Where am I?

For those who may be confused about my global whereabouts, I am back in Sudan as usual, but came back just over 3 weeks ago from a trip to China to visit my sister & her husband where they've been teaching at an international school for the past year.

Below are a series of posts on my time in China if you haven't dropped in for a while.

A Random Selection of Fun Facts about China

1. As previously mentioned, chicken feet are commonly eaten as a tasty treat in China. This I knew. But did you know that there’s an international trade in chicken feet and other odd animal body parts? I had a fascinating conversation with a person who is a “chicken feet trader”. Ok, I’m not sure he’d eagerly claim that as his title, but it is what he does. You see, North America and Europe have an excess of chicken feet which are rubbish in slaughter houses there, while China doesn’t have enough to fill all those little vacuum packs in the candy & tasty treat shop. So China trades its excess chicken breasts (not desirable here) for the excess chicken feet in the West (not desirable there). Makes perfectly good sense, no? That, and cows stomachs, duck beaks, bull penises, duck tongues… It’s a fascinating world!

2. Fitness among the elderly is highly valued in China. This is evident in the gathering in front of my sister’s apartment (and all over the city) each morning of elderly people doing Tai Chi. Another common scene in any park area is grandmas and grandpas walking along as they do giant arm circles, or vigorously slap their cheeks, chests and bums. Most impressive to me however, is the prevalence of highly creative and very fun exercise equipment for the elderly in most parks. They’re a fantastically good time – and a great work out. Oh yes, and senior citizens here are very adept kicking around the Chinese hacky sack.

Scott & I doing some culturally appropriate exercise in the park.
Lifting up one's shirt when warm is very acceptable for all men in
public. And I'm doing the classic enthusiastic photo pose.

3. When someone has a cold in China, with no embarrassment, they wear a surgical face mask everywhere they go in public. Suffering from violent attacks of hacking myself due to a cold I acquired on arrival, I did consider being culturally appropriate and donning one myself. But my own cultural mores proved too strong and I stuck with the “cover your mouth when you cough” principle.

4. Shouting is an important means of communication here. Not to express anger, or excitement, to discipline, or to be heard over a crowd, but simply for utilization in routine communication. Very confusing to the non-Mandarin-speaker who is trying to understand as much as they can from contextual clues, I had to keep reminding myself that no, I wasn’t in trouble, they’re not angry and there’s no fire in the building.

5. Random strangers come up to you to have their photo taken with a foreigner. Strange at first…but on the other hand, we were taking pictures of their babies, the sweet old ladies sitting at the corner, the man in the market, etc. So it’s only fair to smile – and make the peace sign (VERY cool for picture-posing here) and let a stranger capture your image. They will also approach and ask to practice their English with you, making for some fun - if painful - conversations with strangers.

Random "friends" in Yangshou. And I have no idea why the girl
in the front took off her shoes for the photo...

6. And speaking of practicing English….China has a fantastic collection of, shall we say, “poetic public signage”. They are so good and so prolific, that it got to the point that when I saw one that was completely normal and sensible, I’d think “Well, that one’s not funny – why not? How dull”.

On the metro: "Let's ride politely: No hullabaloo allowed. No graffitti or scratchitti."
I for one, completely agree that hullabaloo is just not acceptable on the metro)

"Don't hurt me for for your pretty"

(translation: don't walk on the grass - obviously!)

"Rules to Public Toilet: Be particular about social moralities

...no ruining every kind of facilities in the toilet...no relieving nature everywhere
....no spitting nature everywhere...please do not make the wall dirty..."

In case there was any question of its quality.

"The following behaviours are prohibited at the Metro Station:
performing, begging, scratching...speaking and crying loudly
...chasing eachother...smoking, spitting around, pissing..."

"Small Restaurant in Village"
- full points for clarity, could work on the creativity.

"Nice Store" (why be modest about it)

"Dangerous at the bank. Please keep the danger away"

"Beware of safety. Do not hold your head or hand out of the elevator" (on the escalator)

This one was just too fantastic in its cheesiness.
At night, the glowing people pulsated! I want some of that yoghurt!

And speaking of signage, as you know, China is counting down to the Beijing Summer Olympics. Sadly…I’m a little too early.

But I did try to get in the spirit.

Do you see this date? I missed the Olympic torch by ONE day! Oh Sudan and its penchant for irony…it just had to call me back on this particular day?

My sister on the other hand, was fortunate enough to get a glimpse. You can see the story on Hava & Scott's blog.

Indulging My Inner Shopper

Back to the big city...

After 4 days of reverie in the “pastoral ideal” China of rural Guangzhou, I returned to the city where my sister resides: the “Urban Chic” China of Guangzhou.

Here, I delved – with gusto- into all things urban: shopping malls, shopping streets, markets, spas, hair salons, sushi buffets, dim-sum diners, bubble tea counters, supermarkets, cafes, 7-11, IKEA, metro stations…

This is the window display of the Guangzhou IKEA. Notice
the people making themselves comfortable on the display
furniture. It's quite normal to find people napping in the beds
or posing for photos in the demo kitchens. Quite funny!

Now those who know me well, know that I’m not much of a consumer. I revel in simplicity and strive for a life relatively unburdened by materialism as necessitated by my nomadic habits. I harbour feelings of disdain for establishments starting with “W” and ending with “Mart” or the heinous invention known as the “box store”. And, admittedly…I can be downright miserly at times.

However… There are certain times, in certain places, where the wee small consumer inside of me has a sudden growth spurt and is let out to play. Now, this doesn’t happen without some feelings of guilt, hesitation, and some serious self questioning, at which point I try to rationalize this uncharacteristic behaviour with reminders that I don’t normally live like this and a rare splurge can’t be so bad, and that ¾ of my shopping list is for others who can’t access these goods in Sudan, and so on.

Moral dilemmas aside…I confess…it was fun. The “kid in the candy shop” phenomenon was definitely at play, or in my case “the Sudanese bush-dweller in the shopping mall” phenomenon.

You know that part in the classic plot of any cheesy feel-good film where Pretty Woman gets her shopping spree, or newly in-love couple enjoys a magical day together, or some other happy moment is attained and the heart-warming music plays as the film cuts from scene to happy scene of life being wonderful? Well, here’s that sequence of my China trip:

This was the electronics mall on probably one of the most insane
days of the year to go shopping. It was a public holiday, and
apparently everyone else wanted to by a computer too. The people
working in here are machines! I literally had to stop and take
a few deep breathes at one point.

...but...consumerism got the best of me. Here I am with my
whopping electronic purchases of the day for friends in Sudan.

Where is the other partner for the perfect shoe??

There's got to be a steal of a deal down there somewhere...

...Aha...this is interesting...

My shopping guide extraordinaire in the "market of small things"

Ah – and I can’t write about consumption without mentioning how positively scrumptious every meal I ate here was. We did some good eating – and plenty of it. Chinese food from several different regions, plus Japanese, Vietnamese, Azeri, Western, Italian..mmmm

All you can order Sushi. We shared the table with a large family.
They TOTALLY out-ate us (even the kid). We kept thinking they
were done and then the waitress came with more bowls and plates
for everyone.

One of my very favourite meals in China, in the market place in Fuli.
A bowl of puffed rice, other puffed cereals and peanuts in a tasty steaming
broth. With a fantastic donut-like pastry dipped in. Mmmm...


How bizarre. I come to China and find the Baku restaurant in
Guangzhou! Mmm...the dolma brought back memories.


This one was a brave experiment on my part - and turned out
to be very tasty. Slimy goodness. It's a hot pudding with sesame seeds.

Here's another experiment. Everyone else in the restaraunt had them
and they just looked SO COOL! What is it, you might ask? A mountain of
sugar snow (like a snow cone) dripping with...yes, that's right, beans
and lentils! Ok...weird, I fully admit. But it was actually relatively tasty
...at least the first few bites. (We shared.)

Have you seen a prettier piece of chocolate cake?

Being served samples of jasmine tea in a small side-street tea shop.
At this point, she's pouring out the first brewed pot on the lucky
clay pig (an important part of the tea pouring ritual)

We did make 1 home-cooked meal.