Sometimes it doesn't matter how long we've been in China. There is so much to learn. I still feel very much like the huddled masses who arrived in NY @ the turn of last century must have felt, relying on my children to read simple store signs, or the notices which are randomly glued to the front door of our apartment home.
I feel even, a bit inadequate answering these simple questions from kindergartners in Kendall County, IL. I wish I had more my answers were more precise. I hope that these flimsy responses I offer here are adequate...
7. What is the weather like there? Do you have seasons like we do?
We live in a coastal city... along the Yellow Sea (which feeds into the Pacific Ocean). Our closeness to the water in many way effects the weather. We have lots of wind, and rather cold winters, but it rarely snows. (My girls are disappointed about that-- when we go home to IL for Christmas, they love to sled and build snowmen!) The summers here are very hot and humid, but it doesn't rain very much. We get lots and lots of fog in the late fall and late spring (as the temperatures begin to warm up!) We are always nervous if we have to fly, because often the fog delays flights, meaning we sometimes miss connecting flights in other cities!
Qingdao is also in the Northern hemisphere, so we have four seasons at roughly the same time you do. Our most favorite months here are May and October... those months offer the most beautiful days to go to the beach and search for special shells and tiny hermit crabs!
8. What kind of stores do they have?
In our city in China we have fancy shopping malls (think Prada, Gucci, and Tiffany), average mall stores with lots of Chinese brands but some other names we recognize too (Nike, Northface, and Calvin Klein), and then lots and lots of markets (open air markets and covered markets) that sell everything you can think of! In China, many times the stores that sell the same kinds of things are grouped together... so that all the places that sell curtains are on the same block (we call it curtain street!) and all the vendors who sell flowers sell in the same area....
9. Are there mountains there? Volcanoes? Do you have big cities?
Yes. No. Yes.
We leave in a beautiful part of China. Not only do we live near the sea, but we also live near some beautiful limestone mountains called Lao Shan (which means "Old Mountains"). The Chinese believe in the importance of Feng Shui (feng means wind, and shui means water). Our city is believed to have excellent feng shui because it is situated between the mountains and the sea. Because we have mountains, our city is much more hilly. As a result, fewer people ride bicycles in our city (because of all the extra work it would take to go up and down the hills!)
We don't have any volcanoes near where we live. I think the nearest volcanoes are in Japan.
Cities in China are very big! Our city has about 3 million people (which means it is the same size as Chicago), but we are considered just a tiny city. Big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and ChongQing have five and six times as many people as we do!
Do you know what it is like to go to the mall before Christmas... when the parking lots are full and people seem to be everywhere? That's what it is like to go to a public place in China on any given weekend!
10. Do you use boats there? Airplanes?
Yes. and Yes.
We travel by airplane a lot. We have a van, with a wonderful man who drives us around Qingdao. His name is Mr. Zhang (pronounced like Jang ... zh in Chinese is like J), but our girls call him shu shu (which means uncle.) If we travel outside of Qingdao we almost always fly.
My husband takes a high speed train (called a bullet train) to visit the factory where his company makes tractors. We also sometimes travel on a ferry if we visit another nearby city. Mr. Zhang drives our van right onto the ferry, and then we all get out and go to the top deck to watch for other boats and see the shipping port. They sell snacks on the ferry and even have a toilet!
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