We are back in the hotel room after a morning of walking around killing time until this afternoon when they will bring Neela to our hotel room. It is sometimes very strange to think that in 3 hours, someone will bring us a baby. And she will be ours to parent and she will be the boys' sister and she was born in this amazing country which we are only just starting to experience. This morning at breakfast we imagined that it might feel a bit strange at first - a bit like we are babysitting her until we each become more comfortable with each other. It is a mixture of excitement and also a sort of uncertainty about what happens next.
For now I will just post a few of my observations about our experiences here so far.
The hotel.
It is both a refuge and a place to feel isolated. The first day sitting up here looking out, I felt totally separate from that world. I wanted to get out there and get into the thick of things and see what it was like. We went out and started walking and looking around at everything. I wanted to look at more, figure out more, but without the language knowledge I felt I couldn't. I don't so much mind being the only non-Chinese people walking around, but I do hate feeling like an idiot because I cannot read or speak. At some points, it is nice to just come back to the hotel and be apart from it all again and feeling comfortable.
Shopping.
Sunday is shopping day and everyone is out today. We walked this morning until we found a long pedestrian street with many shops of clothing and jewelry and electronics. It was very modern looking, the prices were mostly comparable to prices in the US, many ads featured Caucasians, loud music with a strong beat - it seemed to have a lot of Western influence.
We came to the end of that street with turned into a large indoor market of sorts and the whole atmosphere changed. This seemed the place for an entirely different kind of shopper. There were lots of small stalls with more average items for purchase. All manners of items for sale, most shops (about 10 feet wide) being fairly specific in what they offered - clothing, socks, slippers, pjs, kitchen items, tape, baby toys, shoes, party supplies, bike parts, watches and on an on. The prices were much cheaper. I managed to buy a crochet hook to replace the one I lost on the plane by pointing to a store owner's knitting needles and then making a hook with my finger. She found one and it was only 40 cents.
We walked on to a block directly behind the modern shopping street. It was much dirtier, the streets less crowded, some shoe repair stalls mixed in with some mechanic's shops for motor bikes, a few small eating places (I hesitate to call them restaurants as it seems to be someone's kitchen with a few extra tables...), a produce store, a cigarette shop, and a hair salon. It was lunch time and the shop owners were cooking their lunches in their shops. Some ate alone, some sat at tables with a group playing mah jong, kids played as their parents worked. In this place, it is very apparent that we are in a country with a life very different from our own.
Traffic.
We are getting better at crossing the streets. We realize now that you just start walking, with cautious aggressiveness, and try to get across one side and then the other. There is no way you could wait until it was entirely clear all the way across the street. You'd be there all day. We spent a good 15 min. the first day observing traffic at one intersection. It was chaos, but apparently an organized chaos. The organization, however, was not readily clear to us... There are cars, small trucks, bikes, electric bikes, mopeds, motorcycles, buses, bikes with trailers, older men and women carrying two baskets of goods dangling from each end of a pole balanced across the back of their shoulders and many pedestrians. All zig zagging in and out of each other and crossing lanes in the wrong direction and horns honking all over the place. Most intersections have no traffic lights or signs.
On the Mountain.
I was very glad to be able to experience the natural beauty of the country outside the city of 4 million. Unfortunately, the weather was extremely cloudy and foggy. We could not see all the views from Lushan Mountain. On the other hand, it made for an amazing experience of the mountain. It felt as if we had no connection to earth, but rather were walking through the heavens on ancient stone paths; the mist blocking all senses of connection to anything past the path. Along the way, our guide told us of the many legends attached to places on the mountain and historical people and their stories. The Chinese culture is filled with these legends and stories and beliefs in symbols. The people seem very knowledgeable and very proud of their long history. They tell stories of people and places over 2000 years ago as they are still very important to the lives of all Chinese in the present time. This seems so much different than the sense of history Americans have, short as it may be.
Well, that took up 45 min. Now what? Only a little more than two hours until we meet our little girl!!!
--Marnie
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