A Lake Toba Christmas

If you have to be away from home at Christmas...

Sumatra – home to the world’s largest volcanic lake and our 2011 vacation destination.  A volcano once responsible for nearly wiping out all human existence over 69,000 years ago!  The largest known explosion anywhere on earth in the past 25 million years.  (more fun facts at wikipedia!)  We had heard that Sumatra is a nice place to be, void of the masses of tourists that head to Thailand, Malaysia, and even Borneo now.  For this part of our winter vacation, we only had about 8 days – and then Damon’s Mom and step-father Norm would be arriving for the next 3 weeks!  So, we wanted a place that we hadn’t been to, a place that offered relaxation as well as things to do.  Sumatra seemed ideal – it is full of jungles, wildlife, beaches, and cheap food and beer!  Lake Toba, 4 hours outside of Sumatra’s capital city of Medan (not a great place), appealed to us because we heard it was laid back, cheap, easy to find accommodations, and presented opportunity for more adventure – renting scooters, waterfalls, hiking, swimming, and the fact that it was near Bukit Lawang, a wildlife sanctuary further north.  We approached this vacation a little differently than past ones as we didn’t really have too many plans set out.  We weren’t even sure where we were going to be exactly on Christmas Day – if we were feeling bored at Lake Toba, we wanted to be able to leave and go to another location.  If we were loving it there, we didn’t want to be pulled away from it because of a commitment to another place.  So, we sort of went with the flow, and we ended up spending the entire time there – enjoying every minute of catching up with our best friends from China (Darren and Mandy), relaxing with a beautiful view, and feeling some cool weather for the first time all year (we almost needed a light jacket!).  We had bad weather the whole time, so that also helped to keep us confined to our little cottage for the whole trip.  You can see the photos here or click on the recent gallery link to the right to see all of them.

House Sitters Wanted!

For most of you who keep tabs on us, you know that we like having people look after our apartment while we’re away.  We’ve used some different services in the past to help find people who like to do this kind of thing, however now that we live in beautiful Malaysia, we feel like it may be a good opportunity for some to take a short vacation to Malaysia (and the nearby countries – chances to visit Thialand, Bali, etc).  We have some very short holidays throughout the year (week or more) as well as some longer opportunities (3-4 weeks).  Basically, we need someone to take care of the cat (a minimal job), water the plants, keep the pipes from freezing (that’s a joke!) – basically just live in our house while we’re away.

We have added a new tab to the top of our website titled ‘house sitting’ which gives the details of WHEN sits are available and what we require.  While it makes the most sense for people who follow our blog to fill these spots, we’re also open to people that you may know – friends, family members, etc.  House sitting is a great gig to have allowing you to live in another country, explore, save a bit of money that would be spent on hotels/restaurants which can allow you to experience even more.  You don’t need to be here every minute – leaving the cat with food and enough water for 2+ days at a time is more than acceptable to us as you explore the country or the city.

Basically we have a few weeks that need to be covered in 2012, and the 2013 schedule won’t come until next August.  We already have the biggest jobs covered for 2012 (summer and Christmas), however we still have smaller amounts of time.  It’s a great chance to see some of SE Asia, as well as getting to see us as obviously we’d cross paths before/after and perhaps arrange to spend some time exploring together.

If you’re interested, or know someone who may be, please contact us (or have them contact us) by email as soon as possible.  We’ll basically do this on first come first serve (first confirmation, not first to inquire!).  Please read the house sitters section of this site to get more information than you’ll know what to do with!

World Food Day

We recently took part in Taylor’s Education Group’s World Food Day, where staff, students, and other members of the community worked from 3 different Taylor’s campuses in Malaysia to pack food to send to some disaster relief areas including Pakistan, Bangladesh, East Timor, Myanmar, and some other places in Asia.  The goal for the staff and students was to pack 1,000,000 meals to be sent away.  The meals consist of rice, soy protein, dried vegetables and some vitamins.  It was quite a production that was brought to the school’s attention by Crest Malaysia – a non-profit group which was also working together with some other relief organizations.

We arrived to one of the multi-purpose rooms for our 1pm – 3pm shift to do our part.  The projector had a live feed from inside the room we were going to be going in – it looked crazy as everyone was running around.  We watched a short video and heard about our jobs (we were line leaders, ensuring our team of 12-15 students knew what to do and had everything they needed at all times and also taking care of any general things that needed to happen – taping boxes, replacing sealers, etc).  We were informed that the first 2 sessions had packed over 100,000 meals already.  We were finally ready to lead our lines into the assembly area.  There was a ‘filling’ station where students added the contents of the bag, a runner who ran the bags over to the weighing station, a sealing station to close up the bags, then off to a counting station before placing bags into boxes.  It was quite a procedure.  It took a bit to get going and the filling teams had no problem doing their job, but weighing and sealing took considerably more time.  Eventually our teams found their rhythms.  Music was blasting, kids were singing and laughing even as the pressure to do their jobs quickly was on them for almost the full 2 hours that their shift lasted.  Many students who had volunteered for earlier shifts asked to come back to help again as they had a lot of fun (and they get volunteer hours).  Every time we packaged 5000 meals as a collective, the organizers would bang on a gong and the entire place would cheer really loud!

It was a great day, and all the teachers who volunteered, some who worked all day, worked really hard but also had a lot of fun.

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Taylor’s Talent Show

For years, we’ve been less than impressed (in general, not every time) with the Chinese ‘productions’ that we were typically forced to attend.  So, when I heard that Shannon had bought tickets to this year’s Talent Show at Taylor’s, I immediately began creating an internal list of excuses in preparation of backing out.  However, the day came and I decided to attend as many of our new friends were also attending and even performing in the talent show – at the very least, someone would make a fool of themselves and I’d be able to point and laugh at them!

Everyone had to wait outside to be let in first, and instead of the normal grumbling and generally quiet atmosphere, we were surprised at the buzz going around among the students eager to get in and get a good seat to see their friends and teachers perform.  Students were in charge of the front door to collect tickets (over 2 shows the students raised 4000 MYR, about $1300 CDN) and control the crowd that was gathering.  We entered a theatre about a third of the size of the ones in Chinese schools, a very intimate theatre that brought the audience closer to the performers than we were used to (I remember having to use ALL of my 12x zoom on my camera to take any kind of a photo in China).  The show started almost right away.  As the lights turned off, the students in the audience shrieked and cheered as loud as they could.  Eileen and Randy, the teacher organizers appeared on stage.  The kids love them (and all their teachers, really!).  Eileen and Randy explained that everything had been done by the students – stage crew, lighting, music, ticket sales, programs, etc.

The show began with an improv skit from the school’s drama club (Party Quirks from the show ‘Who’s Line is it Anyway?’) and was followed by a group of girls singing Nicki Minaj’s ‘Superbass’ – my favourite song from the summer.  So, I was immediately invested in the show!  5 girls sang and danced as the audience cheered almost non-stop every time a new girl began her solo part of the performance.  This was followed by the jazz band that has been in existence with rotating members for 4 years at the college.  The first teacher act was next (with the help of the band) as our friend Michel sang Zoot Suit Riot, a popular big band/swing song.  Dressed in all white with a cabana hat, the audience screamed every time he did some kid of dance move!  The grand finale of that act had our friend Samsher (Mr. Singh to the students) come out and do a great dance which solicited even more screaming!  Most of the acts involved singing in the first half of the performance, but the crowd was so excited every time.  A young man named ‘Earn’ stood up and did a 10 minute long comedy routine about Taylor’s students and teachers, pointing out some of the more popular teacher’s quirks and habits to get a lot of laughter (Shan’s favourite line was about all the Canadian teachers turning the air conditioning in the room down to zero as all the students froze – but the Canadians, who ‘love ice’, were ‘gangsta’ at the front of the room in their t-shirts writing on the board while the students all shivered for 75 minutes).

The group L.I.V.E finished the first half of the show with a few popular songs (like Katy Perry’s ‘Last Friday Night’) before an intermission.  The show returned with a bang with a magic performance by Kenji and the B-Boyz dancing group really picking up the pace before Bakri, the ‘dreamiest’ boy on campus was showered with girls confessing their love for him from a dark theatre as he waited for the sound problems to be fixed – he then sang a medley of Motown songs.  The students then went ballistic as the act of the night came to the stage – our friends Dan, Colin, and Andreas who did a great skit which was a rap battle.

Colin had the students screaming for a good 7-8 seconds at the beginning of his rap, which totally got him off track as he could no longer hear the music.  He recovered nicely and before beginning his second verse, the students went crazy as Andreas interrupted (calling himself ‘Dre Day’).  Andreas is actually a really good rapper (for a teacher and a white guy!), and his actions were very funny at all times.  The crowd was having a great time watching their teachers act a bit silly!  After an epic battle, they decided to put their differences aside, sang a bit of a song together (changing the lyrics from ‘California Love’ to fit Taylor’s College and our city).  As Andreas walked off the stage to a screaming audience, he reminded the students to hand in their assignments tomorrow!  Another few singing groups came up, and then a girl did this dance where she ‘pops’ to the beat (really looks like human popcorn!) which again had the audience yelling and screaming.  In fact, the audience was probably the best part of the entire night as they were so involved and so loud.  Randy and Eileen finished off the night with a song by Edward Sharp called ‘Home’ with Randy on guitar and another teacher, Peter, playing the harmonica in the background.  As their song neared the end, all the performers got on stage and sang together.

Everything was so great, and we decided ultimately to show up the next night as well to watch it all again.  After three months, we’re still reminded that we’re happy to be away from China.  Here are some more pictures:

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Some Malaysia Photos

Well, we’re finally settled in.  Shannon’s school is going really well (she got an iPad to try to find ways to use them in the classroom – it’s that kind of school!).  We’ve had our first ever Couchsurfer (Chelsey, who is wonderful and has been a lot of fun), taken a few trips around the city, and our month of September is full of great things, from Damon’s birthday trip to Melaka to Shannon’s birthday euchre party this Saturday, and trips for both of us at the end of the month – Shannon to Penang in Malaysia with her staff (school paid weekend trip) and a trip to Bangkok for Damon to visit Gabe, Wanru, and Lily.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the three small galleries we’ve added to the website.  You can find them on the right side of the screen under the ‘Most Recent Galleries’ heading.  They include a small gallery from the KL Tower, where we caught a great view of the city on a cloudy day, our overnight trip to unesco heritage city Melaka, and our recent visit to the Batu Caves just outside the city.  Hopefully we’ll be able to post some pictures soon of more of the things we see and do around the area.

Thanks for checking in!

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What a difference a month makes!

Well, we’re FINALLY settled into our new country.  Not that it’s taken any amount of time to get used to this place.  It’s everything we thought it would be when we left China – the good and the bad!  Everyone speaks English, it’s (mostly) clean here all the time, it’s hot as anything (we are close to the equator!) most days, there are generally 2-3 thunderstorms per week, it’s more expensive (beer is about $2CDN or more – much more in restaurants), the people are friendly and smile, Internet took forever to hook up, etc etc.  We could go on and on for a while about the differences (especially in terms of the school), but in the end we have a new apartment, and lots of new things to explore so we’re quite happy.  ZZ survived the trip (as did most of the things we moved, with the odd exception here and there but nothing important was broken, unlike our ‘simple’ move from Dalian to Beijing last year around this time), and is quite hot most of the time, but enjoying chasing geckos in the apartment!

We have even started getting Couchsurfing requests – after 4 years of essentially no contact from that world since it seemed nobody wanted to visit China.  Not only that, we have house sitters booked already for Christmas (our wonderful house sitters Ilene and Doral, who house sat for us last winter in Beijing and are going to have a very different experience) for just over 4 weeks, and Damon’s Mom and her husband Norm (or Normy as we like to call him) are also booked for a trip this winter right after Christmas for visits to Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Singapore, and Hong Kong with us.  However, this of course means that we have decided to skip Canada this winter (we had originally thought to go home for Christmas for the first time in 5 years), but it just didn’t end up making sense to us to bring warm clothes to Malaysia, or ship them to Toronto to sit there all year.  Besides, who wants to go back to the freezing cold (and pay lots of thousands of dollars to get there at a ‘peak’ airfare season) when we can just get free tickets in the summer and enjoy Canada’s best weather instead!  Most of you will see us in June when we (finally) make a trip back to Canada.  That’s not to say you can’t see us before then.  Malaysia is NOT China, and it’s a near perfect place to escape to during those cold Canadian winters.  We have extra room, and our proximity and cheap flights to Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam (among many others) hopefully will convince some to save up some cash and get to experience this amazing part of the world if you haven’t already!  Everyone is always welcome.  It is so easy, safe, and cheap to travel around once you’re here.

We have finally (sorry for the delays to all of those who asked repeatedly for photos) uploaded photos of the new apartment, as well as SOME of the area around us.  You can see these photos by going to the ‘About Us’ tab at the top of the page.  That page will show you our general area, and at the bottom there is a link to our apartment photos.

We’re just about ready to begin sharing our Malaysian experiences on a fairly regular basis, so please check back often to see if there are any updates.  Of course, we’ll always email when there is a major update.  We have a week holiday coming up soon, but don’t have any major plans right now as having a rest, going into the city, and maybe taking some day trips around Kuala Lumpur will keep us occupied enough!  But, we’ll always watch Air Asia to see if there are any sales, just in case!

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #1

As we sit at the airport, we find ourselves lucky enough to have stumbled upon the free Internet and able to complete our Top 25 list inside China (but only because our plane has been delayed by an hour and a half, of course).

The absolute top thing we will not miss about China is indeed the bathrooms, or WC as we affectionately refer to them here.  There is not a single proper adjective that can be used to describe a public washroom here.  While there are degrees of cleanliness (and degrees of disgusting), even washrooms in places like schools, restaurants, and even some ‘nicer’ hotels can be absolutely filthy by our standards.

Bathrooms do not have two very important things that cleaner societies have.  The first is toilet paper.  It is important to bring your own toilet paper in your purse, pocket, or bag at all times.  Most of the time you can’t even BUY toilet paper nearby the washrooms.  Forget paper towels to dry your hands, and forget a dryer as they are typically unplugged, and plugging them in results in nothing happening – they’re just there for show.  It’s as if you could pull them off the wall to reveal an empty box with no moving parts.  The second enormously important thing missing from bathrooms here is soap.  This was especially noticeable in school (a private school with lots of money) during our time in Dalian.  Everything is dirty, everything smells bad and you’re afraid to touch anything, but yet there is nothing to clean your hands – way more times than often the water in the taps doesn’t even turn on.  It’ s not enjoyable.

When going to a public bathroom, a nose plug is essential.  The worst part about holding your breath is when you can no longer do it, and are now forced to take a deep breath of what you’ve been desperately trying to avoid.  There is nothing but a pleasant surprise when you find a clean bathroom – in fact, it can sustain a fairly substantial conversation on it’s own when one is discovered and detailed to friends.

The squatter toilet, as they call it, is just what it sounds like – a hole in the ground that you squat over.  You need some leg strength, and the cubicle you’re typically given to go in (if you’re lucky enough to get an enclosed space of any kind during your process – sometimes it is just a bunch of stalls as pictured on the right, and the door of the bathroom opens to display everyone at their best) is generally very small and difficult to turn around in.  These type of toilets are made significantly more difficult to use on a moving train.  If you happen to stumble across a western toilet, don’t get too excited too quickly.  Still important to cover up that seat as (fairly) the Chinese believe it to be kind of disgusting to put your butt where someone else has.  Rather than use a toilet cover, they simply stand on the western style toilet seat and squat as if everything was normal in their world.

Was never quite sure which way to use these - this clears it up a bit!

A great memory for Damon is being on a trip and going into a public bathroom on the side of the road.  It wasn’t busy inside, and had about 100 urinals inside in several rows.  However, a random man that was also going to the bathroom stood behind (in one of the only lineups we’ve seen in China) and waited for Damon to finish, as if he had been assigned a urinal number before entering.  It was more than creepy, and Ryan and Damon had some great laughs about it after (in one of those ‘funny to you’ moments!).  We have other memories, but due to the nature of the topic, probably best for many reasons to not disclose them (but don’t be afraid to ask next time we see you in person).

………………….

Well, that’s it.  We want to sincerely thank everyone who commented and made our countdown both legitimate by verifying accounts (or adding horrific ones) and more fun for us to read as well!  It’s a crazy place, and we’ve made some of the best friends and best memories (and some of the worst) of our entire lives during this adventure.  Despite the difficulties, these are definitely the best years of our lives.  As Confucius says, “May you live in interesting times” (thanks to Awall for that comment that kept us sane, yet frustrated and fascinated, all these years).  To everyone who has been a part of our time in China, whether you were living and teaching with us, coming to visit us, or those who just simply listened to our stories and took genuine interest in them, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us cope and take advantage of all that expat life can be.

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #2

#2 on our list will also be our final experience in China, and one we are not looking forward to at all.  Airports and airplanes each deserve their own special spot on our list, but together they are the second least favourite thing about our time in China.

We won’t even talk about the crowds and lineups (or lack thereof) at the airports – it’s too easy, and it’s been discussed to death on these posts. Those items are typically the beginning and ending of our travels – long taxi lines, people pushing their way to the front of lines or ignoring them altogether, etc.

Plane delays and cancellations:
All planes seem to get delayed in China.  The loudspeaker, particularly at the Dalian airport, loops a seemingly endless cycle of “The plane is delayed due to aircraft delay.”  This essentially gives no information about the problem, and of course nobody knows what is happening.  We are routinely delayed an hour or more, we’ve been re-routed mid-air, and on more than one occasion have had our flights canceled altogether – once on our way to Beijing for our friend Jackie who was going to run the marathon on the Great Wall and once while trying to get back to Canada, the beginning of an ill-fated road trip that involved flight cancellations, broken down buses, illegal taxis, and running through toll booths.  At most major airports, once you have passed through security (long lines, they look at all your passport pages carefully, etc) there are things to do on the other side, which can keep you occupied during a delay.  Not in Dalian.  On the other side, there is literally nothing to keep you from losing your mind while you listen to the airport message system about all the plane delays.  We have never experienced these delays anywhere else in Asia, and it’s not surprising to us that things aren’t running smoothly at Chinese airports.

On the plane:
We suppose these are just small frustrating things that don’t really matter, but they need to be told.  Carry-on baggage is enormous, and there doesn’t seem to be any real restriction despite literature on the websites and at the airport to the contrary.  We have seen people with 3-4 large carry-ons, some far larger than checked baggage.  They don’t fit in the overhead or under the seat.  Chinese people rush to get onto the plane so that they can use as much space for their carry-on baggage as possible, leaving no space for anybody else to put their bags.  Many people will use more than one of the overhead bins for their things.  Once people are sitting, the horking begins and people will continue to yell into their cell phones despite the announcements asking them to turn off their phones.  While the attendants don’t bother with the people on the phone possibly screwing up the navigation equipment on the plane, they are quite concerned that we have our earphones in 15 minutes before we’re even on the runway.

On the plus side, even though the airlines don’t serve beer on short flights, you can just put a few in your bag and drink them while you’re taking off!  Once in the air, your meal is served.  Complain all you want about airplane food at home, nothing is this disgusting.  China Southern Airlines served us a cold hot dog wrapped in tin foil, complete with mayonnaise and a pickle.  Sounds appetizing, right?  While you are seated, people will stand up over you talking to another person, and they will lean on your chair and move it around.  Even dirty looks don’t stop this inconsiderate activity.  Parents constantly allow their children to kick the back of your chair as hard as possible.  Looks toward the parent go unnoticed, and we’re almost certain it’s done on purpose.

Once the wheels touch down on the ground, the cell phones are turned back on immediately, and the yelling into the cell phones begins.  Seat belts are unbuckled while the plane is still taxiing to the terminal, and many people are out of their seats collecting their carry-ons and run up to the front of the plane to get out first (they are forced to line up as the aisle is very narrow, not allowing them to get out of line formation).  Even with many people in front of them in the line, we are being pushed by people trying to get one person ahead as we try to collect our carry-on items.  Damon has just taken to blocking the entire ailse and giving dirty looks to anybody trying to get by.  At home, the seats empty out in order once the plane doors have opened, but in China if you are still sitting when the line starts to move, you will likely have to wait until everybody else is off, or you’ll have to use muscle and push your way into the aisle, which many Chinese do (and THEN they collect their carry-on bags, blocking the aisle for everyone as they open their bags, make sure nothing is missing, check their phone for messages, etc – again, not aware that others are around them).

Our last plane trip in China will be on Wednesday, and I’m sure that we’ll have many stories about the difficulties in getting out of the country, especially with the cat.  Here’s hoping that our last plane ride in China will be the smoothest one of all (but of course, that’s not saying much).

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #3

During times of celebration in most places, people get together to go and watch amazing displays of fireworks.  This is not the case in China, where fireworks are an everyday occurrence typically beginning at 6 in the morning.

The biggest difference is that the fireworks displays here are purely for noise, not for the visuals that we’ve become accustomed to in North America.  At construction sites at the beginning of each day fireworks must be set off.  These must be as loud as possible to scare away the demons that may cause injuries (right – not the lack of safety regulations that are causing injuries, it’s the demons) or that may get trapped inside the building (again, this must be right – if a building doesn’t have people or businesses move in, it’s likely the fault of demons rather than poor planning and the foresight to pre-sell or lease space before breaking ground).  Construction starts early, and even if you’re in a residential area it’s clear you must let everyone know that you are starting.  We would constantly be woken up in Dalian by fireworks next door on a Saturday and Sunday morning.

Weddings also require fireworks.  Not sure if it has to do with the demons or not, but outside of the hotels or restaurants where the celebration is taking place, guests gather outside for a ceremony where invisible fireworks are set off for minutes on end (literally).  Smoke fills the sky, and you can’t talk to the person next to you for an extended period of time.  Everyone covers their ears in discomfort, including the wedding party.

When a new store of any kind opens, you gotta have fireworks!  The problem with this is that some stores open multiple times.  The time when they have decided to rent out the space to open a business (before anything is moved in), the time they start moving things in, the time that they open for business, and the time they officially open for business (yes, the last two are different celebrations, thus cause for an additional round of fireworks outside the store).

Once a real celebration begins (like Chinese New Year), the fireworks just become more common – sometimes all day long.  The ground outside of our old apartment in Dalian would be literally covered with red papers left over from fireworks, kind of like a red carpet.

When we first arrived in Dalian, we were convinced that bombs were being dropped nearby as they were so loud and woke us up at 5am.  And like so many other fireworks displays, they seemed to last forever.  Goodbye fireworks!

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #4

Shopping for groceries at our nearby Carrefour (a French chain that is fairly international, although there is a very small section of it dedicated to foreign foods and the rest is simply a chinese mega grocery store) is so frustrating that in one year it has made it this high up our list.  The complaints are endless, but we’ll try to limit our frustrations to a few key points below.

The experience begins and ends with the parking lot outside of Carrefour.  Trying to walk through the parking lot to get inside is typically an adventure in itself.  Cars, trucks, shopping carts, and masses of people create ever-changing mazes to dodge, and they come from all angles.  Imagine your local Canadian mall on Christmas Eve, and you can get a modest idea of the amount of people in Carrefour on a daily basis.

Escalators are the flat incline ones, and they are magnetic so the wheels of the shopping carts stick to them and you can’t move them.  This is good except for the fact that rather than putting the cart at one side of the escalator so people can walk by, they find a way to put the carts directly in the middle allowing a mere few cms on each side so that nobody can pass.  There are two incline escalators going to the second and third floors, and on the platform between them (on the 2nd floor) is a series of lockers – right at the top of one escalator and the bottom of another, causing enormous traffic jams.  Even more frustrating is all the carts taking up the middle of the escalators that have one item in them.  People feel the need to have this cart rather than a basket or a bag to carry their item.

Once inside Carrefour, you have to navigate your way around the people and aisles full of product.  The aisles are crowded with people and grocery carts, but also with employees (one or two at the end of every aisle, plus many in the aisle ready to help you).  Aisles are often filled with shopping carts or pallets of product for the employees to put onto shelves, or sometimes just extra stock that doesn’t fit on the shelves, which often blocks parts of the aisle so that nobody can maneuver.  Often they block the aisles so much that you have to take your cart back the same way you came in.

Shopping for vegetables

On the first floor of Carrefour are items like electronics, appliances, sports equipment, and household things including detergents and toilet paper.  If this is all you need, you can pay for it all on the first floor without having to go through the second floor lineups.  However, don’t buy more than you can carry in your hands, as the cash registers are happy to take your money, but don’t have any bags to give you to carry your things in for some reason.  On the second floor is the food, and it’s always much busier than the first floor.  There is an enormous section for fruits and vegetables, all of which you need to take to the one available weighing station to get priced.  This obviously causes long non-lineups as hundreds of people funnel to the 2 girls assigned to these weighing stations.  Of course, they prefer that each piece of fruit or vegetable is in it’s own bag.  We’ve had to yell at them on more than one occasion as it seems ridiculous to have a separate bag for each of our green, red, and yellow peppers.

Some of the seafood

Then you work your way through the butcher area – a large section of the second floor with hanging pig carcasses and barely refrigerated meat out on display.  The aisles here are the smallest causing enormous traffic jams (especially when people just leave their carts in the middle of the aisle), and each different meat seems to have a different person to weigh and price your items, unlike the much larger fruit area.  The seafood section can smell  horrific first thing in the morning as ‘fresh’ fish, shrimp, seaweed, and frogs are on display.  The other meats only start smelling really bad later in the day.

As you approach the check-out lines, you would think your experience is coming to an end.  However, this is often where the most frustration occurs.  The check-out lines are always busy, and there is not enough space for carts or baskets.  There are up to 4 cashiers in a row, and people try to push by you to get to the next one (they don’t think to just wait for one cashier to open and let the next person go, they’d rather play cashier roulette and block everyone else’s way hoping that their cashier is the fastest).  There is no space to put your things as the counter is about 30cm X 30cm, meaning you slowly have to unload your cart or basket onto the counter for the cashier to scan, and they stack up your items in the 30X30 space on the other side of the counter.  However, since your cart is not empty yet, you can’t start adding the items to bags and then into your cart.  Not to mention you’re being hit by everyone on their way by to a different check-out or on their way out the door during this process.

After check-out, while you’re trying to get out, people stop right in the middle of the aisle to check their receipt or re-organize their bags that they were forced to fill in 3 seconds.  Much like their driving, they are all over the place with their shopping carts and somehow, despite the massive crowds, have little awareness that there are other human beings on the planet let alone trying to get by them in the hallways.  They can also find ways to stretch three people across the hallway that should fit10 people, not allowing you to pass as they are walking as slow as humanly possible.  The only action is to crash through them like a game of Red Rover.

The entire layout of the store is changed about once a month on average, causing chaos during store hours (as they do this while the store is open), and for days after as you can’t find anything that you want as it’s no longer in the place it used to be or near products it was once placed with.  Even if the layout has remained the same for weeks, there is no guarantee of finding what you want.  We have not had cheese in our house for 5 weeks because it is no longer there, despite being there all year long – as if nobody takes stock or re-orders product until there are zero left on the shelf.

Carrefour, we will not miss you one bit!

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #5

The Beijing Subway system rolls onto our list of things we won’t miss about China at #5.  The subway system here is great for one thing – it costs about 33 cents (in Canada, 2 RMB here) to go ANYWHERE in the city.  It can take about 2 hours to go from one side to another, so there is perhaps no better deal in public transportation.

The Beijing system for 2012

The System
The good: The trains are fairly easy to use.  You can get a ticket from a cashier, a machine, or you can buy a rechargable card that you swipe when you enter and exit your stations.
The bad:  If you don’t know where you’re going, you could get lost fairly easily.  The Beijing subway map (left) resembles a strand of DNA more than a transportation system – had we been able to understand the bus system and map, things would look much more complicated.  The lineups for the tickets are long most of the time, and often when you finally arrive at the front of the line you are informed that you are not able to charge your card in THIS line, or can only charge your card (which isn’t helpful if you don’t have a card) – to find the line you need, you typically have to walk all the way to the other side of the station.

A Beijing transfer station

Getting on the Train
The good:  The trains are fairly large and come quite often – usually no more than 6-7 minutes between trains depending on the time of day and line that you’re on.
The bad:  Regardless of how often they come and how big they are, they are always jam packed with people.  Regardless of how many people are currently on the train, each new station has more people getting onto the train than getting off.  At the beginning of a train line, there is often a huge line (well, you know what that means now) pushing and shoving in anticipation of the doors opening.  Once the doors open, crowds explode onto the train like water breaking through a dam, fighting for a chance to be one of the few lucky people to snag a seat.  You push, use your elbows and your best blocking techniques to grab a seat.  The physics of ‘two things can’t occupy the same space at the same time’ doesn’t seem to catch on.  However, once the seating has been settled, people are generally smiling and laughing, even those who lost out on a seat.  Maybe next time, but for now they must stand.

Notice the woman on the left squished against the door

Being on the Train
The good:  Not much to talk about here – there is very rarely something good about being on the train, especially when so crowded, outside of the fact that your train ride will eventually be over and you only spent 2RMB for this experience.
The bad:  The crowds.  They never seem to dwindle down unless you’re extremely close to the end of some of the lines.  There is very little awareness (or ability o display awareness) of personal space.  When the trains are overcrowded, you typically have 3-5 people pressed right up against you (at least one with their cell phone directly shoved in your face as they text).  One time it was physically difficult to breathe on the train.  Rather than wait for the next overcrowded train, people will push their way onto the train.  On busy nights you can hear collective groans as people get pressed against the doors or other people as new riders force their way on.  Getting off the train is another issue altogether.  Normally pushing people out of the way isn’t too difficult, but when nobody has any space to move, it’s nearly impossible.  Sometimes it can take 2-3 stops to work your way up to the doors to exit

On top of all this, many people YELL as loud as they can into their cell phones right beside you.  When a seat becomes available, men generally take the seat and leave their wife or girlfriend standing in the crowd.  The elderly aren’t given seats by the younger generation, usually too involved in their Playstation games or iPods to take notice.  Add the staring and the horking, and you have the makings of a possibly very long and difficult hour on the Beijing Subway.

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #6

While this could have been entered into the driving category, honking horns truly deserves it’s own post.

In Canada, we’re used to horns honking as signs of anger or danger, but the horn is used in a different way here.  Horns are used to alert others of your presence (likely because ‘blind spot’ doesn’t translate to Mandarin), and thus horns are constantly honking.  There are some sections in busier cities, like outside the Forbidden City in Beijing, where there are many signs that indicate honking is not allowed in that area.  This is likely because rather than a quick honk, drivers are known to simply lay on their horns for as long as it takes.  In parking lots, despite dozens of cars being ahead of them not moving, drivers will not simply toot their horn, but will incessantly lay on the horn until their car is able to move somewhere.  This prompts the other drivers ahead to simply do the same thing, yet no action is being taken.  Perhaps the ears of the citizens of the cities here in China are immune to such loud parking lots.  As chaos erupts in busy intersections the horns will just constantly sound, as if conducting some kind of horrific symphony.  Many horns also appear broken as they are incredibly high pitched or drastically out of tune.

Horns also seem to serve as some kind of invisible force field, as cars and buses that are running red or amber lights simply press their horn which acts as some kind of permission to run a red and put others in danger.  Most don’t even slow down while doing this just in case…they just blaze right through the intersection horn wailing.  Trucks honk their horns while parked all the time – they seem to honk their horns until whatever is in front of them has moved, whether it be another truck or a person crossing the street carrying their baby.  We have taken taxi drivers who will honk their horn throughout an entire 10 minute cab ride, whether or not anything is in their way.  Literally as I am writing this, there is a car outside of our apartment (in an alleyway with no through traffic) blasting their horn at 6am – no courtesy whatsoever.  While we can admit that our year in Beijing has been slightly better than our time in Dalian, that speaks much more for how bad Dalian was than how good Beijing is.  Outside the main shopping area near our old apartment in Dalian, you could barely hold a conversation with anybody as you walked along the sidewalk as the horns were so loud and frequent.

While honking horns are going to be a problem in Malaysia as well, we just don’t see the possibility that it’s anywhere near as annoying as it is in China (didn’t even mention that Shanghai has been the worst of all places during our visits there).

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #7

Living in a place like China, where the population is 99% homogeneous, means that most locals are unaccustomed to seeing foreigners on a daily basis.  There are areas in Shanghai and Beijing where it’s common, but the foreigners are still incredibly overwhelmed by the local population.  For many Chinese people, seeing a foreigner on a train or bus is even a more rare site, and this leads us to our next item on our list - staring.

As youngsters, we were taught to not stare when we saw something a little different than what was ‘normal’ in our everyday scope.  In China, the adults are worse than the kids as we are constantly stared at in every situation.  At the grocery store, on the subway, even in the ‘foreign’ sections of town.  Many kids will point at us, which is fine since they’re kids.  Many adults will point at us, which is less fine.  Even worse is when adults kneel down to their child, point at us and inform the kid that we are ‘waiguo ren’ (mandarin for ‘foreigner’), just in case they didn’t know.  Since we live in a developing suburb of Beijing, there are many people in our area that still have not seen many (if any) foreigners in their lives, so when we ride our bikes through their neighborhoods or visit their shop, the staring is at an all-time high.  Sometimes the stares are sinister, and other times they are from shock.  Generally people don’t display being friendly with a smile or anything like that (very frustrating as you try to smile to people walking by and they continue on their way without returning the smile or acknowledging your existence in any way).

Also, when we’re out and about at tourist places (like Forbidden City or even more remote places) there are many people who come from rural areas of the country to see the splendor that is the capital.  Most of the time, these people have NEVER seen a white person, and constantly request photos be taken with them so they can show their friends at home that they met a foreigner or two on their travels.  We most often humor them and allow our photos to be taken, but it can very quickly get out of control as others see this happening, and cameras must be shared.  Group photos, individual photos…it can become quite a time-consuming event.  Some will take photos of us without letting us know, thinking that they’re sneaky!  Like Paparazzi.

When we don’t want the attention (it can get a little old sometimes), like when we’re on the subway sometimes, we simply attempt a staring contest or perhaps wave or point right at them or make some other gesture to break the stare.  Sometimes even that doesn’t work!

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #8

Dictionary.com defines ‘Lineup’ as the following: a particular order or disposition of persons or things as arranged or drawn up for action, inspection, etc.

This is a 'lineup' for the new iPhone in Beijing. "Who's next?"

Order may be the key word there that is missing with most of the Chinese lineups that we have ever been a part of, whether it’s at the grocery store, Forbidden City, train station or airport, or basically anywhere else in the country that requires a queue of some sort.  Way more than often we are shouting at Chinese people to go to the back of the line, as apparently they feel it’s their right to just walk ahead of everybody.  We constantly wonder what they are thinking…”Why would I stand in this line and wait if I can just go straight to the front, shove some people out of the way, and do my thing – and nobody says anything to me about it?”  This is par for the course as we have yelled and motioned to them to get to the back of the line, 50% of the time to simply be ignored.  This feeling of entitlement that we’ve mentioned is something so deep in their blood stream that it’s impossible to get out, and this is especially true with the men in this country, although we have been shoved and budded in front of by little old women everywhere as well.

We suppose there are just so many people doing it, that if you don’t bud yourself (which we have started to do, like at the bank) then you won’t get looked after.  Instead of creating order, the lines tend to create more chaos.  The businesses don’t help it any either, as a grocery store or airport check-in counter will randomly open an additional counter, only to have all the people at the back of other lines run to the very front (literally RUN, push and shove) of the newly opened line.  In Canada, we’d typically indicate to some people to go to a new line in order to avoid the chaos, but nobody here seems that logical, and it doesn’t seem to make a difference anyway.

The shoving in lines is another thing we won’t miss.  There seems to be very little respect for personal space here, and as such people behind you in line will push up as close as humanly possible to you, urging you quietly to move up as close to the person standing in front of you.  There is no understanding that regardless of how close we stand, there is still the same amount of people ahead of us in line.  Still, having your heels stepped on, elbows dug into your sides, and 4-6 people circling you in a ‘line’ is more than common, and a frustration that we won’t miss at all!

The 25 Things We WON’T Miss About China – #9

There is something spine-tingling (not in a good way) about the way many Chinese people can clear their throats.  The horking that goes on in this country is insane, and arguably the grossest thing we have to experience on a daily basis.

The pollution, smoking, and dust are likely causes for this throat clearing exercise, and better out than in we suppose.  However, there is nothing quite as disturbing as watching a little old lady begin the process of bringing phlegm all the way through her body (I swear it begins at the toes), swishing it around a bit deep in her throat before violently expectorating on whatever ground is nearest.  We have watched and listened to all sizes and genders of people hork indoors and outdoors, and it never ever gets easier to hear.  Nothing can turn a beautifully dressed, exquisite Chinese woman into a person you don’t even want to talk to faster than watching her hork on the streets of Beijing or inside our favourite restaurant.  It may in fact be genetic, as we haven’t found foreigners who are able to replicate this action.

Places like Hong Kong (and an unsuccessful attempt by the government in Beijing) have attempted to curb this behavior as it is generally considered disgusting to outsiders, and signs like the ones above are placed in many areas, especially tourist areas, to remind their citizens that nobody wants to hear or see it!