Living in China

Pat and I enjoyed walking around Zhengzhou and Xi’an. We saw tree lined neighborhoods, river paths, parks, and busy city sidewalks. Families pushed their babies in strollers and held their toddlers’ hands. Men and boys fished along the rivers. Women played with children on blankets or mats in the grass. In the morning and evening large groups of folks would gather in the parks to do Tai Chi, yoga, dance, or any variety of exercise together. We saw a man cracking his whip; it looked artistic, almost like a dance with scarves. Quite often we saw a group of older men gathered together around small tables on the street or in the parks playing cards, chess, board games, or some type of dominoes game. The malls were full of young people drinking Starbucks or eating ice cream. Many people walked while looking at their i Phones!

The Chinese dressed just like westerners: shorts, jeans, t-shirts (often with Disney or super hero pictures.). Business people wore dark pants and white shirts, the women heels, skirts and dresses. It did not look that different from the states. Students wore uniforms to school, not just Best but all schools.

Of course we saw somethings that were unique to China. One thing that really stands out were the street cleaners in Zhengzhou. They were large vehicles, almost like garbage trucks, and they ran 24/7. There was always a new building going up or one coming down so it could get quite dusty. ” Watering” the streets helped to control the dust. We always knew when they were coming because they played American Christmas carols. The one that sticks in my head is “Oh Christmas Tree”. I heard this everyday in my office at school and I was on the sixth floor!

Acupuncture advertisement

The grocery stores often had music playing in them along with sales people on microphones selling something. At first the grocery stores were overwhelming. We could find things we wanted, yogurt, bread, fruit, peanut butter etc. but we had to do it while reading the Chinese language, listening to Chinese around us, and the loud music. These are all things you get used to as a tourist in another country but I do remember not finishing my shopping at times because I was overwhelmed. It gave me a new appreciation for what our young bilingual students feel that first week of school. One very cool thing at the grocery store was how children would sit in the book aisle and read and browse through the books. I loved seeing them read!

Very few people spoke English in China, yet many of their businesses had English names. Many times the names did not make sense or I felt that they got lost in translation. We would see the same things on t-shirts, they didn’t quite make sense.

Being “foreigners” was quite interesting. On the bus a young girl was giggling and she held up her phone and took our picture. Pat and I were sitting outside at the mall in Xi’an and two young boys, 8 and 10, came up to us to ask if they could practice their English with us. Of course we said yes, they were delightful. They asked us our name, where we were from, how long we were in Xi’an, about our family. Then they thanked us, wished us safe travels and took our picture. Here are Pat and Victor!