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Published: August 23rd 2009
This has become very touching. Lisa explained to me before I ever bought a plane ticket that when I come to China, I will have to go to Chengdu and meet her 'elder sister' Wang Jian and her parents. She tells me that these parents are like a mother and father to her. Now I had chatted with Wang Jian on the Internet months ago and of course it was Wang Jian and her daughter that put us together so there already was some affinity.
And I meet her parents on Saturday morning and have dinner with them on Saturday night along with Wang Jian's brother and it seems that this is a very kind and generous family with much affection for Lisa. They also recognize my frustration with no Internet access of any kind and with the telephone switcheroo, there isn't a soul outside of China save for Jing Jing who called Saturday morning that knows I am still alive. So we are brainstorming ways that I can get Internet access and they are bending over backwards to accommodate me which makes me feel even worse because now I am feeling as though I am just a big PITA
Nice grounds
Giant Panda Breeding Research Baseto them. Wang Jian's brother is changing his work schedule, her sister and husband come over Saturday night to drive us back home because they don't want us to take a taxi. So now that I finally have Internet access, I can't possibly use it because I can't be so rude to ignore them while I am uploading what I have already prepared. I have to have a better system.
Wang Jian's sister's husband invites us to dinner the following night and of course this I cannot say no to and their son wants to join us for our tour which was 3 places, the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, Sanxingdui Museum and a Buddhist temple that escapes me.
Now if I am vague on names that's because I am not told names because I am not supposed to use names. If that sounds confusing to you...wait. We are smack dab in the middle of Chinese etiquette where the younger sister cannot call their elders by the names. So I can call her Wang Jian because we are friends, Lisa cannot, she can only call her older sister Wang. Likewise for Wang Jian's brother and sister and her
Panda
he's there...but pretty far parents. So I am not given any names at all. Obviously I cannot call them brother or sister nor can I call them aunt or uncle or niece or nephew (because I am older). This is my dilemma only made easy because they really don't speak any English anyway.
Off we go again after another night of too little sleep and too early start (pickup was 7:15 today) and the trip was long with pickups and finally we arrive at the Giant Panda Breeding Research Center which was a bore. The humidity was stultifying, the pandas were sleeping it off, the baby panda in the nursery couldn't be photographed and the walk exhausting.
On to the Sanxingdui Museum which was interesting enough...jade weaponry, earthenware, bronzes, face masks and gold from between 4000 BC to 2500 BC. But the sun popped out and I am told that I must have brought the sun with me from Phoenix and I couldn't imagine any worse luck because the humidity has been killing me and when you toss the summer sun into the mix, walking was killing us all. Mercifully, this part of the tour ended and we went to lunch somewhere,
another sleeper
hard to believe that we spent 2 hours driving to see 2 adults sleeping, 1 baby panda eating in a glass shielded booth and a newborn that you couldn't photograph who knows where for another fabulous Sichuan meal.
There was little interest in all 3 of us to continue the exhausting tour so we short toured the Buddhist temple and got dropped off at the main computer market in Chengdu before dinner so I could get a wireless Internet setup for the next 3 weeks. This was a peculiar Chinese experience. Every brand you can think of has a sales counter and demonstration area, all prices are negotiable and perhaps it's just my impression that there is no such thing as a simple sales transaction in China. The first brand we stop at tells us 600 yuan for 2 months of Internet access (3G, anywhere China Telecom has equipment). I pull out my wallet to surrender. Lisa of course thinks this is obscene but I try to explain to her that our lack of mobility, my need to have some connection to my customers if need be and my general state of complete exhaustion says I would pay twice as much at this point. So 5 more sales counters, each with a 10 minute negotiation finally gets us our bargain at 590 yuan ( about $88). Are we good
Eating baby
glass so you couldn't use a flash to go? No, apparently everything is unboxed and tested before we leave. But we are still not done because I know we really need a printer because we want to fill out the immigration forms and print them so she can sign them while I am still in China. She thinks we can just go to an Internet cafe to print them but I know that dog won't hunt because you need Adobe Acrobat, you can't save them on one computer and print them on another and so I've been telling her that we need a printer. She is of the opinion that printers are very expensive but Canon has a reasonable printer for 360 yuan (about $53). I tell her for simplicity sake, we will buy it and she can keep it (evidently she is one of many people in China who never buy a printer for their computer). But of course they have to open it, unpack it, install the ink cartridges and print test pages which adds another 20 minutes to the process. An extra black ink cartridge is another 40 yuan ($6) and I tell her make sure that we get that too. So a long
Sanxingdui Museum
ultra modern museum of some very, very, very old excavations conversation ensues and by the time I am given my change, I know that we did not buy the ink cartridge because of the change. I asked her as we were leaving why she did not get the extra ink cartridge and she told me that they were out of them. I am still scratching my head as to why it took a 5 minute conversation to find out that they didn't have any ink cartridges but I'll just chalk it up to China.
But the best part was dinner. After an exhausting day of long car rides, hot and humid sightseeing and a mind boggling 2 hours in the computer 'store' we are now trying to hail a taxi to get to dinner. No such luck. We are in the middle of the street for nearly 30 minutes and when you are talking about China streets, that is not a place to have your attention wander. Finally the 3 of us get 2 motorized bicycles to take us there and we arrive sweaty and tired.
Apparently Wang Jian's brother-in-law is very successful attorney in Chengdu and we arrive at some building where there are uniformed women at
both doors when you enter, one to direct us up the stairs, one at the top of the stairs, one at each turn in the halls and 2 in the private dining room of what clearly is one of Chengdu's more fancy restaurants. We get about 10 minutes for tea, relaxation and pictures and then dinner. A hot wash cloth was delivered (and gratefully accepted). Tea is non-stop, a French Bordeaux is poured and dinner keeps coming and coming. Fish in sweet sauce, frogs, duck feet and many, many dishes. Once again, I am complimented on my ability to use chopsticks which I point out that you don't get a large tummy like mine if you don't know how to eat. There was a taro filled deep fried roll that was incredible and they do great things with cucumbers. It's spicy but so far, 4 days in Sichuan, nothing is spicier than I can handle including the green peppers.
But the whole experience was incredible from the gold lame napkins to the glass turntable in the middle, the famous Chengdu tea and of course I am not going to get a better dinner in Chengdu, that is for sure.
Then we drive to their home...
This was on the 18th floor, the top floor and it's simply beautiful. It appears to be white ash wood floors, stone steps and hall to the bedrooms, 18 foot ceilings, glass panels on the walls and incredibly modern. I was asked how much a condo like that would cost in America and I told them that I can only estimate in Phoenix and of course the value would depend upon where and I wasn't entirely sure of the neighborhood in Chengdu but I am assuming that it would not be an unfair comparison to Biltmore Fashion Square and probably 1 million dollars which they found incomprehensible.
This clearly was a day to remember...oh, the wireless Internet, it's working but not without some difficulty as Lisa was tired and Windows is Windows.
家庭，旅游和难以置信的经验
这已经成为非常动人。琳霏解释之前，我曾经买了机票，当我来到中国给我，我会去成都，满足她的'姐姐'王健和她的父母。她告诉我说，这些父母像一位母亲和她的父亲。现在我聊了与Internet上月王健前，当然这是王健和她的女儿，把我们联系在一起，使他们已经有了一些亲和力。
我星期六上午举行会议，她的父母，并在周六晚上晚餐与他们一起王健的弟弟，似乎这是一个非常友好和与琳霏更多的关爱慷慨的家庭。他们还认识到，没有任何形式的互联网接入和电话switcheroo我的挫折，没有一个是中国以外的灵魂储存荆迹嗯所谓谁知道今天早上，我还活着。因此，我们集思广益的方法，我可以上网，他们竭尽全力来照顾我，使我感到更加糟糕，因为现在我感觉好像我只是一个大太平洋岛屿电信给他们。王健的弟弟正在改变他的工作日程，她的妹妹和丈夫在周六晚上来推动我们回家，因为他们不希望我们乘坐出租车。所以，现在，我终于上网，我不可能使用它，因为我不能这么粗鲁不理会他们，而我上传我已经做好准备。我有一个更好的系统。
王健的姊妹的丈夫请我们吃饭，当然，第二天晚上，这我不能说没有和他们的儿子想加入我们的巡回赛，我们是3地方，大熊猫繁育研究基地，三星堆博物馆和佛教寺庙脱离了我。
现在，如果我暧昧的名字，因为没有人告诉我，因为我不应该使用的名称。如果这听起来有点困惑你...等。我们拍击民建联在中国礼仪中如不能妹妹的名字称呼他们的长辈。因此，我可以打电话给她王健，因为我们是朋友，琳霏不能，她只能打电话给她姐姐王。对王健的弟弟和妹妹，她的父母同样。因此，我没有给任何名字的。很明显，我不能叫他们兄弟或姐妹，也可以称之为或叔叔或姑姑，侄子侄女（因为我老）。这是我的困境的唯一容易起来，因为他们真的不无论如何不会讲英语。
起飞后，我们又来了另一个晚上睡眠太少和过早开始（皮卡是今天7:15）和行程很长的皮卡，最后我们在大熊猫繁育研究中心是一孔到达。湿度是僵化的，正在睡觉的大熊猫其关闭，在托儿所的熊猫宝宝不能拍照和行走吃力。
到三星堆博物馆是很有趣...玉武器，陶器，青铜器，面罩和黄金，从公元前4000年至公元前2500年。不过，太阳冒出来，我说，我必须没有带我从菲尼克斯太阳，我无法想象任何坏运气，因为湿度已被杀害我，当你扔到混合夏日阳光，步行是杀害我们大家。幸运的是，这一行的一部分结束，我们去吃饭的地方，谁知道在另一个神话般四川吃饭。
在所有有3对我们没有兴趣继续用尽短期旅游，所以我们参观了寺，得到下降得在晚饭前在成都主要电脑市场，使我能得到一个未来3个星期无线上网设置。这是一个奇特的中国经验。每一个品牌你能想到的有一个销售柜台和示范区，所有的价格是可以商量的，也许这只是我的印象是，没有一个简单的销售在中国这种交易的事。第一品牌，我们停在2告诉我们互联网接入（3G领域，月600元，各地中国电信设备）。我取出钱包投降。琳当然霏认为这是色情，但我试图向她解释，我们缺乏流动性，我需要有一些我的客户连接，如果需要的话，我完全枯竭的总体状况，我说在这一点上付出的两倍。因此，5个销售柜台，以10分钟的谈判，终于得到我们的谈判在590元（约88元）我们每个人。我们好去？不，显然一切都装箱和测试，然后才离开。但我们仍然没有这样做，因为我知道我们真的需要一台打印机，因为我们要填写移民表格和打印出来，让她可以登录他们，而在中国，我依然。她认为，我们可以直接去网吧打印他们，但我知道，狗不会打猎，因为你需要Adobe Acrobat，您不能保存在一台计算机并打印在另一他们，所以我一直告诉她我们需要一台打印机。她认为，打印机是佳能非常昂贵，但有一个360元（约$ 53）合理打印机的意见。我告诉她为了简单起见，我们会买它，她可以将它（显然她是在中国很多人一买谁不为他们的计算机一台打印机）。但是，他们当然要打开它，它解压缩，安装墨盒和打印测试页中添加了另外20分钟的过程。一个额外的黑色墨盒是另一种40元（$ 6），我告诉她，确保我们得到的太多。所以，一次长谈随之而来，由我给我改变的时候，我知道我们没有买，因为这种变化墨盒。我问她，因为我们正准备离开她为什么没有得到额外的墨盒，她告诉我，他们离开他们。我仍然搔着我的头为什么花了5分钟的交谈，发现他们没有任何的墨盒，但是我就粉笔它的中国。
但最好的部分是晚餐。经过一个长的汽车游乐设施，炎热潮湿的观光和令人震惊2的计算机'店'，我们现在要招呼出租车去吃饭时用尽天。没有这样的运气。我们在街上近30分钟中，当你在谈论中国的街道，这不是一个地方有你注意漂移。最后，我们获得3电动自行车2带我们到达那里，我们汗和厌倦。
显然王健的弟弟，今年已是非常成功的律师在成都，我们在一些建筑物到达那里两地都是门进入时，穿制服的女性，一个直接的，我们上了楼梯，在楼梯，一前一在展厅中的每一个转折，二中的，显然是成都市多的豪华饭店一包房。我们得到大约10个茶叶，放松和图片，然后晚餐分钟。阿热毛巾擦拭是交付（并欣然接受）。茶是未停，法国波尔多的不断涌入和晚餐未来和未来。甜汁鱼，青蛙，鸭脚和很多很多菜。再次，我称赞我的能力，使用筷子，我指出的是，你不会像我这样大的肚子，如果你不知道怎么吃。有一个充满油炸芋头卷这是不可思议的，他们做黄瓜伟大的事情。它的辣，但到目前为止，4天在四川，没有什么比我辣能处理包括青椒。
但整个过程，令人难以置信，从黄金跛脚餐巾的玻璃中间转盘，成都著名的茶，当然我不会得到一个更好的晚宴在成都，这是肯定的。然后，我们开车到了自己的家...
这是在18楼的顶层，它只是美丽。这似乎是白色的灰木地板，石阶大厅，卧室，18英尺高的天花板的墙壁，玻璃面板和令人难以置信的现代化。有人问我多少钱这样的成本在美国，我告诉他们，我只能估计，当然凤凰的价值将取决于那里，我并没有完全在成都附近的肯定，但我的假设公寓它不会是一个不公平的比较比尔特莫时尚广场，大概100万美元，他们认为这不可理解。
这显然是一个值得纪念的日子...哦，无线互联网，它的工作，但没有有些琳霏没有困难的疲惫和Windows是Windows。
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jen
non-member comment
glad you're alive
I can certainly relate to the exhaustion of traveling...it seems like you're handling it all pretty well. Remember to soak it up and enjoy it all while you can. It will fly by. I knew you should've worked out though to prepare! A new hair color and a promise to walk an hour a day! hmmm....what you do for a woman! Keep enjoying your time. I'm glad you're happy and your days are filled with new experiences. Love, Jen