Man Man Zou

We spent four months traveling together in China, and probably out of those 120 days (or 2880 hours), we spent about 5 hours apart. The other 2875 hours were spent side by side. Hour after hour on endless bus journeys. That’s A LOT of time together. So now that we’re apart all day as Mark is all settled back into the life of a student (and enjoying it, by the way), and I’m settled into work, I’d like to say thank you to Mark. Thank you for carrying my 50lbs of photography equipment across China without complaining. Thank you for patiently waiting while I bargain hard with a shopkeeper to save 5 cents off our water. Thank you for politely asking all those men to stop smoking on our buses. Thank you for being able to read some Chinese. Thank you for forcing me to continue my photo-of-the-day project. Thank you for stocking up on warm clothing before we went up into the mountains. Thank you for nicely talking with those people who always tried to practice their English with us. Thank you for not going to too many museums. Thank you for saying yes when I asked you to marry me. Thank you for eating all those meat dishes that were offered to us. Thank you for giving me the window seat. Thank you for being as much into photography as I am. Thank you for not arguing with me when I was in a bad mood. Thank you for being a wonderful travel companion through China!

And one more thing, thank you for being so stylin’!

The biggest relief of being home is that I no longer have to take photos everyday. While in China, I started a photography project- a photo a day in China. Taking photos everyday, and choosing one of those as a representative photo really took over our lives while traveling. I ended up wearing my camera around my neck for every moment outside of the hotel room, even during bus and train rides. After a full day of transportation, we usually still had to trudge out and and try to photograph things. I did manage to get a photo for each day, which was extremely rewarding. Of course in China, not every day goes well, so I ended up with some duds that I’m not proud of, but there are also some nice ones too. I am going to post these daily photos everyday on my photoblog, and I hope that some people can see the wonderful diversity of the people and the land in China- from the Uighur people of the west, to the minorities of Guizhou province, and the tropics of Xishuangbanna near Laos, to the frigid Heilongjiang near Russia.

Friday was my second weekiversary of being in Canada, and I still haven’t eaten at Tim Horton’s! The time is flying by just like it did in Asia, and now Christmas is even over. I’m impressed with what I’ve done over the last two weeks, and I’m really glad we made the decision to come back to Canada right in the middle of Christmas season- the best time of the year!

We landed in Ontario on the 9th, and I stayed with Mark’s family in Ontario for 5 nights. I had a nice relaxing time there. We had many big dinners and also went to watch Narnia. My biggest adventure in Ontario was surviving Niagara Falls- the conditions near the falls were so icy and snowy that Mark had real icicles in his hair, and Joe, his brother, had an icicle booger on his nose. Ha! Sorry Joe. All of our clothing got soaked, and then immediately frozen. My tripod froze, and I couldn’t even mount the camera on it. Niagara Falls, in all its fury, looked really nice at night because it was all lit up with lights.

I made it to BC on the 14th and was so happy to be home. I was a little worried that I’d be overwhelmed by all the changes that have gone on here, but so far so good. A lot has happened over the past year and a half, since I last visited. Lots of marriages and babies born. My sister got married, my brother got married, Mark’s sister got married, Bliss got married, Keri got married, and there’s even more than that. My brother and his son moved into a nice house in our neighborhood, along with his wife and her daughter- both of whom I finally got to meet. In an area near our house, we have a huge shopping complex that opened up, and I have immediate access to most stores that I prefer to shop at. Obviously my parents enjoyed shopping there as well, because they picked up a giant HD TV for our basement- a nice addition in my opinion.

The most unexpected thing of all in my return home is that my dog is still alive. I have an extremely elderly dog, and I’ve already bid her the official farewell three times- once in Jan 2003 when I left for SE Asia, then again in Aug 2003 when I left for Taiwan, and once more in Aug 2004 when I returned to Taiwan. I’ve had her since grade 4, and she’s like a sister to me since I had no other siblings to fight with in my home when I was growing up. She’s so old- 17 years old- that I figured she would pass away while I was gone. But Junior lives on! I think we should change her name to Senior.

It has been exactly three years since I was celebrating finishing my last exams of university. Two weeks later, I left for Asia and came home twice for visits between then and now. It’s a totally different feeling this time, because in the past it was always just a visit. Even during my 4.5 years at university, every time I came home it was just for a visit or for summer holidays. So it’s been more than 7 years since I’ve lived anywhere somewhat permanently. Though, of course, living with my parents will not be permanent :)

For the first week or so of being home, I was pretty wide-eyed about everything. I felt like I was observing Western culture in the same way I was observing Asian culture over the last three years. We are so polite, yet so aggressive when angered. An example of politeness was in the grocery store, as I was walking towards a lady with her cart in the middle of the aisle. Before I was even near her, she moved it out of the way. That wouldn’t happen in China- I’d have to move her cart myself. And then there’s the other side of our culture. An example of aggressiveness was when I pulled out of a friend’s place at night. About a minute later, all my windows completely fogged up and I had to pull over. As I was waiting for it to de-fog, I stepped out to wipe off a little frost, and a guy driving by rolled down his window to yell out ”Do you really have to do that HERE?”. Again, that wouldn’t happen in China- I could block the entire lane and no one would stop to tell me off. Obviously, there are pros and cons of every culture.

So far, I’m enjoying the pros of western life. I feel so clean. Even living in Taiwan, I never felt this good. It’s also nice having a lot of people around who I feel comfortable with. I think I severely damaged any social abilities I used to have from living in Taiwan with very few western friends, and then traveling through China with the same person at my side for four months straight. The food here is a good thing too. Though I loved Chinese food in Taiwan for two years, those four months in China did a number on me because there was very little to eat for vegetarians.

A day after I arrived in BC, I started working again. That sounds a little crazy, but I’m just so thankful that my old job needed me to work again for Christmas relief. I really love my old job, and it was so nice to see a lot of the same people again. Unfortunately, I’m just a casual worker so the hours will be scarce, but it’ll be nice to have some days off and it beats being unemployed.

Christmastime was the best ever, that’s for sure. I went ice skating, bike riding, played rummoli, ate Christmas baking, visited friends, and went out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve. I got excellent presents for Christmas, and then on Boxing Day I bought some much needed clothes. Boxing Day is my favorite day of the year because of all the deals, yet I hate shopping- I’ll never figure that out. And today, the day after Boxing Day, we all went to see King Kong.

My journal is not quite dead- yet. Though I’ll just bluntly say that life in North America is quite boring compared to life in Asia, there are still some things I have to say about my time over there. I have already written some random things, but just haven’t posted them yet.

I imagine posting about daily life in Canada, and I imagine my post going something like this: Today it took me 45 minutes to drive 10 km across the bridge - or - I went out for dinner tonight and paid $20 for my crappy meal. I then, under social pressure, had to tip the miserable waitress another $4- because that’s what everyone else does. There are some things that I will miss about Taiwan- like being able to zip through traffic on my scooter, and never having to tip at restaurants. Don’t worry, I won’t be journaling about things like that, but sometimes that’s the way I feel here.

This month I’ve had about 60 searchers come to my website in hopes of finding out how to write “Merry Christmas” in Chinese. Each day, that number grows and now I’m starting to feel a little guilty because there is absolutely nothing on my site that shows how to write “圣诞快乐” Merry Christmas, or Sheng Dan Kuai Le!

So, I asked Mark how to write it for me so I could put it up here, but instead he found a nice website about Chinese Characters, called Good Characters. There, they have an excellent tutorial showing the proper stroke order on how to write “Merry Christmas” in traditional Chinese, and a little red box in the corner showing the simplified Chinese version. It also plays a clear recording on how to pronounce it, but the one thing I couldn’t find was the tone for each word. For anyone wondering, it’s Sheng(4) Dan(4) Kuai<4) Le(4).