Good-Bye Xiamen

Today, Calliope, TM, and I flew from Xiamen, on the east coast of China, to LiJiang, on the far west of China just before Tibet. Good-bye to Hilda, who will be returning home in about a week. And good-bye to Xiamen. What follows is a miscellaneous smattering of images, an annotated photo album of sorts.

What I call the cotton tree matured while we were in Xiamen. (I don't know the actual name.) For a couple of days there were fluffs falling from the sky and making patterns on the ground.

Summer snow.

An opened cotton fluff seed pod.

There was a two day martial arts competition at the University. There were far more varieties than I knew of. For example, Tai Chi encompasses many different styles. What we call Tai Chi is the slowest style. Some events include swords; some sticks; some spears. Young boys to old men participate. Their outfits were utilitarian and dressy at the same time.

The judges.

Two young contestants.

Waiting their turn outside.

The buddhist temples had lovely dragon ornamentation at the roof ends.

Calliope tutored two cute eight year old girls twice a week while we stayed in Xiamen.

A lovely city park halfway between our apartment and the univesity, Zhong Shan Park, provided something for everyone. In the morning, we'd catch glimpses of older women fan dancing and older men doing tai chi. There were beautifully landscaped walkways. An extensive collection of bonsai plants.

An art museum of naturally formed, carved, and polished stones and tree trunks. A zoo for the kids. An artificial pond with meandering canals and lotus plants for paddle boating. What's that across the pond? It's a dragon sculpture dressed in flowers and plants. Between the shirts with bad English and unnoticed typos, the English menus with undecipherable food options, and the crazy translations on signs that result when translating literally word for word from Chinese to English, there is enough English around Xiamen to keep a smile on my face from one end of town to the other. Here are a couple of store names that got me going. (You might have to click on the photos to look closely at the English.)

The fabric market in Xiamen offered up a large range of fabrics by the meter. A few stalls provided a playground of beads, belts, skirts, and reflective bling for belly dancers. The costume ladies at Sarasota's Sailor Circus would have had a heyday at the stalls full of costume accessories. Calliope and I chose some traditional silk that will be made into traditionally styled Chinese jackets and a dress.

A protected harbor in Xiamen experiences daily tidal water and grounding for the boats moored there. Since large chunks of Xiamen have been leveled to make room for modern skyscrapers, this section of town has maintained its smaller structures and the ambiance of an older Xiamen. As I walked around the area, I saw it at low tide.

Click this photo to see lots of details! Then as the tide came in, so did a fishing boat with its daily haul.

I visited a traditional Chinese medicine clinic. The dried herbs, fungus, and sea-things were organized and stored, each in its place

On one of our trips to Quanzhou, we noticed that they rigged their motorcycles up for sun and rain. They could zip along without injuring the umbrella. This road sign pointed the way to a rest area, gasoline, and food. Note that food is not denoted by chopsticks as you might expect, but by a knife and fork.

On Calliope's birthday, Liz bought her a fabulous cake. It says "Happy Birthday" in Chinese. There is fruit on top, including tomatoes. It did not taste anything like it looked.

There is a boardwalk that runs for miles and wraps around the east coast of Xiamen Island. Along the way, there are lovely rock formations, small parks, comfy bars, a fort, shade sructures, playgorunds, sculptures, and pleasant views out toward Taiwan. At several spots along the beach, you can see huge wastewater pipes draining directly into the sea. No matter how hot it got, none of us even considered going to the beach for the swim.

Xiamen, like most Chinese cities, lit up at night. This shot was taken as we approached Xiamen from Gulang Yu.

Good-Bye Xiamen. You have treated us well!

Last Day of School

Today is my last day of Mandarin class. I am leaving Xiamen a week before my class ends and this makes our classmate Germán sad.

German when he is happy. He wants me to pick where we all go to eat lunch today. Germán is studying at two schools, and he has invited one of his classmates from the other school to join us for lunch. We get to talking and it turns out that she has just finished her junior year of high school in the U.S., and she has taken on studying Mandarin, teaching English, and teaching SAT preparation for her summer in Xiamen. WOW.

She is staying with some Chinese family friends. They are grandparent age for her and they are doing their best to make her feel part of the family. Every night they gather to smoke together. They are quite insistent that she join them. She says it's no use talking to them about tobacco and health issues. It is quite irrelevant as this is about coming together in community. And if they get to drinking, they are just as insistent that she join them.

I know that different cultures have different norms concerning alcohol, tobacco, and child-rearing, but this still caught me off guard. For many in the U.S., parents and grandparents do their best to discourage their children from smoking and drinking. In China, the importance of family and relationships cannot be overstated. Families build very strong bonds. Maybe this is just one more way to accomplish this - one that is perhaps from a different era (?).

I was surprised by this conversation in much the same way I am surprised when a group of two or three unchaperoned six year olds hop on a Xiamen public bus on their way home from school. Or when almost everybody in a high school English class in Xiamen stated that they had never been lonely, because they had never been alone. They were always with a family member or good friend, even when they left home or started a new school. I think that what I find surprising and similar in these examples has to do with the family expectations of young family members. Of where priorities are placed. But actually, I can't quite put my finger on it.

Our lovely lunch winds down. Several of us go over to the large banyan tree for our last Tai Chi class. Finally, after many thank yous and warm smiles, my classmates have all gone their separate ways. Who knows if our paths will cross again? We have all come here to study Mandarin for different reasons. For some it is job-related. One student is getting the last credit he needs to graduate college. A couple of students giggled from one end of class to the other, so perhaps their parents made them come. Hilda wanted to pin down pinyin and learn simplified Chinese characters. I, myself, truly enjoy the study of foreign language.

Correspondingly, we are all taking away vastly different learning experiences. In fact, I think that some of my classmates may have found that having me in their classroom was a cultural experience in and of itself. For the first two weeks, I was the only person to ask questions, when I didn't understand a new word or some piece of grammar. And since our teachers kept explaining things in Mandarin, I had to ask a lot of questions. Most of my classmates were Asian and I later learned that most may consider it disrespectful to ask the teacher a question. It indicates that the teacher has done a poor job explaining something. As for me, after two months I feel that I know very little Mandarin - certainly not enough to go traveling on my own and enjoy it. On the other hand, on the food front, I expand my knowledge of Chinese cuisine almost daily. And I continue to expand my cultural understanding. Just today at lunch, I learned a little more about family norms in China ...

TM Arrives

TM arrives in China tonight. I arranged his flight to China less than a week ago. I got him a fine fare with enough time to change airports in Shanghai. But I did not take swine flu into account. The Chinese authorities have taken swine flu into very serious account. A couple of weeks after we arrived, Hilda got a telephone call during class. She took the call in the hallway. Someone in authority was on the phone and was talking (in Mandarin) about needing to go to a hospital. I was already packing my bag in case I needed to go rescue Calliope from some as yet unknown calamity. Li LaoShi, our very sweet and helpful teacher, took over on the telephone.

They were concerned about Hilda's sister's daughter. Hilda's sister's son, Anton, was visiting with us. And of course, Hilda's sister-in-law's daughter is Calliope. But none of Hilda's sister's daughters were here in China. We guessed they were not talking about Anton, because he was back at the apartment, safe and sound with Hilda's mother, Magdalena. By the end of the conversation, we had established that they wanted Calliope to stay in the apartment and to take her temperature in seven days and call in to a special phone number, if she had a fever. Well that explained everything. Not. This was a game of telephone on the telephone.

Further discussion ensued. Using a creative rather than a literal approach to language translation and one more phone call, we understood that they were concerned about swine flu. Within fifteen minutes two community health workers showed up at the apartment, quickly took Anton's and Magdalena's temperature, and were on their way.

This still left quite a bit of unexplained intrigue in the air. First off, how had they found Hilda's Chinese cell phone number? She hadn't given it to either her mother or her nephew. I had given it to Xiamen University, but how would a health worker have known to call there? Second, how did they get to the apartment so fast, without asking directions, or even an apartment number? Now, just to get to our classroom at the University takes half an hour by taxi and we've been there lots of times. So these health workers must have been very close by. I don't even think they rang the bell to get buzzed in. Together, these factors give me the willies in that we are being monitored much more closely than I might have thought.

And from a public health perspective, these actions didn't make much sense. Magdalena and Anton had already been here for two days. When they disembarked in Xiamen, they went through a temperature check. Were health workers swarming the city checking on each passenger from every plane that had landed in the last two days? And if either Magdalena or Anton had been sick, they would already have affected many, many people over the course of two days. On the other hand, when Hilda, Calliope, and I arrived, the flight attendant announced that they were about to do a temperature check, but then never did one! Such efficiency and inefficiency all rolled up together.

So what did all this have to do with TM's arrival? I hadn't realized that officials had stepped up their temperature checks for international arrivals. The girlfriend of one of our classmates arrived in Shanghai two days ago. She, along with all the other passengers, sat on the plane for an hour and a half waiting for health officials to finish. If TM had to wait that long, he would never make his connecting flight to Xiamen. Since this was the last flight of the day, he'd have to make arrangements for lodging, transportation, and a new flight - all this without knowing any Chinese.

Normally I don't spend many cycles worrying about things I can't do anything about. But today, I just gave in and started worrying. And then I started worrying out loud. Worrying out loud actually helped. In the end, I made a connection with the friend of a friend (thank you Fenny). He works at the Shanghai airport where TM might get stuck and he also speaks English! I gave TM his phone number and relaxed.

Night time came. Calliope and I made our way to the airport. We waited in front of a large screen TV amidst a crowd absorbed in a soccer game. Someone approached me from the crowd. I had met him at the English Corner at Xiamen University. I asked him and his buddy why they were at the airport. As it turned out, they had come to watch the soccer game in an air-conditioned space; they didn't actually have any business at the airport. It wasn't long before TM was heading calmly down the corridor towards us, his head bobbing above the flood of shorter Chinese people. He had made his flight :-)

But Northwest airlines had lost his luggage. Another problem for another day.

TM looking at me looking out the apartment window.

Hilda Buys Pearls

Hilda goes shopping almost every day. For me, most shopping is drudgery. But for Hilda, it brings joy. She shops for the apartment, for food, for gifts, for clothing, for special treats to share. Today, Hilda played hooky in order to go shopping. Her mission? Pearls.

The photos were taken by Karin F, who so accurately captured Hilda's shopping pleasure.

Nothing Goes Quite According to Plan

This was the first weekend in China that I planned absolutely nothing. Before any more adventures, I need to buy our onward tickets from Xiamen. A second consideration is that none of my weekend preparations during the last two months have gone according to plan, and I'm a little worn out from ineffective planning. Time to go with the flow.

Our neighbor, Karin, had invited us to come along with her on one of her visa renewal forays to Kinmen Island, which is part of Taiwan. Yesterday, due to travel planning, I took a careful look at our visas. I was delighted to unexpectedly discover that they allow for multiple entries to China. I ran downstairs to tell Karin the great visa news. She responded with some bad visa news of her own. It must have been a visa kind of a day. She had woken up and realized that she had accidentally let her visa go until the very last day - TODAY.

After some mental wrangling and preparation, Hilda and Calliope set off with Karin to the Kinmen Island ferry. Within an hour of their departure, I heard the front door to our apartment swing open. This could only be bad news. Evidently, they had made it in time for the 2:30 ferry. However, all return ferries had been indefinitely suspended until the typhoon passed through. TYPHOON? Although typhoon sounds like an exotic weather phenomenon, it is basically the same thing as a hurricane. As Floridians, we are familiar with such things.

A friend called to talk about a text message he had received on his cell phone from China Mobile, his cell phone company. The message warned him of the typhoon heading our way. Hilda had also received a text message from China Mobile. The cell phone company sends lots of text messages, which drives Hilda crazy, because they are all written in Chinese characters, which means she rarely understands them. But consider this: the Chinese government is able to alert all of its cell-phone toting citizens about impending emergency situations. In the larger cities, just about everyone has a cell phone, so this is a phenomenal use of telecommunication technology!

Our neighbor, Karin, still had to deal with her visa issue, which turned into a long, drawn-out nightmare. I think the highlight (lowlight?) of her ordeal was when an official insisted upon a certificate for the typhoon. I guess he missed the memo when God stopped sending certificates for extreme weather events.

Side-note: Here is the derivation of the word typhoon in Mandarin. The pinyin for typhoon is TaiFeng. This corresponds to two Chinese characters - Tai, roughly meaning "too" in the sense of extremely, and Feng, meaning "wind". Where English derives typhoon from another language, Mandarin reuses simple words by compounding them to create more complex words.

Today, Hilda, Calliope, and I decided to spend the typhoon at a luxury hot springs resort in Xiamen - the one we hadn't yet visited. It looked geographically like a safer spot to spend the typhoon, since it is on the mainland. If you ever find yourself with a tropical storm/typhoon coming your way, I highly recommend spending it outdoors in baths of scented and colored hot water with people you love. The raging winds are fun to watch from the security of serene waters. And who minds the rain, when running from hot tub to hot tub.

On a whim, Calliope decided to get cupped - a therapeutic procedure which involves applying a vacuum suction created with a flame, alcohol, and glass cups. Immediately after the procedure, she announced that she will not be doing that again.

This weekend has driven home a recurring theme. I shouldn't get too attached to any plans I make during my stay in China. Nothing goes quite according to plan.

Paper Cutting

Today is Wednesday, so it must be Chinese paper-cutting day. Do you remember back to your childhood, when you folded paper and then cut out a single figure, unfolded the paper, and discovered a series of figures holding hands? Chinese paper cutting works along those same principles, but can get quite complex. Our teacher does not speak any English, and I don't understand a thing he says. But he is excellent at drawing diagrams, showing the proper proportions, and helping us through the tough spots when we go astray. He is also an extremely capable paper cutter.

One of our Japanese classmates cuts hair for a living. You can imagine that he is usually the first one finished. As for the rest of us, some of us are proud of our productions and others feel that our scissors have been sent to earth to humble us. Hilda generally falls into the latter category, breaking into fits of laughter as she finishes an assignment that didn't turn out quite right.

This one is supposed to be a mushroom. Check out the seeds of the apple. For other classmates, the joy of proud parents shines through as they show off their newborns.

Enchanting Chanting

As the city breaks into its oppressive summer heat, I have taken to exploring the city in the morning before class begins. At 6:15 in the morning, there aren't many young people out yet. Some people board the bus fingering their prayer beads. Generally, groups of older people get off the bus at Wanshi Botanical Garden and Nanputuo Temple. Most of them are starting their day with prayer.

I get off at the gardens and find that I am almost immediately covered in a film of sweat. Since I have removed myself from the hustle and bustle of the city, I am unconcerned. I notice a woman walking backwards up the hill. I walk backwards with her for a while. As I get closer to the first temple, I hear a man give off a long, deep howl. Within five seconds, another howl comes booming from the distance. This is a long-distance call and response. It continues for about three or four minutes and then stops for a while, only to start up at unexpected intervals.

At this time of day, the gardens are serene.

One of its temples is full of women chanting, generally in unison, sometimes with prayer books, sometimes walking single file, at times with incense.

I have explored several routes up through the gardens over the mountain and descend to the Nanputuo Temple complex. As I climb over the top, there's a great view of Xiamen University. The calm evaporates slowly as I get closer. The Chinese tour groups have already arrived.

By about 8am, the Nanputuo monks have gathered for some morning chanting. They use bells and drums. All is well in the world. At about 8:40am, it is time to head out, cross the street to the University, and walk to class. By the time I arrive at our building, I am drenched in sweat, but this never-was-a-boy-scout is always prepared. I change into a dry shirt. Since the air conditioner is not yet running inside the classroom, it is more an ineffective gesture than anything else. The rest of the students are too polite to comment.

Quanzhou

When Hilda's mother and nephew visited, Calliope, Anton, and I visited the Kaiyuan Temple there in Quanzhou. Although famous for a pair of stone pagodas that were built in the 13th century, we spent most of our time taking in the stone carving. Inside the temples, the carvings depicted various Buddhist themes and stories. The depth of the delicate carvings made the figures jump out of the stone.

Outside of the temples were many scenes from everyday life. I don't read many Chinese characters, so I guessed as to the underlying meanings of each panel. I was amazed to see a panel showing a street-sweeper. Truly, in Xiamen, there is an army of street-cleaners out and about, on any given day, at any given time. A panel with a swing hanging from what look like palm fronds caught my attention. We used to have a super-long rope swing hanging from a huge Cuban Laurel in our backyard. When we removed the tree, there were no other trees to support a rope swing; so, we have done without for many years. But we do have palm trees. I am still contemplating our palm-tree/rope-swing options. One panel looked like it could have been a depiction of a "dog-eat-dog" perspective on our universe. But, in this case, it was "fish-eat-fish". There were hundreds of these simple panels around the various courtyards, as well as many other items of interest. Today Calliope and I returned to Quanzhou to walk through China's only Maritime Museum. Quanzhou was at the heart of the ancient maritime silk route, and this museum chronicles China's boat-building history. Nobody we asked seemed to have ever heard of this museum. We walked in several directions and finally decided to take a cab. We figured we could count on a cab driver to know where all the museums were. Not! Calliope could say the name of the museum in Mandarin. We had it written in Chinese characters, but even the cab driver had to call a buddy to find out where this museum was. We arrived to find a deserted building. There wasn't a single tour bus; there were no other patrons; even the reception guards had abandoned their post. And although the museum was loaded with air conditioners, not one of them worked. It being a very hot day, we were driven to investigate. We found that some of the units were empty shells with no actual parts inside. We proceeded with caution.

My favorite parts of the museum were the detailed models of historic boat designs and materials. There were at least one hundred beautifully crafted models with descriptions as to their purpose and history, as well as the environments in which they were used. I include the following two models here, only because they made me laugh, and not because they were particularly important.

The Red Dragon Boat from the Ming dynasty, was "... a battleship designed to frighten the enemy with its terrifying appearance and color." And how many of the crew would fall for the old bottomless boat trick? It was described as a "... battleship designed to lure the enemy into leaping aboard, whereupon they would fall into the water and drown." Since many (most?) Chinese people today don't know how to swim, or don't know how to swim well, perhaps this devious boat worked better than I would expect. In Xiamen, I gave an adult friend a swimming lesson.

Part of the mission of the museum included glorifying China's fabulous history of inventing everything that had anything to do with boats. It's one thing to take pride in one's history and one's culture. It's quite another to use historical reinterpretation to claim credit for all of humanity's great inventions. Based only on the limited number of museums and rock inscriptions I have viewed, this is characteristically Chinese. Update: I have it from a reliable source that there is significant evidence to justify the claims surrounding China's invention of so much in the maritime world. There is a book that I have yet to read, called 1421, that documents this.

Quanzhou is also home to a marionette museum (no photography allowed). Puppetry has a long history in this area. We took refuge in the Guandi temple during a downpour and witnessed a long procession of people bringing paper money to the incinerator to burn for their ancestors We stopped for tea in the quaintest of tea houses. The menu was written on bamboo panels. There was an old mosque nearby. Traffic overflowed the streets onto the pedestrian sidewalks and crosswalks. We passed an alley where recyclers on foot, bicycle, and motorcycle were bringing their goods.