it broke my heart. She cried when I put her down and it was so hard to put her down...but I wanted to get to all the kids before I left.

There are only certain hours that you can be there and I think it's mostly feeding times. So I was able to feed the babies. They brought out these bowls of rice mush with some green veggie in it, some egg (I'm guessing) and a little meat of some type. They truthfully were the most disgusting looking food I had ever seen. But I'm sure they were nutritious!! They kids were happy to eat and they would hold open their mouth so I could feed them. The people who worked there would lay them on their laps and basically pour the food down their throats. It was basically upside down from how I feed my baby, but it got the job done much faster and there were a lot of mouths to feed. I didn't care what they thought and I fed them the way I would my own kids. The child I was feeding was starting to smile after a while and I would tickle his tummy and he would laugh. Then after each bite he would lift up his sweatshirt and so I would tickle him. He was so cute!!! You could see other ones wanting to get in the action and have fun, and I did for as long as I could, but then we had to leave. The volunteer hours are very short - only two hours. I fed the kids while they were in their walkers. I'm sure they have very little time outside those walkers.

There was no great event that happened while I was there but the feelings I have felt have been so close to me since I've left. I even think about it at times and it makes me cry and I am not a person that cries! It was the first time I had cried since I've been in China. But the value on life is just not that high here. There used to be a sign by this bridge not far from my house that said basically "no girl babies can be thrown over the bridge". People would literally throw their babies over hoping for a boy next time. There has been improvements over the years and now they do more foster care, etc... but still. Coleman was talking with his chinese tutor and she was saying how people will have thier babies put down after they are born if they aren't exactly what they want. Then she added, but it's not that common...maybe 10%!! Ten percent!! That's like the population of the midwest (I really don't know, but it's high). The government turns a blind eye to that and people are not punished. I was talking with a friend of mine and she was talking about how common place it was for women to take a "medical leave" and be gone for a few days and then come back just fine. They go to get an abortion. The sanctity of life is just not high here and it truthfully breaks my heart. You also see it with women and their bodies. It is not uncommon during a business transaction at some establishments for the host to get the visitor a girl, just for a little while. It's just not a big deal for someone to sell their body for money, although divorce is lower than in the U.S. and people are very family centered. Morals are just not high here - but focus on money is.

The buildings in general are very cold. (Especially in Shanghai because it is considered warmer weather and so they don't heat the buildings, but in Beijing they heat the buildings because it is considered colder - whatever.) I went to this indoor market the other day and wore a light jacket and was freezing in the market (this was the first of March). I put Adam back in the car with Hans (my driver) while I grabbed a few things because he was so cold. Now I know why the chinese are always dressed in many layers and very warm. I thought as it got warmer they would do that less, but it's still freeking cold inside even if it's warm outside, and this orphanage was the same. There is no central heating. You don't really understand what that means until you are without it for a significant period of time. Even me here I still forget because I am always warm and I've started wearing short sleeve shirts and very light jackets. I have to remember to dress warmer when I go to the orphanage.

I feel so grateful for the lifestyle that I have always taken for granted. I am warm when I want to be warm and cold when I want to be cold - even here. (It's also nice we are not paying for our utilities, because I keep every room warm. Each room has its own thermostat.) But I have so much to be grateful for. I have started taking Ellie (9 years) and James (7) with me to the orphanage. They are a little young and I kind of sneak them in, but they love it. The food really grossed Ellie out but James is great at feeding the kids and they love to play with them. It really does my heart good to see them with the kids and the orphanage is always one of the highlights of my week.

There is a very weird generation being raised right now. Everyone is an only child and very spoiled by grandparents who move in and basically raise them while their parents are working. Grandparents have always been a very big part of a chinese family but now they only have one grandchild and so they give them everything they want and the kids have no siblings to force them to share or learn, give and take, and no one is raising their own children. There are more boys than girls and they are so used to getting what they want so many don't want to marry until later and are more self centered. 

Chinese children are also pushed so hard because the parents want them to succeed so they will be wealthy and can support them in their old age. (FYI The boy and his wife always takes care of his parents, even if the girls parents are sick or need help - it is a girls responsibility to take care of her husbands parents first and maybe only them.) It is not uncommon for chinese children to go to school 7 days a week. They do their regular schooling Monday-Friday and then have tutors and classes on the weekend to make them exceptional - but everyone does this - so the bar has been raised way too high for very young (grade school) ages. My drivers' son (who is 7) goes to a school on Monday morning and then the parents can't visit him or see him until Friday afternoon. Then he has a tutor Friday night and other lessons in the weekend. This starts when he is 4 or 5 and goes until he is 8 or 9. Then when he's a little older he can come home at night, but the intensity of academics keeps rising. Wow, talk about competition and pressure.

Sorry this post has some random thoughts - I hope it makes sense to someone else besides just me!

The Great Wall

We have officially thrown chronology to the wind for the sake of expediency. We took a great trip to Hong Kong at the end of February, and we'll have to get that post in here sooner than later, but I have been on some business travel and have jotted down some thoughts I'll try to share in quick fashion.

I went to Beijing for some market research on March 3 - 5. While in Beijing, I had a gap of time between the end of market research and an evening business meeting. I arranged with the hotel to find a driver to take me to the Great Wall. I only had my dress shoes, but all of the photos I had seen of people on the wall were more or less on flat ground, so no big deal. I changed into jeans and off I went with my backpack and laptop, knowing that I could get some work done while in the car out and back (it's about an hour drive - 43 miles - and could be longer depending on traffic).

I also had an old frommers guidebook that described in very simplistic fashion each of the sections of the wall one could visit. So I tried to communicate with my non-english speaking driver about what section of the wall would be best to visit, thinking he would a) have an opinion or some advice, and b) that somehow I would understand what he was saying. It was kind of funny, I must say. He finally called someone who gave him the word 'famous' in english so we could tell me that the two we narrowed it down to (the closest ones) were both very famous. We finally decided on the closest, JuYongGuan, that I had read in the guidebook was a wall at least a little less traveled than the touristy BaDaLing.

When we arrived I realized the conundrum I had put myself in by bringing my laptop and computer pack. While I know people here are more trustworthy than many yankees, I also have had a blackberry picked off my belt since our arrival in China, and didn't want to run the risk of losing my laptop to the driver I had only just met, so I decided what the heck, shoulder the load and off you go. This decided, I left the car toward the Great Wall with my laptop on my back. Valerie, valera.

I wasn't quite prepared for the sight that greeted me once I got onto the wall: a seemingly neverending series of steps that went all the way up this mountain and had a few guardhouses or sentry posts or whatever along the way. I now understood the phrase "climbing the great wall." I thought that just meant climbing up some steps to get onto the thing, but it really means climbing a mountain on the top of the wall.

I looked up the seemingly unsurmountable stairs and started plodding up them. Plodding is exactly what I did, my dress shoes clicking on each step as I picked up first one foot and then another and step by step made my way up the mountainside. There's an object lesson here, lots of them that I took away, but one has to do with perspective and setting goals based on what you can see. I could see about six stations, that would take me to the top of the mountain, and it would proffer a great view.

That goal started to get challenged after the first few hundred steps. Some of these steps were at least knee high and others were mid thigh. At this point my backpack felt like it was 50 pounds or so and as I kept huffing and puffing up each new set of stairs, station 3 and station 4 found me feeling like I would either throw up or hyperventilate. Ok, I exaggerate, but only somewhat.

At about station 5 I could see that the one I had set my sights on (6, it turns out) was not indeed the top, but just another station. I thought oh well, six sounds good, I'll be lucky to make it there anyway.

Well, I made it to six, and of course there was more wall to scale, but you can't go that far and not finish it, so at long last I summited the highest of the wall guardposts at station 9. It was an incredible sight from the top, though a little hazy, still the mountains around me and a feeling of accomplishment. One of the major wonders of the world...

Of course I have now spoken to someone who plans on running the Great Wall Marathon, which includes about 6 miles on the wall, up and down mountainsides, so I feel a little sheepish with this confession of how challenging it was, but it was truly one of my "Most Memorable Experiences" you look back on in life. Maybe I can now fill out that Facebook 25 facts list or something. And at least the driver was impressed when I told him I had made it to the 9th station - he went out and bought me a celebratory water. ;)

I made it back for my meeting and then walked over late to see Ti'anamen Square and the gateway to the Forbidden City. Enjoyed Peking Duck as well on my first night to town. Hopefully I'll be back to Beijing on vacation so I can spend some real time there. I didn't even see the Bird's Nest!*

* p.s. the Chinese are very indifferent to the Bird's Nest as you can imagine. They don't know it by that name, and aren't interested in seeing it. Ask about the gymnastics and it's a different story...

Chengdu Biz Trip

[from Coleman] I recently made a business trip to chengdu to do some market research. Chengdu is the capital city of the sichuan province (think sichuan food) and is also close to the earthquake devastation, and close to beautiful mountains and scenery.

Unfortunately I did not see the scenery, only lots of buildings... It looked very similar to any other big city in China.

However, I did get to have some of the legendary food there, including my favorite meal yet in China of Kung Pao chicken and Ma Po Tofu, and also another meal with a new fave: sichuanese hot pot. Hot pot is like fondue where you choose a broth and they bring you raw meat and vegetables to cook in it. However, at the restaurant I ate, it's one big vat of broth for the whole table, which is fine, except that all of your food is cooking in there together and when some of that food includes duck stomach, cow stomach and chicken entrails, it's good not to focus on that part.


The broth itself was red with hot peppers and had a number of other ingredients, one in particular that changed my expectations for sichuan food forever - I'm going to call it the magic seed because I still don't know what it is called in English, but the chinese name is "hua jiao." It makes your mouth go numb - not like the dentist where you have to worry about chewing your cheek instead of your meal, and no hallucinations or any side effects to speak of, but it makes your mouth mildly numb. It's quite a sensation and one I surprisingly like.

In addition to the hot pot, we also went to the hot pot restaurant we went to because of the face changing show it includes with dinner. This you have to see to believe, and I'm afraid my camerawork is not going to help things much, but if you look closely at his face, you'll see he has a total of I think five different masks on during this one-minute clip, including two very quick changes at the end. Even with the cell phone video camera, I think you can see why this local style of entertainment is famous in China.



On the last of my trip, a Friday, the doctors cut out of work early, which allowed for a quick change and a couple of hours at a really cool museum/memorial temple in Chengdu. It pays homage to a number of great Chinese leaders, warriors and strategists who lived during the time that Chengdu was the capital of the Middle Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms era.

This was a period of about 60 years from 220 - 280 AD when these three kingdoms fought against each other to try and take over each others' land. This was a period when great war strategy and technology was developed and has been romanticized and perpetuated in literature and film, solidifying this period in Chinese culture. There were some great Bonzai gardens there, as well as a burial ground for one of the great emporers, Liu Bei, and a museum with artifacts from this time.














And finally, on the street you exit this temple and these great sights, there are all kinds of things you can buy. One of the coolest things I saw there was this man who was blowing sugar, like glass, into little animal sculptures. I continue to be amazed at all of the skills people here have developed.

One of the things I have since learned that I missed was the Panda breeding ground. This is about an hour away from Chengdu, and we may not make it out there as a family either, but I hear it is in a beautiful area. This is the world's only panda breeding facility and they let you hold the baby pandas there, which I'm sure is a very cool experience. Maybe next time...