China: What I will miss

Skyler is doing well. A month after his release from the hospital he's gained weight and energy and feels good. He's educated himself about diabetes 1 and controls his diet carefully.  He says he does not mind the four injections a day, and now it's a family thing with Xing Xing taking part, applying the alcohol swab to his tummy while the rest of us wait to eat until they're done.  Well, usually.

Yue Li's government pension from the years she worked as an acrobat helps to pay for his medications and care.  He is playing basketball with his friends and walking most days (in addition to the miles we do just to get around) for hours sometimes, exploring the city. 

Xiao Yang, or little Guy, went from womb to front pack, where he stays a good part of the day. Yue Li   is up and out of the house early, taking taxi, bus or light rail to the market where she buys clothes in bulk and sends them out to her various stores in the city.

From there she goes either to her main store, where she may spend the day, or, off to check on her others.  If baby is not in the front pack, he's carried about by employees, other shop owners, Yue Li's dad, me, or any number of other people.

Yue Li is not a typical Chinese mom.  She receives constant commentary/criticism from older women for taking baby out of the apartment before he was one month old, using the front pack, not putting hats or socks on him, and numerous other motherings she does differently.  She smiles and nods and both of us took to lying about his age when asked how old he was before he was 30 days trying to avoid the uncensored lectures about how to mother from perfect strangers.  

Here I watched baby a couple of hours while Yue Li had an appointment at the bank, and was trying to keep his feet covered as I had several women tell me, quite indignantly, about how he needed to be covered up. One of them was the street sweeper who I finally had to run away from, she kept following me around giving me grandparenting tips, I'm assuming, as I don't understand a thing.

Of course, all the moms get advice, and it comes from the very strong communal feeling the Chinese have toward the children. Children are highly valued, and family units strong.  Rarely can I look around without seeing evidence of a family working together on helping one another out. Here in our apartment's common grounds the grandparents blow bubbles for their twin gk. 

I'll miss seeing the Yangzte River, (or the Changjiang/Long River Sky says is the proper name)  this view from our third apartment in two months.   The Yahntzee and the Jialing rivers intersect in Chongqing and wherever I go I'm crossing one, or both of them, sometimes many times throughout the day.  The bridges are spectacular and a subject all of their own.

The South Mountains, from our apartments.  Chongqing is surrounded by mountains, and the weather from Tibet rolls across the plateaus and into the province bringing heavy fog most days.  Chongqing has been known as The Foggy City since long ago, and when the sky actually shows blue and the sun shines directly down, Chongqiners shield their eyes, put up sun umbrellas, and otherwise do what they can to away from it!

I wil never photograph nor describe the architecture in any way that comes close to doing it justice.  These two light colored high-rises off the Yahnzee river here are metallic gold and shine and sparkle on the rare occasions the sun does make an appearance.

I'm not going to say I'll miss sharing my computer.  She had no problem moving from my iPhone to the mac. 

My last day with Xing Xing before her grandpa and grandma took her off to their mountain apartment for the summer.  Much cooler than CQ, and all the relatives have places so they can visit throughout July and August.  Xing Xing looks forward to seeing her cousins and little friends she's made there, taking walks through the bamboo and pine forests, and dancing with the "old people"  every night in the small town's plaza.  Sky and Yue Li try to join them every other weekend.

One of Yue Li's shop neighbors, a woman who sells items from Tibet, gifts Xing Xing and I with matching necklaces of jade. 

Before she leaves we show grandpa how we have matching fingernail polish...

Very similar shoes... (which we have "kick-off" competitions with to see how high we can kick them into the air)

And twin jade necklaces.

China: What I like, what I don't (2)

Oh, yes, I do hate this. 

 Thirty-two floors up and no safety anything. Here is one of the (our second in two months) apartment's three balconies with just a railing.  A few too many drinks, or, maybe just a long, tiring day, a trip over a toy on your way out to see the view - and a long enough drop to think about how you messed up.

This is the kitchen sink where we normally line up the soap, the sponge, you know, sink stuff.

This is the drop from the kitchen sill.  Reach for the soap bottle and whoops! Hope no one's below. What about giving the baby a bath in the sink? Guess not.

I wonder how many kids fall out each year?

Food I won't miss

The  chicken head. Eyeballs included.

The chicken crest

Food I will miss - decidedly the best chicken soup I've ever tasted.  No doubt because they cook it with the head, the crest, the feet, and so on.

Yum - fresh dumplings full of savory sausage.

The best "fungus" soup ever.

My favorite noodle shop.

I will miss the unexpected around every corner.

A "toilet" restaurant.  Apparently, the toilets in the bathrooms look like chairs.

The dressed and shoed dogs.

Duck in a bag.

The view from our kitchen window.  A beautifully tended garden all around this apartment.  Again, no safety anything, just one slip away from a long fall.

We serve chicken . Fresh as it comes. You even get to pick.

Baby's first English words

Pencil, windmill, football, handgun

China: What I like - what I don't - (1)

What I don't like:

Being illiterate

Salt or sugar? Always a taste test.

I think it's kitchen cleaner, but, it could be mold remover, right? Can't taste this one.

Gmail login - it's all about remembering which box is for what.

T.V. controls. Same as A.C. controls, the heating units and the dvd player. It's easier to just go without somedays.

What I like:

The contrast between the old and the new.

Baby backpack

The "country people" who come to the city from the countryside have a status similar to our illegal immigrants. Only in this case their illegal status is that they've moved without government permission from where they are registered.

This means they work, rent their apartments, send their children to school and get medical care illegally.  I don't know how they send their kids to school or get medical care, as both require an I.D. that shows they are legal Chongqing residents, but as for work and renting, well, they take the menial jobs no one wants, get paid under the table, and live in crowded and below standard housing. 

They also bring their "country ways" that city people, like city people everywhere, turn their noses up at.  There's a lot of public spitting and nose picking, illegal street vendors (not all of them are from the country, like us....) open gawking at unusual sights like foreigners, (China, like the U.S., considers staring rude) and innovative but often "backwards" ways of transporting goods.  Here, this greens vendor  a simple but effective scale to weigh the produce.

Wet Bathrooms

Starbuck's Bathroom Sign
1. Please dispose of your waste paper in the waste basket.
2. For your safety, please refrain from squatting on the toilet.
3. Please refrain from smoking in the bathroom.
4. Extend a courtesy to the next customer, support us in maintaining the cleanliness of the restroom after use.

So there's this big concern over squat toilets from many of us westerners.  I'm here to tell you that, kept clean like any good bathroom, the squat toilet is definitely more sanitary than a sit-down toilet.  And as funny as it sounds to squat on a western toilet, imagine what the squatters must think of the sitters in a public bathroom. 

Many private bathroom I've seen in China are wet bathrooms.  That means everything in it can get wet when you take a shower. The disadvantages are obvious, (wet TP and towels). The advantages? You can clean the bathroom while you shower.  And kids can splash outside of the bath as much as they want.

The toddlers potty train as early as one year here - no big toilets to climb up in, it's just squat and go. Much easier. As for the other big advantage of this kind of toilet? You don't have to go to the gym to practice your squats.

Off To School

Xing Xing's I.D. for school

Xing Xing (pronounced Shing Shing) attends the Kids Castle preschool in our old neighborhood of Wanda Plaza, Nan Ping.  This school is part of a chain of preschools. Unfortunately, there is not one in our present neighborhood so each morning by eight one of us takes her by taxi to school.

Guy was able to attend an open house at her school last year, and has some great videos of fifty two year olds dancing, drinking cups of water and marching off to the bathroom in sync. They also pay close attention to hygiene habits. At the entrance each morning, attendants checks each child's temperature, examines the inside of their mouths and throat with a flashlight, and squirt their hands with germicide gel.  Xing Xing carried a notebook in her backpack where they keep a daily journal of her activities and so on, even occasionally write up Sky and Yue Li if she comes to school with a dirty face or without required materials!

And she's off with backpack, just like Nana, who leaves with her's each day as well.

Fortunately, included in the preschool services is elaborate hair braids and do's, so hair grooming is not part of the check-off list for parent's duties. She comes home each day her hair full of ribbons and colorful elastics.

Recently two children were spotted with red throats and the entire class was dismissed for a week. Hand, foot and throat disease was suspected. I don't know if it was confirmed, but it's clear they don't mess around.

Taxi's can be yellow cabs, on the back of motorcycles, or in tuck tucks. These are motorcycles with enclosures, and like motorcycles, make up their own road rules. With Xing Xing we look for a yellow cab first, and if that's not available, we take a tuck tuck.

For one dollar we get a thrilling 2 mile ride to preschool driving in the oncoming traffic lane, off the shoulder of the road, and squeezing between buses and cars to make our own extra lane.

Xing Xing usually sings a tuck tuck song she learned at preschool as we go, which I clap along to in order to distract myself from watching the road.

After dropping Xing Xing, I either opt to stay at Starbucks in Nan Ping to work, or go with Yue Li and Xiao Yang to her main store in Jie Fang Bei, a twenty minute light-rail or taxi ride across the river.