the chinese hike kicks the american

here in china there is a mountain known as yellow mountain, it is one of "the" places to visit in china ~ especially for chinese tourists. (it is like unto the grand canyon of the states.) as part of our time here we planned to do a trip to this area for a weekend. that was this past weekend. it looked like this -

~ 6 hours of driving in a mid-size bus with our tour guide (Mr. Ding) to yellow mtn from nanjing (no shocks on the bus, and very little freeway roads = jouncy 6 hours)
~ leave hotel at 8am next day for our trek (really 8:10am once all the students arrived - something that will be addressed soon.....)
~ drive fast and furious in another bus up a very windy drop-off kind of road to the trailhead - i only left permanent finger imprints on one of the seats in front of me.
~ wait for tickets to be purchased by our tour guide and then start the trek (see photo of instruction on how to hike the yellow mountain - i took special care to follow each one to the tee, esp the one about the monkeys)
~ hike/walk a million steep and windy stairs straight up a jungly mountain dripping sweat the whole time with 100s of other people coming and going both ways
~ arrive at the top 1.5 hours after the 1st students arrived, then follow the trails of stairs from one peak to the next (about 5 peaks) - another 100 million stairs up and down dripping sweat and trailing at the end of my group the whole day (each time i would finally arrive the tour guide would let me sit for about 10 minutes then get us all going again - finally at lunch i put my heels in and negotiated an extra 5 minutes)
~ viewed some of the most amazing mountainous sites i've ever seen (check out the photos although they don't quite tell it completely) yellow mountain is the standard mountain scenes depicted in chinese scroll art.
~ stop here and there and amaze and wonder all the chinese people on the trail with our ability to speak with them (and understand all of their comments about the 20 foreigners who are hiking around with them)
~ take 992 photos of the place and us and people
~ wonder at how anyone even built those stairs, and wonder even more about the coolies who carry loads and loads of wares and stuff up and down that mountain every day (see photos)
~ appreciate (when my heart rate lowered and i could see without sweat in my eyes) the beauty of God's creations
~ freak-out on several occasions as i watched my students get close to drop off cliffs
~ drink more water than i have at one time in years
~ finally! ride the cable tram down to the bus that sped back down the narrow windy road almost veering off cliffs or dropping into the ditch on the side of the road - this time i was a little too worn out to care about anything except for a shower and a bed.

we were all so beat by the time we arrived back at the hotel that even my strongest guys could hardly move. i think i burned about 6,456,098 calories in about 8 hours and 14 miles. unfortunately, it didn't melt away any stomach fat, just left me feeling as though i would never be able to live a healthy vibrant life again without sleeping and resting every 20 minutes.

now it's sunday nite and after lots of sleep and replenishment of calories i'm finally coming back to life. of course the students were back at it within 24 hours - oh to be in my early 20s again. being with them makes me feel a lot younger, but after this trek i feel very age appropriate.

instructions on hiking Yellow Mtn

one more view

it's difficult to show exactly how beautiful this place is. but hopefully some of these photos show a taste of yellow mountain.

in the wedge

here is me hiking the ridge pictured below.

a vision of what's to come

click on the photo to enlarge it and you can see the stairs cut down the middle of this ridge. i climbed it about a 1/2 hr later.

showing off lotus flower peak

this is on the opposite side of lotus flower peak (4.5 hrs after the 1st picture). it's difficult to see the white dried sweat marks on my shirt, but they were earned.

gazing off.....

thinking of yellow mountain (and how dang tired i am at this point - but happy)

laundry delivery

these guys carry loads of whatever (heavy things! over 100lbs) up and down those stairs everyday all day. they have calves of steel.

at the top!!

this was my first moment a the top of the range. still more to climb though.

stairs and more stairs

hiking yellow mountain is about 6 - 8 hours of stair master in a steam bath. i thought i was in shape until yellow mountain learned me different.

this was my first glance at the Lotus Flower Peak in the Yellow Mountain region. little did i know that it would be 5 hours before i made it over to that peak sweaty, tired of stairs, worn out and happy to have done it.

A field in China.

Qixia Shi - China's oldest Buddist Monastary

for the Mid-autumn Festival monday holiday i went with 3 students to china's oldest monastry about an hour outside of Nanjing. this sign introduced the lake on the monastary grounds. if you click on the photo of the sign you will discover that it was formed and has been around "since the world exisiting." amongst other things such as nenuphers it is "just too many beautiful things." indeed it was a beautiful place.

me, xiao yuan (maid) and the son (tony)

my maid, xiao yuan (seen here) invited me over to her house for dinner on sunday nite. this past weekend was the chinese mid-autumn festival. traditionally they eat moon cakes, return to one's maternal family and look at the moon. since my maternal family wasn't accessible (but i did eat my fill of moon cakes) she invited me over for a fine home cooked meal at her house. i was thrilled.

it has been difficult to find chinese friends here in nanjing who are willing to invite me to their homes and hang out. she loves to cook and she loves to have guests. her 16yr old son, Tony, lives with her in a small apartment across town. her husband passed about 3 years ago from stomach cancer. she is raising her son on her own and working hard to do so ~ which is why she works full-time then 2 apartments on the side (for about $1.25 a cleaning). some have asked me if everyone in china has a maid, no, but my landlord recommended her and when told the situation and the price i couldn't not hire her.

her apartment is about 1/4 size of any apartment i've ever lived in, but it was comfortable and clean. she and i are still going the laundry rounds (i sneak wash all my whites when she isn't around and give her a few things here and there to wash), but we are becoming friends. it's fun.

since i have to boil my water for drinking water, when i get low on drinking water i will run a big kettle of water on the stove. last week i turned on the kettle to boil one morning and got on with my things then left - completely forgetting about the kettle. by the grace of God, xiao yuan happened to come over to my house at noon to do the daily cleaning (she always comes at 5pm ~ never had she come at noon before). of course the kettle's water was all boiled out and the place was starting to fill with burning kettle fumes.

i didn't know that this had happened, but when i came home later that day the "sup" at the front gate pointed his finger at me and yelled "YOU! you left the water to boil and forgot and almost burned the place down! this is very dangerous! don't boil water anymore, let your maid do it." and some more chinese scolding that i don't need to write. i apologized profusely (multiple times ~ so sorry, so embarrasing, my face is gone.... etc) i asked if my neighbor knew, he said she didn't, however the landlord had been told. that's when i knew i would have to go through 2 more scolding sessions before the ordeal was over.

sure enough, the next day i was at the Sun Yat Sen memorial with my students and i get the call from the landlord. she was nicer, but did her duty in reminding me to not leave the gas stove burning and to make sure and lock the place up. (again lots of apol0gies ~ so sorry, so embarrasing, my face is gone.... etc) then i waited for my maid's turn. the next day i ran into her at my apartment. she told me how she had come over and found the near fire situation, how it was so dangerous and that she was very scared of house fires (who isn't??) and then pointed in my face and said "You are a VERY lucky person." i couldn't disagree. (again lots of apol0gies ~ so sorry, so embarrasing, my face is gone.... etc)

so now i'm the nice, but inept foreigner who can't even boil water. however, now that i've had the 3 scoldings they have let it go and i am hyper aware of the kettle whenever i put water onto boil.

bill of health = pool pass

getting a pool pass to nanjing university pool isn't much different than filling out 5 years worth of 1040 forms for the IRS. seen here is my official "bill of health" - the requirement needed before one is allowed to swim in the university pool. it is issued by the university health clinic located just down the street from the main enterance to the campus.

when i first expressed that i wanted to swim for exercise i was informed that i needed to get a blood test in order to get a pool pass. to my american mind this meant going to a qualified dr. and/or nurse, getting some blood drawn and then picking up the clean results a few days later. what a shock to learn that i am not in america! first of all the time to get the blood test is only on M/W/F from 8-10am. the sign advertising this informed me to go to room 422, on the 4th floor. i entered the hot elevator of the clinic that hadn't seen a good floor mopping since the last revolution and i wondered what i would be in for this time in China.

on the way to 422 i stopped a nurse in a not so white and very wrinkled lab coat where to get my blood tested. she told me to go to the 2nd floor. arriving on the 2nd floor i quickly found the station where blood was being drawn. a male nurse stood behind a thick glass with three 1/2 holes cut out right above the counter. the holes are just big enough to stick one's arm through to the other side so that the nurse can draw blood from the other side. everyone standing in line and/or passing by, can easily observe your blood drawing experience. i waited to find out what i needed to do to have this done and when i was finally able to 1/2 yell through one of the holes to ask he said i had to go up to the 4th floor first.

at room 422 the nice nurse behind the very small window of this 'hospital' (that looks as if it came right out of the 30s), gave me a slip of paper and told me that i would need to go down to the 1st floor to pay for the service then come back with that paper before she would give me more papers to be processed. i commented that this was a lot of running around and she agreed.

it was getting a bit warm in the hospital as it was a humid day in nanjing and all the windows of the hospital were open. i packed up to the payment window (there aren't really lines to wait in in China, one just joins the pack) with a few other people and when i had finally pressed my way to the front i shoved my little piece of paper through a very small hole in the window only to have mean nurse throw it back at me and yell "you need to write your name on it!" she then ignored me until i had filled it out and proceed to yell at (and ignore) the guy behind me because she didn't have change for the 100 RMB bill that he was trying to pay with. i dutifully wrote my chinese name and when she had typed everything in she flatly said "33.5 yuan ~" fortunately, i had the exact change. i squeezed my way out of the pressing crowd behind me as the guy with the 100 bill was still standing at the window with bill in hand still being ignored but waiting for a solution.

i waited for the slow elevator again, went to the 4th floor and was handed 3 different kinds of papers and a couple of small pink slips, all of which had to be filled out, stamped and then stamped again. the nice nurse then told me to go down to the 3rd floor for the next step. i didn't understand exactly what the next step was, but i went to the 3rd floor and asked for the department that she had told me to go to. since i didn't understand what i was saying, i'm still not sure what i was being checked for. but i ended up in the 'women only' room, where another nurse in a greying and wrinkled coat shut the door then lifted my shirt to look at my stomach. whatever she saw must have been satisfactory because she signed and stamped my big paper and retained one of the pink slips.

next to the eye exam. i sat down in the office of eye nurse she looked at each of my eyes, barely lifted the lid of one of them then signed and stamped my paper. whew! i passed again. they directed me down the hallway to nurse blood pressure. who took my pressure, listened to all the heart stuff then wrote me an OK on the paper. at this point i thought i had passed so i went downstairs to the blood testing window. nope, not yet! back to room 422.

nice nurse told me that i needed to get a chest x-ray then to come back to her and once i returned she would give me the OK to get my blood drawn. back down to 2nd floor where the male technician was not very happy to take anyone's x-ray but was doing it anyway. other people lined up in the room behind me, no lead aprons just waiting their turn. FINALLY! i had all my stamps and OKs to get the document that would allow the male nurse to draw my blood.

by this time i was hot and sweaty from the humdity and running around ~ and it was only 8:45am! i got in line, or at least a small group, with the others who needed blood drawn and waited while we all watched the person at the window get their blood drawn. yep, everyone just watched over the shoulder of the next patient to see how this was done. my main concern was that the nurse was using never used before sterilized needles, which he was.

finally, it was my turn. i sat down on the little stool at the counter and put my hand/arm through the hole in the window and rested it on a small pile of paper towels (that hadn't been changed since i had arrived that morning). the nurse strapped on the elastic around my upper arm told me to squeeze my hand and asked if i knew chinese well enough to understand all that he was saying. i told him i did. there were several people standing behind me nearly pressing into my back and watching over my shoulder. since i'm not keen on watching my blood be drawn i looked off to the side of me and happened to notice a thin1/2 circle line of blood spattering on the inside of the window that ran from the hole next to me up the glass about 2 feet. at least it was dry i thought.

once my blood had been drawn i took my necessary paperwork upstairs and handed it to nice nurse who told me come back in 2 days and be sure to have a passport size picture with me (as every official document in China requires a passport picture). i left feeling gratified that at some institutions in china the old system of red tape, thick bureaucracy and unhappy workers still exists.

2 days later i picked up my official bill of health and i can now swim knowing that everyone else i swim with has a belly, 2 eyes, clean lungs and hopefully no blood diseases.

Chinese lady with pigeons

we went to the Sun Yat Sen Mausaleum today. while there we there we ran into a flock of pigeons that attack anyone that just might have food. this lady was flocked for a while and was having a great time.

yes, even in China there is pizza delivery service. now that i'm in the routine of my Chinese life i haven't been posting as much. but that doesn't mean the saga of Nanjing doesn't continue.

i'll be updating in the next few days about my exciting trip to the university health clinic to get my blood test for the pool pass, my experience at the gym, the on going negotiations over laundry with my maid and so much more. some back soon. lv to you all.

new bike

My new bike! Yep, here it is. I would call it a "road bike" as I use it to ride on the roads around here. The lady you see fixing it there added on the basket and sold me a lock to boot. After I rode off I discovered that I could deal with some things, the screetching front brake, the brake handle that slips around on the handle bar, the creaking seat, but the back wheel was so out of true that I thought it was going to wobble itself off.

On about every corner here there is a bike fix-it street vendor. It's usually a guy with a portable bike parts stand that sets up for the day (see photo). If you need to get air, or fix something on your bike you just pull up and the guy fixes it right there. It wasn't long til I found my guy to true the tire.

He removed some spokes from the back wheel and started replacing them. I walked around waiting for him to finish and while I was watching from across the street (and taking photos) I noticed that he was doing something with pliers to one of the spokes. As I watched I realized that he had cut one of the old spokes at the 1/2 point, and added another 1/2 new spoke from the other end and was twisting them together.... even now I'm not sure what use this was, but I had to let it be since it was so funny. The back tire still has a wobble in it, and the front tire is getting worse by the day. So I'll be stopping at another "bike shop" soon to get that fixed. I don't know if they can replace the brake pads but I hope so cause I almost blew my eardrums out today when I had to stop fast.

a ho hum life

(a photo of the street i live on)

today, not a lot happened except that i lived my Chinese life. got the students all set up with their teachers and the program in the morning, had a big bowl of hand made potsickers for about $1.50 for lunch, then had the whole day to myself. nice! since yesterday i spent the entire day (8:30 am to 9:30pm) riding a chartered bus to Shanghai and back to pick up the remainder of my students who flew into the Shanghai airport. whew! it was just as long as i had expected.

somehow the "sup" who sits at the gate all day long in my "gated" community, knew that i had been to shanghai cause he was asking me about it today. not much gets by the folks in my complex as i'm the only foreigner living here. i feel a little watched, but maybe that has its advantages for safety reasons.

my maid came by today when i was here. she is a sweet thing. but she did inform me that keeping packages of cookies and crackers in the fridge is not OK. i put them there for fear of inviting cockroaches. she told me several times that this is not where one keeps crackers/cookies. i just told her that i was a bit strange in my American ways and left them in there. she was also perplexed as to why i hadn't put anything in the laundry basket yet. (i was gone all day yesterday and have yet to sort through everything) i am doing my white laundry (9:00 pm) as i write - in the washer - so that it can all dry and be put away before she shows up at 5pm tomorrow. it's kinda fun. whoever thought i'd have to sneak to do my laundry?

well off to hang it all before i go to bed. all is swell, all is swell.

09.03.08 - China

I’m now settled into the Nanjing life. My apartment is set up, my maid comes everyday and I have a bike that I can ride around the city on. This morning I woke up, checked my emails then called the US a few times about Sami and some banking issues, the set out the door. My bike was right where I parked it, under the bike parking lot awning used by all residents in my complex, and I was off to Nanjing morning rush hour.

The streets of Nanjing are as I remember. Wide and easy to get around on via bike. There are three lanes of traffic, two side lanes designated for bikes and mopeds and a center (2 lane) run for cars. These lanes are divided by a median lined with huge sycamore trees, which really helps with the heat factor. There is a lot of honking and whistle blowing and screetching of brakes. I thought to myself as I rode off to the school this morning – “here I am in my Chinese life.” I’m so enjoying this time around in China, I believe part of it is that I’m not on such a steep learning curve with the language and culture. It helps that I have frequent and easy contact with my family and friends in the US via the internet, and frankly, China is just a lot easier place to live these days.

There are super Walmart style markets all over the city. I went to one yesterday to look at the prices of a new bike, and could NOT believe the amount of consumer goods available. One level was everything from selections of toilet paper to ten different kinds of plastic storage bins. The lower level was a grocery store the size of anything you’d see in the States. The difference of course was that there were hoards of people grabbing at the fresh meat that was being put out for the morning, and the long winding line for the specialty fresh eggs that were being sold at a small kiosk near the front. When I was here last, I had difficulty finding two types of toothbrushes and even that was a huge hassle to buy. Now I just walk right through the check out that scans the bar codes and I’m on my way. Since China is a ‘green’ country there is a cost for plastic bags so they won’t give you one unless you request it. Kudos to them! I used to see piles of burning garbage stacked full of plastic bags. A different place all together.

Well not completely different. I have yet to see a Chinese institution where one has to process something that there isn’t a lot of papers, copies, signing and stamping before one simple task is complete. Yesterday I went to the bank to open a Chinese bank account. I sat down in front of a 2 inch glass window that separated me from the girl behind the counter and passed my passport under a very small opening (only big enough for papers and money to go through) to her.

I sat there for 20+ minutes and watched her process, fill out stuff, take out more papers to process. I signed 3 different papers, she copied my passport, ran my new debit card 7 times, ran the little bank book assigned to my account 3 times through the machine, stamped everything (about 5 different papers) with 4 different chops and while the line behind me grew (because she was the only window open) she ran my card 3 more time and each time I a recording on the speaker would yell out “Enter your PIN number please.” Finally! I had a bank account with 90yuan in it set up. They charged me the steep fee of 10yuan a year to have an ATM card (about 15 cents). I’m good to go now!

Another thing that will always be Chinese is the concept of “face.” It is basically allowing the other person to maintain dignity, even if they have done something to embarrass themselves. An example of this is if you are working with the Chinese you don’t question their work outright, even if it’s completely wrong, even if everyone (including them) knows that it’s wrong. The way to help that person save face is to offer an alternative option that makes them look important and gives them a way out of the situation. We do this too in American culture, but it is constant going on in Chinese culture.

So here’s my dilemma:

My maid, is so dear and she is doing a fabulous job of cleaning the place. She is a widow with a child and she works all day then cleans at night after work to support herself and her kid. She comes everyday to my apartment and sweeps, wipes everything down, cleans the bathroom, takes out the garbage. I don’t know how to act! She wants to wash my clothes as part of her job, but she hand washes. I can’t figure out why she just won’t use the washing machine – and I have a feeling that hand washing is going to beat and stretch my clothes to the point that they won’t ever recover. So, I would rather do my own laundry.

When she came yesterday I was doing my Chinese best to help her save face so I told her I was happy with her work, if she needed anything purchased to let me know, thank you thankyou thankyou…. Then I mentioned that I used to washing my own clothes in America so she didn’t have to work so hard and do that part of the job and I would still pay her the same. She was crestfallen. (who gets crestfallen when they are told they don’t have to hand wash laundry?) She then assured me that she had cleaned this apartment for many years and all the tenants (who have been foreigners) were very pleased with her work. She works very hard to make everything very clean and she’ll use hot water to clean the clothes. After that we both let it go and since there was a pair of fairly sturdy pants in my laundry basket she showed them to me as she was taking them to the wash basin of hot water.
My solution – to help her save face – is that she works M-F about 5-6pm at my place. On Friday night I am going to wash all my whites and whatever else I have hidden away in my secret laundry drawer, and let them dry over the weekend (I don’t have a dryer, just a back patio to hang clothes on). Fold and put them away before Monday and ‘hopefully’ she won’t notice, and if she does I don’t think she will say anything. My clothes that I think can with stand some hand washing on a regular basis will end up in the laundry basket where she draws from. This is how one helps the Chinese save face.

CONFESSION: I held out for 10 days in Asia before committing the regrettable choice of eating at McDonalds. I was just so hungry by 3pm yesterday, hadn’t had lunch, all the lunch shops were closed, no food in the house (except for 3 bottles of watery OJ). It didn’t take much to find my neighborhood store and the next thing you know I’m chowing down on a Big Mac, fries and a Sprite with no ice. They were generous enough to give me 2, instead of the standard 1, packet of ketchup and they even gave me a packet of salt (after much rummaging). I’m going to see how long it takes until the next break down.

trying to be attractive

today was the day that everything came together. an apartment all to myself right next door to the province police department - can't get much safer than that. set up at the school with the program details. bought a wireless router so i can access my connection to the outside world from the comfort of my well loved, but comfortable leather chairs. A/C works. the food tastes great, life in China is pretty good these days. OH and i have a maid who comes by 5 days a week to clean all of my 'messy' life up (basically makes the bed and takes out the little garbage i generate). She even hand washes my clothes. i'm not sure i'm going to let her do the underwear though....

my apartment is about a 1/2 mile from the school. tasks for tomorrow are to buy a bike and get my blood tested so i can use the university's pool. apparently, you have to prove that you don't carry any comminicable diseases in order to swim there. perhaps we should instigate that program in the states.

so far, i haven't run into too much of Chinese red tape. although i am often told what i want, even if i have expressed something else. for instance the guy who lived in this place before me was a Brit who apparently liked to collect wine and beer bottles because they are displayed all over the house. the landlord, at her suggestion and my agreement, asked the maid to please get rid of them. she didn't want to and started telling me that they kinda spruced the place up and made it look nice...... fortunately, the landlord inisted that she get rid of it all.

my landlord is one of the top judges in the city. i'm not sure exactly what her position is, but her driver said that she is the #1 judge in her area of expertise. my Chinese coutnerpart at Nanjing University referred me to this place so it pays to be connected in China. again, if anyone has a hankering to come on over to China i have plenty of room for you to stay and then some.

always remember: "Eats the fish the girl to be most attractive" - (who is eating who here?)