Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

Happy 4th of July! (Mine was yesterday)
Blue Sky Count: 5 days (I've been here 22)

I must say that I missed the American camaraderie that goes with the 4th. Especially the family & friend get togethers. I won't even begin to express how much I miss BBQ. And not having to pull bones out of my mouth no matter what meat I'm having. I also miss knowing what cut/which part of the animal I am eating. Over here it is pretty much a crap shoot.
Most of the week was pretty anti-climactic. Tuesday I didn't go to work. Allergy or sinus flare up and I couldn't even breathe. I knew sooner or later it would get me. Cheng was dealing with a stomach bug so he didn't go either. We were just two ill guys on the couch.

Wednesday I worked halfday. I decided I couldn't go another day without some meds and I was kicking myself for not bringing an endless supply of claritin with me. One of the girls at the office gave me some bitter crap to drink. Said I would feel better. Nope. Now I have itchy eyes, sore throat, runny nose and an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Kick me while I'm down.

I walked through a couple stores looking for a Claritin like box, to no avail. So I whipped out my handy-dandy Chinese-English dictionary, thumbed to allergy ( guo min --g'woah mean) and the lady went into a locked foot cabinet and whipped out some ol faithful Loratidine pills. I tried asking her how many hours one pill lasted (because everything except "Loratidine" is written in Chinese), she told me "二十八 (er shi ba-- are sure bah; meaning 28)." Crap. Then I stood aimlessly waiting for her to ring me up and tell me how much the 2 boxes would cost. So I asked how much and she said RMB56 (28x2... now I get it).

I had dinner with a few guys from my Houston church - UBC at TGI Fridays. My burger wasn't so good but we had a good time chatting and I loved the fact that I could speak English to someone. I milked it for all it was worth and commandeered most of the time. We talked about the various sights we had seen. They mentioned watching the cab drivers stretch by a river in pink speedos, watching a kid stand on a sink in a Mickey D's and pee into the sink and the commentary of the Chinese men's practice of rolling their shirts up their bellies when they get warm. Great, great fun. Glad I had others with which I could mock the way things are done around here.
Now when things get fun...

Thursday: I went to work with Cheng. That involved me getting up an hour and a half earlier than usual. Wasn't a big fan of that, but it was all for the promise of playing basketball after work. We left the apartment at 7, caught a bus, hopped off and walked a little ways then hopped on the company bus (charter like bus). I plugged in my headphones and fell asleep on the 45 minute ride to the factory.

Cheng works for a subsidiary of my company. They're where some of the money is made. Building compressor and turbine panels and systems. Something like that. My office has capret floors, individual cubicles and ceiling tiles. Cheng's office floor has concrete, and ever expanding amount of group cubicles and bare light fixtures, cords and power outlets hanging from the ceiling. The bathroom consisted of a heavy stench, 2 urinals and 2 stalled squatties.

When lunch came we wondered down 3 flights of stairs, outside, around a corner, down a staircase that seemed to lead to a paring garage and into an elementary school cafeteria or a mess hall. We lined up, were passed metal trays through plexiglass windows which consisted of rice, brown slop, green stuff, a meat & pepper dish and a watermelon slice. The brown slop was some form of fish Cheng has come home complaining about last week. Big, odd shaped bones abound. I don't remember what the green stuff was, the meat & pepper dish was fine- but I have no idea what kind of meat it was. Spam, if I'm lucky.

We ate at little elementary school tables with the chairs afixed in one position. We returned to our desks. 5 o'clock came and I picked up my bag with my basketball shoes and clothes to change into and about 10 of us piled into a van and headed off down the road. I'm convinced the van's muffler is shot and that Carbon Monoxide was consuming the cabin. I pleaded with Cheng until he finally opened the window... I'm looking forward to going through this every Thursday.

This city will be the end of me. Add Carbon Monoxide to the list of potential killers. Smog, second hand smoke/lung cancer, crazy drivers, unknown foods and now the silent killer- Carbon Monoxide. I like my chances of getting out unscathed or without lasting illness or harm. We went to a very nice rec center. From what I saw it was court after court, interlaced with various hallways and orange doors. The first courts we went to had a day camp going on. The 2nd ones we went to were riddled with volleyball nets and the 3rd with chairs. The last one we found was golden. 2 courts- a wheelchair basketball team practicing on one and the other empty.

Cheng had told a few of the guys that I can dunk, I was readily hounded- being asked to show them. I cannot dunk, so I was trying to tell them this but "No, you modest" was the response. I think they had high standards for me and as soon as I got on the court to shoot around they gave me the ball. All eyes on me, first shot... Airball... This turned out to be a pretty real game. Referee (horrible), scorekeepers, 5 on 5, 4 quarters, the whole shabang. I played the first half, the kids wouldn't let me off of the court. I don't know if its the Smog to Oxygen ratio or the elevation that did me in, but I was whooped. My team wasn't all that great.
Everybody tried their hearts out but the discrepancy in athleticism was astounding. One kid wore glasses the whole time. Well, tried to, but they spent more time on the floor than on his head. Our defense involved everyone just aimlessly running around and never guarding the same person twice. Don't get me wrong, I had an excellent time. I could only say "Dui bu qi (d'way boo chee; meaning I'm sorry) and "hao qiu (how cho; meanging "good ball"). But not being able to bark at the ref or talk a little smack was real saddening. They were so serious about this game it ended up going into overtime.

Friday I woke up sore from the day before. A few bruises and some hamstrung hamstrings but it felt good. Still pretty stopped up from the air around here/sinuses/whatever. We played more of the "Where will we eat tonight, Honey?" I think I'm going to really miss this game when I get home. We went and bought an iron and some other goods. Day end.

Saturday we woke up at 3:00 to be ready by 3:30 to catch a taxi to be at Tiananmen by 4. All in the AM. The sun rose at 4:50 here, and everyday some military unit/company marches out with the flag and raises it at the instant the sun begins to rise, to the tune of the Communist, I mean, Chinese National Anthem. I guess they have the sunrise times calculated with their trusty old abacus.

That ceremony lasted 5 minutes, the Forbidden City doesn open until 8:30, if we go home- we wont come back... Now what? We wondered Tiananmen Square, checking out the Monument, Mao's Mosoleum and the outstandingly ordinary flagpole. I got more double takes on this Square than I would in an All Girl's Catholic School. I had 2 little kids ask to take a picture with me. Followed by 3 pre-teen girls ask the same.

We wondered into a little park next to the Forbidden City around 6. The air here was the cleanest Ive seen in almost a month. I didn't feel like dying with every breath. It was how I imagined most of China to be. Luscious, green and full of character. It was a fully functional park. People playing tennis, badminton, 50 year olds playing hacky-sack, groups of elderly folks shaking their arms and legs- similar to Sit N Fit, but standing. Cheng and I wondered here for an hour and a half. Found a little bench by a body the moat of the Forbidden City and we just talked for 45 minutes or so.

The Forbidden City and it was pretty much like I've seen in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Mulan or any Chinese movie. It was an awesome sight. We were there pretty early so it wasn't too hot at the beginning. People were flooding in like the US was handing out citizenships to the first 6,000 Chinese people. We wondered around with this tourguide hanging from our neck and plugged into one ear. She REALLY liked the word ":concubine." We got a little lost and completely turned around at one point, ushered into a back room art gallery and back into the same area a few times. By 11 we were beat, bordering dehydration and sweating through everything. We gave up and found the nearest exit and nearest taxi.

Showered and rested we ordered a pepperoni pizza from Domino's. The biggest one they had. Well, the biggest one they had was a 12" (about a medium) and the whole pepperoni thing got lost in translation (Go figure!). We ended up with a sausage, mushroom, corn and tomato pizza... Nonetheless, we ate it and were pleasantly satisfied. We watched The Book of Eli while eating this. A good movie.

Sunday we hopped up for church. The music was much, much, much better this time around. Different band. This one had been through puberty- I guess that helped. Different drummer- same affection for the cymbals. And somebody, I don't know if it was the girl on the keyboard or the guy playing the Gibson, but someone was strung/tuned/programmed so their respective instrument sounded just like a ukelele. I was thoroughly annoyed with that by the end. Guess I won't be going to any Hawaiian churches or Jimmy Buffett concerts. Darn.

We shared the Lord's Supper. That's always an enjoyable time, but even more when you're surrounded by most cultures of the world. Seeing how ever-expanding His Kingdom, truly was a humbling experience. After church Cheng & I went to lunch with a group of 10 or so. Most studying abroad from University of California- San Diego. One of the guys asked if I had ever heard Matt Chandler preach (he's a pastor at the Village Church in Flower Mound. He is an excellent, excellent, pastor. Check out his podcast).

So we hit it off with that and he began asking about food he needed to check out and such. We talked about beaches and though his distaste for Galveston, he admitted there are few foods better than Southern cooking. I like the guy already. We ate family style, and trying to figure out how to pay was a fiasco, but we managed. An engineer and carrot-topped mop-top, not this accountant. Works for me! Cheng and I returned home to more R&R, a little laundry and ironing.


Extras:

The number 4 is pretty taboo here because its is pronounced "si" (like soot without the "t"), but, with a different tone, it means "death." My building, 30 stories tall, doesn't "have" a 4th, 13th, 14th, or 24th floor. The elevator has no buttons for those floors. But I wonder if they need to be informed the 5th floor is therefore the 4th, the 15th really the 14th and so on... Silly Chinese people. Nearly everyone wears jade and it's believed that it will absorb the "bad stuff" within one, toxins and etc. Which is what causes it to lose it sheen over time.