SLOW NEWS DAY
12/2: Today started out with more paperwork or rather with us checking the translation of the adoption paperwork. Now how we would we, non-Chinese speakers, check the translation of our documents? Beats me. I could read that the English which was correct but as to whether that was what the Chinese actually said? You got me there. Maybe THEY were writing about the meat floss donuts!
Which gets me to the rest of our day which was a bit of a disappointment. I needed to get to the Hunan Museum and so some of the other families decided to go too. We all discussed also going to an outdoor tea market that we passed on
the way to Shaoyang yesterday. One of our group was nice enough to arrange a bus and a guide to go with us, but that is where it started to fall apart -- for some reason, the Chinese cannot seem to believe that we would like to actually see something of their real life. I am, after all, eating "Five Flavored Fish Flavor" Lay's potato chips as I write this! So, anyway, the first stop of the day turned into a Wal-Mart stop. The only thing that salvaged the Wal-Mart repeat was that Rich bought our guide Marcia a DVD of the "Wizard of Oz" after someone said "there is no place like home" on our way back from Shaoyang yesterday! Marcia had never heard of the movie so we had to remedy that situation!
After Wal-Mart our guide was going to take us for a lunch of . . . pizza to which we all said "BU" or "no." So we then we went to the Hunan Museum, the highlight of which was a 2100 year old mummy -- which was not wrapped in mummy cloth! As part of the mummy exhibit they showed the preserved inner organs of the mummy -- very much like the Field Museum. However, the best part of the exhibit was the preserved melon seeds and the inscription which stated that they found 138 and 1/2 (not 139) muskmelon seeds in the mummy's stomach which revealed that she died soon after eating a melon. I have now sworn off all melons in China. The rest of the museum had some beautiful lacquer, bronze, and ceramic art work.
Then we were off for the highlight of the day -- the tea market! Unfortunately, our guide's idea of a teamarket was a store that was all of the factory stores we had already been to wrapped into one - tea, jade, embroidery and cloissone. What I have not told you about the "factory" stores is that there is about one sales person per customer and if you dare to stop and look at something the salesperson homes in on you and becomes your shadow. You can try as many James Bond moves as you want to lose them, but you cannot do it. Ever. In fact there is still one behind me now.
We are now waiting to check on Eleanor's Chinese passport and then we hope to venture out and see something of the real Changsha. That is unless someone Chinese intercepts us and takes us to the Wal-Mart. Perhaps we will see who are flying the kites outside of our window -- kite flying is quite a common activity in China and they get the kites to incredible heights.
All of the babies are doing well and we are slowly seeing their personalities emerge. Eleanor continues her parent-training and we have learned to do quite a few tricks -- wiping boogies out of her nose has being one of the highlights. The kid is a boogie-factory.
On more thing on thing on life in China: riding in an elevator. As you know we usually get in, push the floor button and wait. Not in China -- first you push the floor button, then as as soon as the door opens on any floor you starting repeatedly pushing the door close button nano-seconds after it opens. Rich no longer thinks I am so impatient. The elevators are also quite small and so add to that no sense of personal space and people cramming in around you (it is a bit like a clown car where people keep pouring out) and smoking. It is a bit of a show to take the elevator.
Let me end with driving -- if you would like to imagine driving in China do this: go to a video arcade, get into a driving game, go as fast as you can, pay no mind to lines in the road, drive as if there are no other vehicles including driving on the wrong side of the road, and then you will have some sense of driving in China. While there are some intersections with stoplights there are no stopsigns and there is just a seeming free flow of traffic. And yet, it seems to work -- we have only seen two accidents which if you saw them drive would seem like a small number to you too! It's Feng Shui driving.
Oh, in case you were wondering -- Rich described the potato chips as tasting like: Chinese food. I would agree.
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