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| Saying good-bye to Bobby, our translator, minder, colleague, and friend, was really, really hard! |
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| One last photo of Chairman Mao |
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| Our return to Shanghai brought blue skies! |
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| One last request for photos with random, friendly, Chinese folk |
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| Quite possibly the most delicious burger and fries EVER!! |
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| Yet one more photo of DeAnn, the giantess, and not with a stranger! |
One final walk along The Bund
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| Awaiting our last flight from Chicago to St Louis. Theresa, our tour friend, snuck up on us! :0)
Parting Random Observations,Thoughts, and Memories:
· The stereotype of the exceptional work ethic of the Chinese people is based in fact, both historical as well as modern examples abound, from the Terracotta Warriors and The Great Wall and the tedium involved in cloisonné and brocade production, to the work ethic we saw in our students and the twenty-four hour building and construction going on all over China, 24/7.
· No longer having any sense of personal space; people cramming onto motor bikes, into elevators like sardines, and cutting in front of you in line if you leave a micro-millimeter of space between you and the person in front of you
· Sweat dripping down and pooling in the small of our backs and at the tops of our underwear. Everyday. Without fail.
· Taking one’s own TP to the toilet, because usually none is supplied
· Squatting to go to the toilet – not everybody’s cup of tea
· Being stared at a lot, kind of like celebrities; we were our own parade walking to school each morning, with a scooter-rider or bicyclist actually pulling over to watch us walk by. Thankfully, with the staring, almost all one had to do was smile to receive a friendly smile in return.
· Laundered clothing drying right out on the sidewalk
· Men walking around with their shirts rolled up off their bellies to cope with the heat
· Whole families piled onto one motor bike, or a few people hanging off of a bicycle
· Rarely seeing a rider with a helmet
· Rarely seeing a baby in a stroller; babies are held
· The ebb and flow of traffic’s organized chaos
· Living up to the stereotype that the Chinese really know how to do laundry, with our clothes that we had laundered at the hotel coming back AMAZINGLY clean, freakishly pressed (even our underwear and socks) and meticulously tagged and bagged
· Women sitting side-saddle on the backs of motorbikes, not holding on, cavalierly texting or reading
· Umbrellas used for sun as well as rain
· Women, especially, protecting themselves from the sun using all manor of “tools” - - gloves that go up over the elbow, shrugs that come all the way down over hands, masks, face shields that make them look like Storm Troopers, shirts worn backwards, the built-in oven-mitt looking glove thingies over the handle bars of motorbikes to shade hands from sun, umbrellas attached to motor bikes or held by hand on bicycles
· The irony of not finding many napkins or much toilet paper in the country that invented paper. One word for you: deforestation.
· Going all day without washing our hands with soap – because soap was a rarity in a public bathroom
· The depressing thought of the oppressive number of plastic bottles that we were contributing to the world through our consumption of bottle water while here, and then that of the many Chinese who also do not drink their water, and the quabillions of plastic bottles thrown away – thinking that this is a global catastrophe that we all need to be addressing, RIGHT NOW!
· The sights and sounds of firecrackers and fireworks being shot off in celebration of this or recognition of that, on any given day or night (seven in the morning…eleven at night) - - whatever! So celebratory. Kinda awesome.
· How there are laws and regulations and restrictions of all sorts (we had to use a VPN - virtual private network - in order to have unfiltered access to the web while in China) and there are so many things that the Chinese people don’t know about, like that John Lennon is dead (even our Bobby, an ardent Beatles fan was unaware, and so sad when we told him) or that bit about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or what surfing or bull fighting is, or about clothes for pets, or electric fences to keep dogs in yards (What’s a yard?). Really, we could go on and on.
· Little things like wearing seat belts, helmets, car-seats or bike seats for children (why not just have them stand on moving scooters) and shooting off explosives in densely populated areas is all a go. Love it. And what about that gaping hole in the sidewalk on our way to school with rusty re-bar protruding from it? Let’s hear it for a lack of litigation and fear of being sued.
· Ankle-high nylon stockings worn with sandals and the mixing (not matching) of as many prints as one might have in one's closet…odd fashion curiosities
· Can we get some of those delicious dumplings “to go” to take back to Missouri? Please.
· Using a hotel door key to activate electricity usage in the room is the standard; love that it’s a common power-saver!
· Putting TP in a wastebasket rather than the commode to keep the septic system free of clogs
· Commercial buildings decorated, outlined, or lit with dancing neon lights or other dramatic lighting – so lovely! Our buildings seem to dull in comparison.
· Super firm beds…actually, um, hard beds
· Ubiquitous pictures of Chairman Mao hung in shops, restaurants, bus stations, train stations, airports, parks…
· The loud and generous use of car horns
· The hyper aggressive mosquitoes. Seriously mean. And mystery insects that can take small chunks out of one’s toe and leave a burning sensation for days. Awesome.
· The lack of a top sheet, but cozy silk-filled comforters instead
· Lovely feather pillows, which completely compensated for the super firm mattresses
· Festive Feng Shui doorways at every turn
· The traffic hierarchy: trucks, buses, cars, motorbikes and mopeds, bicycles, then pedestrians (weaving in and out of the traffic)
· That curious traffic cop in Rugao who no one seemed to be paying any attention to, but whom we just adored
· Hearty dinner food for breakfast: okay, so it was nice when we were back at a hotel where there were western-style breakfasts and one could make a lovely slice of toast or have delicious yogurt
· The challenge to find reliable WiFi and avoid plugs that buzzed ominously and the weird zapping sensation one got from said plugs
· How amazing is it that one can make a phone call from the Great Wall to the States and wake up a friend or husband to say that that’s where you’re calling from?
· Cut-it-with-a-knife smog; really, it looked like a picture out of The Lorax with smoke stacks belching out gluppity-glup. China’s neighbors, specifically Japan, are SO not happy about the gunk they are spewing.
· The wonder of the extended family, and there being no need for extended day programs or daycare facilities because grandparents so often care for the grand child
· Bathrooms smelling septic-tanky; “mopping” bathrooms with large dust-mops and no cleaners
· The civility and politeness in shops, at airports and public establishments. No one was barking at us in the airport to take off our shoes, but kindly gestured (in a Vannah White manner) to place our luggage here or there. And then, just in general, people were polite (pushy - - and let’s face it, with that many people crammed into a country, despite the size of said country, one’s apt to become a little pushy) but super courteous and polite. Well, maybe that’s it. Without politeness, how can one live in such close quarters happily? Well, we were certainly happy. Returning to the States to have people barking at us in O’Hare as we went through customs was like a loud slap in the face (and a little bit embarrassing, as we watched the poor folk coming from other countries stand in line, cringing and looking bewildered - - or so it seemed to us).
· “If we have something special we want to show you, we hide it first before we reveal it.” - - Arthur, our tour guide in Suzhou
· So many hints of what seems like America a few generations ago, with male and female roles so firmly delineated and clothing so distinctly male or female
· Homosexuality so matter-of-factly being viewed as a mental illness, while at the same time NOT discussed
· Childhood food allergies and environmental allergies not nearly the problem in China that they are in the United States - - maybe due to a higher consumption of fresh food and generally lax sanitation. Really. We need a little more grit in our craw.
· Pollution, pollution…water and air
· The efficiency of communism
· The oppressiveness of lack of choice and rule of law
· Thinking that our Chinese teachers would be returning to work in the fall to face classes the size of small marching bands (why a marching band? …dunno)
· Napping. According to the Chinese, cats have nine lives because they take naps. Indeed, naps are highly under-rated in the States. We saw people napping in China all over the place.
· Potty Training – the curiously effective method of split-bottom pants or babies going pants-less and parents whistling for children to pee/poop on command; keeping in mind that babies are carried around close to the body, and parents are in tune to their facial expressions and tensions, and can feel when they are about to go potty. Let’s just say Thank You Chinese for not creating billions of dirty disposable diapers (like another country we know), because even with a one-child policy, that’d be a crazy number of diapers. How nice for all of those babies who never have to suffer with diaper rash.
· The diversity of the Chinese people – just within the variety of faces in our classrooms, one could see the wide range of what might otherwise be viewed as a homogenized population
· Patience, and how there seems to be A LOT of it in China and with it, how much a people is able to accomplish
· Silk Worms. It takes thousands of them to make a piece of cloth; eight or nine cocoons to be unwound and then spun together just to make the thread necessary for weaving into cloth
· How good health seems to be preserved through diet and lifestyle – like walking languidly through traffic in order to get to and from work or the gentle movements of tai chi, rather than running like madmen on treadmills
· How food is eaten – around a round table with a lazy Susan, with dishes being rotated around and around. The most “important” person at the table dictates when the Susan gets to turn. There are no serving utensils except spoons for soup, so everyone uses their own chopsticks to serve themselves, thus double-dipping is the norm. Also, not filling ones plate makes it easier, somehow, to stop eating when you are, indeed, full. All good.
· Knowledge of America and our leaders (Nixon, Clinton, Bush, and Obama)
· Reverence for family/generations – major big deal
· Women dressing as if from another era - - ultra feminine all the time and so, so demure
· How much drinking is pushed by the honored gentlemen - - bottoms up!
· How much care is taken in the presentation of food and preservation of history (ok, these two aren't really related, or are they?)
· How much care is taken in the simple act of handing something to someone - - it’s polite to hand something (like a sheet of paper or a business card) to someone by using both hands; to hand something to someone by using only one hand is viewed as careless and rude (to think!)
If you have somehow managed to read to the end of this exhaustive list, you will get a small sense of how our minds were simply exploding with new sights, sounds, smells, and information of ALL SORTS on a daily basis. Now, nearly a month later, we are still reeling and reveling in our amazing memories of a truly unforgettable trip.
We most graciously thank you, China, for all that you have given us and we thank you, New City School, for making it all possible.
With Much Gratitude,
Linda and DeAnn
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