More Chinese culture...

I will give you some interesting facts about China...you know how in America we have air fresheners that we hang in our vehicle? Well in China they have a bouquet of flowers in the dash of their car, for example, orchids for the aroma.

The traffic is nuts. Enter the street at your own risk and run if you can. The bigger the vehicle, the safer you are. There are people walking, people riding bikes, vehicles and trucks going everywhere, somewhat like an ant farm. It is like there is no right way to go. It is not abnormal to do a U turn right in the middle of the street. Not at an intersection, just while they are going down the road. You have to remember this is like New York or Chicago with the amounts of people and the inner city life. The streets are very narrow. The cars park up on the so called sidewalks. They do not use blinkers, they use horns. I have never been so close to another vehicle going down the road before and actually not gotten in an accident. Our ride from the airport to our motel this past time was an experience to say the least. I thought the guy got into Jeff Gordon's car and went onto the Michigan Speedway. It is not uncommon to stop on a dime and to gun it to take off. At either time it takes your breath away because it seems like you are going to hit something or someone is going to hit you.

We are craving milk, potato chips, popcorn, water from the tap...we are homesick and so ready to go home. If we could leave today we would. Today we are supposed to go some touristy stuff. Mayleah does really well when she wakes up in the morning, but then she takes a nap (usually about 45 minutes) and wakes up and is traumatized for the next half of the day. We got off the elevator yesterday afternoon and she was holding my hand. We stepped off the elevator, she dropped my hand, started rocking from foot to foot and started sobbing. It was so sad. Needless to say, she is still grieving. She does calm down once I pick her up. She does not like it when I go into the bathroom and shut the door, she needs access and must see me at all times. Ken offered to take her down to get the laundry yesterday and he put her coat on, she walked out in the hallway by herself, realized I wasn't with them and wigged out. They came back to the room. What a surprise. She started speaking in Chinese to me yesterday. Ken hasn't heard her speak yet. But she is definitely getting more comfortable. She will just look at me, get a big smile on her face and scrunch up her nose.

We are again awake at 4 am. You don't realize how this messes up your internal time clock. With the Chinese New Year just finishing there are still remnants of the celebration. Every business and everywhere you go there are miniature orange trees. These are supposed to represent "luck". There is NO! reference to God here. We live in such a great country. Where the government doesn't dictate what we believe, how many children we can have, what we do for an occupation, etc.

That is the other thing...there are so many people in China it is difficult, I would assume to find employment for everyone. For example, there are alot of people that do little things, like the housekeeping. One will be vacuuming, one dusting, etc. maybe 2-3 people for the same job. There are workers everywhere. One nice thing though, there is a grand piano outside one of the motel restaurants and there was a girl playing last night, and it was American music. It reminded me of Ashley. She is always playing the piano at home.

Well, this is enough for now. Have a great evening. We will have a good day. Chris