Final Thoughts

It looks like the typhoon may be a washout. Everyone is telling us not to worry about it, so we're trying not to. Now, if the whole London scare doesn't disrupt anything we might actually make it home. We are packed and ready to travel with lots of snacks and a few changes of clothes for Grace and really the same for us. We've decided to keep the extra seat for Grace since we would still have to pay something for her to travel on our laps, and the travel agent said the flight is booked so there's no way we'd get lucky and still have an extra seat by chance.

All in all we can truly say that we have had a wonderful experience in China and have come away with a genuine appreciation of its people. I hope I didn't give the wrong impression when I talked about the people staring because we never felt any ill will at all throughout the entire trip. When I think about the Chinese people I will always remember them as friendly, happy, content, eager to please and genuinely interested in us and what we were doing there. We were definitely an anomaly all by ourselves; add to that a little Chinese girl and we were an outright oddity. It only made sense for them to stare, but the contacts we made, considering the enormous language barrier in both directions, were overwhelmingly positive and sincere.

From our guide Iko in Beijing, with whom we shared several good conversations on the bus while navigating the Beijing traffic jams, to Lily in Nanning who shared her frustration with having to eat two dinners every night because they always had to visit both her and her husband's parents, we were always sad to see them come and go so quickly. In Guangzhou we spent so much time in some of the shops that we began to think of our favorite workers as our Guangzhou friends. Stella was our buddy at "A Home of Love" right outside the hotel. She was a perky 4'10" in high heels who probably weighed 90 lbs soaking wet. She worked eleven hour days and remained consistently upbeat, always remembering our names and greeting us with a "Hello Gracie! how are you?" as she scooped her out of the stroller and took her to the toy section so that we could shop. And even though we always pushed her in the bargaining department she never lost her cool or seemed surly, as I surely would have been in her situation. Dave's friend Dong at "Susan's Place" also hooked us up with many of the souvenirs that we are bringing home and by the last evening we ended up sitting outside his shop, just talking and sharing pictures of our kids back at home. These people see so many well-to-do Americans come and go from the White Swan that they could easily become bitter or scornful, but even though they are making a living from us, they never treated us like just another customer.

Even in the crowded markets of Nanning and Guangzhou we found that if someone was staring and we made eye contact and smiled, they would smile back. Many would approach Grace and ask us where she was from or try to talk to her in Mandarin. Their first question was usually "does she speak English?" to which we would have to answer, "not yet."

Our experiences with food have also all been positive. While we took some precautions to keep from getting sick, we enjoyed eating almost entirely local food. We only drank bottled water including using it to brush our teeth, not having ice in any drinks and keeping our mouths firmly shut while showering. It's not that the water here is that awful, but more that there are things in it our systems are just not used to. We've sampled the northern cuisine in Beijing including the dumplings and fried rice with all kinds of things added. In Nanning and Gunagzhou we ate more Cantonese style meals which is where most food in american Chinese reataurants comes from. We found the real stuff to be even better than what we know at home. There are some really tasty noodles with sauce that we ate a lot of. In Nanning we even tried barbecued octopus and a whole steamed fish served on a platter, head and all. It was all delicious and amazingly healthy. We have eaten nothing but rice, noodles, vegetables and some lean meats, none of it fried and felt full and not overstuffed. Between the healthy food and the extreme heat and humidity making most walks feel like a trip in the sauna, I'm sure I've lost a few pounds.

On that note we also have to comment on the complete and total lack of obesity in this country. In Beijing betwen the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square and all the other sites we visited we probably laid eyes on close to half a million people; I didn't see a single obese one among them unless they were westerners. There were hardly any that you could call overweight. It simply doesn't exist here. We've heard that with the one child policy and the preference for males, some of the little boys and young men are being spoiled into obesity and we've noticed a little bit of that here in the south, but it's nothing compared to what you see on the street in the US. It definitely makes the epidemic in America seem even more troubling.

All of the cities we've visited have seemed more modern and livable than we had expected. Of course the sheer density of humanity and the size and scale of these cities is almost impossible to wrap your brain around. Trying to compare them to the US is pointless. There's nothing like them there. It's like taking the density and bustle of Manhattan, stripping away the super-rich aspect and spreading it over the entire New York/NewJersey/Connecticut metropolitan area with no break. Even Guangzhou, which is not a well-known city world wide, probably has more people than all but probably the top three US cities. There are simply so many people here! We also thought it was interesting that even living in this close proximity to this many other people in what most Americans would consider pretty substandard living conditions, there's barely any violence and the people seem (outwardly at least) content to sit outside and play Mah Jong or badminton or do Tai Chi in the park. Of course that's a broad generalization and it in no way takes into account the political situation that they are in, but when compared to some low-income neighborhoods in the US, at least they can be outside and not take their lives or their childrens' lives into their own hands. I know of some neighborhoods not too far from East Grand Rapids where the same can not be said. That said, our guide Jack did tell us that the penalty for possessing even 50 grams of marijuana here is death by firing squad. There are no juries in their courtrooms and no appeals process. He said it rather matter-of-factly and put it this way: "there are too many of us, we couldn't function any other way."

So that's it in a nutshell for our impressions of China. We can't wait to get home and see Sophie and Lily. We can't wait to see how our three girls will all react to each other and to see how Grace will adjust to life in the good old US of A. It's been a great ride, but now it's time to be back home and be a family. For those of you in other parts of the country, we hope we'll be able to visit with you and introduce you to Gracie as soon as we're settled, over our jet lag and ready to leave our house again. For those of you in GR, we'll see you soon...

Love,
Dave, Susan and Grace