June 7 Accident

We see the aftermath of a collision between a bicyclist and a taxi. The tour guide points out it was not our bus driver who hit them.

June 7 – No. 1 Lover’s Lake!

So today we went to West Lake, which is the “No. 1 Lover’s Lake in all of China!” we have no idea what this means or how it’s measured (marrigage proposals here? Children conceived here? Used condoms found here?). we take a boat tour of the late …. Which really is quite pretty with the lovely surrounding park and bridges … but the highlight of the trip isn’t the beautiful scenery and peaceful serenity … it’s the fact that we have become the CSULB version of the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow. If you know anything about California or CSULB in general, you know it is diverse beyond belief. And that is true for our tour group, which accurately reflects the makeup of our state and student body. We have Latinos, African Americans and Asians on the trip … as well as pacific islanders and gringos. Needless to say, this is not a combination that is frequently seen in mainland china. Five minutes into our boat tour, locals start asking to take photos with Danny, one of the African Americans. The upper deck of the boat, probably held 40 people, and 35 of them were Chinese, and 35 of them wanted photos with Danny. Then the two girls in tank tops. Then the girl with blue eyes. It was total chaos, but fun. The tour guide was kind of getting mad since no one was listening to the story of the No. 1 Lover’s Lake … but she had been overruled by something a little more entertaining. One of the locals asked Danny if he was into boxing, then asked if he liked Tyson, and pretended to bite his ear. Then he was like “Holyfield!!!!” another guy was like “Tyson!!!” it was a little odd, but danny diplomatically stated that he was an “Ali” guy …

Karaoke

It seems karaoke is the thing to do in china … kids don’t really go to bars, but they do go to karaoke. About half of the tour went to one last night, and now we know why they may be so popular …. They are combined with brothels! I haven’t gone to one, but I will definitely report back if I do!

Peeing

While we were driving to our next city, Hungzhuo, traffic was stopped and we see a guy standing in the median, which is lined with bushes. He’s just standing there … we can’t see his hands …. Hmm … it’s our second public pee display! We all start waving and hollaring at him until he sees us and about jumps out of his skin! He closes up shop and runs back to his friends across the street …. His friends are laughing harder than we are, but the guy refuses to look at us again … I mean, if you’re going to pee in public, why would you go in the median of a busy intersection? I swear, some things you just can’t explain.

Hot/cold beverages

There’s no ice in beverages in china. When eating a hot meal, one should drink a hot drink. Even if it’s 100 degrees outside. Evidently the whole balance of the universe will be thrown off if one mixes a cold beverage with a warm meal! This is one of the hardest things to get used to. Even the orange juice in the morning is warm … as is the milk for cereal (I have had neither). Today I went to starbucks for some home cooking and tried to order an iced tea. They don’t have it!!! It was hot and muggy and I just needed something iced and didn’t feel like a frappucino, even though it was slightly tempted by the new red bean flavor …. So I got an iced coffee instead. It took 3 people to help me order after I threw them off with the “iced” request … but we finally got it. Thanks starbucks! (p.s. I was also intrigued by the green tea cheesecake! They also have those pre-made sandwiches, but the names are “chicken and mayo” and “egg and mayo” instead of chicken salad and egg salad. Oh, and they also had green tea éclairs!)

June 6 – Shopping!

Ok, finally what I am here for! We hit two shopping spots today … pearls and silk. Did just die and go to heaven!?!?! I can’t reveal too much because some of these will make appearances as Christmas presents, but it was fun to help the other kids get pearls and explain to them just what a great deal this is. The No. 3 freshwater lake in china is famous for producing the no. 1 rare pearl, the gold pearl. A pendant with one gold pearl costs about $600 U.S. and they don’t negotiate too much with them. By the time I left I was offered a smaller one for $100 “best price for you1” and I declined, even though it was really hard.

The silk factory was next, and I love the story of the silkworm. My favorite part is when 2 silkworms “marry” they will stay together and create their cocoons, which turn out to be super huge, making the threads the longest and most coveted of all. Only about 7-8 per 100 end up “marrying” which shows how rare they are! All of this goes into making silk from Suzhuo the “No. 1 best spot for silk in the world!”

Super Vacations

So our tour guide company is called ‘super vacations’ and our leader Tony walks around with a ratty ‘Super Vacations” flag we are to follow. He also has a microphone. To get our attention he just says “super vacation! Super vacation!” and then he’s added “super boys! Super girls! Super boys and girls!” it’s pretty funny and cracks us up. It is well documented from my last trip that I didn’t really get along with my tour guides … but I am pleased to say Super Tony is the best so far!

Traffic Jungle

On the way to the hotel, we almost killed our first bicyclist. There is such an “urban dance” between all of the bicyclists, taxis, tour busses, pedestrians … it’s amazing there aren’t more collisions – however, there are plenty of near-collisions. There’s no such thing as jaywalking, because a lot of the street corners don’t have signals … you just go when you can! And there’s no such thing as pedestrian right of way ... no one has right of way … you just go and may the bravest and luckiest soul win!

International Parenting

At a photo op spot on the lake in Wuxi, a Chinese family was trying to pose for a photo. One daughter was NOT happy to be there – probably an 8th grader. Mom and dad were trying to make this family vacation thing a fun get together, and the kids weren’t having it. The girl looked as if she’d rather be anywhere else than with the ‘rents …. And the boy was pouting and stomping around, and stood about 8 feet from the rest of the family for their photo. The dad yanked him by the elbow and made him stand together with the rest of the family … I swear, it’s a scene that’s played out in every household in America … and now china! We were laughing and the mom saw us … she was like ‘I ask him to take 5 nice photos with us … with smile … then we promise him ice cream!’ it was apparent the kid was nowhere near posing nicely for 5 photos.  oh well, it just shows how parenting tactics, such as bribery with sweets, truly is international. Bribery works in all cultures!

WUXI

After the afternoon in shsanghai, we load the bus and head to nearby city Wuxi (woo-shee), where we will visit a garden, a lake and pearl factory. Our tour guide explains on the trip over that this is a small city in china … it is not like shanghai. we ask how big …. 5 million says tony. That kind of tells you the scale of just how huge china is … shanghai has 18 million people, so to them, a city of 5 million is a sleeply little burg. (for perspective, NYC has 8 million, and we consider that huge).

Last year I saw several people relieving themselves in public in China. I thought maybe I just caught the country on a bad week or something, but as we’re pulling into our hotel driveway a little kid runs into the driveway, pulls down his pants and relieves himself right there. Good times.

We head to a lake in the morning …. Our tour guide tells us it’s the third-largest freshwater lake in china! She then tells us which is first and second, and their average depths and sizes. Someone points out that they love to measure and rank things here. Everything is the “number one place” for something … and if not, they will tell you it’s second or third. We’d love to get our hands on this master ranking list … it’s fascinating!

June 5

So the first day we only got 30 minutes for shopping in shanghai … I was bummed! By the time I got my bearings (which was a mcdonalds next to yuyuan gardens) and found my favorite pearl shop, it was practically time to go. It turned into a nice bargaining chip, as the more in a hurry you are and the more you threat to leave, the lower the price becomes! I only got a couple presents there before running back to meet the group at one place we all know …. Starbucks! i swear, it was the one thing everyone took a photo of when we saw it … forget the thousand-year old temple or 75- year old garden … there’s the place with frappaccinos!