The Chinese–Amazing People

What an amazing culture, people and experience! I loved meeting so many people who were excited to meet us!

The Chinese people were incredible hosts, guides, educators and voyeurs. They are as mesmerized by us as we are by them. We are all just people…just the same in so many ways. They love to laugh, smile and celebrate. They love their children, families and they work really hard. What I learned is that they work hard for different reasons than we do…in many cases they work hard because the government requires it. One of the most incredible moments in the entire trip was when Jewels was talking with Andy, the Bursar on our cruise ship on the Yangtze River. Remember Gopher? Same guy only Chinese. He was in charge of all things guest focused on our 3 day cruise on the Yangtze. Andy is a good looking 30ish man who clearly worked 24/7 at his job. He was the first one around in the morning at breakfast, he was the interpreter for all the amazing sites in the gorges and he was in charge of teaching Chinese, Mah Jongg and anything else to keep the guests occupied on a rainy day. One afternoon while it was raining buckets Andy had a Mah Jongg seminar. I think he thought he would just teach a few foreigners and be off the hook. Let’s be serious…you take a group of overwrought athletes and active people and tie them down to a ship for more than 12 hours! Not only did we learn but we were ready for a full throttle MahJongg tournament with gambling and the like! Bring it! Anyway, Andy was tolerating us as we learned Jewels started to ask him questions about his life. The exchange was profound. Jewels asked him a series of seemingly simple questions…”if you weren’t doing this what would you be doing?” “ “If you could do anything at all what would it be?” The look on Andy’s face was incredible to me…he had never really considered these types of questions. This was his job. This was his life and that’s how he answered…”this is what I do” “This is my job” Jewels asked the question 3 different ways thinking that he didn’t understand the question and in reality he didn’t…it never occurred to him that he could have anything except what he had. His wife worked on another cruise line that went the opposite direction on the river so they were lucky to see each other once a week. Their 4 year old son was with her parents. From December to March they would be home as a family but otherwise both Andy and his wife worked 24/7 on different ships rarely seeing one another. We were all in shock…having just paid for a trip to China they could never afford…doing whatever we want when we want. Starting and stopping jobs. Changing careers…we are SOOOO BLESSED!!! I have never been so stunned at how fortunate I really am…we all are. Triathletes who struggle to decide which race, which bike and which massage! Andy and others helped me see my world through a completely different lens. All our guides were incredible. Yes, some were better at their jobs than others and some were pretty smooth but they were all great to me! I have never been on a trip called a tour with buses and preset tours etc. I had no idea what we were getting into! What a blast!

Let me introduce our guides. Aaron was by far all of our favs! He was with us the longest and he set aside his entire personal life for a week to meet our every demand. He was kind, funny, thoughtful and effective. He loved Pop and Sole equally. He was professional and yet found a soft spot in his heart for the kids and keeping them entertained. He also has a wife and a child. When I met him at the airport he told me he workouts every day. He runs 45 minutes on his treadmill at home and then he lifts weights 4 times a week. This was the first thing he told me as if he wanted me to know he too was a committed athlete. It was awesome. He was so respectful and patient with all of us blathering our needs for birthday cakes, vegetarian meals, bus rides here and there, bike pick up, slower pace, faster pace and on and on. Just amazing!

The rest of our guides had too much to live up to. Our last guide was Jacky…Chan. Yes, this was his English name. Dave and others thought he was arrogant but I thought he was a blast. He lives in Shanghai and he drinks the Kool-Aid about how amazing and how much better it is than any other city in the world! He was a crack up. And honestly he has the city wired. No matter what we needed he “knew a guy!” If we were in New York he is the guy from the Bronx working every angle and every deal! He schmoozed every girl at every ticket counter. He was good looking and knew it. He is also the Bronze medalist for Tai Chi in his country and once he gave us a short demo I was drinking his Kool-Aid. He was amazing.

Shirley took us to the zoo in ChonQuing so she gets props although she was over us quickly. Jessica and Jason were with us in Xian and they were both very classy and helpful. The other guides were from daily excursions and they were a breed apart. I have since decided I have no idea what to believe because they are spewing so much political propaganda but I loved the trip anyway! The only bummer for me about the people is that we were surrounded most of the time by the tourist industry so we never got to “be real” with people. They knew we had money and we knew they wanted to earn some of it. On rare occasions we encountered an exchange when we saw the real people. One day we went on a rickshaw ride…total tourist thing. It’s like when you are in Niagara Falls you have to do the Maiden of the Mist boat ride. It was fun though! They took us to a woman’s home in the back of the city, for sure what we would consider slums, and they made us dumplings for lunch. It was one of the BEST MEALS we had! She was so gracious and the food rocked! Margaret and I sat at a separate table so they could keep the veggies separate. The house was 4 tiny bedrooms and the air was not fresh. She was so kind! Her husband is a famous artist so her house was much larger than most. We sat at small round tables and asked her questions about her family, her work and her life. She was adorable and kind and a great cook! Honestly, I don’t know many people who would even think to walk down her street let alone sit at a table in this house…American standards would call it a hovel maybe? Ugh! We are SOOOOO fortunate! The 4th room in their home was a studio for her husbands painting. Joan was looking for a specific style frame for photos and she saw one on the wall and asked if she could see the studio. The next thing you know Nicole, Margaret, Jewels, Santana and Priscilla and I are all in this tiny room looking through these gorgeous paintings on rice paper. The paper is so thin and frail I was afraid to pick one up. Then Margaret gave me a hoot and showed me these 2 paintings that had she knew I would fall in love with.

The primary color was green and the cranes and landscape are SO elegant and peaceful and me. I could imagine myself sitting in the painting and relaxing! That doesn’t happen often so I negotiated my way down to a steal and managed to carry them around the country with me with no damage!

We also had the chance to spend time with some of Margaret's friends from China, India and England. Santana was on the trip with us! She is as cool as her name would indicate! She used to work with Margaret in Dalian and now works in Honk Kong! Joan is a friend of Margaret’s from when she lived in England many moons ago. Joan is the COOLEST grandmother ever! She is so dry and clever she constantly had me laughing! After Jewels race on Saturday Margaret had arranged for some of her other friends from China to come to the hotel so they could spend some time together and get caught up. I have heard about each of these women for years so it was great to finally meet them! Grace was the only one I had met before. She actually lived in Conn with Margaret for a year while she worked at GE in Stamford. Grace spent Thanksgiving with our family in Myrtle Beach when mom was still. Maggie, Florence and another woman who’s name I can’t say let alone spell, came and hung out with us! It was really fun to meet them and learn about their lives! Since I didn’t get to go on the school visit it was fun to meet the kids and learn about their school.

One of the weirdest things for me about the people is that they all believe we are foreigners and we have money. Every tourist trap we ventured through meant more people chasing us down, pulling on our arms and begging us to buy something from them. I got so tired of hearing “Hello Lady!” That was always the opening line…”Hello, Hello, Hello!” It was crazy to me because they thought if they just kept bothering me I would buy something. Of course what it did for me was make me want to swat them and walk away. Every day we were faced with more opportunities to shop and negotiate. We were told from the outset never to pay more than 50% of the listed price. Ha! That made each encounter stressful at first but after a while you get used to it. Pop and I worked hard one day on getting him some sandals and some scarves for him to take home for gifts. I found that tag teaming was the best method. So if I was the primary then Pop could shake his head and say “no way…I wouldn’t do it” or “that is way too much”! This gave us the good guy/bad guy approach and it seemed to work. Rarely did I pay 40% of the listed price and when I did it was OK because I knew they needed the money and I was worn out. John had much better staying power than I did. Do you know they even want you to pay them for taking their picture? I was in awe of many of the living conditions, cooking styles and food choices. As we walked along any street there were things I had never seen before and I wanted to take a picture however someone would yell and ask for money or no picture. It was crazy. John tried to take a picture of a very old man smoking a very old pipe and as soon as John lifted the camera he started yelling for money One lady told me it was 5 Yuan to take a picture of her making lunch in the street and I laughed loudly and she mocked me right back! It was so funny! We didn't get either of those pictures!

I have to say that Chinese babies are the cutest babies EVER! Seriously! They are precious and I could tour the country taking pictures of their gorgeous serious faces!

I think pictures can tell the rest of the story about the beautiful Chinese people!