Fuzhou, finally

July 19, 2008

We are in Fuzhou, for better or worse. A total of seven people saw us off to the airport at 6:30 in the morning. It was nice of HuaHua to arrange a car yet again, but the whole production was just a bit much, especially since they decided to go the non-highway way to save tolls and we were cutting it close time-wise. This turned out to be bad also because I was a bit brainless and didn’t pack all the liquids in the checked bags. So I lost a lot of stuff, most of which we gave to Jack’s aunt. What I’m mainly missing is my contact cleaner – good thing I have my glasses at least. They can’t even mail it because you can’t mail liquids either. I was getting really upset with security, probably not a good move, but especially because they wouldn’t even let me take the boys’ Tylenol. They kept pointing to their new Olympics regulations. The Olympics really make everything difficult for us, stricter and train travel is more troublesome with no electricity in the plugs anymore. Nevertheless we probably should have taken the train to Fuzhou, 40 hours and all. We wouldn’t have lost all our stuff and we would have saved some money. And we would have had a couple days without family around.

It is all getting to be a bit much – everyone means well but they are all bossy, nosy and can’t seem to trust us to raise our kids ourselves. I get very tired of being told they are too skinny and people trying to force feed them. We keep assuring people they are quite healthy and active. Everyone has strange rules too, like wearing different slippers in each room. I can’t do anything without someone or ones there asking what I’m doing and trying to do it for me. People spend so much time cooking for us, which I appreciate but we would tell them not to, that we quite genuinely didn’t want that much and didn’t want them getting so tired for us, but they would still do it every day and I am barely allowed in the kitchen and get yelled at if I try to clean up a little bit. Although at the big aunt’s place, I did wash dishes a couple times and she appreciated that. Was nice to be actually allowed to do something. I sooo can’t wait to be back in my own house. What gets me though is if they were in my house I’m quite sure they’d be just as bossy and nosy. When Jack’s cousin visited Beijing, she was always in the kitchen telling me what to do or taking over.

What’s most aggravating though is hearing how saintly Jack’s parents are, from both sides. Someone told Jack today he should place his father before his kids because his dad did so much for him. What? Everyone acts like it’s our responsibility to visit and look after his parents, who did very little for him and who in fact are supposed to be older and more mature. People believe Americans are cold because they don’t (in general) buy their kids fancy cars or build homes for them and because grandparents don’t raise their grandkids. Whereas from what I’ve seen spoiling their kids generally backfires and I don’t get why people have kids to be raised by someone else. But these are differences that it’s not really my place to say what’s better or worse since probably neither way is.

But what I really dislike is the idea of “face”. I know a lot of everyone fussing over us is because if they didn’t they would look bad. His one aunt in fact admitted she didn’t take very good care of her husband’s family when they visited. There is so much protocol, especially in family relationships, I would go completely bonkers. About who you call and when and who you stay with, and so on, which apparently Jack has been told he hasn’t done very correctly – he is thinking more about what’s best for the family and who has been kinder to him. His dad too got really angry because he didn’t call him as soon as we arrived in Fuzhou – called him just to tell him he had lost a lot of face because of that. His dad’s brother too was really rude and when we stopped at their shop, just kept working and barely gave a hello. Jack tells me that is actually very bad in Chinese custom as Ethan and Isaac are kind of considered his grandsons since they are carrying on the family name. His aunt was very jovial and friendly even but she has been a bit of a pain today.

Anyway, we arrived in Fuzhou and arranged to stay at one uncle’s place near the airport (an uncle who is at great dispute with Jack’s dad, part of the reason everyone is upset at him). He himself works away from most of the time, but his wife and two girls looked after us. They were sweet – the two girls are really shy, which was kind of a nice change. The one apparently was a girl I befriended on our last trip here five years ago – she was so small then I wouldn’t have recognized – now she is a very tall 16-year-old. The mother was nice too, though as mad as everyone else. She cooked so much food that we could never eat and the boys wouldn’t really anyway. That’s fine, that’s what people do when you have guests, but she didn’t stop the whole time. She was always trying to cook more and then decided to order a few dishes from a restaurant. Jack said flat out she had better not or we would leave, but she did anyway. She kept making all kinds of stuff for Ethan and Isaac and sometimes got lucky at least, like with some kind of noodle soup they really liked. Their house was big but very simple with barely working faucets and no hot water (they have a scary electric thing they put in the water to heat for baths). There was also no AC but it was pretty cool, thanks to the Typhoon in Taiwan. They have these also scary fans hanging in the mosquito nets over the beds that were nice for sleeping.

But the good thing about that place was it’s proximity to the beach. The beach they took us to was pretty trashy, but close to the water was nice and flat for a long ways out so the boys could romp around. They had a wonderful time jumping over waves and then later sitting and letting it wash over them. We actually got lucky because of afore-mentioned rain that there was a break long enough to play. The aunt was a bit mad here too, though, chasing the boys all over because she was terrified they would fall into every little wave that came. I wasn’t that concerned because you could see flat sand for some distance, but I still tried to keep them in line and nobody had as much fun as we would have liked. Well, the boys still had a great time. When it was close to lunchtime though, the rain picked up but Isaac refused to leave. He was having way too much fun that he threw a major tantrum at the suggestion that he should leave. Finally the rain started coming hard about the moment he threw himself down on the sand (after already washing him off once) so I had to carrying him kicking and screaming, both of us drenched and sand-covered back to the rickshaw. Back home, they took us to a neighbor’s with a tap outside to wash off some more and we all bathed well at home!

We stayed two nights there, which brings me to today. Though today actually starts with yesterday, when we stopped to see Jack’s uncle and aunt (previously mentioned), who work close to where we were staying. As I said, uncle just kept working and aunt gushed a bit and took us to their little shack where she fed us watermelon cut with the same knife she had cut fish with… Later that night there was an opera performance at the town hall next to our apartment building. It started with ear-splittingly loud fireworks that terrified the boys. Later we went out to watch a little – Ethan is really into Chinese opera – and said aunt was there. So I guess Jack told her we were going to his nice aunt’s place today so this morning she called to say she was arranging transportation and was coming with us. In hindsight, we should have said thanks, but no. She hired this fancy car for a lot of money, which we ended up having to pay and what’s more someone suggested to her we take a different way that they said would be easier (this aunt’s place is somewhat inaccessible). We ended up driving for ages, having to stop often to ask directions, over huge puddles and potholes, and then getting to a point where a car could go no further. Aunt was not well and got out and puked but refused to go back home – we could not figure out what she wanted to go with us (until we got here and Jack’s dad was here and big feast – she and her daughters are good eaters…) At this point we transferred to a motorbike rickshaw. I did not like this idea of five of us and our luggage in one of these little things but there was not much choice. This rickshaw bounced us all over the place and at one point I was seriously terrified for our lives when he tried to go up and hill that he shouldn’t have and got stuck and wobbly. After aunt got out and Jack with one of the kids to hold it a little he was able to get up but after that I was scared as we passed a lot of treacherous areas and praying we would just get there in one piece. We still got lost many times before finally seeing the aunt walking out to greet us. We still had a walk a ways but I was just grateful not to be in a vehicle. The annoying aunt rode in the rickshaw to the house, took a few smaller suitcases out, then waited for Jack to come pay the driver. Jack just grabbed the big suitcase and went inside- by this point very annoyed with her. The nice aunt ended up paying and in the process of the chaos we left Ethan’s favorite blocks in the rickshaw. He is really into his “robot” made of a few blocks and we also had taken from the last house these pieces you fit together to make shapes or whatever that Ethan must have sat and played with quietly for nearly an hour. Jack is quite upset we lost these – I figure they are three and will forget by tomorrow anyway with the news toys where we are, but we will keep an eye out for more. I am just glad we arrived alive and if we had to lose something it wasn’t passports, money, or computers.

We are really annoyed with annoying aunt’s cheapness. That is really bad manners for Chinese to help someone then make them pay for it. His uncle in Chongqing – probably the only man in the family that is somewhat sane and likeable – hired cars for us a couple times and always paid before we even got in the car. What’s worse though is she later was going on to Jack in front of a crowd about how well he took care of her daughter in Beijing and that she wanted to give him money… such a Pharisee.

Anyway, the nice aunt’s house is nice – though I guess actually it belongs to their son. I’m kind of confused about their family situation – apparently they built houses for their sons, spent a lot of money on them and one son at least treats them very badly, even beat both his parents and destroyed part of the house they had built. Nice. But our room was built for a son who worked in Israel for some time. It has AC, a TV and so on, all of which is very nice, and it’s on the second floor where noone else stays, so it feels quiet and private too. She also has a washing machine so we can finally get some clean clothes – she was very concerned about my dirty underwear and washed it by hand for me… hmmm. Don’t know what we will do tomorrow – finding a way to do Internet will be first thing I think, and hopefully the rain will have stopped and the boys might be able to swim a bit in the river. They have impressed me with their ability to find interesting things and entertainment wherever we are. They will run around pretending to be monsters scaring each other if there is nothing else to do. They both finished apples after dinner and we sent Isaac with the core to put back on the dining table. He came back smiling and proud and we gave him the second one. Ditto. Later, the aunts, who were sitting at the table, said he had thrown them out the window. There are some habits, like peeing in public wherever they see an interesting hole or puddle, that will have to be kicked when we get home!