Hot Springs

"So, does your dad know about the earthquake in Sichuan?"
I just sit staring at him for a couple seconds before it occurs to me that I should answer. "Um, he doesn't live under a rock."
"I know, just answer me and I'll ask you another question."
"Um, yes. He reads the newspaper every day. Of course he knows about it."
"What was his response to it?"
"He and many other people sent me a message asking me if I was okay and if you and your family was okay. They think it's an awful natural disaster."
"Cause I think China's government is dealing really well with it but I don't know what people think from the outside."
"I also think China's government is dealing with it well. This isn't a political thing, it's a natural disaster so I think the whole world's pretty much looking at it from the same view."
"Malaysia also had the earthquake and they didn't deal with it well at all, they didn't let the UN in or America help them."
"Yes, but that's what they were doing before the earthquake too. They didn't have a good relationship with the UN or America to begin with."
"Yes, but this is different. A lot of people were affected by this."
"This is true. I think that as far as what people think of the earthquake we are happy with the way the Chinese government dealt with it but I think some are scared about how the government is dealing with the three gorges dam in relation to the after shocks."
"Cause there were a lot of after shocks that went through it. There's nothing to worry about. It's only affecting the smaller branches of the Three Gorges, not the big part and the smaller branches have already been evacuated."
"Are you sure? I know they sent for a lot of dam experts from Europe."
"They want to make certain that it's okay."

That was our conversation at dinner today as Cam and I escaped from the rest of the Salon to stuff ourselves at a restaurant (so we could get some more food than them, we were both starving). Today we woke up at 9am and the four of us (my mother-in-law, aunt-in-law, Cam and I) got ready to go to PuLan Dian's Hot Springs. Last night, after a small lecture about how I should react differently around the Salon boys, I finally decided to go with them. I think I'm really glad that I decided to go with them. Overall it was a really awesome experience. There's only one thing that I don't understand at all.

We spent the first two hours on the bus trying to get individuals to sing songs to the whole bus. This is something that was a bit strange to me only because it's very different from my experience on an American bus ride. On an American bus ride I think we'd spend most of the time talking and sometimes a group of people on the bus will start singing a song and a bunch of others will chime in. But I've never seen a host on the bus whose job is to entertain the rest and tries to convince others on the bus to sing into the microphone to the whole bus. It was fun to listen to them but I can't sing so I couldn't really participate in it as much as I'd be able to if a group of people were singing. So after this half karaoke half singing entertainment we finally arrived at a restaurant in PuLan Dian (a neighborhood in the suburbs of Dalian about an hour from here). After lunch we went to the Hot Springs where we separated with the boys and us girls went upstairs to change. The whole time I was thinking to myself that I was glad I was a foreign woman otherwise I wouldn't have been able to participate in anything. Chinese people wouldn't know a tampon if I gave it to them. They've never seen them and wouldn't have any idea how to use them. So fortunately I did know what a tampon was and could therefore participate in the swimming events. We changed and took a shower (in the nude, an experience that used to make me uncomfortable but which I've gotten used to). Then we changed into our bathing suits and after walking around for a while with "see, that's white" and other such comments about the whiteness of my skin (which is a compliment here in China) the Salon finally got used to it and relaxed a bit. The girls all went outside to sit in the springs (my first time, it was a bit oily feeling but it was kind of nice and much cleaner than some of the swimming pools I've seen here). Actually this was my first official time in a hot springs and my first official time swimming in China. What I learned was that Chinese people can't swim. Now I guess you have to take into consideration the fact that I was on a swimming team when I was younger (maybe 10? not sure how old exactly). However you also have to understand that I was a pretty awful swimmer on the team. After swimming a couple of laps in the pool I went over to sit with Cam and he offered to race me across the pool (width wise not length wise as there were no lap lanes). I beat him no problem and the boys started lining people up to race me. I beat every one of them until I started getting tired. Later they claimed that I was the best swimmer of the 30 of them (which is something that would never happen with any group of 30 in the States). I was the only woman in the group who knew how to swim at all. The other 7 girls had absolutely no idea how to swim and some of them had never been in a pool before. There were 2 other boys who didn't know how to swim at all either. This simply made me want to learn how to teach people to swim. I know how to swim but teaching someone else is a bit different. I tried a little bit but it didn't exactly work. I think swimming is a really important thing to be able to do, there are too many situations in which it would be a good idea (or even life saving) to know. The other thing that I still to this moment don't understand is that when we were swimming in the swimming pool they made sure that we all wore swimming caps. First of all the caps were not our western caps (of course) they were cloth caps which were barely stuck to your head at all and most people didn't even wear all of their hair in the cap. The caps were so flimsy that almost every time I dove into the pool or did anything with any sort of speed the cap would come off. They said the reason for the caps was because the chlorine water is bad for your hair. Actually I think they're probably right to some extent. However, I've never in my life worn a cap into a swimming pool unless it was for a swimming race (when we used to keep our hair in caps for speed) and I've definitely never been forced to wear a cap into the pool. So my comment to Cam was "so THAT's why our hair is like this and your hair is so much different!"