Author: edebock

The bathroom

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Foreign bathrooms fascinate me! If someone would finance the travel required to do my research, I think I’d write a book entitled Bathrooms of the World.

As is common in many parts of Asia, our bathroom is also a shower stall. We don’t have a bathtub and the shower isn’t a separate entity. You simply stand in the bathroom and the water goes everywhere! Most of it ends up going down the floor drain, of course, but the entire bathroom is wet after a shower. Rubber sandals sit outside the bathroom door to keep your feet dry when you enter.

The tank that’s attached to the wall above the toilet supplies hot water to both the bathroom sink and the shower but not the kitchen sink. We have to carry that from the bathroom. Fortunately, the kitchen sink is located just outside the bathroom door.

Squat toilets are still very prevalent in China but, thankfully, our apartment is equipped with a dual flush western style toilet. Most public buildings including our school are not. Toilet paper is not flushed; it goes into the little garbage can that sits beside the toilet and is carried out with the rest of the trash. This, too, is common in many parts of Asia.

One feature that I do like about our bathroom is the heat lamps! There are four of them and you can turn on either two or all four at once. They keep the bathroom warm while you shower and help it dry more quickly afterward. They’re also nice for those nighttime trips to the bathroom that are common at our age! Since we only heat the bedroom at night, venturing out to the bathroom is a chilly experience.

I do miss having a bathtub as I much prefer bathing to showering and there’s nothing more relaxing than a good soak. It would have been especially nice after this afternoon’s very long walk. We spent a couple of hours out in the sunshine exploring on foot.

We have to eat!

/ edebock / 7 Comments

Grocery shopping and meal preparation have been my biggest challenges since arriving in China. So far, with the exception of breakfasts, we’ve eaten most of our meals out but that becomes old fast especially when very few places have English menus and it’s always a guess what we’re going to end up with!

The university cafeteria is just around the corner from our apartment building and an easy place to pick up a quick lunch or supper but the meals there, though incredibly cheap, are heavy on rice or noodles and light on meat and vegetables. The same is true of many of the tiny restaurants in the neighbourhood. In order to ensure that we’re getting a healthy, balanced diet we’ve decided that we need to start doing more of our own cooking.

Grocery shopping here is a whole new experience. There’s a giant supermarket within walking distance or there’s the street just outside our window! Every morning before 7 o’clock, vendors spread out their wares and the street becomes a beehive of shoppers purchasing everything from fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and seafood to clothing, shoes and household goods. It appears that on some days you can even have a comforter made right there on the street! By noon, everything is packed up and carted away until the following morning.

It was fairly easy to find some breakfast basics at the supermarket. Though we can’t read any labels, bread, yogurt and orange juice were easy to identify. With the exception of oatmeal, cereal doesn’t seem to exist though and fresh milk is nowhere to be found. We’ve bought eggs at both the supermarket and on the street.

Buying meat is clearly going to be my biggest difficulty. I could manage quite nicely as a near vegetarian especially considering some of the things we’ve seen for sale so far! Chicken feet are common as are pig feet! At least those we’re able to identify! We have no idea what some of the things we’ve seen are.

Nevertheless, we headed down to the street market this morning determined to find enough to make at least a couple of meals here at home. After much gesturing to indicate what we wanted and some moments of frustration as we tried to figure out how much we were supposed to pay for each item, we came back with fresh shrimp and a good looking chunk of meat that I’m pretty sure is pork. It could be beef though! We also purchased a variety of vegetables as well as oranges, rice, peanuts and a pair of knit gloves because mine were wearing out! Supper tonight was a shrimp stir-fry and rice.

More than an adventure!

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In spite of the fact that we had to have complete medical check-ups before we could apply for our Chinese working visas, we had to repeat the process this week. The visas got us into the country but now that we’re here, we have to apply for resident’s permits. That requires another medical.

I wasn’t too concerned. After all, we’d just been declared healthy. This would just be another adventure and an opportunity to see an aspect of Chinese life that we might not otherwise see. Little did I know!

Early Wednesday morning we met Teresa (one of the school’s delightful Chinese employees) who had arranged for the school driver to take the three of us to the health centre. I didn’t have any classes that morning and another teacher would cover Richard’s. The health centre was a spacious and modern looking facility with the specific purpose of providing health checks and documents to foreigners as well as locals applying to go overseas. It ran very efficiently. We went from cubicle to cubicle giving urine at the first one, blood at the second one, having a chest x-ray done at the third, and so on. The only test that didn’t duplicate what had been done in Canada before our departure was an ultrasound and that’s when the excitement began!

The technician had hardly started moving the wand over my abdomen when she erupted in a flow of rapid questions and comments directed at Teresa who did her best to translate for me. Did I know that I had growths on my liver? Why hadn’t this been detected in Canada?

Needless to say, I was shocked! What in the world was going on and what would it mean? Of course, the worst case scenarios are the ones that immediately come to mind. Would we be on the next plane back to Canada? Did I have cancer?

Apparently there were two spots. One was immediately declared non-threatening but the other one was considered suspicious. Pictures were printed and we were told that I would have to go to the hospital for a CT scan. Only then would we know whether or not I could remain in the country. The final procedure before we left the facility was a blood pressure test. I can only imagine that mine was sky high at that moment but nothing was said!

The drive back to the school was a blur as I sat in the back seat and contemplated the future. Ridiculous thoughts bounced around in my mind. Surely I hadn’t come all the way to China only to leave again without even seeing the Great Wall!

Over the next day and a half, I ended up making not one but three trips to the main university hospital in downtown Dalian! Thank goodness, Teresa was with me every moment of the way. She is very young and had never dealt with anything like this before but she was both efficient and reassuring. After coming home for lunch on Wednesday, I again met her at the school and we set off for the hospital by bus. On the way out of the apartment, the magnetic cross on the fridge beside the door caught my eye. Given to us as a gift just before we left for Japan in 2008, it reads "Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10" That verse became my mantra over the next couple of days and gave me great peace.

At the hospital, we sat in an overcrowded and noisy waiting room for about an hour until my name was called. We saw a lady doctor who looked at the ultrasound photos and immediately concurred with the initial conclusion. One spot was nothing to worry about but the other one would require a closer look. She also explained that a regular CT scan wouldn’t show anything more than the ultrasound had. I would need to be injected with something before the scan was done.

Both Teresa and the doctor, who spoke no English, were worried about whether or not Teresa’s ability to translate all of this was adequate. Since they wanted to ensure that I understood what was being suggested, we were sent to see a younger doctor who spoke reasonably good English. We were able to get in to see him almost immediately and he repeated exactly what Teresa had already told me. He also told us that Richard would have to return to the hospital with us to give written permission for me to have the procedure done! We have since learned that this is common practice here. Regardless of gender or age, no one can have a medical procedure done without the signed permission of a family member. Teresa and our other Chinese colleagues were very surprised to learn that in Canada I would be able to sign my own consent!

Early Thursday morning, the driver took us back to the hospital. We met briefly with the same English speaking doctor, signed the consent forms, purchased the medication that I would be injected with and made arrangements to have the procedure done at 2:30 that afternoon! Again, Richard would have to be there with me. We discovered that one of the reasons that the hospital was so terribly crowded was that everyone, inpatient or outpatient, had to have at least one family member there to help take care of them. We even saw one elderly man, obviously too weak to walk, being carried down the corridor on the back of a younger man, presumably his son.

After returning to school to teach our morning classes we went back to the hospital for the scan, this time by taxi. When it was done, Teresa was given a form to bring back the following afternoon at which time she would be able to pick up the results. No privacy of information rules here to slow things down!

Yesterday dawned bright and clear. I didn’t have a class until 4 o’clock in the afternoon but I planned to go a few minutes early to find out the test results. As I did my morning devotions, I came across Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." As I read that, I was filled with peace. I knew that regardless of what the scan showed, I was in his hands and I would be okay.

Fortunately, the news was good! The spot is one of two things and neither one is threatening. Teresa didn’t know the medical terms in English and to tell you the truth, I don’t really care what they are. They probably wouldn’t mean much to me anyway. All I needed to hear was that I had nothing to worry about!

Teresa will take the results of the CT scan back to the health facility on Monday and fully expects that the necessary documents will be issued so that we can apply for our resident’s permits.

An adventure? Yes, but much more than I bargained for! One thing we’re totally amazed by though is the speed at which all this took place. The process from ultrasound to final diagnosis, which would have taken weeks or months in Canada, took about 55 hours!

Laundry day

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In the corner of our bathroom, which measures 45 inches by 68 inches, stands the tiniest washing machine I have ever seen. As shown in the photo, it’s shorter than the pedestal sink that stands next to it! It might be small but it does the job. I did our first load of laundry this morning and everything came out clean.

Though considerably smaller, the machine is almost exactly like the one we had in Japan so it was easy to figure out how to use it. I just have to remember to place the end of the hose into the floor drain before I start it or there will be water everywhere! It even plays a little tune to tell me when its job is done.

The clothes dryer is a rack attached to the building just outside our bedroom window! I’ll use that for bedding, towels and larger items of clothing. As I hung the towels today, I feared that I might drop them into the alley below but fortunately that didn’t happen. I’m not going to take a chance on losing our more delicate items to a gust of wind so they hang in the multi-purpose computer/guest room. If you come to visit, however, I’ll make sure there’s nothing hanging over your bed while you’re here!

Since some of our dress clothes will need to be ironed, I brought our dual voltage travel iron with us and yesterday we purchased a little table top ironing board much like the one we carry in the travel trailer at home. We also bought a bag of Tide laundry detergent; the same brand we use at home. Though many things are very different here, others are surprisingly familiar!

The penthouse

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I love the fact that, after reading my last post, one of our friends dubbed our upper storey apartment "the penthouse". In spite of the 67 stairs that we have to climb to get here, I love our location. We’re on the very end of a long narrow building so we have windows on three sides which let in lots of light and allow us to look out in several directions.

The apartment is approximately 390 square feet and is made up of three rooms plus the bathroom. Take a close look at the picture of the kitchen. Can you see the stove? Sure you can! It’s right behind the electric kettle. That’s right! It’s a one burner hot plate! Though you can’t see them in the photo, we also have a microwave, a toaster, a rice cooker and a crock pot so cooking is possible. So far, though, we’ve been eating most of our meals out. Why not when there are lots of eating establishments within a few minutes walk and food is unbelievably cheap? For example, supper tonight cost less than $6 for the two of us!

The kitchen also has a small refrigerator and a water dispenser. Bottled water is essential here as the tap water isn’t safe to drink. I was delighted to learn that we could have an 18.9 L jug of water delivered to the door for $2! All we have to do is tell our school secretary when we need a new one and she takes care of ordering it for us.

Our main source of heat is a small hot water radiator in each room which is adequate to take the chill off but we’re thankful that the bed/sitting room also has a wall unit that provides both heat and air conditioning depending on the season. If you take another look at the picture of the kitchen, you’ll notice that the cupboard door below the kettle has been left open. That’s because the radiator is inside the cupboard! I’m assuming that the cupboard unit must be a more recent addition to the penthouse.

The third room is our computer/guest room. That’s right, though it can’t be seen in the photo, the computer room is also furnished with a double bed. If you’ve ever wanted to visit China, now’s your chance! The love seat in the bed/sitting room also folds out into a single bed so we can easily sleep three of you at once. Just let us know you’re coming because we’ll have to find some bedding for your beds!

Did you notice that in addition to being fully furnished, the apartment even came with plants? They were pretty dried out when we got here but with a bit of water and pruning, they’re looking much better now. My favourite is the Christmas cactus blooming on the kitchen window sill. They’re one of my favourite plants and I’ve often thought about buying one. I just didn’t realize that I would come all the way to China to get it!

Where do we live?

/ edebock / 10 Comments

Our mailing address sounds pretty fancy:

Room 305,
EIE, School of Continuing Education
Liaoning Normal University,
850 Huanghe Road,
Dalian, Liaoning, China 116029

but that’s just where we work. Where do we actually live?

We were given a sheet of paper with our apartment address written in both Chinese and English that we could show to a taxi driver if needed. It says that our apartment address is: the little street of Liaoning Normal University, Lan Xiu Street, Huanghe Road, Shahekou District, The Red Building!

We went for lunch with one of our fellow teachers today. When he asked where we live, we described our location just off the edge of the university campus. “Oh, is yours the building where it looks like you’re entering a crack house?” he asked. Yes, I think that would be us!

We enter through a broken door and climb the narrow cement staircase to our apartment on the top floor. Many of the landings between floors are piled high with stuff. I’m not sure if it’s things that people have discarded or if the landings are just being used as extra storage space. I must admit that as we hauled our suitcases up the 67 stairs to the fifth floor the night we arrived here, I really wondered what we’d find at the top. In comparison to the stairwell, our apartment really isn’t bad at all but I’ll save that for another post.

In the meantime, let me tell you what’s going on right now. At the moment, it literally sounds like we’re living in the middle of a war zone. Today is the final day of the Chinese New Year holiday. There have been fireworks going off all around us ever since we arrived but we’re assuming that that must be coming to an end tonight because now they’re literally exploding non stop all over the neighbourhood! This started well before dark. I knew that fireworks were a big deal in China but I never imagined anything like this! I hope it comes to an end before we go to bed tonight or there won’t be any sleeping happening. I’m not holding my breath though. The first ones started going off at 6 o’clock this morning just as the sun began to come up. There are also bonfires burning on several street corners below us tonight.

I wonder how many more surprises this strange place we’ve chosen to live has in store for us?

Wursday, blursday

/ edebock / 9 Comments

We crossed the International Date Line and lost a day this week. The day we did have, which I’m calling Wursday, started when the alarm went off in our Leduc hotel room on Wednesday morning at 5:15 a.m. and ended about 29 hours later when we climbed into bed in our Dalian apartment. It was already after one o’clock Friday morning here. Thursday had disappeared in a blur of airports and flying.

Other than being an exceptionally long and tiring day, the trip went very well with absolutely no problems or delays. We made our way through security at the Edmonton, Vancouver and Shanghai airports without incident in spite of the fact that Richard’s knee brace always sets off alarms. Passing through immigration in Shanghai was a simple matter and we were waved through customs without having to answer a single question! To top it off, none of our luggage was lost, delayed or damaged. We travelled all the way with China Eastern Airline and couldn’t have asked for better service.

The best part of the trip was, without question, our stopover in Vancouver where we enjoyed a visit with daughter-in-law, Robin, and grandsons, Sam and Nate! The Vancouver airport houses an impressive collection of Northwest Coast native art. We met in the international departures area beside the "Spirit of Haida Gwaii" by well known Haida artist, Bill Reid. After checking out every detail of the giant sculpture we headed upstairs to the observation area where we were able to see planes coming and going and watch one of them being unloaded.

Before long it was time to say good bye and continue on our way. We took with us a special bag of goodies that the boys had helped their mom put together for us. Because China starts with C, everything in our bag began with that letter… carrot sticks, celery, cookies, cupcakes, clementines and even candy canes!

The stopover in Shanghai was longer but much less entertaining. By the time we got there, we’d been up for over 20 hours and I much of it trying to catch a few winks.

Now we’re nearing the end of our second day here. We’re unpacked and settled in and have already walked many miles exploring our new neighbourhood. We’re soaking up the sights, sounds and tastes of our new surroundings but we’re still suffering the effects of jet lag and trying to readjust our body clocks. It will probably be another day or two before I’m clearheaded enough to adequately describe our first impressions. To whet your appetite, he’s a couple of views from our apartment.

More family drama

/ edebock / 6 Comments

There’s nothing like a late night phone call to get your heart racing and the adrenaline pumping! I had just crawled into bed at about 11:45 last night when the phone on my bedside table rang. It was our son, Matt, calling to tell us that Dad’s high rise apartment building had been evacuated a couple of hours earlier and Dad’s whereabouts were unknown!

apartment

photo credit: Vancouver Sun

While conducting a search warrant for drugs on the 11th floor of the 29 storey building, Burnaby RCMP officers found more than they were looking for… 10 sticks of dynamite and several small bombs! As soon as Matt heard the news on Twitter, he headed over to Grandpa’s to make sure that he was okay.

Dad is a distinctive looking man. Though slightly stooped by age, he once stood 6 feet 6 inches tall and only weighs about 170 pounds (yes, that’s definitely where I got my skinny genes!). He’s fairly frail and walks with a cane. The officer that Matthew spoke with knew immediately who he was looking for and told him that he had seen Dad waiting in the lobby earlier. He assumed that he had had gone to the nearby community centre that had been opened as an evacuation centre and directed Matthew there. Dad wasn’t there nor was he at the care facility where Mom lives. Unable to find him, Matt headed home and called me.

I assumed that Dad might have called someone from his church and that they had picked him up but I had no way of knowing for sure. I called my sister who agreed that that was a likely scenario but neither of us had a name or a phone number to call. We discussed the fact that Dad is of sound mind and wouldn’t just wander away into the night. We agreed not to panic and I crawled back into bed.

That’s when the phone rang a second time! It was Matt’s wife, Robin. The evacuation centre had called. Dad was there and Matt was on his way back to pick him up. Their plan was to bring him back to their place for the night but when Matt got there, he was told that the order was about to be lifted. He waited with Dad then took him back to the apartment. All was well!

It wasn’t until this morning that I learned that when Matt went over the first time, Dad was actually sitting in a warm bus outside the building waiting to see what was going to happen. He sat there for an hour and a half before being taken to the evacuation centre.

Dad doesn’t carry a cell phone and he probably wouldn’t have called anyone if he did. He knew he was okay and had no idea that anyone was worrying about him. As my niece pointed out, he doesn’t understand how fast news travels these days. We’re just relieved to know that he was in a safe, warm place where he was able to sit and wait in relative comfort! We’re also very grateful that something of this nature didn’t happen while Mom was still living at home. That would have been a much greater ordeal.

I think I’m going to escape all this family drama and go to China! We leave later this afternoon!

Packing 105: To fold or to roll, that is the question

/ edebock / 14 Comments

Though some people roll their clothing to pack it in a suitcase claiming that it takes up less space and doesn’t wrinkle as much, I prefer to fold most of ours.

I learned to fold and pack from a master. When I was a child my father spent several years commuting between Powell River and Vancouver almost every week. Every week my mother did his laundry, starched and pressed his dress shirts and repacked his suitcase. I remember watching her with fascination. She could fold a shirt so that it looked like it had just come out of it’s original package.

Every summer, our family of six would pile into the big blue and white International Travelall and set off on a camping adventure that often lasted several weeks. Mom would pack everything we needed into the back of the vehicle. There was no such thing as a nylon tent in those days but she could fit the bulky canvas tent, six sleeping bags, foam sleeping mats, the Coleman stove, dishes, food, clothes, life jackets and fishing gear and a multitude of other things into the space behind the back seat.

Travelall_2

One summer we chartered a float plane and flew into Garibaldi Lake nestled high in the coastal mountains. Mom had to weigh every single item that went on that trip to make sure that we didn’t exceed the plane’s weight limit. Yes, she was definitely a packing wizard!

Float plane_2

But I digress! Though I fold the majority of our clothing, I often roll things like pyjamas to fit into small unused spaces between other items. On our upcoming trip to China, I’m also going to try a packing technique that I’ve never used before. By packing bulky items in ziploc bags and squeezing the air out before sealing them, they’ll take up much less room in a suitcase. Richard’s navy blue fleece hoodie is two sizes larger than my red one but look at how much less space it needs.

IMG_0757

And before I bring this packing series to an end, here’s one last tip: It’s amazing how much you can pack inside the shoes that go into your suitcase. Stuff them full of socks, underwear, pantyhose, pill bottles, anything that will fit!

Do you fold or roll?

No more mountain!

/ edebock / 4 Comments

We have our visas!

After the panic that I was thrown into three weeks ago when we learned that we had to have complete medicals done before we could apply for our work visas, our trip to the Chinese visa application centre was quite anticlimactic. We drove to Calgary on Monday, going directly to the centre when we arrived in the city. Though there were nine spaces at the counter for serving customers, we were the only ones there. After carefully checking all of our documents, the representative took our passports and told us to return on Thursday. It was that simple.

When we went back this morning, there were a few people there but we didn’t have to wait. Within minutes, we had our passports with the visas in them. We checked them carefully, paid the required fees and were on our way. The mountain had moved!

In spite of the unexpected stress involved in getting our visas, there’s also been a bit of humour involved. Carefully following the instructions provided by our employer in China, when we completed our visa application forms we entered “employment” as my main reason for going to China but “to accompany my wife” as Richard’s! His is also a work visa but apparently it was faster for them to acquire a single invitation letter and work permit for the two of us than it would have been to treat us as two entirely separate entities.

With the exception of the Mosuo tribe, a small ethnic group living in Yunnan province, China is not a matriarchal society. The only reason we can think of that I appear as the head of the family on our documents is that I’m the one who has done most of the communicating with our employer. Whatever the reason, I’ve definitely had fun calling Richard my consort and teasing him that he’s only going along as my companion!

No more mountain! Thank you for your prayers!

No more mountain! Thank you for your prayers!