Our list ..

As many people leave China, bloggers will often have a list of things that they will miss, and what the won't. Well we're no exception...

Things we will miss:

1. The people - very warm and friendly
2. Ba Shi - 8th market and Alleys
3. Gu Lang Yu, with all of its historical charm
4. The sunsets at Me and You 2, okay so the sangria's weren't bad either
5. Massages, cupping, pedicures, for next to nothing
6. Getting clothes tailor made
7. Very inexpensive
8. Travelling in China
9. Practicing my Chinese
10.Taiji, learning about Chinese culture, people, and history... will miss you Yang
11.Sitting out on our balcony and enjoying the views
12.Great photo opportunities
13.The abundance of fresh fruit here, love the pomelos, oranges, and longans
14.The food- especially the fresh seafood
15.Baozi - steamed bun
16.Ulf's parties at Me and You 2 - usually free beer for 3 hours
17.Bartering, everything is up for negotiations
18.That three winning beer caps gets you a free bottle - usually retrieved and drunk while wandering the alleys.

We won't miss:

1. The spitting
2. Trying to get Chinese to queue up - the saying "Pai dui" came in very handy
3. People throwing out their trash on the streets
4. Expensive wines
5. Western food that tastes like Chinese
6. Rats
7. Mold
8. No heat in the winter
9. Clothes that take forever to dry, and even then they're damp
10.Chinese drivers- who stops in the middle of the road to answer a phone?
11.Great Firewall of China


...and some things we'll never understand:

1.Chinese never want to give you bad news, so they just say.."ok, ok"
2.Women who wear shoes two sizes too big, with two inch heels..
3.No screens on their windows, they have flying cockroaches here.
4.The ability to sleep anywhere at anytime..in some very crazy locations and positions
5. Winter time, the restaurants will leave the windows open, everyone wears their jackets..ah, close the door.
6. Men using two coin yuan to pluck their chin hairs..thanks, can you do that at home, please?

Censorship...

One thing that we yearn for here is good old fashioned magazines in English, and one that we quite enjoy is the Economist. We've actually gotten to the point that when we have guests we ask them to bring in copies along with the wine that is required for entry into our small home. We used to be able to pick English magazines up at the airport but about three months ago all of the English items disappeared and they still have not returned.

So, when we returned from our trip to Malaysia, Laos, and Hong Kong, we returned with several magazines that had been purchased both in Malaysia and HK. Then when Skip and Holly showed up a week later they brought a stack of back issues of the Economist that they had, a few of which we already had.

We have seen before duplicate copies where the cover art was different, most notably when Emily and Elaine brought a copy that had a drawing about an article on Texas on the cover when the rest of the world had a cover showing the riots in Xinjiang, China. But, the other day I was thumbing through one that I had read before and noticed a sticker over one of the photos that wasn't there before. Sure enough, I go to the other magazine and there is the full photo.
The article is about how the economic downturn is hitting the porn industry in California, it's a sad story really - you could probably read it if you clicked on the photo, and the photo is just of the rows of movie titles (VHS boxes) that you would see in any well equipped sex store.

The photo isn't clear enough to see any nudity, but you can see titles and that is what I presume they were trying to block - although porn star names in the article are still there. I'm thinking they would be worried about people looking up the titles over the internet, otherwise what could be the logic in blocking it? We looked at the subscription leaflets in the magazine and found that the censored one was from Malaysia.

That's a lot of work to go in and place a label on every single copy sold in Malaysia, who do you think got stuck with that job, and did they have to be applied before the magazines were imported into Malaysia?

Sunday market photos....

Another Sunday filled with running a few errands and strolling through the market taking photos...

Overall we had an incredibly relaxing weekend which was much needed after what seems like two very hectic months. Not a lot more to say, so enjoy some photos -
Recycling at it's finest - notice the office chair?
Cleaning the market during the lunchtime slow down/nap time.

Oh, and this time at the market we saw something that we've never seen. This is why we go almost every week with our cameras....
Do you see that? The man with the computer bag over his shoulder? Not only had we never seen this, most of the market hadn't either based on the way people looked at him.

Unfortunately, we don't have a photo of the front of him. I had my zoom lens on, so when we saw him he was too close and Tina decided that the image burnt into her head was enough and she didn't want to document it....

When he got further away I tried to get a photo for all of you, but he never turned just quite right so the photo above is the best we could do. But I have enlarged the photo and highlighted what it was that so shocked us and others in the market. If you can't tell - those are rats. He was walking home with two dead rats that he had strung up on fishing line. Mmmm, tasty....

Con Artist - part II

A few weeks ago, we were at Gulang Yu while wandering around with Mark’s parents when a young woman approached us and started asking questions. Do you speak English? Where are you from? And so on. As we continued to speak to this young Chinese lady the conversation is starting to sound oh, so familiar.

Chinese gal: “I live here in Gulang Yu and you have to help me.”

Tina: “Why? What’s wrong?”

Chinese gal: “People are trying to hurt me?”

Tina: “Really”, thinking here we go again, except she doesn’t recognize me from her last plea back at the university a few months ago.

Chinese gal: “Yes”

Tina:”Why don’t you go to the police? I’m sure they can help you.” Here’s where she tells me again, that they won’t listen, and they will hurt her.

Now at this point I’m walking towards my husband, who is explaining that I’m becoming more Chinese as I’m walking directly in front of her and he thought she wanted to go passed me, until I explained it’s the con artist I spoke with months ago at the university.

Now, Mark starts talking to her and I leave her with him, as Mark can be just as pesky.

Ah, once Tina made the switch there was no looking back, Tina speed off with my parents and as I tried to catch up our new friend started talking and talking. It seems like she is the cook for her neighbors on Gulang Yu island, and they’ve taken to hating her and plotting to have her killed. Being that I read Tina’s last post on this girl, I knew her story and told her that we had already heard about the danger that she was living in, and that we were glad she was still alive as we were sure she would have been dead months ago…

She would just look at me and say “No, really. I am in danger, I need your help.” When I explained that she had already told us this, and that her story had changed she would get confused and say something like “I told you this? Then you understand that I need help. What? Different story? Maybe you were talking to somebody else who needs help, there are a lot of evil people on this island…”

This back and forth conversation when on for about 10 minutes, shortly after I explained to her that we live in Xiamen and she needs to get better at telling westerners apart so that she doesn’t keep approaching the same people, something clicked in her head and she said “Maybe I will not walk with you anymore, you have a good day, it was nice talking to you…” and she stopped and watched us walk away.

I took a picture of our little actress. You never know when someone may run into her here in Xiamen.