Back In The USA

[Guest blsqueaky]

Mark, another great story. I remember when I was in Beiijing and tried the peking duck for the first time. It was an experience. I do have a question here for you, and that is the marriage certificate. When I was married in GZ, all I got was the red book, and then the translated notorized copy. Is this what you mean or is this something else.

 

Thanks

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Mark, another great story. I remember when I was in Beiijing and tried the peking duck for the first time. It was an experience. I do have a question here for you, and that is the marriage certificate. When I was married in GZ, all I got was the red book, and then the translated notorized copy. Is this what you mean or is this something else.

 

Thanks

Thanks again Squeaky. No, I mean the translated, notorized copy.

[kimnjake]

oh mark, if i would have known you were touring those parts i could have warned you about the art students! they are EVERYWHERE there. in that area, they are everywhere.

i still haven't figured out how their english is so incredibly good, but it is! i mean, it is amazing!

 

anyone else who is going to BJ, run from them. they will barely let you out of their studios that are in these dark far away places without paying or bolting for the door! and the best is they even accept credit cards, did you get that line Mark??

 

oh man, it is so funny to hear others experience these artists!!

but if they can be avoided, it is best! just tell them you dont have time. they are very persistent, but just know that as persistent as they are out on the street it is 100 times worse inside their studio!!!

it is certainly a scam!!! glad you got away Mark! hehe

[se_lang]

I will say though if I had more money I would have bought some the art it was good, a girl approached me while my MM was a little ways away like you said very good English very good I told her when we was done with that spot we would stop by and see her art well she waited an waited for us to finish and promptly showed us to her paintings after sitting through her entire collection we said we really liked it but could not buy any an left she was not pushy but was persistent.

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

We got hit up again at another place, this time I knew to just shake my head no and keep walking. Nothing beats persistence like flatly ignoring someone. However, on my next trip I plan to bring a little extra and hit one of them up, the art was good.

[Cat&Rat]

Had something similer when Cat and I were in Xian we were in a museum, (don't remember the name) anyway we were in one wing of the museum, it was all art, and young man came up and started telling us about the art, in pretty good english. I was thinking cool wow a free tour guide, than he started trying to sell us the paintings on the walls, said they come with museums certification, etc.

 

At that time we started trying to get away from him, he hung with us until we left that wing of the museum.

 

I will say that for the money, to me, the art was very good, mostly simple black on white, all horses, but very good. Such motion on paper!!!

 

rat

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

OK, I really want to finish this story, so I'll make every effort to wrap it up as soon as possible.

 

ShuPing and I returned to the hotel, tired from our whirlwind tour of the Forbidden City. When she asked if I was hungry I told her I was and that I wanted to take her somewhere to eat Italian food, I had to open my Chinese phrase book to help explain what I was talking about. She decided to call the front desk to find out if they knew where one was.

 

We were told that the shopping center a few blocks away had such a restaurant. We headed over to the shopping center, but all we found was a food court and there was no Italian food there. Now the search began.

 

We asked tree taxi driver's before we found one that thought he could find Italian food for us. He got on his cell phone and called several people and then said he thought he knew where it was. We headed towards Tiennamin Square and around in circles before the driver stopped and made another phone call or two. He assured ShuPing that he wouldn't charge us if he couldn't find it. I began to wish for Mr. Lo.

 

Finally, after a good 30 minutes of confusion, we found ourselves in a part of Beijing where the hotels were tall, limos pulled up in front of them and Americans sat in the restaurants. We got out with assurances that the restaurant was right in the area. I looked up at one of the buildings and saw a large, neon Pizza Hut sign, but that's not really Italian, so I passed on it.

 

We walked to a few places, looked at the menus and found nothing but Chinese food, expensive Chinese food (which, to the uninitiated, is really not that expensive). We almost went into a dance club (I think it was a strip club, but I couldn't tell. The door was attended by a bevy of beauties dressed in very long fur coats.)

 

Finally, we ended up at a very nice looking French restaurant. We entered, sat down and looked at the menu, lo and behold there was an Italian dish, roasted chicken breast in a spicy Alfredo sauce with fettuccini. I knew this because the menu was in English. I ordered the meal for both of us, a nice Chardonnay to go with it.

 

I joked that her she was eating an Italian dinner in a French restaurant in Beijing with an American, how much more international could she get? The breast was good, though a little bit tough. The fettuccini she enjoyed, especially the sauce and the veggies on the side rounded it off. ShuPing didn't care for the wine, but I had really waned to order something sweeter, so that was my fault.

 

This best, however, was watching her with the knife and fork. ShuPing told me that she wants to learn American customs and the right way to do in America. Now she can use a fork, but she wanted to hold it properly and use it the correct way. I showed her, but she struggled with it. Towards the end she was doing great.

 

I don't think she was too impressed with the meal, neither was I, but we had different reasons. She seemed to dislike the presentation of the food and the need to concentrate on how she was eating. She also didn't like the wine, but insisted on drinking it anyway, she got a little tipsy. I just didn't think the food was that great. I really wanted to find spaghetti for her to experience.

 

We left and decided to go see a movie, but never found a theater. Instead, we went shopping for gifts. We browsed a couple of shops and then found some things to buy. We hailed a taxi and headed back to the hotel after a very long day.

[se_lang]

Hey Mark did you go to Wang Fu Jing Street Mall along the one side by the intersection walk up about a block and on the left there is this god awful smell coming from between 2 buildings.

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Hey Mark did you go to Wang Fu Jing Street Mall along the one side by the intersection walk up about a block and on the left there is this god awful smell coming from between 2 buildings.

Don't know what it was called, but there was a section that was closed off, no cars were allowed. I didn't notice any smells either, well, nothing out of the ordinary.

[se_lang]

Hey Mark did you go to Wang Fu Jing Street Mall along the one side by the intersection walk up about a block and on the left there is this god awful smell coming from between 2 buildings.

Don't know what it was called, but there was a section that was closed off, no cars were allowed. I didn't notice any smells either, well, nothing out of the ordinary.

I think that is the area, when I was there they had lots of tents set up for an international food fest but the smell coming from that alley turned my stomach but my GF was all excited she had to go eat some of that stuff in fact we had a thread on it before it was stinky tofu and it was bad.

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Oh Christ! ShuPing bought a jar of that crap in QiQiHaer. When she broke the seal on it, I damn near ran for the bathroom to puke. I joked with her that if my son walked in and smelled that he might say, "Che fang pi?" (Who farted?) She got a big kick out of it. I think I'd rather eat the silk worm caccoons than that mess.

http://www.soimmature.com/images/stink_bombs.gif

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

OK, only two days left in the story.

 

Morning came and we ate breakfast at the hotel, ran over to the ATM and got some money, hailed a taxi and we were off to see the Summer Palace. We got there, paid our money and went in.

 

The Summer Palace is beautiful, spread out over a 12 square mile area and overlooking Kunming Lake, it is one of the best things I saw in China. I learned a lot about the history of the last emperors. We saw the opulent lifestyle of Cixi, the empress. She used the money that should have gone to build up the Chinese navy to build this incredibly beautiful but unnecessary royal resort.

 

Needless to say, there was a lot of walking involved. There was also a lot of climbing to be done too. There is the Tower of Buddhist Incense, which is straight up on top of a really large hill. The climb was worth it, you can see about everything from there. Even though it was wintertime, this is one of the most beautiful places in China. Lots of gardens and palaces. It is definitely a "must-see" if you go to Beijing. (If you're interested you can check out this web site:The Summer Palace

 

ShuPing's feet began to hurt after being there about 3 hours. Being the American I am, I wanted to push on and see everything, but I saw the complete futility in this kind of thinking and we decided to go back to Beijing.

 

We exited the nearest gates, which was near Suzhou Street on the north side of the park. The problem was there were no taxis there. We walked into the little town and ShuPing flagged a car down to ask where we could catch a taxi. Apparently, that was a long way off and the guy offered to give us a ride (for 35 RMB) into Beijing as he was going that way anyway. This stuck me as odd because it isn't something you'd readily find in most American suburbs and if you did you would have to question the motives of the driver.

 

Nevertheless, we hopped in and he took us right to our hotel. He and ShuPing talked quite a bit. She told me they were discussing politics. She asked me questions about what happens to poor people in the United States. She said they were talking about the poverty in Beijing, how there were a lot of very poor people in Beijing because it is so expensive to live there. Relative to the rest of China, Beijing can be quite costly.

 

We decided to eat lunch instead of going directly back to our hotel room. We ate at the same restaurant we had eaten the day before, the one right next to the hotel. I decided not to order the Peking Duck this time.

 

This would be our last night together and that thought was starting to seep into my mind more and more often. ShuPing felt it too, but we resolved not to dwell on it, but instead we tried to enjoy our time together.

 

We relaxed in the hotel room for a few hours, watching TV and napping, ShuPing was very tired. When we re-energized, we decided to go see the movie we hadn't been able to see the night before. ShuPing told me that before we could go to the movie, we had to stop at the drug store. She needed to get a special medication for her sister-in-law that they didn't have in QiQiHaer.

 

We left the hotel and headed over to the ATM again. We stopped in the department store to buy some candy and then attempted to hail a taxi. This is usually not a problem, but for some reason we were in the wrong place. Taxis were either full and wouldn't stop or they wouldn't stop because we were in the wrong place and they couldn't stop. Persistence pays off though and we finally got the ride we wanted.

 

ShuPing told the driver where she needed to go and that we planned to go to the movies. He knew of a theater near the drug store and said that the movie "Cell Phone" was really good, he had just seen it. I had hoped to see "Pirates of the Caribbean", I had seen it before and would know what was going on, even if it was in Chinese. I decided that I was in China, I should see a Chinese movie.

 

We were dropped off near the drug store and directed to the theater. We went to the drug store. I am interested in Chinese medicine and I was somewhat excited about seeing how they were different. I was not disappointed. The front of the store appeared to be dedicated to natural remedies and medicines. I saw dried seahorses, roots, even a lizard fan (two dried out hooded lizards tied together to a stick). There were lots of roots and herbs, but nothing I could identify. They even had a section of specialized teas. They also had the typical, boxed medicines you might find in a western drug store.

 

We walked across the street to the theater and bought tickets to "Cell Phone". We ad about an hour and a half to kill before the movie started so we walked around to do some window-shopping. I had seen several Dairy Queen's earlier and I had a strong desire for some soft serve ice cream. I asked ShuPing if she knew what Dairy Queen was and she had never heard of it before. The search was on.

 

Actually, we walked around a little and couldn't find one, so the alternative ended up being a KFC. We had an ice cream cone each and waited for the movie time to arrive. We had about half an hour to be with each other in the KFC. Someone asked the question recently about how to be romantic or what is romance. Romance is the ability to be with someone you love, no matter where that place is. It's that ability to be together and to feel the love between you and your lover. KFC can be romantic, if you make it that way.

 

We went into the movie theater, not at all like the megaplex cinemas here in the states, but a small little room with a projector screen on one wall. The back of the room was higher than the front and the seats were bolted down, much like any theater only smaller.

 

The movie started and ShuPing interpreted a some of the dialogue, but I was able to get the gist of the story. A man, obsessed with his cell phone and women, finds out the hard way that keeping secrets from your wife will get you into trouble. It was actually a good movie and even thought I couldn't understand the dialogue, I could tell there were some very funny parts to it.

 

When we left, ShuPing told me that many Chinese men are like the man in the movie, they can't keep their pants up. It is one of the reasons that she had never married before, she never felt she could trust a man. I told her that men are men and it's not just a Chinese thing. Many men, not all, cheat on their wives and it doesn't matter where they are from. I think she found that interesting.

 

We went back to the hotel and prepared everything to leave early in the morning. The plan was to wake up at 6AM, eat at 7 and leave for the airport at 7:30. My flight was leaving at 9:30.

 

 

One more installmen to go and I'll finish my China trip story. Stay tuned...

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Last chapter, thanks for being patient, this story got a lot longer than I thought it would.

 

We did wake up at 6:00am, how could we not? I had 2 alarms set and I was so anxious that I woke up 10 mins to 6. I laid there, not wanting to leave my sleeping bride, taking in the feelings and physical sensations that I would miss for the next few months or possibly more.

 

The alarms went off and we were off. We took no time to think of emotions, we just showered, dressed, packed and avoided the impending separation. ShuPing planned to take an advanced course in nail sculpting in Beijing after I left, so I gave her 1300RMB to finish paying for it.

 

We were the first ones into the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I took my time eating, knowing that I wanted to keep that one last moment from slipping away from me. Of course time did continue on and about 7:25, we went back to the room to bring our bags down.

 

Mr. Lo was there to pick us up, punctual as usual. He loaded his taxi and, unfortunately, he had to put two of my bags in the back seat forcing me to sit in the front. My plan was to arrive at the airport at 8:00 for the 9:15 departure time. I didn't take into account that it was rush hour and we were in a very big city.

 

Mr. Lo did his best to avoid the traffic, taking round about ways that were less congested, but nevertheless I watched the minutes pass by on my watch. 8:00 and then 8:30 passed and we still weren't at the airport. We got there at 8:45 and quickly unloaded my bags. I snapped a quick photo of Mr. Lo, shook his hand, and ran into the airport with my wife.

 

We stopped long enough to pay for the porter who carried my bags and then the airport tax. I got to the customs area, where ShuPing wasn’t allowed to go and I told her I would check my bags and come back to her. She said she would wait.

 

I got to the check-in counter at about 8:50 and checked my four bags. Unfortunately, I had to pay extra for two of them, there was a two limit max on checked baggage, anything over that is $130 per bag. I had no American money, only Chinese RMB, so I asked if I could pay with that. The ticket agent told me that would be fine, but she would have to convert the amount into RMB.

 

When that was done, she wanted about 2100RMB. Unfortunately, I had given ShuPing most of my RMB for the nail class. I was about 600RMB short. My credit card was maxed out and I had an unknown amount of money in my checking account, so my only recourse was to go back and get some of that money from my wife. I informed the ticket agent that I would have to run back and she said she would go with me, but I had to really hurry because the plane would start boarding in 15 minutes and I still had to go through customs and security.

 

Rushing back to where I’d left ShuPing, I found her still waiting. I quickly told her that the bags cost more than we had anticipated and I needed more money to pay for them. Speaking English quickly to someone who’s English is marginally conversational is pointless. I had to repeat myself slowly, I was not in slow mode at that moment, so I took an extra breath. The girl behind me tapped her foot in mock patience while I tried again to explain. This time she got it and gave me the money she had. I counted out what I needed and gave the rest back to her. I kissed her quickly on the cheek and told her I would try to come back to say goodbye.

 

I ran quickly back to the ticket counter with the young ticket agent right on my heels. I paid the money and the bags were checked. I got my boarding pass and asked how much time I had. The ticket girl told me it was 9:05 and I must hurry through customs and security before I missed my plane. I headed off to the customs counter with my heart heavy with regret and anxiety.

 

I quickly got through the necessary delays and made it to the concourse as the business class passengers were boarding. I bought a phone card and frantically attempted to call ShuPing, but a message by a Chinese telephone operator, informed me that something was wrong with the way I dialed or that her phone was off, I really had no idea what the message was. I clearly understood what it meant though, my wife was waiting for me to come back to kiss her goodbye and I couldn’t go back to her.

 

I boarded the plane hoping she could know the sadness I was feeling. My last look at her had been a quick glance over my shoulder as I ran to check my bags and catch my plane. I wanted to run up and tell the pilot to hold the plane while I went back to her one more time. Instead, I pulled out my journal and wrote her a letter.

 

My flight to Tokyo was quick and uneventful. When I got to Narita airport, I had a short layover and bought a calling card there. I struggled with using it too, until a friendly girl explained it to me. I called ShuPing and she answered. She had waited for me to return, but when I didn’t, she understood. She had asked Mr. Lo to take her to a place where she could watch the planes take off. When she was walking back to the cab, she fell and banged her knee on the sidewalk.

 

The remainder of my flight was fairly routine. I re-entered the country through Seattle with no real problems. The customs agents were impressed with the amount of ginseng I was bringing back with me, but otherwise there were no problems. I had about a five-hour layover in Seattle.

 

I got back to Denver to find that two of my bags were missing, but they turned up after about an hour search. My mother and son picked me up and my first China adventure was over. Fortunately, my life with ShuPing has just begun.

 

For those of you who followed my story, thanks for noticing and coming back from time to time. I appreciate the support and hopefully I can do something positive and meaningful with this story.

[frank1538]

The train pulled away from the station and I tried to snap one last picture, but the flash reflected off the window and all I have is a blurred last image of my new family.

Mark, I have read your story and have enjoyed it very much, but I must tell you that this quoted sentence keeps coming back to me.

 

What a wonderful opening scene for a movie or an opening line for a story.

 

Need a publisher or a producer?

[MarkLuvsShuPing]

Thanks Frank, yeah, I do need a publisher. Know any?

 

Did you read my post about wanting to get this thing published to hopfully increase awareness about our "blight"? I'd like to flesh out my story some more and maybe add some others from CFL to it. I think it would be a good way to spread the word about he crap people have had to go through.