Nanchang

Today we flew from Beijing to Nanchang via Air China.  The Beijing airport, despite its gargantuan size, was a snap to navigate.  For one thing, everything was also posted in English, and for another, the layout was easy to follow.  It was also much simpler to go through security compared to the States—all they wanted was for me to take out my laptop.  Didn't have to take shoes or my belt off.  There's advantages to being in a country that's not a big Muslim terrorist target, though that might change soon with the uprising of Muslim Uygurs in western China.  On the other hand, I've noticed that Chinese airport security has absolutely no compunction about racial profiling, so even if Muslims did try something it probably wouldn't work.   Air China is a better carrier than any of the U.S. airlines, hands down.  The plane was actually clean, the flight attendants were actually good-looking, I could actually stand upright, the air was actually clean, and they actually had complimentary headphones with 4 music stations (the jazz station was the best).  Even though it was only a 2-hour flight, they served breakfast and had in-flight TVs playing nice short little featurettes.  We could choose between a Chinese and Western-style breakfast, so I went with the Chinese.  It featured a Chinese staple called congee (basically cream of rice, but more watery) with pickled mystery vegetables, a roll with some sort of sweet datelike stuffing, and an unpleasant-looking pickled hardboiled purple egg.  As you might have guessed, I didn't eat the egg.  Poor Christy, having to avoid processed Chinese foods due to her MSG problem, had to settle for rubberized eggs and a small hot dog masquerading as breakfast sausage.  The airport traffic was so heavy we sat on the runway for a full hour before takeoff.  The takeoff from Beijing was turbulent, and an unshaven, scruffy-looking pudgy Chinese guy next to me in bare feet, wet unkempt hair, and a towel draped around his neck puked, just like those women did when we landed in Beijing.  I seem to be inducing vomiting in adjacent passengers whilst in China.  How charming.   When we landed in Nanchang our guide, Helen (Anglicized version of her Chinese name), was waiting for us.  Very nice girl, about half my size.  In the taxi we took to our hotel, she explained that Nanchang is one of the oldest cities in China and is about 4.5 million people, making it moderate by Chinese standards but still exceeding the entire population of Kentucky.  This is where "fine China" porcelain comes from, the word "China" in this context being a Europeanized inversion of the city's original name, "Chang-Nang."  The air is cleaner here compared to Beijing, but that's really not saying much.  (In fact my bronchitis is worsening.)  It's much more verdant here, with plenty of rice paddies, greenery, and lovely mountains.  Their main crop is rice, but they also grow Mandarin oranges.   The city itself is much like the rest of China—developing rapidly but still with a lot of run-down areas.  At first I thought our taxi driver, a pretty, well-groomed thirtysomething Chinese woman, was insane for driving like she was playing a video game and honking every 3-5 seconds.  When we got into the more congested areas, though, we quickly discovered that everyone drives like that around here.  In Beijing people drove fairly well (better than Pittsburgh, in truth), because prior to the Olympics the government forced everyone to adhere to actual traffic lights and lane markings so as to create a favorable impression of China.  The habit seems to have stuck.  Nanchang could benefit from similar draconian measures.  As it stands now, I think every driver who's still alive after one year deserves a medal.   In the city I convinced the driver to let me open up the sunroof so I could stand up and take pictures of the traffic, much to Christy's consternation.  The photos don't do it justice because you have to see it in real motion.  I have camcorder footage, too, but my netbook is having difficulty processing such complicated files.  Our 10th floor hotel room has a view of the street and a rough-looking part of town opposite us.  The hotel doesn't have AC activated yet (they save it for actual summer months), so I opened the window for some air, the tradeoff being that the air also carries a steady barrage of honking and Chinese yelling.  I'm actually having fun just watching the street traffic—I figure sooner or later I'm bound to see someone get hit or run over.   In Nanchang we were told that they like to shoot off large intertwined masses of red fireworks to celebrate family events, such as the wedding 6 floors down from us.  So no, that's not a pool of blood on the street in the posted photo.   As I type this, Clarisse is en route from the orphanage 3 hours away, being brought directly to our hotel room by her nanny and the orphanage director.  The hotel staff already had everything set up for us, including a crib, baby-sized bath tub, hot water to warm formula, and a separate tap for potable water.  Christy's all done getting everything in order, and now my sweetie is pacing the room, waiting for our little one to arrive.  Should be within an hour now…