Harbin SIberian Tiger Park

This is Beloved’s third trip to China. Last summer he came for a week to teach at the University here but didn’t get to do much sightseeing or traveling outside or off campus.
One destination he did get to experience was the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park, about 30 minutes outside of the city. I say outside but in reality it is surrounded by high rises and roadways, from our understanding the city just simply built up around this park and the tigers remained. Beloved made a comment about tigers running loose in the city which made Bumpo’s eyes go wide. The thought of huge Siberian tigers running alongside city buses is an image even I thought was too magical.
Mr. Wu, our host’s hired driver, picked us up at the apartment in his minivan and drove us to the park. Mr Wu is a character. While we were waiting for our host at the University he bantered loudly with a truckload full of young men, seemingly landscaping staff, and it was comical. I’m not sure if even knew them, it involved a lot of him barking loudly at them and them nodding their heads slightly and looking at him a bit scared.
Mr Wu’s job was to make sure we got into the park okay, and that the park didn’t overcharge us as foreigners to get into the park. He did this by cutting to the very front of the line while we stood at the back and barking at the ticket agent, with a lot of agitated hand gestures and motioning back to us. ‘Us’ being the abashed white foreigners who were looking away off in the distance trying to avoid any reconnaissance of the boisterous fellow… who was just doing his job.
Got into the park and instantly got into a short line that led us to a large bus. A bus unlike any I’d ever seen
The tour guide then started loudly giving instructions on what to do while riding on the bus into the tiger park. I have no idea what she said, as she was speaking quickly and constantly throughout our 15 minute tour. I’m wondering if it was something like the various signs posted on the inside of the bus. “Do not stick your fingers through the wire mesh.” “Tigers can smell fear.” “Do not lean against the wire mesh.”
The bus rode through a succession of high rusted barbed-wire fences, complete with guard stations (which were empty) and the courtyards were weed-covered and empty as well.
As we passed through the second or third gate I said loudly “Welcome…to Jurassic Park” which got a laugh from my husband.

Here is that same person helping to feed the tigers. :)

And here is a few short videos from the day.

Harbin Siberian Park has over 700 tigers living within the confines of the park. It is the largest preserve of Siberian tigers in all of Asia, if not the world. The tigers were in a word stunning, unlike any tiger I’d seen in a North American zoo. These were massive, about the size of a Shetland pony or a small car, with their paws being about the size of a human head. They were allowed free access to roam throughout most of the park, which is about 356 acres. The park allows has an area for other exotic cats, an albino leopard, jaguar and a male and female lion couple. The lioness was pregnant and the male was ensconced nearby, ignoring the idling bus completely and murmuring quietly to his mate. (I think it was his mate… it could have been another lion’s partner. I had watched a documentary on lions which showed a lion attacking another lion’s cubs and killing them, allowing the lioness to go back into heat sooner and giving him a go at the cub-less mother.)


I wondered if that was why he was kept separate from the female. Hmmm.
The bus rattled through heavily rutted dirt roads, heaving back and forth threatening to bash our unsuspecting heads into the thick wrought iron bars soldered inside “for our safety”. I wondered aloud how they determined at which depth the bars needed to go back into the interior of the bus, was it from personal experience? How long were a tiger’s claws?

Trying to share the pictures to give any scope to how gorgeous these creatures are is wasted. There’s no scale to compare them to, no human beings anywhere wandering throughout the park. Their fur was beautiful in exquisite patterns of black and oranges and creamy white. And thick, so thick you could lose your hand in the depth of it. Beautiful eyes of yellow or green, with the cubs eyes usually pale blue. Exquisite.

After we toured through the park on the bus (Beloved noticed a large convex mirror posted on the side of the exit gate that reflected the area beside and the behind the bus to make sure no tigers tried to escape alongside the vehicle) the bus deposited us at a green tarp-covered entrance.
Beloved said this is where the walking tour and the preserve really started, when the raised concrete walkways were fully covered with the same wire mesh in arches covered with the same green tarp. You could look down into the preserve, seeing where the tigers were resting under all of the trees or in the dirty shallow ponds. We could tell the tigers had been fed because a duck was paddling about- somewhat placidly,- but its head was in constant pivot looking from one tiger to another. There were no ducks harmed in the tour. Not today.

So Yes here is the ugly reality of the tiger park. Tigers are not just cuddly little stuffed animals. They are carnivores. They don’t eat grains or corn or rice. They eat meat. They eat chicken and cow and ducks. And from the size of these massive beasts they eat a LOT.
Scattered about the park are these metal chutes placed high into the wire mesh of the covered walkways. These chutes transport proteins.

Proteins in the form of live ducks and chickens, portered about by an elderly Chinese woman with grey frizzy hair and a fanny pack bulging with yuans. The birds are carried in large plastic bins with a metal grate over the top and one little padlock keeping them inside (see picture above). She puts her torn office chair over the top of the bins as she trundles her cart about the park, making loud clucking noises which the tigers would sometimes come running for. At one point she handed Bumpo a piece of raw chicken which she held with tongs and then led Bumpo to hang the chicken into the tiger area. The tiger ate from the tongs.


If I had not seen for myself the absolute bloodlust my own two domesticated cats have for winged creatures I would have flicked open that padlock and let those fowled creatures go.
But where? Just like Red Bird Farms back in the US of A, these Chinese birds are bred specifically for eating. They wouldn’t know the first thing to do with their freedom, and would be easily caught back and shoved into the plastic bins…this time with more force I am afraid.
“Fallen world Fallen world this is a symptom of a Fallen world” I kept chanting to myself. Animals eat each other.
So yes my friends we fed some big cats yesterday. As I posted on my Facebook “We sent four chickens over the Rainbow Bridge today at the Tiger park. It was kind of awesome.”


But it wasn’t easy and not without some remorse.

Were we exploiting what was an already an innate sense of greed in all of us? Or were we simply participating in the pattern of life…
So no not everyone in the family participated. Some of us just took pictures.
The skinny chickens were shoved into the chute where the tigers were waiting, and when the chicken mysteriously appeared from the end of the chute it was killed instantly. By one if not more than one tiger, which leapt to meet the chicken mid-flight.
Its flight into oblivion. Its short-winged flight over the Rainbow Bridge.
So yes, half a dozen tigers would chase the winning tiger (Winner Winner Chicken Dinner) who would end up all by itself and for the next 30 minutes or so tear the bird apart. Afterwards it would mash its glorious face into the

feather detritus of the dead bird and sort of make muffled sounds.


Fallen world I would say. A fallen, fat content gorgeous thick beautiful sinful fallen world.
After we caused enough excitement with the tigers, we came open a circular tarp-covered ring where there was a wooden gate and a man in fatigues and woman with yellow gloves speaking rapidly. I saw a little boy being led to a wooden bench in the ring where he was handed a tiger cub. His mother was chattering animatedly as she took pictures of him.
I said “Waaaitttt a minute…can we hold these babies?” The woman at the gate held up 50 yuan and I couldn’t get the bills out fast enough.



The ‘handlers’ kept telling us to hold them under their front legs and I just couldn’t hold him like that. He was about 20 lbs of dense weight, and he mewled slightly and snuffled as I held him. I held him up and kissed his head and nearly burst into tears at how gorgeous he was. Fat little tiger baby.
When our time was up we all quietly left the room and that is when the reality of the day started to well up.
Tears started to flow about the plight of the tigers and their habitat, and how these cubs were probably never going to see the wild. But the gift was how Life was being preserved, and how we could gain an appreciation first-hand of how stunningly gorgeous these animals were. Not man-made, not genetically-engineered or synthetic, but how texturally and vibrantly and perfectly these predators are.
I’m not sure what the answer is, I have always been a conservationist in the sense that hunting helps keep disease and the unhealthy at bay, but seeing these animals displaced by an ever-burgeoning human population still causes physical pain. And if this apex predator is given a small moment of joy in catching an animal beneath it in its food chain by catcing out of the air as it travels out of a metal chute than so be it. I’d let them do it again in a heartbeat. I will never look at a tiger the same way again.
The answer isn’t an easy one, and the solution isn’t written in English. It’s for the Chinese to answer, and my hope is that they will continue to respect the tiger and maintain international demands on the sanctity of their life.

Harbin and the Jewish Center

There’s just too much to keep up with.
Last night we recovered from a long day of sightseeing to the Jewish Center of Harbin (20,000 Jews lived in Harbin, China from the early 20th c. until the 1930’s developing a large majority of the businesses and building the complex which is the downtown area of Center Street, with its Old World European architecture. The Chinese were very welcoming to the Jew, even referring to them as “Harbinitsi” (sp?) and inviting them back annually for a celebration honoring their contribution to the community.

So that was the morning. We had been brave souls and chosen to take the bus from the East gate entrance of the campus, a mere 1 yuan (16 cents) to travel all the way to downtown. It was relatively painless, a bit of a jaunt from the bus stop to downtown, where the Jewish Center was located. We then wanted to try a dumplings place that our host, Yong, had suggested, called Old World King Dumpling or something to that affect. Delicious. Crowded clean restaurant. Horrible service. We were basically ignored. But the food was again another delicious assortment of textures and flavors and spices.
Our driver Joe introduced to Chinese cucumbers. These are a favorite snack item for Chinese. They carry them in their bags and will munch on them raw. These have a crisper thinner skin, and are a nice change of pace from raw carrots. I think this is one item we can carry over to our American lifestyle. The cucumbers are then also prepared in dishes, usually in long strings, and are a perfect complement to the spices. YUM.
After we ate a late lunch of dumplings, and checked out a bakery that Beloved and the kids have been dying to try, we decided to take the bus back to campus. It was a stressful experience. Imagine a city bus. Each seat is taken so you grab a handle and stand there. The entire length of the bus fills up. Then the bus continues to stop at each stop. Another full length of the bus fills up because no one is getting off the bus yet. Then the bus takes on another bus stop full of people, therefore filling the bus to seven people across, the entire length of the bus (two in each seat on each side = four people, three people standing=seven people totalx20+rows of seats= a hella lot of flesh). I had to close my eyes and do some deep breathing because the sight of so many people pressed against me and more importantly, my children, was agony. Tank’s head was sometimes appear over the crowd “Mom let’s get off at this next stop k?” and Bumpo’s expression was one of goggle-eyes and distress. She was without arm’s length of me and was two ‘black heads’ away from her sister, so I was not happy. Claustrophobia is real and beloveds, I would not be afraid to admit I’d be the one at the Who concert running over people to get out of the crowd.
This agony prevailed for about 20 minutes, burdened even further by a drunk man in an unbuttoned shirt, sweats and visible underwear waistband. He had open seeping bleeding sores on his legs. He spent the majority of his time in Beloved’s face speaking garbled Chinese belligerently in his face. Beloved said he was thisclose to elbowing him in the face. Glad he didn’t.
Got off the bus, we let the kids go on ahead as we walked over to the school grocery store to pick up a few things. Dinner consisted of cheese, crackers and Harbin beer. Early night sleep wormed through by images of Bumpo getting pushed off the bus or Doe getting groped by drunk Chinese guy.

As were walking home Doe said “Hey Dad…just a thought…somethings are WORTH paying the extra money for!”
I would rather walk six miles than ever get on a city bus in China ever again.

Hangtou Mountain State Park

Our time in Harbin so far has been relatively peaceful. Yet is all relative to Colorado peace….If by peace you mean a safe warm bed to sleep on and air conditioning, with a rather spacious hot water tank at our disposal for showers than Yes, we are at peace.
The people of China are overwhelmingly warm friendly and inviting. It might possibly because we look like washed-out negative images of themselves with our pale hair, eyes and skin, or because it is just innate in their culture to be kind. I would prefer to believe the latter.
I was remarking to Beloved today on our walk back from church (Yes! Church! More on that later!) how I struggled more in Spain with their culture and the speed in which they do things. I felt like I was always a bit off in my timing and my rate of walking, because eventually I would run into or be cut off by a Spaniard who was either very very slow or ridiculously fast. It’s hard to explain. But Spain definitely had a different tempo to it than Asia does.
Asia is fast. It is fast, hot and dirty.



Everyone is in a hurry. You expect to be nudged or bumped into, but not in an ‘endangerment of losing your wallet’ type fashion…they’re just fast. They got places to go, man…and I respect that.
They drive ridiculously fast (the discovery of taxi cabs has been exhilarating….why wear a seat belt when you are being driven by possibly the most skilled driver you will ever sit with?) and their streets are loud, noisy and dirty.
I’m so accustomed to stepping over puddles of wet garbage and sidestepping braziers of red-hot coals that I can almost forget the broken concrete tiles and uneven streets. Nevermind the cars who obey NO TRAFFIC SIGNS WHATSOEVER. For the dozens of miles we have walked in this city, we have only witnessed one traffic accident. In a city of twelve million people…that’s pretty good. Now pedestrian/car incidences…those are still an unknown.
You get lulled into a false sense of comfort by the first few times you go at the ‘green man’ (Walk) signal…but that comfort is short-lived. A friend I have made here, Nancy, who is visiting her brother who teaches English here at the University, has taught me the ways of the road. First, obviously wait until the streets are as clear as humanly possible (you will have to wait a very long time for them to ever be empty) and then just go. Any hesitation on your part will result in you being hit (Nancy’s advice). You will get pegged. Because, she says, the driver will assume you are going to go one direction and won’t change after that, it’s basically a stopgap measure for them. I have gotten too used to herding my children through crosswalks and having gold and blue taxi cabs lace around them like they are tying them in knots. It’s just how things are done.

So imagine the joy I felt when we went into the mountains SE of Harbin, Hangtou Mountain Park. Nancy’s brother had given us the name of a driver, Joe, who would be driving us the 90 minutes outside of town to the mountainside. He was an absolute delight. He was a happy young kid, maybe early 20's, who loved American TV and knew all of the American lingo ("My grandma is gonna be SO PISSED when she hear I marry my girlfriend and not go to university!")
The first 45 minutes or so of our journey was basically city driving, but the last bit of our journey was really lovely. We drove through the agricultural region of the area, where they grow a lot of corn, melons and of course rice. Having never seen a rice field in person it was a definite ‘once in a lifetime’ feeling for me. The rice field looked like heavy full-grain green velvet, covered with a light mist that the sun was trying to break through to.
We made our way up into the elevation a little bit (elev. was very low) and then Joe pulled into this parking lot, greeting area for the park. He parked his car there and then we took a golf cart to the park entrance, where we paid 50y for us and 25y for Bumpo and Tank. The park was heavily manicured, with groomed lawns and raised walkways with posters of photographs taken throughout the park during the year. Joe had told us that the ideal time to see the park was during the fall, when the colors of course were more brilliant. There was a tall arched structure that added elegance to already pretty setting.
But I still thought it was a naturally beautiful place. We walked up a steady paved road for almost 2 hours (we could have taken another golf cart to the top). The walk up with dissected into trails that would wander off the roadway onto wooded paths would take you to a small pagoda or a shrine or sitting area. and then found our way to the forest entrance. There were little shops selling wood items, pressed butterflies and kid’s plastic toys and then picnic tables for eating close to the cart parking. Groups had set up tents and were eating and noisily playing a card game. A short walk into the woods and there was another area with a shrine to Buddha and a place that sold drinks and had a few carnival games, along with an archery gallery for practicing your target shooting. While the rest of the family walked up to a landing where there were more tables, I investigated the small stucco hut with the shrine inside. Inside there was a reclining Buddha, with a stereo speaker playing a recorded chant. There were five kneeling cushions and a large urn full of ash. I paid 10y for a set of three candles, who the lady lit for me and I set them in the urn. I thanked God for protecting my family and myself so far on our trip and asked His continued blessing over us as we continued on our travel. I then thanked the woman and found the family.
Not soon after I polished off my half-sandwich (my stomach is in full on revolt from the food here---which would normally cause one to back off a little bit but I keep telling myself the fresh veggies and slaws are good chi for my belly. They may in fact be the culprit because the vegetables are probably not washed with bottled water ;)---anyway…nothing to get worried about, just really have to know where the WC is at all times ;)….we were confronted by a large group of middle-aged Chinese men and one woman. They were talking very loudly to us, and one of them “Elvis” insisted in getting our picture taken with him. Fine. Well, then Elvis wanted to get pictures taken with Dan. Also fine. But when he grabbed Tank by the neck and in good-heartedness laid a big smacking kiss on his cheek I had seen about enough. I stood up and walked over next to Tank, who was by now humiliated, and just stood there. They would chatter at me and to Dan and we would just smile at them with mouths closed, and they finally got the message. Kids are off-limits.
The hike into the park was unexpected. There were no dirt trails, every path was fully paved with paving stones and the steps were exquisitely done with matching stone steps and wooden railings. The park reminded me a lot of the Hoh Rainforest in the Olympic National Park in my homestate of Washington, with lots of fiddlehead ferns and mosses of all colors growing up among the rocks and trees. The trees were similar to our Colorado varieties, with maples and oaks and aspen-related growth.
We did a short loop, being interrupted on occasion by being asked to stop and take a picture with a Chinese group, and were blessed with overcast skies and no rain. The walk was also nice because it was just between Beloved and I, the kids had run off in front of us and were neither seen nor heard for minutes at a time (I love them…but this was a nice break).

Harbin

Well beloveds...the first few days of our trip have gone by amazingly well...I mean after the fiasco that was our trip over here. After we got settled and got the bags unpacked things have fallen into a somewhat mellifluous pattern. Wake up at about 5 am, eat a slice of toast with peanut butter and jam, and drink a cup of black coarse ground coffee that you supply with a plastic spoon with ducks on it (China has a thing for decorating every item with farm animals) the kettle heats up instantaneously and you are good to go. I usually shower and then get dressed, and then after the food has begun to digest I sit in my very white room looking out on my very grey world and listen to the car horns bleating.
Funnily enough every morning I wake to the sound of what sounds like a ping pong game. It's a hard knocking sound once and then back, once and then back. Both Beloved and I think it sounds like an ongoing ping pong game.
Before I could cuddle the WiFi and get all my social medias tuned in, I would also read a bit from "Ghost Train to The Eastern Star" by Paul THeroux. he's a bit of blow-hard liberal who loves to bash President Bush at every opportunity (the book was written in 2006) and hate on organized religions except Zorastraism and Muslims, Hindi and Buddhists...he has a knack for inviting in to his world of traveling through the Middle East and across the Bengal Bay and into SE Asia. I have really enjoyed it so far. He just left Jaipur and is on his way to Colombo. Good stuff.
Anyway...this all happens prior to 7 am. The kids start to rustle about next door, and when the jokestering jostling and ribbing takes on a keening tone, we tighten up our shoelaces and get out for a bit.
Of course, we do wait until after Beloved finishes his lecture on campus ;)....I mean, that's why we're here after all! Hello??? He is teaching a short course in the Marine Engineering Dept here.
Yesterday was a long day. We left the apartments at around 1pm, after spending the morning with strange Chinese men talking over each other getting the Wifi hooked up in the kiddo's room, and then the electricity going out in our room. We had to share the kids' shower with them. Big deal. No, these are teeeeeenagers and they do nooooot give up their space readily. Long talks about why I don't need to wash my hair every day (I don't) ensue. It was real fun. ANyway...got all the men out of our two apartments and started walking...
Brought umbrellas because it was just getting done with the early afternoon rain deluge that occurs every afternoon here from about 12-2. Then the sun will peep out and it will be sweltering the rest of the day.
Walked out of campus, past hte military hospital and military drilling grounds, the soccer field, and past two military guards. My son always gets a little animated at this point of our journey...starts harping about how they're not REALLY armed, they just have 'fighting sticks' (me: you mean batons? Tank:Yeah!) but we still skitter past heads held a little lower and looking straight ahead. Then we walk past the row of restaurants with tables and boxes and crates set up for meals, with laundry lines and neon signs lit up at night. I love to walk this stretch at night because the single-bulb lights give off unrepentant shadows, and light up the steam and flames coming off the open braziers of grilling meat. Men are usually crouched around low tables with long platters of vegetables and greasy proteins shared communally. There is always cigarette smoke in the air.
We see the same vendors, the young woman selling melons and onions and corn...the man selling green gourds...the couple who sell socks and packaged nylons in rows on card tables. Mirrors framed in red tape are a big deal here.
We walk across the pitted driveway around past UBC Coffeehouse (actually a restaurant) and then to our subway station, Gongchengdaxue. We took it three stops yesterday to Hongbo Station, and started the arduous walk to Center Street, which is the longest pedestrain mall in all of Asia. It's over a mile long, with cobblestone streets and lined with stores selling plastic shoes, Russian nesting dolls and painted aluminum samovars and t-shirts.
The walk to Center Street was highlighted by pouring down rain, puddles (the dye from my shoes has dyed my toes purple!) and traffic. There was one main artery of traffic that we had to cross on the South side of the city to get to Center Street, and it was a doozy...six lanes of traffic each direction, with a white iron barrier separating the two directional lanes. Tank steps off the curb in preparation to follow his Chinese counterparts and commences to stroll across the "street" (ie, basically I-25 for my Denver folk) and I had to call him back. He said "Whaaaa? Come ON Mom, this is nothing. Stop being so scared all the time. I'll be fine! Watch you'll see."
I said "Well then I'll see you in the Afterlife."
After a little bit of tear-shedding, Beloved decides we should take this road to the left and then the pedestrian crosswalk to the north.

It was fine.

As we walked we walked over a traintrack, with a collection of orange-vested men milling about while a train sat idling on the tracks, spewing steam and other particulates into the air. We walked for another 30 minutes or so then came upon Center Street.



Center Street was a nice reprieve from the stress of walking in traffic all the time...totally pedestrian with cobblestone streets. Bought a matruska (sp?) doll and the kids all enjoyed a stroll down to the riverbank.

The riverbank was the first time I felt relatively uncomfortable in this foreign country. People started lining up to take pictures of my kids and us, and it was fun for the first few times but after a while it started to get a little scary. When they started yelling and following was when I thought we might need to make our escape.

Got back to the main street, hailed two separate cabs to drive us home, and came back to the hotel. Exhausted, a little overwhelmed a bit exhilerated and totally ready for bed.

By the way...the VPN is not loving the Blogger features of which I am demanding of it. I can't seem to paste pictures into the text of my work, which creates a cluster effect towards the end of my writing. It pisses me off.

And also...I am currently having to share WiFi with my Crazies in their apartment across the hall, and it's hit and miss how much time we can all tolerate Mommy being ensconced on their pleather couch sitting in livingroom.

As I write the three of them are laying on the girls' bed giggling and listening to Chinese harp music.
Better go so they can go to bed....tomorrow I'll write about our hike to Mt Hangtou. Five miles in 3 hours in 80 degree heat and 80% humidity. I'm spent.

A Day that Will Live in Infamy (or 36 hours of First-world Problems)

A Day that will Live In Infamy

Though we be well-seasoned travelers in some regard, our first trip to Chna was a humbling experience. The children all agree though, the worst that could happen probably has to us already and as such we can probably take comfort in knowing it possibly cannot get any worse.
The day started innocently enough. I worked a 3 hour shift, seeing five patients at my new job as a vision therapist. I was excited at the prospect of already being packed and ready to go and not having to do much else for the trip. I expected that the kids were all likewise, with their chores done and the prospect of overseas travel such a glimmering promise of adventure on the horizon that they were all ppressed, polished and packed, perching excitedly on the edges of their freshly-made beds and feet barely touching the surface of their newly-groomed bedroom carpets.
Came home and Doe was in her bathing suit, rearranging her hair and saying that she was going to spend the afternoon on the boat with her boyfriend, Grizzly (names changed to protect the innocent, remember). When I balked at the prospect she reminded me in her downtrodden and empathy-inspiring fashion that this trip was indeed consuming the rest of her summer vacation and she would not see him again before they all went back to school in the fall, where he would be a few steps away and we, her family, were going to be nine hours away. But I digress.
So while Doe was preening, Bumpo was laying quietly in her bed with her cheeks sunken in and her forehead taking a rather pale grey tone. Did I mention she has strep throat? Kudos to our pediatrician for getting her in so swiftly, and for giving us a dose of antibiotics to take with us in the chance one us loses our focus and shares a toothbrush with her…..incredibly, that child rallied and was the most upbeat and unaffected by the maelstrom that the next 24 hours were to bring.
I’ll have what she’s having ;)…strike that, it is just in her nature to be that relaxed and unencumbered by the anxiety that riddles through my genomes. I hope it stays that way. She was packed and listening to music, quietly texting her friends.
Tank on the other hand was a shitstorm. His clothes were not packed, he had not bathed or prepared any lists, and his chores were not done. It was now about 12pm, and we were leaving the house at 6pm. For someone who had so much to do, he seemed relatively at ease about it all, and any amount of shrieking on my part just resulted in a further display of nonplussed attitude. In my mind’s eye I could see Tank in some gunnery position on an aircraft during a time of military conflict, with his baseball cap askew chomping placidly on a wet cigar as he takes out the enemy…in his boxer shorts. He just does not care. He was in the basement “cleaning up his Legos” (ie, playing with them) watching some series on Netflix that had nothing whatsoever to do with China, and the pile of dishes he was supposed to be disposing of in the dishwasher was congealing behind him on the coffee table.
“Wait til your Dad gets home” was my warning call, and I texted his father to prepare him. Beloved was coming home at 3, and things had better been done.
The subsequent yelling and thrashing about that ensued at about 3:05 doesn’t need to be replayed, but suffice to say things got done. And by 6:15 we were on our way to the EconoLodge in Denver to meet our airport shuttle.
How cute we were the five of us, in a color coordinated outfits (hey it’s Colorado you wear either grey, brown, black or denim). We looked so cute as we confidently rolled into the Econolodge with our Coleman rolling bags and our Starbucks coffee drinks held aloft.
Then the world started to shift on its axis. 8 pm. No shuttle. 8:05pm. Still no shuttle. We had a 10:30flight to LA. There was no shuttle. I noticed an elderly Chinese couple sitting on a stone bench on the patio. Instantly, because obviously there’s no Chinese in Denver (doh) I deduced that if they were not worried about making the shuttle to DIA, why should I?
Let this be a lesson, children. Just because you see a Chinese person, do not automatically assume that they are going to China. They may in fact, just be staying at the Econolodge while their carpets are getting cleaned in Aurora.
They did not get on the same shuttle as us. I’m not even sure they were going on any trip.
When the shuttle did arrive, at a galling 8:15, the driver was apologetic and got us to the airport in record speed. Me trying to find reason behind everything believed that the reason why we were late was so that we could get a last long glimpse at a beautiful Colorado sunset from the shuttle. It was truly lovely.
We get to the airport (see I haven’t even GOTTEN to the airport yet)….it’s now about 8:30. We check in at United.
Your itinerary does not match our records said the Eticket kiosk. Beloved clears his throat.
Your itinerary does not match our records said the Eticket kiosk. Beloved clears his throat and Doe mouths the words “OH MY GOSH” and starts fanning herself.
“I have a bad feeling about this” she said to no one in particular, and in no real productive fashion.
Your itinerary does not does match our records said the Eticket kiosk. Two VERY friendly women help us deconstruct what happened. Hey guess what….the travel agent who was subbing in for the regular University office travel agent mucked it up.
We had three tickets. We had Beloved’s, but then we had DoeBumpo and TankKim. She didn’t delineate the names on the tickets, so we had four people on two tickets. It was AWESOME.
We made it through though and made our way through security, down to our gate to our LA flight. Now there were a few more Asian faces appearing. Plus one VERY handsome Army soldier, who kept staring at Doe with unabashed delight. Tank sweetens the deal even further by going over to the soldier, shaking his hand and saying “Thank you for your service”. The cute young blonde brush-cutted man smiled and said “Thanks buddy!”.
Good job Tank.
Make our flight to LA. It’s now about 1;30 am Pacific time. On any normal day I would have been sleeping for about 4 hours, but oh well.
We have two hours to make our flight to China Air. We get off the plane, find our Departure gate, which is TS3. Start moving a little bit quicker now, find a officious looking man who sleepily tells us that TS3 is indeed Tom Bradley Terminal. We walk about 1.5 miles through the airport and then wait 30 minutes for the shuttle to TS3. We are the first ones on the shuttle, then a young couple (Chinese!) climb on with a stroller and walking toddler. The woman sits down wearily on the bench as the man talks her throughout. As I watch in horror, the toddler steps out of reach of both the man and woman, and incredibly walks down the bus steps like a full on adult. This child is all of 2 years old. He is off the bus and out on the sidewalk, making a beeline for the oncoming traffic. I make a move to grab him, but a woman outside starts screaming “THERE’s A BABY OUT HERE! THERE’S A *BABY* OUT HERE!” Man jumps up and grabs the baby, all the while the woman is sitting there, looking completely exhausted. I thought at first she was incoherent or disabled, but I now know she was just completely out of her gourd jetlagged.
Get off the shuttle, start running now to the terminal. Make our flight to Beijing. I am at first pleased to board AirChina, as their seating was these large cubicles of mattresses and pleasing lavender-blue lighting with a dedicated screen and probably some cupholder nearby.
Damn this is first class I start to remind myself. Some Chinese boy is already asleep under a white fluffy comforter. I kind of hate him already.
Go through the entire length of the plane. Find our seats. Thank God we are all together. The seats are surprising plush and comfortable. Having an inseam of 34 inches I’m grateful for whatever legroom an airplane seat can offer, and AirChina does not disappoint. I am giddy.
Get our pillow and our blanket, mold the plane’s head cushion perfectly to the confines of my head and swiftly fall asleep.
About an hour later I wake up. Hey we are still on the tarmac.
The world is still starting to turn off its axis.
We now have less than an hour between our flight landing in Beijing and our connecting flight to Harbin, China.
AIrChina attendants were appallingly aloof and unfriendly. Underwhelmed with their service and could not find one who spoke enough pidgin English to find out why our row of television sets did not seem to work. I think it was because I couldn’t see which was the Call button or which was the TV button on the tiny little diagrams. She was openly hostile towards me towards the end of the flight.
Food was served cool and gummy, with brown salty sauce over chicken bits and flaccid carrots. The ramps/onions/cabbage combination was a nice surprise. We all fell on it like wolves, devouring every bite. The drinks were served lukewarm, with approximately one thimbleful of juice and or soda for each proffered plastic cup. Ah but you got the entire can of beer if you so chose to drink a beer.
The flight lasted approximately 3 days. I’m not even kidding. I think I heard the American woman and Beloved exchange the news that there were “only two hours left” approximately 3 times over the course of our flight. In the end I think it was more like 12, but who knows. Those hours will forever be lost in a long metal capsule carrying over 300 souls that traveled over the Pacific. They’re just gone forever. I missed the sunrise and seemingly slept off and on throughout it so that was nice. I was seated on the aisle seat which meant I was next to a Chinese-American woman and her darling daughter, who spoke very loudly to her throughout the flight when they were not spooning adorably in their row of seats. At one point the little girl was sleeping with her face against the seat cushion and her mother was surrounding her, both heavily asleep, and it was such a sweet picture of contentment I was tempted to take a picture. But that would have been a little weird.
As we are getting ready to debark the plane finally, Beloved starts to coach us in Chinese behavior. “Don’t wait just get up and stand up and don’t let anyone in front of you.” This would be well-heeded in the next few hours to come.
The Chinese woman starts talking to me as we are waiting. She is actually an American citizen, and she is visiting her parents for 3 weeks. When she learns we have a connecting flight, she flies into action. I’m telling you…this woman was an angel. She starts rapid-fire speaking to the now very pleasant flight attendant, all the while explaining that while we will not be leaving the terminal for our connecting flight, we still need to go through Customs to get to our gate. She takes total charge of the situation, all the while calmly chatting to us along the way. While she tells us to wait behind the others in the Customs line, she walks up to the front of the line and starts requesting that everyone give up their place because we have a connecting flight that leaves in 50 minutes. One Middle Eastern man refused and so we had to wait for him (as we should have, truthfully). But we got through.
A mad dash down to the waiting train, which was making a bonging sound and loudly announcing something, and then we were on the shuttle to the next terminal.
Make it to the terminal, and find our way to security for the plane to Harbin. There are now about 20 minutes until our flight boards.
Real panic is when your hear your family name being paged over the Intercom in an international airport requesting that you check in for your flight, which will be boarding soon.
There is yet another line to go through to get to security yet. Beloved and I both exhale sharply when we see the line for the security. There is a wall of swarming humanity all about the same height all talking at the same time. Well over a thousand people crammed into one large room which is segmented by signs and cordoned off with markers and security gates. Beloved flags down a young man with a lanyard on and throws his boarding pass at him. The man looks at his watch, gasps “Fast Track” and points to the opposite side of the large room. This is a small desk against a glass wall plastered with posters. As I am the last in line a Chinese man and woman start talking rapidly to each other, and the man shoves his way next to me. His plan is to cut in between me and my kids. Having attended enough concerts and stood in enough festival seating, I know the drill. Look straight ahead and firmly plant your leg and hip in front of the offending party. When he starts to shove my arm down, I quickly step in front of him and block him. I think there may have been some physical contact.
We are now in a line of people waiting for security. I am still in front of the man who is now physically assaulting me by shoving past me and dumping his belongings in the first box he sees, nevermind that they were someone else’s. Beloved, Tank and Bumpo all get through the line and are waiting as Doe and I are harassed for the next few minutes. All of our belongings are unceremoniously dumped out and a large brooding man in a stained uniform is literally pawing through our belongings. I think he may have jammed his finger into the prong of my phone charger, which I do not apologize for. I am now literally pouring sweat, the same grey tshirt I had started with on this flight is now drenched, I could wring sweat out of it had I the inclination. I am sweating from underneath my bra, behind my ears, under my hair, and it’s running rivulets down the sides of my face. I watch my belongings which are now in complete disarray get dumped back into a plastic box and then passed back through the security scanner, being separated from me by about 30 people.
We make it through the security and I don’t take the time to jam everything back into my backpack. Laptop, purse, and backpack are all been clutched in my arms as I start running. Gate C-16 of Beijing airport is a good 30 minute walk from Security, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation. There are now 8 minutes left.
We make it to Gate C-16. There is an elderly couple, not the same mind you, who are banging on the doors to the jetway. There is no plane in sight, no one is around and the lights are turned off. I think I may have sworn aloud, thinking that the plane had left. But they missed the white placard that I then noticed, written shockingly entire in Chines which supposedly said that the gate had been switched and was now C-4. C-4 is approximately two minutes away from security. We start running back, retracing the exact same path we had to get to C-16. By now I am aware that the Mentos gum I am carrying for the flight sounds like some sick maracas in my carry-on bag. “Chunk chunk chunk…chunk chunk chunk” they rattle as I am running as fast as my feet will carry me. My glasses, which I had worn “for comfort” for the flight, are now dangerously slick on my nose as I am running. I look like something from a John Hughes movie.
Make our flight. Take some stunning pictures of the Yangtze River. It really is so beautiful from up here.
Finally land in Harbin. Make our way to baggage claim. Watch as everyone to a person watches us walk up to our carousel. Some people take out cameras and snap pictures of my girls.
Tank amazes me to no end. He is fearless and confident, laughing and jostling his sisters, and instantly makes his way to the very front of the carousel. I am in awe of him. Everyone is watching him as he stands there, hand on his hip, peering under the rubber curtain every so often waiting for the bags to arrive.
Not in the cards. The biggest fear I had had was not making our flight to Harbin. Laughable. I’d Never even considered the idea that our bags would not be waiting for us at the carousel. I mean….baggage consisted of boxes tied in knots and luggage placed inside pillowcases was easily tottened up and taken away. Not our five cute Coleman bags!
A man comes up in a red vest, we hand him our luggage claim tags and he waves us to follow him. On the back of his red vest are the words “HELP YOU”. He walks us over to a small room to the right of the customer pickup (we saw our Harbin coordinator, Yung, waving at us as we walk past).
The room is small with one fluourescent light fixture in the ceiling, with a long low desk and a row of women all dressed in tight lavender suits sharply talking into telephones.There are ornate maroon The velvet wall hangings and cheerful bulletin boards covered with stickers of smiling cats and anime children, with so much writing on them I cannot imagine being able to understand it all, even if I understood the characters. The smell is intolerable, of rotting vegetables. In one corner is a stack of taped up boxes, with flies swarming around them and “Charfood” stamped on the sides. This must be the source of the smell.
Yong is allowed back to interpret and we fill out the necessary information for the missing luggage, and start the 24 hour wait for them to reappear.
I was not hopeful. Thank you United Airlines for kicking ChinaAir in the butt to get our bags sent to Harbin, and to Yong for sending his student He (yes his real name!) to our apartment at the University 24 hours later to deliver them to our door. When Beloved got the call from Yong that our bags were waiting downstairs, Beloved and I snuck out and met them.
Yes I was the sweaty blonde middle-aged woman in a stained gray t-shirt and stained Cabi jeans hopping and down squealing at the sight of our luggage. The airport driver was a suave young man in a crisp white shirt and mirrored shades, smoking as he leaned outside the car and as I leapt out of the building entrance clapping and saying “Woo hoo! WOO HOO!”
But the beds were clean and the apartment small but tidy, a refrigerator hot plate and microwave were ours for the taking, as was a drying rack and a standing shower. Translation: a hole in the bathroom wall with a shower head and hose attached. The water tank is above the toilet, which is within hand’s reach of the sink. We configured out the equation it would require for us to gain hot water. It’s pushing this glowing orange button a combination of times until the schematic looks like one glowing orange button in the upper left hand corner of the display and one glowing orange button on the bottom half of the display. The number on the display reads ‘6872’ but if release the valve on the hot water pipe and it ejects a bit of water the desired temperature, you are ready to go. A plastic curtain covers the bathroom door entrance and the sink is far away that you can turn the shower on full bore on your aching muscles and it will be quite pleasant. Just remember to not soak the white cotton mop the apartment provided because you’ll need that to sweep the water to the drain.
So those were our first impressions of China…encumbered by a fog of fatigue, exhausted with the heat and the same crusty clothes we’d been wearing through two continents. Each day has gotten progressively better since then.


Figure 1 Harbin University Campus


Figure 2University student supermarket. They sold everything we could possibly need. We had to kit out our own apt with essentials like dishes and towels, which fortunately were very cheap.

Chaos Reigns

This is currently the scene in our humble abode 28 minutes prior to departure. 

Mom I have picked the perfect memento for our trip to China! I'm going to get a TATTOO in China! 

Mom I really need you to see this. Mom! Mom! MOM! MOoOm! (WHAT?!! FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT.DO.YOU.NEED?!!!) 

softer voice now...geezmomijustwantedtoshowyouwhaticandowithmyphone

Mom why CAN'T I just take the wheels off my LandYachtz board and slide it down the back of the bag? It will only be sticking out a little bit on the end? 

Beloved: TANK...I'm TELLING you...that board will get *snapped in two* 

God Made Heaven and Earth... Everything Else Is Made in China

Well beloved blogger followees...another chapter is being added to the HIWMCA travelogue. Yep we is going to China. Big, beautiful, intriguing, fascinating China.

I'll be honest. In all of the confines of this blue and green coil we call Mother Earth, the Big Red State of China has not been on the top ten places I must see before I leave this mortal coil. It's up there, but not above Africa or England. Been a lot of places...Greece, Crete, France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Italy, Hawaii...and I have found something intriguing and memorable about each of these. My prayer is to find something lasting from the land of mystery...

In Greece...the strong familial ties. You saw families sitting at tavernas in the public square drinking small thin glasses of ouzo with one gnarled hand gracefully fumbling worry beads. In Crete we saw ruins of ancient Biblical times...and we saw troops in full military regalia marching in formations on the main city streets ("are we at war with Libya?" I thought aloud, not remembering that "we" is not necessarily "us" or rather, the good old US of A, of which I am a card-carrying full-blooded proud patriot. No see because I was in a bus in Hania, Crete, with my Beloved beside me.) The ferry ride to Crete is still ONE of my favorite travel memories of all time. We had decided at the last minute to spend the few extra drachmas (this was pre-EuroZone Greece) to purchase a single berth on the overnight ferry. I was on the top bunk and Beloved was on the bottom and I wrote my parents a postcard that said "Hi all we are having a great time. We are currently closer to Libya then we are to the United States."
I wasn't trying to cause fret among my family, they were smarter than that, but I was sort of enjoying the idea of being completely isolated from every other single person I know on the planet save the buff, sunburnt buzz-cut'd man I was sleeping with at the time...and still am ;)

The stresses are much larger now. It's not just the two of us anymore. And it hasn't been for a long while. We've traveled a lot with these three offspringerles.
 Many stressors are assuaged by the complete success my children had in traveling internationally in 2012, yet they are not absent.

I worry about Tank and his skateboard. Just the other day he remarked that he was MOST DEFINITELY OBVIOUSLY going to ride his Pennyboard (a small hard plastic board about the length of my forearm) in China WHEREVER HE COULD. His father rallied back with a reminder of the location of our latest travel destination, The People's Republic of China, and that one doesn't really go out of their way to draw attention in that region of the world.
Beloved has traveled to China a few times before, and each time comes back with fascinating stories to tell and experiences and food and sights that he has never seen anyplace else. His constant refrain "It is like NOTHING else you will ever see anywhere else in the world. It is truly a unique once-in-a-lifetime experience." He calms my fears by insisting that he has never felt safer in his life, that he never once felt uncomfortable or threatened...even though he was the only Caucasian man for miles.

I worry about Doe and the inseam of her shorts. Well...because she's Doe and she's pretty much the most beautiful young woman I know. And she has killer legs.

I worry about Bumpo because she is freakishly tall and freakishly blonde. She will literally stand out as a Child of the Corn. In the Rice paddy.

But over all of this anxiety is a smooth covering of peace. It's like sort of surreal how calm I am. I think people are praying over my family because I'm not nearly as worried as I was 3 years ago before we left for Spain.

Life is short. People die. Unexpectedly. Heartbreakingly. Sadly. Life is taken before we can decide whether to be afraid or unafraid. I am not afraid. And if something were to happen well I hope it would impact the five of us as we were all together, rather than being thousands of miles apart.

The lack of intrigue or interest for that part of the world is probably the most powerful reason for me to go. I NEED to go to this completely mysterious part of the world. I NEED to eat the weird food like grasshoppers (no bear paw soup for this girl). I need to find where I can connect to this world and make it mine.

Even though it's in the People's Republic.

Journey Mercies would be much appreciated.