Labor Day Weekend In The Middle Of The Week

It's Labor Day Weekend Here.
I know today is Wednesday, so how is that a weekend?  I'll Explain.

In China, each holiday is celebrated on the actual day it occurs.  So this year Labor Day (01 May) is on Wednesday so that day is observerd as official Labor Day.  Therefore, in order to maximize the holiday and provide for a three day weekend, they just move the weekend to Monday/Tuesday - which means we work Sat/Sun like a regular business work day.  So after a grueling 7 day work week, we have 3 days off.  Everybody gets excited about the long holiday and despite my many reminders that it is really only a one day holiday with a shuffled weekend, they all claim its a three day holiday.  The fact that the quantity of work days/year is unchanged is either forgotten or just plain ignored.  So there it is; a long weekend in the middle of the week.

So what to do?

Sunday night after work, Devid, Joyen and I had dinner with a friend of Devid and her family.  Her name is Ting Ting.  She has a 7 year old son named Chun Qi Xuan and a husband whose name I never grasped.  She teaches English here at a local elementary school after spending 2 years in West Virginia teaching English in some small coal mining town as part of her University Internship Program.  As a result her and her family's English is quite good. 

We arrived to her small apartment and her son met us with his prepared speech ...

"My name is Chun Qi Xuan.  Welcome to my house.  I am seven years old.  Pleased to meet you.  This is my mother and my father and my grandparents.  I go to school here and learn English (and so on) ..."  It was very cute and you could tell he had worked very hard to learn and practice this in order to deliver it to us to meet his mother's expectations.  We crammed into their apartment and feasted on spicy roast rabbit, meatballs, pork, smoked tofu, eggplant, Chinese collards, etc, etc.  It was delicious and I know they spent entirley too much money and effort for us, so it was especially nice to be included.

After dinner Chun Qi Xuan played his violin for us.  He has been taking lessons for 1 month and I was surprised at how well he played.  He played "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and while he played so slowly I couldn't recognize the tune, it was not screatchy and each note was carefully played and he had the most serious scowling look of concentration on his face.  Cute kid.

Monday I went to Changsha to visit with one of my friends who has since left working for us to catch up with her on her new job and her life.  Changsha is 40 miles north of Xiangtan which means an an hour bus ride.  I have learned how to do this, but I did have a paper with "Changsha Bus Railway Station" written in Chinese to show the ticket agent.  The hotel concierge didn't believe me when I said I was doing that and was concerned I would end up in the wrong place, but no worries.  I got my ticket which lists the bus number and after matching that with the sign next to the bus; I was on my way.

Li Mi met me at the bus station and she drove me in her NEW car, a Volkswagon Polo (Marty, her driving skills are now excellent) through the pouring rain so instead of some sightseeing we went to a small coffee shop where she filled me in on all the reasons she left our company and told me everything about her new job (Siemens) and everything going on with her and her family.  It was great to catch up, but I had to chuckle at spending the afternoon in a Chinese Coffee shop talking.  It was very Chinese.  I asked her about her boyfriend and she said "how did you know?"  I soaid I didn't and was only guessing, but obviously there is a boyfriend now.  She showed me hs picture and told me all about him (7 years older than her); but I get the feeling this will not last.  Who knows?  Later, we had dinner at a spectacular Hot Pot

restaurant and then she dropped me back at the bus station and I was back in the hotel by 10:30 PM.

Tuesday, the weather had cleared and I decided I needed to just walk and get excersize.  I walked across the #1 Bridge to the downtown and made a big loop just walking and looking and seeig sights.  I came across a shopping mall where they were having a skateboard competition so I grabbed a DQ oreo blizzard and sat and watched and talked to one of the skaters for a while.   They were jumping over stacked up skateboards building the height up with each round and next was was the ramp and the rail.  Two skaters were very good, but most were average and how nobody

broke an arm or split their head open, I'll never know since "personal protective equipment" was non existant.  I watched for awhile then continued on my walk.  I did see this scooter parked next to one store.  I call it the "Harley Scooter" since it has been all pimped out in chrome.  Pretty funny looking. 

I also saw a billboard for Nike.  Now I know what they were trying to say (I'm cocked and loaded and faster than you) - but can you imagine the outcry from our Amercan Liberal Left if Nike tried to use this Ad in the USA?

It was cool and breezy and by the time I returned to the hotel I had logged 8.5 miles.  My phone logs the distance and route but no map since I guess Google hasn't mapped Xiangtan yet (imagine that).  A good day of excersize and while my legs were tired, it was great to get out and do something physical.

Now today I have some work to do to prepare for tomorrow.  I have to find out tomorrow if some components have arrived from our supplier and determine if they are suitable to use (yes,there is some debate on this).  If yes, I will stay one more week to help ensure our first assembly of this product is completed correctly to ship.  If not, I'll come home on Saturday as originally planned.  So that makes Thursday "Decision Day for Me" (not to be confused with Charles' Decision Day).
I'll let you know what the plan is as soon as I know!