First the Rain; then the Pain.

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Donate Your Boat

I've been puzzling over that bilboard. Why would I want to donate my boat? Then, the rains came and now it made sense. It rained for a few days. Then a few weeks. And suddenly inundation set in. Well, let's better call it what it really was, a flood. As the Gazette, our local newspaper named it, an EPIC SURGE. It was all of that.
And the folks lost the scrapbook stuff that pasted their lives together so that they made some sort of sense. Pictures of that wonderful week in Minnesota when they landed a string of bluegills and crappies, a signed garter from their high school prom, a pressed flower from a first communion, a hospital first picture of a squealing newborn, and the memories of equally precious stuff.
Gone forever. Washed away. Dissolved into detritus. Crap!
So what would you grab if surging waters gave you moments to clear out? Dianne and I pondered that question and we couldn't come up with a sensible handful of stuff. We decided we'd do what tens of thousands of folks did, just get the hell out of the way.
And mourn over the lost stuff. Refrigerators can be replaced. So can dishwashers, clothes dryers and Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. But not the physical fragments of the memories that buttress our lives. And that's the real sadness that hangs like a cloud over eastern Iowa.
Few, if any, gave their lives; but all those submerged dreams lie fragmented in a cold and muddy grave. And we grieve for them.
Iowans will rebuild like good folks everywhere would. But there will linger a grief that remains forever. No amount of FEMA, state or local aid, can bandage that wound. And that's the real tragedy of natural disasters.
I'ts drying out now.
But some tears don't dry very well.

Ok, so God promised a rainbow to follow His rains. Thoughtful plan there. It's what us positive thinkers always look for. And this one has the three ironies of what will forever be called the Great Iowa Flood of '08.

First, because sewers don't function up to snuff during a flood, many people had to evacuate because they couldn't, well, evacuate. That's truly a delicious irony.

Second, with gazillionas of gagallons of water thrashing down on us, guess what is rationed? Yep. Water.

Third, the wireless carrier CommSpeed had a local center on Third Avenue and second street down town in Cedar Rapids. Under water and out of service, for sure. So how did they inform their dealers that they had no wireless service? You guessed it. They sent an email.

Wouldn't you agree that real life surpasses fiction six different ways from Sunday? Yeah. Me, too. As my UI Dental College friend, Dean David Johnson, always tells me, 'Keep your powder dry!' Good advice.

If you can't slurp, you can't eat Chinese noodles

Some Random Final Thoughts About China

Noodles: They are the national dish, it seems. Rice seems to be more Japanese, noodles more Chinese. 'Engineer' confided to me, during our fancy dinner at the 5-star Shang-ri-la hotel, "I'm a simple guy. I just eat noodles." And he doesn't eat fish which, In China, may be as sacriligeous to us an Iowan not eating corn on the cob, or morel 'shrooms. We had fresh fish at every meal, thanks to Michael. And it was delicious.

But back to the noodles. The Italians have it all wrong. Wrapping spaghetti around a fork shoved into a spoon seems antiquated when one sees the Chinese eat noodles. Then, again, I've seen the end of a strand of speghetti; but I've never seen the end of a strand of noodles. One might conclude that they may be endless.

As an aside, there are many kinds of noodles. Michael was especially fond of the Hong Kong noodles, thin little see-through noodles. The ones pictured were served in a neat restuarant near the Terra Cotta Warriors. I called them serious noodles. More like the spaetzel served in the Amana Colonies.

Noodles 101 teaches to grasp a bunch of noodles with chopsticks, and stuff them into your mouth. Then you slurp them up until the mouth seems full enough. It helps to bend ones's head over the plate as spatter can be significant depending upon the speed of the slurp. Although, I know of no such measurement, as in rpm's for example.

At this point, the diner does something foreign to Caucasian ways. You bite off the noodle strands and the rest falls back onto your bowl. Of course, this action flies in the face of everything our mothers taught us; but then we didn't have Chinese mothers. It's really sort of fun, once you get the hang of it. Hey! Everyone else in the restaurant is doing the same thing. When in Beijing do as the Beijingers do, I always say. Well, now I do.

"Think of all the starving kids in China!": We depression kids of the thirties were duty-bound to clean our plates. Our parents warned us again and again that food was precious and we were far luckier than others. 'Think of all the starving children in China' became a mealtime mantra, even if the food left was okra, or dandelion greens, or sweetbreads. Honest.

I mentioned this to a lovely Chinese waitress who was removing my plate with food still on it. She laughed, "That's funny. Our parents always told us to think of all the starving children in Indonesia!"

Pickup Trucks: I never saw one. Of course, we were in the big cities so maybe that tipped the scales. But not one? Lot's of three-wheeler bicycles hauling stuff though; perhaps that's why.

Praying before breakfast: A young Chinese lady sat down near my table in the cafe and before she ate her food, closed her eyes, clasped her hands and bowed in an attitude of prayer. By now emboldened because no Chinese person had refused to engage in smiles and nods or English repartee, I stopped by her table on the way out, "Excuse me, bu are you a Christian?" I asked. When she admitted she was, I asked if she was Catholic. Yes, again. "But there are some Protestants in China," she added.

The National Geographic reports that 8.2% of the Chinese are Christians. Multiplied by their population that may be more than in America.

I left her table, recalling how the Russian Communists had brutally rejected any form of religion. Communist China seems to have taken a different stance. And the lady worked for the hotel.

Using a Toothpick: The Chinese do this differently, and I saw scores of them performing the ritual. Michael showed me how: You cover your mouth and the toothpick with your other hand and shield the act from watching eyes. Somehow this seems like a cultural advance.

Gunpowder, Yo-yos and umbrellas: Since we've returned, the Gazette featured a story of how local children are learning of the Chinese culture and now know that the Chinese invented gunpower, yo-yos and umbrellas. Seemed strange the reporter left out the Chinese inventions of silk, paper and printing, which seem to outrank yo-yos and umbrellas, IMHO.

Smog in Beijing: The Friday after my Wednesday return, the Des Moines Register ran a picture showing three bicycle riders riding with a backdrop of what they called smog, so dense one could see nothing behind the riders. The title of the picture was something like: This is not L.A. It's Beijing. I sent three pictures of Beijing to the editor at the Register, taken only days before, saying that it appeared the reporter had turned morning fog into smog to make a case. Our pictures, and we, never once revealed an iota of smog. The smog story seems to have a life of it's own, facts be damned.

This Trip Called Life: In an upscale, posh department store, the equal of Macys, I watched a young lad scootering along on wheels embedded in his tennis shoes. Suddenly, it occurred to me what this trip we call life is all about: It's a venture we take from 'wheels on heels' to 'meals on wheels.'

Have a good ride.

The Purple Star Bistro China Express!

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The Terra Cotta Warriors, final China post

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The Original ' Miss Saigon' Engineer

"Since you're with Michael, I'll knock off 600 yaun. Your price is only 3600." The smooth-talking fellow was the rep of the store we were touring. Michael had found him in ways I will never understand. This was his first trip to Xi'an, too.
I never was sure what this fellow's name was but he was to guide us through the Terra Cotta Warrior exhibits, be our constant companion that day and, eventually our dinner guest. He spoke a form of garbled English which he was sure I totally understood.
To deal with this circumstance, it helped to mirror his expression, so I smiled and nodded a lot. It helps, too, to punctuated my silence with "Exactly!", "You said it!" and, " I couldn't agree more!" I think he must have had a point somewhere in there.
If you have seen the musical Miss Saigon, and recall a character named Engineer, a wheeler and dealer, always on tap for the fast buck, this was him in the flesh.
"I'll give you 2800," I countered. The goods were an assortment of scarves, grandkid's stuff, and some jade things we tourists buy. A yaun came in at 14.5 cents, give or take. (Don't tell Dolph. He sold $637 worth of them to me at 13.5 cents.)
"Thirty-two hundred and it's yours," Engineer responded. "Deal?"
"Deal."
I was rather smug about my negotiating skills. But, as we walked out of the store, Michael whispered, "I got him down another 400 to 2400." Asian ways are mysterious and awesome.
We had started the morning with a driver who was to be with us all day. So much so that he, too, joined us for dinner. I never knew his name, either.
But start at the beginning. In local soil is a clay, that undoubtedly was used to make the original Terra Cotta Warriors. It's cheap, readily available and used for modern-day replicas.
To show me how, a young lady pressed some in a half-mold to conform, then, did the same in the opposing mold. Making sure there is a hollow space in the replica, she slapped the two molds together. Then, she carefully peeled the molds apart, and the resultant replica is fired in an oven. In fifteen minutes, the replica is removed and handed to scores of ladies with scalpel-like knives, who hunch over dimly-lit benches and carve off the flash.
Engineer told me his 500 employees work 8-10 hours daily, the more if they want to earn more money, and net about $90 a month for their seven-day stint.
"But what do they want to do with more money when they never have a day off?" I asked.
Engineer shrugged.
That's more than you need or want to know about the process but I had to go there so . . . hey!
The factory tour was a oner. No one gets it except Michael, with his Dawg at his heels. We had begun the day with a stop at a place where a slew of dynasties had flourished thousands of years ago.
Dianne's Pilgrim ancestry of the 1620's Mayflower voyage--that seems so amazing to me--is but a blip of recent history in comparison. I had no real concept at what I was viewing, since the original inhabitants had lived before Christ. (My Uncle Cecil always said our family came over in a washtub tied behind the Mayflower. Seems more than likely.)
The Warriors, added to the Great Wall, are another of China's contributions to the Great Wonders of the World. And, well, no wonder. Giant buildings, resembling airplane hangars, were built around the three pits that harbor them, and the efforts to preserve their heritage are inviolate. Since they had already been unearthed--when some local farmers dug a well--the building had to be done with great care so as to not destroy an iota of this priceless cultural heritage.
After our day-long tours--replica factory and Warriors--we added two more people to the entourage and returned to our hotel for dinner.
That was Sunday. On Monday, Michael returned to his cadre of merchants and I spent a lazy day, shopping and receiving an awesome Chinese oil massage.
At dinner, Michael showed me pictures of the furniture he had seen that day, and now wanted for the Purple Star. Also, he had purchased all the plates, glasses and silverware he needed, too. I had to ask him as he didn't volunteer his conquest.
When our waitress arrived at our table, he gave her--as he had all our waitresses--explicit instructions on how the fish had to be cooked: It must weigh no more than 1.25 pounds and must be cooked 8-10minutes, no more.
Restaurant protocol in China dictates that the live fish is brought to the table for inspection, prior to cooking. Somehow. the flapping fish in the plastic box, or in a sack, seems slightly bizarre.
The fish was delectable and as we ate the chef came into the dining area to survey his diners. Obviously, he wanted to see who was giving him--the chef of a five-star hotel-- orders on how to cook a dinner.
But Michael called him over and a half hour of animated, chop-chop conversation was capped by the two men trading names and numbers. If he's good enough to cook there, he's good enough to cook for Michael, so the reasoning goes.
Now we're in Hong Kong readying to head home. Michael wants to visit another chef of a five-star hotel here, so he's staying another two days.
In the airport hotel, I splurged on a hamburger and fries.
At last! My culture.

A final tidbit of Chop Suey

* The Chinese joke about what they call their new national bird: The Construction Crane! In the threee cities we visited, it was almost impossible to to look in any direction and not see scores of cranes, roosting on the rooftops of 20-40 story buildings.

China's building at a sizzling pace. Don't ever sell them short. Today, they have surpassed the USA in the numbers of internet users. And cell phones are the new appendage attached to every Chinese hand that I saw.

China Sells Babies

"You want to know something interesting" Arturo Gemenez asked, shoveling a handful of peanuts in his mouth. I n0dded.
"There's fewer Chinese babies for adoption every year." He grabbed a swig of his Tsng Tao beer and dropped his other hand onto the tray in the stroller that held his new Chinese baby. Unsteady little fingers tried to fondle his watch. Arturo was on a roll and I merely raised my eyebrows to ask 'Why?' .
"Because, with China's race to embrace capitalism there's a rising middle class that can now afford to keep their babies. Even girls. And peasants are now allowed two children. China needs food."
The scene played out in the lobby bar of the Capital Hotel in Beijing. That morning I had watched a couple of dozen Caucasian couples wheel their Chinese baby girls to a waiting bus. Sensing a story, I asked the concierge, What gives? Then, I headed for the business center to scour the web for answers. I learned some interesting stuff.
Since 1992, American couples have adopted 50,000 Chinese babies, almost all of whom were girls. Then, I found the rules put out by the adoption arm of the Chinese government: The couples must be between 30 and 50 years of age. If either prospective parent is 29 or 51, it's no go. Further, eligibility hinges on mountains of paperwork, including revealing their tax returns and net worth statements.
Chinese social workers, then, visit their home plus conduct three in-office interviews. After roughly two years, and twenty thousand dollars later, the couple flies to southern China to receive it's baby.
Social workers hold classes for the new parents: 'Hold it often so it bonds to you.' 'Learn to change it's diapers and how to feed it.' 'Learn how to sleep with your baby.' And the list goes on.
After the initial introduction, the couple takes their baby to Beijing for the final ten days to two weeks of paperwork. If both the gpvernment and the couple agree, the adoption is final. And upon entering the US, the baby is granted citizenship.
"What did you name her, Arturo?"
"Breta Ying Gemenez,' he said proudly, tickling a finger into the chin of his, maybe, 5-6 month old baby girl.
"Why the Ying?"
"It's important for her to have a solid attachment to her cultural heritage." Then he added, "I gotta go. Good talking to you." And the proud new daddy wheeled his precious cargo away.
All over the hotel lobby, in bars, restaurants and shops, proud new parents strollered and hugged their new babies--some towing older Caucasian children with them, as well, some trailing one or two other Chinese children.
The children available are excellent health risks, for their health histories have been studied carefully. Another factor is that most are born of peasant women in the hinterlands where drugs and alcohol are scarce.
So why the prevalence of girls up for adoption over boys? My brain, stuck in a sterotypical time warp of centuries past, blamed a male-dominated Chinese culture which would lessen the value of a girl baby. Particularly in a country where the 'One Baby' law is not heresay or figment, but a living reality. I was wrong, of course.
The reason is simple. It's called economic self-preservation. My waitress taught me that.
When I returned to my table to await Michael joining me for dinner, she asked why I had talked to the Spanish gentleman. Arturo, by the way, had made a proud point of noting that more Spanish couples, per capita, adopt Chinese babies than do American couples, a rather surprising stat.
When she asked the question, I had the uneasy thought that she might be checking me out for some governmental reason. Wrong again. I related our conversation and asked her why girl babies were more adoptable.
"It is simple," she said. "Boy babies live with their parents and take care of them for life. When girls marry they move into their boy's homes, leaving their own parents without support in their old age."
In a country that has only had Social Security for seven years, the answer could not be more practical. But consider the tragedy of having to relinquish your precious baby girl to people who would cart her off to some strange land, and keep her there, forever. As a father of two daughters, the thought staggers.
In Beijing one must peform two tasks: Eat Peking duck, we did at the Peking Duck and, two, climb the Great Wall.
Pete, having seen me wimp out on the Ellis golf course hills, I know wondered if I would make it. Yeah. Me too.
But what neither Pete nor I knew was that climbing the Great Wall, is much like skiing. In any ski area, one finds bunny slopes, on up to back country black powder. Same with the Wall. I chose a green climb, maybe dotted green. Still it was a climb and, once on top, I awoke Dianne to claim my victory. I would have called Pete if I had his number.
Then I saw a guy in a wheelchair on the top. Incredulous, I asked how he got there. "There's a ramp, matey," the chap informed me.
I promised to tell about the admonition: Bring your own chopsticks to Beijing. China is straining to Go Green for the Olympics. Saving a few thousand trees that would end up as chopsticks is part of that effort. There's another thing: The much-vaunted air pollution of Beijing is puzzling. Neither Michael nor I had a single moment when we sensed air pollution. Of course, there are a million or so cars there. But other major cities that have hosted the Olympics have as many cars and no one howled. Red-bashing maybe?
I started this post with the title 'China sells babies!' for a reason. Here's why: After we understand how their adoption process works, what could be a more sane and caring way to place babies in new homes than how the Chinese governemnt demands?
If you are anything like me, you might share my Coolie mentality that had considered China to be a backwater, primitive country. Welcome to the Twenty-First Century, for nothing could be further from the truth.
Tomorrow: The second Great Wonder of the World.