Papa Wurth and Jeremy Come to China

Life’s not easy in China and I wanted to make sure my father understood that. I never would have wanted it to happen this way though. Soon after arriving at the Hefei airport, we were forced to split up into two taxis due to the obscene amount of luggage and the personal pharmacy my father enjoys carrying alone. Taxi one consisted of me, and taxi two consisted of Papa Wurth and Jeremy. After telling the taxi driver, in Chinese, where to drop them off, I thought all was swell.

I started worrying a little bit after five minutes of waiting at the destination. I started to worry a lot after I saw their driver pull up without them onboard. He started yelling at me explaining I told him the wrong gate but then I politely reminded him that he heard wrong and when I corrected him he forgot the correction and still took them to the wrong gate. After chasing them down for what seemed like two hours in the freezing rain, I found them, right where they were supposed to be—the Guest House.

Great way to start off the journey in China I thought. They learned quickly the fact of China that few people speak English and even fewer know how to get anywhere outside of a one mile radius of their home. It’s fair to say that the mishap on day one was the first and only of the trip. All else went as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

I was quickly able to show the duo the most useful spots around town realizing that they wouldn’t be able to find them without a translator anyway. Jeremy and Dad came to love a place bakery called Bread Talk and made it a daily destination for the most part. Food, though a huge concern to begin with, was a non-issue. Chinese are basically vegetarians that eat meat on occasion and their daily food isn’t as on-the-edge as my experiences and pictures may have led on. Dad’s home away from home was McDonalds and Jeremy’s was the tea house where we spent much of our time. I must insert a side note here. Although Dad spent many hours at McDonalds drinking coffee and working, I will say he only ate their once and it was a chicken sandwich. I was very proud of him. He considered it more like a Starbucks than a McDonalds and he showed great self-restraint.

Our diet consisted of reserved meals such as vegetables, beef, pork, dumplings with a combination of the previous, and some more adventurous things like turtle and stinky tofu. (Dad actually tried the turtle!!)

Stinky tofu was quite the hit with Papa Wurth and Jeremy. They were first introduced to the delightful snack while walking near what they thought was a sewage leak—hello stinky tofu. It is literally impossible to imagine how bad this stuff really smells. The best way to describe it is this: if your child walked up to you and wreaked of stinky tofu, you would think the baby somehow ate a pound of blue cheese mixed with curdled milk, proceeded to defecate the now digested foods, then put this defecation in a bowl of sulfur and stirs, finally, before placing it all over him/herself, continues to allow the sulfur-covered defection to mold for about two days in the mid-summer sun. It’s that bad. If you don’t believe me, feel free to ask either of them, they will go into stories of how they both almost vomited when they first smelled it and then how they almost changed tables when Dr. Lu decided to order it.

Another thing Dad found quite peculiar/annoying, was the Chinese obsession with bones. This greatly contrasts to Papa Wurth’s undying love for de-boning chicken and boneless meat in general. Two worlds collided and neither Jeremy nor I, nor any Chinese we ate with thereafter heard the end of that bitter debate about when China will start de-boning their meat.

After getting all the tourist things out of the way, it was time to start preparing for THE TALK. We prepared quite a bit for about two days and pretty much remade a large portion of the talk. Jeremy and I would start our days at the tea shop drinking free tea, and Dad would start his at McDonalds drinking coffee and writing down thoughts for his talk. Wednesday came and that evening was the big event. Dad nailed it and the students truly enjoyed his wisdom. He was asked some difficult questions but they were all very pleased with his answers and even more impressed with what they already knew about him after some research on Google. (Apparently it’s quite easy to find out who is selling houses and even how much they are going for. Needless to say, the probably hadn’t heard of a house costing anywhere near that much considering housing is pretty cheap and readily available in China).

After the talk, Jeremy and I laid out our suggestions and once again, Papa Wurth started from scratch for talk number two which was for the MBA students. The following days were spent working and playing and eating delicious foods and perusing China and its wonders. Everyone was starting to get a hang of the routine. Tea house in the morning, office in the late morning, lunch at San Li An shopping center, and free time in the afternoon before a big banquet dinner at night. Life was good.

Saturday morning came and Papa Wurth was locked and loaded for talk number two. If Dad got a B+ for his performance on Wednesday, he surely deserved an A+ for Saturday. The talk was intriguing and the students showed their interest by their outstanding questions. I heard more than once during and after the talk over my shoulder “Your Dad is awesome.” He really did a great job. After the talk we had a wonderful lunch with the students and they were able to continue asking questions and conversing. The real fun occurred about 6 hours later when we convinced Papa Wurth to join us at karaoke, or rather, KTV. To call KTV China’s favorite pastime is not an exaggeration. They are everywhere! Probably close to one on every block. After watching Dad get his groove on and Jeremy and I joining in on some great classics I knew that they had truly experienced modern day China.

As for their reaction to Papa Wurth in general, it was quite funny at times. They couldn’t understand is fascination with boneless meat and couldn’t understand his distaste for foods like donkey (he did try it though!), eel, stinky fish and stinky tofu. I explained how it was difficult for older people to try new things because they had been on a path their entire life. They understood. What they didn’t quite understand was Jeremy’s status as a vegan. Vegetarian was easy enough to understand. Vegan was a word we had to explain to them. In fact, Dr. Lu still refers to it, when speaking with his students about it, as vegan. The reason? Because there probably isn’t a commonly used word for it in the Chinese language! The primary concern for the Chinese was his inability to consume egg, which is just about in every single dish in Chinese traditional foods.

For the rest of our experiences, refer to the pictures. They speak louder than words.

Michael

Pictures Courtesy of Jeremy Gleason!

Papa Wurth on a camel at the Hefei Wild Animal Park

Jeremy getting his cheap thrills, cost about $2

Dad and I

Dad enjoying the snow with his USSR hat

Moto-Taxi that wanted to drive Dad home. He wasn't having it.

Jeremy and I with our tea expert.

Dad's first talk.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is dog hanging on the far left.

Traditional Restaurant

Jeremy making some tea Gong Fu style.

Dad's final talk with Jeremy eyeing the camera.

Catching Up and Sharing Wisdom

Yes I am still alive. Blogs are tough; I understand that some people want to know what I’m doing daily and how I’m faring in China, but at the same time, I want to make sure every blog is at least interesting if not all out entertaining. We walk a fine line. One warning I have to throw in here—being in a foreign country that speaks a different language does horrible things to your English. With that said, I can not guarantee my writing will live up to past blogs or even make much sense for that matter.

The past couple weeks have flown by. I’ve been studying just about every day trying to memorize as many characters as humanly possible. MBA and undergraduate classes in business are interesting and I’m also learning a lot in both of those. I love it here but always think about home and family and friends. Luckily, my father and friend, Jeremy Gleason, visited me last week and I was able to show them around and prove to my father that I wasn’t wasting my time or his money and that I am actually learning a little bit of the language! It was a good week and a lot of fun. Now, I’m back to my usual schedule of studying and eating and sleeping. It looks like we will be heading to Hong Kong in order to rectify my visa problems. (I’m only allowed to be in China for 60 days at a time so I have to leave the country and then re-enter in order to avoid imprisonment).

Some observations:

Consider yourself lucky. As most of you know, China is a communist country and therefore limits the freedom its citizens have. One of these freedoms we often take for granted is academic. Let’s see, I’ve changed my major in college three times now as I’m sure so many of you did as well. In China, it’s not that easy. Each student takes a national college exam, similar to the SAT except it holds a lot more weight—in fact, it holds all the weight. Each student also selects three universities in each tier. For example, in America first tier would be Harvard, Stanford, Yale. Second tier would be UCI, Northeastern, etc… Furthermore, you select your top three choices for majors. Now depending on your score, you will either get your top choice school and major or none of them, or a combination of the two. So if I did poorly on my exam, I might be thrown in my third tier school and then given a major that wasn’t even on my top three. Could you imagine? Paying for school to study something you aren’t the least bit interested in? That’s what quite a few students end up doing in China and having to live with it after college. If nothing else, it sure does make you want to ace that national exam! The point I’m trying to make is that seemingly little things aren’t so little. One of my friends here in China wanted to major in law. She did decent on her national exams and she’s pretty darn smart (she got a 730 out of 800 on her GMAT—perspective: the average Harvard Business School student got a 713). But, because the system has it’s quirks, to say the least, she was placed in her second tier schools and given a major that wasn’t even on her list, Telecommunications.

On a less serious note, I’ve been experimenting with new foods over the past couple of weeks and, sadly, the most exciting thing I’ve eaten was pig brains hot pot. Pretty simple, pretty delicious. Just throw the raw pig brains in the hot pot and wait 20 minutes to consume. Sounds good right? Yes! Picture below.

Words of wisdom from someone who has lived her for over a month now. Don’t step on manholes, no matter where you are walking. You never know who put them back on and whether or not they are supported underneath. This is much harder than it sounds. Although I haven’t had any negative experiences with these, I have heard of a couple. Better to be safe than sorry I guess. Next, don’t drink alcohol in China. I’m sure many of you are thinking, “yea right! Like I wouldn’t get wasted at every club in China!” Well, you might get wasted, but it might be the last time you do it with your vision! China is infamous for it’s black market and this includes some high end liquors. Ranging from wine to vodka, it’s almost impossible to tell from the bottle whether or not it’s real. The only thing for sure is that it’s really dangerous. Many black markets search for an expensive item, like alcohol, and try and replicate it on a much cheaper level. Unfortunately, for alcohol, this means using industrial alcohol (sometimes pure ethyl alcohol) and mixing it with something that tastes like the good stuff. Well, needless to say it can kill and even has the potential to blind if you drink too much. Oh how I’d love to throw this wrench into the party scene of friends who drink too much! You think it would reduce the number of alcoholics in America? I say it might not be such a bad idea.

This side note might seem hilarious but keep in mind I nearly had a heart attack when this occurred. Call me naïve, but I was seriously at a loss for words in English, let alone Chinese.

Upon arriving at the spa with my father and Jeremy, with the help of Dr. Lu’s son, Watson, I helped set up full body massages for them both. Of course, me being the confident person I am, I thought I could handle doing it for myself without Watson’s help. Boy I wish I could rewind the hands of time. Unfortunately, the Chinese are a very literal group of people and when you say “full body”, they mean FULL BODY! You might be thinking, ok full body means back, arms, shoulders, neck, legs and maybe feet, but you would be missing one key element. I won’t elaborate. I decided I wanted a full body massage and that’s exactly what I told the manager who found me a bed and a table. What happened five minutes later has scarred me for life and I may not ever be able to recover. In walks a woman wearing a very proper dress, far too proper for a masseuse considering every masseuse wears the same outfit. The manager follows and says “is this ok?” To which I respond in English then Chinese: oh my gosh! No no no no no no no. I want a massage!! Everyone in the room simultaneously gets really embarrassed and the manager apologizes as she leaves to find a masseuse. I did not enjoy the massage.

Final thought: This one is quite random and actually comes about from a practice the Chinese government uses when putting people to death. I find it fascinating. I don’t mean for this to be a platform for my conservative tendencies but I just wanted to share this.

First of all, I don’t believe in the death penalty but if it is legal, why not make it work for the innocent. When sentenced to death in China, the convicted party is simply shot in the head once. To me, that seems like a very quick death lacking any sort of suffering. Effective and probably not considered cruel and unusual punishment. Not to mention, its cost-effectiveness. Here’s where it gets good. Standing by during the execution is a team of highly trained surgeons ready to operate immediately thereafter. These surgeons remove all usable organs from the dead person and then quickly rush them to the hospitals to be used on people who need them. While I understand it would be a very limited number of people that would be helped considering how infrequently we put people to death, but it still seems like a respectable idea. Why inject these people with expensive medicines in an attempt to dull the suffering while destroying their perfectly useful organs when it sometimes doesn’t even work? If we want a death penalty that never fails, I propose following the economical and effective method used by the Chinese. How’s that for communism?

Cheers,

Michael

Pollution, it's not always this bad.

Just a cool picture with long exposure at night.

Tiger at Hefei Wild Animal Park

Panda

White Tiger and I

Day after first snowfall in Hefei

Pig Brains before being cooked

Dr. Lu, Dad, and I

Dad, Jeremy, and I enjoying China's favorite pasttime, Karaoke.

Short: Beware of Moto-Taxies

I just wanted to post a warning to some and an opportunity to others.

If there's one thing that can get really frustrating in China, it's the absence of taxies when you need them most. Supply and Demand for taxies is never at an equilibrium. In the morning it isn't a rare sight to see one person hail a cab and have 5 taxies lined up ready. During rush hour, or even worse--rush hour when it's raining--you might as well not even try. There has been several times where I have waited more than an hour to drive 20 minutes.

Today was no different. Rush hour, about 4 pm, and I needed to get to the outdoor market to purchase a suit. I waited outside the university campus for about an hour before giving up. Just as I was about to walk away, something pulled up in my periphery. At first, I thought it was a motorcycle that I had walked in front of and nearly killed myself--I wish that were the case.

I came to find out after he asked me where I needed to go that he was what they call in a China a moto-taxi. Simple idea, seemingly effective. Someone who owns a motorcycle and wants to make a few extra bucks every day drives around town illegally picking up civilians who need to go places more quickly for a slightly steeper price.

I jumped on.

I told him where to head and what ensued was perhaps one of the most adrenaline-inducing rides of my life--slightly short of epinephrine. He drove that motorcycle like King Kong was giving chase. Fast is an understatement; graceful is quite generous. If we didn't come within one inch of at least 30 cars and perhaps 1,000 people then I was dreaming. Red lights? They only apply to vehicles with 4 wheels with passengers that care about survival. We were on a mission. Dodging moving vehicles and not stopping to run red lights were just some of the highlights. Tack on a few screams from little old ladies crossing the street and what seemed like endless honking and you still only get about 10% of the picture. We weaved through people, passed cars without a hint of concern and changed lanes as though we were driving through the deserted area of Chernobyl.

I caught myself laughing. Not to myself like I should have been but literally out loud. The idea that my life could end on the back of a 20 year old motorcycle with the driver wearing a helmet and the skin of my bald head chilled in the wind, I couldn't think of anything else to do but hold on and stare up at the sky laughing out loud. After the initial 10 minutes of absolute fear, the final 10 minutes consisted of me realizing how truly amazing this experience was. For the first time in Hefei, I felt like I was doing something adventurous and exciting. I saw the entire city and was able to feel the rush of ice-climbing, dirt bike riding and everything else in between in the middle of downtown Hefei.

To top off the ride, we exited the street and again began playing frogger along the sidewalk of frenzied people. During this exercise, my driver managed to only run in to one woman--impressive. He drove up next to a carnival-like game with a child holding a gun. The object of the game is to pop balloons with the darts. Unlike America, this game had a real dart gun aimed at a 4'x4' box with about 40 small balloons jammed inside and holding the loaded gun was a 3 year old. Like clockwork, as soon as we came up behind the little red box two things happened simultaneously--he fired the gun and missed the box and my driver almost dropped the bike out of fear as we swerved meaningfully away. It almost seemed too good to be true.

Dangerous... maybe. Exhilarating... absolutely. After being dropped off and being charged a full 10 yuan more than he initially requested (I didn't care, the ride was incredible!) I wobbled off on light feet towards the outdoor mall. After running into a duo of dancing monkeys and do-nothing caged rabbits I ended up not buying a suit and catching a safe taxi back home.

Thus concludes my experience aboard China's most exhilarating transportation services. I assure you there will be more to come. Next time I'm feeling bored, fun is just a 5 minute walk away.

Michael

*No humans or animals were harmed in the course of this event. Many came close to being harmed and some came close to dying but with the help of God, all walked away. I can not verify, however, the ethical treatment of the dancing monkeys nor the caged rabbits.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera and have no pictures. This won't happen again.