Odds and ends

There are an assortment of things I've encountered in china that haven't appeared in any of my other blogs so I decided to do one entirely devoted to all I have missed. This will include random sights, food, traffic, Hong Kong, and anything that comes to mind. I have probably forgotten most of what I wanted to say, but I'll try.

First off traffic. The traffic in China is like no place else I have been. It is certainly an adventure every time we drive. I kind of just have to laugh as I see people driving all over the lanes, passing right in front of people. There is no cutting anyone off here. It's called driving... I just sit back in utter shock that there are not constant collisions. I haven't really seen a right of way. Everyone assumes they have the right of way and if you want to avoid the hassle of a collision you simply will stop or slow down when some one decides to drive in front of you. There are some cars, a fair amount of busses, and a ton of bikes, scooters and mopeds. That seems to be the main form of transportation. You will see whole families sitting on a moped any which way just calmly hanging on. You see ladies with 3 inch heals, fancy dresses, and designer hand bags on their arms driving their moped or sitting side saddle on someone else's. Something else that is a common sight is seeing umbrellas hooked up to the bikes or mopeds or ladies with face shields and turned around coats even in 100 degree weather. You can also see people randomly walking through busy highways and workers actually sweeping the streets with giant fluffy brooms. There are so many things done here by manual labor that are done by machine or so much more easily in the states. 

Here is just a picture I managed to get of a cart when I had my iPad with me. This is fairly typical.

Here is a picture or the nannies bikes since most of them bike to work. I don't know if I put it yet or not.

Beauty is very important here, and there are some very specific cultural expextations of beauty. One of the main thoughts is that pale skin is very attractive. If you have pale skin it means you don't work in the fields, which is very much so a reality here. You often see workers sleeping on the side of the road taking a nap before going back to doing farm labor by hand. People will often go out with sun hats or umbrellas on sunny days to avoid this distinction. Large eyes are also found beautiful or textured hair. It makes sense in a way. Those qualities are more rare here so they are valued as special and unique. My baby I transported has very pale skin and large eyes so he was an instant favorite in the airports. So many people stopped to tell me how beautiful he was. 

I may just be a total girl, but the fashion here really amuses me. You see so many random things. There does not seem to be a dress code for anything! You go to McDonalds or a fancy restaurant and you see ladies dressed in fancy dresses and heels completely done up sitting next to others in mismatched t shirt and comfy pants. Matching is not necessarily a thing here, any pattern or color can be worn together. I have seen a lot of camo and leopard print. English t shirts are a big thing. We went to the grocery store where they were selling some and I couldn't stop laughing! There were some that were proverbs that were just a selection of words that made no sense together and repeated, or even some that were random letters put together to look like words! Also, pretty much every outfit can be worn with heals.

I did go to Hong Kong, which was a very unique experience. I didn't get to explore too much since I mainly stayed in the hospital, but I took a couple of pictures from my window. Apparently Hong Kong is a different world since they are very Brittish in their make up. They were apparently leased to Great Britain for 100 hundred years and were only returned to china recently. They have their own money, speak Cantonese, and drive on the left side of the road. It was a lot cleaner there than mainland china and just seemed like a really neat place. Everything was squashed together but there seemed to be really nifty stores every where. Luckily a lot of people there speak at least some English so I was able to get along really well actually. I really want to go back some time and get the chance to look around! Apparently everyone here loves the chance to go to Hong Kong because you can get a lot of western things not available in mainland china. Here are a couple of pictures from the window of the hospital room on the 26th floor.

And here is one showing some of the mountains in Hong Kong from the train to the airport

Now on to food since I have been asked to describe that as well. Everyone wonders if American Chinese food is like "real" Chinese food. The answer would be a really indecisive yes, no, and it depends. It is still weird to me to see all of the varieties chiense restaurants. America has one generic "Chinese" style restaurant, while every restaurant here is a "Chinese" restaurant and they all sell different things! Every meal is served with chopsticks and soups are drunk from the bowls. I have eaten a fair bit of food from the cafeterias here which are entirely Chinese food cooked by Chinese chefs. The first meal I ate had me worried because it was a cold tofu and vegetable salad with red bean paste stuffed rolls... it was...ok? I wasn't a major fan. Since they serve the same things for all meals during the day I opted for grilled cheese for dinner instead. They also had a rice porridge available that they serve at most meals. It is kind of like slightly thickened rice water. My other experiences have been more pleasant. I really enjoy the food over all, though it probably wouldn't qualify as exactly healthy. They serve pretty much everything very salty, drenched in oil, and fried. In China they seem to use a lot of tofu and various fungi. I am not as much a fan of that part, but otherwise delicious. I have had meat and vegetable stuffed buns, potatoes and pork, spicy green beans, sweet tomatoes, vegetables and noodles, and scrambled eggs and tomatoes. They have these really awesome rolls that are super salty but yummy. They twirl them all up so they look cool.

Here are a couple of our other meals here at Maria's

The upper right is tofu and celery. The bottom right is pork and cabbage and other veggies.

In Hong Kong I got to order off of a menu and try a variety of things. I had more trouble with that than expected. I wasn't going to order a separate meal if I didn't like it. Some were delicious. Probably my two favorites were

The something or other style of fried rice (every meal was served with that little bowl and spoon)

And the rice noodles with beef

Though rice for every meal does get a little old, lol.

My least favorite was probably the chicken

As you can see, when they serve chicken, they serve every part of the chicken including skin, cartilage, bone, marrow, and a teeny tiny bit of boiled meat. That was hard for me to get used to. They use all parts of a lot of the meat. When ever you eat pork it is at least 50/50 meat and fat, sometimes more fat. The sweet and sour pork was delicious, except for the fact that you could never tell of the piece you were biting into would be all fat or have meat in it. You also had to be careful to fish out the cartilage. 

I have been to a couple of the restaurants here, and it is always terribly exciting! I, unfortunately, didn't have my iPad in them so don't have pictures. There are Mc Donald's, KFCs, Pizza Hut, Dominos and Starbucks here. Starbucks is pretty much the same, even price wise with a slightly more limited option. The others all include rice options and have a ton of things that aren't offered in the states or lack things that are. The Pizza Hut is a nice restaurant with servers in ties or neck scarves and a 4 or 5 pg menu. Everywhere offers boiling hot water as your water option. Even at the hospital they had a pitcher of hot water at your bedside. 

The restaurants I found most interesting were the Chinese ones. We went to the duck restaurant, which is a tradition for the teams. They had duck, of course. They served it with the head and neck beside the sliced meat. You take the duck and put it on a thin tortilla with plum sauce and some sliced green onions. It was absolutely delicious! They had a bunch of other delicious things as well I won't describe because this is way too much talk about food right now. I was asked to describe it so I am doing my best. The last restaurant I will mention I went to yesterday. We got plates of dumplings! They were sooooo yummy, but everyone eats a ton in China so I could eat like a quarter of it. You get tickets and then go outside to the stoves where there are people frying them in the stoves. I felt so badly for those fellows sweating in the stifling heat! They looked miserable. The dumplings are served with vinegar and red peppers to dip it in. They have sodas there you can get to go with them. They are called "happy" in Chinese and are a soda only served in Louyang. Over all it was delicious, and Chinese food is something I definitely enjoy, and that is enough about that!