Chaotic China!

Day 8 - 04/10/12

Today felt like Christmas in South Africa. I visited yet another area of shopping malls and tall buildings and it was CHAOTIC! There were thousands of people…and really I mean thousands. I was constantly bumped by people walking by or in the opposite direction, at times I had to stop and wait for traffic to clear out, there was loud distorted music hammering out of every second store and to top it all off there were construction men at work with their hammer drills. It was like being at Gateway during the festive season but worse…I was also hungry!

Hungry + Noisy crowded place + people staring & pointing at you = Irritated Charou In China

Tracy and I finally put our poor ears and tummies to rest at a place called Europaer. Europaer is a western style restaurant with forks, knifes (not chops sticks) pizza, pasta, steak and even risotto…but THEY DON’T HAVE WESTERN STYLE TOILEEETTTSSS! Maybe I’m asking for too much from a country that makes replicas of everything…can’t they at least make a fake western style toilet! Anyway…back to peace haven Europaer. Here our ears were met with soft classical music and our noses were reunited with the wonderful western scent of baked bread. Right away we knew what we were having…pizza of course. I had a vegetarian pizza with mushroom, baby tomatoes, corn and green pepper. Tracy delighted her tasted buds with a Hawaiian Pizza – bacon & pineapple. It was delicious! Afterwards we were full, happy and ready to take on crowds of people including construction men and their noisy gadgets. We met with a local friend and spent most of the day talking with her.

We figured that the shopping area was busy because it was a public holiday, National Day as China was founded on 1 October 1949. We also learned that the construction men were hard at work because Liaoning (the province in which I live) will be hosting the 12th National Games of the People’s Republic of China. The National Games is the main sporting event in China at national level. It is held once every four years. It’s like the mini Olympic Games but only for Chinese people…no wonder they did so well at the London Olympic Games this year.

Another interesting fact I picked up today was that China has a One-child policy. This policy restricts married, urban couples from having more than one child. However certain cases are accepted such as twins, rural couples, ethnic minorities and parents without siblings themselves. This law was put into place in 1978 which means many parents today possibly have no siblings therefore they are allowed to have more than one child. I’m quite sure this law is violated at some levels however our local friend says that if a second child is born unlawfully the parents are obligated to pay a very larger some of money to the government.     

According to the government this law will remain as it is until at least 2015. Personally I understand why such a law has been put into place however I don’t think all factors were considered – such as increasing abortion rates, killing of newborns unnecessarily and freedom in terms of family planning. Maybe the new generation will be more accepting of this law or they may even find ways to abolish it.

I brought my gallivants to an end by making a debut appearance at WAL MART a multinational American chain store. It has everything from apples to zebra print couches. It’s like Game on steroids.  Apparently WAL MART has been listed as the largest retailer in the world and the world’s third largest public corporation. Here I bought some Skippy peanut butter and Vaseline Intensive Care lotion. I was very happy to see some familiar things.

Fun Day! J Hope you all have a great weekend!

Love
Verusha

Our pizzas

Our local friend