Tag: China

Posted on

TMI

I wasn't going to share this story, but Yanmei finds it hilarious and thinks it would make a good blog post. It's a form of culture shock.

We were back at Peking University for the 117th anniversary celebration, Yanmei was meeting with some old classmates. Unfortunately not as many as she'd hoped. This was her 19th anniversary since she graduated. Probably better attendance at 20. Anyway I had a little stomach pain so I excused myself to use the restroom.

When I got to the restroom things were a little more urgent. I went into a stall and it was a traditional Chinese toilet where you have to squat. I had never used one of these in this scenario before. What to do with my pants? I wondered if I should take them off entirely, there was a hook on the wall. However I'd have to take off my shoes, so I decided not to.

I squatted down clutching my pants, but I'd positioned too far back and my pants kind of covered the hood or whatever you call it. I scootched forward until I was pretty sure I had everything aimed correctly and wouldn't wet the back of my pants. I finished my business, and luckily they had toilet paper. Yay Peking University, School of Government! Yanmei's big complaint about both Taiwan and China is often bathrooms have no toilet paper. This is why Australia is her favorite country, all the bathrooms she went to there had toilet paper.

So I went back out and went to Yanmei and whispered in her ear “I had a bit of diarrhea, don't tell anyone.” She said okay and we decided to go, since she was tired anyway. She told her friends we were leaving and even though they were speaking in Chinese I could tell what she said, because it went “blah blah blah blah diarrhea” and then everyone looked at me. 🙁 What the heck?! As we left she said there is no shame in this in China.

In the spirit of reciprocity I will share a story about Yanmei from this trip. This happened the second last day in Taiwan, I think. It was evening and she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, then there were a series of unusually loud hacks and spits, then she brushed her teeth again (we use Sonicare toothbrushes, they are easy to hear), then more hacking and spitting, then more brushing, and so on.

Finally I asked if she was okay. She came out with this forlorn look on her face. It turned out she had mistaken a tube of hydrocortisone anti-itch cream for toothpaste and brushed her teeth with it. She noticed something different right away but thought it was just “Taiwan-style toothpaste” so she kept brushing for a while until she realized it wasn't right. Now she couldn't get the bitter taste out of her mouth even after brushing with real toothpaste several times. I googled it to see if it was poisonous, luckily it is not, so I suggested she rinse her mouth with saltwater. A few more rounds of brushing, gargling and spitting and her mouth was pretty much back to normal.

Anyway, not everything is fun and excitement on the trip, but as I told Yanmei on big island in Hawaii when it was pouring rain we have to try to make the best out of what we get even if it is not what we want.

-David

 

 

Posted on

Lunch and dinner with family

We had lunch with my in-laws today. I'd met most of them on my previous visit, but I hadn't met her youngest sister.

The first woman on the right is Yanmei's younger sister Yanxing, the youngest of the four sisters. Yanmei is 2nd youngest. Next to Yanxing is Xuemei, the oldest sister, and next to her is Dongmei the second sister. Yanmei's mother and father are on the left with us (the mom isn't happy because Yanmei just told her we wouldn't spend the night at their apartment). In the middle is Hanghang, Yangxing's daughter, age 12, and Qianqian, Dongmei's son, age 20. Taking the picture and thus not in it is Qingqing, who is Xuemei's daughter.

Family lunch

I believe Hanghang, Qianqian and Qingqing are all nicknames or diminutives like Bobby or Susie. Qingqing is in the picture below making the double peace signs.

Family photo

Her whole family was very welcoming to me, although communication is an issue since her sisters, their husbands and her parents don't speak English, so I have to rely on Yanmei and Qingqing to translate for me. We really tried to pay for this lunch after failing last time because Yanmei's sister got up and paid before they even brought the check. This time we made it clear we were paying from the start, but when I got up to pay it ended up being a big altercation so I gave up and let them pay. I guess we'll have to wait until someone visits us in the U.S. before we can pay.

After lunch we tried to take care of a work item that came up, even though I'm on sabbatical. They need my signature on a couple of forms as co-inventor for some patents Veeva is applying for. We went to a small computer/printer shop but gmail was blocked, so I couldn't access the documents. So we went to Yanmei's big sisters apartment which has wifi, and Qingqing logged into her company's VPN, and from there I could access gmail. We eventually got the two forms downloaded and saved onto a USB drive. Now I just needed to print them, sign them and scan them back in and email them back.

Yanmei was tired so Qingqing and I went out to print the documents, it should only take a few minutes, right? It turned out the print shop was closed, so we walked to another one farther away and it was closed too. Finally after walking around for 40 minutes Qingqing suggested we try a real estate agency, they probably could print it for us as a favor. They tried to help us (apparently they thought I was the English teacher for the local elementary school), but one computer could open the documents but couldn't access the printer and another computer could print but had trouble opening the documents. Especially frustrating because all the error dialogs where in Chinese so I had no clue how to help. I didn't want to keep wasting their time so we gave up and went back. Mission not accomplished. 🙁

After that we went over to Yanmei's parents' apartment for dinner. I must have made a good impression because Yanmei's father really likes me.

For dinner we had something Yanmei said they used to have when she was young: fresh spring rolls. These are not deep fried like you get at restaurants, instead you make them yourself. Start with a wrapper a lot like a fajita wrapper, put what you want in it, then fold it up and eat it. They were quite delicious, I had four. There were some other dishes too, all of it was good.

Yanmei's Mom and Dad

After dinner we originally planned to stay the night, but Yanmei wanted to go to her school anniversary early the next day, so we went back to our own apartment.

-David

 

Posted on

Living in Beijing

We're not going to do daily sight seeing in Beijing, since we did that last time we were here. Yanmei is visiting with friends and family. However last night we did go to Tienamen square. Unfortunately they don't let people in at night anymore.

The place we live has a reveille at 7:55am everyday. I've never seen that before, but I've only stayed in international hotels in China before. Yanmei hasn't seen it either. It turns out there is a military barracks nearby and that is where it is from.

The other strange thing is the lock on the apartment. If you lock it from the inside it can't be unlocked from the outside, and if you lock it from the outside it can't be unlocked from the inside! We didn't know this and Yanmei went out for a “short” time and I ended up locked in the apartment for several hours. Yanmei suggested it might be like that to keep kids from going out. I don't like it, what if there was a fire?
Many buildings in the US don't have a 13th floor, the same is true in China, but there is also no 4th or 14th floor, 4 being an unlucky number, so our 15th floor apartment is actually on the 12th floor.

-David