June 6th – 20th 2016: Part 1
My First Experiences:
I have been encouraged to throw a few lines together about my trip to China. Yes it was only a fortnight’s holiday visit to see Thomas, Xinxin, and my new grandson Xiaou Yu, not a wilderness trek. But into the unknown for me it was yes, from my arrival to find Thomas not at the airport to meet me. (Well technically,) because if I’d waited another ½ an hour I might have given him a chance and he would have been! You know what it’s like when the plane is quite early, and it’s straight through customs with no hold ups and there is possibly the expectation of otherwise!
I shouldn’t mention the taxi ride to the hotel (a 20 min drive, 15 min further than my expectations of a hotel ‘close’ to the airport would be) didn’t look like a hotel to me, like the back of the Fortitude Valley (China Town) shops with far more neon. Of course I shouldn’t complain, nor about being overcharged 150 Yuan (only about $30) all part and parcel of being a foreign tourist! Thomas had left for the airport 15min beforehand!
And before I move on from my first experiences in China, the walk to the Metro the following morning (not on my own) was a revelation in traffic management. It was of course all passé to Thomas, but walking over a very busy 2 lane bridge carrying one’s bags, ‘with’ the traffic; to be fair to the side of mostly, but then in amidst, yes yes no footpath I know I know.
Onward To Lu’an:
That apart the Metro in Shanghai (and elsewhere that I saw) is really great, and very cheap, 2 or 3 Yuan for trips across cities. And I think all of 7 to do the 40min ride to the airport from mid Shanghai (even if it was mostly standing up!) The ticketing, or swipe on swipe off actually works and the carriages are really clean, with trains every 2 minutes or so. Maybe there’s a lack of seating in the Metro trains, with lots of standing room making it a not so comfortable for all. But the signage is good and in English as well, all very clear. Compared to my experience on return to the filthy, grimy, train from Sydney to Newcastle, could hardly bare to seat myself and the announcements totally unintelligible for each station, pity the poor tourist!
Unfortunately we had no time then to view Shanghai and left in the afternoon on one of their fast trains for Lu’an about a 3hr 30min ride. One of my first observations on the main railway stations was that they were huge, and as a foreigner you had to show your passport. Then everyone had to run their luggage through the xray machine (on the Metro as well) before entering. They also have a penchant for sticking large (I mean large) monuments of ‘famous’ generals in the forecourts to the stations. But the fast trains are impressive and I saw on the way that it was reaching the speed of 212 KPH, (on the way back to Shanghai 264). We were only allowed onto the platform just as the train was arriving so I was unable to get any really good photos of the swish new trains as I’d promised Keith I would. My only other observation about the fast train ride was that the cities we passed seemed to extend into one, not without rice paddies and market gardens amongst the high rise. And countryside furred and I’m sure obliterated by the ever present white smog.
Lu’an:
I found it very humid here, but nice and hot and we had good weather overall for all my stay. Though this ever present smog meant living with a very pale washed out blue sky, when it was definitely not overcast, and definitely hard to get used to. I thought it was sad that they never got to see the sun properly, and I didn’t see any stars at night or come to think of it the moon.
But the hotel in Lu’an was lovely. I had a nice room overlooking the front and across to a park. It was on the main road but it was only a 15 min walk to Thomas’. The included (Chinese) breakfast was a great start to the day, only the warm Tang orange drink rather odd but drinkable. And it took over a week to realise that the poached eggs were supposed to go on top of a bowl of noodle soup! I was impressed because it came with hairdryer and tea and coffee and shampoo, the hotel in Sydney I stayed at before flying out had neither! But the business cards pushed under the door each evening with scantily clad girls on were amusing and unnecessary, where were the naked men!
Of course this first week Renee should have been here with us but having had a few delays receiving her visa had to extend her stay in India, down in Kerala. I’m sure it was a pleasant place to spend another week, but without the visa brouhaha it would have been better. Meanwhile back in Lu’an Thomas was nice enough to walk over and pick me up in the mornings at first, but after a couple of days he decided I should be able to walk myself to his place without getting lost, and more importantly without getting run over and it was up to me to fend for myself..
This meant I had to venture out on my own for a few days. Yes I did manage to brave crossing the roads and endured the terror on the pavements and actually got up some confidence before Renee arrived. Somehow someone young does it with more panache, and India was an even better preparation and I suddenly feel rather old!
The park across the road from the hotel was really nice; and the gardens there were a very pleasant place to walk. There were lots of nooks and places to sit and had a lot of large statues and monuments celebrating battles from WW2, and no doubt the revolution.
Generals seem to be a popular subject too, all rather imposing and severe. Later I walked through with Xinxin and Thomas in the evening and all the monuments were lit up. And had a disconcerting experience when we were walking close to the side fence, parked cars running along the roadside outside and high-rise across the road, to have something solid land thwack through the back window of a parked car. I’m sure it was a chunk of concrete from way up off the high rise. It was quite dark, I couldn’t see any arms or legs poking out, I really hope it wasn’t anything like that!
The walk to Thomas’ took me through town and over a bridge to an island. This is circled by the river and where the University campus was, and their residence. When I arrived the river had been drained (a student had jumped into the river and they’d drained it to retrieve the body) so it was a pathetic trickle under the bridge. It was a holiday week then and there should have been dragon boat races on the river. Which would have been fabulous to see but of course with no water it was impossible to hold the usual festivities.
However the University grounds themselves were very nice, tropical with lots of trees and nice parkland to walk round riverside. In fact you should be able to circle the island except they were currently working on building another bridge and part was cordoned off. Although I never actually saw anyone working on it and Thomas said it had been started over a year ago. There are four seat cycles you can hire to peddle round on.
Their unit is in a fairly low rise complex in the Uni grounds, up 3 flights of stairs and with a balcony. They have a nice 2 bedroom flat.
Thomas, Xinxin and Xiaou Yu:
Well seeing Thomas after these few years, and here where he’s living and working was great and such an eye opener. This makes it so much easier for me to relate to now, with the added perk of getting to meet Xinxin and Xiaou Yu. They looked out for me so well and when I arrived Xinxin’s parents had come all the way over to meet us (They live in another city Tongling, so not just from around the corner.)
Renee hadn’t arrived and unfortunately they had to leave before she got there. Which meant I got to enjoy some real home cooked Chinese food, as Xinxin’s Mum did the cooking. Though Xinxin herself went to the trouble of making us an amazing Mango cake, especially as cake is not really something they eat. And perfectly, even though it was the first time she’d made a cake, perfect. I was taken out to eat as well, there was such a lot of choice and sampled some very nice restaurant food; sampled a Chinese cappuccino weird and I got to practice my chopsticks. Actually I should have practiced with chopsticks a lot more before I left home!
Xiaou Yu then was just beginning to roll over, and so accepting and happy to be picked up by perfect strangers like us. He is very loved by all he is a lucky boy, with very attentive parents, and grandparents, aunties too.
He’s a lovely boy, seemed so relaxed and happy and so well. Thomas and Xinxin seemed like the usual tired parents, trying to adjust as best as they could to this enormous change in their lives. Luckily they seem to have a fairly laid back baby, although that may have changed as that was last month!! I was quite intrigued by the culture difference and think there may be a little conflict between east and west over child care. I suppose I was a bit alarmed at the bottomless baby suits, and nappyless babies. But I have come to think that it probably is healthier for babies to have a bare bum, except I’m not sure how you manage in winter! I don’t think they had been out much with the baby either; Thomas said he was a bit worried about kid(baby)nappers. Maybe that sounds a bit paranoid but people are so curious wanting to come and look at Xiaou Yu. Although in my experience this is common phenomena even if they aren’t ‘foreign’. But china isn’t really baby friendly when you’re out and about. And the thought of crossing a road safely with a pram, which is maybe why prams aren’t popular, and babies are carried everywhere. I’m not sure there would be anywhere to breastfeed, I doubt it would be acceptable, and I didn’t notice anywhere you could clean up a small baby.
Toilets:
Thomas tells me that parents let their children go to the toilet anywhere, but if there’s nowhere handy there’s not much choice. I noticed a mother allowing her 2/3 year old to pee inside a supermarket, near the trolley rack! Talking about toilets all the public toilets I saw were squat toilets, which weren’t that bad actually France has really disgusting ones! The only hazard I experienced was the splash coming under the cubicle divider when the next stall flushed! Some toilets had an automatic flush but you couldn’t flush the toilet paper, it all went in a basket by the loo! And nowhere provided toilet paper so you had to carry your own! You can tell this bit was a revelation to me! I took a bit of pleasure in embarrassing Renee (when she finally arrived) with producing this large toilet roll from my handbag when we were out. You need a big handbag.
Renee :
Finally Renee arrived and one thing we managed apart from unsuccessfully trying to find vegetarian food for her and visiting Thomas, was a long walk to a Buddhist Temple which was in the grounds of a nice square and gardens.
I noticed a school group of kindergarten children with their teacher on a day out there, dressed in nice blue and white uniforms. The girls blue skirt had a frill and even though it was hot they wore white tights, and the boys too under their shorts! We also ventured through the markets in the evening. And then after crossing the road to the supermarket (where your fish were purchased live out of fish tanks) earlier in the day Renee and I decided to chicken out and head down the underpass. This was no underpass it led to a row of 5 blocks of shops right under the main road and with access to a large shopping centre next to the hotel, another revelation. Shoppers bliss!
But Chinese don’t do vegetarian apparently, lots of vegetables but everything is with meat!
On the whole everyone we saw was very nicely dressed and fairly conservatively, no miniskirts in Lu’an or bare midriffs! Even though it was summer a lot of young people wore jeans or long trousers and if you were older definitely no bare legs or cleavage, or flabby underarms!! Jolly good idea that! They were all very sun conscious too, a few parasols out and most of the scooter riders (hatted but helmetless) had a kind of large bib that came down over the front of their bikes covering their hands and arms. I even saw one woman on a scooter wearing her jacket backwards so that the sleeves reached over her hands (I know if she wore it the right way it may almost have done too, but it was probably too hot to wear that way! That was my only interpretation!) Scooters were also good for transporting the whole family at once, plus luggage! We also had the experience of being one of the few foreigners there so created a bit of interest. Thomas said that having been there for 5 years he was amazed people still stared. But it wasn’t until Renee arrived and she always had a group of young people following trying to take a photo of her that it became a problem. We were doing some shopping and the shopkeepers made ‘shopping’ quite difficult even though she’d volunteered and had her photo taken with them on their phone. Renee did a lot of posing with strangers! Of course Shanghai was different in that regard, much better at least, not that you weren’t noticed but more foreigners there of course. People were very nice too. The only other thing that struck me was no chewing gum which made for cleaner streets, and while parents may let their kids poop on the footpath there were few dogs to do the same! And why were toy poodles and chows so popular of all the dogs I did see?
I did like Lu’an and it was really nice to see all the groups of middle aged ladies out every evening after work, gathering in small and large groups wherever space would allow to dance to a very Chinese beat music, with moves similar to Tai Chi. Thomas said they were called ‘The Ladies Dancing’ . And I noticed young people were very keen to be out playing badminton .
I guess this is getting to the end of my Lu’an stay; a week and a bit not long enough. But the inevitable had come and it was time for Xinxin to book our train tickets for the following day. Just over a week is not enough time, but I am amazed we fitted in as much as we did.
Next Time: How we missed our train, and the curse of the bag!!
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Luan