Blogthoughts

Friday, January 29, 2010

After writing several lengthy e-mails describing our experiences so far in China, journaling every day, and having three people ask me if I’m going to blog this trip, I’ve decided to do it.

The first day we spent here, a Thursday, we were alone in the apartment until Shannon came home from school. She and Damon teach at the Canadian Maple Leaf School.

I was in the kitchen that morning when I heard a loudspeaker. Apparently someone was driving through the streets making an announcement.

Shannon had not said anything about this, though she did tell us that we might here fireworks at any time. Businesses set off fireworks to celebrate openings and other events. They are common everyday occurrences, she said, and no reason to be alarmed.
But what of the announcements on the loudspeaker? I suddenly realized that it could be an evacuation call. Maybe a SWAT Team had a criminal cornered in our complex. What if a cloud of deadly gas was coming this way? Maybe China had been attacked and war had been declared. I’d just be sitting here drinking tea as the end of world came.

Nothing happened, of course.

When I asked Shannon about the loudspeaker announcements, she said it was probably someone selling cabbages.

It’s one of the things you get accustomed to, though, like the fireworks, music blaring from storefronts, car horns constantly honking, loud argumentative-sounding conversations that aren’t angry at all but just the choppy staccato rhythms of spoken Chinese.