Beginning our last week in China
August 6th, 2007
I smell a little like a campfire today. It’s from our freshly laundered clothes, delivered to our hospital room yesterday. They have that tell-tale stiff feel and slightly smokey smell of clean clothes hung out on a clothesline to dry in the city. I appreciate that about the Chinese…they try hard to not be wasteful of anything…food, water, energy, or space. Why waste the energy of using an electric dryer if clothes can hang on a line and dry naturally in the heat?
Most babies and toddlers here are dressed in clothing that has an open seam at the croch from the front to the back, so they can easily squat or be positioned over an available trash can or bush when nature calls. I know what you’re thinking…it sounds a little unsanitary. But what’s a little baby tinkle, anyway? What really makes more sense, filling up landfills with billions of diapers that take so long to decompose or allowing a little urine to evaporate naturally, or be mopped up and returned to the water treatment system? And, I understand that it’s much easier to toilet train a toddler here.
I’ve heard westerners say that the Chinese don’t understand personal “space”. I disagree. When you see a mother on a small electric bicycle, balancing a five-year-old standing behind her and a three-year-old in front, this is someone who has an intimate understanding of personal space.
There are four million people in the city of Hangzhou. Everyday I watch a small army of bicycles, motorcycles, mopeds, pedestrians, rickshaws and cars intersect with each other seamlessly, sometimes with only an inch to spare. I’m the one who is nervous and awkward, like being out of step on a dance floor. Everyone else moves with calm precision and grace.
It’s true that the elevators can get uncomfortably full sometimes. The personal record for me is 18 1/2 (including the baby in its’ mother’s arms). But when you consider the sheer number of people that the elevators need to move in a busy hospital, pressing up against each other to fit in a few more is not only understandable, it’s considerate.
We’ve begun our last week in China and as much as I miss home, I’m going to miss here too.
Entry Filed under: msa,Uncategorized
2 Comments Add your own
1. Frances Arnold | August 7th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Dear J & B,
It seems like you’ve been away longer than a month although nothing has really changed here….the weekends have been busy with events of all kinds – Relay for Life set a record for attendence and money donated! The Salute to the Arts was
also going on and to be honest the art was rather dismal. – alot of the same kinds of things….pears, landscapes, and earth toned abstracts….I think your adventrues and challenges there sound much more interesting and memorable.
It has been incredible for us to share in your adventure there. it has been a highlight to our days!!! We have sensed the profound closeness such an experience provides and that is one of life’s greatest gifts – between Billie’s beautifullly written blogs and Jim’s storytelling we feel blessed to have had and will have a glimmer of what it was like .
Sending all best wishes for a very good week!!! So much love awaits you here – along with fresh peaches, melons and luscious tomatoes…XOXOXO
Frances
2. John & Ingrid Sheets | August 7th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Dear Billie & Jim;
Thank you for taking the time to update the blog almost daily. It has been an honor for us to be included in this intimate quest to try and improve Jim’s condition as well as the contribution this make to stem cell research. Your communications have been very upbeat even when the days have not necessarily been so. We keep you both in our prayers daily that there will be some medical success in this for Jim and that the trip home will be a safe and easy one.
John & Ingrid
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