home coming

Sorry it's been a week since I've posted...as you can imagine readjusting to full time Mama on the home front has been challenging!  The jet lag has kicked my butt most of the week.  Those darned hours of 3-5 am throw me off the rest of the day.  Today was the first time I slept through until 6am!  But of course, as soon as I wake I run to check my messages to be sure Ian got his passport and visa - he got it!!  They are at the airport in GZ now, I'm sure snaking their way security, checking bags etc.  I just hope they have a much easier time of it than I did!
Daddy and I were discussing some of the changes we've noticed since our last two trips to China.  It is truly a different place in many ways.  Economy is booming there.  The rich are really rich and very showy.  We saw cars the likes of which will never see Cincinnati soil being driven all over Kunming.  Our guide there said there are so many new rich and they like to show their money.  She seemed to think much of it came from mining there in Yunnan.  On my flight home my neighbor was telling me all about the family they visited and how wealthy they were too.  Paying for their entire trip, taking them to meals with food for kings piled up each time, and all with the guise of being a restaurant owner...she wasn't too sure about that.  We also noticed in Guangzhou a very different population.  Was it because we always stayed on Shaiman Island in the past, so never noticed?  Not sure b/c we never noticed either so many middle easterners in the airport as well.  Guangzhou seems to be the new in and out port there.  Much like Hong Kong or Beijing used to be.  There were flights filled to the middle east and back.  Surrounding the high wealth of the hotel where the boys stayed were coffee shops that had many patrons with their beards and shaved heads.  It was a little different to say the least.  Is it the mining?  Are there other connections?  Hard to tell but the money was flowing and the population much different than last two trips.
There used to be many "knock off" things to bargain on.  Not so much this time.  The prices at the pearl market - different too.  "Western" restaurants like Italian, Mexican and fast food seemed more pervasive too.  Little differences abound as well - there were toilets in most every place we stopped that was a larger venue.  Not always the squatty potty like before.  Hotels and airports are putting in toilets where there didn't used to be any.
Our guide in Kunming and I had a little chat.  I noticed there were many "blind massage" parlors.  I asked her about this.  She told me yes, that's because the government tries to help the handicapped find jobs suited to their talents.  Blind people have good jobs from hospitals to parlors doing massage.  And she told me that it wasn't just blind people that the government helped, it was many other handicapped populations as well.  That was news to me.  And for the first time I felt that the Chinese had some pride in helping their own.
It is a changing country.  I am glad Benj got to see what he saw this trip.  Although in his 8 year old mind he'll remember different things like the bargaining, the fast food and pizza or the over the top breakfast buffets, I hope he also remembers the walks in the park with the women doing tai chi and the bikes pulling all kinds of things, or the beautiful temples and ancient history spread throughout.