Dispatch from China: the Last Four Months and Entering the Final Two

It's been 4 months since my last post and now find myself in a totally different mindset.  The better part of a year has now passed and Cameron and I have carried on through it all with light hearts, though occasionally weighed down by homesickness, anxiety over the future, and longing for old familiar freedoms and comforts.  But, reading through my last post, I feel a stark difference in my perspective, like I wrote without really taking the time to read into some of my words. But looking at the metaphorical Book of My Life now, I can see that those words have already revised themselves, and they evoke a character that seems to waver much less in the wind of desire.

Because this is a blog rather than a journal, I won't go into much detail on the criticisms or feelings I bear towards my past perspectives, instead just remark that, for one of the first times in my life I've got a real sense of having made a recognizable jump from where I was just a few months ago. I'm glad to step away from the past and feel improved, but am thankful for having had the time and introspection to pass through it honestly.  These times, good and bad, have given me a calm confidence that I'm on the right track, with the right guy, and at the right time. Moreover, I have an understanding of how my primary experiences - living with Cameron, being a teacher, working in a well-established English school in China, learning Chinese, forming relationships with locals and other foreigners- have acted as a mirror, allowing me to see and reflect on myself, my relationships, and what qualities and interests I've got that I'll want to continue to develop in the coming years. Time has flown by, but it's certainly not been a waste.

But enough with the musing! On with the catching you up on our experiences.  It's been months, and life here has been anything but boring.

Hundred Step Beach at Putuo Shan

Back in August, we had a week off which we spent  exploring a few tourist spots within Zhejiang province. We started with a couple days by the sea, taking in the sacred Buddhist island of PutuoShan
with it's beautiful temples, beaches and crowds of Chinese tourists. This was the first tourist spot we visited where we were one of the only foreigners we saw. For the two days we were there, it felt like
for every picture that we took, another was being taken of us, without our consent, or else being burned into someone's memory as they would stop midstride to stare, transfixed, as we passed them in the street.  Although we arrived as simple tourists, we felt like we were one of the most eye-catching of the local sights for tourists to admire, and we were the ones paying the most to be there!

Some of the beautiful architecture surrounding
the Temple Compounds at Putuo Shan

Outside one of the Temples at Putuo Shan

(Everything on the island was almost 4 times as expensive as in Shaoxing, and we had to pay an entrance fee considerably higher than the locals just to get onto the island after the ferry ride.)


After that, we went to Hangzhou, our province's capital and biggest city, and it was delightful. We rented bikes and took several trips to different areas, including the famed and beautiful West Lake, the intriguing, maze-like back alleys, as well as to some fantastic restaurants, cafés and shopping streets. We stayed at a fantastic hostel that was super cozy and, most importantly, provided us with some much needed pet therapy via the

One of many gorgeous teahouses lining the famous West Lake
in Hangzhou

resident border collie and her three, 6-week old puppies, as well as a stray orange kitten, even younger than the puppies, which they had recently rescued.  It was there that we also made a new German friend named Gregor, who was traveling solo and so easy to get along that we invited him to come out with us when went out (for "American Food" - still feels weird that I'm saying that, and yes the burgers and Caesar salad were delicious) to meet up with my modelling friend Nanda and her boyfriend and his friend. We had so much fun that night and relished the opportunity to hang out with a whole group of fun, interesting, easygoing English speakers - and at a fun bar full of fellow "laowai" (foreigners) too! It was such a great time, the only part that sucked was that it had to end and we had to leave Hangzhou the next day. But, we decided we liked

Our Welsh friend George (L) and German houseguest Gregor (R)

Gregor so much that we invited him to come to Shaoxing and stay with us for a few days before he headed north to his eventual departure city of Beijing. And good thing we did, because we had a lovely time showing him around all the best spots we know about in our town.

Then, at the end of September we had the Wedding.  Our first Chinese wedding, and one that we'd been looking forward to for a while as we'd heard stories of the amazing culinary spectacle that was the Chinese wedding dinner. Our friend, Chinese teacher and colleague, Toto, was getting married and had invited us to come months before, while strictly forbidding us to bring a gift -monetary or otherwise- only requiring that we sing a song for her and her guests. Well, as luck would have it, 2 days before the wedding, Cameron and I couldn't agree on a song for our duet debut, ( he wanted "Help!" by the Beatles, but I felt "the Good Good" by Snoop Lion would be better) so we decided to compromise and do both. When the wedding day, or rather, wedding evening  (ceremonies typically start at 6:08 or 6:18pm - the "luckiest" time) arrived, we were  surprised with the news that our performance was scheduled to be the last - and most anticipated - event on the post-nuptials program. They thought they were saving the best for last, but they thought wrong.

Only a fraction of the feast our table saw that night.

The whole wedding, from start to finish, lasted less than 3 hours. When we arrived at the hotel venue, we were greeted by the bride and groom to be before quickly being seated at our dinner table along with a few of our female colleagues from work. Soon after, the lights dimmed and the voice of Enya began serenading us as a spotlight drew our gazes to the entrance of the large banquet hall, where Toto glided into the room and towards the stage where her smiling groom waited. Fifteen minutes later, they'd exchanged their vows, bowed to each other a couple times, cut the cake and poured a bottle of champagne over a tower of glasses, and the ceremony was over. Immediately, a dozen plates of all sorts of delicious Chinese food appeared on the enormous lazy Susan atop our table.  The service staff brought at least 30 family style dishes to our table of 8 alone that night, and we were only one of around 30 similarly sized tables in the room. So that gives you an idea of how much food was served for this wedding, and how important a role it plays in the wedding itself. I kind of felt bad at the end of the meal looking at all the food that was leftover, seeing that how much was there could still satisfy at least another 7 people. Yet, the majority of it would surely be tossed in the trash as soon as it left the room. We were told that in Chinese culture, to serve copious (some might say gluttonous) amounts of food to guests is an auspicious act, because it indicates great prosperity and generosity, which equates to having good "face", a foundational value for living in Chinese society.

Chinese weddings are different from western ones in a lot of ways, but at no part was it more obvious than in the reception. There were no speeches, dancing, tossing of the bouquet, not even a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of the couple! Really, all it consisted of was the eating, while the bride and groom moved from table to table (with a bar caddy trailing them) to drink with every one of their guests (well, the groom has a shot of whatever alcohol the imbibing guest suggests, and the bride takes a shot of pop or juice - it's frowned upon for Chinese girls to drink because it's "not elegant"). Then, there were the performances by a handful of other guests singing various types of Chinese opera songs, and suddenly, we were up. The grand finale to the night. Oh boy.
Our first song, Help!, we basically bombed from the first verse, though with the second tune we achieved a bit of a redemption, but it was still pretty rough. Unfortunately (and hilariously), it was fairly easy to tell how off we were because we hadn't managed to find instrumental tracks for them to play along with our beautiful singing, and so the original songs (with lyrics) were playing all through both performances, highlighting our every mistake with cheer. Luckily, we had a very forgiving audience, who for the most part had no idea what we were singing and were just loved our performance for the sheer novelty of it, so we finished off our final song to a rousing applause and a flurry of photos. And Toto loved it so much she gave us each a stuffed animal and a bouquet - hers and her bridesmaids!

A couple days later, we were off to Shanghai for a special visit - Cameron's dad was coming to China for a week to see us! We arrived a day earlier than he so we could pick him up at the airport, but also so that we could have the chance meet up with an old friend of mine from highschool - Nathan Bertsch! He is also teaching in China but in another city, and just happened to be travelling to

Shanghai for the National Holiday. It was a stroke of luck that we were able to meet for just a few hours after we got off the train from Shaoxing and before had to catch his to go back to the province where he's instructing. His was the first familiar face I've seen in China (besides Cameron) in 8 months. It was so lovely catching up with him, chatting nonstop about our experiences while on the subway from the train station where he met us and over lunch at a delicious Vietnamese bistro in the trendy Xintiandi district. The entire 3 hours we were able to spend together went by like 30 minutes, and I relished the rare opportunity to engage in an easy, interesting face to face conversation with a good friend. Oh, the things I never knew I would come to miss so much about Canada! It made me realize all the more how much I miss my friends from home - can't wait to see you when we get back!!!! But yes, Nathan was great and just as excited to see us as I was to see him. He's spent the last 6-7 months here living on his own while tutoring some missionary kids from Canada living in Yunnan, and in September began teaching English at a university in another province. We could have gone on talking for days with him, but settle for an optimistic "See you soon" in the hopes that he'd be able to come visit us in Shaoxing before we leave. No word on that yet, but there's always a chance :)

Then of course came our raison d'être en Shanghai - Dear Dennis! It was all love and laughs, with numerous massages and days of indulgence in luxury at the Marriott hotel in the heart of downtown
Shanghai. We hardly left the hotel for the first two days he was here actually, as we were so perfectly happy just to just sit together and catch up over drinks and whatever snacks were being served in the hotel's executive lounge. Eventually we did go out to eat - some delectable fresh oysters and white wine at Osteria, yummy Japanese udon at Cafe Dan, and of course we had to take him for the most exquisite dumplings in China at Din Tai Fung. On one occasion when Dennis was wanting to stay

back at the hotel for the afternoon,  I led Cameron on a little quest to reconnect with my roots - a journey to a bistro my Dad first recommended we try out the first time we were in Shanghai back in January, and I hadn't been really interested. The place is called Tock's and it's an authentic Montreal smoked meat deli - one of my Dad's favourite kind of restaurant (which he sadly can't find in Edmonton these days) and an icon of French Canadian cuisine.  Their specialty is melt-in-your-mouth smoked meat sandwiches with mustard on fresh rye bread with homemade coleslaw and French fries. We ordered one to share as well as a food coma-inducing smoked meat poutine along with a glass of California Cabernet. Oh, c'etait tellement bon!

The rest of the week was great, and we even found time to visit Yuyuan garden (much less busy this time, but also less exciting cause we didn't have to push our way across the pond bridge to to get to the entrance gate) and do a boat tour along the Huangpu river to see the famous architecture that lines its banks. We also got to experience a bit of an early Christmas as Trish had packed Dennis's luggage full of wrapped gifts for us :) Chocolate galore, as well as some bath products and nice ear rings + a necklace for me, and a touching framed poem, coffee and scotch for Cammy - plus a fantastic bottle of white wine, laced with ice wine which we're going to save for Christmas :D Thanks again, Dennis and Trish! Unbelievable generosity and love <333

It was an emotional day when we had to say goodbye to Dennis. We both gave him big bear hugs before he went through security, and Cameron could only get in a couple "I'll miss you and I love you"s before I could see them both start leaking from their eyes.  Then, with a brisk pat on the shoulder, Dennis turned for the gates. And that was that. Back to the unspecified, distant "see you later"...

Cameron at the Halloween Party

After returning to Shaoxing, we enjoyed another 3 weeks of the gorgeous, warm fall weather, and a fun weekend of Halloween celebrations for the kids at our school (three days, 9 "parties" for 30 kids at a time, in which I had to do a couple of magic tricks and a Halloween ppt presentation, sit around for an hour, then give out candies to the kids who said "trick or treat" to me) before the winter winds arrived earlier this month. And Cameron turned 25! We celebrated with homemade M&M and kinder chocolate chunk cookies (he's not a cake guy), a special salmon with puréed eggplant dinner I concocted, followed up the next day by a dinner at his favourite "all you can eat" hotpot place.

Although Cameron wasn't too keen on being woken up early on his birthday weekend, nor the (moderate!) cost of us getting there, I also took him on a day trip to a well-known nearby mountain called Chuanyan Shijiu Fen or "Nineteen Peaks" outside a town called Xinchang. And of course all his cool skepticism melted away as soon as we stepped out of the cab at the park gates.

Nineteen Peaks

Chuanyan Shijiu Fen - "Nineteen Peaks"

The peaks were stunning.

 Not grandiose like the Rockies, but rising like spires out of the valley, opposite some more traditional low-elevation mountains dotted with terraced tea plantations and clusters of tiny mountain villages. We prefaced our expedition with a hefty but yummy lunch on the sunny patio of one of the restaurants at the foot of the mountain path before beginning the steep but surprisingly short ascent up the stairs to the peaks. (It's is common for scenic "hikes" in China to be equipped with stairs. The government wants to make them accessible as possible so that they can make more money off of entrance ticket sales. Nature is a apparently a cash cow in a country of over 1
billion). We enjoyed getting to spend more time at the top exploring the numerous peaks than it took us to go up and down combined, not to mention the gorgeous views of the valleys and rivers on surrounding the mountain.

And now we find ourselves at the final two-month mark of our time in Shaoxing. I'm increasingly aware of how fast the time is going to pass leading up to our departure, so I've been excitedly pouring over travel blogs and websites about various must-see spots in
China, Thailand, Vietnam, and India that we might want to see on our travels. This, in addition to the boring but crucial conundrum of getting our money out of our Chinese bank, and into another, more travel friendly one, adding a 30-day Chinese tourist visa onto our passports, and having a special Canadian house guest over in early December means we've still got lots to do before we go!

I'll have another post for you, likely around Christmas, with more details about our travel plans. In the mean time, I think it's time I wrap this up because I have an adorable but ferocious cafe kitten named Mocha trying to eat my fingers as I type this...

Until next time,
Julie in China