Daily Life

What is a day like in the life of a Chinese person? Well, much like America, it depends on whose shoes you are wearing. Take for instance our bike guard downstairs who is probably in his late seventies. He wakes up early, opens his front door (the bike shed), starts a fire in a can with scrap wood and cardboard, lights his foot and half long pipe and sits down. He pretty much stays in this position until nightfall when the fire may get moved inside the shed. He is usually joined by friends and the gate guard who all huddle around the fire on stools 6 inches high, talking, knitting and smoking. He goes to bed around10pm and locks the door. If you come in after that and want to put your bike away, he has to get out of bed to let you in. He is friendly and loves it when we give him our cardboard boxes. Since we figured out that we have to pay to keep Frank's bike there, he smiles at us every morning.

Or, take the girls and boys who work at the plethora of restaurants on our street. At about 9 am, they are squatting on the side walk, peeling garlic, rinsing vegetables, cutting chilies, salting meat and cleaning windows. After that is all done, they may play badminton or jump rope until customers start arriving. After the lunch rush, they will squat outside again, doing dishes and prepping more veggies for the dinner crowd. They work very hard for very little but usually they are smiling. There are more types of work than I can mention here. Many are food related. Food stands abound and people of all ages work them. They sell fresh pineapple halves, baked potatoes from a metal drum oven, roasted chestnuts, meat on a stick, stinky tofu, noodles, fried potatoes, fried "hotdogs", etc.

Parents and grandparents are seen early in the morning taking kids to school on the back of their bikes, scooters, or just their backs. Many older ones use the morning hours to excercise on gym equipment that in the states would be a child's playground. Some dance or do TaiChi in the courtyards of their apartments and spend the day playing mahjong, cards or knitting. The weekends are the best, especially if you visit the local parks. People young and old come to dance, sing and play music. They are a very hard working people and are willing to do whatever puts food on the table. I have seen street sweeping women run in front of oncoming traffic to pick up a piece of trash; young, slightly built women hauling sand, bricks, huge chunks of concrete; elderly men and women collecting plastic and cardboard from wherever it can be found. There are people who shine shoes sitting next to fortune tellers who sit next to a little old lady selling delicately knitted baby shoes. The list goes on and on. Their diligence and humility is an amazing thing to behold... and perhaps, to imitate.

mandy
"As long as man labors for a physical existence, though an act of necessity almost, he is yet natural; it is life, though that of this world, for which he instinctively works.”
Jones Very