From Grits to Chopsticks

To prepare for our upcoming move in February, we made a trip to China during the last two weeks of October.  It was a great opportunity to meet new friends and get materials needed to prepare for teaching at the University in the Spring semester.

In order to cope with the reduced level of demand, the airlines have dramatically reduced their flight options to Asia, requiring us to take 4 flights (about 30 hours) to get to our new city.  We are glad to report that all of the flights were on-time and the baggage made it without incident.

As expected, the beds in our hotels were firm (as in, like-a-rock), making us happy that we brought our Thermarest® pads.  Our primary hotel was not too bad, especially for the 100 RMB/night negotiated for us by the University.  We were able to get a new cell phone for use in China, and by putting down a sufficient amount of pre-payment, we can call the US for less than 7 cents/min.  Not bad for calling all the way around the planet.

Mark was able to spend time with folks in the International Trade department at the university, picking up the textbooks for the courses he will teach in the Spring (Marketing and Negotiations).  Fortunately, the books are written in Chinese and English.  It’s pretty interesting to read a Chinese textbook and see the author’s perspective of how Americans negotiate.

We were able to enjoy all kinds of food available in the city, including traditional Chinese, minority BBQ, “western” fare (it will seem more authentic after living in China for a few months), KFC, and Papa John’s Pizza.  The best pizza of all was found at Chicago Coffee, and the Chinese food at the school cafeteria was actually pretty good.

In hopes of connecting with some familiar fare, we took a trip to the local Wal-Mart (yes, there are several in town) to scout out what we might need to bring over from the US.  Everything seemed familiar in the regular part of the store (after all, most things in the US Wal-Mart come from China), but we were in for quite a surprise when we reached the food section.  It’s pretty obvious that they are targeting the local market.  I can’t remember a time here in Georgia when I saw a bag of live frogs, bins of unidentifiable frozen fish, and live crabs, neatly tied up and placed in rows on a table.

Interestingly, we will also need to bring tea with us when we go to China (?!).  We are large consumers of sweet iced tea, and we were unable to find decaffeinated tea bags anywhere (sugar is also in short supply).  We were also a bit disappointed in the selection of cereals.  Unlike the local store, they only had two options: corn flakes and rice flakes.  It looks like our diet is destined for a change…