Good-bye Qingdao and on the go again

We packed up and left Qingdao on September 20, on a stormy rainy day. The big tropical storm hit Qingdao the night before and many roads were flooded. We asked the hotel staff (the building we stayed in is part hotel and part apartments) to book a taxi the night before for us. After the boys loaded the car with our luggage, they were soaked already. Five minutes into the road, the driver started her business talk - "Let's set a price! Look, the roads are all flooded and it's hard to drive. Give me Y150." I replied, "are you kidding! this is an over the top price!" She came down, "OK, 130." I said "that's still over the top". She said "my car's starting price is 10, not 7, and it's Y1 extra for each km". I didn't say anything, just hoping to get to the airport on time. Good thing we started early. Roads were truly flooded, and she was constantly on the phone talking to other drivers inquiring road condition. The radio was saying not to hit the break in the water, just let the car slide, so it wouldn't halt. Many cars halted in the flood. So, it took an hour to get to the airport instead of half an hour. I gave her 130 and let her know that though it was over the top, it was a difficult drive.

Bargaining is a very big part of most Asian life, and it's fun when you shop, but it is not when you are under the pressure to be somewhere before a certain time!

We stopped in Shanghai for a day and then went to Nanjing to visit my aunt and cousin. My cousin's daughter is in Junior in high school. This part summer vacation, she was in school most of the time studying second year university chemistry, so that she can take part in the high school chemistry competition next year. Many students are studying some college subjects at this point. Some parents send their kids, they are all only-childs in their family by the way, to other countries (like America, Europe and Singapore) for a year of study. It's shocking to me to learn that because most parents I met before hold on to their child so tight and don't want their child to leave their sight, yet these parents are willing to let their child go to a faraway land and they won't see them for a year. When these students return to China, they have to repeat that same year because China's school covers so much more material and subjects that they wouldn't be able to follow. My cousin's daughter didn't want to go because she didn't want to be a year older than her classmates when she returns. Now she's regretting a little after seeing her friends return. But too late now!

the hardworking and the smart

It's hard to get hold of the computer to blog these days as Brent has been hogging it, actually he has been working hard.

The first picture is my college classmate whom I haven't seen since I left China and continuously invited me to visit him in Jinan. Jinan is a city full of springs, and by the Mother River of China - Yellow River. It turned out that he's actually very busy. He works basically seven days a week. He manages large engineering projects and often goes on business trips. However he squeezed time to show us around Jinan. He treated us to dinner the first night, but after he sent us to the hotel, he went on to interview someone whom they wanted to hire, at 11PM at night. It's definitely a different business culture. His colleagues took the engineer candidate to dinner, and they drank beer. When they were half drunk, the candidate signed the contract. As the chief, my friend needed to show up to work out the logistics. Chinese is all about food!

The second picture is hard to see clearly. It's supposed to be that way, as the man is setting up an illegal net to catch the sparrows. The net lines are so thin so it's hard to see. And he set it up in front of the trees because he knows the birds would fly to land on the branches. One sparrow was already caught!

The third picture here shows some workers making a road in the Yellow River park. They do everything by hand. This looks like as back breaking as building the Great Wall. (well, Great Wall has much larger stones actually) The dinner we had the night before probably would cost their whole month's salary.