The End of 2014

It’s hard to believe that yet another year is about to end and a new one will start in just about an hour.

We are in the UK for the holidays and catching up on the British food that we’ve missed: sausage rolls, crispy duck (OK, this is Chinese, but I am only getting it from the local Chinese take-out here), crumpets, Scottish eggs, pork pies, bacon & egg sandwiches, smoke salmon, pate, fish & chips… All of which are not really good for me in large consumption, so it is a good job that we are here once a couple years. Of course, we are getting treated to the nice UK weather, pure coldness. Sam really misses the snow and we  were hoping for a white Christmas, but that did not happen. It snowed a little bit on Boxing Day, but it was not enough for the snow to really accumulate.

This is the first time in a very long time that I am not working over my Christmas break in the UK. For so many years, even though I was here for the holidays, I had to work to make sure that we could get the projects out before the year for revenue recognition. I am happy that this year I can relax, so I have been catching up with watching mindless but cheerful Christmas movies with Sam, playing games together, and basically being unproductive.

The other difference this year for me is to be catching up with a lot of my old and new friends in China as well, on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform. It reminds me every day that we are now living a new life there.

Of course, the question we get often is that “how is living in China?” Well, it is still a thing in progress. What comes to mind immediately is that we hate driving in China. This is one of the most dangerous things you can do. We haven’t gotten into any more car accidents after the last one in March, but we see frequently how one can happen quite easily: all those cars cut in and out of you, those mopeds driving at night without lights on and on the opposite directions, those pedestrians just running out from nowhere without looking, those cars stop dead in the middle of an intersection for seemingly no reasons other than to chat or to cause traffic jams…! It is quite puzzling to me why people have such a death wish here. It is perhaps their personal business, but unfortunately, their private death wishes often interfere directly with the safety of those I care. As such, it makes me tense just thinking about driving in China.

We rarely see traffic cops in Zhongshan. Everything seems to be tracked by the ubiquitous traffic cameras. If they think that you have broken the laws, you will get a notification by text messages. We’ve gotten three so far! There is no arguing with the cameras. You just go and pay your fines. However, Gary has pointed out that you can’t really argue your case in America either, only the appearance of being able to do so. You can contest your ticket, but unless you go to court and the cop that has given you the ticket doesn’t show up, you are still on the hook for the fine. Whatever you say (or write) in your defense is just denied by the judge, with no reason given.

There are funny moments with the traffic though. One night around the Moon Festival, we saw this big black Mercedes Benz driving in front of us with emergency lights flashing. We slowed down to be safe, but it seemed to be just driving on and on with normal speed. So Gary had a flash of inspiration, “This must be a guy who has just bought this fancy car and thinks that he’s now a high ranking Chinese cadre, who needs to drive with the emergency lights on in order to announce his importance!” We drove on for a few more minutes, and finally Gary just couldn’t contain himself, and pressed the emergency lights button down, saying, “If you can’t fight them, join them!”

A friend of mine just told us (via WeChat) her close encounter with the police on Boxing Day. She had a little bit of alcohol during lunch but decided she was okay to drive (in China, you are not supposed to drive after drinking ANY alcohol). She got stopped by a police officer soon after. In her panic, she came up with a plan. Rolling down her car window slowly, she pulled out a little booklet from her purse, and asked in an unhurried and uncaring manner to the policeman, “Can you recite the Socialist core values?” The policeman was taken aback, then he collected himself, cleared his throat, and started to recite fluently, “Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony…” My friend nodded, and said, “Ok, not bad!” The policeman responded, “Shouzhang (an honorary title for high-level Chinese officials), I wish you a pleasant time during your unannounced undercover visit!” My friend drove away, and from her rear end mirror, she could see that the policeman was maintaining his salute still… Only in China!

I can go on and on about driving in China, but that will be boring. However, one thing that I do want to say is that it has been very impressive for the Chinese government to build so many highways in such a short time to link the entire country together. We complain how bad people drive here, but often we have forgotten that most of this infrastructure is not here even 20 years ago! The infrastructure has allowed China to grow quickly, linking its people and resources. Everyday we drive on the road, there is always some construction work going on. Hopefully in the next decade, the driving etiquette will become more developed and Chinese drivers become better and safer drivers.

Headaches aside, there are some wonderful things about living in China. First, being able to spend some more time with my parents, being close to them, being able to drop by casually just to say hi or to drop a bag of vegetables off, brings a quiet happiness I haven’t had for years. I like watching Sam interacting with my parents, watching them play like kids, watching them laugh without a care. Then there are the new friends we have made. The thought of them brings a smile to my face. These are people I would have never met if we did not come here.

Giving up everything to start a new life in an unfamiliar place is never an easy thing to do. There are moments of joy, of surprise, of fear and of doubt. These are not good or bad experience for us. They are just part of life.

Beijing Visit

We just came back from a short trip to Beijing, a nice ending to the summer vacation. Even the weather was kind to us, sunny a lot of the time, and the pollution not too bad.

Restaurant in Beijing inside the Old Home of Some Ex-Royalty from the Qing Dynasty

Upon arrival, my cousin took us to a special restaurant that is set inside the former home of some Qing Dynasty royalty (the brother of the founding emperor of Qing). There are many different rooms and houses, and some tables are set outside in the gardens as well. It is very neat. All the servers are dressed in Qing costumes and greet people in the Qing way, as if everyone of us were royalty. It was funny. We had a nice meal, including some special palace-style dim-sum with cakes made from different beans. Sweet but not overly so.

The Great Wall

The next morning, we went to The Great Wall at Badaling, which is the most developed section of the Great Wall. I visited another site before when I was in Beijing for business with some of my colleagues, so it was nice for me to see a different section. The Great Wall was definitely the highlight of our trip! It was quite tiring at times to climb some portion of the wall, especially with the crowd and the sun, but the view was completely worth it. I thought it would be boring for kids to just climb and walk, but everyone found it very interesting, just thinking about how it was all built, and imagining the lives of those soldiers patrolling the Great Wall. At the end, we decided it was too much to walk back and took the cable car down instead. It was a nice ride inside the cable car, though short.

After the Great Wall, we had lunch and went to the Summer Palace. It was nice to see some of the palaces and the lake, but my favorite part was probably walking around the lake. It felt very relaxed and peaceful. The next day, we went to visit the Forbidden City. The palaces are all very grand, but we felt sad that the whole place did not seem to be very well looked after. The palace rooms are not opened to the public, and you can only view it from the outside, either through the windows or through the doors. However, you can see layers of dust on the floor, on the furniture, and things just seem to be in a deteriorating state. There are many gift shops and small eateries here just like everywhere else, but with the old buildings and fast-food restaurants, it’s rather incongruous.

Fast Food Restaurant inside the Summer Palace

Summer Palace

Palaces inside the Forbidden City

We all agreed that when we come to Beijing again, we would like to visit other sections of the Great Wall, but not palaces.

 

A Spinach Incident

We went to our usual little cafe for lunch as usual. Samantha ordered a French Omelet with Spinach and Ham. In some previous occasions, they did not have spinach, so they put lettuce in as a substitute (and failed to understand why Gary and Sam were upset over the substitution choice). In some other instance after that, Gary checked with them to see if they had spinach, and the answer was no, so he told them to simply skip it.

This time, the owner J. (a very sweet lady) was there and from talking with her, we got the impression that there were spinach, so Sam ordered her omelet. It came as a shock then, when the omelet showed up at the table, there was no sight of any green! J. went to ask the kitchen what happened, and she came back to tell us this. One of the girls was in charge of purchasing produce from the market every morning. The price of the spinach had gone up somehow and she thought it was too expensive to buy. Therefore, she skipped it, and as a result, Sam’s omelet came without spinach, since we had in previous occasions, did not want the lettuce as a substitute. The girl thought she was doing a really good job since she was looking after the financial health of the restaurant by being economical with the cost of inventory. Never mind that they did not have all the ingredients for what the menu called for! J. was pretty speechless upon hearing this explanation. Sam ate most of her omelet, and we just laughed the whole thing off. Rest assured, we will never order this dish again unless the kitchen tells us that spinach is available!