How to install a heater by crawling out a window!

My heater unit doesn’t work.  It is rather cold.  So the land lord sent over a new one.  The compressor is outside my high rise kitchen window on a small ledge.  Why in the world is it on a ledge out a window and not a balcony with a door?  It is China, that is why!  So I took pictures of the workmen removing it and installing the new one.  This is a accident in the making and an insurance law suit in America.  Enjoy the pictures.  I laughed at the entire event.  The two workers did tie a harness to each other.  Ha!  If one fell the other would topple right out my window with him!

Toilets in China

So many questions about bathroom facilities.   These are the little commodes and urinals at the the daycare connected to the high school in Suzhou.   I took a picture as I had never seen a tiny urinal…. It is unusual to see tiny toilets or any western toilets in China.

This is a basic  ladies rest room.  You squat facing the door, cause if some one opens the door you want them to see your face not your booty, so says Alice my friend.  You do not flush any paper products.  There is NO toilet paper in majority of bathrooms, so you bring your own.  The paper you carry comes in packages like this.  You carry a small pack of 10 little kleenex.  If you forget, you hope a friend has some.  Otherwise, well you can guess.  Personally I hold one over my nose when I squat, as the smells are usually horrendous!  A friend told me always lean forward or you might fall in.  I have heard some people have dropped their cell phones in there!  Good bye phone.  By the way this is a clean one at the school.

You will notice in my downstairs bathroom, it is tiled floor and walls with a drain in the floor.  Can be convenient if you have a water issue!  You see a white hose, that is the run out from my washer.  I also have a mop sink, very hygienic, don’t you think?  In my upstairs bathroom, above the commode or western lou I have a hot water heater for my shower.  Never flush the toilet and jump into the shower right after, the water will stop and you will be cold and wet for a few minutes until the water tank fills back up.  The water heater in my kitchen heats water for the kitchen and sink in the downstairs bathroom only.  No hot water for the washing machine.  This is the heater that ignites loudly when you turn the hot water on in the sinks.  It does get ever so hot.

Faculty dinner and the back door

The high school had a lovely dinner for all the new teachers, IB and the public school teachers the other night at a very nice restaurant.  One fun tradition was lifting your wine glass and cheering, each table would walk around and cheer you, then your table would stand up, walk to each table, toast and cling each glass.  We had six large tables of twelve each so it took some time.  The food was served with appetizers first, some vegetarian dishes, red wine and some kind of boxed booze, everyone said stay clear of that stuff.  It was 45% must be an “Ever Clear!”  Dinner was many dishes of meat, whole fish, a bowl of guts in a sauce, BBQ beef, pork and chicken.  All my meat eating western friends, did enjoy these dishes.  John and I waited patiently for the vegetarian food and it finally did arrive, but to our surprise was in chicken broth.  We just gave in and dipped out the mushrooms and set them on our plate and ate them.  We had a bowl of steamed weeds, that is the best description I can give.  John liked them, I could hardly get them down.  Reminded me of the seaweed soup I had the other day.  Every time I took a sip, smelled like fish and  just couldn’t eat it.  Melons came and we all enjoyed that.  Someone set off a major fireworks display on the front door of the restaurant, causing me to jump and check it out.  WOW this was spectacular and right on the sidewalk.  My sons would have loved this and gone outside to see the action.

My school has a back door entrance, mainly an exit to purchase food from the local street vendors, but you can see all kinds of activates, from men playing checkers, to ladies washing children and vegetables, to many types of food for sale.  I’ve had Thai food, steamed dough dumplings with different fillings pronounced bowser, milk chai tea and fresh fruit.

Coming back in from an excursion on the back street to the high school grounds, one finds serenity and peacefulness.  Yes, this high school has lovely gardens and a stream with fish.  It has many multistory dorms, for those students who come from a long distance to school.  Many buildings are open air including our teaching facilities.   It is a wonderful campus.

I sometimes like to stand by the stream and look at the fish or listen to the waterfall.  It is so calming and makes me realize how relaxing this is for my overtaxed, multitasking American brain.  Yesterday in the corridors of the first floor, students were learning Karate.  The master teacher was so fluid in his high kicks showing them how far and hard he wants them to kick.  Partnered up, one student would kick and the other held a padded hand paddle to kick too.  They would kick and laugh trying to get their feet up in the higher pose.  Each day is so delightful.

I saw a UFO!

I saw a UFO night before last!  Walking back to the hotel about 9pm looked up and this set of green lights in a semi-circular pattern were flashing on and off.  It was hovering around and then would change the light pattern into a triangle.  I saw the hotel guard and signaled for him to see it.  He agreed “UFO”– universal word, as he spoke no English.  Other people walked up and some showed me on their English/Chinese hand held computer translator they thought it was a kite or a helicopter.  NO way Jose, this is a UFO.  It was higher than the skyscrapers and just floated around, maybe twenty minutes.  I went to my room and tried to photograph it but can’t seem to get the shutter to stay open long enough.  Need to read up on time exposures  in my Nikon book!  Alas no proof, darn!

Woke up to a Chinese cooking TV show this morning.  Ok sauté some garlic, add some chili powder and water, looks like soup we are making, um.  Now the main ingredient oh my gosh it is a fish head!  They sprinkle it with a dark vinegar (No  soy sauce is used here at all!  Surprise, that must be a Japanese custom) and fry it.  Then plop that head in the soup and add some fresh eggplant, tomatoes, green beans with a corn starch thickener.  Ok I am going to pass on cooking or eating this!

Infomercials are here too. I saw one for buying uncirculated Chinese yuan, probably proofs.  Another was a rubber set of breasts with a hole in them to increase your bust size, yet still have nipplies and the last was a Blender-Boiler to make hot soy milk!  My favorite TV show is the Spanish Bull fights translated into Chinese!  I’ve never really seen a bull fight — so this has been a new education, watching the matador get pierced in the leg by a bull’s horn.  He tries to save face and not look like he is dying from severe agony and continues to hobble and coax the bull to ram his cloak.  I think the Chinese like “blood and guts” on TV.  I saw a news show with a child that was backed over by a car and the driver just didn’t see him.  He then proceeded to drive forward, hit him again, open the door jump out then the car rolls back over the kid.  What a mess, I never could figure out if the child survived.  In America we just wouldn’t see all the gory details.

Walking toward the back entrance of the University I meandered by a sweet little pond, with huge red-orange goldfish.  I heard the sweetest melody, someone is singing a Chinese opera song.  I saw a very old gray haired lady just strolling around the pond singing I guess to the fish.  I was transposed and couldn’t move.   She looked up, saw me, smiled and kept on singing.  What a charming moment in time!  Walking on, I come to a tunnel with a ten inch thick cement door.  Ok now what is this?  I walk in and see the  light at the end of the tunnel.  (Spiritually I am looking  to see the light at the end of my tunnel!)  As I walk though, I realize it might have been a bomb shelter, damp, dank, with exposed wires running the length of it for lights and a trench on the sides collecting water and what ever else is wet and smelly.

Leave the tunnel, and hop on a taxi.  Today it is sunny and I notice my cab driver has on a short sleeve T shirt with pull on sleeves he has added that tie at the wrist and upper arm, plus white gloves.  Well this is an interesting fashion statement!  Later I learn that the Chinese want to stay light complexed  and I am wearing a tank top to get what little bit of direct sun I can find to tan. We have the windows down even in the heat, and we drive past men pulling carts with piles of Styrofoam packing pieces, one with used cardboard boxes flattened and tied down, and another with old lumber pieces bouncing around.  All of this looks like trash to me, but may be someones treasures, I don’t know.  I see a biker with twenty or so helium brightly colored balloons, maybe he is going to the hospital down the road.  Another man is walking balancing two large bowlfuls of fruit on ropes with a stick across his neck.  Then out of the blue we stop at a red light and I hear this god-awful coughing up and hocking of a loogie right next to my window.  Seems this is quite accepted and I hear and see this many times a day.  The thing is, don’t step on it when walking!  Another reason to leave your shoes at the door of your home.

Renting a high-rise apartment

It was raining cats and many dogs when I walked two long blocks to the apartment complex with Sophia, the school secretary our person that gets everything done.  Isn’t it always the secretary’s and shouldn’t they make more money than all of us?  She is pregnant and followed me down the street with her umbrella, commenting she loves the rain.  Well I will admit it was an experience in wetness, not sweatness.  We met the land lady on the 27th floor to view the space.  Removed our shoes and put on slippers.   I always wondered why they left their shoes at the door.  I know now.  After walking in the mud puddles, no one would want these dirty shoes in their homes.  It is a wonderful custom, and I think everyone should do it.  So if you come to visit me I will have slippers for you at the door.

My new apartment is a split level, making it both  27th and 28th floors.  The master bedroom view is to the south, highly prized by the Chinese.  (Good Fortune!) The kitchen is cute with a huge view of the three pagoda looking hotel and freeway.  It is about 1000 square feet I am guessing, plenty large with a living room, extra bedroom and bath and a half.   I asked for it to be cleaned and the lights to work in the bathrooms!  Geez what is the deal, no lights?   So the landlady agreed and will take two extra days to get it ready.  She is a nurse and her husband a surgeon.  How convenient in case I get ill!  Afterwards back to school, I had night guard duty.  Just watching the kids as they do homework.

This evening I watched Sawyer do Tai chi with his master.  The master has a large stomach, the better to hold his chi, I am told!  He gave Sawyer a little box with a baby on it.  It is a gift as his wife just had a baby girl.  They give gifts to all their friends to share in their joy and fortune of the birth of their new one.  Lovely tradition!   I came to school the other day and found a porcelain pig wrapped in pink sheer fabric, one of our teachers just had a baby girl and I got to share in their fortune!  Goodie a gift for me!  I like gifts.  The pig has candy in its belly, yum.  Alice was showing me her dance moves as she is learning Latin dance.  Some one tell Yulia, she may have met her match.  (Yulia was one of Andy’s best lady friends.  They took us Salsa dancing once!  Yulia is fast and furious on the dance floor, Andy and I admired her for that.)  So I took pictures of Sawyer and Alice in their poses.  They are just too cute. Alice told me today is her mom’s birthday, low and behold she and I are born in the same “birth year.”  Alice didn’t know her new Texan friend was so old!

Yoga again and this time we did one of those flip over poses, toes over your head and on the floor.  I remember Oprah speaking of muffin top on TV.  Well my muffin top had flipped over drooping into my boobs and then smashed into my face.  Last class when I did this I got stuck and the yoga teacher had to come flip me back.  What a pretzel I am!

Are you ready for a good laugh?   OK, your already laughing envisioning me  as an inverted muffin, but I got hit on tonight, you know a guy tried to make a pass at me.  I was waiting for Alice in front of the University and this white guy came barreling toward me, all excited to see the only white older lady in town.  He is a Math teacher from Montreal, wanted my phone number, very persistent, luckily Alice came along and helped me escape his clutches.  She said he was not my type!  I think he was just excited to see a white face!  HELP, just eat, pray teach……no LOVE.