We went to our local, favorite food court for breakfast. Nothing new except poor Claire had to finally use the potty while we were out. It went better than I thought it would. She must have really had to go to have made the choice to use the interesting facilities. Then we headed to the super market again. It’s really interesting trying to buy such things as laundry soap when you can’t read any of the labels. No idea what I bought, but I am hopeful it was Oxy Clean and some sort of laundry detergent. The next step is trying to negotiate the washer and dryer in our apartment. It’s all in Chinese…I tried it on my own, but I couldn’t get it to work. I didn’t feel quite so bad when I had someone come to translate the words and it wasn’t my fault the machine wasn’t working. So…now I have a load of very wet laundry with hopes someone will be coming tomorrow to repair the machine.
The kids and I decided to go check out the park across the street today. Xian Jia Lu park, It‘s really a nice park. It has basketball courts, a climbing area, a nice water way that floats through the middle. We saw several turtles and Koi fish swimming in it. The native children were trying to catch the wild critters in the water. We also saw several wild cats. They were obviously nursing baby kittens so I would imagine there are many more than we saw.
I have noticed two very young children, not much older than babies wearing very interesting pants. Both of them were boys and around 12-18 months old. The reason I know they weren’t wearing diapers is their bums and other non mentionables were hanging out. I tried to get a picture (not of the bum, but of the pants…I’m not sure it turned out….I didn’t want to make any more of a spectacle of myself than I already am). The pants are hard to explain except that there is a slit from the front to the back and then normal legs and normal waist band. I assume it’s so they can use the potties I described earlier, but they are so young. My children were potty trained very early and these little guys were much younger than any of them. Having dental hygiene as my prior profession I judge children’s age by how many teeth they have and these kids were definitely no older than 18 months. Just another interesting observation; I am curious to get back home and ask my friend Mei what the deal is.
We are getting tired of being gawked at (and it’s only day 4 of a 45 day trip). Aiden and I did an experiment today. We walked down the street and counted how many people DIDN’T stare at us. I’m not talking about causally glancing at us, I’m talking about non-stop watching from the moment they see us until they pass, and many of them keep their heads turned for quite awhile past us. This picture is a picture of people standing in line to have their picture taken with Claire (you can see Claire in the lower right corner of the picture). Claire was a really good sport about this. As you can see in the picture it wasn't just chinese people, but Indian people too. Every where we go people stop us so they can have their picture taken with her. This particular situation got out of control, it went on for several minutes with many, many people taking their pictures with her. One person started it and then others thought, "wow what a great idea"...or maybe they didn't have a clue and thought she was someone famous and they didn't want to miss out. I don't get it?!?
The school age children that we have seen are very intrigued by the kids. We plan to go play basketball at the local place next week and start interacting with the kids. This should be interesting. Anyway Aiden and I did continued our experiment for a short amount of time. We counted 7 people that didn’t stare after we had passed 50 people. We didn’t count the people on the buses, bikes or scooters (entire bus loads of people stare at us as they drive by…not just a few, but I swear every single person). This is a stretch for Aiden and I who prefer to not be the center of attention. I guess we will be doing some stretching in the next month. We try to just smile at everyone and not let it bother us, but it’s challenging at times. Claire on the other hand loves the attention. Riley who also loves attention says, why don't they want their picture taken with me? Poor guy, wrong color hair I guess.
7 comments:
Hi
It reminds me of your story of Claire being a princess in Canada a few years ago. Hopefully it doesn't realy go to her head.
LOL
That is so funny.
They are camera happy people.
What would they do if you did it back to one of there kids, I wonder.
The slits in the pants are so the children can go potty anywhere, anytime. We saw a couple of parents just holding their kids out on the street to go potty. Also, about the pit toilets, the Chinese believe that the pit toilets are more hygienic. I managed to avoid them completely. We found a few "western style" toilets here and there. Kyle and Paul have some very interesting bathroom stories. Also, have you noticed that the used toilet paper is placed in a garbage container next to the toilet, instead of in the toilet? Squatting to go to the bathroom does not work very well for big Northern Europeans like me. Chinese people are built a little better for squatting. Love the BLOG! Thanks
Pam B
I figured that was the thing with the babies clothes. I just didn't think it was still occuring today.I was talking to Alex about it and he said that is very old school and only uneducated people do that now. About the toilets...I don't want to ask anyone how to do it, but what do you do with your clothes? I strip Claire's panties and skirt off each time, but that's gross because then they touch her shoes (which we consider disgusting here...even the staff takes their shoes off immediately upon entering the apartment). I haven't had to personally use the facilities. I don't want to ask anyone how to use them, but I would really like to know since I'm going to get stuck at some point...and I'd like to stop stripping Claire down if there's a more hygienic way to do it. Cindy, Ling? Mei? Anyone?
And yes, I did notice the trash can next to the potty, again gross! I really don't want to be judgemental, but I don't want to see that. The incense (spell?) in there is a nice touch too.
Thanks, I'm glad you are enjoying it.
Hollie, great idea with the blogging and love the pix. You are a brave woman, what a great experience for the family! 45 days is a nice long time to be on a trip. What kind of bugs are you seeing? Will you have a chance to have any nature experiences beyond the local park?
Hi Danielle, Honestly we haven't seen a lot of bugs yet. I wonder if they are using pesticides because when we were at the park the other day we thought they were watering the plants (spraying from this small cart type thing all around where the kids were climbing on the playground). I noticed they weren't watering the plants very much and then Aiden noticed it looked like soap, then I quickly realized it was some sort of poison (there had been a really bad odor, but I thought it was coming from their little cart exhaust), so we very quickly left that area. I couldn't believe they didn't ask us to leave, but would spray poison all over every one. There was a mist of it all around us. Then Claire proceeded to drag her hands through the wet bushes as we were leaving. Ugh!!! I was expecting to see cockroaches, but we haven't seen any yet. We are in a pretty nice place so maybe they are here, but not in our place. I'll let you know what else we see if we see anything. Both Claire and Riley have some sort of bug bites on their legs, but I haven't seen any sort of bugs so I don't know where those are coming from. I checked their bed for bed bugs and didn't see any signs and their bug bites are not characteristic of bed bugs. I'm wondering if there is a spider or something some where near their bed that I'm not finding. I don't know what to do about that problem.
It was good to hear from you, I'll let Jeff know you wrote.
Heather, I'm not sure what they would do if I asked to take a picture with their children. Since I can't speak their language I would be afraid of how the would interpret what I am doing.
Jeff asked his co-worker why they are so interested in her and it's because they get dolls when they are young and they are usually blond haired, blued eyed. So to see her moving and talking is somewhat like talking to a live doll. Makes more sense now, I still don't wanting to take her picture, but at least I understand the curiousity now.
HI Hollie, I just started reading your blog and was laughing so hard, I started crying during that Day 2 bit about Aiden telling the server she was "poor and unsatisfactory" instead of ordering tea. Tim came running in to see what was wrong with me. I proceeded to tell him and he cracked up too.
Ah yes, I forgot to warn you about Claire being thought of as a doll. When I was in China, one of the families I worked with had a 4yo daughter with long blonde hair and the picture taking and cheek-pinching and hair-stroking got so bad, her Dad had to have her sit up on his shoulders. It is definitely a good thing Claire likes the attention. So she should enjoy it while it lasts. It'll probably be quite the reverse culture shock for her when she returns to good ol' Woodinville/Redmond. :)
So re: the toilets, have you tried having Claire wrap her skirt around her waist and hold the folds with one hand? She can use the other hand to wipe herself. I pulled Sammie's panties down to right above her knees, so they don't get sprayed on. If you have C spread her legs out a little wider, you might avoid the spraying on the shoes too.... But geez, that's a whole lot of work just to pee, huh? :)
Thanks for all the wonderful stories. I'm loving every single bit! It's so amusing to see the motherland through your eyes!
LOL,
ling
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