Wuhan and Who

On Thursday May 29, we learned that yeye's uncle had died at age 73 (only a decade older than yeye). It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm but not too humid, after a day and a half of rain had ended a streak of humid very hot days and cleaned the air of smog. For about 3 days before the rain, someone had been lighting strings of firecrackers in the parking lot of our village 27. Skyler found the noise interesting, but perhaps a little apprehensive because of the volume. Zhewei explained that a resident of our village had died, and firecrackers are part of funeral ritual. I knew about some of this, and had read about it and the burning of paper money, in articles about grief over earthquake victims. Traditionally, the body would remain at home (the casket on ice in warmer months) for 3 days to allow friends and family to visit, and each of those days firecrackers would be exploded -- the noise to help drive off evil spirits. Now I would experience more of that ritual first hand.

The man who died, Mr Huang, was a younger brother of yeye's mother, and was the last one of Z's grandparents' generation still living. His wife had died in 1992, hit by a vehicle while crossing the street to bring her husband home for lunch. The couple had 5 children, three daughters and two sons. Zhewei remembers visiting this family every new year, and receiving red envelopes from them. After his wife died, Mr. Huang had remarried but divorced again some years later, and so was living alone (with daily visits by a housekeeper to help with food, cleaning, and medications). It was kidney failure that eventually caused his death. The eldest child, a daughter, is married to a local government official (in some suburb of Wuhan) with some considerable power, and he sort of "rules" the family. Because of his influence, many people came to this funeral to give him respect (and face), despite not knowing the deceased.

Mr Huang lived in an apartment (floor) of a four-story family building near the second Changjiang bridge. The building is owned by several family members jointly, one apartment (total four) each, although the others (including two of yeye's sisters) live elsewhere and rent these apartments out. Yeye grew up quite nearby in this neighborhood (map), although the area is now wholly changed.

Yeye was gone most of Thursday making funeral plans and arrangements with relatives, returning after 10pm. Friday we stayed home mostly. The funeral procession was to begin at 6.30a, we were told, so we needed to get an early start Saturday morning. The earlier you arrive at the crematorium, the less you will have to wait for the cremation process to finish. Plus, traffic is light, so it's easier to get the procession of vehicles through the city.

We got up at 5.15a on Saturday and didn't eat breakfast, because some food was going to be provided at the home. We had arranged a neighbor who owns a car to drive us at 6.00a (paying him a little bit, of course). I'd never seen traffic so light in Wuhan as I did at 6.05am. There were quite a few heavy trucks at that hour, though.

We arrived at the house (map) at 6.12a only to discover the procession had already left! The street was littered with red paper wrappers of exploded firecrackers, a good half block out to the main street. It must have been very loud, and woken all the neighbors, some of whom we now saw milling around. I was sorry to have missed it, but it's good Skyler wasn't there. A canopy was erected in front of the house door, and there were paper bowls littering the ground from guests having eaten noodles provided. We quickly collected black armbands to wear, which are marked to signify relation (or generation, really): yeye and nainai wore bands with a white dot for children's generation, Z and I wore bands with a red dot, and Skyler's had a green flower for great-grandchildren. Someone gave us information about where they had gone and it hadn't been long since they left, so we piled back into the car and tried to catch them.

We caught up with the procession, it must have been about 30 vehicles including two large buses, each tagged with a red ribbon on the left mirror and a white paper flower attached to the front grill. We drove up towards the front of the procession, since we were family, and edged our way in. An open truck behind us carried the dozens of huaquan (="flower loops"), large round paper flower constructions on stands that had been sent or given to the family in mourning. These serve something like flower arrangements and wreaths common at American funerals. (Yeye and his siblings each bought one, for a total of 7 from our family. When yeye left their house on Thursday night, there were already 48 that had arrived.)

A guy on the passenger side of the truck would regularly toss out a lit string of firecrackers into the street. Pedestrians adjusted their paths to avoid the nuisance. Once the firecrackers were close enough to our car I was concerned about sparks damaging the paint, and the driver closed the windows to keep stuff from flying inside. Finally the procession entered a narrow street leading to the crematorium in an older neighborhood. There were numerous food and service vendors near the crematorium; I guess residents on that street must be used to lots of firecrackers going off daily (and starting at 6.00am!) as processions drive in.

Also hired and in the procession was a brass band of sorts, about 5 or 6 pieces including a drum, to play a traditional funeral dirge. They even played a few bars from the truck as the procession drove along.

We arrived at the crematorium (map). The parking lot was pretty large for a Chinese parking lot, and still mostly empty, but we were not the first of the day. We waited a little while as the casket was carried into a visiting room (there were a number of identical rooms on the same hall) and various articles were arranged. Then a line of people went into the room, walking around the casket, to say goodbye to the body and greet and comfort the immediate family, who stood along one side of the casket. A photo of the Mr. Huang was on one wall. Mr Huang himself was hard to recognize, his face partially covered, but he looked wrinkled like you'd expect, and slight of build. I shook hands with several of the family as we walked in and then back out, mostly men, even though I'd never met them before. Several of the daughters were crying and I felt sympathy but could think of no way to express it that would not seem quite awkward. It felt somewhat rushed, actually: I didn't observe anyone stopping for long or talking with the mourning family members, just some brief hugs. Exiting the building, we stepped against the wall as a group of red-faced men carried another body into the building, this one encased in a casked-shaped refrigerator with a glass lid. It sure looked heavy, and the bamboo shafts they used were thick as my arm.

Back outside in the morning sun we waited. Bottles of water were handed out. Numerous guests were taken with Skyler, one of the deceased's daughters particularly, who took him and carried him around for a while. Skyler also sat and climbed around on the lap of a woman in the passenger seat of a white BMW 5-series. We didn't know them. One of yeye's sisters brought us some noodles -- she had thoughtfully saved four cups in plastic bags for us. We walked to the larger bus (now mostly empty) so we could sit down and eat. It was cooler outside, so yeye took Skyler out, where he was promptly picked up again by the same daughter, who carried him around to other cars of guests, yeye following to keep an eye. I watched as several processions of mourners who arrived before us did the next step: a short procession on foot bringing the ashes from the crematorium to the vehicle, waiting at the exit, that was to carry them to the mausoleum. Zhewei was talking to some relatives, one woman in particular has a daughter who asked about studying abroad. Skyler was quite tired at this point, rubbing eyes. Zhewei took him back to the bus to see if she could get him to sleep, where we found people on the bus were exiting because the ashes should be coming out soon. Zhewei said I could stay with her on the bus, but after a few minutes I decided I wanted to go witness and participate in the next part.

I went looking, but couldn't find any of the people I recognized. There were maybe 20 people I knew in the group of 140+ for our funeral, but I didn't see any of them. Outside the buildings were probably 75 people or so milling around and waiting. I wandered into one that had a series of open doors, and found a large dark waiting room, quite full, with air-coolers blowing on a crowd of several hundred people. I wanted to take a picture but didn't want to offend or attract attention -- it would probably be blurry without a flash anyway. Looking at the crowd I didn't see any of yeye's family, so I went back out. Later I learned yeye (and maybe the rest of the family?) had seen the ashes after they came out of the incinerator -- he said some of the heavier bones were still reasonably intact and had to be smashed to go into the box with the ashes. Call it morbid curiosity (quite literally I suppose), but I regretted having missed that too. In China, people are not cordoned off so much from the unpleasant parts of life and death as Americans tend to be. Overall I think that's a good thing.

I went back to the bus. Skyler still wouldn't sleep -- the environment was too unusual and stimulating. I went back outside to watch another procession or two -- one had only 7 mourners! Finally it was our turn. Zhewei was outside again with Skyler. One family member carries a photo of the deceased at the front, followed by a special wooden cart carrying the ashes in a cloth-wrapped box. Two young men in white military-style dress uniforms arranged the procession and one pushed the cart. The cart is wooden, with carvings of tall narrow geese on the front, and includes a canopy and a drawer for a radio playing a tape of music. But live musicians were also present: apart from the ones we brought with us, there were four people who played a couple minutes of dirge for each procession from the crematorium. Descendants and other family follow the cart, then other mourners, with musicians at the rear. Two yellow lines on the pavement indicated the path to the parking lot's exit, where a vehicle was waiting. More firecrackers are lit at the exit as the ashes-box was transferred to the car. They were loud; I was carrying Skyler so I covered one ear while he buried his head against my shirt to cover the other.

Then one of yeye's sisters directed us to a car to ride in, instead of the bus, a car driven by and belonging to a young man we didn't know. It was a pretty nice Nissan (automatic, power everything, 5-cd changer, with about 65000km on it). It was somewhat strange to me, despite spending at least two hours in the car with this guy, he was quiet and didn't say anything to us except when we asked him about directions, and we didn't ask anything or chat with him, although he did smile for Skyler and we directed Skyler to thank him ("xiexie shushu" =thank you uncle). It's a sort of politeness, I suppose, this keeping to yourself. In China, asking what someone does as a profession is not the first and friendly way to get to know someone; more often, you ask about family, but that's already somewhat personal. And since this guy was one of the many people there who benefited from a good relationship with the husband who was the official, perhaps the details of his work or business are best left unasked. Yeye later estimated that 3/4 of the cars were people like this, whose presence increased the respect and face of the official and maintained or improved a positive relationship with him which in turn increases their chances of favorable business or work opportunities with the government he directs. Interesting how corruption works its way into personal lives of families this way.

The procession of cars headed northeast through the city. We passed a wedding procession, cars decked in red ribbons, going the opposite direction. On Jiefang Lu we passed a bunch of freshly-washed cars with red and white flags on them celebrating the Olympics. Sure enough, the Olympic torch was in Wuhan on the same day of our funeral, and these cars were going to join a parade. Eventually we climbed a muddy dirt road over the levee on the north side of the city and parked in the dirt by a small group of two-story mausoleum buildings, each enclosed (as are most developments in China, btw) in spiky steel fences, and secured with a locked metal door. We walked along the dirt road and down the steps to the proper building (map). This would be a temporary home for the ashes, because the family was going to be moving the mother's remains as well to a new location where they would be together, and room for later generations as well. Many men stepped off the side of the road to relieve themselves. The open truck with the huaquan was unloaded in the grass on the side of the road, and once most of the mourners were down at the mausoleum compound, the paper things lit on fire. Clothes of the deceased were also pulled out of some plastic bags and thrown on the fire. Five rolls of firecrackers sat a dozen meters away, to be unused.

Down the steps I entered the mausoleum compound, where two large vessels for fire sat in front of the building's entrance. The brass band situated itself at the top of the steps to the covered entrance and played more dirge. A sizable plastic bag full of fake money, made of something like yellow construction paper with cheap printing (and bundled just like stacks of cash), sat to one side. People pulled apart the stacks of the fake cash and burned it in the vessel; the smoke was thick.

We also burned our armbands, symbolically ending our obligations as mourners. Some walked inside to see the mausoleum and the Mr Huang's place in it. Each wall is floor to ceiling rows of boxes with glass doors. Inhabited boxes were locked with little padlocks. The framed photo is usually in front, and often other trinkets are inside, sometimes including some fancy fake cash. As we left the mausoleum, at the top of the steps, two small piles of paper were burning. Each guest stepped over a fire as they left, cleansing them of misfortune brought by the gods of death to this family in the first place.

We walked back to the cars, and got back in the same car we arrived in. We drove up the the levee, and waited there, car idling, for some time. It turned out to be a long time, well over an hour. It was too early to go to lunch. We're not sure what the hold-up was, but Z suspected that the route to our planned restaurant was blocked because of the torch relay, and people were trying to find an alternative. I now think we were waiting for the torch to pass and the street to be cleared, because the restaurant we went to was just next to the second Changjiang bridge, there were some barricades there which had been moved, and we saw lots of spectators leaving the area (and coming down off the bridge). Sitting in the car, idling with the air conditioning on, we entertained Skyler and chatted. I pulled out my paperback and read a dozen pages or so. The whole time, the CD player was playing pop music of the driver's preference. At one point, the driver got out and walked a ways off to smoke a cigarette. One of Z's cousins, Zhemin, daughter of san-yeye, came over and swapped cars with nainai, so they could visit more. Zhemin, around 22, is planning to marry this year, to her boyfriend of three months; the date will be either on Aug 8 or Oct 1.

Finally the lead cars set off again, and we drove after them. We took a different turn than some before us, following along the levee -- until we ran into a traffic jam. There were no side streets, so we had to return back the way we came and go back into the city to find our way to the restaurant.

Our group used about 2/3 of the restaurants tables (all round again, of course), about 16 or 18 tables of approximately 10 each. Two tables held yeye and his brothers and sisters and spouses and kids who were present, one table for descendants of an older brother of the deceased.

Before the meal began, we were still waiting some for the final guests to arrive, and there was tea and soda to drink. I got up several times as nainai and Z were walking around watching Skyler. Once he was picked up by a woman and carried back into the smoky restaurant, and nainai didn't see, so I pointed him out to Z and she interrupted her conversation, got nainai and the three of us went back there.

Finally the meal began. The food was good, as usual, better than the wedding food, but not quite as good as the birthday banquet food. The baijiu (rice liquor) was distributed liberally among the men, and the smoking thankfully stopped for a time. In China, one should never drink alcohol without food. I think the motivation is health-related, but doing so might also get you labeled as a lush.

There was a bottle of Chinese-made red wine on the table, and it was open, so Xianjin shushu (for Skyler, he's san-yeye "=third grandpa") offered and poured some for me, after I tried a little bit to determine the taste. It was quite dry, which I appreciated, although unremarkable otherwise. I got up or turned around for a moment, and didn't notice that shushu filled the rest of my glass with Sprite until a few minutes later when I took a drink. Yecch! So much for the dryness - it was now a sweet fizzy thing. I guess this is how red wine (not a common beverage, by any means, except at such large celebratory occasions) is typically consumed -- most people probably don't have a taste for it plainly dry. I was careful on the next refill by san-yeye to stop the pop from going in.

At some point, yeye and his brothers decided I should go round toasting some important relatives. Yeye would make it happen, but didn't even carry a drink of his own. Z came along to help translate, also without a glass, although in many cases no translation was necessary. I began with hongjiu (="red wine"), but after a couple tables I was empty. Yeye found some more and refilled me. A few more tables along, and I was out again. Z tried to convince me to use water instead of baijiu, but somehow it didn't feel right to me. (It would, though, certainly be acceptable for women, who generally don't drink; gender roles are quite strongly different in China, but those who buck the trends are not widely frowned upon. It's a role, not a rule! China's going through yet another disruptive social evolution with it's economic boom, everyone recognizes it. Enough rambling.) We refilled with baijiu for two more tables, and then back to red wine. Doesn't the saying go, "beer then liquor, never sicker, liquor beer, never fear"? Well I was mixing it up royally, not a good situation in any case.

One table in particular, all men, were already apparently pretty loaded (perhaps not yet crapulent -- your word for the day!) were calling me to come toast them. After finishing at one table, I directed myself to them and toasted them, draining my glass. They were impressed and laughing loud, and the only question Z translated for me was one asking where I was from, and I answered "meiguo" (=american) to their roars. Later I learned we had no idea who they were, surely some friends or associates of the government man who was in control of the occasion. I should have guessed, knowing the odds, but was too tipsy myself at this point to care much.

At the final table, I toasted and drank, but one besotted uncle refused to stand and drink with the rest. I recognized him from earlier in the day -- he was the younger brother of the government official, but I didn't know the relationship at the time. After the toast to the table, Z translated that he wanted to toast with me personally, and only if we drank an entire glass together. I had no choice, but didn't mind really, as I had red wine in my glass, they filled it full, and I made the drunk happy by downing it together with him.

After the toasting was done, I sat down and ate some more. After a few minutes, Z suggested I toast her aunts, particularly her eldest aunt at the table behind us. I asked san-yeye to pour me another finger of baijiu despite Z's reprovals ("use water!"). I got up alone, went to yeye's eldest sister and held up my glass. She seemed a bit confused at first, but then realized what I intended and lifted hers. She smiled and responded approvingly with an English word she knew: "yes! yes! yes!"

This is how friendships and relationships are made, in China.

As the meal ended, we were brought styrofoam and plastic bags to take home food, which I was happy to see (despite the styrofoam). Only a few tables, family, packed up some of the uneaten goodies, though. When I asked later, yeye explained that for business associates (or similar) to take home food from their boss' banquet would be seen as a loss of face. Also, everyone including family generally leaves the unfinished liquor behind, because the host can collect that and take it home himself, to be consumed. Unlike food, the liquor doesn't go bad.

As we were leaving, the host (the government official), was near the exit. Yeye took me and we went to say thank you and goodbye to him directly. He had not been the target of my toastings, because he had not been seated at the time (probably floating around making sure everything went smoothly). Apart from thanking him for hosting, it was good to give him respect and face doing so.

We hailed a cab and rode home. The driver was the small and nervous type, and drove (and braked) fast.

We gave Skyler a good rinsing and Z tried to get him to nap, as he'd been up since 5.15a and had only napped about 20 minutes the whole day, during a car ride. The rest of us were also pretty tired, Z and I hadn't slept well. I lay down with them and dozed off quickly. I woke up in an hour or so, and Skyler was not in bed -- he hadn't sleep so Z was still entertaining him. I went to take a shower; it felt great to remove the stickiness. Skyler finally went to sleep around 5.30p, and slept through dinner somewhat fitfully and then the rest of the night until around 5.30 the next morning. For dinner, we ate most of the banquet leftovers recooked in the wok. Yeye offered me baijiu, as usual, and I had to suppress a laugh. I'd really had enough at lunch!

At lunch the next day, yeye brought out a dusty bottle of Martell cognac and opened it. I wondered what the occasion was for the special stuff? It was Children's Day (June 1st), he smiled, and of course I had a child. But I thought: yeye is now the oldest member of the family. Why not drink the best you've got? And this is really great stuff, with a very deep, complex aroma. I spent several minutes just enjoying the smell. It's the kind of liquor I wouldn't want to mix with food, alas.

In the evening, as I was asking the reasons for various customs, nainai explained today's funeral was much simplified over experiences from her past. We hadn't knelt before burning our offerings. The person carrying the framed photo should never look up, only down at the ground. The mourners should wear white robes of sorts, the length indicative of relation, tied around the waist with belts of twisted grass.

In still older times, rather than a photo, the deceased would be represented by a wooden plate with the name carved into it. The name plate would return to the home after the burial (historically more common than cremation) and be passed by one family member under a bench placed to bar the door to another family member. The name plate would be put in a small house, kept prominently in the main room of the house. The eldest son, sometimes accompanied by other sons, would keep vigil in the room with the name plate for 3 days, never leaving it alone. At each meal, fresh food would be placed in offering before the little house, before the family ate. (The food would be eaten at a later meal as leftovers.) The offering of food and prominent placement of the house-with-nameplate would continue for three years, and the eldest son must remain in residence at the home during this time. After the three years had expired, another ceremony would remove the house and name plate to be burned. Prosperous families would have another nameplate carved, this time in stone, to be kept in a family shrine, forever.

It's humid, and quite hot. Saturday's high was about 96F, and Sunday's was 98F, both days partly sunny. Today's forecast is a high of 93F and partly sunny again. I can't be sure about these, though, because that's just based on Accuweather predictions, and I have reason to find them suspect.

Accuweather says right now, 9.15am Monday, that it's 82F and light fog, with 83% humidity. Light fog? The low last night was 77F degrees, which is also the current dewpoint. It hasn't been cool enough for fog. Accuweather said the same thing yesterday and the day before, for half the day: light fog. I haven't seen any fog at all. What I did see, yesterday we went out for about 4 hours, was haze. A thick greyish-white haze looking towards downtown. I don't see it from our apartment here, perhaps that's just nothing in the distance to observe from our windows. Maybe Accuweather doesn't have an icon for haze or smog, so they use "fog" instead?

Anyway, it has been hot, and humid. Wuhan is well-known as one of the "three furnaces" of China, cities in central China which are famed for being unbearably hot, the other two being Chongqing and Nanjing. Wuhan is the hottest of the three, and is usually at its worst in late summer, July and August. That's part of the reason we planned our trip for early summer, but we certainly haven't avoided the heat.

Yesterday morning, after breakfast, we went to the Wuhan Historical Museum (map), which is free (for the first 3000 visitors daily -- I don't think they ever exceed that number) and open daily 9-5. The taxi was about 11Y, but the air-conditioning was priceless! The museum is three stories of three large galleries each, with a large enclosed atrium covered with glass. I was interested in historical stuff, which they probably don't change very much.

There were half a dozen classes-worth of school kids in orange hats running around the museum, making quite a bit of noise. School kids on a Sunday? I think they were on a field trip from further away. Of course when they saw Skyler, or me, they were suddenly struck silent and stared. Some said "hello". I smiled at lots of them. They were gone after an hour.

Yeye and nainai kept Skyler busy while Zhewei and I toured the galleries. The permanent exhibits usually had English translations, but the English is quite weird.

The first floor had a gallery of artifacts from all eras, organized by materials: bronze, ivory, wood and bamboo, jade, ceramics, glass. A second gallery held a (slowly?) travelling exhibit of Ming dynasty objects. We skipped the third gallery which held art by living artists and was for sale.

The second floor was devoted to history of Wuhan itself and surrounding area. Three large galleries divided the material roughly chronologically: the first gallery begins with neolithic times (< 2000BC) and moves forward. It was difficult to follow, because names and borders changed frequently. Even the geography changed: a large island in the Changjiang river just south of the Wuhan area was an important trading port in early eras, eventually being named for a famous general who wrote a poem about it. By the Ming Dynasty, the island was gone completely, wiped away by the seasonal whim of the mighty Yangtze! The second gallery was devoted to tombs of a king (or viscount, perhaps? a local ruler with allegiance to the emperor) and some military officers during the Ming dynasty, buried just north of Hankou.

The third gallery was devoted to "modern" times, beginning with foreign trade appearing in Wuhan and going through industrialization up to the 1912 revolution. Interestingly, Wuhan (Wuchang specifically) held the first steel factory in China ( aha, the premier "furnace", right? ), and its first armory. The climax of this exhibit for most Chinese visitors seems to be a large heavy Chinese-made automobile (not sure what year). But for me, I found the cataloguing of various industrial businesses, often joint partnerships with foreigners, and the huge foreign presence in Wuhan fascinating. Sometimes the text was overtly political, condemning western influence in some exhibits, and celebrating it in others. There were land concessions for Russians, British, Americans, and French, at least, and other europeans were also pictured in various endeavors, like Belgians. Hankou had something of a Bund like Shanghai, with lots of banks and trading houses.

Not much evidence of that history today, that I know of, although a large iconic Customs House completed in 1912 still stands at the river end of the pedestrian zone (Jianghan Lu). This building replaced an earlier one that was at another location. I wonder what if anything remains of those various foreign quarters, like the churches I saw pictured?

The exhibit ended with praising descriptions of the democratic revolution in 1912 which finally overthrew the Qing dynasty and the entire feudalistic political system. Oh, and an opium pipe. The 1912 revolution actually began with a military uprising, the Wuchang Uprising, which started by accident on October 10, 1911 (the anniversary date is called "Double Ten"). Officers of the modern New Army, located in Wuchang along with China's most modern military industry, were influenced by the revolutionary ideas of Sun Yat-sen. A few were mixing explosives in a hide-out in the Russian concession when an accidental explosion led to an investigation by authorities. The officers had enough support that the local New Army revolted, the local authorities fled in fear, and Wuchang was the first city to declare itself independent of the Qing. Although he was elected provisional President of the new Republic in December, Sun Yat-sen had nothing to do with the actual uprising: he was travelling in the US and read about it in a Denver newspaper! I learned most of this by reading on the web, though, not in the Museum, where details are given (like a map showing the paths of New Army revolutionaries through the city) but the connecting context seems largely left out. Of course, that was also the case with the earlier exhibits, and understandably, there is an awful lot of context to know!

We skipped the entire third floor, which I think was empty.

We stayed until about 1.30p, by which time Skyler had zonked out and yeye had reclined the stroller against a bench and covered him. It was lunch-time, I thought maybe we could eat out. We asked a couple of the employees about restaurants nearby. Most were not helpful, but one guard gave us a good tip, a place within walking distance across the road.

The restaurant was on the second floor, was somewhat clean although it had a slight unpleasant smell, and relatively empty. Several waitress staff waiting by the door at the top of the stairs smiled and welcomed us, one taking Skyler from Z's arms (what presumption!) and leading us straight into a private room (no extra charge!) with a single large round table equipped (as always) with a lazy susan. One advantage of the private room is no cigarette smoke, and less noise, although because they were not so busy neither was a real issue. The waitress turned on the AC unit in the room (the other big advantage!), another waitress brought three small plates of snacks (sunflower seeds, chopped pickled vegetables (daikon radish mostly), and salted roasted soy nuts).

We ordered four dishes and two cold beers. Three of the dishes were má là : a flavor combining spicy peppers with tongue-numbing sichuan peppers, and the last was sweet-sour pork, with Skyler in mind. The food came really surprisingly fast after we ordered it. It was pretty good, although too salty and using a good bit more oil than we do at home. After a taxi home we took naps, or tried. Skyler wouldn't sleep, even with AC, so Z and I didn't either.

It's been hot enough that it's difficult to sleep. We have a wall air-conditioning unit in the bedroom which we use to help get Skyler sleeping. We turn it off later in the evening and switch to a fan (one of two in the apartment). We've also used the AC for nap-time after lunch. I have resisted using the AC until these last 3 days, when it's become so warm and humid. This is still early in the summer, and Wuhan is notably hotter late in the season. Z's parents also have a window AC unit, less modern, but they haven't used it yet. I imagine they only use it in the worst of the heat.

We often take extra mid-day lukewarm showers to rinse off the stickiness, just after lunch and before nap.

Hmm, it's 11.21a, and Accuweather still says "Fog".

[Update: In the afternoon today it started to look like rain. The there was lightning and thunder, for over an hour -- but no rain! What little water fell evaporated upon hitting the pavement, and the pavement remained dry. After an hour of this, we finally got some rainfall with continuing thunder, but not a lot. The temperature dropped a bit, but still warm and the humidity was oppressive. Late in the evening, a similar event: thunder and lightning with little rain. This is just weird. Maybe the city's micro-climate has something to do with it, somehow preventing the clouds from dumping their moisture here?]

Wednesday 5/21 Zhewei and I set off on a shopping trip at 8.10am. We walked to Changqing Road and caught the Walmart bus (because it's free, and goes non-stop after leaving our area) to go downtown.

We went into Walmart looking for a couple shirts for Skyler. There wasn't a good selection, but we found a couple good candidates on the third floor and bought them, then headed up to the fourth floor to look around. The fourth floor is not Walmart, but instead a bunch of independent vendors of appliances and electronics spread out across the floor.

I was looking for a wireless router. I had seen one for sale in a local shop near our home, a TP-LINK, for about 230Y, but was hoping to get one for cheaper if we found the right place. The brand TP-LINK is the most widely used and available brand in China right now. Even in our apartment, I can pick up a wireless network from a TP-LINK router (because the owner never changed the name of the access point). I didn't think Walmart would be the right place, but wanted to get an idea of the price for comparison. We approached one promising computer vendor and asked, and yes, they had some not on display. 280Y. Yeesh. Certainly hagglable, but still.

We left the Walmart and went into a Chinese department store (called something like Great Ocean). It looks and feels just like a JC Penney or Macy's. Baby clothes were on the 6th floor. The selection of clothes was larger, but more expensive. We didn't get any. Near the escalators, Zhewei asked a store employee about electronics. He said there was a small area on another floor, but probably we wanted to go to the digital market, a building a few blocks away with lots of computer vendors. Zhewei didn't quite get the directions, but we got the street name at least. Sure enough, the department store had a very small electronics counter that was mostly cell phones, pocket PCs, and MP3 players. We wandered through a toys area on the way back to the escalators, passing imported Legos and lots of complicated motorized plastic war toys.

We crossed the street and headed towards the computer market. We walked passed a store of baby clothes, then stopped and went in. Lots of clothes for little kids, made for export, and very cheap! Zhewei picked out 2 or 3 more items for Skyler. Then we went around the corner and headed a few blocks west, past tiny restaurants, vendors of various things (I saw one selling mops), a video arcade, a real estate broker with apartment listings written on a whiteboard out front, a mender of zippers. Yes, a zipper-mender. In China, there are still stores and workers with very high specialization that you just don't see in retail in the US. I regret that I didn't take a picture of the zipper-mender, but I do have a picture of a shop that sells sump pumps. Maybe that shop has other kinds of pumps, but I'm not altogether sure.

We asked for directions once more. We found a building full of little vendors of electromechanical items and electronic components, and closed circuit video equipment. The next building had a mixture of this with electronics and computer components. Some vendors sold just cable. Some sold just MP3 players. A few sold just DVD blanks (another item I was looking for). We walked through, Zhewei stopped at one to ask the price on a TP-LINK router as I walked past, then climbed the stairs. When we are shopping, it's better for me not to be standing nearby while Zhewei negotiates a price. Zhewei got a price of 175Y from the vendor without haggling. But I wanted to look some more.

Upstairs were several shops that build computers and sell components like motherboards, dvd-drives, peripherals. Zhewei asked at one shop whether they had routers. He had none on display, although there were at least a dozen in the building that did, but sure, he had one. He pulled out a Kingnet wireless router made in Shenzhen. It had the same features but was cheaper than the TP-LINKs, he said. He unpacked it and plugged it in, hooking up a computer to it so we could see the setup interface, all in chinese, of course. It seemed okay. Zhewei negotiated a price of 150Y, but expressed her concerns about whether it was going to work once we got home, he gave her a business card and said to call if there was any trouble. He also offered to come set it up for us, for a fee. We also asked why he didn't sell the TP-LINK like the other vendors -- oh, he could sell that too, he said, he just didn't have one at the moment. We also asked about DVD blanks since I was interested in that, even though there was a vendor right next to him selling nothing but DVD blanks. We bought 10 DVD+R blanks for 20Y. We also got a recommendation for a restaurant for lunch, just down the block.

We headed out for lunch. The restaurant was good, relatively clean, the beer was cold. We had a spicy chicken dish and a fish soup. An adjacent table had four men who had just bought a complete computer system. The waiter people at the restaurant were all men, a plus really, except they had recently hired one younger woman. If a restaurant has all pretty young women as service people, you wonder if they are compensating for lower food quality or something.

We walked back to the Walmart, but the bus schedule was unfavorable -- we'd have to wait 90 minutes for a free ride home. We called home to ask about catching the 721 bus, yeye told us to walk south to the river and catch it there. We weren't sure about south, but discovered we were only a block or two from the pedestrian zone, which immediately told us which way to walk. We stopped in a bakery and bought a few rather bland cookies just to try.

We walked down the pedestrian street, where i was repeatedly approached and offered "watch", "shoes", "shirt" from various men, which I refused. Near the south end of the street, I noticed a younger guy walking towards us carrying a badminton racket who looked familiar. I didn't place him immediately but somehow knew him and smiled at him and waved. I think he was having the same reaction, then realized and called me by name. Zhewei was not immediately next to me but came walking over and started talking to him. He was the husband of one of Zhewei's cousins (Zhehong) -- the couple have a toddler boy (coincidentally also called Tiantian) who is about 2 and a half, and we'd seen them at both big recent family events, the wedding and the banquet. This husband works as an IT person for a bank downtown, and uses his lunch break (2 hours) to go exercise. After chatting a few minutes we let him go and walked down to catch the bus. Zhewei wished for an air-conditioned bus, and she was lucky that the 721 which came by was in fact air-conditioned.

We got home around 4, and I tried hooking up the router. It was sort of challenging because I only had one ethernet cable. With the router about half a meter away, the signal strength was 4/5 bars. Not a good sign. I was able to set up the router to connect to the DSL modem okay, and had network connection. But connecting wirelessly, the signal kept dropping. It was unusable. Zhewei groaned. She called the guy and he seemed relatively sorry and said we could swap for a TP-LINK, it would cost 20Y more. They closed at 5.30p though and it was late, so we said we'd come the next morning.

The Walmart bus only comes to our neighborhood on MWF. So after breakfast, we took the 721 downtown. It was already warm, walking to the bus stop, and on the bus, all the seats were full. It was an air-conditioned bus, but the driver didn't have the AC turned on. Since the AC busses cost more to ride, everyone had paid extra to ride on this AC bus, but the driver was saving gas money by leaving it off as long as he could. At one point, an older guy called out to the driver to turn on the AC, and he relented. It was just after 9am.

We headed straight back to the little shop. After we arrived, the guy went off the "acquire" the TP-LINK. I wandered through the second-floor of the building looking at other vendors. Many had TP-LINKs for sale. After he got back, he only asked for 10Y instead of 20Y. I think Zhewei made him feel bad -- he may very well have known the first router was bad. I told him in mandarin - "restaurant good, this (router) bad", smiling. We left and walked around the block.

The next building was the "real" computer market - two stories of computer vendors all around. As I walked through, about four of them whispered to me asking if I was looking for DVDs or "discs". I was, but the fact that they were hidden and it was surreptitious sales made me nervous, so I waved them all off. Most vendors also had DVD blanks for sale, sitting on counter tops. On the second floor of this building we actually found an Apple vendor. MacBook Air for 17000Y ($2400)! It's an odd building -- superficially the stores all look good, but go to the third floor where a dog is barking (indoors), or peer between vendors to see the back alleys or the bathroom, and it's dirty and rough.

I remembered about the ethernet cable and we went back to our same vendor to ask. They cut us about 3m of cable and put ends on it for 4Y. They tested it too, before selling it to us.

I hadn't had breakfast, and Z had only had some crackers, so we looked for a place to grab a bite before heading back. It was well past breakfast time, and still too early for lunch, so several street restaurants were in transition and wouldn't have anything fresh. But Z had seen a muslim noodle shop... and we found it. We ordered two bowls of beef noodle (there isn't much beef, it's mostly noodle) for 10Y. The noodles however are made when you order them. The guy pulls them right there in front of your eyes, then throws the bundle into a boiling wok on the sidewalk. It was good. There was a little girl 17mos old, daughter of the shop owner couple. She sat on a stool and ate noodles using chopsticks and her hands. She was very cute. And no one had to hold her still! They had a little white kitten too which the girl played with.

After eating, I ducked into the video arcade I had seen just to look. It was all driving games, and some weird ones that look like gambling. I didn't understand those. On our walk back down the pedestrian zone, we grabbed ice cream (on a stick - like probably 95% of ice cream sold in China). It was 10.45 but humid and quite hot. The ice cream melted fast. Zhewei stopped to look in several shoe stores, but was equally interested in their air conditioning. I was approached again half a dozen times about watches, etc. I wonder how that scam would go. We caught an air-conditioned bus home before noon. It's about 40 minutes to ride to our stop, then a 12 minute walk back to the apartment.

I hooked up the router when we got home, Zhewei put Skyler down for a nap. I couldn't read the configuration pages, so I had to wait til after nap-time. With Z's help translating, it wasn't hard to set up and it works like a charm.

So, somehow we found a vendor who didn't have DVD blanks, routers, or cable on display, unlike many of his competitors, and we bought all of those things from him. And he didn't even HAVE the router we bought, he had to go buy it from a wholesaler just to sell to us! Wireless router: 160Y ($23), firmware was dated April 14 of this year, only 5 weeks ago! Wow. I wonder if this thing runs embedded linux. Going to try to find out.

I'm thinking about going back to the computer market again, for earphones, or a cheap MP3 player, or just maybe I'll try looking at DVDs too. I would like to go somewhere where there's less attention being paid, and the DVDs are out on display, but that also means less competition and higher prices. A local shop sells some for 4Y per disc for movies/TV, and 5Y/disc for software. But today is even hotter than yesterday, and tomorrow is supposed to be worse, so we're probably not going anywhere.

• Sleep.
  
• Eat.
  
• Walk, Shop.
  
• Eat.
  
• Nap.
  
• Walk.
  
• Eat.
  
• Sleep.
  

The basic elements of our days. Of course there are occasional events like celebrations, longer shopping trips, and hospitals. Let's not think about that for now.

Sleep.

Our bed has no mattress. Neither does yeye and nainai's, nor the one at Xianqiang's extra apartment. [Z now informs me Zhexiong's bed did have a mattress and box spring; I thought they didn't because they are also very firm.] Mattresses are hot, and absorb a lot of sweat and are hard to clean or air out. Instead, beds consist of a rectangular frame with a high tension fiber weave across them. A rough piece of fabric is placed on this weave, then one or more layers of bedding, something like a cotton comforter (but perhaps without a cover), are laid on top, followed by a sheet. This is the surface you sleep on. Air flow beneath the surface keeps it dry. When needed, the cotton bedding layers are hung out on sunny days, and the Sun's ultraviolet and an occasional breeze does all the cleaning. Sheets are washed normally of course. As the season gets colder you simply add more layers beneath and above. In summer, you might have only one layer for padding, and you can bring out the bamboo sheets to lie on (a great invention for warm climates).

Like a hammock, the surface gives as you lie on it, creating a gentle curve between the frame edges. The give in the weave is essential, and it's what makes the surface better than a hard floor, but it also causes some interesting problems for a westerner used to mattresses.

Have you ever slept on a hammock, the type with a wooden frame to hold open the weave? These are nice for an afternoon nap, perhaps, in the shade and a summer breeze. But sleep longer, and try to change position... ever try to roll over onto your stomach? It doesn't work. The curvature of the surface means lying on your stomach bends your back the wrong way. If you happen to fall asleep like this, you'll regret it.

Although the curvature is less, our bed has the same danger. In addition, if there are two people in the bed, the incline tends to push you both towards the middle slightly. If you are alone, you want to be in the middle -- otherwise you're sleeping on an incline. Because the tension is pretty high, especially once you're lying on it, the woven surface can be pretty rigid. It's most rigid around the edge, near the frame. Some positions are not comfortable because your weight is concentrated onto too few pressure points, joints in particular. The most comfortable position is flat on your back, to be sure. Even this offers a challenge, though.

Lying on your back on a hard surface, the heels of your feet support the weight of your entire lower leg. It's a lot of pressure, and over an extended period can be painful. That's why my feet hurt after sitting in an airline seat for so long -- The seat is too low to place my feet flat footed, and stretching them out forward means the legs' weight are resting entirely on your heels. A similar thing occurs driving long trips in the car, with both the accelerator foot and the other. But at least in those circumstances you have the padding and support of a shoe to distribute the pressure. Lying on my back, I somehow have to avoid putting my heels near the edge of the frame, where the surface is very rigid and the weight would concentrate onto a very small area. I often lie diagonally, to get my heels and hands away from the hard wooden frame, or even lie with one of my feet hanging off the side of the bed, which is an amazing relief after a while on the heel.

The first few days on this bed really messed with my back and other joints (shoulders, ankles). I couldn't roll around and sleep in just any position anymore. After a couple weeks, though, I've adjusted and can sleep comfortably enough, when it's not too hot. More about the heat, later.

[Mattresses are not unheard of, by any means. I've seen several stores selling them that look like western beds. But most people are still using traditional Chinese beds.]

In the ceiling of each bedroom, above the space for the bed, is a hook. The hook is used to hang a mosquito net with a circular frame, when needed. We had a few nights when there were a number of mosquitoes that kept us awake. But I identified two holes in the screens which yeye patched with a piece of clear packing tape, and it's been better. Nainai burns a mosquito repellant incense in the evenings, and we also have an electric fly-swatter. It's shaped like a small tennis racket, with fine metal wire grid on each side of the face of the racket and a third one in the center. You press a button on the handle and swing for the fences! No actually you swing for mosquitoes. If a mosquito goes into the face and touches the center mesh and one of the side meshes at the same time, zap! Fried mosquito. If they've recently bitten someone for a bloodmeal, they can crackle and pop for some time on the thing, as long as you hold down that button. The racket has a fold-away electric plug for recharging in the wall. Pretty neat idea, apart from my basic aversion to batteries.

Z and Skyler have been sleeping on a bedroll of sorts on the floor -- no worries about Skyler rolling off that way. It consists of about 7 layers of cotton comforters. At first it was too thin, and Z was having back and particularly hip pain, because she sleeps on her side a lot. But we added some layers, and it's working better now. Yeye brought out a long piece of bamboo, and cleverly rigged it to extend from the hook to hang a mosquito net over the bedroll for Skyler. He had one bad night when he got 6-8 bites.