Mail-order Cowboy

About 8 weeks ago, D ordered this gear from Sheplers (not pictured are the cowboy boots he's wearing). He just received the packages today. The shipment took about one week to arrive in China. And then it sat in customs for-freakin'-ever.

We weren't even sure if customs in Guangzhou would let the stuff through. Apparently, customs deemed some of the items as "suspicious" (we found this out from the shipper). D had to answer questions about the content of the packages and then testify that they were for "personal use only" (?!?). Then, it took several calls and Chinese-written emails to the shipper -- DHL, regional office -- to sort out the delivery. On top of all of this was the gigantic customs fee that D was charged -- 600 RMB.

I haven't ordered anything from non-China retailers since we've been here because, quite frankly, it'd just be one big pain in the ass. In other words, I don't think that D's experience is unusual (heck, it takes 4-5 weeks for non-retail packages to get to us). Timely delivery of mail-ordered goods is another "luxury" that we don't have access to here -- in fact, a lot of companies won't even ship goods to China (I don't know why -- maybe not enough people from the PRC buy the goods? Or maybe there are govt. restrictions?)

I am glad, however, that D ordered this stuff; he looks awfully cute in that get-up.

Won't you be my neighbor?

These folks live across the street from us.



In fact, there's a whole neighborhood of these houses across the way, lining the pathway to the village nearby. This is the kind of thing that foreigners like me are startled by -- the extremes that coexist side by side. I live in a gated compound. It looks like a resort hotel. These houses make Loretta Lynn's childhood home look like a tidy suburban residence. And we're only separated by a tiny strip of concrete.

In the U.S. we have our own share of poverty (which is one the rise). My old neighborhood in CNY was a case in point. But it was segregated from the "nicer" parts of the city, even if only by a block or two. And that seems to me to be the main difference. Here, there's a lot less segregation (although I suspect that that will change now that cars are becoming more popular here. The wealthy can live further away, can flee the scene). Poverty here very visible here.

It's not just the people that suffer poverty here; other animals do, too. There are lots of stray dogs and cats around, especially in the village. I saw the saddest puppy the other day, a little black doggie huddled against a filthy building trying to keep out of the rain. It was missing a bit of fur and it looked like nobody loved it. It was difficult to resist my first impulse: to scoop it up and take it home and introducing it to Jameson.

Some of my readers will be relieved to know that the stray dogs leave people alone. In general, they don't approach you or bark at you or chase you or anything. Today, though, a dog fight broke out about 10 feet away from me as I was walking on the path to the village. 3 dogs started fighting with each other and then 4 or 5 more dogs came running from who knows where to join in on the festivities. Instead of vacating my bowels and screaming in terror (my normal reaction), I just calmly walked by, pretending that nothing was happening (I made sure to keep my umbrella handy, though). I even managed to snap a picture of the "loser" as he ran away. You can see his hind end peeking out from behind the wall.

Mr. Pizza

Today is a banner day for us. We had pizza for lunch. Real pizza.

You can see in the photo that D has a kind of manic look on his face. This is because after a month of tasty but unfamiliar food, we lucked into a Englishman-owned pizza joint called Mr. Pizza that is about 10 minutes from our house in a village called JinDing. This place serves true Western-style food.*

D's pizza had cheese, pepperoni, beef, and bacon. Mine had cheese, mushrooms, and chilies. It was thin crust pizza -- like those stone-grilled pizzas that were really popular in the states a few years back. We also had Italian olives, French bread with olive oil for dipping, and marinated sun-dried tomatoes with roasted garlic.

And on the right-hand side of the photo, you can see D's coke -- what you can't see is the ice in the coke. That's right -- ice! What a treat!

This menu sounds mundane to all of you, I'm sure. But it was heaven on a plate for us. We have been enjoying our culinary adventures here, but I wasn't prepared for how happy I was to eat something as "boring" as pizza.

* Self-proclaimed Western-style restaurants here usually don't serve what we consider to be Western food. Sometimes they just serve other types of Asian food. In this case, "Western" means non-Chinese (but could mean Japanese, Thai, etc.). Sometimes they serve Western food, like sandwiches, but they're really weird -- not at all what you'd find in North America or even, I suspect, most of Europe. Sometimes a Western restaurant will have a typical Chinese-mix menu, but will bring you a fork instead of chopsticks if they perceive you as non-Chinese. So, the only thing Western about it is that it has international cutlery. For all of these reasons, we inwardly groan when a Chinese person -- who is trying to be helpful -- recommends a restaurant to us that serves "Western" food. We don't entirely hate Western-style restaurants like this -- there is something kind of entertaining about seeing their "take" on North American/European food and watching Chinese people try to eat whole sandwiches with chopsticks.

Hey Culligan Man!

Most people in China don't drink water from the tap. The Chinese are not being overly cautious; the water isn't safe for consumption. And China isn't unique in this. In fact, "37 percent of the populations of lesser developed countries did not have access to safe drinking water." (non-authoritative cite Wikipedia)

For the first couple of weeks that we were here, we bought our water supply from the nearest grocery store. This entailed lugging heavy gallon jugs of water home. Not. Fun. Plus, the cost started to add up. Bottled water is cheaper here than in the States, but even so, since we have to buy potable water, I want to get the best deal I can.

So, one day last week, we signed up for water delivery (quite an adventure when you don't speak the language here and the water folks don't speak English). It's much cheaper than buying it by the gallon at the supermarket, and I don't have to worry about what to do with the leftover gallon jugs (recycling doesn't seem to be on the agenda yet in China, at least in our little town). But best of all, I don't have to waste my energy on hauling water home from the grocery store. A nice man on a bicycle delivers it to my door. Instead, I can concentrate on bringing home important stuff. Like beer.

The only downside to this whole endeavor is the fact that the water dispenser that came with the apartment doesn't dispense cold water. Sure, it has a red (hot) and blue (cold) tap [see above photo], but the blue tap just dispenses room temp water. This is pretty common in these parts; our dispenser isn't broken. Rumor has it that some Chinese (maybe the majority??) think that drinking cold beverages is bad for digestion (or something), so they tend to drink room-temp or hot stuff. Which is why our "blue" tap only dispenses room temp liquid. I'm a bit suspicious of this explanation, though, since it's pretty easy to buy refrigerated beverages at grocery and convenience stores. I suspect that it has to do with the fact that cooling down water (which is sometimes purified via boiling) is just viewed as a waste of resources.

You can buy cold drinks at the grocery store, but ice is almost impossible to come by (a fact that I lamented when I tweaked a muscle in my low back four days ago and needed ice to bring down the inflammation). So instead of buying bagged ice (a luxury in which we indulged ourselves when we lived in CNY), I bought dorky ice cube trays that make ice in the shape of various fruit: pineapple, apple, melon, strawberry. Yes, this was all they had at our local store.

Beating the heat

Right now in southern China, it's hot and humid. I'm having to get used to sweating constantly. The locals don't seem to perspire the way that we do, but they do take a funny stance toward any kind of physical activity in the heat. That is, they just don't do it (unless they're laborers and have to). For example, the campus is only 3 miles away and within easy biking distance. But when we bring up the idea of biking to campus, our local colleagues warn us, "no, it is too hot to bicycle now." Clearly, though, plenty of people ride bikes around here. No doubt if I rode one to campus, I'd arrive a sweaty mess, but still, it could be done. Before I bike (rather than take the bus), I'll have to practice steering with one hand and holding an umbrella above my head (for shade) with the way that everyone else around here does.

As a break from thinking-about-working-on-the-dissertation I trolled the 'net for an English language version of the user manual for our air conditioner. It took me about 75 minutes, but I managed to find instructions I can understand. I guess all my training in finding sources has fringe benefits!