I'm writing this on a slow Sunday workday today. One of the more interesting quirks about living and working in China is how national holidays are handled. For example, this past Thursday was May 1, which is recognized in China as "International Labor Day". Since the holiday fell on a Thursday, most employees around the country got to take both Thursday and Friday off so that they can do some traveling (I tend to hide indoors during such holidays to avoid the human stampedes!). However, having only three work days in a week apparently doesn't sit well with the Chinese government, so they will declare the following Sunday (or more, for longer national holidays) as workdays!
As we have been here for a couple of weeks, we've met people of all walks. Australians, Egyptians, Turkish, French, Canadians, Germans, British, and of course Chinese people are all quite easily encountered in this huge city. Cherry tends to get to meet more people as she hangs out near or around our apartment, and it's interesting to hear a lot of stories and viewpoints from the citizens of the world! Perhaps even more interesting is how Fifi has realized to use Chinese when talking to Chinese people and use English when talking to non-Chinese people!
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| Some new friends from Egypt! |
As many readers may know, Cherry hails from a small city of about 1.5 million people (you know, about the size of, say, Philadelphia) some 100 km due west of Shanghai called Wuxi. Despite being seemingly so close, due to China's ridiculous traffic, this trip, which would take roughly 45 minutes to drive in Florida, takes closer to 2.5 hours. Nonetheless, Cherry's mom still visits when she has time, and a few weeks back, we paid a visit to Wuxi as well to attend a family friend's wedding.
Chinese weddings are another interesting feature of Chinese culture. For all the dad's of daughters living in the U.S., be thankful that you don't have sons (or daughters that bring a husband into the family, which is not typical - usually daughters marry into the husband's family) in China! The particular wedding we attended happened to be the less common daughter bringing a husband into the family, and I'm told that the whole ordeal cost in excess of $80,000 USD, taking into account the dowries and gifting to the grooms family! The father of the bride essentially wiped out all of his liquid assets, to the point where he had to borrow money from close friends, like Cherry's family, to support the event! As I understand it, weddings are a huge source of the Chinese concept of "face", and over the years as Chinese families have become more well-to-do, the weddings have become more and more extravagant and outrageous. What's particularly amusing to me is that divorce rates have also risen significantly over the same period of time. Divorce has always been a bit of a taboo subject in Asian cultures - but with the additional economic impact to the families, one would have thought that it would be even more rigorously avoided in recent years!
All critical commentary aside, the visit was a good chance for Cherry's family and friends to meet the young'uns, and, as always, Fifi and Lukas love any good opportunity for a little spotlight!
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| Grandpa |
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| Stealing the spotlight |
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| Grandma managed to grab this stuffed pig for Fifi and Lukas |
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| Mommy participating in some of the fun and games |
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| Cousins |
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| Big wedding banquet #1 |
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| Showing Cousin Wenping her awesome math skills |
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| Giant banquet #2 - this one was more of the traditional banquets prepared by a local chef and held at home with close friends, family, and neighbors. Estimated cost? Approximately $15,000 USD for roughly 30 tables of guests (around 10 guests per table) |
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| This might be part of the reason for the high costs of catering - steak at the grocery store runs about $80 USD PER POUND!!! |
Fortunately for us, Cherry's mom grows some of her own veggies and brings us some, so we are able to have fresh organic vegetables free of the gouging that the supermarkets are able to charge due to health concerns!
We haven't stopped exploring Shanghai. One place I hadn't been to in a long time (at least five or six years) is the iconic Bund, the strip along the river that features classic early 20th century European architecture on the west side and futuristic skyscrapers on the east side. We haven't been here in all these visits to Shanghai in the past few years because we typically try to avoid the crowd. But now that we are here longer term, we have more time to enjoy these views and sites:
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| On the ferry |
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| The west side of the river, AKA the Bund |
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| Panorama! |
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| The Shanghai version of the Wall Street Bull |
Better yet, we get to enjoy these sites and views with friends, like my college buddy and tri-fecta member, Kaveh, who visited during a business trip!
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| We stumbled upon the famous "Matchmaker Market", where Chinese parents try to find spouses for their little Emperors or Empresses! |
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| The Heroes Memorial |
But, in the interest of maintaining objectivity, it is not all sunshine and rainbows. We've run into our share of bad apples as well. For instance, we got robbed right out of our hotel room, so now we are super conscious of keeping our belongings tucked away. And, in an incident I am bound to remember for the rest of my life, I got struck (while walking, mind you) by a moving vehicle on the way home from the subway station. To make matters more ridiculous, the driver actually chased me down in his car and asked me what I planned to do with the dent my knee made in the passenger side door of his VW Golf! I suppose one could argue that the car suffered more damage than I did - after all, humans heal and cars don't - but... I'm actually speechless at how crappy people can be from these types of incidents...
Until next time!
