Ni Hao from China

(Excerpts from 9/14/08 email)

Good morning all-

It is 8:45 am Monday morning as I write out my email to you. My computer shows 7:45 pm CDT Sunday evening for time back home. Believe it or not it has been nearly four weeks since I left the States to come to China. Time is moving quick. Some of you I have spoken with over the phone, some via email and some of you not at all. SO I thought I would send a little update email and let everyone know how things are going here.

First off living conditions. I have a 2 bed/ 1 bath apartment on the second floor of an 8 story complex. Fortunately the apartment is not representative of the stair well which looks and smells like a barn...and is pitch black at night upon entrance. The inside is quite nice with wood floors, recessed lighting and comfortable furnishings. I do have a western style "throne" toilet...so no deep knee squatting here. The bathroom is a true water closet with an eastern style shower that gets pretty much everything wet when you shower because it is just a shower head on the wall in front of the toilet...it gets me clean. Plus my hot water is not on a timer unlike many of my friends.

I do have a washer but hardly anyone here has a dryer. The apartment is equipped with an extending drying rack outside the kitchen window. Most of the time I dry mystuff inside which takes roughly 24 hours. I also have AC but since we are on the water (the Yellow Sea) we get some nice sea breezes so lately my windows have been wide open.

Regarding the people, you get a lot of stares from everyone and pointing fingers by little kids who have never seen a westerner. There are a fair amount of westerners here but we are spread out all over the city of 6.5 million people. Not wuite like Shanghai where the city is filled with westerners. Regarding height...the answer is "NO" I don't feel tall. Many of the Chinese men are taller than me. I would guess the average height to be 5'9" here for the men. A lot of women can look me straight in the eye. I am 5'6" so start dispelling the myth back home about all Chinese being short.

Most all have been very friendly and enjoyable to be around. You just have to watch in touristy areas that you don't get ripped by paying too much for something like a bottle of water. Example, cold bottle of water in the store below my apartment is 1 RMB (exchange rate is about $1 US = 6.80 RMB). Understandably it will be more just like at home when youare on a beach or other touristy area because of convenience so maybe 5 RMB at most. We had a guy try and charge 10 RMB per bottle of water on the beach yesterday. They see westerners and automatically think you have lots of cash so they jack the price. It's easy to play the game....just say no and walk on. More often than not they are on your heels. You learn to bargain here.

...I am giving this trip 2 thumbs up so far!