Saturday Bike ride

It was a beautiful fall day. Cool weather. Leaves changing. Great day for a ride.

Sometimes I chuckle at the silly things that the Chinese do. But I think the reality is that I am at least as silly. I also think the better part of wisdom is noticing the guy doing something silly right before you were about to do the same thing and changing your course in a knick of time. Sometimes life is a game of inches.

Riding my bike on the side of the road, I came across a simple row of bricks strung across the side lane. This is pretty unusual in Changchun in that the Chinese do not normally put up ‘hazard ahead’ signs or markers. So this made me at least look ahead to see what the warning was for. It looked like the road had a 3 foot section cut out of it and was filled in with gravel. I was on my mountain bike so I thought this would be no big deal. Then I noticed that a mini-bus in front of me had the same idea. That’s when I realized his rear tires were 12” down in the ‘gravel’. That would make the ‘gravel’ freshly poured cement. Now I don’t know how he got his front wheels through the cement, but his rear wheels did not have the same luck. So I locked up my brakes and came to a stop at the lip of the cement. If that van wasn’t there, I’d still be picking bits of cement off my bike.

So now the issue is how you get a mini-bus out of quickly setting concrete. This is where I have to hand it to the Chinese. There are a lot of Hummers, Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne, Land Rover, and every other SUV made by every automaker in the world in Changchun. But when there’s work to be done, you don’t call one of those pretty boy rides with leather interiors. You call the guy with the Jeep who’s not trying to get other people to do the heavy lifting in order to keep the dirt off his hands.

So this beautiful 4X4 Wrangler with oversized tires rolls up and out jumps a guy who is used to getting things done. I was watching an American TV commercial in the middle of China and the Jeep marketing department never had to pay a cent. It was just the engineers at Jeep that took care of this one. He hooks up the tow strap, engages the 4 wheel drive, sets tension in the strap, and then lets the growl of the engine take over. Even in Changchun, people know who to trust when they need to get things done.

Biking in the hills

I got invited to go for a bike ride Sunday morning. I said yes and then realized it was an invitation to go motor biking. Francois had an extra bike and he and his son were going for a ride. So the 3 of us headed out from their house early Sunday.

Now you might think that we got onto a nice dirt trail right from their house. You’d be wrong. You might also think it would be against the law for two 40 year old whiteys and a 14 year old boy to go bombing through the city streets of Changchun for 5 miles to get to an off road trail. There you would be correct. Francois gave me plenty of instructions though on how to handle this little detail. As we were pulling out of his garage he said ‘follow me. Don’t stop at the red lights. Never make eye contact with any authority figures. And never slow down if someone starts chasing us.” Seemed reasonable enough. I had a helmet after all. What could possibly go wrong?

In the end, we made it to the trail without any official incidents. We bombed around on trails for a couple hours around Moon Lake and then met our families for a little Sunday afternoon picnic. Turns out if you get far enough away from the city and the hovels, it can really be quite beautiful. We were on a bluff looking down across a wide valley with the city of Changchun in the distance. Not surprisingly the city smells a lot better when its 10 miles away. The trees and grass were a welcome change of scenery for the eyes and the ol’ factory.

Of course being china, after we set down our blanket and started having some food. A group of 40 Chinese folks set up shop around the corner and started having a good time. It’s probably easy to be lonely in china, but it is really hard to be alone.
For the picnic menu, the stouts brought some real American cuisine. We had twizzlers. We had peanut butter and crackers. We had flavored goldfish. Turns out American cuisine is not always appreciated as much as you might think. The licorice was deemed ‘without flavor’ and the peanut butter on crackers was described as ‘interesting’. The goldfish were just ignored straight away. Just cuz the other families had fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh baked bread and cheese. They thought their food was better than ours. OK, their food was better than ours. I admit it.

Now, I’ve not been to France yet, but I think I could spend some time there just eating. And drinking. I hear Italians know how to put together a pretty good meal as well, but the only Italian I know is Frank Ardigo and he married an American. Ann’s a great cook, but I’m not sure if that counts as true Italian food or not. I think us Americans have some room to raise our culinary game a bit.

Anyway, in the end it was a great day with motorbikes, families, trees, and dodging buses. It was a great way to say ‘au revoir’ to the summer and get ready for the imminent coming of fall and the cooler weather.

As a final note, when we were out there we found a praying mantis. These are apparently pretty common around here as we see them way more often than we did in Michigan. This is where my education let me down. I've always thought they were preying mantis'. As in the woman preys on her mate after they've finished their business. Everyone said that was strange because in french and german the word for the insect was the same word as praying because it looks like it has its hands folded in a praying position. I told them that was ridiculous and their languages were wrong. And dumb. Turns out I would be the dumb one. Praying mantis. who knew?

The return trip

So the whole family is back in Changchun. I flew back to china in the middle of August. It was pretty uneventful and yes I did bring the nutella. In my checked bag.

The funnier part of the story is that my wife and kids came back at the end of august. They didn't bring anything to the US from China cuz they have plenty of clothes at the cottage. So for the trip back to China, they didn't have anything they needed to bring. Except food. So the airline rules allow you to take two 50# bags on international flights plus a carry-on plus a 'purse' independent of how big the passenger is. My 7 year old son has the same weight allowance as my wife (which I know Brook Burg is trying to change so that each passenger pays by the pound since the cost of the flight is a function of the mass being carried, but that will have to wait for a different post). So my wife packed all the kids bags with food. At 5 passengers, that makes 500 pounds of luggage plus 5 carryon bags plus 5 backpacks. Turns out that's a whole lot of food. Our dining room looked like a bomb went off in a grocery store. Granola bars, boxes of cereal, pop tarts, bottles of wine, etc. . . My kids, pack mules.

The best part of the story (for a dutchman like me) is that when dee landed in chicago, she needed to claim the bags and recheck them. (this is not normal, but she didn't have her passport in GR. she was picking it up from a embassy courier in o'hare. Another story for another blog post) So she has to pick up her 500 pounds of luggage and bring it with the 500 pounds of carryon bags to the check in counter. In china, the little baggage carts are free, but in Chicago they cost $4. So instead of getting a cart for every kid, she got one cart and made the kids pull all the bags that didn't fit on the cart. We call it tough love where I come from. Warms the cockles of my dutch heart.

Biking in Inner Mongolia (this is a long one. Sorry)

Prologue: For those of you not familiar with Chinese geography, Inner Mongolia is not the same as Mongolia. Mongolia is its own country while Inner Mongolia is part of China. I still don’t understand how this works, but there you go. This will be the only thing educational in this blog post. It’s worth noting, however, that Inner Mongolia is a lot like Wyoming. Big sky. Open spaces. No people. Lots of animals. Beautiful landscapes. It was everything that Changchun is not. It was really quite striking being in the middle of big sky country after so long in the city. It was good for the soul.
This past weekend, I thought it would be great to take a little trip with a couple other families to Inner Mongolia. Dee and the kids were on their way back to the US, and I was free to relax and do whatever I felt like doing. Turns out I ‘felt like’ riding on a bus for 13 hours so that I could ride my bike for 3 days and make myself think I was going to die. Sometimes I don’t understand the choices I make.
Day 1: We left Thursday night at 7:00 pm. There were 5 families (10 adults and 4 kids) that piled into a 50 passenger bus and headed out of Changchun. You would think there would be plenty of space on a bus that size, but you would be wrong. Between luggage and kids and the Chinese seats leaving 6” of leg room there wasn’t much space left to stretch out. Also the roads in north east china aren’t quite as nice as some others. When you think your bus might actually tip over, it’s kind of hard to fall asleep. Also, the roads are always under construction/repair with no marked detour. At one point we were driving down a side gravel road that turned and went under the road under construction through a large culvert. Cars could make it through that tunnel, but there was no way our bus was going to make it. It took awhile for our driver to agree that giving it the ‘ol college try’ was not in any of our best interests.
Day 2: We arrived Friday morning to a steady rain. We were staying in Yurts (little Tepee like buildings made of canvas and wood). They added plumbing so we could have a bathroom that kind of took away from the rustic feel the outside gave you, but it was still fun.
Friday afternoon, the race started. The rain had stopped and the sun was out along with a 20 mph wind. The first day was only 53 km. I quickly realized I hadn’t spent enough time in the saddle for this weekend. The trail was mostly 2 track with a lot of hard pack grooves. I’ve never really seen the point of a full suspension bike until this point. Having your bones rattled by non-stop hammering on the trail can really fatigue your shoulders, back, and backside. (More on the backside coming soon).
The course basically went uphill for 30 km. I wanted to either throw up or pass out. It was actually at this point that I knew why I like mountain biking. It really tells you something about yourself. Anyone can be all nice and polite and think good things about themselves when their comfortable. When you feel like you’ve been run over by a freight train, you lose a lot of the pretty illusions you have about yourself. It’s a pretty spiritual moment actually. I found myself like David calling out to God in the Psalms. ‘Ok God, I know I don’t have much to bring to this negotiation, but if you could find a way to not have me kill myself on this Chinese hillside I would really appreciate it’. It sounds like a trite prayer as I’m typing it now, but it was quite the cry of desperation at the time.
So at the 35km mark, I’m heading up a small incline and I can see over the ridge, the trail turns to the left and goes straight up a side of the mountain. At this point my whole body aches. Back to prayer. ‘OK God. That’s not funny. I’m counting on you here cuz I got nothing’. Then the mystery of grace kicks in. I get over the small ridge and see that the trail forks left and right with the race markers sending me down the hill to the right and the path leading up to the left being just an intimidating pair of brown lines that were not going to be part of my day. I think I actually cried a bit at that moment.
Of course, just like life, the trail keeps going. Now, instead of crawling my way up the hill, I’m bombing down a serious decline. I’m too tired to really control my bike and have no interest in losing any momentum that I worked so hard to earn. ½ way down this descent the trail decided to do a little jog to the left before continuing down. The ‘trail managers’ also thought it would be wise to have some nice loose gravel in the turn. Now you may be thinking that the crazy ½ conscious guy would try to turn hard in the gravel and wipe out and make a mess of himself. You would be wrong. I was way too smart for that. I took a nice slow turn to make sure that didn’t happen. Turns out the reason the trail turned left was to get over a 12” water runoff ravine. You may also think that a 12” ravine shouldn’t be too much of a problem. But when you’re going 30 mph with a loose grip on reality that little ditch can cause some problems. I got my front tire over cleanly, but did not pull up on my back tire fast enough so the back tire went into the ditch and came back out with a lot of vertical acceleration.
This is where the sore backside turned into the ‘holy crap I think I just lost some of my backside’. I coasted for another ½ mile hoping that the pain would settle a little bit. Once it did, I sat back on my seat and realized the seat frame was bent up quite a bit. And then it took a few more minutes to realize that my seat was actually no longer attached to my bike. All that was left was the 2 aluminum rods that hold the seat. (As a side note, I’m now wondering how sore my tushy must have been to not realize immediately that it was sitting on 2 metal rods and not a seat)
So now I get to ride the last 15 km of the race standing up. My only saving grace was that I was so delusional, I thought the race was 58 km, so when I hit the 53 km finish line I still thought I had 5 km to go. Sometimes it’s good to lie to yourself.
After I got across the finish line, the Chinese media realized I had no seat and knew they had the ‘special interest story’ they had been looking for. So I got interviewed by CCTV in Mongolia. ‘How did you break your seat? How did that feel?’ I tried my best to be gracious when all I wanted to say was ‘can you get me a piece of that watermelon over there so I can have a couple bites before I collapse ‘. You can see the picture of this in the Nordic ways website.
Day2 ends with a formal dinner back at the Yurt lodge including Mongolian dancing and singing and the ceremonial lamb roast followed by the dance around the bonfire. I was asleep by 9:00.
Day 3: Only 41 km this day. Piece of cake. It actually turned out OK. I felt good the whole time and enjoyed the day. We finished with 4 of us side by side. Two of the women in our group took home some prizes in the running races (Laura took 1st in the 20k and Anne took 2nd in the 10k). I met a woman from Oregon who was visiting her daughter from Qingdao who was running the marathon. We had dinner at a hot pot restaurant and polished off about 2 kg of lamb per person. It was a gorgeous sunset over the mountains and then the stars came out. Awe inspiring. It was just a good day.
The only unusual thing that happened that day was when I went to bed, there was another dance party around the bonfire but there were no people around to dance. My Yurt was closest to the bonfire, so it was pretty much like having a stereo in my Yurt. On this night they went from ‘sweet home Alabama’ to MJ’s ‘beat it’ and were in the middle of 3 straight ‘Morrissey’ singles before I dozed off. Moments like this make you realize how small the world actually is. It’s hard to describe exactly how far in the middle of nowhere we were and we were listening to British and American music from the 80’s.
Day 4: 82 km. You might think that seems like a long ways to go on a mountain bike on really rough terrain. I thought it would be OK. You would have been right. The guys I was biking with let me draft behind them all day, so I was feeling ok. They would get away from me up the hills and I would catch up on the downhills (the benefit of mass on momentum). Up until km67, I only hurt a normal amount. And then my body told me something I should have known. You can’t bike for 3.5 hours straight without pumping in any additional calories. A good breakfast is not enough at that point. So my body shut down. The proverbial wall. It was not going one meter further let alone 15 km. I walked up a 1 km hill. At the top of the climb was an aid station with water and bananas. I asked for some bananas. They brought me 1/2 of one. I said ‘no. Bring me some bananas’. I ate two bananas and drank 2 bottles of Gatorade. My peripheral vision started coming back.
It was mostly downhill from there and then I got dumped out on the road for the last 5 km. At this point I knew I was going to make it but I still felt pretty wobbly. And then grace hit again. A small boy (8-10 maybe) runs out into the road and hands me a bottle of Pepsi. It was cold and unopened. I’m not entirely sure that this boy was not an angel. He was all alone with no one to impress with his gesture. A bottle of pop costs about $.75 a bottle which is about the same as meal of noodles. How he had the money for a bottle of pop in the first place is a mystery. Why he would give it to a stranger instead of drinking it himself is beyond me. I’m guessing sugar and caffeine are not so great in the middle of a race, but with 5 km to go it was brilliant. I felt like I was in a commercial drinking my ice cold bottle of Pepsi as I approached the finish line. I kept looking for the cameras.
After the race I ate another 6 bananas and a couple of whole watermelons. I wasn’t dead so it was time to celebrate. I returned the loaner bike seat back to the hotel registration area. And then I saw it. The sign with that magical little word that can change your whole day. ‘Massage.’ There was a little Chinese man standing next to the sign with a white lab coat looking very professorial. I asked him if he was the massage guy. He said ‘yes’. I said ‘how much?’ He said ‘$15’. I didn’t say anything, I just handed him the money.
Turns out when you offer massage services in the lobby of a hotel, you get the massage in your room. It took a few minutes and several trips around the hotel for me to realize he was waiting for me to take him to my room and I was waiting for him to take me to his massage room. Finally we went back to the lobby and he told me he would do the massage on the couch in the lobby.
Now I’m a pretty sweaty, muddy, stinky mess at this point, but if he wants me to sprawl out on leather couch so he can rub me down, I was OK with that. I’m guessing he was not the best masseuse ever, but I could not have been happier at that moment. Although it was another odd moment of self realization. Half way through the message I started thinking ‘I wonder if this guy is going to rub my butt in the middle of this lobby as part of this massage.’ And I have to say for the first time in my life I really was hoping this guy would give my butt a good rub down. I don’t know if it was lucky or not, but he had no issues with digging in and working the kinks out of whatever muscles I had left back there. After he was done, I was a new man. (Although the desire to have a little Chinese man in a white lab coat touch my bum has gratefully passed)
We ended the day by heading back to the Yurts to take a shower, pack up, and have a beer before hitting the road at 5:00. We got back to Changchun at 5:00 am and I headed home to take another shower before heading to work for the week.

The wedding.

So this weekend a big wig government official’s son got married. In order to make the wedding official, you need to have little white kids do cute things to show how international you are. Because Jonathan makes all the Chinese women stare and want to pet him, he was hand selected as one of the ‘token white kids’. Which also meant that I got to be the token white dad at the wedding.

First off, who ever thought having a wedding ceremony/reception at 9:30 am on a Sunday was a good idea? The whole thought of celebrating a wedding right after you rolled out of bed and got dressed just doesn’t work for me. The nice thing is you don’t blow a whole Saturday every time someone gets married. I was back in my bed at 11:30. 3.5 hours door to door.

The night before the wedding, we had a little soiree at our house to celebrate folks heading back to their home countries. It was a progressive dinner with a little international flare. A nice pumpkin soup, olive salad, homemade German bread that was oh so yummy, lots of desserts and real wines from around the world. My wife even let me splurge and spend the $7 for a little tub of sour cream so we could have real baked potatoes. We ate and drank for 6 hours. It was a very good time. Everyone brought their kids with them so we had 16 kids upstairs having a great time (even though they got stuck with pizza which they didn’t seem to mind too much). By the time the party wrapped up it was around 12:30. The kids all looked like zombies as they left and ours didn’t look any better as they trudged off to bed.

I only mention this last bit to explain why Jonathan was not a chipper little boy on Sunday morning after getting just 6 hours of sleep. Having Chinese people gawk and stare, as well as tussle your hair can be disconcerting for an adult. It can be traumatic for a little kid. It can lead to a terrets outbreak in little kids after only getting 6 hours of sleep.

When we get to the wedding hall, Jonathan starts to cry. I ask him why he’s crying and he says he thinks his suit looks ugly (as a fairly entertaining side note here, you have to realize that my son’s current idea of fashion is to get his hair going in as many direction as possible, wear a ‘once upon a time’ white jacket which can now only be described as disgustingly grey, and pants with holes. We often refer to it as homeless Chic. To hear him describe his 3 piece custom fitted suit as ugly was a bit hard to take)

I tried to console Jonathan. Nothing. I thought maybe bribery might get me somewhere. Nothing. I settled for jamming him with chocolate and coke. I figured adults drink coffee to get their motors going, maybe caffeine could do something for Jonathan. I think it worked. He stopped crying, but he was never able to lose the ‘ornery’ look you can see in the pictures

Finally, I was wondering before the wedding ceremony what the differences would be between a wealthy couple’s wedding and the weddings I have been to with ‘normal’ people. After having been to the wealthy wedding, I can now say with confidence that the only difference is that the ceremony has all the same elements, they are just tackier.
-Pouring champagne into the chandelier of glasses with dry ice looks the same; you just have twice as many glasses which requires you to use a hydraulic lift to be able to pour into the top glass.
-When it’s time for the ceremonial ‘you may now hug the bride’ (no, I am not making that up), you perform the marital ritual on a little revolving platform so that all the guests can see the bride and groom embracing from all angles.
-And of course there are twice as many people. With twice as many people, there are twice as many tables and the bride and groom need to toast every table. The problem is Chinese people refuse to sit at a table after they are done eating. As we were leaving the wedding, our quarter of the reception hall had already left and the bride and groom hadn’t gotten there yet. Apparently you can just send a ‘cheers’ e-mail after the ceremony that works just as well as toasting in person.

Finally finally, it was interesting that one of the songs used for the wedding was amazing grace. I didn’t have anyone I could ask why they chose this song, but it was a welcome reminder of home for at least one person in the audience.

Dee and the kids will be back in the US at the cottage this Thursday night. Time does fly.

Men. What gives?

This is Philip.
Philip is a very smart French man.
Philip doesn't know how to turn on a microwave.
What is there about kitchen appliances that befuddles 1/2 of the world's population?

Swimming pool.

(Editorial note: All conversations documented in this entry were had in Chinese. So when I put quotes around what was said by me or others, the quotation marks should be taken as ‘this is what I think was said’ versus ‘this is what was said’. The difference between the two is potentially broad and significant.

I took my 3 boys to the swimming pool today. That was my father’s day gift from my wife. We have gone before so I didn’t think it would be difficult to find our way into the pool. It’s only a 2 minute walk from our apartment so we got our stuff together and headed out.

I wasn’t feeling much like swimming, so I brought my Chinese notebook so I could study while the kids swam. We checked in at the front desk without too much difficulty, although the woman did confiscate our little inflatable ball. Not sure what the danger of a little beach ball is, but she was pretty convinced that ball would lead to no good so it was out.

We got into the locker room and changed. The kids had their mandatory swim caps and swim suits and little rubber shoes to wear out to the pool. I was thinking we were starting to understand the drill here in China and able to get around without much difficulty. (that’s foreshadowing if you’re not familiar with the literary tool)

When we went out to the pool area, the kids all jumped in and started swimming. I walked over to the little lounge chair to relax with my book. Before I could get there though, the lifeguard starts yelling at me. After a bit I realize he wants me to wear a swimsuit in the pool. I calmly explained to him that I would not be swimming. I was just going to sit right here and read my book. Then he really started getting mad, apparently I was being disrespectful for explaining my lack of desire to swim. So after shouting back and forth for awhile, I went to the front desk to find out if the lifeguard was nuts. They told me the same thing. If you’re going to read a book by the pool, you have to wear a swimming suit. I’m beginning to think these people are crazy. As a side note the lifeguards were not wearing swimsuits either. Just shorts and a t-shirt like me.

So I swallowed my pride went back to the apartment and put on a swim suit. I went back to the front desk and said ‘Am I ok now?’. I was a bit surprised by the answer. ‘No. You have to wear a swimsuit’. I’m like, ‘lady, I don’t know what planet you’re from (planet china turns out to be the correct answer), but I am wearing a swimsuit’. ‘No you’re not’ was her calm reply. ‘What does a swimsuit look like if this is not a swimsuit?’. She went behind the desk and pulled out this little speedo. She had this great look on her face like ‘you moron, everyone knows what a swimsuit looks like’. She had me stumped for a moment on this one. Then I told her that my 3 boys were already swimming in the pool with swimsuits like mine. I should at least be allowed to sit next to the pool in a swimsuit like I was wearing. She disagreed, but was willing to ask her manager.

Luckily for me, her manager saw the crazed look in my eyes and thought it would be better to have the gringo wearing some freakish shorts with a liner that he thinks is a bathing suit rather than have him lose it and just go walking into the pool area in his birthday suit (which I have to admit did cross my mind in that moment).
In the end they got the final laugh as they told me because I was now wearing a bathingsuit I would have to pay the pool fee to sit next to the pool and watch my kids. I consented.

After I get into the pool, I had a hard time not laughing. There were about 20 kids in the pool, all around 10-13 years old. They were running along the sides of the pool, pushing each other in, wrestling in the water, and just generally raising all sorts of kane. Hard not to ask some fundamental questions at this point. What type of shorts the guy sitting in the chair is wearing=mission critical confrontation. People splitting their heads open because they slipped while getting pushed off the edge of the pool=normal risk that every kid must accept. Huh.

In the end, everything worked out fine. Although on my way out with the boys I had to laugh as I realized they actually had a sign, in English, with all the rules regarding the pool. Turned out it wasn’t against the rules to run, push, and wrestle. As near as I could tell it was also not against the rules to wear shorts in the chairs. Luckily for everyone, it is illegal to enter the pool area if you are less than 4 months pregnant. Who knows what kind of mayhem might result if a 1 month pregnant woman entered the pool area. I do have to say I’m glad they ruled out pets, dysentery, and fungal skin conditions.

What planet AM I living on?

It's june!!

Yes, it has been awhile. Life gets busy. It’s true everywhere on the planet. I’ve been heckled by a few people, so I decided to take some time to do a little writing on a Sunday afternoon. . .

So about February, I started having problems with my right arm. My pointer finger started going numb, and then the rest of my arm and then my shoulder and back. After 4 months, it was starting to get painful and keeping me from being able to get to sleep at night, so I decided I should probably go see a doctor. Now I know the women who read this post will say ‘what in the heck were you waiting for’. But I’m not a woman so I am assuming/hoping that most of the men reading this post will think ‘4 months. Yeah that sounds about right’.

When I asked at the office for a recommendation for what kind of doctor I wanted to see, I thought the question was a bit strange. I figured I wanted to see the kind of doctor that asks you what’s wrong, does a few tests, gives you a diagnosis, and then prescribes a treatment plan. You know a doctor kind of doctor.

My secretary asked me if I wanted a Chinese doctor or a western doctor. I figured ‘when in Rome’. . . So then she asked me if I wanted a traditional or modern Chinese doctor. I told her I wanted to go to the doctor she would go to. She said her doctor usually doesn’t wear a shirt and executes his practice from his home. I told her if that’s where she went, than that’s where I should go. She decided I couldn’t handle her doctor.

So I get sent to a different doctor. His ‘office’ is 2 beds and a desk on the 2nd floor of a little strip mall (I would try to explain what a strip mall is like in Changchun, but I don’t think I could do it. Just think about a normal strip mall in GR and then change everything). On my first visit I describe my symptoms to him through a translator and he starts rubbing my back and arm and says my problem is not my arm or shoulder. It’s my neck. He starts pushing on the side of my neck and every nerve ending from my shoulder down to my finger tips fire at the same time. That’s a strange moment having a man (who is loosely referred to as the doctor) rub your neck and have your arm light up like you just stuck it into a bathtub with a hairdryer.

His diagnosis is that I need to have the nerves in my neck put back in their place. This will require 12 40 minute sessions. Since I don’t know what kind of insurance this doctor would accept I wasn’t too sure about the costs. My mind was quickly put at ease when he told all 12 sessions would cost $45. Maybe his medical school loans had already been paid off so he didn’t have any overhead to cover. I wonder if Dirk P charges more than $5/hour for his services.

After I agree to the treatment he tells me that my muscles might be a little sore after the first couple treatments but that this would pass with time. I’m not sure if the translation was a little off or not, but what he meant to say was ‘I’m going to try and dig a hole into your neck with my steely fingers and elbows. You will most likely cry at most of our sessions as the pain will be just below the threshold that will cause you to black out. You read to get started?’

I’ve been to see him 5 times. I have 12 sessions left. I have to say he is pretty impressive. I had a translator for the 1st session and the last 4 have been just me so we don’t talk much. And he goes to work on me and he works his way to all the spots that make my arm and shoulder twang and he just stays there. It’s like he’s looking for little switch that says ‘here’s the problem’ and he can find those switches without me saying a word about the effect he’s having on my body.

My finger is still a little tingly, but most of the pain is gone already. We’ll have to see if the last 7 sessions can take care of the tingly finger as well.

And the final note: It’s not a blog post without a picture. One of the stores at the bottom of our apartment complex had this picture of a provocative woman(by Chinese standards)in this ad. So I was curious what they were trying to sell with such explicit imagery. Just in case you can’t read the text in the photo, it’s an advertisement for a Chinese version of exlax.

pictures

And yes, that is a Yak in the picture. They were super cool. I could have bought a yak hat, but I got all dutch and could justify the cash. I'm still kicking myself for that one.

Spring festival in harbin-tiger park and ice palace and shangra la ice bar

We went to Harbin for a weekend with a couple friends. harbin is a city 3 hours north of Changchun. I know, its hard to imagine that you could drive 3 hours north from where we are, but you can. Which is funny in that everyone has someone else who is worse off than them. It's cold in Changchun. It's true. But everyone in Changchun that we told we were going to Harbin all said the same thing, "boy its cold up there'. Really, its cold THERE. Does it really matter after -30C. Felt like splitting hairs to me.

So Harbin is famous for the international ice festival. They bring in artists from all over the world and they build a park out of ice. It turns out if the temp never rises above negative ridiculous numbers, ice doesn't melt. So they build the park in December and then they take it down in March. It was pretty amazing. although the most amazing part to me was that they were charging Disney prices to get in and the place was packed. Luckily for me I'm white and i don't speak chinese. So when I told the lady that all my kids were under 1.2 meters, she didn't know how to tell me I was on crack so my kids all got in for 1/2 price ($30). I figured since I was bringing 6 people, my family was still $60 more than a normal chinese family with one grown child. A nice rationalization I know, but it worked. It was also fun to watch my daughter (who is taller than her mother at this point) try to get under the 1.2 meter stick at the entrance. Again: white with no language skills. Priceless.

The park was amazing. Hopefully the pictures give some sense of it. The lights in the castle were amazing. And the 40 foot bottle of beer brought an instant tear to every man's eye instantly. We spent 4 hours in the park and had a great time. Although Dee just about got thrown out of the pak for elbowing a bunch of chinese folks trying to cut in line. Turns out cutting in line is allowed and probably even encouraged in China. This is true at KFC, the airport, driving, and skiing. If you're dumb enough to leave enough space for them to sqeeze in, shame on you.

After the ice park, we went to the Shangrala ice bar. Pretty cool little restaurant that has everything built out of ice except the floor. Walls, ceiling, chairs, piano, bar, bar stools, ice chest filled with ice. All made out of ice. I could only afford 1 beer and 1 hot chocolate for the family at $6 a drink, but it was totally worth it.

We also went to the tiger park. 200 Siberian tigers all just mulling about waiting for their next meal. Its amazing. And the Chinese aren't so squeamish about making nature look all nice and cozy. They're pretty good capitalists. For only $7, I was able to feed a live chicken (tied to the end of a very long stick) to a group of about 6 tigers. Turns out in the age old battle between Siberian tigers and chickens, the underdog chicken has not fared very well and this day was no different.

Although I have a new respect for the chicken intelligence. There was a dude in front of me who bought the chicken and the chicken squawked like crazy (chicken speak for 'dude, what are you doing. Can't you see there's frickin hungry tigers out here. Pull me the heck back to your side of that fence') And the tigers all pounced on him instantly. So my chicken starts squawking and realizes this squawking thing didn’t work out so great for Joe and he goes completely possum on me. I hang him over the fence and the tigers just stare at him with hungry curiosity. Then one of them does a little test and chomps down on the fellah with his jaws. The chicken went from playing dead to being dead without so much as a peep. Although his little stunt probably bought him about 3 more seconds of life. You gotta cheer the guy for making an effort.

As a side note, as a man you wonder if I lived back in the day when you might run into a tiger on his turf, I probably wouldn't survive, but I would give him a good fight. That whole fight or flight thing would kick in and I would give him a run for his money. I have now seen this animal at work. Now if I ever find myself in this situation, I'll just sit down and let the tiger do his work. They are unbelievably strong. And fast. And big.

So I’m going back next time with more money. $15 gets you a pheasant. $50 gets you a sheep. $100 gets you a goat and for $200 you can send a full on Bull out there to fend for himself (for a little while) Epic.

Audi in the driveway

Small story. Coming home from work yesterday, I got stuck behind a car in our ‘driveway’. (Our apartment complex has a single lane one-way ring road that runs around it). The car was an Audi sedan which means it most likely is an official’s car. (officials are allowed a $55k allowance for cars. Concidentally the Audi is priced at $54.9. That's not a joke and you see quite a few Audis around) The driver of the Audi parked in front of his apartment and started unpacking luggage. This is not uncommon to happen for a short bit, but he decided he was going to take his time helping his 25 year old son. He got everything out of the car, helped his son carry it to the apartment, slowly walked back to his car . . . so there is a lineup of 20 cars waiting for him and they are all honking away. The son seems to be a bit embarrassed as he waves apologetically to the waiting cars. The driver, completely oblivious to the crowd of cars, meanders about making sure he hasn't forgotten anything. The message was pretty clear: I’m important. You are not. You can wait until I am ready to move my car which I will do in my own sweet time. It just felt like somebody was missing a little accountability in their life.

FJC Chinese New Year party.

So the Chinese have a different calendar so their new year starts at a different time each year compared to the western calendar. This year the New Year began on February 3. It is now officially the year of the rabbit. Not sure what that means, but it’s very important.

So being a new year, JCI needed to get all 3000 employees together and celebrate the passing of 2010 (the year of the tiger by the way). The best way to do this is to go to an auditorium on Sunday morning and have a pep rally. I couldn’t talk my wife into going with me (I know, hard to believe) so I had to hit it solo. The event started with me getting whisked into a back room when I arrived at the stadium. The attendant didn’t know me so I’m not sure how she knew I was a VIP and needed to be sequestered. I have some suspicions of racial profiling as I think she was treating me differently based on the color of my skin.

After my 15 minutes in the VIP room with the other 4 white people at the event and the Chinese leadership, I got escorted to my seat in the auditorium. I don’t know when I’m going to stop being surprised by the Chinese parties, but it hasn’t happened yet. First the sound system was cranked up to about 110 decibels. I plugged my ears for the first 5 minutes waiting for someone to realize that making the video voice over sound like a jet engine and making everyone’s ear drum’s bleed was not in anyone’s best interest. That moment never came. I unplugged my ears and just let them bleed.

So as you can imagine there was singing and dancing and lip syncing. There was a great musical collage that included a rendition of MJ’s ‘beat it’ including the little wrist waving and hip thrusting that should be a part of every New Year’s work party. There was also the salsa dancing, break dancing, and robot dancing. As a side note, it turns out that almost all Chinese folks are bad dancers. (Pot calling the kettle black of course, but I’m still allowed to make observations) Everyone on stage looks like they are following a set of rules and trying to make sure they are in line with everyone else (which they are not). This leads to a very mechanical looking dance with ‘hand on hip, now extend forward, kick hip to side, now turn, next . . .’

So it goes for 2 hours and my senses are completely overloaded and my nerves are frazzled. There were some good and bad performances but the whole thing had a real rah rah pep rally feel to it which made for a great ending with the choir singing the company song (I didn’t know we had a company song) and the confetti cannons firing away. The best part for me was on the way out. I realized that I am always evaluating Chinese culture and these odd little events from an American perspective (which leads me to the conclusion that everything in China is very odd). The German who was sitting next to me at the event was evaluating it from a German perspective. He was perfectly ok with the odd performances and the deafening noise levels. He just couldn’t understand all the rah rah. ‘If we ever tried to have an event like this in Germany, the whole world would think WWIII was going to start next week’. Yeah, I guess the Germans aren’t allowed to beat their chests and run around on stage with German flags talking about how great they are. I guess we all have our cultural baggage.

New years eve at the German restaurant/fireworks display

So the Chinese invented the firework thing right. And they only really have one national holiday to cover Christmas, thanksgiving, 4th of July, veterans day, memorial day, MLK day . . . You get the idea. So when they celebrate the new year, they don’t really consider pacing themselves.

Dee and I went out to dinner with the kids at a German restaurant where the expats were celebrating the new year in one of the few restaurants that were open during the holiday. After dinner we enjoyed a nice cup of coffee outside in -25 degree weather to watch the Germans light off some fireworks. They did a nice job for Germans.

Then we went home and watched the fireworks from our apartment (18th floor). We spent two hours just going from window to window amazed at how an entire city skyline could be lit up in 360 degrees around the apartment for 2 hours straight. It was literally non-stop noise and lights. We took some pictures, but they were all horrible. In order to appreciate it, I think you just need to be here. So next year whenever Chinese new year is, folks are welcome to come stay for the night and watch a city try to blow itself up.


Other:
So the last thing you want to hear your son say when he walks out of your bathroom is 'boy did I have quite the pee shiver'. At that point you are only left to wonder how far up the walls the mess is . . .

videos of thailand

other thailand pics/videos

Thailand-more of a diary entry than blog post. . .

Personal diary:

1 week in Bangkok:
-Spent some great time with the Boehms. Good to see other people with 4 kids in an Asian country.

-Day at a water park. Turns out water slides without any concern for safety in the design and no lifeguards watching over the madness can get pretty hairy. Sliding down a straight shot with the little waves turns into an adventure when you are going so fast that you get airborne and just about jump tracks into the next lane. It also turns out this can hurt a little bit. (Side note for all the middle school boys reading this blog: People going really fast when they slide into the water don’t always have all their swimwear in the right places when they come out of the water. Dee could tell you all about that). They also had the tube water ride where you slide down the big cylinder on inner tubes through twists and turns. Now take away the inner tubes. You have everybody running and jumping into the cylinder head first, upside down, etc. . . . You get the idea. Lunacy. My shoulder blades were sore for a week.

-Day at the Rose garden. Good day enjoying Thai culture. Bamboo dancing, rice grinding, flower pedal bouquet making, sword fighting, pottery spinning, hand fan painting, coconut grinding, snake wearing, fish feeding, pad Thai eating, and banana leaf fish weaving.

-2 days at Buddhist temples. The Thai people are crazy about their Buddha idols. Big ones, small ones, gold ones, emerald ones, black ones. You get the picture. Buddhas everywhere. My mom just wanted a nativity scene. Turns out those are tougher to come by in Thailand. Thought about stealing it from the hotel (only one we saw), but thought that defeated the whole idea of the nativity.

-Bangkok transportation: Water taxi. Tuk Tuk . Train, taxi, and lots of walking. Death never seemed too far away. . . 6 people riding in the back of a 3 wheel scooter is a bit dangerous on the streets of Bangkok. We got all 3 wheels off the ground at different times in our 15 minute trip. The water taxi was brilliant. I wish GR had one of these. I would take it from GR to Holland every day.

-Bangkok malls: Lots of square feet. Lots of stores, lots of eateries, and tons and tons of people. They just got their first Crispy Crème 6 months ago. There was a line 50 deep out the door. They looked like mice working their way through the line to get their cocaine drip. Much the same as my kids standing in line at McDonalds to get their Oreo mcflurry. Also ate Christmas dinner at the outback in this mall. Not real Christmassy, but after being in china for 6 months, nothing said merry Christmas better than a quality blooming onion. We spent a weeks’ salary on that meal, but it was oh so tasty.

-Saw Monitor lizards in the park. One of them got its jaws around a chicken bone laying in the gutter. It swallowed that thing whole. It was impressive to watch. We saw another one stalking a water snake on the shore of the pond, but it was too late for us to see a super sweet monitor attack.

-lost my cell phone in a taxi. (Had to pay the $100 stupid tax in order to get a new phone back in Changchun)

-Went to church twice. Great services. Of course we met people from Calvin at the service who were just visiting. They had just walked through my cousin’s house in GR because they were thinking about buying it. The world is a small place.

-The Prince Palace hotel. All can you eat breakfast every morning with western food. We devoured that stuff. Caleb set the record with 15 pieces of French toast one morning, but I probably set the hotel record of eating 5000 calories in one sitting. They had cornflakes with real milk and real sugar. Croissants. Fried eggs. Boiled eggs. . . Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Phuket
-Ghetto hotel. We saved money on our hotel so we could blow it on adventure stuff. But the hotel came with two rooms and access to a pool. Turns out access to a pool is the equivalent of saying someone has access to a movie theater. You can get there, but you can’t afford the cost of entry. We had access to a pool for only $60 a day. That was how much we spent on the entire room.

-Swimming in the ocean. It’s hard to complain when its 85 degrees outside and the water temperature is 70. We spent a lot of time floating in the waves.

-Hiking to the big Buddha. Phuket has a 50 meter tall Buddha on the top of a little mountain. We thought we would hike there even though all the locals said you couldn’t. We ended up finding a road (thanks to Jonathan) that led to a path that led to a trail that led to the big Buddha. It ended up being an 8 hour hike to see something no one really wanted to see and we were never sure if we would actually find a way there, but it was a great time. On the way back to our hotel, we hiked through the Hilton on phuket. Turns out this is where the other half stay at 400 clams a night. I tried to convince Dee that they would never notice if we swam in one of their 3 pools, but she thought it would be a bad idea to teach our kids how to break rules instead of letting them discover that joy all on their own. Not sure I agree with her on that one, but she won the argument.

-Canoe riding around remote islands. Limestone islands eroded with time causing large lagoon ponds in the middle of the island accessible by little caves formed by erosion. Pretty cool.

-Snuba diving. Like scuba diving but without the 3 day PADI training. The O2 tank sits on a little raft and you get 25 feet of air hose to run with. Only Nathan and Emily did it while the rest of us went snorkeling. Nathan took to it like a fish in water. If given the chance, he would still be out there. He might have found his future career. Spent the afternoon at a beautiful beach and more snorkeling (saw some crazy sea creatures, but nothing that would bite us)

-New Years eve. What happens when a bunch of loaded Eastern European tourists show up in Thailand with a ton of disposable income and the local population is selling skidloads of fireworks for almost nothing? You get NewYears eve 2010 for the stouts. Now I’ve never been in a war, but jiminy. It got so loud that Dee and I thought we should check it out in the streets. Not sure how wise this was. Every tom dick and harry (or Petr, ivan, and demtri) were lighting off bricks of whatever in the middle of our very narrow alley. We mostly spent our 15 minutes outside trying not to die. At one point, we decided that we should check on the kids so ‘we’ ran back into the hotel. I had to say ‘we’ because my wife decided to bravely hide in little alcove while her husband ran through the street dodging mortars and land mines. She decided it would be safer to stay put (and let our children suffer alone. . .) The worst part is I have been told that Chinese new year (first week of feb) is waaay crazier. Hard to imagine.

-Ate dinner at a different restaurant every day and never left our little alley where our hotel was. Thai, Indian, Italian, and Mexican. They were all pretty tasty.

-Rode on a couple elephants. Emily and Nathan got to ride on the heads and ‘drive’ the elephants. Pretty cool. Those suckers are just big and they can pee a river when they gotta go.

-Went to the aquarium. Saw some cool fish inside. Then walked the boardwalk and saw some cool fish in the water. The turtle hatchery was pretty sweet.

-For dessert, there was a guy on the corner who sold fresh fruit shakes and banana pancakes (crepe fried on a hot plate with about a cup of butter. Bananas put in the middle and then folded up and grilled on both sides. After it’s off the grill, it is smeared with Nutella. Not so healthy, but yummy enough for us to have several. Every day.)

-Thai message. Dee and I got a message at our hotel in Bangkok by the pool and we thought we should get one more on our last night in Phuket. This was an important life lesson for Jeff. If you’re getting a Thai message at $7 for an hour and a woman who looks like she used to be a man takes you upstairs and asks you to take your skivvies off, you might want to just consider the $7 a loss and get out of there. Me, I kept my skivvies on, but I was going to get my $7 Thai message even if she/he was going to work me over in the process. The Dutch blood runs thick in my veins.

-Flight back to Changchun. Left the hotel at 11 pm. Got to the airport at 12. Got on the plane at 2 am. Arrived back at our house at 1 pm. We were all pretty ornery and tired by the time we got home, but bed never felt so good (after our ‘king’ size bed in phuket turned out to be 2 twins pushed together which forced one of us to ‘sleep in the crack’ every night)

The end.