Bricks, Pork, & Split-Pantology

This post is really a conglomeration of randomness that we wanted to post. The first few items are just little things...and then we'll get to the "meat" of the post. hahahah ok sorry...that was cheesy.

On a recent trip to a nearby village we got the opportunity to see some stuff that we don't often see in our city. That's not to say that our city is that much more developed...trust us, it's not. But the area of the village we visited is still a good couple decades behind our city.

Here's the kitchen of an old home we visited. Though most kitchens here are nicer than this one, this one is still in use! Mr. Zhao eats every meal he cooks straight from this kitchen.
Amazing Race fans might recognize the round bricks of coal sitting on the floor...used for building a fire in the turquoise thingy

I'm not gonna complain about my "coleman stove" in my kitchen anymore.

Outside on the street there was the local butcher:
I'm sure we have this in our city too...but maybe we just don't visit that part of town.

Ok so the next one is something prevalent in all of China...even the big cities. So it wasn't special to this trip but we just realized it was about time to educate you all in Split-Pantology:

This is the most blog-appropriate picture we could find that had a good balance of not totally grossing you out but letting you see enough cheek to understand what we're talking about.
Split-pants are used almost exclusively in this country on children ranging from 1 day old to 4 years old...maybe older. They are basically just pants that aren't sewn up in the crotch area. Lovely thought eh? So the concept is that anytime the kiddo has to go to the bathroom, they just squat wherever they are and do their business. Of course this leads to puddles & what not on sidewalks, in parks, aisles of grocery stores...you name it. And who knows how many times a mother might get all nastified on while holding her baby.
But on the other hand we never mistakenly tell someone that their daughter is lovely when in fact it's a little boy! :) And on the same note, when all that business is on display you don't have to worry about dressing your child in gender appropriate colors so that people know what he/she is. And can you imagine the amount of diaper trash 1.3 billion people could produce?! So actually they are being quite environmentally friendly! ...minus the poop in the grocery store.
(Just as a side note we should clarify that we've actually never seen #2 in a grocery store...#1 is a whole different story)

Consequently though, it's been a complete nightmare to try to find clothing here that is actually sewn together in the crotch for Eden to wear. When we tell people that we don't want the split in the pants they look at us like we're all crazy! Luckily, we've got amazing family and friends back home who are shipping her hoards of cute pink clothes!

Strangely enough, diapers are in abundant supply here. Even pampers and huggies. I'm not sure who buys them...maybe just foreigners & mothers who are sick of being all nastied on.

So now you understand Split-Pantology...or at least know it exists even though you might not quite understand it. And maybe you are a little grossed out. sorry about that. maybe I'll wait till the next post to put a picture of Brandon eating a silk worm.

ok that's enough random thoughts for today...