Aimless Minded

I am all over the place right now - not physically but MENTALLY.
I have been trying to figure out what I am doing with myself and where I am going? “Where are you going?” Sorry, a little Dave Matthews moment.
This is one of the down sides of the expat wife-life, the constant state of aimlessness. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it is nice not being bombarded with the chaos of my typical day in the US and I uncomfortable complaining because the reality is, my life is easy; easy and indulgent.
I don’t work. I have a cleaning lady three days a week. I workout three mornings a week with a professionally trained coach; I go out to lunch with “the ladies” twice a week, more than that most weeks. I get a foot/shoulder massage once a week and every other week a full manicure and pedicure. I go to the hair salon every 8 weeks for a cut and color.
All of these indulgences are something that I never did when we were stateside. I never had a massage before moving here, who can afford it? Mani/pedi’s were a new treat that I had just recently discovered but rarely indulged due to the price and time consumption. Working out, yeah right, no time, no energy and no money – and trust me, I have to pay someone to keep me in line with the whole exercise portion of my week. Hair treatments…..hahaha, please refer to my pictures from Pre-China and Early China Days. Does it look like I spent a lot of time and money getting my wild woman mane pampered? I was just moments away from getting it all locked. (Which if I could of found someone I trusted, it would have been done.) I MISS my hair, love the short do but still miss my wild hair.
So why am I so unsatisfied with my cushy universe?
I know part of the problem…I am bored, I am bored and oh, I am bored. Doesn’t that sound like I am suffering from the princess complex?
I am now a little more empathetic to Miss Britney Spears, if you can do most anything you want and you do….well, you get bored. You skirt with disaster till you either snap out of it and grow up or you become a train wreck and the universe watches you implode. Am I in danger of going Britney on you? No, but I did cut off all my hair…hmmmmm? No really, nothing so dramatic. However, I did hear tell of a fellow expat throwing a bag of coffee towards a security guard at the IKEA last week. She didn’t throw it at him just in his space. I must admit I laughed since it has crossed all of our minds here at one point or another. Another friend was trying to exchange a defective iron at a local home store and it took everything she had (and the thought of Chinese prison conditions) not to throw the iron through the plate glass window. A lot of this anxiety is due to the language barriers.
I do well most days and I am also aware that I am in THEIR country. I am the interloper in their world so I need to be more flexible. I get that. I also know that the Chinese idea of customer service is nowhere near as developed as well, anywhere in the world. This culture is growing so fast that they cannot wrap their minds around the changes. You have to think that WWII they were invaded by the Japanese and decimated, particularly Nanjing. Horrific experience. The Empire (horrific times for the non royals, hell, the royals were killing each other off too) ruled up till communism and then you had Chairman Mao who basically kept the country in a submissive third world state. I am not read enough on the timelines or history to speak authoritatively but this is what I do know.
The people in the developed city of Nanjing still poo in a trough. Many of the residences do not have bathrooms and they use a public loo. Many of these loos are troughs, okay, do you understand…they have to poo in a little trench where the matter is washed out by either rains or cleaning personnel. I question the cleaning personnel because you have NO IDEA what these loo’s smell like….imagine the house with 8 million cats and one kitty litter box that is cleaned once a month. Got me?
If you figure they government is still a supporter of public loo’s instead of proper plumbing, can you imagine their take on customer service?
YOU ASK WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH ME AND MY PRINCESS COMPLEX – HOW?
Doesn’t - I said I was just all over the place. My mind goes from one subject to another without even a blinker to warn you… Princess – Britney – Train wreck – Customer Service – Poo…makes perfect sense to me.
You should see me when I am out in public. It really is like….”Oh, Shiny things.” Off I go to aimlessly wander among the shiny things of life.

Weekly Highlights

The other evening Bill and I returned from errands and decided to get dinner from the Clubhouse in our compound. Bill went to the gym and I went to order our food. In the dining area there was a table occupied by 5 Chinese folks. I am guessing it was mom, dad, grandma, grown daughter and possible son in law. They had already ordered their food and was awaiting its arrival. A man and little girl walked in before me and they were ordering while I reviewed the menu. My turn came and through my limited language skills, about equal to that of a 2 year old, I ordered our food for take away. Our typical order is Kungpao Chicken, Green Beans, Sweet and Sour tenderloin and rice. I walked to the gym area to talk with Bill while I waited on the food to be done. Bored with that I returned to the dining room to wait.

The family had received their meal as had the father and the little girl, I believe she was around 3 or 4 years old. As I watch the families, since open lurking is a sport in China and no one seems to be bothered by being blatantly watch.

The father is spoon feeding the girl. Okay, get her to try it. As a parent we have all been there, no, this is more like the kid will no feed herself at all. She cannot sit still either. I mean she is all over the place to the point that she is sitting more at my table then at her own and her father is well, okay with it. She keeps jumping up and running over to the table in the corner were the condiments are placed.
I watch this will a little irritation, it seems the kids in China for the most part are out of control. I feel that this is all due to the one child laws enacted in the 70's.

A couple has a child (one child) more then likely both set of grandparents are alive. The wife's parents are the one's that have the market on the grandbaby and will spend the remainder of their years doting on this child. The father's parents will do the same but it seems the wife's family is most active. So you have this one tiny person that has 4 adults at their bidding and more than likely 6. So this tiny undeveloped human has but to grunt and people are all over them trying to make life wonderful and perfect. This creates something of a demon child. I cannot tell you the number of kids I have witnessed have a good old fashioned hissy fit, I am talking stomping, screaming, I am gonna die tantrum. While the adults just watch and in many cases, laugh. Ha Ha Ha, my grandchild is being funny. Ha ha ha, isn't he cute. Jesus people, wake up.

This brings me to this little angel of delight in the dining room. Daddy or maybe grandpa (I really couldn't tell) is spoon feeding Angel and she is now folding herself in half and sticking her head under the table. I am thinking this is an improvement to the running back and forth chattering in her uncontrolled volume Chinese babble. I was so wrong...
.
Angelic One is putting her head under the table so she can SPIT her food out on the floor. Daddy didn't get what she was doing....he is shoveling the food in faster...saying things like, "Good Girl, Yum Yum, Very Good. More More..." all the while she is smiling and showing him that it as all gone. Yeah, right.

The waitress brought out my bag a, I could not get out of there fast enough. By the time I left the food was nearly 4 inches high. I just want to smack her....

Polite disclaimer: Photos borrowed from bing.com

I am having a Big Bad China Day.

This happens about twice a month or so…no it is not hormonal. It is just when you are over stimulated by all that is CHINA. For the past several weeks Diane and I have been attending Jing’s exercise classes three days a week. We leave our compound at 745am and travel to Dong Jo (sic) which is another compound at the base of Purple Mountain. This is where Jing lives and she holds classes at the clubhouse. The exercise class is a whole other series of rants which I will add another day. We usually are finished around 1030, at which time, Diane and I normally set out around town to see what we can see.
One day may be bead hunting; Diane is great at making jewelry. Another was to the frame shop to get some oil paintings framed. Chaotian Gong is one of my favorite stops which is the antique market. Usually we have lunch somewhere and this past week, as we are both sick to death of “shopping”, we get foot massages one day and hair treatments another, mani/pedi’s, etc.
Most of these are fun and quite indulgent but the one thing that I cannot escape from is ALL the CHINESE. You have to communicate with the staff at all these establishments and well, my Chinese level is somewhat around the development age of a 2 year old. Diane who has lived here for over 4 years is much more verbal and able to deal with more situations then I but even she is overwhelmed with the interactions.
Today I decided as it was a non-Ayi (housekeeper) day and a non workout day. It was going to be a complete non-Chinese day. This means that I was not going to leave my house, I was going to eat western foods, watch western TV and if at all possible connect to the Internet without any Chinese Government Blocks.
I was successful minus the Internet. Now I am rejuvenated and ready to take on tomorrow. Class starts at 830am, lunch and then maybe Tao Tao Chian.

Not a picture I took but was taken in Nanjing. This is a poultry market.

If you feel so inclined this is how you purchase your dinner.

Yeah, I will take the fuzzy one in the back...thanks.

No not that one...the other one...no not that one...the other on...screw it...yeah, that one.

Cooking Class or Slim Jim Dudettes?

A Kaleidoscope called Bangkok – Day Two, Part One

I forgot to include from my tale of Day One that we finished our exploration of all things sensual with a delightful foot massage. Thai’s are renowned for their message abilities and there is nothing so divine after a long hot day of walking as an hour plus long foot massage. The Thai foot massage starts at your feet, journey’s up your legs. The masseuse then rubs your head and temples, face and shoulders. You then switch to the ottoman and they rub your shoulders and back, finishing with a nice healthy slap fest on your shoulders. It is fabulous.

Sleep came fast after our previous day’s long stroll through some unique areas of Bangkok and I awoke ready for a new adventure. Today’s agenda included water taxi to the amulet market followed by the Grand Palace on to Wat Pho, afternoon at the pool. Cocktails then off to Khao San Market.

The amulet market was the first stop of our day and Catherine figured the easiest way to get there was by water taxi. The water taxi ride was an easy; boat pulls up to the dock, dude jumps out ties it off, boat slams on and off tires, people jump off, people jump on, hold on and go to next dock. Safety features: a little rope tied from pole to pole. I now understand why when a ferry sinks in this area that 100’s die. They don’t do a head count, the money collector walks the boat and collects money from each person after the boat is in progress. How the money collector knows who paid and who hasn’t with that many people – amazing. The ferry that runs across the river instead of along the river is 3 baht per person and that you do pay prior to boarding.

The market lies a few blocks north of the Grand Palace and was just a block or so from the dock. The walk there was quite entertaining, each of the docks have a bit of a market feel to them. Food sellers and trinkets abound. Once we worked our way through that we were on the street proper which again was stall after stall selling mainly flowers, amulets and gold leaf which is all used at the Wats. This day was a graduation day for the Thammasat University which is noted for its law and political science departments, many of the graduates were in the area having photos taken and receiving congratulatory flower arrangements. The Thammasat University is also known for student demonstrations against the government particularly noted for the violent demonstrations in the 1970’s. Thailand has a king and queen and they are very revered by their people but the actual politics of Thailand has never been stable. I believe they are on their third prime minister in less than 2 years.

Also, not noted on Day One was that as it was August 12th it was the Queen’s birthday. Many of the stores were closed, especially the Thai operated stores, the only silver stores we found open were operated by the Eastern Indians. They were neither friendly nor interested in negotiations. There were pictures of Her Majesty all around town set up like shrines with flowers and candles with various tokens of appreciation. Do NOT talk negatively about the Thai royalty. This is a huge slight to their culture.

Finally we arrived at the market with 100’s of vendors selling every little religious trinket you can imaging. Well, no protestant and very little catholic images but every god and goddess known to the south Asian cultures. My purpose for this trip was to find some Buddha pieces and ended up walking out with several small amulets of Ganish, Buddha, and a guy I call the Monk. He was a ruler of Thailand and devoted himself to Buddhism. I will have to do some more research on the story. His dedication was beyond all and he has been elevated to as a Holy Man. There were several temples that had statues of him that were four stories high. He looks like a little old man, bald and skinny, wearing the traditional Buddhist orange garb sitting in the Thai meditation position. I also picked up a metal sculpture of a warrior riding an elephant because every home needs one of those.

After leaving the market we wormed our way back through all the stalls eyeballing all the goods and trying not to be ran over by the tuk-tuks. Tuk-Tuks are prevalent in this area; they are half motorcycle half buggy forms of transportation. The drivers all park in small clusters and yell out, “Tuk Tuk, ma’am?” This is a dog eat dog business, he who makes the most noise and the friendliest gets the most business. As we only had a couple blocks and the views were so entertaining Catherine and I decided to walk to the Grand Palace.

Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo is one of Thailand’s most holy temples and the former residence of the royal family for centuries. Construction began in 1782 and is a constant work in progress to maintain all its glamour. The big draw is The Emerald Buddha; this is a statue that was discovered in 1434 in at a temple in Northern Thailand. Story is that the temple was struck by lightning and the flaking plaster exposed this jade face. The king of Chaing Mai sent an army on elephant to collect the statue but when the statue was placed on the elephant it refused to return to Chaing Mai, the entourage rerouted to Laos where the statue remained until Rama I invaded and returned the statue to Thailand in 1778. It was housed at Wat Arun, across the river until 1785 when it was moved to its current location.

What was my take on this most holy of images? One it is so high on its altar that you cannot get a good look-see. Two, there is so much gold gilding that you cannot keep your eyes clear due to all the glowing gold. I also discovered that to enter the Bot (temple proper) one must take off your shoes.

As Catherine had already prepared me for this inevitability it was no big concern, however, many of my fellow tourist were quite peeved with this custom and concerned that their footwear would not remain where they left them. No problems noted. The other issue that many of the tourists encountered was proper dress when visiting a holy place. The Thai’s are very respectful of their holy places and one must not wear shorts, sleeveless shirts or flip flops (slippers) this applies to both men and women. Wearing a scarf around your shoulders is not adequate coverage. I had on a tank top but brought a button up shirt to cover my offending shoulders and arms. Those that did not dress appropriately were redirected at the entrance to a store which sold skirts and shirts for the noncompliant visitors.

Grand Palace also held an extremely large model of Ankor Wat, which I had visited in October 08. Several smaller temples are around the grounds with these amazing ornamentations, my particular favorite was the warrior monkeys. We found out through eaves dropping on a tour that the warriors were not all monkeys; only the monkeys had bare feet, as monkeys feet will not fit into shoes. There are four monkeys representing the four elements.

The other cool thing was the monks. This was one of those two side meetings, on one side I am delighted with these devote men who give up their connections to all that is materialistic. On the other hand I don’t want to disturb their process of enlightenment by being the rude tourist and getting in their way. I am not saying that I was above taking their photos; I just tried to be respectful of their space. I did get very irritated with some Italian tourist that stepped in front of a group of boy monks in training to ask directions to the Emerald Buddha. The child tried to step around him, they are instructed not to speak to “others”, and he gave the man a quick look and shrug. The man went to touch him which is very taboo and stepped back in front of the boy. I watched this interaction and was compelled to intervene. I walked over to the Italian and told him were to find the Buddha and that the “little monks” will not talk. I find it disheartening that when people go to a foreign land, especially when it is a religious community that they do not research a little of what is taboo and what is not.

Catherine and I decided enough with the Palace time to head to Wat Pho. This is the home of The Reclining Buddha. There are several throughout Thailand but this was the first one that I get to see in person. To get from the Grand Palace to Wat Pho one can walk as it is just around the block. However, it was hot, ungodly hot and humid so Catherine and I decided to take advantage of one friendly tuk-tuk driver. He took advantage of us by charging a ridiculous rate ($1.40) but what he didn’t realize is we would have paid twice that much to avoid walking.

The heat and humidity is another one of the sensory overload aspects of Thailand. Thailand fulfills the full sensory range. Smell: food, river water, incense, sweat. Sight: gold, shiny, mosaics, shiny sweaty people. Sound: boat horns, whistles, street hawkers, music, masses of humanity groaning from sweating. Touch: gold leaf, massage, sticky sweat. Taste: food, smog, salty sweat. You notice that sweating came up in all five of my sensory perceptions. I don’t believe that I have ever sweated that much in my life including Basic Training in August in San Antonio, Texas. It was that freaking hot.

Hissy Fit Potential

I am sitting on the train heading into Shanghai for a couple days of meetings and appointment. My thoughts:
The train from Nanjing to Shanghai passes through a number of smaller communities many of which are farmlands. At present through the scenic fields there is a large project under way. The new train lines, a super high speed train due to be completed in 2010. At this time it takes the high speed train about 2 hours to go from Nanjing to Shanghai with no stops, with several stops it takes about 2.5 hours. Today we are on a train that has four or five stops and between those stops our cruising speed is around 190 to 204 kmh. The new train will take just one hour to make the same trip at an average of 400 kmh.
We are riding in our car, #14, which is first class accommodations or as the Chinese refer to it as soft seat accommodations. In China the first class seating is typically Car #1, #7, #14 and #15. Car #7 is nice because you don’t have to haul all your stuff to the end of the train when boarding or exiting. If you are in the other cars be prepared to hike a bit. Also you have to take into consideration when you are packing as you will go up and down several sets of stairs. I have not found on station in all of China that had functioning elevators or single level stations. Occasionally you will get a station that has escalators for the folks going up but there is only a 50/50 chance of those escalators actually working.
Once you get on your train you have to find your assigned seat (lessons are needed to translate the tickets properly) and get settled in. In the first class also called soft seating is very spacious and clean, bathrooms are questionable depending on time of day. The seats being softer than the rest of the train, I don’t know. Today Bill and I had seats 1 and 2 which gave the additional luxury of a small table with seats 7 and 8 FACING us. I have a problem with this… It would have been ideal if the people sitting in seat 7 and 8 were traveling with us or at least “westerners” as they would know the whole personal space rules. But NO! Thank goodness I have spent enough time on the trains that I knew how to spin that bad boy to face the other direction and as we were the first passengers to arrive in our car, it was done before the passengers assigned those seats were given a chance to complain.
Why did I have to alter the state of the seating…oh my god. I really wish I had a stupid amount of money so I can fly all of you over here to experience the cultural differences between us and the Chinese. In the Chinese culture it is completely appropriate to do number of things without regards to how these things affect your fellow earthlings.
1) Spitting: not little spitting, I am talking hawking up the biggest amount of phlegm you can and projectile it in any direction that you think is most appropriate.
2) Pissing: Children peeing and the occasional adult male, in public on the sidewalks as you are walking passed them. I have seen people walk right through midstream. WTF.
3) Poop: as in taking a dump. See the pissing comments. This seems to be limited to the small children. They wear crotch-less pants from the birth till the time that they are potty trained. At any moment you may have a parent squatting with a little one holding their legs wide open so that they can poop on, well, the sidewalk, sometimes a newspaper, sometimes directly into a trashcan.
4) Smacking and spitting of food: Chinese slurp, suck, smack and overall are the noisiest eaters I have ever encountered. They see nothing wrong with slurping in a bowl full of noodles and flinging the juice where ever it may land. Then add the fact that many of their dishes are not deboned…you get a mouthful of bones, no problem, spit them out back onto your plate.
5) Farting and burping: nothing, they have no reaction. Oh, sometimes you get the little smile from one of them as if to say “oops, did I do that?” Mainly, it is a free for all, let it rip.

So you can see where I was just a little, ok – completely not in the freaking mood, for staring at two Chinese persons for 2.5 hours while I tried to act like I was not noticing any of the above mentioned possibilities.