Sunday November 2nd

Today is our final day together as a group – and that makes me sad. As I sit here and write this tonight, we are all winding down for the night – some of us will be heading back to Canada tomorrow and 13 members of the delegation will be staying in China for the post-delegation extension.

Today we got up early and went to the Bund – the waterfront. We got to see that on one side are the heritage buildings, and on the other side of the river are the giant skyscrapers and high rises all built in the last 18 years. It is pretty impressive to see how quickly development can happen – but I personally liked the heritage buildings better.

There was a little tea house on the Bund, and most of us joined them at nine a.m. for a tea ceremony. I don’t think they were used to having such a big group – but it was fun. I learned the difference between green tea, oolong tea, and black tea (green tea is unfermented, oolong is half fermented, and black tea is fully fermented), and got to try several different kinds of tea. My friend Mary came to mind when I was at the tea house – I am bringing her home tea so that she can experience a little bit of China as well.

The highlight of my trip came after we were at the Bund. We visited a neighborhood in Shanghai and had lunch with a Chinese family. It was amazing. First we went to their Senior’s Centre and watched the Granny Chorus – they are between the ages of 71 and 87 and were very interesting to watch. The first group of ladies danced for us in very colorful costumes, followed by the group singing us “The more we get together” in English. They asked us to sing a song, so we sang a portion of the national anthem and then “If you are happy and you know it”. I saw some tears around the room as we finished.

Then we were separated into groups of 8 to go to our lunches. Mr. Ming was the father in our family, and he and his wife are both retired. They live with their son, his wife, and their grandson in a three bedroom, two bathroom condo on the 23rd floor of their building. We were welcomed into their homes with open arms. The meal was fantastic – I think Mr. Ming’s wife cooked about 15 different things for us – my favorite was a spicy chicken dish with peanuts and chilies. Mr. Ming also worked very hard to teach us a little bit of Shanghainese – some of us weren’t such good students (I tried to remember the words, but he spoke so quickly!!!).

After our wonderful lunch, the guides took us to a Chinese Farmer’s market – which was an eye opener for sure. It was a street market, so there were times where scooters were coming through the market like it was an open road. There were animals and body parts that we would never see at home (some cool, some gross), and at the end of the market were live animals (ducks, chickens and pigeons) for people to take home to butcher.

I think the most interesting thing about the market was the fact that meat is just put on the display table for people to buy. Not wrapped, not refrigerated – this may seem unsanitary to us, but it works for the Chinese people. And we noticed that there wasn’t much waste either – pig’s ears and feet are sold here and used in everyday cooking.

We had a few free hours after the market, and I think that people were doing last minute shopping and wandering around Shanghai. I, however, was not. I was napping. In the last day, my feet have swelled up to twice their size – which isn’t making me feel so good. But I wasn’t going to let it stop me from joining everyone for our farewell banquet at 6 p.m.

What an amazing meal and visit that was. Everyone looked beautiful and we had dinner in a hotel on the Bund. They played English music (who would have thought you would listen to Sarah McLaughlin in China), fed us wine (Mom had three glasses) and we got to spend our final evening together (lots of pictures were taken, including a video by Sarah Sark. She put her camera on the lazy susan and twirled the lazy susan around – everyone at her table was laughing about it.

As we said our final goodbyes to the people going on to the extension, we made sure that we were able to keep in touch. Linda Rammage got everyone’s email addresses and will be sending them to us. I am excited to have made so many new professional colleagues as well as so many new friends.