BlacKnight Adventures

We’re back in the land of spredable butter, an oven in every home, and the light-switch INside the bathroom: Canada. We’ll be at Jonny’s parents, a stop in Seattle, then home to Walla Walla.

About to leave the apartment to begin our long journey home.

We’ve packed, weighed, re-packed, tidied, cleaned, and are ready to walk. Yay!

It’s been a good six months and we look forward to showing many of you pictures and telling stories in person. Thank you for reading our blog while we’re here – we’re honored by your interest in our little lives. We plan to keep writing occasionally from Walla Walla… I’ve got my new house to move into and decorate etc etc. Seems like there’s always a project going on, but.. I guess if I’m honest with myself I wouldn’t have it other way.

Pray for us as we take a ferry, plane, bus, and a rental car back to Walla Walla through the weekend. And thanks again for reading.

Perhaps it is the polite attitude of the people I have spoken with, but I only hear good things about America from the Chinese. Even when asked directly, they haven’t told me anything they find annoying about our habits etc. I am left to believe that they genuinely enjoy our friendly, outgoing nature, our straight-forward honesty, and our easy-going manners. Like them, we’d prefer to enjoy ourselves than stick to rigid rules – you can make a bit of a mess when you eat, it doesn’t matter which way you stir your tea, nor usually what utensil you use to get the food into your face.

I do know they don’t like Obama (nor Bush) – as he met the Dali Lama in the White House (though informally, and not in the Oval Office), he sold weapons to Taiwan, and his administration is pressing them on the value of the RMB as well as trade negotiations. I have yet to hear their reaction to our recent subs in their vicinity.

The state-controlled media might be part of the reason for all the compliments. They seem to put a positive spin on almost everything (as much as I can tell through the language barrier). They like to highlight what the Chinese Government – Federal, regional, or local – is doing to support and enhance the lives of the people. If this was all you knew of news coverage, I can only imagine how watching our news must make us look.

And then there’s this: An article about how the Afghans are training monkeys to fight against us and giving them AKs (you didn’t know of the vast great-ape  population of the middle east? Neither did I.) Apparently this is an act of desperation on their part, as we have brought such better technology to the war. It’s also apparently a tactic we employed in the Vietnam War… I don’t even know what to say about this article; it might even be a joke.

State-Controlled Media

Found a new website that explains the origins of the word “Soccer” for any of you speaking English outside the US.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/06/the-origin-of-the-word-soccer/

There are some other great articles on Today I Found Out:
like the fact that Jesus might have been an “engineer” of sorts
Uncle Same and Chef Boyarde were real guys
Each article even cites sources. Looks like “I read it on the internet” is carrying more weight every day.

*Updated*

(World Cup)
We need more Americans in China! I checked all the sports bars, but found only the England game being shown, so I negotiated with our apartment clubhouse to watch the USA game on their big TV. In hind-sight I should’ve squatted my spot to hold the reservation, but there were no lights on and no people with only 15 min until kickoff. I ran back home to grab Rachel, my USA jersey, and to try to drum up a crowd but in the 10 min I was gone 1 English guy and his Canadian buddy changedthr channel. After some frustration and a lot of striking out I managed to stream the game at home… It was a tense one, and we almost got robbed by reffing AGAIN, but in the end we won our group and will advance to play the 2nd place people from group D (being played in a couple hours – likely to be Serbia)
Whew, time for Bed.

*Update* – I guess Australia pulled a fast one on Serbia. Bring it on Ghana! I won’t be blogging about the whole world cup, but I was a bit exasperated trying to find a place to watch it and then we won dramatically at the last second! All those reffing errors wiped clean, time to move forward.

*updated* twice

Rachel and I made it home, almost without incident. Flying through china (5 flights in 2 weeks) has been relatively painless. Some of the seats are closer together than we’re used to, but nothing terrible, and today’s flight home was rather spacious. Going through Zhuhai airport was unbelievably fast. Five minutes after we landed Rachel and I had our bags and were buying a bus ticket into the city. It was so slick in fact that I barely had time to realize that I didn’t get my new suit back from the stewardess on the plane. I got caught in the Chinese eagerness and pushed out the door without thinking. Fortunately I remembered just as the bus was pulling away from the curb and leaped out, leaving Rachel behind with her bags. I was able to recover the garment bag without TOO much trouble, but then I had to find a new bus. The ladies told me that the next one is 90 minutes from Rachel’s bus which puts me past the times the city buses run, and leaves Rachel strafed at a bus stop with no money for an hour-and-a-half. Guh. Fortunately, the girls at the desk (there are now 4 if the surrounding me, bit none of them speak English) are so concerned that the two of us are separated that they’ve arranged for me to catch up. I’m currently on a bus all to myself, with the understanding that it will cost me no extra money. They called over a driver and explained something earnestly to him, he waived me to follow him out to the bus barn, and we’re on our way. Just the two of us. I’m sure I’ll be able to find Rachel without too much trouble. Her phone is dead, but she borrowed one and rang me to make a plan…

*update:
We reunited no problem and are safe in our apartment. Maxi met us with wonderful food so we’re happy and ready for bed (and just before the torrent of rain started)
Lesson for the day: People are incredibly helpful when they find you helpless.
*2nd update:
My Parents are home safe with no issues.

I had the suit made in Beijing, but that’s another post for another time. In fact we’ll have many out-of-order posts coming up soon as we and my parents try to return to our normal lives.

In case you didn’t already know this, Jesse possesses some interesting qualities inherited directly from the people who spawned him…he makes new friends wherever we go, exactly like his Grandma Ellen on his mom’s side, and his Grandpa Coyne on his dad’s. These two have perfected the art of being interested in everyone, and finding something in common with people who live completely different lives.

During our travels Jesse has made friends with waitresses, people on buses, lost backpackers, strangers on the street, Irish lads in a hostel, cab drivers, Chinese tour guides and anyone who speaks English–even a little. Two days ago he helped a lost family of very tall blond people from Colorado on the streets of Xi’an and invited them to find Indian food with us. They happily agreed and together we discovered we had lots in common and shared a great dinner and evening traipsing through the city.

World Expo in Shanghai was crowded, hot, confusing, and a bit discouraging until Jesse went up to the guard at the VIP entrance of Finland’s building, and asked him to call a girl we’d casually met on a boat a few days before. We knew her first name only, and couldn’t locate her hastily scrawled phone number. In a few moments a charming girl who had only been told that a tall boy who looked like a Viking was asking for her came out to meet us. She took us on a private tour complete with interesting details and inside info.

There are countless more examples of how Jesse’s innate friendliness has made this trip more fun and further spread the truth that Americans are not ugly or egocentric, but helpful and interested in other’s lives. He asks questions, making them feel he genuinely wants to know about them–which he does. Take him with you if you are planning a trip. He reads maps, navigates new territory with his iPhone and carries bags too!

The Chinese have nearly unbounded eagerness. This is an advantage when you are trying to build something -from the Great Wall to a highspeed train- or if you need directions. People will go way out of their way to help us: from closing shops so they can walk us near our destinations to calling their English-speaking friends to understand our requests. As individuals the Chinese people are VERY nice to us everywhere we go.

However, mix this eagerness into a large group and CRAZY things happen. Previously polite and friendly people will elbow you in the ribs as they push past. Old women will race each other down a gangplank to a boat that’s not leaving until it’s full. People pack in so densely they move as one body to board a ferry with assigned seats. It’s ridiculous, hilarious, and sometimes infuriating. We’ve mostly learned when we need to join in the melee or get left, and when we can sit and watch. By the time we were done with the Expo, I was pretty done with China and it’s 1.3 Billion pushy-people, but was again amused moments later while boarding a ferry nearby. See the following video of the next passengers starting the boarding process taken as we disembarked. Keep in mind that they’ve already been sectioned into a group that will not overfill the boat, it’s an 8 minute ride crossing the river, there is a steady stream of free boats, and they’re not giving away free stuff on the boat or the far side. The exuberance is boggling. My parents were wondering if we were just missing the point – perhaps there IS a prize for being first (cookies?), but it must be very secret, because the man who achieved this lofty goal seemed to get nothing more than his choice of seats (which didn’t appear to be a special choice) and a smug look of self-satisfaction.

Go Go Go! from Jesse Knight on Vimeo.

I will say that the attitude is infectious. When you’re immersed in a sea of anxious people, you want to join them, to be running with them down the ramp and onto the boat with reckless abandon. Perhaps you’re missing something? or someone will get left? Are there dogs nipping at the people in the back? Fortunately most Asians are small enough that I don’t fear a personal trampling, and the larger ones don’t tend be as aggressive.

To see a bit of the countryside we decided to rent bikes in Yangshuo (“yang – shwoah”), which is just a short bus ride from Guilin and much more scenic and small.

The first bit of our bike journey on these whippy-framed bikes took us through along the main roads where busses, dump-trucks, cars, motorcycles and bikes jockey for space. The rules for allowed-space are different here, and navigating through the gaps is a bit like surfing or playing outfield – you have to go where you know a gap WILL open up, not where there is one you can see yet. Oh.. and keep a mindful eye on the side-streets as someone way poke their nose out to see down the road. Fortunately we were able to slip through crowd quite smoothly and head towards the more rural areas. I quite like the zoo-y traffic here as it first seems a mess, but everyone is paying attention and using every bit of space. There are fewer expectations about what you will do or can do, so you must drive with your wits about you.

Once out of the city, turned off down a country path without a real plan. To ride among the karst and mist is a great experience. The scenery is hard to describe… it’s just so… magical. Rachel and I half-stripped for a dip part way through our ride (much to the surprise of the Chinese tourists). Rather than write flowery words, I’d rather just show you the beauty of Yangshuo.

yangshuo-10

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I thought I had tried every flavor of popsicle in my life, until today when I innocently picked out a rich brown wrapper which looked exactly like a tasty chocolate ice cream bar should look! But no, inside it was revealed to be bright green…not too bad so far. The first bite contained an unidentifiable mealy componant, and I was surprised to see actual red beans nestling in the center of the whole thing. These are not special Chinese beans, these are the same ones we buy…and it turns out the green is green tea flavor. Odd, interesting, and not too bad. I discovered that if you don’t like cooked veggies you can also get corn and peas in popsicles. Who knew? Who thought of this? I wonder how brocolli flavored frozen treats would go over in the US!