The First Days: Insane Traffic, Jet Lag, and The Search for Food

The first few days here are frankly a giant blur right now. I’m actually really glad that I didn’t have internet access then because you would have had to ride along with my ups and downs and much of it was greatly influenced by jet lag and culture shock. The jet lag (to find out what time it is here, from the west coast of the US, “flip it” and add 3, meaning if it’s morning where you are, we are night and 3 hours ahead) has been excruciating.

The very first morning—after having fallen asleep about 2:30 a.m.—we awoke around 6 and scrambled for breakfast. I actually don’t know what we ate, but I do know that Dave burned himself pretty badly on his foot from the boiling water machine. (A number of you have asked about the water situation here and this is it: we don’t drink the tap, but we also don’t boil the water ourselves. The hotel had a boiling water machine across the hallway from our room and we filled our nalgene bottles with it at night and in the morning it’s nice and cool and sterile. We also have a SteriPen for making good water from cool tap water. So far both have worked really well. Where we are now, the boiling water machine is on the 2^nd floor, we’re on the 4^th, so it’s a bit of a hike but still worth it.) Anyway, Dave tried to fill a nalgene bottle while holding the lid and it slipped off and he got boiling water all over his forearm and the top and bottom of one foot. We immediately ran cold water over everything but mostly he thought he’d burned the bottom of his foot and forearm, so we neglected the top of his foot. This is where Mr. Song (pronounced Soong) comes in. Dave called Yongsheng to ask about burn cream and minutes later Mr. Song appeared at our door. Mr. Song is on the faculty here at Inner Mongolia Normal University (IMNU) and has been assigned to us as our “waiban”, not an interpreter exactly, but our go-to guy for everything. Mr. Song looked at the burn and the rapidly forming blisters and left only to return minutes later with this really incredible burn ointment. It helped instantly with the pain and has really made it heal quickly, I think, even though Dave’s foot still looks yucky.

(The Education Hotel)

We ate frequently at the fancy Mongolian restaurant across the street from the Education Hotel (where we stayed the first 5 days), since we didn’t have any means to cook. The first dinner was actually an elaborate banquet put on by the dean of the college. Yongsheng, his kids, his parents (from the northern-eastern-most tip of Inner Mongolia), and brother, Mr. Chen (the dean), Mr. Song, Mrs. Wu (head of faculty instruction?), and Mr. Zhou (Party secretary), and ourselves all gathered in the presidential suite of the restaurant and we were treated to lots of food, Chinese alcohol, Mongolian musical performers, many moving toasts, and lots of songs, started off by Yongsheng’s father (a professor emeritus of Russian language) who sang a haunting Tibetan song. Dave sang “Yesterday” by the Beatles and Mr. Chen, who gave the banquet, sang “Country Roads”. I probably would have been able to participate better had I not been totally in a jet lag fog and had Samuel not completely freaked out over the lamb’s head served up on the table. He spent a lot of the dinner on my lap crying because it was frankly pretty unnerving to an American kid used to seeing meat ground up or in chunks, not attached to the animal.

The second night we were treated to a family dinner at Sharon’s parent’s house (Sharon is Yongsheng’s wife), still in a fog and dead tired, but at least it was a mellow atmosphere and Samuel was able to play with Alec, Joanna (Y’s kids), and Dar Dar, Sharon’s nephew. Trying to get to their place was a harrowing experience—our first ever ride in a taxi. Since that night we have learned that Hohhot has a reputation for being the most lawless and chaotic place to drive in all of China. This is a reputation among Chinese, so I guess they know. Some of the major north/south boulevards were closed down just as we set off to dinner and the taxi driver (between giant gobs of spit hucked out the window) drove like a fiend in and out of lanes and oftentimes straight at on-coming traffic. Dave and I were completely horrified and sick to our stomachs, and Yongsheng didn’t feel too much better. An hour later we had only gone around the block and made the taxi driver drop us back outside the hotel. One of the boulevards suddenly opened up, so we hopped another taxi (now terribly late for dinner) and made it up to Sharon’s parent’s apartment. The ride back was mercifully uneventful and since then, the taxi rides have been much easier, if only a little less scary. Taxis are super cheap, costing only 6 yuan to go up the park, about 75 cents. There seems to be some kind of unwritten code of driving that all the car drivers, bike riders, and pedestrians follow. Haven’t seen any collisions yet and hope to never be in one.

Each day up until recently has been largely defined by looking for food. There is food everywhere, but our poor tired and discombobulated stomachs haven’t been feeling too much like eating what is around, and we have been counseled to not eat anything fresh/raw. Dave has been the breakfast guy, since he has been getting up before the crack of dawn. We also found on the first day, thanks to Mr. Song, really yummy frozen yogurt bars. They’re sold everywhere and are plain, creamy, and very sweet. They cost about 15 cents each and everyone likes them, another good thing. There is no cheese so far that I have found but lots of really good yogurt, and milk that is very creamy and comes in plastic pouches. There is a grocery store behind the Education Hotel that offers a lot of food, including some dubious peanut butter that we tried and promptly threw out. More on food later, as you can see that I have lots to say about it.