A Bit of a Hairy Problem

There was an article in today’s paper about a teenager who was having stomach issues, but many people speculated she was just pregnant as her belly was getting quite large. After extensive tests doctors found what they thought was an extreme amount of fiber-like material in her stomach. Apparently, the girl had been eating her own hair for the past 15 years. The giant hairball weighed in at 1.5kg (about 3.5 lbs) upon removal. Doctors don’t know why she was eating her own hair, but it sure does beat eating duck tongue or chicken stomach.

The Daily News

We subscribe to the local English newspaper here in Shanghai. Despite being filtered, it provides the basic going ons around China and the world. However, after being here a year now we’ve noticed one very significant difference in the paper service here versus the U.S. (in addition to the ads for “Happy Ending Massages”) … collections.

Just like in the U.S. you prepay for a given subscription length - 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. However, not like in the U.S., when your subscription runs out … no more paper. No pre-warning, no friendly note from the delivery man, no pre-emptive phone call … no more paper. This is bad in that it takes at least a week and 3 phone calls to the “sales office,” which apparently only has sales people that speak Chinese (funny, for an English newspaper), before the paper gets delivered again.

However, this can be a good thing because you can actually stop the paper service whenever your subscription runs out. This is certainly better than the U.S. where you can decide you don’t what the paper anymore yet it still gets delivered for the next three years … at which point you receive a bill for $7,000.

A Taxi Ride with Added Benefits

We have posted before that taxis are cheap – here in Shanghai you can go across town for less than $10. However, this week Scott was in Hefei which is located in Anhui Province. He took a 45 minute cab ride from the airport to his hotel. This journey set him back a whopping $3.

$3 for a cab ride – what a steal!!! It’s even better when you consider that the cab had no air conditioning so he got a free blow dry whizzing down the highway with the windows down. If this wasn’t enough, the driver was apparently offering his “Tuesday Special” as he threw in a complimentary case of whiplash on the 25 kilometer journey.

What goes up ...

One of the peculiar things about Shanghai is that often the direction of escalators is switched. We don’t know the particular reason but after several weeks of running in a certain direction, the “up” escalator is changed to where it runs “down” and vice versa.

As you can imagine, this can cause some confusion if one is not paying attention when walking on an escalator that he or she uses fairly regularly. In the building next door to Scott’s office, there is a Starbucks located on the second floor. He will occasionally walk to get a cup of coffee in the mornings. Last week, while on the phone, he headed to the escalator on the “right” because that is where the “up” escalator had been the last time he had been there. Little did he know the “switcheroo” had been conducted since his last visit.

Now, as you can imagine in the lobby of an office building next door to the Shanghai Stock Exchange in a city with 25 million people, there is quite a bit of action at 9am. As Scott took two clumsy missteps up the “down” escalator at least 25 people (especially those riding down) wondered shockingly with their co-workers “What’s wrong with this moron? Don’t they know in America that it’s a helluva lot easier to use the stairs that are moving upward? And wow look at that – you ever seen somebody’s face turn redder than the Chinese flag?”

Ahhh … the ups and downs of China!

This translation was right on

Often we read English translations that are really not accurate or descriptive – particularly when it comes to Chinese foods. The ever-so-helpful “Chicken in Sauce” or “Beef with Grains” doesn’t really help in figuring out the dining options.

The other morning Scott was in a small city in China and went downstairs for breakfast. He quickly noticed that it was not a Chinese/Western Buffet Breakfast as is typical, but rather, a Chinese-only setup. He began opening the lids of the various dishes in order to survey his options. He came upon one dish that was titled “Closest to Flesh and Blood.”

This little treasure looked like skewered meat, but Scott couldn’t really understand the title. He started running through the options in his head, “What is close to flesh and blood, but not in fact … flesh … or … blood? Maybe it’s tendons, or ligaments, or cartilage, or bone? It could be knuckles or joints I guess?” Ultimately he decided that it had to just be meat with a funny name. WRONG … after taking a mouthful of the not-so-delicious sustenance he deduced the skewered items were some random, chewy combination of tendons, ligaments, cartilage, bone, knuckles, AND joints. He then made the bold conclusion there has never been a more accurate translation of a Chinese delicacy.

Salutations

One of the more beneficial aspects of our international assignment has been the exposure to people from all over the world. The ex-patriot community is largely comprised of Europeans in addition to Americans so we are learning about many different cultures and customs.

One of the more curious discoveries we have come across has been how different people close an e-mail before typing their name. In the U.S., typically we Americans stick to “Thanks”, “Thank You”, “Regards”, or maybe even “Kind Regards.”

However, we’ve noticed the Europeans tend to mix it up a bit. It’s not uncommon to get a “Cheers” or maybe even a “Mit freundlichen Grüßen,” but our personal favorite has to be “I Remain.” We really can’t figure it out though. “Thanks” … we get. “Regards” … it makes sense. “I Remain?” Maybe the writer is just trying to get the point across that he or she is still alive, or is just trying to say “In case you thought I was considering changing my name, I didn’t.”

In any event it’s been another of the interesting curiosities as we become more “worldly.”

We Remain,
The Richardsons

This stuff is riveting

The other day while traveling on business, Scott heard a very curious recorded announcement while at the Shanghai Airport.

“Attention passengers, please pay attention to the time printed on your boarding pass. Even while watching the Olympics on the airport television you must arrive at the gate on time in order to board your plane.”

As fabulous as coed, one-armed, blind-folded badminton is, we really can't see missing our flight for it, but to each his own we suppose.

Nothing Like a 3 Year Old Translator

As we have stated before, the speed at which Lillie has grasped English has been incredible. However, she refused to speak Chinese with us at home. We knew she still was speaking Chinese with our driver and housekeeper, but we were unclear as to how much she was retaining. With Annie in the states, Scott has figured out her retention is just fine.

Our housekeeper has been watching Lillie while Scott is at work. It has worked out well so far despite Xue Feng’s lack of English capability. For the most part Scott can fake enough Chinese to figure out what’s going on and communicate with her. However there are times at which he has no clue. Last week, one morning when he was leaving she told him something that left him clueless. Sensing the blank stare on Scott’s face, Lillie stepped in. “She says I need a bath and that she will do it before you get home tonight.”

Now if she could just bargain for purses in the market ... we'd be all set.

The next Willard Scott?

Annie and Juliet are currently back home in Texas for a few weeks enjoying Tex-Mex food and the ability to drink tap water before another school year begins. Thus, Scott and Lillie are holding down the fort alone together in Shanghai. As you can imagine, he is having some very interesting conversations during his "one on one" time with her. One such moment occurred yesterday and today.

Last night about 7pm they were walking over to a friend's house for dinner when the following conversation occurred:

Scott: "It sure looks like rain with the sky really dark and all that thunder."
Lillie: "It's not going to rain today, but it is going to rain tomorrow."
Scott: "It might rain tomorrow, but I really think it will rain while we're eating tonight also."
Lillie: "No!!! - it is going to rain tomorrow ... not today!!!"

About 10pm they were walking home on dry ground:

Scott: "Well it hasn't rained yet but I think it still might rain tonight."
Lillie (vehemently): "It is not going to rain today ... it is going to rain tomorrow!!!"

Fast forward to this afternoon at 4pm. When Scott exited a meeting, he looked out his office window to see it raining so hard he couldn't see more than about 100 yards outside. We're not so sure her sudden acquisition of ESP is ready for Vegas or a career in palm reading, but at least we'll know when to take an umbrella with us.

Where's the Camera?

Tonight we had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. This is a normal stop on our rotation and we typically hit CPK every couple of weeks. We were having an early dinner (a little before 5pm) so the restaurant was quite empty with only about 4-5 tables filled. We were about halfway through our meal when a few guys wearing "USA Basketball" shirts walked in. They were kind of looking around deciding where to sit and walked over to us. One of them said "I am so sorry but your nice quiet dinner is about to be interrupted."

At that moment, LeBron James led the majority of the USA men's basketball team into CPK. Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Darren Williams and Dominique Wilkins all followed him in to enjoy a nice "American" meal.

We couldn't figure out why they didn't stop down for some local fare as we assume pig's feet, duck tongue, etc would be good protein boosters prior to the Olympiad, but their loss was our gain as we got to dine right next to this year's "Dream Team" and their traveling party (coaches, trainers, etc).

Little did we know that about one year ago to the day that we were swiping sugar packets to take home to put on our Cheerios, that in that very spot Kobe Bryant would thank us for wishing them good luck and we'd get to hear LeBron James look at our kids and say "how are you all doing tonight?"

Summer Camp

One of the best parts of being a kid in the summertime is the ability to attend "summer camp." Summer camps come in all shapes and size - sports camp, scout camp, arts and crafts camp, etc, etc. So you may ask, where does a six year old, soon-to-be first grader go to camp when he/she lives in Shanghai, China? Yep, that's right ... Chinese Camp.

Juliet just finished three weeks of daily Chinese Camp. For 6.5 hours everyday she attended a camp with native English and native Chinese speaking kids ranging in age from 6-10. For the first three hours of the day they learned Mandarin (with the teacher only speaking in Chinese). In the afternoon they did Chinese arts and crafts and learned about Chinese culture.

Some may call us cruel parents for taking the f out of fun for her summer, but she loved it. Despite the fact she may not be able to kick a soccer ball, spout the girl scout's pledge, or roast marshmellows by the fire when she moves back to America ... we suspect she'll be the only kid on the block that can write the numbers one through ten in Chinese characters.

Return to Blogging

Sorry for the delay in our lack of posting ... there is really no excuse for it ... unless you count the fact we have another child from an orphanage staying with us for the summer. "Bing" or as Lillie calls her "The Bing" is a three month old little girl who was born with spina bifeda. She has come along way and is recovering well.

We have been looking for the right way to break back into blogging and the compound's newsletter came today and we thought this was very appropriate. The following was in a section titled "Area Moral Initiative" (no these are not typos):

"A litter less bickering, a litter more neighbors hello;
A litter less selfish, a litter more mutuel assistance;
A litter less height throuing, a litter more care;
A litter less dispose of pet's poo everythere, a litter more civilization walk;
A litter less illegal structures, a litter more quiet decoration;
A litter less parking barbaric, a litter more humility driving;
A litter less vulgar life, a litter more flowers mood;
A litter less social, a litter more harmonious joy."

A Warm Welcome

Scott was on a business trip the last few days, and had a very long day today. It started off with meetings in the morning, followed by lunch of something "interesting" in a chemical plant canteen. Then an hour drive to the airport to catch his flight home. After boarding on time, the announcement came over the intercom that the flight was delayed due to "air traffic control" ... which typically means something is seriously wrong with the plane that you're about to embark to 35,000 feet on.

However, after a 45 minute delay with the benefit of no air conditioning and more flies buzzing around on an airplane than Scott cares to remember (who knew flies have no problems mating right in front of humans ... you'd think they want some privacy), the flight departed for Shanghai.

After landing and retrieving his bag, Scott phone Mr. Chen who informed him he was stuck in traffic 45 minutes away. So off to the cab line, which was 150 people deep and took 35 minutes to wait in ... outside in 100% humidity.

When Scott arrived home, the first thing he did was embrace his kids and told them how much he missed and loved them, and how good it was to be home. After setting Juliet back on the ground and expecting her to respond to his terms of endearment, she turned to Annie and remarked, "Daddy smells like China!"

Welcome Home, Dad!

Big Milestone

Juliet lost her first tooth over the weekend - a huge milestone in her six years of existence. After loosening the tooth for the past 4 weeks it finally fell out with no blood or pain whatsoever - much to her excitement.

The most exciting part of this little development is that the tooth fairy was able to find us here in Shanghai - rewarding our little darling with 100 RMB ($14) - proving that the tooth fairy did REALLY well during the internet boom as it's a far cry from the $0.50 per tooth we got back in the 80s.

Bite Free Plus Fresh Breath

We have had a bit of a mosquito problem lately - the blood suckers are back ... with a vengence. After having received 5 bites on her face overnight, Annie decided today to take action. She had been told that if you spray Listerine around your doors and windows the mosquitoes will stay away (apparently they are opposed to clean breath).


So tonight Annie sprayed all the doors and air in the office of our house with Listerine. Now Listerine has a very distinct taste and odor and Scott and Annie both were a bit overwhelmed by the intense "fragrance" that was penetrating our nostrils. At that moment Lillie walked into the room and in a very deep voice remarked "mama, this smells GOOOOD!"

Scott quickly remarked, "Honey, flowers smell good ... fresh-baked cookies smell good ... mommy smells good ... our office smells like a donkey vomitted up a barrel of vinegar."

A Few Roses for a Special Occasion

Today Anne and Scott turn 9. That's right we have been hitched now for nine years.

In honor of our anniversary, Scott wanted to order Annie some flowers. He asked an administrative assistant if she could call and order some flowers (since he knew the english proficiency of the florist was probably not college level). He gave her the following instructions.

I would like red roses delivered
I have been married 9 years
It doesn't matter what the flowers cost
I want the card to say Happy Anniversary in Chinese

So his colleague took the instructions and ordered 99 red roses. There were so many roses that Annie had to put them in a trash can with water because she didn't have a vase big enough.

Here is a pic of the massive order of flowers:

A Different Kind of Forgotten Toiletry

As we have communicated, Scott travels a lot in China. Many of the places he goes require a 3+ hour car trip after flying to the nearest airport. He gets to see things that are a far cry from the bustling metropolis of Shanghai. Who knew mules were still a form of transportation?

One of the most curious learnings from his journeys relates to the toiletries in the hotel bathrooms. For starters, every hotel room (from 1 star to 5 star places) has complimentary toothbrushes, razors, vanity kits, shower caps, etc. It’s not like walking down to the reception desk at the Days Inn in Kalamazoo to score a razor, only to find a surly 19 year old who charges you $37.50 for a razor with a cutting capability inferior to that of a piece of paper.

However, in addition to the complimentary toiletries, there are additional items available for sale – the proverbial “mini-bar for the bathroom” as we’ve written before. A few weeks ago, while staying in a 4 star hotel, Scott noticed a colorful box on the counter. He didn’t pay any attention to it until he was cleaning up to check out. What looked like a small box of office supplies turned out to in fact be a box of condoms – which could be yours for the low price of 20 RMB (about $3).

This discovery, however, paled in comparison to the find from last month. Scott found a package of his and hers underwear for sale in his room. The sensual underpants were part of the “Romantic Journey” collection. Now, how you’re supposed to have a “romantic journey” in a room that reeks of cigarette smoke and has two twin beds is a bit of a head-scratcher, but probably well worth the 40 RMB to take your mind off the shower mold.

Guests

Scott and the kids (Annie doesn't arrive back home until Monday) rolled out the red carpet this weekend for our friends, Paul and Melisa. They arrived on Thursday and have been experiencing Shanghai for several days.

Paul and his willing bride have been on a quest to try a plethora of exotic foods. Though Paul was devastated to find one restaurant was out of Poached Stewed Yak, we still have been able to give them a "taste of the east."

Here are some pics from Scott, Paul, and Melisa's trip to eat Hot Pot:

Paul's Spicy Hunan pot of assorted mushrooms and fatty mutton. You can see the raw cuisine in the background waiting to be stewed:



Here is the plate of fresh shrimp. When we say "fresh" we mean it. A couple of these poor fellas didn't immediately perish upon being skewed and were still trying to squirm free when they arrived at the table:



Scott trying to "de-head" the shrimp with his chopsticks while the steaming broth wafts through the air:



An excited Paul about to throw down some pig intestine:

Jackson Fever

One of the very popular U.S. singers here in China is Michael Jackson. Everywhere you go you hear the Moonwalker's greatest hits playing incessantly. The grocery store, the mall, and most restaurants have MJ's 20 greatest songs on CD. There's nothing like a little "Thriller" or "Bad" to take you straight back to 1984, but this week Scott noticed a downside to this little fact.

As he was riding in the car over the weekend, he noticed Juliet was singing under her breath, "Billie Jean is not my lover, she's just the girl that says that I am one ... but the kid is not my son." And who thinks the music of "today" is corrupting our children?

Going Ons

Our sincere apologies for our lack of updates recently. Here are some of the highlights from the last 3 weeks...

1. Annie's parents came to visit us in late April/early May. They hit Beijing and Xian in addition to their time with us in Shanghai and deemed the trip a success, despite not making a return visit to the Shanghai Hooters (Christmas Day 2007 will certainly go down in family lore).

2. The earthquake that rocked western China almost two weeks ago did not impact us directly. In Shanghai it could only be felt in high-rise buildings. Scott was traveling so did not have to evacuate with the rest of his co-workers.

3. Annie returned to Dallas a week ago for surgery. She is recovering now and will return home to China in another week. She has been up and around the last few days and is feeling better despite being very sore. Having the primary care giver for the children 6,000 miles away has made life in Shanghai a bit more chaotic than normal, but Scott and the ladies apparently are surviving.

4. One of the other key highlights of note happened today when our replacement 5 gallon bottle of water was delivered to the house by one of the compound security guards. Scott never thought in his wildest dreams he'd come across a 5'4", 95 pound man named "Hunk," but in Shanghai ... anything is possible.

Shanghai or the Addams Family?

The street where Scott turns into his office has several small shops that sell various things - there's a convenience store, a noodle hut, etc. He passes this strip every single day, but today is the first day he noticed that one of stores has its name in English in very small print below the Chinese characters. As good as it must be, Scott does not see himself walking over for a lunch of "Delicious Gruel" anytime soon.

Fashionable…or not so much?

One of the real curious fashion differences between Shanghai and Dallas is the way men here carry their cash, credit cards, and personal belongings. Instead of opting for the very popular “wallet” they instead opt for a very large over-the- shoulder attaché.

It’s not just ultra-hip, metrosexual, 20-something men who look like they just stepped out of the J Crew catalog – it’s everyone. When you get on an airplane, every aisle has at least two of these bags hanging from the seat in from of them. Mr. Chen (our driver) even has one. We never imagined we’d say this, but the “man purse” is alive and well here in China!

Pronoun Problems

In Mandarin there is really no pronoun for “he” and “she.” “Ta” refers to both he and she and does not distinguish between male and female. At first, it was difficult to understand a native Mandarin speaker speaking English because they use “he” for everyone. After a while however, we just got used to the fact that “he” can be male or female in China.

The issue is that Lillie, while having learned English very quickly, still doesn’t have her pronouns down worth a darn. In fact, to her, everyone isn’t “he,” but instead, “she” or “her” – including Scott. Usually, he has no problem with this, but last weekend he did take offense when she said to Annie as he emerged from the bathroom, “Mommy, she go potty like a big girl!”

Precarious Perch

As we were driving down the road the other day, we glanced up and saw a man fixing a window air conditioner on about the 25th floor of an apartment building. The window unit was very similar to the window units in the U.S. and appeared to be held in place by the window sitting on top of it (just like the U.S.). However, unlike the U.S. where OSHA would require one to use a ladder or some sort of elaborate harness system to prevent serious maiming, this man was just sitting on the air conditioner bending down at the waste to fix the side. The only thing preventing this man from plunging to certain death was a five pound window and the lip of a window air conditioner … and we thought Fear Factor was dangerous?!?!

Faux-pas

Last week, Scott was pulled aside by a Chinese colleague after a meeting with a customer. He was told that he was doing a great job learning the Chinese culture and etiquette, but there was a slight problem. It seems that Scott wasn’t making a loud enough noise when eating soup and noodles – basically he wasn’t “slurping” loud enough. His colleague remarked, “The customer will think you didn’t like the food!”

Taking this to heart and deciding to fully embrace the culture, at lunch the next day Scott let out a small belch in the middle of the meal. Three people looked up from their food immediately and then nodded happily at his show of appreciation!