the feckless father: February 2012

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Your vote!

World's silliest 10 old, or world's most feckless father?

So the setup is this: lower 50's outside in the mid to latter part of February, and the kids are clambering to go swimming. They complain: "But it's so hot, daddy!" I can't convince them otherwise, so I think "why not?" Even I get tired of always being the bad guy. The girls are old enough to clean themselves up after jumping into the pond, and their mother isn't here to speak reason, so, "Sure!" The only stipulation was that I had to be there with my camera, ready for the facial expressions.

Credit to my eldest, she did it whole-hog! Didn't even stick her toe in the water first, just jumped right in. -Didn't take her very long to get back out, either! So then the other girl decided it maybe wasn't the greatest idea ever after all...
Maybe next time they will ask me my advice instead of my permission- hehe! I love it that my kids are getting old enough that they can be responsible for their own actions!

So what do you think; Is my blog aptly named, or what?!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

China Blog #19 (last entry)

So we made it home!. Since I wrote that last blog, we had to go through another flight delay and then our checked luggage didn't make it to Wichita with us. We didn't make it home til around 1:00 am. Poor Haley thought she was going to pick us at ten til 8, but she was cheerful and willing anyway! We were wiped out out after around 32 hours of traveling. Anyway, very good to be on terra firma! And home! Our bags just got delivered to our house moments ago, nearly 20 hours after we got here, so I think that we can officially wrap this series of blogs up and say our trip is completely over!!!

China Blog #18

Well, we missed our connection in LAX so we jumped a standby flight 2 hrs later. We are really glad Darrel and Barbara aren't going through LAX, as it is under massive construction, and was very confusing; but there was no way we could have made the connection; even though they put us through the express line as we went through customs because the airline knew it was tight. It didn't make any difference as our bags were the VERY last to come off of the jet. You know how many bags are on one of those big double deckers? Lots!
Anyway, we are now sitting in Houston waiting for the next flight to Wichita. We were able to get solid tickets instead of just being hopeful in getting spare seats, so we will be home tonight, barring a plane crash! Thanks for your prayers, this was something of a headache, but neither of us were very stressed. We just figured either we would either get home or we wouldn't. One of the other...
We are both tired and feel greasy as we have been up and/or traveling for nearly 30 hours now.

China Blog #17

Heather Madgwick, a friend that came to China to see Michaela get married, has been traveling with us. She asked me: "what life lesson have you learned from your travels in China?" Here was my reply:

You know how when you're a kid and you feel all jingoistic about your country; that America's the best at everything in the world, because that's all you have ever known, you haven't really experienced very many other cultures? Then you get into high school or college and you meet other people from other cultures, and they think the same thing about their culture? And then you get taught in school about multiculturalism and how other cultures are just as relevant as ours?

What I learned from this trip is this: go with your first instincts! America ROCKS! America has toilets! That actually flush! That you can put your toilet paper in! You don't see feces on the street corner and have to assume it is human. America doesn't smell like poop everywhere you go! People in America don't press their zipper of their fly up against your back pocket in line at the Waka Mart (grocery store) even though there is no one pushing against him, thereby necessitating me shoving my elbow in his gut. We have hot water all day long! Our homes are heated! We build our homes and buildings to last at least our lifetime. We take care of our stuff. Our plumbing doesn't flood our homes every week, and mostly, the average employees really do give a darn. You what else rocks about America? You can see the sun! I like that; we don't have smog! People at home mostly use the trash can; people here just unabashedly throw trash on the ground! And we know how to follow the rule of law!
Anyway, I <3 the USA, can you tell I'm ready to come home?

China blog #16

Here in China, the Americans like to talk about Chin-glish, a screwed up version of English; you maybe heard of Span-glish, its just like that, except Spanglish tends to be a hybrid that actually works maybe better than either language, where as Chin-glish is just flat messed up most of the time. I started a collection; this is about 3 days worth, I wish I would have started sooner.

My personal favorite: top row, middle one.

there was a whole fleet of buses marked "terra cotta warrlors"

Huh? What? I've no idea, it was on a wall advertisement.

These two were at the railway station...

on a note book

I think they didn't want you hanging out without buying something...

Chinese philosophy: order you not to, but then give you the means if you decide to anyway...

everybody appreciates a warm notice

Yes, be very carefully slipping!

China Blog #15

Tuesday, we left pretty early and took an hour long bus ride to the home of the terracotta warriors. These were discovered by a Chinese farmer digging a well in the mid-seventies. There are over 6000 of these warriors, some in good condition, most are broken. They are "guardians" of some Chinese emperor's tomb, circa 200 BC. They obviously aren't doing a very good job of it...The Chinese quit excavating them, because the paint fades or completely falls off instantly when unearthed. They won't dig any more out until they figure out how to stabilize that paint. Each one is different, no two are the same! It was really interesting; but after you've seen oh, say 2359 terracotta warriors, you FEEL like you've seen them all, even if they are each one different.

Here at this museum, a perfect stranger walked up to me and asked me if he could get his picture taken with me; I complied. So weird! Our culture is so used to other cultures being a part of ours, we take it for granted that others are used to seeing people unlike themselves, but not so.

When we got back to Xi'an, we stood in line for the bus, when here comes some old duffer begging for money; my soft-hearted mother-in-law gave him 1 yuan (about $0.15 cents), so I had to spot her another for the bus ride. (I have a firm policy of never giving money to beggars; I will buy a meal or fill a tank of gas, if I'm convinced there is a need) Then here comes another, walked right up to us. I told him very firmly NO!, but he just kept after us, moaning, and nodding. Darrel had his One Yuan bill for bus fare in his hand, and the old guy turned towards him and kept acting like he was deaf and dumb or something. I knew this very difficult for my tender hearted-gentlemanly father-in-law, so I tried to physically remove him. He finally left, after we refused to give him anything. I was wondering if my policy still held true in China, where drug and alcohol abuse aren't as rampant as in the States, when he went and sat down with the first beggar and started yukking it up. I guess mooches are the same wherever you are!

Haha, it looks like my mother-in-law is bowing to this general, and that Elvis is shaking his head at her, but I'm fairly certain she is reading the sign.

China Blog #14

We arrived safely in Xi'an, and checked into our very nice hostel. It was clean, plus a real toilet that actually flushed and didn't stink too bad. It was a really cool place, and had little court yard and balconies for each room. From there we walked to the Muslim quarter and scrounged for food and souvenirs. There are some really interesting looking people here (see attached photo of lady with silver hat).

Of course the place was packed, and the crowd was pushy, but we seemed less of a spectacle in this town. Xi'an seems a MUCH more cosmopolitan city than Zheng-Zhou, even though there is roughly the same amount of people, over 8 million. People didn't stare as long at us, sometimes just nodded said " 'Ello!" There are some real snappy dressers here, and some real "poofs" of boys- super girly looking kids with great big bee hive hairdos, bleached blonde.
The shop keepers in the little covered alleys had a smattering of English; enough to be really aggressive and irritating. "Ello, you like shirt? You want good deal? Only 400 yuan, No? 300? No? I tell you, my sister in Beijing gets 450 for dis same thing, but for you? You are my good friend, like my brother! (then pointing at Herself), Is she your husband? Such a nice couple! For you? 250! Final offer: 200. No? Ok, 100 yuan. Etc, etc," Nonstop chatter; once I refused to say anything more to her until she shut up and let me think. Very persistent, these vendors. I don't really think of myself as a particularly shrewd bargainer, but I guess I'm not bad for a westerner with what must look like a big sign flashing "Rich American" over my head. At least I'm not embarrassed to ask, start low, and keep after them. The hard part for me is to not get irritated at them, they just feel so very mercenary; using everything they know about our culture to get you to pay more money for their product that they are selling. Trying to ingraciate themselves to you, because they know that Americans are "nice" and polite. Elvis does a good job of being polite and still firm, while smiling. My method is more to make them understand as quickly as possible that I am totally and wholely uninterested in what they are selling, when they approach me and start yapping. I think that I should learn a little something from him. It just goes against everything I stand for in my own business; I don't want somebody to pay 100 times what I get for it from everybody else, I just want to sell a good product for a fair price. I'm sure I'm not doing anything for America's good name over here, but these people can just be so pushy! Once we were in a long line to buy bus tickets, and a guy just walked right up and cut in line in between us Anglos. So I just took my big fat back pack, and pushed in line right in front of him and backed up and turned left, pushing him out. He was left standing out of the line entirely, so he didn't really have any choice but to go get in the back of another line.
One thing that I feel compelled to mention in the midst of complaining about the difference of cultural stuff is the positive part of it: I think I mentioned before that there was hardly a time that my parent in laws had to stand on the bus or subway; someone young would jump up and let them sit down. Another thing that I didn't mention is the helpfulness of the young people. They really, really, really, want to help, whether it is interpreting, showing around, or whatever, even people they don't know; they just have a general feeling of wanting to help you out. One little example, and it is a little odd, but it is fitting, was when I was coming through Chinese customs at the airport. Most or all of the officials seemed really quite young, and Herself made the comment that they probably have the best English. Good point. But anyway, I got ready to go through the metal detector and started to remove my belt, because of the buckle. The young official indicated to me that wouldn't be necessary, so I didn't, but in order to not hold up the line, I left it half buckled with the end of the belt flopped out. Well, of course it set the buzzer off, and the young man on the other side of the detector had me step up onto the wooden box and hold my hands up while he ran the wand over me. While my hands were held up and he "wanded" over my belt buckle, he noticed that my belt was untucked, and with quick, deft movements he just tucked me back i! I had to chuckle; how very personal, but I can't imagine why else he would do such a thing, he was just being helpful...
Xi'an must be a city of much wealth, in the downtown area we were in there were lots of cars and nice ones at that. Nearly all of them were Acura's, Lexus, BMW's, Mercedes, land rovers, escalades, jeep suvs, etc; mostly what we would call luxury sleds. This China fits more with my notion of what China is like, the architecture is more like what I expected, has more of an ancient Asian feel to it, although I strongly suspect it is more for the sake of others like me (with round eyes) than for any real cultural reasons, since it seems like it is primarily a tourist trap. I'll do some more pictures in an additional email of some local architecture.