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Photo: Morning Calisthenics

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It’s not every day you catch a group exercise lesson.  That is unless you are in China.  Our first morning in Beijing we arrived at 5 am, caught the flag ceremony at Tiananmen Square and headed over to the Temple of Heaven Complex.  Hundreds of local Chinese workers were already in the park, participating in group calisthenics.

Reinstated as compulsory last year by the government, calisthenic routines are broadcast over public radio twice a day.  Except for a three year hiatus around the Olympics, it’s been this way since 1951.  I wonder how many “private” companies in China make calisthenics compulsory?

Laugh as we may, watching rows and rows of Chinese perform exercises in unison was a rather interesting look into their culture.  The park it’s self had a number of other community activities that early in the morning, from tango dancing (seriously) to chess, to musical and theater performances.  It certainly says something about the lack of recreation programs in our own society.

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

China was an interesting country to say the least.  The Middle Country as it calls itself was fascinating.  Check out our Guide to China for things to do, or check out our posts from China to see what we did over the month we were there.

China Through a Child’s Eyes

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To My Kindergarten Class –

Hello from China. I came here for vacation and lots of things here are different.

When the traffic light is red you are supposed to go because it it’s more fun than waiting, but when it is green you have to go slow because all the people that have red go too. I was confused and didn’t know that red and green both mean go and so when I went across there were lots of cars going on both sides of the street and some were even on the wrong side! I think that they don’t know how to play red light green light in the schools here.

Then there were bikes and one carrying 3 people hit a dog. We had to stop in the middle road 6 times to let the cars go ahead of us and then when we finally got across, a car was driving on the sidewalk. I think the car thought the sidewalk was the street because of how many people were in the street. They should make a video game out of it – it would be fun!

Then I saw a special pet shop that sold lots of dead animals, but like snakes and insects and stuff, but someone said it was a medicine store so it must be a special place to take your pet for help if it’s sick and then they just keep it there for you in case it dies. People were coming and paying lots of money for little baggies filled with bugs and snake skin so maybe it was a wizard shop and not a medicine shop…like in Harry Potter.

Lots of people must have pets though because everywhere where we went we saw turtles and frogs and lots of other things that you could buy. I tried to get a pet frog but the tour leader said the one I picked out wouldn’t taste good and that I should pick out another one later. Then he said that once we got to the south I could pick out my own dog…I’m going to get a Lassie dog if my mom lets me.

IMGP7702They are something called communist here and that means that everyone shares everything, just like we’re supposed to do with the glue in school, so that there aren’t any poor people. It is very nice that all the people take care of all the other people but I think it only works if you’re a communist too. Some people drive around in really fancy James Bond cars while other people ride bikes with their entire family on them. Maybe they aren’t communist or they’d have a car too! The train even has different areas, there’s the nice part where you sleep in a room with 3 other people or a not nice one where the whole train car is packed like a can of sardines (that’s what my grandpa would say) with a hundred people, animals and bags. It looked like they couldn’t even breathe!

They have lots of candy here. Some is really yummy, but there isn’t any chocolate. Most of the candy has strange flavors like corn, tea, shrimp, milk and stuff like that. I miss chocolate candy. I think all the people are on diets all the time because they wear masks over their faces so that they don’t eat the candy, even though it tastes bad.

One morning we got up early to see where the communism got started. It was a place called Tienanmen Square and is famous because sometimes they bring in tanks and park them in the road so that people can stop and look at them, I guess we don’t do that back home because I never saw it before. They also have big picture of Chairman Moe on the wall. Everyone here likes Moe, but my dad always said Curly was the best. I think it is fake-like though (sorta like when you get a bad birthday present) because it is just a picture and not a statue and if they really liked him then they would have made a statue.
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I like it here but I want to come home soon, everywhere I go people try to take pictures of me. It is weird because they take my picture and then the tour leader yells at them for doing it and then later when the tour leader isn’t looking they come and ask me if they can take my picture because I look like a movie star, even though I’m not that old yet. I say yes but then they have two pictures but only asked for one. I think when they take two pictures instead of just one they call that ‘saving face’ because all the grown up people complain about how they always try to save face and getting two pictures of my face must be doing that.

See you soon!
Danny

Changing Perspective Through Experience

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Through Central and South America my question to every hospedaje, hostel and hotel receptionist was “Tiene agua caliente?” (Do you have hot water?). More often than not the answer was “yes, but…” and I would find myself faced with the dreaded electric shower head. While I have heard that some find the electric shock of the electric shower to be a nice wake up in the morning, I hated it and complained loudly the first dozen times it happened. Well, perhaps more than just the first dozen. Traveling provides many new experiences, but perhaps more important than the electric shower-head, is the new perspective those experiences can bring. Things don’t seem so bad once you have something worse to compare it to or as good once you have something better. We’re often asked how did you like (insert famous structure/country/city here), and its hard to respond. “Well, where have you been before?” we often ask for it doesn’t matter what we think of it, it matters how we think it compares to the famous structure/country/city you’ve been to before.

In trying to make places relative, we say things like: “Rio de Janero is the love child of New York and Miami,” to an American or “Capetown is like the San Francisco of South Africa.” While this works for some people it won’t mean anything to you if you haven’t been to New York, Miami or San Francisco. When travelers refer to Buenos Aires as the Paris of South America I have to question- have you been to Paris? Because what I love most about Paris—the sidewalk cafes—are severely lacking in Buenos Aires. That is not to say that Buenos Aires isn’t incredible, because it certainly is, but it is not Paris in South America.

Managing expectations becomes a chore, and when we’re trying to size up whether its worth the time, money and effort to go somewhere we often read between the lines and try to figure out what new experience or perspective we’ll get from going there. Sometimes its as selfish as, I just want a few days on a cheap beach with cold beer (ok then we’re off to Mozambique), and other times its I’m looking for the real Africa (then we’re off to Lesotho). Not every travel experience is going to have a profound impact on you, let’s face it, the fifth time you’ve gone to a beach isn’t not life changing, but maybe the little recharge you get from being somewhere different, from meeting a new person, maybe that small experience changes your perspective and makes yesterdays problems seem small in comparison. So next time you’re frustrated at life, work or home, remember you don’t need to go around the world to change your perspective just a new experience.

Driving the not “right” side in South Africa

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Preparing to drive for the first time was more than a bit stressful. As I tested out all the controls to make sure I knew where they were, we had the following conversation:

D: Right, that’s the blinker, not the shifter.
(Car eased out of parking space in first, into the wrong lane.)
J: You’re on the right side.
D: So I am…..was that the wrong right or the right left?
J: Better practice using the blinkers.
(Wipers go on. Somehow we make it out of the parking lot. Approaching turn.)
J: Put on your blinker.
(Wipers go on again. Then wrong blinker.)
D: This is a left, that means its a short turn and I’m going to stay on this side of the street.
J: Good, you’re on the right side.
D: What (swerve) I’m on the left.
J: Left, that’s what I meant.
(Some time, and a few ostrich, pass.)
D: Shit, now its raining.
J: At least you know where the wipers are.
(Blinker goes on.)

And so it went, somehow we’ve survived a month of driving already and to be honest it has been a pleasure. Our car is little, so little in fact that it isn’t even sold in the US. With all four cylinders contributing to a massive 1.1L engine it struggles a bit on the big hills. Most of which are on one-lane highways. People here use the shoulders to allow others to pass. Although this is something we’ve seen everywhere we’ve been since Mexico, this is the first time I’ve actually driven in it and it is rather nice. If I scoot over for someone I can expect them to flash their hazards once they’ve passed me, saying ‘thank you’ and I am to respond with a flash of my high beams to say ‘you’re welcome.’ Oncoming cars will also scoot into the shoulder to allow more space in that imaginary center lane.

After 9 months through Latin America we only rented a vehicle once, and that was our final week with others doing the driving. It may seem surprising then that we’ve had our own set of wheels here in South Africa, driving on the left side of the road and all, for 6 weeks through 4 countries. The decision was a financial one, along the main route the car for two was cheaper than bus, which has allowed us to explore far more of the country while allowing us to camp and cook ourselves everywhere we’ve gone.

The thing I like the least about having the car is that, like the backpacks, our entire life is inside of it. The difference is that the backpacks are never left out of our sight in public whereas we frequently leave the car in public parking lots. Theft and vandalism here is such a problem that most parking lots have attendants in each lane to guard the cars…a service that you “optionally” pay for when you return to your car. We’ve seen this in other countries (Brazil, Argentina, etc) but needing to payoff the guard is something that still seems alien to us.

We’ve made it this far without a problem, driving through South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, and finally Namibia. Sometimes we find ourselves on the right (wrong) side of the road, and the wipers continue to make non-raining appearances, but otherwise we’re doing OK. The most amazing thing though, is when we’re approaching an intersection and Jill says “make a left at the light” and we both know that means to make a right.

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