Made in China

Products in China are very seasonal.  You can't buy ice cream in the wintertime, for example.  But the first time we noticed this phenomenon was when we first got to Huainan.  We always sleep with a fan in the room to drown out random outdoor noises but we couldn't bring one with us, of course.  So we set out to find a fan but could not find one anywhere.  All we could find were radiant heaters, which look just like fans but without the blades.  It was November, so apparently fan season was over.  We've made do, and I'm actually surprised at how easy it's been to sleep without one, but I attribute this success entirely to the comfortableness of our bed.  It's such a great mattress I want to have it shipped back home with us.  That probably won't happen, though.  Well now it's April and fans are back!  So we bought one today at the Carrefour.  We bought the cheapest standing fan we could find because we knew we wouldn't be taking it back with us ($23). 

We got it home and began the assembly.  The instructions had pictures, plus IT'S A FAN so why would we have any reason to believe this would be hard to put together?  Well, the concept wasn't hard, but there was a component on this fan that, according to the pictures and all logic, was supposed to unscrew and come off of the motor shaft so that you could put the blades on.  But it wasn't unscrewing.  It was as if it were glued on or something.  We used all our combined strength, I used pliers to keep the motor shaft from turning while Adam turned the thing to the left.  I suggested, "Maybe we should turn it to the right, maybe it's backwards here."  He just said, "...no."  I tried it anyways and had no luck.  Then we thought, maybe it's not a screw, maybe we just need to pull it off.  But alas, that didn't work, even when we tried hitting it with a hammer.  Adam was definitely on the verge of smashing something.  We took a break and I slowly translated the instructions using www.nciku.com which has this sweet feature that lets you draw characters and it'll translate them for you.  I confirmed that it was indeed supposed to unscrew so we tried again.  This time we put a little bit of cooking oil on it to see if that would loosen it up.  Adam had plier duty and I said, "It's turning, but it just feels like it's getting tighter."  So we switched and as Adam was turning it, I saw the end of the screw break through the plastic cap.  We WERE tightening it the whole time.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!  So here's the completed fan:

I'm glad we didn't have to resort to just listening to the motor run.  And now, because Smudgie waited patiently while Daddy yelled profanities for an hour, here are some pictures of him hanging out by one of his favorite places, the big curtain!     

    

Frolicking in the Park

Today we hung out with Dreamer, who was my translator until February when she had to go back to school.

She invited us, along with Mandy, Sophie, and JinNian (no English name) and her husband to go to lunch and then walk around at Ba Gong Shan, which is a cute little park/mountain/hilly area with lot's of peach and pear trees that are in bloom right now. We had lunch at a restaurant that was in the park and apparently the mayor of Huainan was also having lunch there today so they were very slow with our food because the mayor was more important. The way you order food at most family style restaurants is, instead of a menu there's a cooler on the first floor with all the dishes they serve displayed inside of it and you pick a bunch of them. While we were doing that, I got a peek inside the kitchen:

Pretty neat! And here's a dish that I thought was going to be gross but it tasted just like noodles and chicken soup broth:

After lunch we walked around the park and here are a few pictures of our adventures:

Me demonstrating how short the trees were

Me hiding in the yellow flowers

Mandy showing off the yellow flowers

Adam keepin' it cool in the peach blossoms

A somewhat smoggy view of Huainan

Oh, and I also captured two tadpoles from a little pond, which I intend to grow into frogs and then release into the pond at our apartment. I wouldn't have done it, except there were little kids there catching them by the dozens so... meh. Besides, there was trash in the pond so technically I saved them. Yay tadpoles! I think I'm going to name them Ping and Pong.

Smudgie update: The cone is off! Here's one more cute picture of him with the cone on, just before we gave him to the housekeeper for the Yellow Mountain trip:

When we picked him up from the housekeeper, the cone was off. We suspect it was probably off the entire time. But we checked his leg and it seemed to be fine so we've left it off. Perhaps he was so distracted by all the new people he forgot to lick. But anyways, we are happy he is better.

ALSO, there was a serial killer on the loose in Huainan for the last month. I only just heard about him for the first time yesterday. Apparently he was hacking young women to bits with a sword and he'd killed five. But he was caught today. :D

Yellow Mountain Trip

These past three days we've had off from work because of the Tomb Sweeping Festival, which is the time of year people visit the graves of their ancestors and burn paper money (fake of course) to honor the dead. The company wanted to take us to Yellow Mountain, which is a very famous mountain range in the Anhui province (and all of China for that matter) so they thought these three days would be a good time to do it. I was interested to see how this vacation would compare to the last one. I expected the hotels to be better, but I was sure to pack soap, towels, toilet paper, and other necessary things just in case. I was going to be prepared this time. However, no amount of toiletries could prepare me for what happened on Yellow Mountain. One thing is for sure, I learned a lot about Chinese culture on this trip.

The first thing I learned is that Mr. Li does not consider his wife his equal. The people going on the trip were: Mr. Li and Mrs. Li, Mrs. Zheng (head of HR), Anna (HR), Sophie (Adam's translator) and me and Adam. When we got picked up, it was just Mr. and Mrs. Li in the van, but Mrs. Li was sitting behind him, not next to him. Adam and I got into the van and headed for the very back so we could sit next to each other. But just a little while down the road, Mr. Li told Adam to come up front. The MEN had to be at the front of the van, apparently. Whatever. We picked up the other people and started on a long journey. Huainan is at the very top of the province right under Huaibei, Yellow Mountain (Huangshan) is at the very bottom (Huang means "yellow", Shan means "mountain").

We first stopped at a hotel somewhat near Yellow Mountain where the company plans on holding a special board meeting. We checked out their conference rooms, then had lunch. After lunch, we drove a little more, then all of a sudden, we stopped and picked up this guy on the side of the road. I was like, "Oh my god, we're picking up a hitch hiker, are you kidding me?" The thing was, the van was already full. Four people had to squish into the back seat in order to make room for this guy so it didn't make sense to pick him up just to be nice. Well, it turns out he was a tour guide. The first place we stopped was this cool bridge:

There were a lot of wasps buzzing around it so we didn't stay long. Then after that we went to Hong Cun, a very famous old village that has turned into a tourist attraction.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was filmed in Anhui and the opening scene of the movie features this bridge:

And I walked on it! This place was pretty cool because it was not restored. All the wood and stones and stuff were original and it's hundreds of years old.

Here's Adam in front of the front door of the richest people's house. There's another white guy in the background.

We also witnessed a guy torturing a koi fish right in the alley. First he slammed it against the ground twice to stun it, then he began descaling it while it was still alive. Couldn't get a picture, but it was pretty crazy.

That night we had dinner at a restaurant on Tunxi Old Street, which is a street filled with souvenir shops.

And now I have to talk about Mrs. Zheng. She is one tough customer. If I were in the service industry, I would not want to see her walk into my shop or restaurant. First of all, she was great with helping us buy souvenirs since we don't know how to bargain. We bought a couple of things on this street and we got them for a great price. And when they started boxing them up, she complained that the boxes were dirty so they started brushing them off. Haha. Well at dinner, she's one of those people who will send back the food if it isn't right. There was this dish of corn and sweet potatoes that she made them re-cook. I'll agree the corn wasn't very good, but I think it was the corn's fault, not the way they cooked it. When the second round came in, it tasted the same. She tried to contest the bill, but the restaurant lady was stubborn. So much drama. We stayed at a decent hotel that night, although the beds were very hard. And the next morning we had to be ready to go by 6:30am.

Even though we got to the bottom of Yellow Mountain pretty early, there were already hoards of people there. We had to stand in line for a bus that would take us a little bit of the way up the mountain. After that, there would be another line to get on the cablecar. When I say "line", though, I actually mean mosh pit. Because that is what a Chinese line is like. Everyone squishes up against everyone else and tries to elbow their way to the front. This is one bit of Chinese culture that I simply can not embrace. Here are a couple pictures of the mob:

Waiting in a line like that isn't so bad when it's just 20 minutes or so. It probably took us a half hour to get on the bus. But then we had to go get in line for the cablecar. We waited for about 15 minutes and then to my horror, we saw this sign:

I just about died. I don't even wait that long for amusement park rides, which are way more fun, in my opinion, than sightseeing. I'm ok with waiting maybe one and a half hours if the ride is really awesome. But even then, it's America, where when you stand in line, you're not crammed up against a bunch of people. You can lean on the railings, you can bend your legs, stretch your back, eat a snack! I don't think I've ever missed America more than when we were in that line. But we weren't NOT going to do it. This mountain was what we came all the way down here for. So I just became a very irritable, whiney person. Adam can attest to that. I just can't believe how Chinese people think this is an acceptable way to act. One of the first things an American child learns when they get to school is "no pushing or shoving". And we actually almost witnessed a fight over who pushed who so they must find it annoying too. But they still do it! Agh! Well, we finally got on the cablecar at 1:00pm. Here's the view from the air:

When we got to the mountain, Sophie told us that there would probably be a similar line with a similar waiting period when we wanted to go back down. I was pretty much seething at that point, but I tried to enjoy the view:

Here's a sad picture of a beautiful mountain being overrun by people:

Adam went to take a picture of the Welcoming Pine tree. He stepped over a bench, thinking there would be ground on the other side but there wasn't. So he caught himself on the railing and his face slammed into the camera, giving him a bloody nose. Here is the picture that Adam bled for:

There were several places that we could have hiked to but I said I was done. First I had to use the restroom, which is another horrible place to go when there are lot's of people around. Everyone crams into the bathroom (with only three stalls) with no regard for who was there first. I finally got in one, but then when I was done, the people were so tightly packed I had to force my way out. I got my toes stepped on which pissed me off even more. I consider myself lucky that the line to get back on the cablecar was only an hour and a half. Here's a nice pic from the air going down:

That night we had dinner with our tour guide and the food was incredible. I have fallen in love with bamboo shoots. And we actually got back to the hotel at a reasonable hour so we could sleeeeeep. The next morning we started off at 8:30am and we went to this place. I don't know the name of it, I don't even care. I was so burnt out at that point. All I know is, it was a beautiful mountain area with clean water that you could drink from... and they were turning it into this fake, half-assed tourist attraction. I guarantee you the water won't be clean a few years from now. It was disappointingly fake. The minority people they hired to put on this show were wearing grass skirts that looked like they came from a dollar store. Seriously? Here are some pics:

We did get to go on a zipline, though, so it was worth it just for that. We finally starting driving home, and we picked up Smudgie from the housekeeper's house on our way home. He is exhausted, as am I.