Defying Death Abroad: 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!