Monday/Tuesday Feb 22/23, 2010

- crossing the international dateline

It's after noon and still no sun! We boarded the plane at 2am Mon Feb 22 in Vancouver, after a really nice evening with my brother Dave and Jim's cousin Eugene, and we've been chasing darkness at pretty close to 1000 km/hour around the planet for over 10 hours since. Just another three hours to go, to Hong Kong. There's a five hour stopover there before taking a one hour flight to Xiamen, arriving the afternoon of the 23rd. It was a wild few days before we left, so we've been able to doze on and off, trading one cramped position for another. I'm trying to think back on when we did what this past week...

I did the last of the Interfaith Dialogue sessions on Valentine's Day, a week ago Sunday. We were looking at Mermaid Wharf's fourth floor condo, 491 sq feet. Our goal has been to leave funds for China and semi-retirement, but at the same time we needed something nice to rent to vacationers each year while we're away.

Around mid-January, we'd made an offer on a 12th floor Bickerton Ct condo downtown and had promptly gotten spoiled by the city view on the north side of the building, the huge common areas, Victoria's largest park just outside the door, the easy walk anywhere - east to the grocery store, north to the Inner Harbour and downtown, south to the long stretch of walkable ocean, east to Cook St Village... all within 10 minutes. And the size... Ever since we started looking at "nice"condos, anything over 700 sq ft has gone from minuscule in my mind to relatively massive. The one we made the offer on was over 700 sq ft.

But the offer fell through.

Since then, after a month of looking, nothing else had come close, so last Tuesday we asked our realtor to please check to see if anything else in Bickerton Court was available. Turned out, the condo across the hall was about to go on the market in 2 days. Renovated interior, better layout, better view - south facing - ocean and mountain view. On Wednesday we saw it and on Thursday our offer was accepted. We pored over the strata papers. All good. On Sunday we were leaving for Vancouver to catch our flight, so we booked a mover for the 2nd of April and ordered furniture that would be delivered at that date so we wouldn't have to sleep on an air mattress. Everything went perfectly, the choice, the delivery date, even the sale price.

This means that Coral and Ovidio will get their hoped for moving date of school's Spring Break, and most of our furniture. The Baha'i community will get a wonderful family with 4 kids in school, and our house gets good gardeners to take care of the fruit trees, kiwi plants and grapevines! Meanwhile, we have to see what Xiamen is like... because that's the goal. I started an online TESOL course, and we've done research on living costs, medical, visas, crunching numbers. It looks doable. The only catch was that in Hong Kong last year at this time, I had a sore throat, bloody nose and lost voice from the pollution. Worse reaction than anyone else. It all disappeared immediately upon return. We've heard that Xiamen is far smaller, the size of Vancouver, and clean.

Tuesday/Wednesday Feb 23/24

Five hours in Hong Kong airport plus another two sitting idle in the plane, due to fog. Then a one hour flight and we're there. Palm trees, colours... Marilyn is waiting for us. Line up for a taxi, then a short walk... to the sleepy neighbourhood police station, for papers. Date of arrival and departure, fill out the form, takes two minutes.

Steve's Mom Aida makes a favourite dish for supper, with the Portuguese chourico sausages I brought from Victoria. Delicious! Aida is heading back to Victoria tomorrow, and has been staying in the guest room, so we stay with neighbours Fataneh and Rick Green for the first night. So interesting seeing the two apartments. The Brooks apartment is 3 bedroom, 2 bath, very luxurious, huge fridge and a "dish sanitizer" instead of a dishwasher. They both have floors of huge 3 foot squares of white marble, granite counters, metal cupboards and ornate doors - very little wood. The Greens' apartment has all that but with 2 bedrooms, 1 bath - 3000 Renminbis/month. Divide by 7. Renminbis = yuan = kwai in slang, like bucks. All the same.

A large box arrives for Amy at their apartment door, 15th floor. It's a bread machine, ordered online, for about a third what I'd paid at home. Delivery cost 10 RmB. We'll be eating lots of fresh homemade bread! Amy is an excellent cook. We're back at the Brooks' for lunch on the 24th and then out for a walk and small shopping expedition for missing items, near Xiamen university. The boardwalk starts there (I think) and follows the shore. Surprise - no boards! It's wide stone walkway bordered by flowers and a huge expanse of tan sand stretching for kilometres. Eventually, near an old fort, it changes to a wooden boardwalk... lovely! After supper we eventually get Jamie, whose birthday is today. Our card had arrived and he and Kazusa had gone out to a birthday supper. Steve and Amy joined in on the Skype conversation. We were dead tired by bedtime. Enjoying the hard beds of China. Very firm mattresses - super comfortable. No jumping on those beds, though!

Thursday Feb 25

Marilyn and I walked up the mountain this morning. Stone path bordered by huge overhanging smooth rocks and wildflowers, past buildings with glass topped cement walls. It went up to over 20 degrees as the day went on. The humidity shot up so much the walls, windows and floors indoors were visibly damp. Even in the hall, rivulets ran down steamed windows. My vitamin C tablets started melting in their little compartmental box in the bedroom. Mopping the floor just moved the water around. Only the AC stopped it. The good news is, everything is wipable - even the ceilings. Cupboards are nifty looking coloured metal, entire walls are tile, even the table that I'm using as I type is a slab of granite or something. Off to see Eunice, the realtor friend of Amy this afternoon. Friends have a place in a nearby city, enormous, bought in 2005 at 4000 RmB per sq. metre. Now the prices are between 15,000 and 25,000 RmBs. (A square metre is roughly 10 square feet.) Eunice showed us several places in the ritzy Marco Polo area, up to $460,000 Cdn in value. That particular one was very high end, 37th floor, fully furnished and quite large, about 1500 sq ft. It had bamboo flooring that looked like hardwood, bathroom with wraparound windows to the floor, a washer that's also a dryer, in a city where no one has dryers. It could be rented for 11,000 RMB/month. Another one was "unrenovated" meaning the walls and ceiling were done, but the floors are unfinished cement, a little like a dirt floor. Same size, one third less cost.

It seems everyone has gas cooktops here, individual gas heaters for hot water in the bathrooms and sometimes for the kitchen. Amy had to order a good stove, though... which also arrived at the front door, like the bread machine, in a box - safe and fast and cheap delivery to an apartment door. Amazing.

Friday Feb 26

Clayton arrived today in time for Ayyam-i-Ha, with a suitcase of treats. Coffee, molasses, Bragg's, Macadamia Roca. Before he arrived Marilyn and I walked along the harbour, a working harbour filled with colourful fishing boats, broken sidewalks, and far too much incomprehensible visual detail for the eye or brain to absorb.

Jim's feet seem to have gotten worse since yesterday - perhaps because it's another humid day. Apart from the blister, gotten during the condo tour, both feet are swollen. He's soaked them in tea tree and hot water, bandaged the blister, sat out in the sun on the balcony and is generally relaxing. The balcony is very neat - completely glass with an upper half, also glass, that folds to the side completely. Completely leakproof. Marilyn takes me to Xiamen University where she's studying English - about $1000/semester. It's lined with palms and is quite lovely. I find my way back, buying a scarf along the way and visiting the museum next to our building, Bo wu guam, dedicated to Chinese immigrants around the world. The evening is an Ayyam-i-Ha gift-giving celebration, with Sophia and Aliyah Brooks, 5 and 3 years, distributing the gifts to all of us. I had told Amy a few times that I wanted to buy a book on Xiamen, one that she had. She'd had to bite her tongue for days to avoid telling me that she'd already gotten us one!

Saturday Feb 27

The heat and the humidity have both disappeared. We took a taxi to the Metro store, pretty well exactly the same as Costco. I bought a silk quilt for 199 RmBs, so about $30, that Amy is going to shrink wrap for me to take home. Looking around, it seems foreign made items are quite expensive - Lindt chocolate for $6 a bar, a clothes dryer for $750, coffee in a Marco Polo restaurant for $5 each. I walked to the pedestrian mall in the afternoon to check things out, and bought a sweater for Jim for $15 that would have cost three times that at home. Bought a soft lightweight scarf for $1.50. A cleaning lady charges one tenth the Victoria going rate of $20/hour, at 12 RmB's/hr. Daily cleaning and grocery shopping would cost about 1200 RmB's/month which right now is roughly $180.

Public toilets are normally the squat kind of ceramic holes in the floor, but condo toilets are all expensive dual flush. So many of the buildings look old and decrepid and just dirty, in contrast to the newer ones where everything is clean, shiny and worldclass. So much of the old is being demolished. The whole neighbourhood across from this building is becoming a pile of rubble. Who knows if the ocean view will be there for very long!

Sunday Feb 28

Walked up the mountain with Fataneh, an Iranian friend of hers who's studying International Law, and Marilyn. Same mountain - different path. All neatly laid cemented stones laid out in stairs of various elevations. We ended at a restaurant belonging to Marilyn's Chinese friends, who have welcomed the opportunity to have that very Asian idea of an "English corner" to attract clients.

Jim went there in the afternoon and was toured around by Caffe's husband, Ika. I went to Fataneh's, invited to an afternoon with other guests from California and Farideh, just returned from Macau with lots of news from friends there. I had to leave early to meet the others, to take the bus and BRT (rapid transit bus) to supper at the Little Sheep. Bus is a bargain here - 1 yuan, or 15 cents per trip. The only problem is, Jim can't take it - the step is too high - so he took a taxi with the guys.

Food was cooked in a "hot pot" on an induction element in the middle of the table - meat, dumplings, lettuce type greens, noodles, tofu. Delicious! Total cost of the 6 of us, $25. No tipping allowed. Best to arrive by 5pm. Marilyn and I stopped by the Walmart (pronounced Warma) near the BRT station to check out the wares. Got a large suitcase - need it to get stuff home.

More Ayyam-i-Ha gifts! We're given something each evening by our hosts.

Monday Mar 1

Jim and I took a taxi to Xiada Baicheng beach, where the board part of the boardwalk starts. Jim stayed at the coffee shop there and I walked (and took photos) for half an hour or so, as far as the Traffic Police Stn. and then back. The board walk is incredibly beautiful, and about 10km long, so I saw just a piece of it. There are beachfront residences and restaurants, but it's not terribly built up. Yet.

We visited Houlishan Fort, designed about 1893 by a German engineer in collaboration with the Qing dynasty. Lots of cannons and cacti, exhibits, great views & statues, for 20 kwai!

Another taxi ride to the Exhibition Centre - past miles of golden sand beaches on the right and huge, very attractive new apartment/condo buildings on the left. We asked for a restaurant, and were brought to a place that had live seafood (I have no idea what all those species are), in aquarium type containers which we were supposed to pick from. There were no menus, no prices, no pinyan anywhere, and the owners spoke as much English as we speak Chinese - i.e. none at all. When sign language got us confused glances, we had to beg off and go across the street. There they had pictures of food and prices on the wall, so we ate at outdoor tables next to the beach.

We figure we need a pocket translator or dictionary, and we also need a car! We passed on Taiwan Folk Village, too complicated with all these taxis, and went home - "Bo Wo Guan" gets us to the door in 3 syllables. It's the name of the museum next door.

Tuesday Mar 2

This morning was the beginning of the Fast, which isn't done when traveling, but we got up with the household for a sunrise breakfast. Marilyn has a collection of quotes and writings for each day of the Fast. The discussion went to the positive and negative qualities of "fire" as in the quote, "this Fire that blazeth and rageth in the world of creation..." A friend told me that according to First Nations tradition, each race was accorded an element, and that of the white race is fire, but the world is currently out of balance in terms of those elements and in terms of racial equality. In the quote it's taken as a positive power, but nothing is positive out of balance.

We caught the ferry to Gulangyu Island at 9am and spent the day there. It takes 5 minutes and no charge to get there, 8 kwai to leave. It took all day and we still didn't see everything there is to see, there's so much! Gulangyu has had no busses or cars or even bikes for hundreds of years. How they built the Asian-European architecture over such hilly terrain is a mystery. Lots of carts pulled by people who must have very sore wrists? I don't think I've ever climbed so many stairs.

The island had the highest per capita income level of anywhere outside of California in the early 20th century, around the time of the opium trade. Now it's reknowned for its quiet (no engines), its pianos and its birds, as well as its architecture. An electric car brings you to Shuzhuang Garden with a fabulous Piano Museum, seascape views and a maze of grottos. Then it's a climb to the summit, Sunlight Rock. We took a cable car down to the Aviary, with its up close and personal collection of birds, and then continued on down from there. It would be so much fun to come back here with a tour group! Nana Guest House has gorgeous room, from 220 to 760 RMB.

Wednesday Mar 3

We had lunch at Cafe and Ika's restaurant, where Marilyn does her English corner. Two bowls of curry, among all the kids from the neighbourhood school who lunch there for 6 kwai each - good, hot meals.

I went to the Botanical Garden while Jim had a foot message at the Peony Wanpeng Hotel across the street. The Gardens are enormous, backing onto the same Washi (?) mountains we'd climbed last week. There are several kilometres of paths, and I changed directions so many times I had only a vague idea of where the West Entrance was by the time I got to the Cactus and Succulent section - the largest collection in Asia. I'd climbed almost as many stone stairs as I had on Gulangyu, skipping the sections that required ducking under immense cavernous rocks with no sightline to the other side. I could see temples and hear music in the distance, but met no one. The park was almost empty. At times I'd come across small buildings that sold tea and drinks, the owners sweeping or watching TV, and I'd ask directions by pointing at the map, partly just for the pleasure of conversing with them. I wandered around for about 2 hours, stopping, taking photos, climbing.

I also had my feet done at the hotel afterwards, a pedicure in a huge room equipped with special plush seating, built in stainless steel vats for soaking the feet, soft towels and TVs. I was the only one there. The foot massage Jim got was 80 minutes, and the pedicure about 20, the same as the price in yuan.

We had supper at Amy's American friends, Shahin and Kerry, who have a gorgeous apartment near the BRT station & ferry to Gulangyu. Three bedrooms, tiled balcony with a view, another city view balcony off the kitchen, immense living room, furnished, for less than a one bedroom in Victoria. Shahin had spent months doing the paperwork to set up his own business and was quite willing to share the information with us if needed. Another option is to study Chinese at the university, for 6000 to 8000 RMB a semester. The best and easiest way to get a visa though, is to teach English. A medical test is required for everyone except tourists.

We visited with Cafe and Ika at their restaurant afterwards, drinking sweet coffee and learning basic numbers and the pinyan alphabet. Our staples up to this point have been Hello (ni hao) and thank you (xia xia, pronounced shay shay).

Thursday Mar 4

A Baha'i couple named Charles and Julie moved into the centre of Xiamen about the same time as we arrived. Charles, who bilingual and has an automatic visa because he's from Hong Kong, will be teaching at the technology college in Jimei. We talked about Xiamen and walked around the area of Ruijing. Enormous complexes are springing up there, like glass palaces nestled into the mountains, a short walk away from the craziness of the big box stores and hundreds of street shops.

Jim bought a classical guitar for Amy as a thank you gift in one of the small stores, where the owner played the piano to entertain himself and passers by. He bargained in the case and a new set of strings as well as a better price.

We took the BRT there and back - bus rapid transit, on an overhead dedicated roadway, still just 1 yuan (15 cents) each way. I also wanted to find buttons so we asked people and they pointed the way to a specialty shop. The buttons were the same price as the bus and I didn't bother to bargain, because they're $1.50 each in Victoria. We met a couple visiting from South Africa on the way back. She was in a wheelchair - the first we've seen here. Her husband must have been doing a lot of lifting. We also met a girl from Hungary who's lived in China for 5 years teaching English to preschoolers and loves it.

Friday Mar 5

We fixed up our resumes in the morning, fitting them on one page each, and made a few copies. Charles had suggested bringing one to Nanyang College. We took the BRT to Cai Tang stop, found the college, found someone to translate (after a group of about 7 or 8 had gathered), and then found that the Foreign Language Dept is at another campus... Oh well. We looked around the Biology Garden at the same stop. Newly made stone paths and decorative walls, groves of eucalyptus and trees I didn't recognize... and what looked like community gardens. The difference was the community around the gardens. Tin roofs, plastic buckets, chickens, and no garbage collection by the looks of it.

We got back on the bus and headed towards a rendez-vous with Anoosh, who I'd met Sunday. Unfortunately, we got on #2 bus instead of #1 bus, and ended up a couple of km from the appointed place. So we walked back to meet Anoosh, who met us half way (thank goodness for Marilyn's cell phone) and took us to Jimei University. He brought us to the correct office in the main tower and we dropped off a couple of resumes. By this time Jim was pooped, so we went back to Anoosh's apartment. Quite a nice place, but 6 storey buildings in China don't require an elevator, and he lives on the 5th floor of one.

It was a wonderful afternoon. Anoosh told us about his father, now 89, who had been emprisoned for 3 months about a year after the 1979 revolution in Iran, and had avoided execution by escape through a water pipe that became blocked with debris, almost drowning him. Supper with Anoosh was followed by dessert at home with Steve and Amy's study circle friends, all young English-speaking Chinese. Talk turned to the Fast, with many questions. It's nice to be able to speak openly about such things. Such occasions are quite common here.

Saturday Mar 6

Took a taxi to the touristy Marco Polo area, walked around the park there, and visited Apple Travel, near the Marco Polo Hotel. It's 400 RMB to rent a car for half a day and you need one day's advance notice. The driver comes with the car because a valid Chinese driver's license is required. A normal taxi is 8RMB base charge and 2RMB each additional km so it would take about 200 km in a taxi to equal the cost of a car rental here. We'd been thinking of visiting the Haichang area, where houses can be rented for much cheaper than apartments on the island. (Xiamen is connected by a few bridges to the mainland.)

We'd noticed there was much less traffic in Jimei, since it's off the island. The driving is still crazy - the taxi drivers drive the way people normally walk in crowds, dodging and squeezing and moving in spurts and starts, missing people by inches. The taxis, like all vehicles, miss cars and people by inches. It's important to know that pedestrians DON'T have the right of way here. As soon as you get that straight, there are no surprises. Vehicles squeeze between people on crosswalks all the time, and crossing the street is a constant game of chicken. It wasn't as scary to do as it looks from above, because the cars can't move too fast in the traffic.

We also visited Carrefour on Saturday, a huge shopping district named after the French store, got a little gift for Steve, and put money on Marilyn's cell. Later in the afternoon I went down to Trustmart and got a couple of scarfs for $5. There are dozens of stores that sell scarfs here - mostly for 10 RMBs each ($1.50). But the leather purses were the equivalent of $70, so not everything is a real deal.

Amy and I visited Nice Day, an expat food shop back in the Marco Polo district, later in the evening. She needed Crisco for vegan cookies - $9! There's an odd collection of whatever goods you can't find in China there - from Nutella to Sunmaid raisins.

Sunday Mar 7

The cleaning lady finally arrived today, after the long New Years and Lantern Festival holidays. Last year Amy had cleaning done every day and learned Chinese in the process. Here it costs one tenth of the Victoria standard price of $20/hour. Cooking and grocery shopping can be included. In tidying up, I checked the ticket, and found that we're not leaving tomorrow. We're leaving today. We leave from Xiamen 7:45pm, leave Hong Kong 1am on the 8th of March, and arrive in Vancouver 8:20pm on the 7th of March - today! We just contacted Dave in Vancouver, and Deanna in Victoria, so they wouldn't be expecting to pick us up a day later... Good think I checked that ticket!

One last walk...

It's definitely a land of contrasts. And continual, very fast change - I'll bet half of what we're seeing will no longer be there in a few years. Whole neighbourhoods are being razed to the ground everywhere around us, and replaced by skyscrapers. Cafe tells us the government is required to find housing for whoever is displaced. Across the street from our apartment, the last of many old, ramshackle buildings are going down as we watch. The buildings going up are amazing - beautiful, very creative architecture, inside and out. Each one is unique. The apartments have layers and lighting and features on the ceilings and walls that constantly add interest, including the woodwork when it's to be found. Almost everything is stone/marble/granite/metal, very solidly built. At night, most downtown buildings form a light display, colours and patterns everywhere.