Big Big Goat and co. make friends with Doodle children

Originally uploaded by a little coffee

Today, Chris and I went to out favorite shopping center in Anyang to do a little Christmas shopping (and buy myself a new pair of boots). With Jesus’s birthday less than a week away, the “supermarket” (it’s really a five story mall with a small grocery on top and no food court) had decked itself out with Christmas trees, ornaments, snowmen figures, and perfectly wrapped packages. Off to the side of the entrance, they even constructed a small snow village beneath a Christmas tree.

All the celebrities were out too: Tigger, Mickey and Minnie, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck greeted us and the swarms of Doodle children. Even Big Big Wolf was there. He stars with Precious Goat (who was not in attendance) in a Chinese cartoon, maybe of the same name (Those two are also on my glasses case).

Once inside, we were bombarded with lots and lots and lots of the worst Christmas music on the planet. Recordings of “We wish you a merry Christmas,” and “Jingle Bells,” (and a couple other nauseating contemporary favorites) were sung by the same bunch of enthusiastic children so loudly that Chris and I had to shout at each other to have a conversation. Even when I was a child, I don’t think I heard nearly the same amount of songs sung by children that I’ve heard living here. Nothing says “Christmas spirit” like a bunch of six year-olds jingling bells and screaming about reindeer.

The doodles are weird.  They have a bizarre fixation/love of singing that manifests itself in the strangest ways.  The first clue should have been the widespread popularity of the KTV (karaoke), but I missed that and so was not at all prepared when most of my classes asked me to sing a song on the first day. Uh… of course I couldn’t say know to their happy, shining faces.  How about… a verse of Jingle Bells?  And they all went crazy for it, despite the obvious fact that I have a crap ass singing voice.  But they loved it anyway.

The Chinese have a song for about everything and for everything.  Songs about their fifty + minority groups, songs about Spring Festival.  One student asked what songs we sang for Thanksgiving and I don’t think he believed me when I explained that we don’t have songs for that holiday- or any for most holidays except Christmas.  

The final clue: Chris, Robert and I attended a meeting at the university on Friday, I guess to signal the end of the semester/welcome the new year.  We were told a day in advance that we needed to prepare a song. A song?  You want us to sing a song… at a meeting?  At a university meeting you want me (me?!) to sing?  This is lunacy!  I can’t!  I won’t!  I almost balled.  In front of what turned out to be 100 + people, happily chomping on sunflower seeds, you want we to sing- with no liquid courage?  

I hoped I could wiggle out of it, like I managed to at the foreign language department’s banquet.  But these stone sober doodles weren’t letting me.  After a few minutes of speeches and a couple other good singers who were used to this, they handed me the mike and I shuffled to the center of the room, surrounded on all sides by teachers and leaders from different departments, the president of the university, and sang in that talk/sing way that I do: 

Frere Jacques Frere Jacques

Dormez-Vous?  Dormez-Vous?

Sonnez les matines Sonnez les matines

din dan don din dan don

Are you sleeping Are you sleeping

Brother John Brother John

Morning Bells are ringing Morning bells are ringing

Ding Dong Ding Ding Dong Ding

I couldn’t believe it- after the first two lines of Frere Jacques, they started clapping with the beat!  They must have known the melody.  It drowned out my galloping heart and encouraged me to repeat the French twice before “singing” the English once. I curtsied and hurried back to my seat, blood pounding in me ears, quite proud of myself.  Once again, I’ve done something in China that I would not have imagined myself doing.  Especially stone-freaking-cold sober.

The Chinese noodles have perplexed Chris and me since we first tried to prepare them.  Mouth drooling in anticipation, we boiled, strained, ready to eat and…huh?  

One giant gob of noodles.  

Every single one of them had congealed into a hard to eat mass.  Adding the oily vegetables helped loosen a couple but there was still a gooey rock at the center.  This made no sense.  Spaghetti doesn’t do this!  And the noodles we eat at restaurants wriggle freely from each other.  What gives?

This past  Tuesday, during our regular Chinese lesson, I asked Katherine.  A few days prior, I had tried to replicate one of the dishes she prepared for Chris and me, a carrot and potato noodle concoction that was quite tasty.  But my attempt came out horrible because all the potato noodles stuck together. They taste damn awful by themselves. 

“So, how do we keep noodles from sticking together?” I asked.

“You boil water.  And then put noodle in water for six or seven minute.  Then you pour out the water.  You can eat!”

“Yes.  But when I make them, they stick together.”  I tried miming “stick together” by holding both my hands out in front of me like I’d hold a cantelope. 

“OK.  You boil water.  Then put noodle in water for six, seven minute.  You pour out the water.  Then you eat.”

“Yes, yes.  We understand that.  But after.  AFTER, we cook the noodles.  They’re all stuck together,” Chris piped up, a little irriated edge in his voice.  I mimed squashing the cantelope.

“Oh.”  She thought for a moment.  ”You fill a pot with water.  Boil water. You leave the noodle in the water for six, seven minute.  Use the kuai zi, chopstick, to” she mimed stirring” and then you pour out the water.  You can eat.”

“Ok.  So we just stir the noodles with the chopsticks?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Ok…” stirring wasn’t the issue because I already did that. As we tried, again, to explain that yes we know how to cook noodles, but for some reason these crazy doodle noodles stick together, I had a moment of I don’t know. Clarity, insight. I asked, “Should we add that stuff you told us to buy?” I leapt from my chair and found a packet of a salt-like substance that looked like transparent sprinkles.  Katherine had told us “you can use it with noodles” when we bought it, but we had no idea what she meant by that.

I handed her the packet.

“Yes, yes!” she said.  ”Can use with noodle.”

“How do we use it?”

“You put in after noodle cook.”

“After noodles are done cooking?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Do we put it in the pot with the water?”

“Yes, yes!”

“How much should we use?”

” <some measurement I didn’t understand>”

“Like this much?” I showed her a teaspoon.

“No.  Too much.”

“Ok.  So a little.  NOT this much?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Ok,” Chris said.  He broke down the process, miming each step like he was a real professional mime. “First you fill the pot with water.  You boil the water.  Then you add the noodles.  They cook for six or seven minutes.  We stir them with chopsticks.  After, we add that stuff.  Then pour out the water.”

“Yes, yes!  Very good!”

Good god, that was exhausting.  Afterwards, Chris and I tried thinking of what the hell was going wrong there, how could we have been clearer and what was happening in Katherine’s brain that whole time?  I suppose she supposed we just didn’t know how to cook noodles and adding that salt stuff is so commonplace that she didn’t think about it?  Did she not understand what “to stick” means? We have nooooooooooo idea.

But we did exactly what she told us, step by step, the next time we tried making noodles and voila!  It worked.

Our kitchen wreaks of Chinese food.  After multiple failed attemps over the previous two plus months, I was finally able to achieve something that resembled real Chinese food, not the tasteless concoctions two clueless Americans throw into a wok.

The stumbling block was the spices. It’s easy enough to buy mushrooms and garlic and broccoli from the street vendors like everyone else, but no matter how hard I imagined the dish tasting exactly the same as the dish from a restaurant we liked, it was never so.  

Until Sunday, when our narrow culinary world expanded. Out tutors, Katherine and Lucy, came over to show Chris and me how to make dumplings (or potstickers)- a mouth watering delicacy of many towns in China and a popular dish that families make during the holidays.  Chris and I love them and if it wasn’t for my stubborn insistance, we’d eat dumplings for every meal.

The two girls came over, there arms loaded with bags of fruit and vegetables- tomotos, mushrooms, and bundles of various leafy green plants.  Was all this stuff going into the dumplings?

I was allowed to help clean some of the vegetables- which looked like tall grass to me- but then Chris and I were ordered into the living room to “have a rest” while they did the cooking.  It wasn’t until they needed to assemble the dumplings- roll out the dough into palm-sized circles and painstakenly scoop a small spoon full of the guts (an egg and vegetable mixture) into the dough to fold up into bloated crescents- that we were allowed to help. By the time we finished, we must have made 80- lunch for four people with plenty for us to keep as leftovers.  

I, of course, managed to get flour all over myself, while Lucy and Chris stayed prim and clean. Chris entertained himself with soundaffects as he scooped the innards into the dough like he was convincing a baby to open wide while the airplane-spoonful of food came in for a landing: “aaaaahhh guhbluhhhhhhh…” 

Katherine disapeared into the kitchen while I tried to have a conversation with Lucy- difficult when both sides know limited amounts of the other’s language- but saved when she reemerged carrying bowels filled with the freshly made dumplings.

We devoured them as quickly as we could and sat nursing our bloated stomachs from too much food, while Katherine pranced out of the kitchen, another steaming plate in her hands.

“Here you are!” she announced with a smile, her face pink from the heat

Oh dear god.  More food.  Tofu and some leafy green vegetable covered in some crazy tasty salty doodle sauce.  It was the only time tofu hasn’t thoroughly repulsed me.

With a flip of her hair, she was back in the kitchen. Oh no.

“How much is she making,” I asked Lucy, who continued to roll out the dough for the dumplings.

When she didn’t respond (she probably thought I was talking to Chris) I snuck into the kitchen and found Katherine in the midst of frying thin slices of potatos with green and red peppers.  There were carrots, noodles, tomatos, and numerous other greens on the counter sliced and ready for cooking. 

The dumplings kicked and gurgled in my stomach.  

By the time Katherine and Lucy finished, we had five dishes: the dumplings, the tofu, mushrooms, spicy potatos, and carrots with potato noodles.  

Chris and I could only pick at the food and they laughed and told us we didn’t eat enough because Chinese people would have eaten all of that- even the dumplings?  I don’t think I believed her. An Italian family couldn’t have polished that off.

After we cleaned up (and they made a few noodles out of the extra dough) Katherine took me back to the kitchen and told me how to prepare those dishes and what I could do with the leftover veggies. She even left some of the spices for us.  Garlic, ginger, and sesame oil seemed to be the key ingredients Chris and I kept missing.

Today for lunch I decided to experiment.  On the way home from class, I fought the mob in front of a homemade noodle seller and (for the equivalent of 17 cents) bought enough noodles for two meals.  I pulled out the leftover mushroom/green vegetable dish and poked through it, trying to figure out what else she added to this deliciousness.  

I sliced up ginger and garlic and mixed them with vegetables and oil in the wok and minutes later voila! Lunch!

It was a solid effort. When I compared mine to Katherine’s, I realized I used a different leafy green (I need to learn the names for them.  Not everything is lettuce) than she, and I didn’t use enough garlic, ginger, or salt.  Lesson: when in doubt, spice it up!

Chris and I arrived in Kaifeng late Friday, just in time to make our 9 PM reservation deadline.  Our emotions had us wound in exhausted knots and all we wanted to do was curl into a bundle and forget that we were in Doodle Land.

After several people, including our tutor, Robert and another Chinese teacher, gave us some pointers on asking for train tickets and all the other necessary mumbo jumbo, Chris and I were confident we could take a train to a bus to Kaifeng for the weekend.  

It started well enough and we were excited- I especially was itching to travel after almost two months in Anyang. We were assured by our excited students that the city was very ancient and very beautiful and the food very famous.  We would have a good weekend.  

The super fast train to Zhengzhou (our transfer point) was super slick. It felt more like we travelled by plane sans turbulence. We ate the snickers and played the UNO my mother had mailed us a few days ago and in less than an hour and a half we arrived at our transfer point.

This dirty, crowded nightmare of a city didn’t seem so bad at first. Yes, lots of people standing around, pushing each other to get through the train station, to get to the ticket lines, and taxis almost running everyone over, but you get used to this.  We successfully asked where the bus was to Kaifeng and a helpful bus station employee wrote down the number of the bus and pointed at where we needed to go to get the bus.  We dodged traffic and food vendors, finding a mass of bodies waiting to squeeze into buses.  We needed number 29 and as we waited, someone, maybe a student, approached us and asked if we needed help.  We pointed to our paper with the bus numbers on it and confirmed yes, number 29 is what we needed and it would take us to Kaifeng.  

Only it didn’t. We hopped on to a couple number 29 buses, asking if it would take us to Kaifeng and each time, we got barked at and shooed of the bus.  We supposed that meant no.  So we trudged back across the street, across to the plaza separating the bus and train stations and asked a different employee who told us, yes number 29.  Exactly where we had been.  Someone else, another student I suppose, who lingered, confirmed number 29.  About 200 meters that way, she confirmed. SO. We trudged back guessing that yes, 29 does go to Kaifeng but it must make other stops first hence the confusion.

Alright.  Hop on 29. And spend over an hour circling the city.  

When the bus parked at another bus station at the complete opposite end of Zhengzhou. When two cabs refused to take us back to the train station, I almost started balling. What the HELL?  Chris and I went over the scenario over and over and can not figure out how four people could have been completely wrong about which bus to take.  Two of them WORKED for the bus station! The only logical answer we could think of us we were supposed to transfer buses at some point but they neglected to tell us that.  Aaaaaaaahhh!!!  This THIS is what happens in Doodle Land.  Logic be damned.  This is the black hole of logic and sense. Never in all my other travels in countries where I didn’t speak the language has there been this complete confusion, disorder, chaos. Chris and I were hamsters stuck in a hamster ball, moving our little hamster feet as fast as we could but getting absolutely nowhere- we just kept banging into things: people, buses, doodles. And damn it.  I was getting a headache.

Finally a cab agreed to take us across town where we decided to buy a train ticket to Kaifeng instead (before this debacle, we would have needed to wait for three hours for a train so a bus was supposed to get us there quicker). There was one good thing to all this- we confirmed the existence of a Pizza Hut.

Finally, after standing in a smokey, crowded train for 40 minutes, we arrived in Kaifeng and promptly collapsed in bed- seven and a half hours after we left.  It should have taken us no more than four.

More on Kaifeng to follow…

Today was the first day I went shopping- clothes shopping- by myself.  The weather is finally starting to feel like autumn and I have mostly thin and short-sleeved shirts.  Not good when it’s 40-degrees when you leave for an unheated class room.  And live in a solid block of concrete (it’s now warmer outside than inside)!

Onward to find me a sweater.  All I’m asking for, dear god, is one sweater.  I’ve been shopping a couple times before, the first times with Chris, and he’s so neurotic I get bored and annoyed and the last time with my Chinese tutors- Kathrine and Lucy (not Alice. Woops).  I was excited about that trip- they’d take me to the good shops where they like to buy clothes.  They won’t be too expensive and if there needs to be any haggling, they can take care of it.  Perfect!  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  That trip confirmed what I expected from looking at my twiggy, shapeless students.  This body does not translate well into Chinese- it’s the hips.

So aside from a coat, scarf and two pairs of shoes I had to hunt for (my foot IS small!) I haven’t bought anything.  No more!  I had kaui to spend on long underwear and a sweater so I won’t shiver while typing.  

I got lucky.  Or less picky.  If the clothing didn’t repulse me with too much pink or an overzealous splatter of glitter, jewels or anything shiny (which appears on nearly everything for some reason) then I’d try it.  

Booya!  First store I selected I found several sweaters worth trying on, but in my determination to find something I’d forgotten the other problem- the pushy salespeople.  One small store can have eight employees so there’s no chance of escaping notice- although you can avoid it longer in more crowded stores. They will stalk you all around the store, standing two steps behind you as you riffle through a stack of garments that could fit a baby.  If you linger too long over one piece, the salesperson will babble something in Chinese at you.  Depending on my mood, I’ll either ignore them or quietly say wo bu dong (I don’t understand).  Sometimes, I pick up numbers so I assume they’re telling me the price. If they continue babbling at me I usually just leave.    

I selected a soft, fluffy cream sweater that I could throw over my t-shirt so I tried it on in the middle of the store and looked at myself in the mirror.  It fit well enough.  Snuggish around the hips but if I wanted my shoulders covered, then I’d have to deal with this.  When I fiddled with the toggle, the salesgirl took this as a sign to manhandle me- she toggled me up, pulled on the collar and the hood, tried to loosen it around the hips and whipped me back around to the mirror.  This scenario was repeated in every store I went to.  I thought of my sister who turns bitter and pissy in stores when a salesperson even looks at her- and there’s this.  She would have to go naked.   

I quickly resigned myself to it.  I’m not sure if it’s the different take on customer service born from class divisions (the seller and buyer equal equal servant and lazy rich person) or just a more intimate culture where it’s OK to touch people you don’t know. Regardless, there’s no hope in fighting against it- I’m failing to remind myself that it’s not a malicious invasion of privacy.  In another shop, two girls were helping a friend readjust her tights- by holding up her dress and sticking their little fingers in the band of the tights and pulling.  I was right there, a foot away, waiting for them to move away from the mirror so I could admire myself in (what became) my new sweater dress.  I suppose if you live in such crowded conditions this intimacy is a good thing. With the squat toilets sans doors at come of the university buildings, I’m surprised the former-storage closet dressing rooms even have doors.

And then there’s the price. There’s the price on the tag (if there is a tag), then there’s the real price. One of the nifty things I learned from Katherine (besides the phrases “too expensive” and “can it be cheaper”) is most shops in this one major shopping area don’t offer discounts because they’re part of a chain.  Thank you, thank you.  Chain stores keep the same price.  But then there’s other small shops thrown in amidst the big ones- and it’s not always easy to distinguish the two. So after you finally select something, then you must commune with the Chinese and agree on the price.  After about five minutes of a nice salesgirl saying this to me: “zheaorhgnzherxgnsrgnuo” I figured out that store didn’t offer discounts.  I paid the woman “xie xie” and dodged flying tops, shopping bags and bodies and headed for home.  Two sweaters. Success!

Well, China did it again.  It took away our Internet for a few days, but with the assistance of a kind and clever Chinese teacher who lives above us, we have it back!  Ho ho!  

Anyhoot.  On Monday, Chris and I were conned into playing volleyball with some other… people.  We’re not sure who they were, teachers from the foreign languages department, we presume, because Gerry, a small Chinese man who chain smokes in his office while scheduling our classes and other Dean-type things, asked us to join him in a volleyball match after classes.

I enjoy playing, wasn’t too bad for a midget on my middle school volleyball team and my American-sized thighs could do with the extra exercise.  And we could schmooze with other faculty.  ”Sure, Gerry.  Why not?”

He led Chris and me to the volleyball courts on the far side of the campus next to the school’s stadium.  At first, we couldn’t see the actual courts, more like a mess of bodies, some forming a human wall, others blobs of movement viewed from behind the high chain-link fence. When we got closer, we could actually see a dirty white ball sailing through air, one of the blobs chasing after it.  The actual courts (maybe nine) were squeezed together with just enough space to stand tiptoe on the sidelines and watch the ball hurl from one side of the court to the other.

We watched, waiting for our other teammates to arrive in the one relatively safe zone by the entrance, wanting to flee from this intimate free-for-all.  Still on our work clothes, we asked where we could change. Silly us, we expected a locker room, but no.  We were pointed to a smelly, public toilet which had no doors for the stalls. I was not yet that desperate to squat in front of a oggling Asian eyes.  Nor did I want to put my clothes or my bag on their mud-slicked floors so I toted my yoga pants and t-shirt around for no reason.  

By the time Chris, brave soul, finished changing, Gerry had signaled us to come to an indoor court, thankfully away from the people swarm, but nuzzled up to a school basketball match in-progress.  The tiny, dusty gym, smelled like the rest of Anyang- a concentration of dirt and sweat. A few men wore sweats, other remained in their jeans or khakis.  One of the girls stayed in her dress and knee-eye boots so I felt much less of a fool for staying in my nice jeans and top.  

We played a practice match first, a free for all of a few players zipping around court, competing with each other for hitting the ball.  For the first fifteen minutes I stood on the court picking at a hangnail because every time the ball approached me, one of my “teammates” zoomed over and whacked the ball with his arm or fist.   

The real match wasn’t much different, though it began in an organized fashion.  Six players lined up in their rows, rotating for the serve.  I assumed someone started to keep score, but the game quickly devolved into the organized chaos that is the Chinese Way.  We stayed loosely within the bounds of the court, but the players, sprinted around the court, punching and sometimes kneeing the ball. Three particular boys on my team wanted to be the only players on the team. They were like twelve-year olds eager to show off their skill and failing miserably.  They bolted in front of my outstretched hands ready to bump the ball, but throw their fists past my face and punch the ball out of bounds.  One thin, sprightly man would practically push you over so he could leap like a frog, feet and knees cocked to the outside, to smash the ball, but only sometimes over the net. 

The lines and the whole idea of “taking turns” quickly fizzled and I realized I’d have to fight for my turn to serve the ball.  No thanks. I did, though, when someone was gracious enough to let me touch the ball.  One player, an obnoxious sweaty man with a rapidly receding hairline who will look like a frog within the next five years, decided he wanted to shoot hoops for a few minutes before leaping back in the the game. 

Eventually there was a break.  Surely the match was over?  While the overzealous boys practiced setting and spiking the ball, Chris and I hurried away.  We found out this wasn’t just a game for funzies, rather a practice match before the team began a competition.  Competing?  With other Chinese in this loose idea of volleyball?  Since I don’t yet know the Chinese for “stop crowding me” or “it’s my freaking turn to serve!” I think I’ll pass.

“5:17 AM.  72 degrees.  Time to get your asses out of bed so you can get your Foreign Expert Certificates!” the loud, robot-woman voice announced.  5:17.  What a terrible time to be alive.  Chris, myself, and one of the other new foreign teachers had a 2+ hour drive to the capital of the Henan province, Zhengzhou to the hospital for a few routine tests before we complete the visa/residency permit/Foreign Expert Certificate process.  We had to do that before China allowed us in so I don’t know why they’re making us do it again- and in much less… hospital-like conditions.

Bleary-eyed, we arrived at the hospital, filled out paperwork, and immediately followed James, the aggressively friendly Chinese man in charge of us, trotting down the hall and poking his head into doorways before shoving us in.  ”You go in here!”  The three of us scrambled into the room for the chest x-ray, to another room for an ultrasound, to the EKG room, to another for blood pressure and weight, another for blood, and my favorite- the urine sample.  All the while James quietly ushered us along, barly giving us time to wipe off the ultrasound goo before shooing us into another room.  Give me an hour wait in a doctor’s office any day then fighting a posse of Chinese men for a turn.

Chris somehow fell behind so Annie and I went to the second floor on our own to do the last two tests- blood and urine.  Two men wearing surgical masks and rubber gloves sat behind their respective desks, an open trash can on the floor on each side of the desk and vials of blood neatly arranged in those special blood crates between them.  Three wastebaskets sat on the floor by the door where, I would see, people chucked their swabs coated with dried blood.

Annie and I waited our turn next to a wall that had four huge, distinct flower-shaped blooms of mold growing into the baby blue walls.  There was mold in the room where we’re giving blood.  I checked to see that the men taking blood were using new needles because, now, I just wasn’t sure.  And yes, fresh vials and needles opened from sealed packaging.  The process itself went as it should, you know, bleed into vials, except no band-aid or tape to stop the bleeding, just two cotton swabs that you toss into those open bins.

       Chris enjoys a Chinese donut after our tests.

One to go. Urine. We found the room where a woman wearing a surgical mask indicated we were to pick up a tiny plastic cup that could hold now more than 1/2 cup of liquid- and there’s no lid.  It’s not even a real cup!  It’s shaped more like a scoop with a plastic tab to serve as a handle.  I have to pee into this?!?  Annie and I were pointed down the hall to the public bathrooms.  Public squat toilets.  By the smell, it clearly hadn’t been cleaned the night before.  Holy Shit. How can I possibly do this?  I’ll just let your imagine run with how you squat and pee into a cup.  It can’t be done without making a mess and to add to this- how do you pull up your damn pants when one hand holds an OPEN CUP OF PEE?  You can’t. I set the “cup” down on the ledge separating the two toilets. Not sanitary.

Sigh… I remembered the last urine test I took in Chicago.  I was given a sterile kit, complete with wipes and a little funnel and a lid for the cup.  And it was an actual cup that I just left in the bathroom in a special collection spot where the nursed would pick it up.  

I washed my hands and used a Kleenex to gently walk the cup back down to the lab.  Yes, yes.  There’s open cups of urine being walked up and down the hall all the live long day.  Of course I dribbled as I weaved around the group standing between me and the drop off, but at least I had a Kleenex whereas the men behind me did not.  

I placed the cup in a tray filled with twelve other filled cups.  I was lucky 13.  There was space for at least 11 more.  I wondered if there was a lid to that or was it someone’s great responsibility to carefully walk the tray up and down twenty more flights of stairs- because what I’ve seen so far indicates that the hospital wouldn’t actually put the lab next to the collection spot.  

I rushed back down the hall and washed my hands again- with just water because China doesn’t believe in putting soap next to the sinks.  God bless you, Suave hand sanitizer.

I ran downstairs and flung myself outside, taking a deep breath of cool, smoky yet refreshing air trying not to picture a bajillion germs dancing around my skin. 

When James asked us what we thought of the hospital, what the hospitals are like in the U.S, my polite response was “sterile.” His responded by explaining that, until recently, not many foreigners were coming to this region and not many Chinese were going abroad so they’ve had to scramble to keep up with the demand for these sorts of tests.  True, we’ve seen evidence of this scramble in Anyang.  I know I bring my own rich, Western attitude to, well, everything, because that’s what I know.  I’ve heard people say Americans are too clean, but seriously, China?  It’s been hard to wrap my mind around why a wealthy nation, a nation that just sent three people into space, has moldy hospitals, open cups of urine walked down the halls, and no soap in the bathrooms.

Today, the parental units and I went back to Hayward for the Lumberjack Show.  I’d been looking foward to this all week and can say this is the one thing I actually wanted to do here in the Northwoods. I don’t know why I was so captivated with this.  I suspect it tapped into that part of me that loves Sword-and-Sandal epics. Heroes fighting for Truth, Justice, Honor while wielding dangerous weapons, fileting anyone who crosses their path, overcoming seeming insurmountable odds to obliterate their enemies!  And… maybe I just like seeing muscular men sweat. I wasn’t disappointed.

Yo-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Carlos, the third lumberjack, dressed in the expected red-and-blacked checked shirt, acted as or MC. I guessed the yo-ho! he had us bellow was the standard cheer for our competing lumberjacks- Wes and Kurt.  My father was surprisingly engaged with the raucous yo-hoing and I would leave the show with ringing ears!

Quickly, Kurt and Wes went through a series of competitions involving axes, chainsaws, even chainsaws on steroids, running and the occasional spill into the lake.  

I was enthralled.  Especially when they raced up the log, I expected a slow climb but no!  They soared and then slid down in a matter of seconds! They pulled out the chainsaws and I tried not to think of one loosing control and sending the deadly weopon into the cheering audience.  They ran on logs, they had a log rolling competition where each lost their footing and splashed into the lake.  We laughed as one long, thin log snapped and sent Kurt tumbling into water.

Yo-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

After the show we went to the Angry Minow Pub, a local pub which also brewed their own beer.  We discovered it at the local Marketplace the other day and Dad’s down nothing but talk about how tasty their River Pig Ale is.  Mom and I each had a glass of wine while Dad sampled the two beers in the pub, which could easily have been a snazzy bistro with its hardwood floors, candles, and newly pained blue walls.

Our final stop in cable was The Pavillion- and their wine bar.  We lounged outside, half-shaded from the desending sun by a burgeoning grape vine. Dad had another beer while Mom and I enjoyed another glass of wine and rich, magical chocolate mousse.  It was a beautiful way to end the week.

I succumbed to the pressure and went kayaking with my father.  After my first experience, I had reason for trepidation.  And then it happened again when I took a kayaking lesson: I fell out of my boat.  Spilled, humiliated into the frigid waters of some lake around Skokie.  Even though I’ve kayaked a handful of times since that incident, there’s a little fear lingering.  But today would be the day I put all that behind me.

I’ve avoided kayaking on rivers because of the Class I rapids on the rivers my kayak-addicted father likes to paddle- they were the cause of my first fall.  So kayaking on a lake seemed appealing- no rapids.  Just open water.

After a morning of reading, my eyeballs needed a rest so I actually looked forward to the outdoor adventure.  Ten miles away from our condo was Garden Lake.  A good-sized lake with a small number of summer homes scattered around the water’s edge- each with its own dock pontoon or sail boat.  The problem Dad and I encountered was how to get down to the lake from The Pointe since there was no obvious canoe access.  We did find some steep and unfriendly stairs but hell no would I haul two kayaks down there!  So my enterprising father found a little path that wound down to the waterfront. 

Nothing would stop Lloyd from kayaking.  The towering, bending trees blocked out nearly all the afternoon sunlight, almost, but not quite obscuring the sign that stated we were not to travel any further.  Ha! Lloyd laughed and plowed ahead, only momentarily waylaid when one young tree dipped too far into the way of the shady tunnel we found ourselves in.  A minivan with two kayaks sitting on the roof couldn’t get through without creating substantial damage to the precious boats so he hopped out of the van and bent the tree to his will- practically tying the renegade tree around another tree to prevent it from snapping back to block the path.

Away we go!

The rest was easypeasy.  We quickly unloaded and took off on the lake, the light wind gently guiding us..  I took a few awkward, unsteady strokes to get my bearings.  Lloyd took off in search of wild life- he’d recently become very interested in turtles.  He’s found them sunning themselves on sandbars and logs all over the Minnesota and Wisconsin rivers.  So off he went to follow the shoreline in search of more.  I was all tralalalala on the lake thinking I’m quite the badass because I was feeling rather comfortable out there.  Not my usual topsy turvy self.

We idled along, coming across a huge gang of ducks on someone’s property.  I tried to chase a few of the in the water but they happily swum out ahead of me.  Dad and I discovered a small cove that we explored, mostly dead water and loads of algae that we had to fight back before reemerging on the lake.  

Dad, after a morning kayaking trip, was feeling tired by then so we turned around.  The journey back was rougher.  The wind picked up and forced us to maximize the strength to get back to the car.  The wind jostled me, pulled me further away from shore, but I fought back.  A duck flew out of nowhere and threatened to plow right into me!  I screeched and ducked down while it soared overhead. Dad overtook me and I followed in his wake, my little toes tingly from the awkward frog-leg position the kayak forces your legs into.  And blister was forming on my thumb.  Paddle faster, faster!  I neared the shore, but was momentarily lost in weeds before I emerged.  Triumphant!  I landed and stepped out of the kayak.  Victorious!