A Taste of China. . .

2nd email sent Aug. 9

Dearest Family and Friends,

Nee-hao (hello) from China! It’s been a week now since we’ve left, and we are settling into life here quite well. When we got off the ferry, we were taken to our house – a 3bd, 2ba, 1500ish sq. ft. apartment on the 6th floor of a high rise (yes – we have ample space to house those who visit – hint, hint). We were pleasantly surprised when we walked through the door to see a partially furnished place. We had a table and chairs, living room couches, coffee table, TV’s, beds, refrigerator, propane kitchen stove, and a heated dry rack for dishes. As we looked through the windows, we found that from our living room we had a beautiful view of the ocean and soccer fields across the street. The school had a small care package full of peanut butter, jam, bread, candy bars, milk, juice, and chips. Along with these foods were bedding, hangers, and towels on loan for the week. After eating a sandwich, we crashed until we woke up bright and early at 3am, with the sound of Judah calling for us in the next room.

After waking up, eating, taking cold showers, and watching some Chinese TV, we walked 3 minutes down the street to our school (it’s going to be great being this close!). We met up with our director, Britt Brantley, along with Helen Du, who works for the school and is the set up person for new teachers. That day, we set up a local bank account (this would have been impossible without Helen), as well as started shopping at some local stores for some food and other household items.

Within the surrounding blocks of our neighborhood, there are many restaurants, stores, bars, and businesses. The roads are bustling with buses, cars, trucks, and bikers. The traffic system is quite peculiar. Bikes and pedestrians travel on the streets and come close to being hit frequently. I’m surprised I haven’t seen an accident yet. You know how we have crosswalks at home and people give the right-of-way to pedestrians – not so much here. You always have to be on the look out when en-route somewhere.

Within a 5 block radius from where we live, you can find many western style restaurants and shops. Right now, I’m sitting at a comfortable Starbucks sipping on a coffee and using their free wireless high-speed internet. In fact, I’ve called a few of you from our computer here using Skype (yes, I think I’m becoming a spokesperson for this company). We can readily get pizza, Brazilian BBQ, Korean food, Japanese food, KFC, McDonalds, Subway, etc. This is not the common China that we think of, however, despite having these at-home conveniences, we still feel very much in a foreign culture.

As we walk out of the front door of the building, we are gawked at frequently. The locals love seeing Judah in his baby backpack. They don’t have anything like that here. When we go out with it, we almost feel like we’re somewhat of a circus sideshow. As we travel down the streets, there are some stalls selling DVD’s (yes – they are very cheap and shown in English with Chinese subtitles), food, and other various items. Within 10 minutes, there is an open market where we can find many household items. We just found a small shop in which we had some sheets made for our beds. There are some beggars in the area we see daily. We have been told by the school not to give to them because it enables them to keep begging. We aren’t quite sure how we feel about this – especially when we see kids with them. Maybe bringing some food to them would be a better idea.

We have made some efforts to explore the areas around us. We’ve hopped on a few of the local buses and ventured out within an hour of our home. About 20 minutes away, there is a Walmart and a Home Depot type of store. We have been able to get some inexpensive household items that we need to start out at these places.

We’ve also made efforts to eat at some local Chinese food places (I wonder if they are called Chinese food places here?). Very few locals speak English, so we’ve had some interesting interactions to say the least. Some places have misspelled English written into their menus, while others have pictures of the foods they serve. We’ve tried to stay away from items like “Ox Penis Braised in Soy Sauce”, “Pig Lung Soup”, and “Stir Fried Sheep Entrails”. We have found some extremely delicious foods, however. Yes, I’ve ordered the sweet and sour pork, but they have so many excellent vegetable dishes as well. Their dumplings are delicious. The beer is pretty good. We haven’t had to worry about getting sick or not having good water to drink. With that said, our bowel movements have been very firm (for those interested J).

I feel like I’m rambling on -- there is so much more I could say, but I better save a little for later. For those of you that are still with us at this point – thank you for reading! We’ll send out an email again soon. Also, we’ve enjoyed the emails we’ve received from many of you and will write you back when we have more time. Feel free to email as much as you like – we enjoy the interaction. Also, send us some email addresses of others who would like to be on our letter.

Much Love,

The Bouma’s—Robb, Marea and Judah