Rules of the Road

My husband and I have a running joke that China has only 2 "rules of the road" : (ahem) ' I think I can make it!' (as in: " I think I can zip over three lanes and manuever my way into the thee feet between the red car and the giant moving bus") and "There are no other cars . . " (or bikes). So, in a nutshell, that is how people drive here. I think if they visited America, the drivers would be confused at our willingness to just sit there in traffic. Why should we let two little yellow lines stop us from going into the other lane? If it's clear, it's obviously a passing lane! We've seen taxis here have to drive backwards on a bridge, because they tried to pass in the other lane, and there were actually cars coming from the other direction (I always get nervous in one of those impatient taxis).
So anyway, my story begins when we tried to take a taxi to a nearby Indian restaurant. Trying to take a 'shortcut' our taxi driver headed down an increasingly narrow road . .. . during this time, he began to yell irately into his cell phone (no hands-free rule here). After a few turns, the road became more of an alley, in a poor neighborhood. Cars were parked on the side, which meant there was only roon for one car at a time on the road. Undaunted, our driver sped ahead, yelling into the phone and dodging cars here and there. And then there came a point in the narrow alley where he came face to face with a truck, and neither of the two vehicles had room to squeeze by. So what is the most logical thing to do in this situation? Well, the drivers decided to just sit there. Our driver turned off the engine! He continued bellowing into his cell (probably complaining about the truck), seemingly unconcerned about his paying passengers. The truck driver sat there, willing to wait it out. Once I saw him examining his fingernails. Neither said a word to each other. This might have lasted for quite a while, had we not become anxious and asked the driver whether we were going or not? Our prompt seemed to remind the driver of his job, as he put the window down and directed his yelling at the truck driver, who in turn flew into a sudden rage. For several minutes, they each yelled at the other to move, blaming each other for the impass. Things reached quite a volume. Finally, the truck driver grumbled, backed up and let us pass. And so now we know another rule of driving in China; he who yells the loudest, wins!

Fine Dining in the Far East

It's not often that one walks through a Pizza Hut restaurant and sees a table of people cutting their mozzerella sticks with a knife and fork . . . at least, not in America! In China, people flock to local Pizza Huts for a unique dining experience, complete with "exotic" American food. We've looked in their menus at the "Birthday Party" section, which includes an introduction to American table manners (a.k.a "eating with a knife and fork"). Apparently all the chinese have gone through this training, because every other person we see there is politely and diligently using knife and fork to cut their pieces of pizza into tiny pieces. Although I've also seen a few people in the States doing this, for me it always brought back images of Seinfeld characters trying to cut up their Snickers bars. Some things just don't seem natural! Of course, we try to blend in and be "civilized" as well, but half-way through the meal we find we've begun to ravage the pizza with our hands like the famished foreigners we are! We've brought some local friends to Pizza Hut here, but I've always been a little nervous, since the chinese don't have a notable love of cheese. Some of them have a very strong aversion to western food (a girl pantomimed gagging once while watching me eat a sub). Fortunately, Pizza Hut has incorporated many chinese choices; the menu ends up looking more like it belongs to a gourmet restaurant. You want steak? Stir-fry? Spicy rice? No problem! And you can wash it all down with a red bean smoothie . . .

Hong Kong Disneyland

Just got back from our Disneyland trip this afternoon. For Isaac and I, it was our first time ever at any sort of Disney theme park. It was truly cute to see Isaac so excited the whole day! We saw a fantastic musical rendition of "The Lion King", trotted over to experience the "Leaky Tikis", and waited 45 minutes to go on the "Winnie-the-Pooh" ride. Now, Pooh bear has a special place in Isaac's heart, as it was "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" that captivated him most as a toddler. And so we had no choice but to stand and wait to get into the ride. There must have been over 300 people ahead of us. Unbeknowst to us, people were also using "fast passes" to cut into the front of the line. This seemed enormously unfair, and unfortunately we didn't find out until later that we could have had one "fast pass " ourselves! Oh well. One of the downfalls of living in a foreign country is that sometimes vital information doesn't get passed on! The other frustrating thing about waiting in that particular line was that it also included many teenagers and adults: without kids! Apparently these people had decided their day wouldn't be complete without this ride, which described itself as, "a slow, whimsical journey though Pooh's many adventures. At times there may be a mild rocking motion...".

We spotted more of these overgrown Pooh lovers later as we stood in line to "meet" that silly old bear. I lost count of the 25-40 year olds ahead of us in line who were vying to get a picture with a fuzzy, six-foot costume (which was probably smothering some poor employee in its depths). This is one aspect of Chinese culture that I have yet to understand; that almost frantic fascination with anything cutsy and popular. Oh yes, and the never-ending pursuit of a photo opp.! Maybe they all just remain young at heart :) Isaac certainly enjoyed meeting Pooh, and gave him a big hug and kiss. How much cuter can you get?

My husband had a chance to bond with Isaac, too, as they shared a thrilling ride on "space mountain", shot robots together with Buzz Lightyear, and re-lived his favorite ride from childhood: "It's a Small World". I thought that was amazing, too, although a slight sensory overload. On our way out we stopped to gaze at "Tinkerbell's Castle", all lit up. We agreed that it had been a great day. Then we headed out on our 2-hour, 4 train ride back to the border crossing . . . well, nothing's perfect !

New school year

So, we're back for another year. Our school year started off with lots of sweat and (figurative) tears . . . but thankfully, no blood! We're in a new building this year, and it was a week before we all had air conditioning so for a while we were at the mercy of the summer heat. As is characteristic of China (at least in my experience) we've had some snags and delays in getting things started. Hoping that we'll be starting a normal schedule this week. Our son, Isaac, has had to come to work with us every day for the past 2 weeks, although pre-school hasn't started yet. So he's followed us around the building, squirmed in our laps during meetings, and watched lots of movies! My daily schedule this past week looked something like: teach freshman literature and writing, go downstairs to dole out a snack and play with playdough, run upstairs to teach British lit, run downstairs to clean up a messy "bathroom accident", etc . . . . By the end of the day we're all exhausted and very, very ready to leave! Through it all, Isaac's been a trooper; he's exhibited a lot more patience than one would expect of a normal 3-year-old. So we decided that since we had to go to Hong Kong anyway this weekend, we would take him on an early birthday trip to HK Disneyland! More details later . . .