November | 2013 | The Grumpy Laowai

In China there are plenty of interesting things to see. Shanghai itself has no shortage of big name attractions and local color. Before the move, I was looking forward to seeing some of this first hand. I had been warned that sometimes living in China would be uncomfortable, but I was sure that living in Shanghai would provide opportunities that overshadowed any of this discomfort. For a Westerner, the city can seem crowded and dirty, but once again I credited my previous experiences living abroad with preparing me to live outside my comfort zone. I tried to arm myself with the knowledge that would have me ready to hit the ground running once we arrived. But as always, the Grumpy Laowai found out the hard way that there is no way to adequately prepare yourself for the day-to-day experience of living in China. I knew about the spitting and I soon learned about the public urination, but no one thought to warn me about one of the most common sights here in Shanghai: nose picking.

Since the big move two years ago, I have witnessed many, many incidents involving strangers and their boogers. I have children, so I am not going to pretend that nose picking is something I have never seen. I have spent a fair amount of my time discouraging people from sticking their fingers up their noses. I have taught elementary school so you know I have been given many opportunities to encourage the use of tissues and to discuss the merits of hand washing. Elementary school kids pick their noses and they tend to do it with little thought about those around them. After a few years of teaching combined with parenting toddlers I was fairly certain there were few surprises left for me when it came to boogers. I should never have underestimated the power of China.

Naturally, China cannot ignore the opportunity for a challenge. When I arrive confident in having seen it all, China loves to kick me in the face. China plays to win, and, let me tell you, elementary school has nothing on China when it comes to nose picking. No sir. China has made picking your nose into a sport and the local citizens here in Shanghai are professionals.

Let me clarify by saying that I understand people sometimes need to pick their noses. I myself am in possession of a nose that I have occasionally felt the need to pick. I am not putting myself on a pedestal here. But for most people, myself included, this is one of those needs that is best taken care of quickly and in private followed by a good hand washing. Not so for my friendly fellow subway goers and supermarket shoppers, apparently.

Here the picking is done in public and with an obscene amount of booger contemplation. The kind of activity that if I were to observe it from a person in the United States I would also hope was coming accompanied by an adult diaper. At the most ridiculous times people will stick their fingers up their noses and begin a thorough investigation. Conversation never skips a beat, people never blink, and the results are then produced as if in the privacy of one’s own home. Usually the nose picker will then continue using that hand to hold the middle bar in our subway car to steady himself or go on pushing her shopping cart. It is communal living at its best, folks.

Observing this behavior has begun to severely limit my enjoyment of many of the small pleasures I had once enjoyed in Shanghai. I am not proud to confess that I used to love going to IKEA here. It is still Chinese, but there is something comforting about the similarities you find in any IKEA around the world. When people aren’t tucking themselves into the display bed to take a nap you can pretend you are in some American city or Sweden or France.

As you do

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/photos-ikeas-customers-in-china-make-themselves-very-much-at-home/260417/

One of my favorite things about the IKEA here is the fact that you can buy an ice cream cone for one rmb. That is like getting an ice cream for free! If I had one of my kids with me, we would each enjoy a super cheap nondairy ice cream cone after our time shopping in what could have been an IKEA anywhere in the world. But China can’t let me have these little moments forever and you know it wasn’t long before something came along to ruin these outings. And so here’s where we see the nice young man who usually makes our ice cream cones with his index finger shoved up his nose all the way to the second knuckle. This is, of course, followed by him examining the results of this treasure hunt before turning to grab a cone and filling it with ice cream. Suffice it to say Team Erickson’s IKEA ice cream days were over. Oh, China. You don’t play fair.

The dangers of traveling in China.

We finished Golden Week here in China in October, which means that once again Team Erickson hit the road to experience something other than Shanghai for a few days. Mark usually has to work over Chinese holidays. Like our trip to Beijing last year, this trip was short. It turns out our sweet spot for travel within China is around 4 days, so our trip to Guilin turned out to be perfect. Whenever I told any of my Chinese friends and colleagues that we were taking the kids to Guilin, I was met with positive responses. People thought we were going to love Guilin! It was beautiful! So interesting! When I mentioned it to my mother she had also heard great things about the city from the other people on her Chinese tour last year. Not to disparage either of these groups, but my mother had pointed out—several times!—that the other travelers on their Chinese excursion were “older.” And sometimes the recommendations from our Chinese neighbors are not always on par with the things we love in a travel experience. So we basically had universal approval from the Chinese and the elderly. Yet we continued on with our plans! This either demonstrates that we are unable to see danger when it is staring us right in the face, or that we are too lazy to make changes once we realize our plans might be less than ideal. Either way, in the real world, our entire family would have long ago been eaten by a Yeti or swallowed by a whale. But it turns out Guilin isn’t the real world! Sometimes Team Erickson gets lucky.

We anticipated having to run to catch our flight, but were pleasantly surprised when the flight was delayed just enough to let us buy beers (for the adults) and snacks (for the kids) before boarding. We had decided to stay for one night in the city since we would be arriving late. Mark and the kids spent the taxi ride (trunk open and our luggage flapping in the breeze) chatting with our driver in Chinese. Even just on the drive from the airport we could see some of the land formations that make Guilin famous. Already we had exceeded our expectations! Our hotel had been highly rated on Trip Advisor, but was less than ideal. Lucas actually called it “seedy” (a look in the bathroom at the numerous sexual aids confirmed this) and questioned its cleanliness. I was forced to shock the children with anecdotes about our traveling experiences before they were born. Sufficiently frightened, they all went quietly to brush their teeth.

Delicious, but not nutritious.

There was a night market where Mark and I would have normally found ourselves before children, but on this trip it was Mark and Lucas who went exploring while I stayed in the room and watched the craziest singing competition on television. Did it ever occur to you to sew a million fake flowers onto a dress shirt? Or to cut a suit in half and then just wear it that way? People apparently do these kinds of things on Chinese television. When Mark returned with bottles of water and spicy peanuts, we were ready to call it a night.

The next morning we cobbled together a breakfast of various items for sale from our local street vendor near the hotel. This is Mark’s dream breakfast and the kids always start out keen to impress him. They will still try almost anything although their enthusiasm for mystery items is starting to wane. They have now had more than a few bad surprises when it comes to food in China—errant bones, things that turn out to be pickled, insects and reptiles—and they are more cautious now. Only Lucas managed to eat most of what he picked out.

Guilin Street Breakfast

The morning consisted of sight seeing and we made quite a stir in Guilin. Once again the tiny troupe of blond imps caused a commotion as we walked around the town. We tried to walk around Elephant Hill. We still have no idea why it is called Elephant Hill, there were probably signs that explained this, but we were too busy clogging up the entrance to be bothered with learning anything. People had been commenting on the kids as soon as we left the hotel and by the time we got to the park the other tourists were secretly taking photos of us. When it became common knowledge that the two older kids were available for pictures and could speak Chinese, there was a rush to get the best spots near them. Henry is still adamantly opposed to having his picture taken with random Chinese people no matter how nicely they ask so he spent the first 20 minutes snarling and snapping. Mark sat on a bench to wait it out and I tried to get a few photos of the giant goldfish swimming around the little bridge we were standing on.

Distracting fish make parenting difficult.

You can see how this could go terribly wrong, but usually people are fine. It is China, so the kids get manhandled a bit, and no one can believe I have three children. They desperately want a photo of all the kids together, but Henry always refuses. Mark is usually the one to decide he has had enough and to make us all move along.

Obligatory peace sign

New friends!

After lunch, it was time to move to our real accommodation. I will let you in on a little secret—Team Erickson has discovered the best thing ever! Those of you who have known us for a long time will remember Mark and I going on adventurous trips. India! Vietnam! Cambodia! Mark would just buy plane tickets and off we would go. We never had reservations. Never had much of a plan. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Guilin has a new Club Med and that is where we stayed for the remainder of our time. I didn’t have great expectations. The Erickson kids usually hate any “Kids’ Club” kind of thing. They might try it out, but ultimately it is mom and dad who end up entertaining them. But this time they loved it! They stayed all day! They did archery, swung on a trapeze, and ran around with other kids. We ate Western food and sat by the pool. Not really “Chinese” maybe, but we will ignore that. There were Chinese people there—does that make it more “authentic”? Ok, I know it doesn’t. But when we arrived at the resort even the kids visibly relaxed a little bit. There is something to be said for making things easy. And we all had a great time. I welcome your scorn! Feel free to pile it on. A younger, kid free version of myself would have been appalled, but she never had to travel through Asia with a group of squabbling children. The younger me would never have survived travels with the Erickson children. She could not have imagined the planning and energy it takes to wrangle kids on a normal day much less while vacationing internationally. So the older and wiser me took the kids to Club Med. We can aim for authentic Chinese next week. I am pretty sure I know where to find it.