Perhaps some still remember my blog post about how unforseen events can change your life and that my health hasn’t been the best for a long time. I wrote that about half-year ago and now it seems things are finally looking brighter. With the trip last week to Cologne some of you might have noticed that I am actually able to go on a trip. Ever since the beginning of this year my health has been improving and I could also reduce the med intake. This helped a lot to feel better mentally because you won’t really feel in good shape when you see how much medication you have to take just to get the day started.
Little Bonus: A squatting monk
This year is still young and already much has changed. I left my job as I wouldn’t be able to really find my way back in after being away for so long time. Now that would make me unemployed again in some sense but I have still the business with my wife in which I started to help out more and more again with my improving health. As things are looking much better again for me we decided to “redo” the trip to China which I had to abort last year. So in one week we are flying once again to Xi’an and stay there for nearly three weeks. To make things a bit more interesting my father is coming with us again. What about my dear mother? When we invited her she just said “One time in China is more than enough for me!”, okay…
In China we will spend most of the time in Xi’an but according to my wife we will actually go on some trip again with a tourist group. You know my feelings about those tourist groups but well, at least we will be going somewhere this time. What makes this trip a bit more complicated is that my father is not the youngest anymore with his 75 years and then the issue when it comes to food. We have to schedule everything well so he does not get too exhausted and we have to find a healthy mix for him between Chinese food and some Western restaurants (looking at you Pizza Hut). I hope he will enjoy this trip as it won’t be this time as hot as it was back when he visited the first time in 2011 during the hot July weeks.
Finally going to Xi’an again
It still feel weird for me to actually plan such things again. There I was half-year ago and things were kind of bleak and now I am going to a three-week holiday in China. Besides that I slowly started with some sports again to get back in shape as far as it is possible right now. Will I ever be back to 100%? No, I won’t be but that is alright. The possible 90% are already more than I have ever imagined several months ago. Now I am looking forward to this summer and I really want to have a proper visit at the beach this year!
How has been your year thus far?
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Remember when I wrote that I had totally forgotten that we actually did travel once a bit around in China? Back then I wrote about the trip to the Jianmenguan Pass which was actually in the end of a 3 day trip around the north of Sichuan. Why Sichuan? Because it is the neighbouring province of Shaanxi and just a few hours by bus away. Our first stop was Zhaohua Ancient Town which is in the Yuanba District, Guangyuan, Sichuan. Okay, it was not the first “stop” as we did had a couple of stops during the bus ride at service areas. In one of those service areas I saw a public toilet nightmare but this is just too much for this blog and it shall forever haunt only my memories.
Looks old but most of the structure is probably new
As I explained in the other post we were part of a tour group and hence the entire trip around was very carefully planned and left barely any time to go around on your own. At Zhaohua we went straight to eat at a little restaurant organized by the tour group. It was nothing special but good enough to have nothing to complain about. The tour around the ancient town was interesting but annoying at the same time. Interesting as the ancient town was really wonderful and offered tons of picture/ video material and annoying as the local tourist guide had a very fast pace going from building to building which forced me to run after the group more than just once as I was busy taking pictures or recording some videos.
So much red
Zhaohua is a very old town with several temples, an old city wall with several gates, old governmental buildings, sculptures and also an ancient flag stone road. I read back then in some online source that some thirty years ago the town was much smaller, many temples were missing/ destroyed back in the day but that there were also many wooden structures left from the early Qing Dynasty. Though there were many old structures left it was a bit messed up because ugly new houses had been build all over the town. In that source the author explained also how different the town looked when he went there again several years ago as many wooden structures had been torn down and replaced by these new structures. Now these houses didn’t look like new houses anymore as they got fake wooden house fronts so they looked like the old houses again. So by the time we went there I really couldn’t tell which were the original old houses and which were the new “fake old” houses. Besides that the whole town was pretty much very touristy. Not that I am unhappy that they rebuilt so many of these ancient structures but I really don’t understand why they had to tear down actual ancient houses and replace them with new ones.
Hello little snake
We were in the town for a few of hours before heading to the next destination. Nearly the entire time there was spent with eating and running behind the tour guide. Thankfully we had some 45 min times to go around on our own which allowed us to relax a bit after running for so long time and take a closer look at the buildings. The main street in that town was full of little shops selling souvenirs, local snacks and clothes. It was also there that I suddenly ended up with a little snake in my camera bag. No, it didn’t just appeared out of thin air but a man had it on his shoulder and offered me to hold it myself. It was then that the snake decided it had seen enough people for one day and quickly wriggled its way out of my hands and into the dark and cosy camera bag. The man even offered me to buy the snake but you know it would be a bit hard to get that animal through security and customs at the airport…
View towards the town
Our tour group, MIL annoying one of the guides
Flags on the wall
Lesson: When you drink a lot you get famous!
Should use them for MIL
Don’t mess with FIL!
One of the old existing structures
Green green
Where might this lead?
How do you feel about rebuilding ancient structures but tearing down existing old ones at the same time?
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Ever since my wife was pregnant back in 2013 we started to do research about having a baby. Of course my wife had her memories from her upbringing and I had my own and they had their certain differences. These differences came even more apparent after Nathan was born and we visited other Chinese couples who had children about the same age as our son. Now that our little warrior is already over 1 1/2 years old we heard and saw so many different things that I just have to share with you some of the major differences when it comes to raising a child in China compared to Finland/ Germany. Please note that these points are not a generalization for countries but in fact just what we personally experienced thus far. I don’t go too far into the details as it is just too much then for just a single blog post.
Pregnancy
So you are pregnant, congratulations! Lets see what we have there already for differences. What we learned from my wife’s family, Chinese friends, Chinese forums and last but not least customers of my wife is that a pregnant woman should pretty much do nothing. You surely still can go and take a walk, go shopping and similar things but anything beyond that is life threatening for the unborn baby. When we were in China in 2013 (few months after we found out that there is little Nathan growing) my wife did something which shocked the entire neighbourhood in Xi’an. She did dare to step on a little wall surrounding some flowers which is incredible 50cm/ 1.6f high and also stepped down from it. All around old ladies came storming in and shouting that the unborn baby might just drop out! After this she was advised to stay in bed for several days to let everything settle again. Another thing was about the food and drinks she was allowed to consume. Cold drinks? Oh hell no! Cold drinks are anyways considered the root of all evil according to the Chinese we have met thus far. Food? Oh, the more the better as wifey needs to pound up in order to be strong enough for the delivery and nursing the baby. Advised was from some people around 30kg/ 66lbs weight gain during pregnancy.
Now lets see what we experienced in Finland/ Germany. Taking a walk was of course also allowed for my wife and she was actually encouraged to do some light sports such as to go swimming, fast walking or easy exercises in the gym. Only during a certain time in the beginning some movements should be avoided and that is basically it. I know someone who did still most of her professional swimming practice until few weeks before the due date but that is again some extreme case and I would not recommend it for others even though everything worked out for her and there were no complications. Now to the food and drinks. Right in the beginning we received from Neuvola a list of food and drinks which should be avoided completely or only consumed in a very very little amount. This list was easy to follow as most things were just common sense such as avoiding alcohol, smoking and caffeine. My wife was checked monthly at Neuvola and when she gained over 20kg towards the end of the pregnancy they just told her not to worry even though it was already several kg over the average of 15kg.
Mommy should look like this nice statue
How to dress the baby
What we certainly learned from other Chinese, especially from MIL was that there is no such thing as putting on too many clothes on the baby. The more and the thicker the clothes are the better it is. The baby is sweaty and has red cheeks? No it is not due to wearing too much but it is a sign that the baby is happy! In case it is only +30 degrees Celsius/ 86 degrees Fahrenheit outside you better put on some thick clothes as it is really too cold for just t-shirt and shorts. For some nice depiction on how to proper dress a child in China check out Point number 10 on this post of Marta’s blog. Diapers are another thing best to be avoided as the little baby parts down there will just rot away from being compressed all the time so better just use split pants and let the baby do its business where ever it wants to (especially cute when doing so in the middle of the street or shopping mall as seen too often in China).
In Finland and Germany its been a bit different thus far. Of course the baby shouldn’t freeze to death by wearing nothing during winter time but it is very much different as the encountered Chinese way. Dressing the baby lightly was encouraged to us, avoid putting on too much as the baby has already a bit higher body temperature than adults. In case the little one starts sweating, remove some clothes. In Finland they even told us to take the baby out to the balcony or garden during nap time in the middle of winter. Not naked mind you but dressed accordingly warm so the baby could breathe in some fresh cold air as long as the temperature would not drop below -15 degrees Celsius/ 5 degrees Fahrenheit. To the topic of diapers nothing was really encouraged or discourage. We should just go with whatever worked best with our baby so we went with a mix of standard diapers and reusable ones (washable).
No winter jacket during summer time? And playing in the water? Worst parents ever!
How to teach basics to the child
Now this one is a tricky one as in China it certainly suffered a lot due to the one child policy and hence the result of young kids being treated like little empresses/ emperors by their grandparents. This led also that many nowadays parents have not really a clue how to raise their spawn of evil. Too often we heard how exhausted some of my wife’s friends were because on how busy the baby kept them. You might think it is pretty much usual until you hear that there are sometimes up to 7-8 people taking care of the baby. Not only the parents would be involved daily but also the grandparents and specially hired nannies. Each person would have one task and…just wow I don’t know what is going on. Could be that my wife’s friends are just very special cases and it never ever happens anywhere else in China which I highly doubt after the 100% coverage of her friends doing this insanity. Whenever Nathan did something wrong and we gave a little punishment which usually led to him complaining a lot or even crying MIL just came in running, cuddling him, giving him some snacks and telling him that he can just go on and do this again. She fervently defended her position by explaining how strict she already is and that other grandparents in China are so much worse. Well, it is actually true as I had read in some other blogs and my wife found out more often than not in Chinese forums. More you can find out of course by counseling your friendly online search engine or also by reading some stories from Jennifer’s blog.
With Finnish and German families it is a bit different. The parents do most of the times everything alone and might get help from time to time by the grandparents. Here most people are kind of shocked about this so-called little emperor syndrome in China. I can’t add any other things to this as there is basically nothing else to it here. But once again I have to say that this is just what we have encountered and it can not be applied to the entire countries.
No, we ain’t giving beer to the kids
How are your experiences in your home country? In case you are in China, how much of our Chinese examples you have encountered yourself or are even totally different?
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Crazy Chinese Family 