March 4, 2018 - Back to China

We're back! There were moments this week when we felt like we had a bird's eye view of what China is like for retired Chinese.

One morning we went for a walk and found a park we had never explored, even though it's less than a mile away. Tucked away in our little neighborhood is a pretty little 1.4 acre park. The fun thing about the park at 9:00 am is that it is alive with retired people (and some of their toddler grandchildren). Some are dancing, some are doing a slow motion type of martial art/exercise, some are playing shuttlecock (looks like hacky sack with a badminton bird on steroids), some are exercising by marching around the pathways clapping their hands or pounding on parts of their bodies, and some are exercising on the playground equipment - permanent, well-used exercise equipment for adults. Bird cages were hanging from the trees, complete with very vociferous thrushes whose cages had food containers made of painted porcelain. Men bring the birds to the park to give them a chance to be outside.

Another day we went with a friend to an area of Shanghai where we found little antique stores full of all kinds of treasures.

Hand-painted snuff bottles

And a market with pets (as well as some flowers and jewelry) you can buy: turtles of every shape and size, fish, rabbits, fluffy mice, salamanders, frogs (some pastel pink or blue), birds, and crickets. Yes, crickets. Although our students seemed unaware of the tradition, the tradition of keeping lucky crickets it is alive and well among retired men. Cricket fighting is a sport, but we haven't seen that.

Several varieties of crickets to choose from

The cool thing about this little slice of old China, where no building is taller than two stories, is that it's in the middle of an elite section of skyscrapers and Lamborghini dealers. We were told the government wants to keep sections of town as they were before all the modern growth so they can preserve that part of their culture.

The old and the new. Laundry day!

And some retired people in China, ie., BYU China teachers, had a busy first week of the semester.

Kathy's freshman class from last semester is now John's

John's business English class from last semester. 

On Wednesday, our biggest day, we set the alarm for 5 am. We'd been waking up really early because of jet lag, but we set the alarm to make sure we didn't sleep too late--we'd been too tired in the evening to finish getting ready for our day's classes. We taught our morning classes, ate in the cafeteria (one of our favorite things to do because there is such a huge variety of choices to try), ran off copies for our afternoon class, and took a taxi and a student interpreter to the University hospital, where we taught our first class about "The American Medical System" to about 80 doctors who want to better their English by taking a continuing education course from native English speakers. (Stay tuned for more information about that!)

After class we hurried home to change because we had tickets to one of the playoff games for the Shanghai Sharks, one of the China Basketball Association (CBA) teams. Since we didn't really have time for dinner, we were faced with the task of finding fast food on our way to the game. We weren't sure there would be much at the game, since eating does not play a major role in Chinese recreational venues. McDonald's was an option, but not our first choice. We thought we'd get baozi (filled, steamed buns) from the little shop around the corner, but they were out of all the filled ones, and steamed buns without any filling were not very appealing. So we continued down the street, in the rain, on our way to the subway station. We stopped at one little place for a piece of chive pancake bread which we ate on our way down the sidewalk, and another little place that makes a different kind of baozi called jianbao (a Shanghai specialty - see the post from January 28th of shui jian bao for pictures). Total price for the meal for eight of these meat-filled treasures, including sauce and chopsticks? $1.80 (USD)

We hurried into the subway station to get out of the rain and huddled our faces over our takeout bowl of jianbao. These are a bit challenging, because not only do you put a vinegary sauce on them, but when you bite into them they squirt hot meatball juice in random directions.  Kathy took one in her chopsticks (hoping not to drop it), bit into it, and because she was huddled so close to John, she squirted juice onto his coat. Payback happened, though, when he bit into his and a stream of juice squirted out on her coat. They forgave each other, caught the subway, got to the game only a little bit late, and watched Jimmer play his heart out but not quite achieve the win.

And we saw a retired man playing his flute along the street - seems to be a tribute to his son.  We are sure there is a great story, but not one we can learn without some help with translation.  So, we just enjoyed his music and made a small donation.

Busy week for a couple of retired people.