Out with Mr. Hong

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone! Adam and I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving here, partly because we were in two different cities and partly because even if they did sell turkeys at the grocery store (which they don't), we don't have an oven to cook a turkey in anyways. But I did learn that the word for turkey is "huoji" which literally means "fire chicken".


Tonight we went out with Mr. Hong, the project manager for the BMW localization, and Michael, a laboratory manager from the UK who is just here for a couple of weeks. Mr. Hong is the same age as Adam and he's very nice and funny. He wanted to take us to have REAL Huainan food but he told us not to tell the company because they would be mad at him for not taking us to a nicer place. Adam had told him we really liked the beef soup we had at this one place back in July, so Mr. Hong said he would take us to the place with the best beef soup in Huainan. Adam tried to get him to bring his girlfriend but Mr. Hong said she would be too shy. But apparently he's trying to marry this one. :)


Anyways, the "restaurant" was this little hole in the wall place. There are a ton of these places and without a Chinese guide, I would definitely have passed this one up thinking it was scary. But the beef soup was very good. I think the bread at the other place was better, though. After that we started walking to where Mr. Hong told us we needed to try some "milk tea". Tea with milk in it??? I wasn't excited about that but I'm all for walking around. When we got there, he ordered us chocolate flavored ones which I figured would taste the most normal. It wasn't bad, but there were these little gummy things floating around in the bottom called "glue balls". That's probably not a very good translation. They were flavorless but I didn't like them being in there so I tried to avoid them. Here's a picture:

I wish they had been chocolate chips

While we were there, Mr. Hong's girlfriend called and said she was going to meet us there. Surprise surprise! He's a short guy and so he said he was nervous that she might be taller than him. It was at this point that he confessed that this was the first time he was going to see her in person. We were like "What?! You haven't met her yet?" And then he told us how he "met" her. His phone has an app on it where you shake the phone, and then it tells you who else is shaking their phone at the same time as you. This girl whom he was claiming was his girlfriend, was just some random girl who happened to be shaking her phone at the same time as him and they had been conversing for a couple of days. Crazy. So I said to Adam "I thought you said he was trying to marry this girl." And he was like, "He is! Mr. Hong told me in China, you don't move out of your parents' house until you're married. So his parents are bugging him to get out!" Haha. So we got to be a small part of Mr. Hong's first date tonight (they are the same height). But we quickly decided to go home and leave them alone. Hope it went well!

That's all for now! To make up for the lack of exciting pictures from tonight's adventure, here's an extremely adorable picture of Smudgie:

Our little fire chicken

Cool Dog and Other Shops

I wanted to go on an adventure today so I Google mapped the city to try to find a pet store. One showed up across town called “KuGou” which means “Cool Dog” in Chinese. I figured we’d just go there, and maybe walk around the surrounding area a little bit and then go home. On the way there it looked like Sunday is the official “sell things on the sidewalk” day. But who knows, it might happen Saturday or all week too. This is a part of town we’ve never been to. I’d love to buy some sidewalk stuff, but I don’t know the bargaining jargon yet.

So we arrive at our destination and it’s a sad little pet shop. They had a strange assortment of dogs for sale: a scottie wearing a sweater, a couple of poodles, and a fully grown husky mix. They also had two very sick-looking kittens. We bought a bone for Smudgie out of pity and then left. As we walked, we saw several more pet shops that looked just like it but selling different dogs. We saw a white pomeranian, but it wasn’t as cute as Smudgie. There were chickens EVERYWHERE on the street. If they belonged to anyone, I don’t know how they can just leave them out on the street without having to corral them, but somehow the chickens know to stay put. I’m surprised I didn’t see any chicken road kill. Here are a couple pictures:

Then we stumbled upon this awesome market and decided to go inside. It went on forever, just streets and streets full of shops, many of them selling the same stuff. Clothes, candy, tea, random office supplies, and food were some of the things I can remember. Here are some pictures:

The entrance to the market

At this place you can have a blanket made on the spot

Laughing mannequin - who designed this???

Meat

In this maze, we decided to buy some type of flat bread with lots of sesame seeds on it as our mystery food item. We figured it still counts as “street food” but it’s probably not going to give us diarrhea (and it didn’t!). It was really good. I’m glad we went on this excursion. For the past three weeks, we’ve been limiting ourselves to work, home, and the Carrefour and surrounding shops. It’s good to remind ourselves that Huainan is a very big city and there are still plenty of surprises waiting for us.

Here’s a picture of Smudgie almost done with the bone we bought him:

Work Begins

I have officially begun work at Guilford Anhui! Apparently I don’t need a work permit since I’m only part time. They’ve given me the important-sounding title of “Design Supervisor” so that when I give my business card to customers, they will trust me. And I will be going on all the customer visits for design, because they want to flaunt me as much as possible. Haha. I’m not making that up either, that’s exactly what they told me.

I work half days, which is nice. And I get to bring Smudgie with me so he’s not in a crate all morning. We put him in a nice empty room with sunshine that hardly anyone ever goes into, and I give him a potty break mid morning. Everyone loves him! And I think once he gets used to his new surroundings and friends, he’ll love coming to work with me.

Look how fluffy I am!

It’s pretty fun working here. Their design software is kinda crappy but I think half the problem is having to draw with a mouse. So I’m going to bring my Wacom tablet with me tomorrow and try to install it on their computer. The main girl I work with, KeKe (pronounced “kuhkuh”) speaks very little English so when we don’t know what the other is saying, we use an online translator. The translations are pretty wonky sometimes but it’s funny. One time she told me she watched the movie Inception and then she tried to say “Leonardo” but she was pronouncing it really badly so it took me a while to understand. Another time, she typed something into the translator and it said “Taste the pine nut”. I was perplexed until I looked into her tin which was filled with what I thought were mints or candies. Turns out they were pine nuts. I’ve never had them before so I popped one in my mouth and commenced crunching it. I was like, “Wow this is REALLY crunchy” and no matter how long I chewed, I couldn’t break it down into swallowable pieces. Then she typed into the translator again “Shell” and said “Don’t eat”. Haha. So I spit it out and tried again with a new one, this time removing the shell first. Tasty!

Week 2 - Horray for Culture!

When I took Smudgie out for his morning business yesterday, I got to observe our neighbors killing chickens for the day’s lunch out on the lawn. They weren’t chopping the heads off, and since I got there in the middle of it, I didn’t see them actually kill them. All I saw were the chickens lying on the ground flapping their wings a little bit. After some research, I decided they probably snapped their necks because a chicken will still flap its wings for a bit (as a reflex, not because it’s still alive) after having its neck snapped. Horray for culture!

Adam has an important business meeting with BMW (the car company) this Monday and Tuesday in ChangChun, which is way up in Northeast China. Here’s a map for your convenience:



View Larger Map


This is an important meeting, so we went out to buy him a couple of suits yesterday afternoon. Holy crap, the suits here fit amazing. And they’re cheap. So we had an awesome time dressing him up. And the salespeople are so nice. I mean REALLY nice. Some places will serve you tea as you shop (mainly me, because I was always sitting there waiting for Adam while he tried on clothes). But this one place, they had one person that spoke decent English and she helped us out a lot. After we were done shopping for clothes, she said “What else do you need?” and I said, “Well, he needs a haircut”. And she asked her supervisor if it would be ok for her to leave the building and take us to the closest salon. Wow! Once we got to the salon, she arranged everything and then we exchanged phone numbers and she said “If you need anything, just call! I will go home and practice my English!” Haha. So sweet. Here’s picture of Adam getting his first Chinese haircut:

Almost all hairdressers here are guys. I’ve never gotten my hair cut by a guy and I’m sad that I’ll only get to have it done here probably once. Walking down the street, we saw a little kid (about 6 or 7 years old) peeing on the curb and nobody seemed to care. Horray for culture?

Our questionable food item this week was a snack. We got spiraly things, teddygram knock-offs, and puffed up star-shaped things. The star-shaped things tasted like chicken broth flavored styrofoam and the spiraly things were kind of bland but the teddygrams were good!




I had my first craving for food from back home and you’ll never guess what it was: canned tuna. Of course I miss cheeseburgers and pizza and all that other good stuff, but my first real craving was canned tuna. Why? Perhaps because it’s so simple. I would always keep my pantry stocked with tuna because it’s the perfect “I don’t know what else to eat” food item. I don’t have to cook it, just open the can and mix it with miracle whip. Maybe I haven’t been looking hard enough, but I don’t think they have canned food here. People seem to like making everything from scratch, which is evident by the killing of chickens on the front lawn. :)


P.S. I bought a Mountain Dew here and it tastes like Diet Mountain Dew. Fail....

Settling In

The past few days we have been getting used to our new surroundings and figuring out how to get around. We have a driver named Liu and he doesn’t speak any English. He takes Adam to work and back, and if I need to go somewhere during the day, I tell Adam and he tells Really to call Liu and tell him where I need to go. Eventually when I know enough Chinese, I’ll be able to call him myself. But for now, since there’s no way for him to know where and when to pick me up after I’m done shopping, he comes shopping with me. It’s very weird. I don’t like having someone watch me shop. I can only imagine what he’s thinking too. He’s very nice, though, and he at least pretends not to mind. :)

Our questionable food item of the week was a bust. We’re not sure what it was, but I think it was pig feet. Here’s a picture of the packaging:

And here’s a picture of it cooked:

It was basically all fat. There was a tiny sliver of meat that I ate, but thank goodness we had back-up dumplings or we would have gone hungry. Also, I’m disappointed by the abundance of American junk food available here. I was hoping there would be none and I would be forced to eat healthily. But now I’m going to have to use will power instead. One thing I did discover, happily, is the joy of cooking fresh broccoli. I’ve always bought frozen in America and I liked it, but I had no idea what I was missing by not buying raw. With a little bit of oil in a frying pan (not vegetable oil, but it’s got a picture of a fish on the jug so it must come from fish), the fresh broccoli tastes like heaven. And one head of broccoli costs about 50 cents USD. The broccoli farmers here must be very poor but I’m lovin’ it!

Adam and I went shopping for winter coats and long sleeved shirts this weekend. Guys’ clothes are very stylish here so it was easy to find good stuff for him. I was able to find a cute pea coat for me but shirts were a no-go. The below picture is a good example of what’s in stores right now for girls:

Not really my style. And it doesn’t help that the employees are all over you when you enter the store. And you always have to ask them for a bigger size. Even Adam, who is quite fit, needs to ask for a bigger size most of the time because Chinese people aren’t just skinny, their bone structure is also smaller than ours, generally. But speaking of skinniness, we’ve discovered how the Chinese stay in shape. On our way home from shopping, we walked by the sports complex that’s near our apartment and there were a ton of people outside in the square doing a simple choreographed dance in unison. I use the word “dance” loosely, because it was like a Chinese Macarena. I didn’t have my camera with me, dang it, but I found a picture online that demonstrates the number of people and the scale of the whole thing. It was pretty funny to watch.

Here’s a picture of Smudgie's darling face:

I was out walking him around our complex the other day and a security guard asked me what kind of dog he was and I understood him! I didn’t understand every single word, but I heard him say “shenme” (what) and “gou” (dog). I told him pomeranian and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. There’s probably a Chinese word for Pomeranian but I don’t know what it is.

Our Apartment

The internet went on the fritz last night but now it’s back so I can write about our apartment. Here’s a picture of the outside:

Note the bars on the windows

Here's a picture of the landscaping:

It looks worse in person

Here’s a picture of what you see when you walk outside the front door:

Construction!

It looks pretty much the same on the inside as it did in the last pictures I posted except our bedding is different. Now, Adam was in Huainan for a few days last week while I stayed in Shanghai. And there was nothing on the bed so he was forced to go out and buy bedding without me. I told him to get something stylish. He e-mailed me from the Carrefour to tell me how much it was going to be. This was our conversation:

Adam: Hey baby! I'm picking out bed sheets and pillows. I would burn all my cash so I have to put it on the card ok?

Sam: Ok. Are they stylish?

Adam: I was just about to say: I'm warning you, our bedding is not beautiful. The nicest sheets were silk and they were 380 bucks. The cotton ones are 198 and have chickens on them. I went with the chickens.

So this is what happens when I let my husband go shopping by himself:

Rooster-themed bedding

I have since visited the Carrefour and saw plenty of other options besides the chickens but apparently he got there when the store was closing and had to make a split second decision. :) I don’t mind the chickens.

I was going to get myself a Chinese phone but when I mentioned it to Really, she said the company would get me one. So now I have a phone and I don’t have to pay for it! It’s really adorable too. It has a cute ringtone. Hopefully you can see in the picture below, the smiley face button is the “talk” button and the frowny face button is the “end call” button. Hilarious!

The Move to Huainan

This post is also co-titled "So apparently it's not ok to take a dog on a train in China".

We made our official move to Huainan yesterday. It should have entailed a 2 hour train ride and a 1 hour car ride from the train station to our apartment. But that is not how it went.... Adam said the HR lady at his plant called the train station to make sure it was ok to take a dog on the train. They said it's ok as long as the dog is in a carrier and it stays up by us in our seats. Since Smudgie's crate is too big to be up by our seats, we planned on putting him in Adam's backpack with his head sticking out. Not the most comfortable thing, but it was only going to be for 2 hours. When we got to the train station with Smudgie already in the backpack, the x-ray and metal detector people let us through, but we were immediately ushered to the Train Station Master. After much shaking of heads and Chinese jibber jabber, they told us no dogs allowed on the train. So I said "But, my husband here, he saw a guy taking chickens on the train before." which is true. In a plastic bag, no less! And the guy said, "Yes, 5 chickens in a bag, 5 small chickens. That is ok." But not a small dog... agh!

We called Cynthia, who works for Guilford Shanghai and she saved us, by getting us a ride to the bus station. But Smudgie, who won't pee outside unless it's on grass, didn't get a chance to potty again because there was absolutely no grass available at Guilford Shanghai or the bus station. And with the bus being a 6 hour ride, we were worried about him. Dogs are supposed to be allowed on the bus but to be safe, we decided to put him in a cardboard box to get him through security. But after walking from where the taxi dropped us off, through security, and to the place where we boarded the bus, we saw two other dogs so we opened the box to discover that Smudgie had peed and thrown up inside of it. Poor little guy. Adam cleaned him up in the bathroom while I put together his crate so he could ride under the bus with the luggage.

Side story about the bus station! I had to use the bathroom and I knew it was going to be a squat toilet. What I didn't know, is that there weren't going to be any stall doors. I had heard about these, but only imagined them existing way out in the country. I was wrong. Your nice squat toilets, if you can even call them that, have individual "holes" with foot traction on either side and the stall doors go all the way to the floor for privacy. In this bathroom, there were two rows of stalls with a single trough running through all of them on either side. You straddle the trough, go, and everyone's waste gets flushed down the trough to a single hole at the end. I guess they figure there's no need for privacy because in this configuration, if someone were to see you, all they'd see is the profile of your bare *ss. It took me seeing someone else's "profile" to decide that it wasn't that big of a deal. Before a 6 hour bus ride, you gotta empty. So I bit the bullet and used a stall at the end of the row in hopes that no one would venture down that far. I should also mention another lovely thing about squat toilets. You can't flush toilet paper down them. So there's a nice little bucket in every stall for you to put your used tissue. Just another thing you gotta get used to.

Another side story! While waiting for the bus, I saw a baby about my niece's age, wearing what I can only describe as crotchless pants. I thought to myself, that sounds like the worst idea in the world! What if you're holding your baby and it needs to poop? Here's the best picture I could get, incognito:

And here's the link to a blog I found if anyone wants to know more about these wonder-pants. http://arielleinchina.blogspot.com/2011/01/crotchless-pants-all-chinese-babies-are.html

Anyways, I spent the first 4 hours of the bus ride worrying about how Smudgie was doing under the bus and then we stopped for a break. We got to take him out and what a good little boy, he didn't pee or poop at all. So we let him have a potty break and then we were on our way again. The bus arrives in Hefei, which is about 2 hours from Huainan. So a company driver took us the rest of the way home and we arrived around midnight. What a day. It's good to be home. And Smudgie is so great, he's acting like nothing traumatizing happened. Here's a pic of him with Crotchless Pants Baby: