The missing diaper

Here is a picture of one of the babies I teach.  Her name is Miao Miao and She is a year and a half old.  Even though she rarely smiles she is adorable!  She is really attached to me too.  When class is over and I leave the building I have to sneak out because if she sees me leave she will cry and want me to hold her.  Its really endearing.  What you can't tell from the picture is that she is that her jumper is open in the front and back and she is not wearing a diaper.  I was worried the whole class that she would starting peeing on the floor pads we sit on.  Fortunately she didn't.  But it does bring up an interesting topic for discussion.  The diaper-less babies around here wearing split pants is a common sight that I find a bit disturbing.  A couple days ago I saw a cute little boy also around a year and a half old on the subway wearing split pants and no diaper.  I say "split pants" but really it was more of a cut out because you could see all his front and back.   My first thought was: "What if he starts to poop or pee right here in the subway?"  My next thought was: "Is this sanitary?" and then my third thought was: "I wonder if this child will remember being totally exposed like this and carry emotional scars later?"  I know people here don't think anything of a young child being completely exposed like that but the westerner in me started to feel so uncomfortable that I could no longer look at the cute child.  It started to feel wrong, as if I was participating in some kind of humiliation so I looked away.  That led me to my last and most uncomfortable question: Are there any issues with child molestation or pornography here?  And if so isn't this just inviting perverts to look at your child?  I'm not even sure how to go about asking these questions. However, I have decided that based on sanitary reasons, from now on I will require all babies to wear diapers in class.

Sometimes you need to be a tourist

I apologize because this blog is a month late.  I actually took these pictures a month ago and totally forgot about them until this morning.  I was thinking about how sometimes its nice to be a tourist when you live in a foreign country.  Actually sometimes you really need to feel like you are on vacation.  Some friends came to visit in July and one day I accompanied them to a popular tourist spot.  We walked around, took pictures, and listened for other foreigners that spoke English.  It felt like I was on vacation.  In a touristy area you can also be lazy about speaking chinese if you want to.  All the workers, vendors, and other chinese tourists use english when speaking to you.  They are actually surprised when you know more than nihao and xie xie.  It's a good ego booster.  Even though the place was packed with people it was oddly relaxing.  These are not the same people pushing you on the subway or bus.  These were tourists, like myself, with no rush to be anywhere in particular. just happy to see the sights.  Although the weather was hot we walked around many shaded ponds that helped keep us from overheating.  I was amazed at how huge the lotus flower's were.  (That's the picture that looks like huge lily pads with pink flowers.)  We also listened to some traditional chinese music.  I have no clue what instrument the man in the picture is playing but it sounded a little like bag pipes.  All in all it was a good day.  It was also a good reminder that sometimes you need to be a tourist.

Back to high school

I usually come up with blogs while I'm transferring from one subway line to another or sometimes when I'm walking to, from, or on a bus.  I guess transportation help give me an inner monologue that I think of in blog form.  The problem is once I get home I've lost total motivation to sit down and type my well thought out blog.  Then an hour goes by and I've completely forgotten what I thought was so interesting before.  Here's one re-occurring thought that I actually remember.  It has to do with the crowded transportation here.  Specifically of transferring from one subway line to the other.  The other day as I walked with the crowd at a normal pace I noticed that the crowd was getting thicker and slower.  We were being bottle-necked to a gate with one opening just big enough for two or three people to get through.  This is actually a typical scene of 50 people trying to squeeze into such a small space.  As I was being funneled in I had a deja-vu feeling.  It was actually a flashback to high school.  The reason why it feels familiar to be in a moving crowd herded like cattle through mazes and multiple gates is because I've done it before!  In my high school we had some serious overcrowding.  The school was built to accommodate 1500 kids but by my senior year there were over 3000 kids roaming the halls.  One spot in particular had just such a gate opening as I described previously.  I'm sure several of my family members who also attended this school remember it.  I really hated when it rained because it would flood right by the gate and you either had to get wet walking to it or slowly wait your turn to step on the few makeshift wooden platforms.  It was a slow and crowded journey I made daily and now 13 years later I am doing something like it again.  Only this time I'm in a crowd of pushy, sweaty, chinese adults instead of pushy, pimple faced, smelly teenagers.  

 

Impossible is nothing

Sam and I used to have a breakfast tradition back in the U.S.  Well not exactly a tradition just something we used to enjoy doing together.  It would usually be motivation for us to wake up early.  Many a morning I can remember merrily going to Crepeville, Fox & Goose, or Ikea.  It was kind of our thing to do as a couple.  I miss that tradition now.  Even if we could find a good breakfast place here it means a long bus or subway ride that takes the laziness out of going "out" to breakfast.  Last night however, Sam said "I want to take you to breakfast tomorrow."  I probably looked a bit suspicious when I asked him "Where?"  He happened to know of a bakery that had good pastries and coffee down the street from our apartment.  We woke up late and rode our bikes to a two story bakery that I had seen but never entered.  I was surprised how reasonable the prices were for a latte or mocha. (12rmb=a little less that $2 US)  We grabbed some pastries and headed to the counter to pay and order coffee.  Just as the words for a latte came out of my mouth they said they had no coffee.  Sam said "What about a mocha?" (I laughed)  They replied again that they had no coffee because they had a new machine and didn't know how to work it.  I looked behind the cashier and sure enough there was a beautiful shiny new espresso machine.  It was big too.  You could easily make three or four drinks at a time on it.  Sam looked at me, smiled and said "Why don't you go back there and make us a couple of drinks?"  I just rolled my eyes and said "sure".  (That was sarcasm.)  Even if I could explain in Chinese that I had spent six months working in a Starbucks I don't think they would have let me near their precious new machine that they didn't even seem to want to touch.  Not that I would actually know how to work it either.  So we took our pastries to a table near the a/c unit upstairs and pretended we didn't need a cup of coffee to complete our breakfast outing.  Only... we did that cup of coffee!  So after we finished we walked around the corner to McDonalds and ordered two cups of coffee.  By this time it was 11:30am and the lunch rush had already started.  We found a couple of seats in amongst the crowd and sipped our coffee.  Then Sam out of nowhere said "Impossible is nothing"  I said "What?"  As if he didn't even hear my question he went on: "I thiiiink that's supposed to be Nothing is impossible.  You know sometimes they are just barely off.  At that bakery they had an oreo shake on the menu but they spelled it o-e-r-o "  I turned around and saw the t-shirt he was reading.  Yup, "impossible is nothing" was on the back of a girls t-shirt sitting a few feet behind me.  Something about it struck me as deep but I don't really know why.  Could be a good daily affirmation to repeat in the mirror.

 

In other food news we ate "Tex Mex" a few days ago.  I was pleasantly surprised by the cheese enchiladas I ordered.  Although the sauce was a bright orange the cheese was delicious and the salsa actually tasted like salsa.  It was in a part of town that foreigners frequent.   You could tell by the authentic country decorations that an American must be at least a part owner.  They even played country music which Sam wasn't too happy about in the beginning.  But the shredded beef burrito and the tollhouse chocolate pie made the music bearable.  If there weren't so many Chinese waitresses I could have sworn we were back in the U.S.