Advertisement
Published: September 2nd 2011
Photo 2
Chinese toothpaste, front. Note the green "pom-pom" (actually an illustration of pine...DUH) The sun has made an appearance! Hallelujah! You can't see it, but trust me, I AM doing a happy dance! LOL Also, it helps that I just spent 45 minutes skyping with Aiden and Harley and have an update on with what they have been up to. I am lying on my bed, so happy to have internet here in the apartment now, and thinking about how it is so interesting that I have the temperature on my room air conditioning set to 25 degrees celsius and am feeling that this is cool. !!! Did you just fall over? Oh, sorry. LOL, Yes, this is me...what a shocker, eh? Yup, this feels cool. I actually sleep with it about 23 Celsius and stay under my quilt all night long feeling good. No, really! I can hardly believe it myself. I am going to be in so much trouble when I return at the end of November aren't I? LMAO! Oh well, that's much, much later.
In talking with Aiden and Harley this morning (evening for them), I was sharing some of the glaringly different things here which are a bit hard to take. Number 1, is the smell. There are
Photo 3
CHinese toothpaste, back. Note the pine trees. Also, DUH! LOL so many awful, putrid, gut-wrenching smells here...you are all VERY lucky this is not a scratch and sniff blog. Lol If it were, you would be retching. I kid you not. It reminds me of Mexico. Heavy, strong and absolutely hitting you in the face and doubling you over at times. I cannot count the number of times I have been walking along and have had to just stop breathing. Hopefully, I don't pass out on some street corner. Yikes! LOL Sanitary conditions here are not great. On the way to Gulong Yu yesterday we encountered a man peeing off the overpass (yes, in broad daylight) ONTO the cars and buses below. I did a double take. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. People let their little ones squat in the streets to urinate or defecate. Yes, you read that right. I saw it with my own eyes. I couldn't help but stare. All I could think of was the disease that might create, and I have to say, I am blowing through my collection of hand sanitizer in a pretty rapid fashion. Good thing Elise, my new friend and Ed's wife, said she has a large collection of
Photo 4
Close up of the green "pom-pom" it left behind by guests. I will be tucking into her supply. That being said, for the last few days, as we have slogged through rainy streets, all that bacteria coating our legs, I have come home and showered and scrubbed my feet and body thoroughly to ensure that I've left no trace of the streets on me before I crawl into my cozy bed. Ewww. I had a scary moment at the school also. Seems the toilets are not all sit-down. Yeah. I just stared at it in complete dismay. I had to ask my compadre, Diane, bless her heart, oh, how she laughed at me and my reaction and horrified face, how to use the thing. I used it backwards. I peed on myself. Ewwww. SOOOOOO, not fun. My aim is not too good. I am a girl, though. Never needed to work on my aim before. Seems my new skills are going to include some never before tried urination and erm, other, techniques. Ew, ew, EEEWWWW! Wah. 😞 LOL Who knew? Another reason it would be great to be male here. AND, AND, I am supposed to bring my own toilet paper with me on outings. Seriously.
Photo 5
Close up of the back. It shows pine boughs and and a forest and a notebook. ???? Bring your own a-- wipe because it is not supplied in the public toilets, which absolutely reek to high heaven. I used one in Gulong Yu yesterday, and again, Diane saved me. "Just don't breathe when you first walk in!", was what she said. Damn good advice. Inside of the smelly cavern were women squatting over the awful floor toilets, stall doors WIDE OPEN. WIDE OPEN! OMG! I almost ran right there thinking, "I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this!" Elise told me a story about how in some places there aren't even cublicles for privacy, and how the Chinese would come to "watch" the foreigner do their business. Well, I almost keeled over right there and then! OMG. No. I will hold it in, I will soil myself before it gets to that. Ewwwww. I feel dirty just writing it! LMAO.
Bleach, is my new best friend. Oh yeah, baby. I had been brushing my teeth with the tap water, when Ed informed me that he doesn't to this day, and he's been here for years. REALLY? REALLY? Ed, I wish you'd have told me that before, JEZUZ! We have a water cooler in our apartment now, and a kettle and I've been using those. BUT, we have no hot water with which to wash dishes, so I have been adding bleach to each wash and using bleach on the kitchen surfaces. Yup, bleach is MY friend. Those of you who know me well, know that I only use bleach when I have to. Well, I have to. Today, my stomach is just a bit off. Not terrible, but not good either. I think I'll stick around home and take it easy, with maybe just a quick trip to the food mart for some milk and bread. And Jo-Anne, thanks for talking me into bringing the over-the-counter meds. I have a feeling that they will be useful. I used some gravol last night to quell the quesiness. Eeesh.
Which brings me to the toothpaste. Yes, Jean, I really think it is toothpaste. At least, I sure hope so, lol, and it seems to work okay, but the taste? Not so yummy. It tastes like pine needles. Pine and mint. You do the math. I am not sure who thought that might be a yummy combo but he was wrong. REALLY, REALLY wrong. Lmao!
Deodorant. Not everybody wears it. According to Elise, that is also a relatively new phenomonon, deodorant, that is. Imagine being packed like sardines into buses (which we often are) and smelling bodies which have never even heard of using deodorant. Enough said.
Another glaring difference is that people here sneeze loudly, openly and often and then wipe their hands or noses on themselves, their hands, whatever. There is no sneezing into a sleeve. Nope. Manitoba Health should be proud. We are doing well at home. Never before have I been so aware of trying to keep my hands and body clean. I feel a bit like Howard Hughes, at times. Is that a BAD thing? LOL
And the men spit EVERYWHERE. The bottoms of our shoes must be teeming with bacteria, which is why we have been warned NOT to walk around in our apartments with our shoes on (AS IF!!) and to not allow others to do it either. Also, we were encouraged to wear indoor footwear, AT ALL TIMES in case the floor was dirty. I think we will be washing and disinfecting our floors again soon. Just because.
Many people, especially the men, smoke and have black looking teeth. I am aware, each time someone smiles, how very lucky I am to have such good dental care and such beautiful teeth. Thanks to all my buddies down at Cholakis Dental. Lol. I appreciate you EVEN more these days. And, smoking seems to be permitted everywhere. The men were setting up our apartment and smoking and asked as an afterthougtht if I minded, and of course, I said, ''Yes, I do. Please don't and thanks.'' I could tell they were surprised but we are so used to clean air everywhere and they did ask.
These things, are perhaps, the roughest cultural differences to get used to, I think. Otherwise the people here are very friendly, kind, helpful and genuinely wonderful.
Jean, just for you, I have included pictures of the toothpaste. In retrospect, I believe one should never shop in a foreign country when one is jet-lagged cuz, if I had been thinking, the PINE TREE pictured on the toothpaste should have been my first HOT clue that maybe it was gonna taste a little bit like pine sol. Num, num! LMAO! NOT!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.142s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0702s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Pauline
non-member comment
Differences
Okay, so why don't you have your own GD toothpaste from home? HUH? There appears to be many similarities between China and South America albeit S. A. Being more advanced. Sounds like you are settling right in Carolyn. LOL Keep your chin up and a few other parts as well.