Do you love China?

I have people ask me that a lot.  I always tell them that Sam loves China and I........like it most of the time.  I think part of my problem is not China, its the big city that gets me down and my own personal health issues.  Yesterday started out great but by the end it went down in history as one of my worst days here.  Sam and I went to school, did some stuff around the house, and then met friends for a sorely needed massage.  The girl who usually gives me a massage was busy so I got a new girl.  She was from the Yunnan province and so was another girl who was giving one of our friends a massage.  They spoke to each other a lot in their local language of Yunnan hua.  It was interesting to listen to but the massage was torture.   They always start on the feet. This girl rubbed fast and hard, really hard.  I was obviously in pain when she told me that I had stomach problems.  She next pushed another spot on my foot, I winced and she told me that was my liver. I knew I had stomach problems, but my liver too?  I thought it could have been something that a stomach specialist had told me about in the past, but he said it was nothing to worry about.  Now, I felt a little worried.   I felt even more worried when after about five minutes of lying face down on the massage table I felt like I couldn't breathe.  I made the girl stop the massage three times.  The first time was just to try to breathe, the second was to take my inhaler for asthma, and the third was just because the pain was too great.  I apologized that my body was in such bad shape.  I felt like I must seem old and decrepit to everyone there.  I just wanted it to end.  I don't know if it was me or the girl but it was all bad. When it was finally over I looked around at Sam and our two friends.  They all looked relaxed and happy.  I on the other hand  walked out in more pain than when I walked in. 

 

Next we went for Indian food.  I love Indian food.  This place is one of our favorites.  Yesterday was no exception.  The food was great.  The problem was that we were seated behind the air conditioning.  (As in, the air was all blow away from us)  The weather has been really hot and muggy lately.  So, I was hot, sticky, in pain, and then as if to reinforce the massage girls assertions, my stomach started acting up.  It definitely did not like the Indian food as much as my mouth.  I hoped it would all go away soon but by the time we got on the bus to go home I still felt miserable. Here comes the bad part (yes everything before was not really that bad compared to what came next.)  We transfered to the subway from the bus.  I was happy to find a seat and the subway was air conditioned and cool.  After about one stop a few more seats opened up and people just getting on started grabbing them up.  A young woman sat down a seat or two across from me and was trying to hold the next empty seat for her boyfriend when an older (mid to late forties) man tried to sit down in the empty seat.  She told him the seat was taken but he looked like he was going to sit down anyway.  Out of no where the boyfriend comes running up and grabs the man's arm.  The man pushes him, a couple of brief words are said, and then the boyfriend hits the man right in the face.  He keeps hitting him so I started screaming.  Then about ten more guys (I assume friends of the boyfriend) run up two at a time and start taking hits at the man who is now just trying to get away.  When we saw these other guys first run up Sam and I both thought "Oh good someone is coming to break this up" but it was just another buddy coming to throw a punch.  It was unreal to us.  Total animal mentality.  The man wasn't even fighting back, instead he backed up against the wall and then someone started kicking him too. I was screaming this whole time and so was the girlfriend.  Sam and I got up and moved about ten feet away from the crowd.  Then the train stopped for the next stop and the girl pushed her boyfriend and the other guys to get off.  They all run out leaving the rest of us stunned and in shock.  The poor man who had been beaten just sat down, on the now whole row of empty seats, and didn't say anything.  His face was already swollen. I asked people who was going to call the police but no one said anything in reply.  People just shook their heads.  I was angry and then I was scared.  How could this happen here?  I always felt so safe before.  After transferring to another subway line, then having to take a taxi to our bikes when the subway closed (it closes at about 11 and you have to get off at whatever stop is the end of the line) I realized that this city is just like any other big city.  Bad things can happen anywhere.  But groups of young men drinking is a common sight here.  So when I saw a pile of vomit on the side of the road and a group of about six guys walking toward us my heart raced and I felt panicky but they didn't even look twice at us.  The only thing that has changed is me.  While I feel like crying about the whole incident, Sam feels anger about it.  I think he might have taken the whole situation harder than me.   In fact he tells me that this blog doesn't really describe in detail what happened and how it felt.  But this blog is about my experience and how I felt.  If want want to hear it from Sam, ask him sometime.

 

Do I love China?  Not so much, but ask me again in a couple weeks.... 

A music concert....in the basement?

Even though we have lived in China about a year and a half we still get things mixed up more than we'd like to admit.  Here's the most recent mix up.  Last Thursday our door lady stopped us as we were walking out the door to point out a recently posted notice.  She then pointed to the side of the building and started speaking very quickly trying to describe some sort of event.  She has a thick local accent and its difficult for us to understand her even when she only has a little bit to say, but this time she had quite a lot of information.  What we caught was that something was happening this Friday to Sunday downstairs underneath our building, 120rmb was involved,  and she made a gesture that implied that whatever she was talking about had to do with sound or noise.  So Sam asked if it had to do with music. (音乐）She said yes.  Sam concluded it was some sort of concert under our building.  We figured we didn't care to spend 120rmb to listen to music under our building so we disregarded the whole thing.  The next afternoon (Friday) as we walked out of our building a group of about five older women pointed to us and started saying that we hadn't gone yet to this "event".  I was really baffled. I thought to myself: Why do they care?  But then they mentioned the 120rmb again so I thought this must be some sort of fee that we needed to pay.  I asked one lady if the 120rmb was mandatory and she said yes.  I still didn't know where the music fit in, but we didn't have time to ask more questions at that moment because we had to meet up with friends.  Later that evening Sam got the whole story from a guy who owns the little drink shop next to our building. (He is also our neighbor.)  He said that there has been a lot of construction going on next door and the noise has "influenced" (影响) those who live on that side of our building.  Sam asked him why we had to pay 120rmb but the guy replied that we didn't have to pay 120rmb, they were going to give us 120rmb for our inconvenience.  We just had to go to a room below our building to sign a form and collect it during the times the officials were there Friday through Sunday.  The guy's wife offered to help us fill out the form when we decided to pick up the money.  What a relief!  Much better than paying 120rmb for a concert underneath our building, right? 

Nothing says China like a restroom full of squat pots and no partitions

We are very excited to have a couple from California come to our part of the world! Yesterday we took them to our favorite Muslim food restaurant here.  The evening seemed to be going well until the wife said she needed to use the restroom.  Since the the restroom was outside and Sam needed it too, he took her.  About a minute later they came back so I remarked on how fast she was.  She looked at me and said that she didn't go because it was just holes in the ground and no partitions.  I had to chuckle because this is typical of many restrooms in China.  I had forgotten how shocking it can be to see for the first time.  We decided to go back together just to take some pictures.  I told her that if she wanted to go I would watch the door for her but she definitely wanted to wait....I wonder why. :) 

Back in China but still dreaming of vacation pictures

Pics from the coast of California

Northern California Coast

 Watching the sunset.

Those are my feet incase you didn't guess.

                                          My husband, the A&E outfitter model.....

                                          I just like taking pictures of feet.

                                          Hotlix suckers in Pismo Beach with family.

Now for my model pose.

Typical scene of Pismo Beach in July.

Camping at Fort Bragg

Hiding in America....camping

I know that I kind of dropped off the map so to speak ever since we got back to the states.  For one thing I thought no one would want to hear about our vacation in the U.S. And for another we've been, well, on vacation so I've gotten lazy.  We've been trying to fit in as much "American" activities as possible.  We went to the state fair, camping at the coast, and visited family.  The camping pictures are above.