China 3 - In the north

Tuesday, July 11

Today, Tuesday, I finally have a free day.

It has been a non-stop whirlwind of activity since coming here; not at all what I expected. 

What I expected was that I would be spending a fair bit of time in the hotel, reading, swimming, sending emails home, and housecleaning my computer files while Bert is at work. But the reality is, I haven’t had enough time!

After the Karaoke Fiasco I got this clarification from my daughter Lisa:

Mom, those were hostesses.... It's really common in Asian culture to have a hostess with you at karaoke bars. Hostesses are not hookers! They are there to serve you drinks, have conversations etc. It's a status thing in Asian culture to have a young woman engaged in a conversation with you and be paying attention to you. (I know weird and backwards to how we think because he had to hire them.)It's an Asian thing we westerns don't understand...but I think the status thing would be similar to us having a Butler.

Great, so I insulted my host - the owner of the company Bert works with -  on my first day there.

The next day, Mr. Lai’s wife was supposed to show me a good time while Bert was at work. (Maybe they just wanted to keep me out of the way to avoid another fiasco!) They took me to an ancient city built in the Ming Dynasty where they had unearthed some even more ancient ruins. 

I feel as if I appeared to be a celebrity, because people were staring. No wonder, really. I had quite quite an entourage:  There was our driver, me, Mrs. Lai, her 70-year-old father, her nephew 'Mark' acting as translator and also her 19-yr-old son 'Eric' who can also speak English, and their other son, a scowling pimple-faced 14-yr old who clearly didn't want to be there. It was very hot, and Mark held an umbrella over me to shade my lily-white skin as we walked along the ancient brick road through the town. People sat in the shade in front of their little stores and homes, fanning themselves in the heat, and staring at the procession.

 

There's a large museum there describing the area and displaying many artifacts. It was well-known for making beautiful pottery thousands of years ago.

An ancient oven used for making pottery

A scale model of the ancient city.

As we walked through the ruins of the ancient village, the driver, who was handling 3 phones, announced it was lunch time, so we followed him to a shabby-looking little place that was ready for us – this had been arranged ahead apparently - and we enjoyed lunch at another large round table with a Lazy Susan. It was very hot and humid, and the server brought out tall glasses of HOT water to drink. I mentioned to the translator that we only drink cold water on hot days.  I was informed "CODE" water not good fo you!
The pimple-faced boy sat opposite me at the table. I don't understand their words but I do understand the body language of a scowling 14 year old boy who had to come along with his  and older brother mom to entertain a foreigner.

We enjoyed soup, chicken, beef, fish, pork, sweet potato, and some vegetables I didn't recognize. 

The meat was not de-boned, simply hacked into small pieces and cooked, skin, bones, gristle and all. I am not adept enough with chopsticks to both hold the bone and nibble the meat off it.  Furthermore, I am not  t all educated about proper Chinese etiquette in what one does with a mouth full of gristle and bone. Every time I looked up from my bowl, Pimpleface was staring at me looking somewhat amused and texting, likely reporting to his friends about this woman fumbling with her chopsticks and dropping things.

I had to use the toilet after the meal. Several people came out of their hiding places  in the back of the restaurant to have a peek at this lily-white stranger being escorted to the restroom.It was a floor toilet of course, with a plastic shower curtain for privacy. I dropped some gristle and bone down the hole, and wished there was some toilet paper.

Next we went to an ancient Tao temple. We wandered through the buildings and took pictures, even while people chanted in an incense-filled room, bowed down before a gold statue.

Our final stop was at an Ecological Park, where we admired the gardens and water gardens, and climbed up to the top of a hill to a beautiful building named “Wisdom Pagoda.”

I commented that if I had any wisdom I would not have worn heeled shoes! I noticed Mrs. Lai was taking off her shoes. Both of us had sore, swollen feet from all the walking. Despite our language barrier, we tried on each other’s shoes, and they were the same size, so we switched shoes for a while to get some relief. I felt like this was a bonding moment - that we able to communicate and share an experience.

When we arrived back at the hotel I was ushered into a back room where there was a huge round table elegantly set for dinner. Bert and Mr. Lai and many others - about twenty of us – sat at this table, and as always, enough food for twice that many. Beer and red wine, toasting and drinking and laughter ensued in the conversations we don’t understand, and plans were made for us to go to the Spa the next day.

So now it’s Friday, and I decided to accompany Bert to the plant, bringing my laptop and a book to read so I would not be in anyone's way.

But I am soon ushered into the executive office for tea.  Mrs. Lai must have been summoned to entertain me again, so we sit and drink tea for a while, unable to communicate. Phone calls are made and then her sons Eric and Pimpleface show up to help out. I was simply hoping to get connected to the internet, so the I.T. guy was summoned. And then Mark the translator. And then Mr. Lai, to check on things. So much for me trying to be unobtrusive! They will work so very hard to make sure I am being well cared for and entertained.

I was surprised to discover at lunch that the entire plant eats together. The company provides  lunch for its workers. I think they also get breakfast and dinner too, but I’m not sure. But they also get accommodations, which makes their meager wages more understandable. The employees eat in a bright, sunny cafeteria. All the management staff – including Mrs. Lai and family – eat  in a private room beside the cafeteria at a large - huge - round table with a motorized Lazy Susan.

After lunch, Bert and I get in the  company van (a Mercedes Benz!) with our driver and Mark the translator for the two-hour drive to the spa at beautiful mountain resort.

To be continued...