5,000 glorious years...

Mmmmm... business class. So, the deed (of riding in business class) was better than the anticipation. The seats were comfy, the attendants particularly attentive, and the legroom/footrest were a delightful change from coach. If only I had the means to do this more often... We pretty much slept for the entire 4.5 hour flight from Seoul to Kunming. The food wasn't that impressive, but it was merely a distraction from sleep anyway. We landed in Kunming, and proceeded relatively quickly through immigration and customs. I was briefly detained for a random passport check (I'm the subject of a lot of random scrutiny it seems...), which was nothing more than a brief inconvenience. All our bags were there, before I'd even gotten through immigration, and customs waved us through without any delays. We were delighted to see Yunfei--the representative of the Yunnan Provincial HIV/AIDS care center--carrying a sign for Megan and Greg in the reception hall. She had two guys along with her who'd brought an extra van to carry our luggage, and we set off for our hotel, chatting about what exactly we might be doing over the next few weeks/months (more on that another day). For now, we'll have a day to recover, then start looking for an apartment. We arrived in our hotel, which was clean, and full of gleaming marble and polished fixtures (is this the same country I lived in in 1998???). After saying goodbye to Yunfei, we had a midnight snack of rice porridge and pumpkin cakes and went to sleep around 1am. We woke the next morning at 6:30, and took in our surroundings through the hotel window. Outside, there was a little river, with a tree-lined riverwalk, and building after building Peking (sorry) through the haze. We weren't sure whether the haze was pollution or just the morning moisture in the air, but it made for some nice diffuse lighting for photos... Ella wasn't really at her best at 6:30 though. The city was already alive, with people biking to wherever people go, and carting their vegetables off to sell. The Chinese are fond of reminding visitors of their "5,000 years of glorious history", "5,000 years of continuous civilization", etc. Although I won't get into the accuracy or uniqueness of such claims, I am sure the Chinese have a long history of doing things in public without much concern about privacy. When you live in a country of 1.4 billion people, there isn't that much privacy anyway, and public spaces are convenient for doing just about anything. A daily ritual throughout China (and parks in Chinatown throughout the world), is public morning exercise. Most of the older folks do dancing or tai-chi, although some create their own routines of contortions and gyrations. For an interesting example, check this out. The younger generation is getting more modern about things. This group of kids is apparently taking a morning roller-blading course. Having gotten my voyeuristic observations of exercise out of the way, I searched my luggage for 45 minutes before finding my underwear... then a refreshing shower and off to breakfast. The 5,000 glorious years of cooking were pretty well represented with a nice breakfast buffet. Megan wields a Chinese sausage, as I fill my plate--rice porridge, pickled veggies, eggs, a little tripe (it was there), some fruit, and a spongy little steamed sweet cake--no idea what it is, but they sell something similar in Seattle's Vietnamese stores. Megan ate tons of watermelon, Hyunjoo ate tons of noodles, and Ella pretty much ran around the restaurant harassing other diners. China has somewhat less than 5,000 years experience with elevators--hence the sign in the lift, warning about the dangers of smoking and playing (?). There is even less experince with English it would seem... Having been fed and frightened, we decided to take in the river-walk firsthand. The whole thing was lined with playground equipment and exercise contraptions for all ages. The ladies rather enjoyed the hip-rotation gizmo. Ella preferred motorized transport. After exercising, we set off to visit CuiHu (greenlake) park. Ella made a friend. Being a public place, in China, Cuihu park is also a good place for other activities considered private by most Westerners, such as sleeping. The Chinese also have 5,000 glorious years of experience with potty training, and have a rather environmentally-friendly, if not hygeinic way of helping babies taking care of their business... Yes that is his butt, and that is a pair of crotchless baby pants, known as kai deng ku. My understanding of how this works is that the parents hold the kids up over a bush, garbage can, toilet, or whatever is convenient, and make a whistling sound. Eventually the kids develop sort of a Pavlovian reaction and will do their duty every time they hear the whistling. It gets the kids out of diapers very early--like 3 months... It must realy save on the diaper rash, and probably reduces the rate of urinary tract infections by keeping the dootie off the bootie... With the new trend in the US to not use diapers, I'm going to have to do a little more research on this so I can be a more effective pediatrician once I get back to the states. Maybe I'll even start a business selling crotchless baby pants in Seattle... Well, on that note, I should get back to sleep or I'll never resolve the jet lag.