Hello,
China fun facts:
1. there was a cat meowing loudly in front of the screen during Fast and Furious 5
2. the cinema is on the 4th floor of a mall.
3. how did the cat get up all the escalators?
4. Diane did tai chi aerobics dance class with some ladies by a Shanghai riverbank park this evening. When we tried to teach them basic cha cha and salsa I started clapping the rhythm and they all started clapping randomly because they thought I was applauding (myself?)
5. I taught one of the dancer's daughters to play cards and the only chinese words I knew were 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and "very good," I also asked her "you what have year?" She said "nine" in English and was good at cards.
6. Nanjing is really big with 6 million people or so. Its downtown seems to go on in all directions. Beijing is huge with 18 million people. But Shanghai (where we are right now) has an urban area around over 15 times that of Nanjing and something like 23 million people. The closest comparison I can think of is LA; New York is much denser but here like LA you can stand and spin around and see skyscrapers in all directions for a long distance.
7. In Shanghai you can stand on a glass floor and look straight down 1200 feet (in our case, through the clouds.) It is a little scarier than it sounds.
8. Often, shopkeepers will grab your arm when you walk away from haggling. When this happens it is okay to put your hand on their shoulder, smile, and say, "in New York, children do not poop on the sidewalk and a fake Rolex costs $5. I will harm you if you do not let go of my wife's elbow."
8.5 If my phone (w/ dictionary) started working again, I could translate that into Chinese for you.
9. Chinese people seem to like all parts of all meat, which sounds really good in theory because there isn't much waste.
10. But somehow, there isn't ever a proportional amount of muscle. I can't help but wonder if China ships all the actual meat to America because here everyone seems happy to eat fat, bones, skin, ears, feet, necks, and stuff. It's sort of a downer as a westerner because most of the "meat" dishes are teases. For example, the fried chicken nugget may be bones or fat.
11. Ping pong is really big here and it is okay to hold the paddle both overhand and underhand. The tournament underhand paddles have shorter handles. Our program director has a beautiful condo in Nanjing with her husband. About 40% of the space is taken up by a ping pong room. She and her husband play 30 minutes a day.
12. When discussing cultural hand gestures with your Chinese friends, have your camera ready. I feel bad for saying it but it was kind of cute when Shero held up her middle finger to us and laughed, saying, "in America, I should no do this?"
A good summation of our urban experience is "every man for himself without hot-heads." I feel safe here with Diane. The more we learn the rules here the more we enjoy ourselves. I'm going through the list of Cc's and I can say that all of you, at one time or another, have been a fond part of our conversation and have been on both our minds a lot. We hope you are well and we miss you. We like being married and are content.
Much love,
Riley + Diane
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