Lantern Festival Day

The frustrations continue but since I last wrote some positives have happened too and over it all is the fact that Hangzhou is a pleasant place to live and we think our life here will be fine once we get the 'issues' sorted. People tell you to read the contract and be sure before you come that you know what is expected, with Mick being a lawyer we went over it in detail and felt that all was in order. However, abiding by a written contract is very different here from at home. Really they just want you to sign and 'work everything out later'. They ask if you have any questions and when you ask they say you have too many and are difficult. They promise to address your concerns and when you document what they are and what they say they will do they are unhappy. We thought we were being clear and understanding but to our colleagues we were unreasonable. Culture and understanding it is fascinating and difficult. We are working on it.

I think I mentioned that last week we were taken to History Street which is the oldest street in Hangzhou dating from the Qing Dynasty and founded by a merchant around 1874. The buildings and the skills of the craftspeople were fascinating to watch especially the candy makers. The decoration on the houses and stores was intricate and detailed. Along this road is the famous Traditional Chinese Medicine Museum with its bottles of, to me, undistinguishable items, seeds, plants, animals etc. I want to learn more about this while I am here as it is gaining in popularity at home and I know a couple of people in Canada who consider it miraculous and they say they benefitted from it.

From here we walked around the West Lake which is the big feature of Hangzhou, where we saw the LieFang pagoda and heard its romantic love story, as many bridges, buildings, features seem to have connected with them, we returned to town and into the square where the Lantern festival was in full swing. Millions of people came to see the huge display lit in a multitude of colours. I expected a presentation or feature to occur but no it was just people milling around and walking past the display of Mickey Mouse figures - this being the year of the Mouse/Rat Mickey is in evidence everywhere!!!! It was interesting for me as I do not like crowds and here I was in the middle of thousands of people pushing and shoving their way past the features. I did not feel at all frightened or anxious like I would feel being in any kind of crowd in Africa or Guyana. Part of the display were 5 cutesy mice, the logos of the Olympics. They are called something like Babay; jingjing, something something....5 of them and each one's names a repetition and it means Beijing Welcomes You to the Olympics 2008. All the street lights and roadways were decorated with red lanterns. All in all a colourful site. Any problems? No ...only to find that our bus had stopped running some hours before and how were we to know which bus to take to get home? Our colleague and her friends fortunately used their phones to find another bus and then in the end one of them accompanied us home. Thank goodness.