Family Visit in Tang Hei

While in China, I could not access my blog due to the Chinese government's internet restrictions. After 6 weeks there, we have now arrived in Malaysia. I will post my China blog entries over the next few days. 

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Our first week in China we stayed with Danny's cousin Dong and extended family, which includes Dong's daughter and granddaughter, in Tang Hei, north of Beijing. 

Danny and his first cousins:

We have been welcomed as beloved family - Danny and I are called "Lao Ye" and "Lao Lao" by 3-year old Chen Chen which means grampa and gramma!  Zac is "Jiu Jiu", or uncle. We have been given our own place to stay, a 3-bedroom apartment, while Dong stays with his daughter:

On our initial day, the family proposed that they take us on a long drive to visit an emperor's tomb but we declined and said that we just want to do local things and see how they live. At first the family scratched their heads and seemed confused, but then they understood and since then we have been having a fantastic time.

Throwing darts in the public square in the evening:

Every day is a bit different and we never quite know what the plan is so we have learned to "go with the flow". There are a couple cousins who speak some English, plus a few friends who are currently going to university in Canada/Ireland, so there is always someone around to translate and we are learning more mandarin each day.  Yesterday we visited a nearby "forest park" where we played frisbee (ours) and saw all the families having picnics. Children here don't wear diapers, they have a slit in their pants and are all toilet trained by one-year old.

3-year old Chen Chen in the park:

We came home and I got a lesson on making jongzi (sticky rice wrapped in leaves). 

Every meal here is a major event involving 7-20 dishes, even breakfast!  The food is delicious and even Zac is finding things he likes at every meal, though Aunt thinks he is too skinny and should eat more. Everyone is very impressed that he can use chopsticks so well.

A typical breakfast:

We are amazed by the economic progress of both the family and the city since ten years ago when we last visited. At that time, this was mostly a shrimp farming family that lived in a small village in the country - their house did not have running water. 

Visiting the family shrimp farm:

Now the family is securely in the middle class with modern apartments with all the amenities and cars. The city, which was previously an agricultural zone, is now an industrial area and is surrounded by rapid development. The scale and pace of development is astounding - we saw massive oil refineries and steel manufacturing ten or more times the size of Hamilton. None of this even existed 10 years ago!  Today we visited a nearby protected wetland and new housing development that is completely heated and cooled with geothermal, so it is great to see that there are environmental considerations as well to at least partly offset the economic growth. 

There are many cars but the predominate form of travel in this city is still by electric bike and three-wheeled electric taxis. 

3-wheeled taxi:

While the city of Tang Hei / Caofeidan is just a 2 hour drive from Beijing, there are literally no tourists here. People are shocked to see a foreigner and I constantly see people stopping with mouths open and pointing at me, completely shocked. If I say "ni hao" they are astounded that I "speak mandarin". Last night we were sitting in the public square and a woman I did not know gave me her baby to hold - I looked up and was surrounded by about 30 people who were watching me and taking photos. It is really quite an incredible experience. 

Everybody wants their photo with Zac:

People on the street usually think Zac is a girl because of his long hair but once they find out he is a boy they think he is very handsome and "cool". Zac is thrilled that there are a pair of roller blades here that he can use and is enjoying skating in the public square in the evening. He has even made a friend as there is a boy who speaks english well so he came over for dinner last night. 

Dinner with Zac's new friend Peter:

It's all lots of fun but very exhausting as our brains are tired at the end of the day from trying to communicate so we sleep very well.  

We were invited to attend a special meeting with the Tang Hei Chairman to discuss investment opportunities (there are many!) and improve understanding of Canada's immigration policy. Dinner was incredible with 24 dishes!

Meeting the Chairman:

The day we left we had another big dinner with the whole family. 

This requires a big table:

There were many tears shed by everyone while saying goodbye. The good news is that now we can use QQ (Like a Chinese Facebook but with censorship) to stay in touch, at least with the younger members. We hope that one day, some if them will be able to visit us in Canada, but as of now that dream is still not possible. 

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