smokerblog

Traveling in a Pack

[GUANGZHOU, 1/21 8:30PM]

We've been joined here in Guangzhou by six other families, so for all of our outings, we now travel by bus. One other mother is traveling by herself, so that makes twelve adults and seven children, plus three guides. The other families all seem very nice but I'm having a difficult time getting to know them because, well, see yesterday's post.

And in case I'm giving anyone the wrong impression about Ben, it's not like he's bad or even all that difficult, he's just always busy. When the guides (who have been awesome, I have to say) explain things to him, he settles right down. And in the semi-controlled environment of the hotel room, we've got a pretty good system worked out. It just gets harder when we're in publc and I don't have a context for his questions. Today we went to a government-run store that had all kinds of traditional Chinese art and jewelry for sale. Of course ba-ba forgot to bring along his cars, so poor Ben was bored out of his mind. I only got really nervous whenever he wandered into the porcelain section.

At the restaurants we eat family style, which means that all of the food is placed on a big rotating tray in the center of the table and you spin the tray around to get at the food you want. Part of the problem with learning Chinese from Ben is his four-year-old pronunciation, but he's got me pretty well trained on "boo yao!" That's what I hear whenever I offer him any kind of vegetable. If I give him something spicy, he looks at me like I'm crazy after he tastes it.

Only a couple of pictures today, both from the bus. In one, on the right, you can see an example of why the SUV market in China hasn't taken off: If you can carry that much stuff on the back of a moped, why bother? And that one is running nowhere near capacity. Also check out the lane change going on in the left of the picture.