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IN THIS ISSUE

• Pat Moore goes shopping in Chengdu
• Jean Sterling and Stan French comment on the last issue
• Here is the start of Dalton Deedrick´s story about Africa
• Marilyn Magid forwards a warning
• Betty Fehlhaber, Bill McNair, Bruce Dalton, Dick Monaghan, Doris Dignard and Kate Brookfield recommend interesting sites

Pat Moore continues her story about

CHINA

Chengdu was the main stopping city for our project while in China so that gave me a chance to really get to know the drivers and the interpreters - especially one female interpreter, Chin.

We had many occasions to chat and I soon found out that at age six, she was determined to be a gifted student in languages, and so she was sent to special schools in her district. At about 12 years of age she was promoted to graduate school to concentrate on English, and at about age 18, she was sent to California to polish her "business" English for three years. She had been working in Chengdu for about three years as a business interpreter when we met, and after that she was posted to Russia to learn Russian business for four years. I am sure Chin will have quite a career ahead of her in the diplomatic service.

Chin was great fun and I asked for her whenever possible - especially on days when I had time to do different things, like shopping. I had researched before leaving Canada and found that I could purchase many things that are unique to China and not available in Canada, so would not have to pay custom duty and tax. Books are also exempt; and material (but if you have the material made into clothing, then you are taxed on the labour when you go through customs); antiques all require proper identification,and often are required to have a red seal on either the item or the receipt.

Chin suggested that I ask for a separate receipt for each item. If I bought 20 books, I insisted on 20 separate receipts. The receipts are all given on very thin tissue-like paper. At a fabric stall I bought 15 pieces of material and got 15 receipts. It was not until we returned to Canada that I understand the wisdom of her advice as I was whisked through customs in a very short time while they looked through the huge mountain of tissue receipts that I had collected. They then said, "Everything in order - go through." And there was no custom tax to pay! Then I had to wait for over three hours for the others to get through Vancouver Customs as they had to explain all their purchases, and pay the appropriate taxes - amounting to approximately $660 to $1000 each.

Chin was also a great help in finding certain items I wanted and knew where to go for the best bargains. I thought it would be a great idea to purchase an authentic Chinese silk gown - antique style - so that I could wear it when planning a dinner party back in Canada to show some of the photos I had taken on the trip around China. After several inquiries, Chin informed me that she thought she had a good lead and off we went. We visited many small stores that had fancy dresses/costumes displayed in their windows, but I could not find what I wanted. Finally in one store at the back of the window I saw exactly what I was looking for and Chin arranged a meeting with the owner - a very thin, willowy man of indeterminate age - 70 plus? - and he immediately said, "Follow me," and off we started down the narrow street. We could hardly keep up with him, but he finally dashed into an entrance and up five flights of stairs and opened the door.

The room was huge, with about 200-300 women all busy at sewing machines and making a terrific clatter. He immediately called over two women who took my measurements, showed me some assorted designs and assorted fabrics, haggled about the cost, and then promised it would be made and delivered to my hotel in two days. I could hardly believe it would be made in two days with all the hand work, and I was hesitant about paying for the gown - about $100 Canadian - right then, but Chin convinced me that it would be okay and we went back to the hotel to relax from our exhausting shopping expedition.

It seemed like a lot of money but it was a pure silk floor-length gown with a cummerbund covered with very fine embroidery; long sleeves in the old style so the hands were completely covered; a high Mandarin collar covered with seed pearls, etc. However, the dress did not arrive in the two days promised and I began to worry, but on the third morning as we were leaving the hotel about 7:30 a.m., two women on bicycles and carrying huge boxes arrived with the dress - and it was perfect.

That dress was a great memory of the trip and I wore it many times for special occasions, including a special Chinese New Year´s party in Red Deer, as there is quite a good sized Chinese population in Alberta. Two years ago, the daughter of friends was majoring in Chinese at the college - learning Mandarin, the different cultures, etc. - so I gave her the dress. When she won an award for her project, I was thrilled to see her wear it to the award ceremonies.

Chin was also helpful on one other shopping trip as she helped me to go to a rug factory. It was an exhausting day as I had to look through about 1000 very heavy rugs to find one that did not have a dragon on it. After many conversations between the manager and Chin - who tried to tactfully explain that I loved dragons but not in my home back in Canada, he finally took us to a back room, and there I found a blue-on-blue wool and silk rug without a dragon, and I arranged to have it shipped to Canada. Another successful shopping day!

To be continued.

CORRESPONDENCE

Jean Sterling comments on items in last week´s issue:

On Pat Moore´s account of Chinese medicine:

* Many years ago an American journalist in China developed appendicitis and needed an emergency appendectomy. Instead of anesthesia they used acupuncture. When he wrote about his experience, he said he had some qualms about the acupuncture but that it was very effective. Even better, there was no post-anaesthesia hangover or nausea. He did say they had a screen so he didn´t see the operating field. The $8 massage sounds like a terrific deal!

On my new companion:

* As soon as you said he was fussy about his food and didn´t always appreciate your culinary efforts, I knew you had gotten a cat.

He is inquisitive - he´s always opening doors to closets and cupboards to see what is in them.

* One of my past cats used to do that and would sometimes climb in and take a nap. My sister-in-law let out a squawk when she opened a cupboard door and saw a rather large black cat glaring back at her.

As for making the bed while he is sitting on it - almost impossible.

* Sometimes our made bed has a big lump in the middle of it.

I hope he will be happy with me, because that is his name: Happy. He´s a black and brown tabby cat, perhaps about five or six years old. I adopted him from the local animal shelter, after having sworn that I would look after him for eternity, and Jay drove us home.

* Our current kitty came from a shelter. Our middle son adopted her for us. The shelter was run by a veterinarian, so Russia (current cat) will eat only Hill´s Science Diet, which is health food for kitties. She will occasionally deign to eat a bit of shrimp but turns up her nose at tidbits that our other cats loved. Also this shelter had dogs, so our cat thinks that dogs are her friends - a feeling not always shared by the dogs.

On random thoughts:

21: I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

* Why would they do that??

27. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don´t want to have to restart my collection.

* Sounds like a good idea to me!

28. I´m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

* That always kind of bugs me too - and I thought I was the only one.

32. Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles.

* Here the school zone limit is 15 mph.

36. It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

*AMEN! That REALLY bugs me to the point that I refuse to watch the video.

37. I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

* That thought has passed through my mind.

38. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

* My freezer has a light but it no longer works. Maybe I should put in a new bulb?

Stan French writes about

THEIR FAVOURITE FARMERS´ MARKET

We enjoy tasty tomatoes before and during their normal season. Our favourite supplier at the Farmer´s Market at East York Civic Centre on Tuesday mornings is run by Hillsview Greenhouses. A banner on their tent every week from late May to October reads, "Chemical Free." Their produce includes early vine tomatoes grown in the greenhouse, but most of what they offer is from outdoors when seasonal. We go to other tents/booths for buns, peaches, berries, and jellies.

From the January 30 issue of 1999, here is the beginning of a story written by Dalton Deedrick, a dentist from Alberta who several times volunteered his services overseas:

AN AFRICAN EXPERIENCE

One of the greatest satisfactions associated with my career in dentistry was the opportunity to serve on several occasions as a volunteer somewhere else in the world. There is a shortage of personnel in all of the health-related fields in the third world; often the facilities are there, but no-one to staff them.

My first offshore opportunity came about when a visiting missionary brought a slide presentation to a church just across the street from my home. It was not the church I usually attended, but its minister, a good friend, invited me over in case they had a sparse turnout of their regular congregation. In the slide presentation, the visitor mentioned that they had a dental clinic, but were often short a dentist.

Following his talk, I inquired about the possibility of a short-term relief stint. The visitor was immediately enthusiastic and at once put me in touch with the Anglican bishop of his diocese. A flurry of correspondence sorted out the required details, and a few months later, a physician friend and I found ourselves bound for Tanzania in East Africa, he to work in their regular hospital, and I in the dental clinic.

Jack Reynar, the medical doctor, and I had been friends from our days in the wartime RCAF, through university, and early days of practice, so we knew we would be compatible travelling companions. Each of us had been kids in the thirties, had watched the "Tarzan" movies, read "King Solomon´s Mines," and secretly harboured the wish that someday we would tramp through the wilds of Africa, leading a train of bearers with large bundles on their heads, fearlessly facing down rampaging Simbas or Tembos (that´s lions and elephants to those not fluent in Swahili,) with our double-barreled express rifles.

With the blessings of our wives, given with some trepidation, we set off in the middle of the worst winter in Alberta´s history to spend the next three months in sunny East Africa. Our routing by air was Canada to Amsterdam, Rome, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Dodoma, where we were to work.

The following months were exciting for Jack and me. My wife stored all the letters I wrote home, so perhaps a few extracts from them and my daily journal will give you some insight into the experience.

By the miracles of modern transportation, one day after leaving Edmonton at -36F, we were in Nairobi at +80F. Every stopping place has a bit of history attached. Nairobi was a dusty little frontier town when Karen Blixen wrote of her life there in "Out of Africa." Today, after the astonishing but well-deserved success of the film of the same name, one can walk through the house where she lived and look out the same windows through which she gazed at the N´gong hills. Her ill-starred coffee plantation, once miles from Nairobi, is now almost engulfed by the sprawling city, complete with skyscrapers and air-conditioned hotels.

We had a couple of ex-Alberta friends in Nairobi who drove us around the city and up to the eastern rim of the immense Rift Valley, before we left on the next leg of our journey.

An hour by air and we were in stifling Dar es Salaam, the "Port of Peace" on Africa´s east coast. Not a peaceful place two hundred years ago, when thousands of black people were herded into the fetid holds of ships of every nation and hauled away in chains to the farthest reaches of the world.

As it was the capital of the country at the time we were there - we later moved to Dodoma - we had to get entry and working permits there before starting on our jobs.

If you feel a little stressed at waiting your turn for a driver´s licence renewal in Canada, try working your way through the third world bureaucracy! It was about 95F, with humidity in the same range; the office buildings where we had to present our papers were several blocks apart; and at each desk a government employee was far more intent on finishing his lunch than on spending ten seconds rubber- stamping our documents. I think it gave most of them a perverse satisfaction to see a couple of wilted "whiteys" having to await their pleasure. Maybe a century of colonialism had given them that mind-set, or perhaps that is the normal pace of business there. In any case, we eventually accumulated the required number of rubber stamps and were free for the rest of the afternoon.

With some free time in hand before our next flight, we wandered about to find somewhere a bit cooler. A British fellow had a charter boat for fishing, and we surmised that it had to be cooler out on the water than it was at the hotel, so we engaged him for the afternoon to go fishing in the Indian ocean. It was a good choice. It was quite tolerable under the boat awning; the captain had thoughtfully included a few bottles of "Tusker" in the picnic hamper, and we actually caught four nice bonito, which delighted the one native helper aboard, and his friends at the dock, to whom we gave them.

About the "Tusker:" Jack had done a tour as a Lancaster navigator during the war, and had learned to enjoy the pubs near his base. Whenever we were at loose ends for a while he would say, "Let´s have a Tusker (a local beer.)" He was about six-foot-six and bony, and could slurp down a Tusker while I had the contents of my bottle just below the neck. A good thing we had a few cool ones there. There wasn´t a cool libation of similar stripe anywhere in view in the weeks ahead.

With the required number of rubber stamps in place, our fish caught, and several Tuskers satisfactorily disposed of, it was time to board our somewhat weather-beaten Dakota for the final leg to Dodoma.

Our base for the following months would be McKay House, headquarters of the Anglican Diocese of Central Tanganyika. The staff for the most part were from Australia. they were a great band of dedicated people whose hospitality and camaraderie will always be warmly remembered.

My job, of course, was to do dentistry, and happily I found that the clinic was well equipped, and with it came Ephraim, the male dental assistant. He was really the key to the whole operation, partly because he knew where everything was, and more importantly, he knew Swahili and a couple more of the local languages. To expedite conversation at the chair, he and I made up a list of about ten questions or directions, and wrote them down in phonetic Swahili. After that I could say, "M´doma umekufa Ganzi?" meaning "Which tooth hurts?" or "Tema hapa," meaning "Spit there!" The latter phrase was the most useful by far, as before I had mastered it we had quite a bit of random floor scrubbing to do.

To be continued.

Marilyn Magid sends this

TICK WARNING

I hate it when people forward bogus warnings, and I have even done it myself a couple of times unintentionally ... but this one is real, and it´s important. So please send this warning to everyone on your e- mail list.

This is the time of year to think of ticks once again.

If someone comes to your front door saying they are checking for ticks due to the warm weather and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up,

DO NOT DO IT! THIS IS A SCAM!!

They only want to see you naked.

I wish I´d gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid now.

THIS WEEK´S SUGGESTED SITES

Betty Fehlhaber suggests you watch these talented twins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loMmSeAPPLs

Bill McNair forwards this challenging Alzheimer´s colour test:

http://arunaurl.com/35mc

As if you weren´t feeling old enough already, Bruce Galway forwards the URL for a video of the world´s oldest still-performing showgirl:

http://arunaurl.com/368l

Dick Monaghan challenges you to test your hand-eye co-ordination by clicking on the ball:

http://arunaurl.com/369j

Doris Dignard sends the URL for a video of a superlative dog trainer:

http://arunaurl.com/369i

Kate Brookfield addresses this to all animal lovers: This is pretty simple. Please ask ten friends to each ask a further ten today!

The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily so they can meet their quota of getting free food donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute (about 15 seconds) to go to their site and click on the purple box ´fund food for animals for free´. This doesn´t cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising.

http://arunaurl.com/369f

ED. NOTE: While you are there, click on the other sites in the same location: the hunger site, breast cancer, child health, literacy, and rain forest. It takes less than a minute if you don´t stop to read the ads.

You may also read this newsletter online at http://members.shaw.ca/ vjjsansum/ or http://nw-seniors.org/stories.html