Day 6. It’s been impossible to keep up with the blog. Pretty much the past few days have been jam-packed with activity, and little time to sit down to devote to writing. Right now, though, Mia’s getting ready to take a nap, so there’s nothing to do except hang around the apartment.
Going back and doing a day-by-day “What we did” is too difficult now… it’s all run together already, and we’ve only been here six days. I’m just going to write about things in general so far anyway.
So- Today, we’re at Hongmei’s Sister, Hongyen’s, apartment. She is married with one daughter, Bao Xi, age 9. They live in a small town north of Tianjin. It took about an hour to drive up here from Hongmei’s Aunt’s apartment. It’s a lot more luxurious here! We have an actual sit-down toilet, more rooms for privacy, and a marble-tiled floor.
It’s really interesting to observe how many of the details of things are here. I’m not talking about social stuff; I’m talking about refrigerators, outlets, cooking methods, toys, shopping carts… America prides itself on ingeniuity, but I’ve seen so many things here that are so clever, it makes you want to slap your forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Still, conversely, some things are done in a backwards, inefficient manner as compared to how they’re done in America, that I think to myself, “Why in the heck do they DO it that way?”
For example, it is quite common to see people sweeping the street, or floor, with an old, careworn straw broom, with a short handle that forces the user to bend over. A shop push-broom would probably increase the sweeping efficiency on a scale of 500-1000%, but push brooms are simply not a common item. I saw ONE for sale, the last time I was here 3 or so years ago, but it was a sad, neglected item carelessly placed in a dusty corner of the entrance to the supermarket, for sale.
Electrical outlets are, of course, 220 volts here. However, there are two formats for plugging in: Your basic 2-prong plug-in, identical to ours; but their three-prong plug-in is such that the two positive/negative prongs are at angles from each other. In general, all power strips contain two 2-slot outlets, one 3-prong outlet, and another two-prong outlet on the end face. This is an example of a clever design: Should one only desire to use it as an extension cord to something with two prongs, you can plug it into the end, creating a more streamlined connection, space-wise. To date, I have never observed such a device in America.
Another example of the small engineering differences are the flush toilets. The most common type of flush toilet has two buttons on top of the tank lid. They are designed as two halves of an oval shape; giving a more elegant design to the buttons. One button, usually bigger, is for a full flush; exactly what you’d expect when you flush a toilet. The smaller one simply opens the tank valve as long as you’re pushing it, only flushing for as long as you hold it. This allows you to control the amount of water you’re flushing with.
Cooking is mostly done with older traditional utensils and pots, pans, etc. As I’ve mentioned to lots of other people before, Chinese do not bake anything in their homes. Nobody has an oven. Everything is either fried (stir-fried, or pan fried), boiled, or steamed. Wood and bamboo steamers are used.
Chinese love to drink hot water, and thus her sister’s apartment has a water cooler/heater in the living room; the typical office-type water cooler with the big 5-gallon tank on top of it. The refigerator is also in the living room. This is probably because there is no room in the kitchen; which is actually in a balcony area. The dining area is more like a wide hallway leading to the kitchen, so there’s no room for the fridge there.
Milk is not a commonly purchased item, and it’s actually somewhat of a luxury item. It’s sold mostly in small cartons about the size of a Juicy Juice container, complete with straw, and the straw actually has two tubes so that it’s extendable. It is not necessary to refrigerate it as much as American milk; I’m not sure why; it’s somehow processed to last longer at room temperature. However it will last longer in the fridge so we keep it in the fridge. At the supermarket, I saw all the milk for sale. It was all packaged in very fancy cardboard boxes with glossy print around it, a ribbon stuck to the front, and a plastic window showing the cartons inside, thus further exemplifying it as a luxury item.
Cheese is a rare luxury food item too, being as expensive here as it is in the U.S. I actually saw genuine American “Land O’ Lakes” brand American Cheese and Butter for sale, but they were prohibitively expensive. More expensive than they are in the U.S.! We bought a slightly cheaper brand. I knew it was genuine because the package had no chinese characters on it whatsoever.
Another random example of small engineering differences that seem clever, is the sink stopper in the bathroom sink. Rather than being a long stand with a chrome hubcap on top and a rubber seal, it’s a thick disc fitted in the drainhole and permanently fixed on an axle, so that you can flip it and it comes un-stopped. Hard to explan. I’ll probably make a video of this stuff anyway. This design does force you to stick your hand down into the water to drain the sink, but if you’re that particular about your sink water, then you have problems. Besides, this design is much more maintenance-free, as I can personally vouch for, having replaced some sinks in my past.
