Updates: Smog, Wedding Photos, Etc...

This is a blog full of updates!
1. Smog update: So, the day after I posted the terrible smog picture, around 4:30, we needed to walk to the convenience store to pick up bottled water.  The smog was just as bad but with a disturbing development.  Ash was raining from the sky.  It was pretty heavy too, you couldn’t look up without getting it in your eyes, and you couldn’t breathe without it going in your mouth.  But we needed to go to the store so we just covered our mouths and looked down.  If I didn’t know better, I’d say a volcano had erupted nearby and we were about to be Pompeii-ed.  Either that, or something huge was on fire.  We also thought it might be coal-related since Huainan is a coal town.  Adam asked Beth on Monday morning what happened and she said the farmers were burning crops and it just happened to be a windy day so the ash blew into the city.  Great!  I wonder how many times that’s going to happen this summer.  I am glad it wasn’t coal-related, though.  The air is completely cleared up now.

2. Wedding photo update: Mandy got her professional pictures back so I asked her to send me a few. 

Announcing the song

Singing

You can see how much everyone is enjoying this

The end of the song

Can you believe this person wouldn't even get out of the way for the professional photographer??

Head cut off!

3. Badminton update: Against all odds, Adam is still in the tournament.  When the tournament is over, Adam will write his own commentary on it.  :)

4.  We finally heard from Mr. Hong via text.  He said he’s feeling better, but won’t be returning to Huainan.  Who knows if we will ever see him again.

5.  Our trip back to America is only 3 weeks away.  We're excited to pig out on all the American food we miss.  The #1 food we miss is Mexican.  There's literally nothing like it here.  They have burgers and fried chicken, and there are some places you can get crappy pizza and OK spaghetti, but they have no concept whatsoever of nachos or quesadillas.  And we're also excited for a Subway sandwich.  Other than burgers, they don't do sandwiches here.

Smudgie is a happy puppy, as always.  I can't wait to buy him some durable toys because he has destroyed all of his current ones.  I have to resort to letting him play with toothpaste tubes and such.      

Smog

The smog around here varies from day to day.  But it's rarely as bad as it was today.  Here's the view outside our apartment on a clear day:

Here's the view when it's a little smoggy.  This is what it's like most days:

And here's the smog today:

I have no idea what makes it so bad sometimes.  But this is only the second day like this we've seen in our 7 months of living here.  If it were like this more often, I'd be pretty depressed and scared for our health.  I hear it's like this a lot in Beijing, so I'm really glad we don't live there.

In other news, Dreamer graduated college and is now back in Huainan.  She won't be working at Guilford, but she'll be around to hang out with.  Friday night we went to a KTV with Dreamer, Mandy, Jiang Lu, Jin Nian and a girl I don't know.  This KTV was not as fancy as the one we went to at Christmas, but I really don't care. 

I've been trying to go to KTVs as sparingly as I can because I'm not a big fan of them.  It's like their favorite thing to do and I don't get it because they always sing the same songs everytime.

On a day when it wasn't smoggy, I took Smudgie for a very long walk.  He was so exhausted, but very satisfied.  You can see how happy he was from these pictures:

 

Badminton and Stuff

There's a badminton tournament going on at work!  Well, it's not taking place at work, but we got to leave work and go to this little gynasium just big enough to fit three badminton courts yesterday afternoon.  Here's what the building looked like on the outside:

And here's the view from the second floor where the courts were:

So it was kind of in the middle of a crappy neighborhood.  Anyways, Adam played against Mr. Xu and won, although we suspect Mr. Xu let him win.

Action shot

I played against Beth, the translator that took Dreamer's spot when she left.  I lost, even though I wasn't as bad as I thought I'd be.  Beth was just better. 

Action shot

Adam will move on to the second round next Friday!  Instead of going back to work afterwards, we just had our driver pick us up at the courts.  But he drove down this crazy narrow alley and when he tried to get back out, he totally scraped his car against the walls and crunched up the front fender.  He didn't even care!  He was just like "meishi, meishi" which is like saying "no biggie".  He obviously doesn't own that car himself.

Our housekeeper made a new dish last night that's basically lima beans and chopped up bologna meat.  Usually she makes delicious food, but this time.... well Adam likes it.

She's made a dish before with potatoes and that same meat, and I swear it tastes just like bologna.  We were walking down the dog food aisle at the Carrefour last week and saw a can with a picture of sliced meat that looked exactly like it.  I'm pretty sure she wouldn't serve us dog food, but I thought it was funny. 

Today we had our last Guilford paid Chinese lesson.  No, we are not fluent now so don't ask.  We were moving too fast for our own good, anyways.  We got more than half way through the big book of Chinese grammer and it was really starting to get overwhelming.  So I think we'll just take this break, review everything over the summer, then maybe forge ahead later.  Here are some final pictures:

She wanted to hold Smudgie: 

Mandy's Wedding

This was our first time attending a Chinese wedding (though probably not our last because another co-worker of ours is getting married in October) and it was such a trip.  Not to speak ill of the culture, or of our friends, but it was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever witnessed.  It was like being in the audience of a game show.  We got there around 11:15 because the invitation said it started at 11:28 (lucky time).  But it didn’t actually start until 12:00.  It took place in a restaurant within a hotel:

 Everyone sat at tables instead of in rows, and there was already food waiting there for us:

Cheesy décor:

Nervous groom:

A little before 12:00, Sophie took me to see Mandy in her changing room:

Then we all went back to the main room.  There was no magical meeting of the bride and groom for the first time, they just stood under the heart arch while hoards of people took pictures.

As they walked down the aisle together to music that sounded like the score at the end of an epic movie, confetti was shot at them from both sides three times at the beginning, middle and end of the aisle.

 When they got to the end, sparklers were lit.  No joke!  And there’s more cheesy décor:

And that picture also explains why I didn’t get any good pictures.  There were always people standing in the way taking pictures throughout the entire thing.  Maybe they don’t trust the professional photographer to get good enough shots?  Anyways, instead of having an ordained minister/justice of the peace guiding the couple through the ceremony, there was an emcee.  And it was seriously like they were contestants on a game show.  He asked Mandy if she was satisfied and she said no, so Jiang Lu had to sing her a song.  After that she was still not satisfied so he got down on one knee and said he loved her in the local language.  Then she was satisfied.  There was another section where they poured wine into a small tower of wine glasses:

Then they cut the cake, and immediately after it was cut, people started rushing up to get pieces.  They came back with the biggest pieces of wedding cake I've ever seen, easily three or four times the size of a slice cut at an American wedding.  But the cake was nothing special, plain white cake with boring whipping topping, so it's not like they needed to be stingy with it.  Then the emcee had them kiss while everyone counted to 7.  It all happened very fast and it just seemed like a bunch of random traditions mish moshed together with no flow to it.  They didn’t even walk down the aisle together at the end of it.  And lunch started being served before the ceremony was over.  And as you can see from the pictures, most of the guests were not very dressed up.  A lot of people were wearing jean shorts and other things that you would wear on any other normal day.  We were definitely the best dressed there, besides Mandy and Jiang Lu.  Oh, and I should also mention that the guests were all talking loudly throughout the entire thing, just carrying on conversations amongst themselves as if there wasn't a wedding going on.  It seemed very disrespectful to me, but what do I know? 

Mandy changed into a cute red dress for the second half:

Then the emcee sang a song, which was very beautiful.  But then Mandy asked if we would sing a song and I was like “noooooooo!”  I was not warned that this might happen!  I was unprepared!  I really didn’t want to disappoint her, but without a karaoke thing telling me the words and no backup music, there can only be disaster.  Fortunately Adam had been drinking baijiu with the other Guilford men that were invited so he was drunk enough to rise to the challenge.  I don’t have any pictures of this, but Adam sang “Happy Trails” while I danced very embarrassingly in front of 250 Chinese people that were just eating it up.  It was very bad.  I don’t know why they keep insisting on making us sing.

Then people started leaving around 1:10.  It was the shortest wedding ever!  Before we left, we gave them a hongbao (red envelope with money in it).

It sure was a whirlwind experience.  Can't wait to go to another one to see how they compare! 

Two Completely Unrelated Topics

Littering is a-ok in China.  This is something I still haven't gotten used to yet. It always gets me whenever I see someone throw an empty coke bottle out of the window of their car like it's nothing, or unwrap a snack while walking down the sidewalk and let the wrapper float away in the wind. Yesterday I was taking Smudgie out for a poop when someone on the 3rd or 4th floor threw an empty milk carton out of their window and it almost hit Smudgie. I mean, I can KIND OF understand throwing something out the car window because cars don't have trash cans. But I'm pretty sure everyone keeps trash cans in their apartment. This person couldn't even walk over to the nearest one to throw away his milk carton, it had to go out the window. But it's "ok" because there are groundskeepers that go around with little brooms and dust pans and take care of that sort of thing. To be honest, littering is probably one of the least harmful things the Chinese do to the environment, simply because there are people whose job it is to clean up after everyone. City janitors, if you will.

In other news, Mandy invited us to her wedding! It's next weekend and I couldn't be more excited. Here's the invitation:

Yes, they are posing with apples.  In China, you get wedding photos done months before the wedding and then some of the photos are on display during the wedding.  It's like an engagement session, except you're in full wedding gear.  The photography company provides you with several wedding dresses and other formal wear and you change outfits like 5 times throughout the session.  They also do your hair and makeup.  I find this idea so very novel, we're totally going to do it once I'm at my goal weight.  We're so lucky to have the opportunity to go to a Chinese wedding while we're here.  Smudgie is sad that he can't go:

 

Chinese Hospitals - How Substandard Are They?

We got April 30th and May 1st off work for the May Day holiday.  Then Saturday came along and we realized we hadn’t seen Mr. Hong all week.  Adam had called him a few times but got no answer and no reply, which is very strange.  Finally Mr. Hong called him back and said that he was in a hospital in Beijing.  Something had happened to him but he didn’t know the English term for it.  All we knew was that it was serious.  I mean, you don’t go all the way to Beijing for something small.  A couple days later we found out he’d had a minor heart attack.  He’s 27 years old.  We don’t know the cause yet, but the doctors were saying that in order to prevent another one, he’s going to have to remove as much stress from his life as possible.  Unfortunately, his job was pretty stressful.  Being the Project Manager for BMW, he traveled a lot and worked long hours.  So he had to quit.  He came back to Huainan for a couple days to delegate his work to Sophie, who will be his replacement, then went straight back to Beijing for more tests.  I didn’t even get to say goodbye because I was in Shanghai at the time.  He will be missed!

Perhaps he ate too much Elaborate Bacon

The thing I find most baffling about this, other than the fact that he’s so young, is that he had to go to Beijing.  A heart attack is not so complicated and rare a thing that you should have to go to the very best hospital in the country to get treated.  Is it really true that there was no hospital closer than Beijing that had the equipment and qualified doctors to deal with a heart attack?  Not even in Nanjing?  That boggles my mind!  I sure hope nothing happens to us.  Actually, when we were first negotiating the terms of our employment over here, Ian (an R&D guy out of Guilford US who was offered the China job and turned it down) told us not to settle for a health insurance plan that didn’t cover a helicopter to airlift us to Shanghai, Beijing, or Hong Kong should we be seriously hurt.  I laughed about it then, but perhaps it wasn’t such a frivolous demand.  (Don’t worry, we got it)

So my next thought is, just how cheap is Chinese healthcare?  Because Mr. Hong did not make very much money at all.  I hope he won’t be drowning in debt now.

Smudgie is hiding behind his poofball tail

Taxi Adventures

Taking a taxi in China is not always as straightforward as you might think.  Most times, you get in one, you tell them where to go and they take you there.  But sometimes weird stuff happens.  Adam discovered this first when he went to ChangChun for the first time.  He and Mr. Hong were visiting a customer that’s located way out in the boondocks.  Several taxis came by but when the drivers found out where they wanted to go, they said no because it was a long distance and there was little chance that they could pick someone else up on their way back.  They finally got to their destination only because a taxi that already had someone in it stopped and picked them up. 

Another time, Adam needed to go in to work on a Sunday and our regular driver couldn’t take him for some reason.  The plant is about 20 minutes away from our apartment and it’s not near downtown so again, it would be hard for the driver to pick someone else up right away.  Taxis are dirt cheap in Huainan so the drivers don’t make much money if they’re not picking up new passengers right after dropping others off.  So instead of turning the meter on, the driver wanted to negotiate a price.  He wanted 35RMB originally but Sophie talked him down to 25 over the phone.

Smudgie's butt

Over the New Year’s holiday, we needed to go grocery shopping.  We bought a lot of stuff because our housekeeper had the time off so we had to make our own meals.  So we’re carrying these incredibly heavy bags and trying to get a taxi, but none of the taxis wanted to take us to our apartment, even though it’s on the same freakin’ street as the Carrefour.  Finally we offered a driver 20RMB (which is 4x the normal rate) to take us home.  And he actually had the audacity to refuse us at first.  But he finally said ok.  We told him the address, and said “bei men” which means “north entrance”.  We said it several times, and he obviously didn’t know his way around this apartment complex because as we were telling him to go left, he missed the north entrance and took a left at the next intersection.  We arrived at the west entrance and we were like “bei men!”  And he was like “This is the west entrance” and I was like, “I know!”  (in Chinese of course) but I didn’t know how to say that he missed the north entrance and that he was a douchebag, so we just got out of the taxi.  I was pretty pissed because the west entrance is quite far from our apartment so we had to carry those heavy bags all that way.

I’ve been traveling to Shanghai a lot lately for customer meetings.  First we (Mandy and I) take a taxi from Huainan to BungBu (one hour) then take the highspeed train (2 hours) then take the subway (1 ½ hours because of line changes) to Anting which is where all the car companies are located.  But we don’t take a regular taxi to BungBu, there are special cars that go from the RT-Mart to the train station all day and if there are 4 passengers (a full car) then the rate is 40RMB per person.  A similar thing happens on the way back.  When you get off the train and exit the station, there’s always a line of guys yelling out different city names.  We go to the Huainan guy and he tries to gather up more passengers before leaving.  If you can get 4 people together, yay!  If not, you have to pay more.  The taxi guy insists on getting his 160RMB, which sucks.  This is what happened to us on the latest trip.  We had to pay the 160 instead of 80.  And Mandy told me the company only pays for 80, which is stupid.  And about halfway there, our driver stopped and a taxi going the other way also stopped.  They talked for a while and all of a sudden we were switching cars.  Our original driver went back to BungBu and the new driver took us to Huainan.  It was crazy.

Also, a sidenote.  Before coming here I always thought people would just assume I was American.  But this is not so!  They always ask where I'm from.  And I once overheard a guy say he thought I was British, and the driver of the taxi yesterday said he thought I looked Russian.  What? 

Smudgie looks like a hairy gumdrop