the feckless father: China Blog #6

Did I say that I saw a lot of people? Did I say that traffic was kind of crazy? I take it all back. Until yesterday, I had never really seen lots of people, nor crazy traffic. My world view has completely changed since yesterday; we went to Zhengzhou yesterday, a real town of 7 to 8 million people, nobody really knows for sure how many, even the people that live there. It has been experiencing huge, massive growth from migration from the countryside for the last 10 years, they say. The infrastructure cannot keep up with the growth; transportation is terrible, there are just mobs of people everywhere, particularly this time of year, during the Spring Festival!

We ate at a little Chinese Muslim restaurant for lunch; no pork there, mostly they serve more mutton and some goat. Mutton is really cheap here, it costs probably less that a tenth of what we pay for mutton in the states, so I have been gorging myself at every opportunity. If I would have been thinking well enough before I came, I would have stuck a fork in my suitcase and carried it around with me everywhere I go. While I pride myself on my chopstick prowess (for a round-eye), there are some things that are so slippery that I cannot transfer from serving plate to my plate without a huge hassle and end up jerking most of it off the serving plate onto the table. Bad faux paux! If I could just sneak my fork out and cut some noodles off with my fork, it would be sooo much easier... Well, what do you expect for a dumb farm boy?

Then we went to Walmart! Yes, I actually asked to go to Walmart! I've heard so much about it, that I wanted to see for myself. It was right in the center of the city was, so I expected it to really busy, but wasn't. As I understand it, it is a relatively expensive place to shop for the Chinese people. They did have a lot of stuff! It was a relief to go into walmart! Ahhh Walmart; My sweet refuge from the pressing crowds and and people of the streets!

I get pretty frustrated here; I am the type of person that hates to be a burden on others, and I realize how much of a burden I am to my hosts. I can do nearly nothing by myself without getting lost or in a fight with someone that I suppose is trying to cheat me. I have come to the realization that I get VERY aggressive with people that I suspect are trying to cheat me, something that does little good when you can't understand them and they can't understand you. I accused the customs guys of stealing my change (wasn't true, Herself found it in the next basket), I "cuffed" the parking lot attendant on the arm when he wanted more money from me after we agreed to a price, but I finally figured out a way around some of the price gouging; we had 4 native translators, or "babysitters" as I called them, helping us when we went to the Antiques Market yesterday. I asked (through the translator) how much for one of these antique coins, and he replied that he wanted 2,500.00 qai, or nearly $450.00, American for each coin. So I sent my translator without me later and she got them for 8 qai, or around $1.50 American... Score one for Dan!

But back to the difficulty of being a guest. I do get bored easily, my wife's family knows this about me, so they have written out a big schedule to keep me busy doing sight seeing, etc, so that I won't be bored. But as I said, I need handlers everywhere I go, and the primary handlers available are either about to get married or are actively participating in getting them married, because so many of the students are still gone on winter break. So people are frustrated with me because they are afraid that I will get bored and irritable, and I get bored and irritable because people are frustrated with me. Its kind of a vicious circle; I know that for this reason I make a poor guest. I also know it because I have been a host for long periods of time, and know that it really is a burden to have to tend people without rides of their own, entertaining them, etc. Oh, well, at least I can blog. Sort of anyway, since I can't access blogspot from China.