15-Mar-26 (Sunday)
For several days the news Jing had been hearing news from China (via Guimei, her youngest sister)
was that her 88 year-old father was in the hospital with serious problems. Yesterday the outlook
was much more positive and perhaps he would even be able to return home soon. But early this
afternoon the news shifted dramatically. It looked like her father would die very soon. Jing
immediately decided to take the first flight to Zhengzhou that she could find. (Jing's hometown
is about a 1.5 hour drive from there.) She quickly was covered so she could leave her caregiver job
and she came home with a few hours to get ready before I drove her to SFO at 8:30pm. Sadly, Jing
heard the news that her father had passed away while she was waiting at the get for her flight
to board.
The first thing Jing said to me after telling me she was going to China was "Do you want to come with me?".
Our relationship is fairly new, yet I felt it was going to be important to both of us that I be there
for her. If I had a visa for traveling to China, I would have joined Jing on the same flight that she tonight.
(She didn't need a visa since she is a Chinese citizen with a Chinese passport.) After coming back from
dropping Jing of at SFO I started looking into how long it would take for me to get the visa. A friend
told me he was able to camp out at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco for a day and was able to
apply and receive his visa before they closed for the day. Unfortunately for me, that is no longer
possible. The new process is that you have to submit your visa application online. Then after they
review it and are satisfied with your information they update your application's online status
from "review in progress" to "submit your passport". Only then can you enter the que at the consulate
office. I spent pretty much the whole night working on my visa application. The online form was confusing
to fill out and required me to make decisions based on missing information. It took me about an hour
to take a picture of myself that met all the stated criteria. Since the background needed to be white
I took it in front of the white door in my kitchen. But there was a faint shadow in the background
which caused the photo to be rejected when I submitted it for my application. I have fixed similar
problems with painstaking work in photoshop, but it occurred to me this should no longer be necessary.
I found a free image editing website, uploaded my picture, and entered "change background to white".
It instantly complied, and the modified image was accepted by the online application.
16-Mar-26 (Monday)
By the time the sun came up, I had submitted my completed visa application selecting
"expediting processing" (which incurs a larger fee). I kept checking the application
status during the day although I didn't really expect to see anything update that quickly.
BTW, Jing is a fairly recent addition to my life so for those of you who haven't met her
I will tell you a little bit about her. I first met Jing a couple of years ago on Match.com, but
we were both casually dating other people as well and we only dated each other for a couple
of weeks. (I had some reasons for being pessimistic about our chances, but they have turned
out to be wrong or irrelevant.) Jing (pronounced as in "jingle bells") was a nick name she
had growing up and is easier to pronounce and remember than her real given name (Xifeng).
We reconnected in late December and remarkably she moved in with me just a week or two
later. She works full time as an acupuncturist, although she also has a side job taking
one 28 hour home care shift every week for someone who needs round the clock care. Our ways
of thinking are often dramatically different as is our upbringing yet we are finding a
surprising number of similarities as well. We have many activities we like to do together,
including ping pong, hiking, biking (on my tandem bike), and recently pickle ball. Not long
ago we hiked to the top of black mountain - a 10 mile round trip with an elevation
gain of 2700 feet which we finished without taking even a single rest. I've dated a lot
of women since my ex-wife left at the beginning of 2018 and usually our first or 2nd
date was a hike. Not a single one of them would have been interested and able to hike
Black Mountain. More often they would be winded after climbing just a few hundred feet.
17-Mar-26 (Tuesday)
I would have to leave by Thursday morning at the latest for it to be practical for me to
attend the funeral was scheduled to begin Saturday morning. (One looses a day when crossing
westward over the international date line.) So I was really hoping to see an updated status
on my visa application today. But no ... at the end of the day it still said "pending
preliminary review". I discovered that none of the selections of the automated phone system
will connect you to an actual person. The consulate's website indicates that you can ask
questions via email, but when I tried that I received a form letter response thanking me
for contacting the consulate, but no attempt was made to answer my question. I made plans
to head up to the consulate in the morning, even though I expected they probably wouldn't
be able to help me until the application was processed. To avoid driving in rush hour traffic
I planned to bike to Caltrain and take my bike on the train so I could ride to the SF consulate.
18-Mar-26 (Wednesday)
I was pumping up my bike tires and just about to leave when I got a call from Jing. She had
mentioned my visa problem to some relatives and one knew about a way to travel to China without
a visa. It's limited to 10 days in China and has a few other strange rules as well. I found some
information online about this "visa-less transit" travel although it seems to be rarely used which
explains why I hadn't heard about it before. I was originally thinking of staying for 14 days, but
10 days is better than nothing so I decided that the visa-less option was the best approach.
I booked some round trip tickets (a required condition) that looked like it would satisfy the
conditions I read about. The rules were not that clear, so I decided to visit the SF consulate
anyway to make sure my travel plans met the requirements. By now, rush hour had passed and I
figured driving to the consulate was now the fastest way to get there. When I asked an agent
at the consulate if my plans met the visa-less transit conditions she said ... "yes, probably".
This answer was not nearly as definitive as I expected. She suggested I could call one of the
consulates in China, or contact the airlines to ask about the required travel documents.
I had already tried to contact the airlines (a Chinese carrier) and as with the consulate, it
was not possible to talk to an actual human over the phone. Calling a consulate in China sounded
pretty difficult and I didn't think I would get any more information that way, so I just decided
to go with my current travel plans and hope for the best. I called my friend Laurens who agreed
to come to my house at 8:15pm tonight to drive me to SFO.
After getting back from the consulate I finished my packing and a few last minute errands.
Jing had asked me to get her a ticket on the same flights that I had reserved for returning
from Zhengzhou to SFO. I thought this would be a quick task but my credit card was rejected
on the Korean Airline web site. A call to Capital One indicated that my card was frozen due
to a fraud alert. None of the charges they mentioned seemed that unusual to me. I verified that
I had made all those purchases and they unfroze the card. While I had them on the line I told
them I wanted to make a report that I would be traveling in China to insure that they wouldn't
flag a purchase there as fraudulent. They said they no longer accept such reports, but that my
card would work during my travels. I tried again to buy the ticket but the card was still
rejected. (I later learned that Korean Air won't attempt to charge a card
until 24 hours after the denial.) The web site only saves one payment method, so I deleted that
card and entered the information for my Schwab debit card which was denied. They claimed the
billing address I entered did not match. (Possibly an extra or missing space in the street name.)
Every time a payment is not successful, the ticket information is lost and you have to start
over again. This and other problems made the Korean Air website nearly unusable and before
I new it I had spent 2 hours on the project and still did not get the tickets. By now Laurens
had arrived, so I spent a few minutes checking my packing and headed out the door.
I figured the airline ticket desk in SFO would be the most likely place to get turned
away if my travel documents were not sufficient, and indeed the airline agent after
failing to find a visa in my passport asked me where it was. (This confirmed my suspicion
that the visa-less travel option was rarely used, and this question was repeated every time
somewhat looked at my passport for the remainder of the trip except for the last time in
SFO after my return flight.) I explained that I was using the 10 day visa-less travel option
and at least the agent seemed like she had at least heard about it before. It took her, along
with another agent 30 minutes (while chattering with each other in Chinese) to verify that
I met all the requirements and to issue my boarding passes. (I had printed the boarding passes
at home during the online check-in but that was a waste of time. They were fake and could not
have been used to board the airplane.) I had Jing write me an invitation letter including the
address of her apartment (which she had bought for her parents) where I would be staying, the
reason for my travel and other details which she emailed to me. (Actually I wrote it for her.)
The invitation letter was not strictly necessary although proved quite helpful here and at
immigration on entering China, as was the google maps route I had printed out from Zhengzhou
to Jing's apartment. I read that the visa-less travel option was invented to encourage tourism,
but if China was really serious about that they would have made the rules simpler and more clear.
These suspicion were confirmed by the fact that I don't think I saw a single foreigner during
my entire stay in China ... even in Zhengzhou airport!
20-Mar-26 (Friday)
I didn't have any time during my short layover in Taipei, but next I had a 2 hour layover in
Hong Kong. The first thing I tried to do was to buy a travel esim so my phone would work in China.
It was just a $8 purchase for 2.5GB of data but disappointingly my credit card did not approve
the purchase. I soon found a similar esim that accepted PayPal, so I was able to purchase the esim.
I figured I would need my credit card to work so I called Capital One to find out what the problem
was. Again they asked me about the same purchases I had already confirmed last time and before they
would re-enable my card they wanted me to go thru an elaborate process which involved typing in
a number that was texted to me, and then submitting photos of my passport and drivers license and
finally answering some security questions I had answered when setting up my account. Finally they
said my credit card was again functional. I made one more time to by the Korean Air ticket for Jing,
but that failed again. I sent Jing a message suggesting she ask her son (living in the US) to help
with the purchase. (Her son was able to buy the ticket for her, but by then cheapest fare class had
sold out and the ticket price when up from $1000 to $1600. Other airlines were even more expensive
since prices had been quickly adapting to the higher oil prices due to the Iran conflict.) I wanted
to activate my esim but I ran out of time and needed to board my flight. I wasn't worried about that
since I could use the airport wifi at my destination to activate the esim.
I arrived at Zhengzhou airport at 3pm. While walking to immigration, I selected the airport wifi.
As one expects with airport wifi, a page comes up asking you to agree to their terms, but this page
was entirely in Chinese. I tried all the button and checkbox combinations but I couldn't get the wifi
to connect. Now at the immigration desk, they look thru my passport and as always happens, they asked
where my visa was. I explain about the visa-less travel option and the 10 day limit. They accept this
but then say I need to fill out a different entry card from the one I just filled out, so I dutifully did
that. I needed to enter where I was planning on staying in China, so I put down the address Jing had
given me in the invitation letter. They said they also needed a phone number, so I entered Jing's US
number which was working in China. But they said it needed to be a Chinese phone number. The apartment
did not have a phone, but I knew I could use Guimei's number (who was living at the apartment). I said
this should not be a problem and I would call Jing to get the number. So I opened the wifi page and
asked for help signing into the network. Their response was an emphatic "No Wifi"!. (I later learned the
wifi network was only for airport employees, which did not include the immigration agents.) So we were
at an impasse. I needed their help getting wifi so I could get the information they needed for the form,
and they were not willing to offer any help or give me a pass on this bit of information. A supervisor
came over, but nothing changed. By now, all the other passengers had passed thru and I was the only
passenger there. I basically just stood there hoping eventually something would change. After an hour
of standing around doing nothing they suddenly seemed to get annoyed with having me there and not knowing
what to do with me, and suddenly they just waved me thru!. Jing had sent her daughter-in-law's sister
(Yvonne is her US name) and her husband to pick me up. I had told them to come an hour late, but I
figured they would already be waiting for me. I asked an airport worker how to get to the pick-up area.
She said that this was complicated (I guess there might have been several pick-up areas), and I should
wait in an area inside the terminal she pointed to labeled "Pick up Area 2". A asked if there was a place
I could go to get a wifi connection, and she graciously let me use her wifi security code. That allowed
me to contact Yvonne, and her husband found me about 5 minutes later. (I had met both of them once in
Sunnyvale when they were visiting the US.) It was about a 90 minute drive to Jing's village and I was
relieved and so happy to finally see Jing (at about 5:30pm). Jing had some food for me which had been
made for lunch earlier. It was simple and delicious. Happily I would spend every night here sleeping
with Jing in the same bed, with tonight being the one exception. Tonight Jing would sleep at her brother's
house (where her father had been staying for about the last year, joined by most of her other close
relatives. I don't know exactly what was happening tonight, but Jing later reported that not much
sleep was actually taking place. She said she got maybe a couple of hours. This happened to be the
coldest night of our trip and I was a bit surprised at how cold the apartment was. It didn't have
central heating. There was a small coal furnace that they use during the coldest part of winter
which warms the living room by a few degrees (C), but it was shoved to the side of the terrace room.
I realized I should have brought a light ski hat, but I had enough warm clothing and blankets to keep
warm for the night. Guimei had set up the bed in our room for Jing and me with an extra layer of blankets
for padding so it would be soft enough for us. But it was basically blankets over a wood platform with
no mattress at all. I used to sleep fine on even harder surfaces, but I'm no longer comfortable that way.
I'm very comfortable sleeping upright however, so I just slept on the coach in the living room.
21-Mar-26 (Saturday)
Jing came back fairly early. She had already eaten, so I had some more of the leftovers and
we walked over to her father's brother's house where the funeral was already in progress.
Before even getting to the house I could hear the musicians gathered outside the house.
As you will see later, the people mourning the passing of Jing's father wore white
sheet like clothing over their street clothes. Since these people were not dressed like
that I assume they might be friends of some of the family members.
Note: Click on the picture to see the video.
Then click the back button to continue reading.
I believe this singer is the mother of the young singer in the next video. Near the end of
this video you can see a view into the court yard. You can see the white garb they are
wearing including a white head covering and sometimes even white covers over their shoes.
Inside the court yard of his brother's house and to the right was the entrance to the
mourning room which included the casket with the mourners gathered around praying.
There was also some crying as well as sounds that I wouldn't call real crying.
I think I would call it stylized or fake crying perhaps by family that is not as close
to Jing's father. There was a little bowing ceremony involving four bows to enter this room.
Although I went inside, I didn't feel it was appropriate to take any pictures there.
Click on the picture to see the video.
Jing spent most of her time in the mourning room whereas I was generally on the street.
I found this young singer to be quite charming. She stepped up her already admirable stage presence
when I stood up to record her. I didn't try to disguise that I making the recording since I wanted
to be close enough to get a good shot.
Click on the picture to see the video.
When this barrel of homebrew fireworks was lit I was impressed by how loud it was. I didn't reach
for my phone since I assumed it would be too brief to catch it, but it went on for
nearly a minute, and finally I opened my camera app in time to record the last few seconds.
Click on the picture to see the video.
Nearing mid-day this man was cooking food from the bowls around him in this huge pot. I was just thinking
about going up to get some when someone I didn't recognize placed a huge bowl in front of me with a pair
of chopsticks. It looked like way more than I could eat, but it was very delicious and I must have been
more hungry than I realized. I finish the whole bowl.
Click on the picture to the full size image.
In the early afternoon, the most dramatic part of the ceremony was about to begin. They started
to assemble a procession to the burial site. The man in front was holding a picture of Jing's father.
One relative motioned for me to join the procession, but I'm pretty sure that would have been
inappropriate.
Click on the picture to the full size image.
Others started assembling a cart which would be in the procession. Here they are lifting a decorated
structure onto the cart which I believe represents the house that the departed will need in the afterlife
as well as money (not real money) and other things that he may need. Finally all the many pieces of
decorations that had been set up were dismantled and placed in a large precarious pile on the cart.
Alter the burial, the whole cart and everything on it will be set on fire allowing everything to
follow him into the afterlife. I think the casket was transported in the precession using the same
cart, but I can't remember for sure. I followed behind the precession as they walked thru the
village streets to the field which contained the burial site (perhaps a 10 or 15 minute walk).
I wouldn't have guessed that the large field was being used as a cemetery, although there were a
few isolated piles of flowers in the field which marked burial sites used by a few other families
in the village. The spot where we stopped was the location where at least 4 generations of this family
had been buried.
Everything related to his death was handled by the family, from putting his body into the casket
to wait for the funeral, to digging the hole in the ground with shovels before the ceremony, to
lowering the casket into the ground using wooden poles as you can see in this video. Then the
women started pushing dirt over the casket leaving the rest of the work to the men to complete
with shovels. No government agency was involved so I don't think there was even a death certificate.
It doesn't happen this way in the cities. There are just too many people and so cremation is
mandatory in most areas.
Click on the picture to see the video.
During and after the burial, the mourners were praying at the site with some women crying.
Guimei (Jing's youngest sister) was crying for quite a long time in what we would think as overly
dramatic, but I don't think this is unusual for them. Her crying was mixed with words although
I'm not sure if they were intelligible to the others. Jing was comforting and stroking her sister
the entire time. Guimei was the only one doing this, but also she was her father's primary
caregiver during his last couple of years. The ceremony was terminated by setting of a large
stream of homemade fireworks on the ground near the burial which went on for an impressively
long time and made an impressive amount of noise. That signaled the end of the ceremony and the
mourners removed their white over clothes.
Click on the picture to the full size image.
At the same time, the cart I had talked about earlier was set ablaze on the other side of the field
producing an impressive amount of flame and smoke. Now that the ceremony was over, Jing's family
obligations were completed, and as far as I could tell, so was her mourning period, although I
assume she still thinks about her dad often as I know he was quite important in Jing's life.
We walked back to Jing's apartment and had some dinner there with Guimei (who has been living there).
I can't remember if we made something or had leftovers and I don't know what we did the rest of the
evening. It was such an emotionally exhausting day, I suspect we didn't have the energy to do much
of anything.
Click on the picture to the full size image.
22-Mar-26 (Sunday)
For the rest of the trip the apartment household (the 3 of us) always woke up pretty early, especially
for Guimei it was always at the crack of dawn. But this morning was different. The sisters were so
exhausted from the events of the last few days and little sleep that they slept in (perhaps until 10am
or so). Then Guimei made us some breakfast and went off to do an errand.
Jing had some ping-pong paddles and balls at the apartment, so we walked two blocks to the nearest
ping pong table to play. Evidently this level of disrepair is the norm. There are a few large holes
on each side of the table and as you can see the net is mostly hanging of the side. I tried to see
if it could be bent back into shape, but that clearly was not going to happen. However the net frame
was still intact and even though it was bent to low in the middle it was still better than playing
without a net. Some very young children wondered by and seemed oblivious to the game we were trying
to play, sometimes leaning against the table and getting in the way. Another little girl thought it
would be fun to grab the end of the net hanging off the table and wildly swing it around for 5 or 10
minutes straight, which also proved quite distracting. My sense was this isn't something I would see
from children of similar age back home, or at least if they behaved that way, their parents would
intervene. (In this case their parents did not intervene, or perhaps didn't even notice the behavior.)
Click on the picture to the full size image.
The main goal for the afternoon was so go to Taihang shan (shan means mountain) to collect as much yinchen as
possible. All 3 of Jing's sisters decided to join us. Yinchen is a much sought-after vegetable
valued for it's medicinal properties. It's most often used as an herb for seasoning and in some
traditional snacks, but these sisters ate it in large quantities as a leafy green vegetable at
least once a day after we collected the stuff.
It's only found in mountainous areas and must be collected in the early spring to be used as a vegetable.
Actually I thought it tasted terrible so I asked Jing if she really likes this stuff. Her response
was "It's not so bad". I'm pretty sure the only reason they eat it is because they believe it is so good
for you. I asked what is it good for and she said "clearing your liver heat" (sometimes called "liver fire").
Until I see that my liver is engulf in flames, I'll pass on the yinchen.
Here is Jing with her yinchen collection bag empty since she is just starting the search.
At first I tried to join in the search but I found it was difficult for me to contribute.
There are many very similar looking plants and I usually ended up passing over the good stuff
and picking the useless look-a-likes. So instead I decided to enjoy the scenery and watching
the intensity with which these 4 sisters sought their gold.
Click on the picture to the full size image.
Usually the yinchen was found in greater quantities on the hilly terrain, but this flat piece of
ground had a fair amount of the stuff allowing them to get a good start on filling their collections bags.
Click on the picture to the full size image.
They soon headed for the hilly terrain which they said offered more reliable pickings. This picture
is of Jing and Guimei. This terrain is actually pretty step and slippery due to the loose dirt. I
often felt as I was at risk of uncontrolled sliding. The sisters didn't even seem to notice the treacherous
terrain. I could explain this for the two younger sisters since they worked in construction, but the
two older sisters were just as comfortable. Perhaps they have been here often enough or just so focused
on finding their treasure. As the collection bags grew large and larger I kept thinking that surely
they have enough by now, but no, they continued to collect more and more over nearly a 4 hour period.
Click on the picture to the full size image.
Here I caught Jing on a rare break from yinchen collecting just enjoying the flowers. I have to snap
very quickly because if she catches me she will put her hands over her face claiming she is either ugly
or silly looking. Of course I strongly disagree with that assessment :) After they finally decided they
had enough we retreated from the mountain and headed back for dinner at Jing's older sister's house.
(Her name is Xinfeng).
While waiting for dinner to be prepared I saw that the work was not yet done. We threw the collections into
a big pile and began to separate out the roots and grass with the valuable stuff remaining. I was
able to contribute somewhat to this effort although I was not nearly as fast as the sisters. We were perhaps
only done with 20% of it when it was time for dinner. I believe Xinfeng later finished the task on her own
since on the next visit to her house Jing and Guimei picked up their portion. We got back to the apartment
in time to play a little ping pong before it got too dark. The previous night we slept on the bed in the room
that Guimei made up for us, but it was so hard that I wasn't that comfortable. When getting ready for bed I
suggested we try sleeping on the flat area of the living room couch which we did. (Jing was fine either way.)
The next night we discovered that the couch in our room was even more comfortable than the one in the living
room so we switched to that for the rest of the trip.
Click on the picture to the full size image.
23-Mar-26 (Monday)
In the morning we headed to Jing's middle sister's house for breakfast.
(Her name is Xuemei - Xue means snow and mei means flower).
.......... more to come soon ............
24-Mar-26 (Tuesday)
25-Mar-26 (Wednesday)
26-Mar-26 (Thursday)
27-Mar-26 (Friday)
28-Mar-26 (Saturday)
29-Mar-26 (Sunday)
30-Mar-26 (Monday)
Nearing mid-day this man was cooking food from the bowls around him in this huge pot. I was just thinking
about going up to get some when someone I didn't recognize placed a huge bowl in front of me with a pair
of chopsticks. It looked like way more than I could eat, but it was very delicious and I must have been
more hungry than I realized. I finish the whole bowl.
In the early afternoon, the most dramatic part of the ceremony was about to begin. They started
to assemble a procession to the burial site. The man in front was holding a picture of Jing's father.
One relative motioned for me to join the procession, but I'm pretty sure that would have been
inappropriate.
During and after the burial, the mourners were praying at the site with some women crying.
Guimei (Jing's youngest sister) was crying for quite a long time in what we would think as overly
dramatic, but I don't think this is unusual for them. Her crying was mixed with words although
I'm not sure if they were intelligible to the others. Jing was comforting and stroking her sister
the entire time. Guimei was the only one doing this, but also she was her father's primary
caregiver during his last couple of years. The ceremony was terminated by setting of a large
stream of homemade fireworks on the ground near the burial which went on for an impressively
long time and made an impressive amount of noise. That signaled the end of the ceremony and the
mourners removed their white over clothes.
At the same time, the cart I had talked about earlier was set ablaze on the other side of the field
producing an impressive amount of flame and smoke. Now that the ceremony was over, Jing's family
obligations were completed, and as far as I could tell, so was her mourning period, although I
assume she still thinks about her dad often as I know he was quite important in Jing's life.
We walked back to Jing's apartment and had some dinner there with Guimei (who has been living there).
I can't remember if we made something or had leftovers and I don't know what we did the rest of the
evening. It was such an emotionally exhausting day, I suspect we didn't have the energy to do much
of anything.
Here is Jing with her yinchen collection bag empty since she is just starting the search.
At first I tried to join in the search but I found it was difficult for me to contribute.
There are many very similar looking plants and I usually ended up passing over the good stuff
and picking the useless look-a-likes. So instead I decided to enjoy the scenery and watching
the intensity with which these 4 sisters sought their gold.
Usually the yinchen was found in greater quantities on the hilly terrain, but this flat piece of
ground had a fair amount of the stuff allowing them to get a good start on filling their collections bags.
They soon headed for the hilly terrain which they said offered more reliable pickings. This picture
is of Jing and Guimei. This terrain is actually pretty step and slippery due to the loose dirt. I
often felt as I was at risk of uncontrolled sliding. The sisters didn't even seem to notice the treacherous
terrain. I could explain this for the two younger sisters since they worked in construction, but the
two older sisters were just as comfortable. Perhaps they have been here often enough or just so focused
on finding their treasure. As the collection bags grew large and larger I kept thinking that surely
they have enough by now, but no, they continued to collect more and more over nearly a 4 hour period.
Here I caught Jing on a rare break from yinchen collecting just enjoying the flowers. I have to snap
very quickly because if she catches me she will put her hands over her face claiming she is either ugly
or silly looking. Of course I strongly disagree with that assessment :) After they finally decided they
had enough we retreated from the mountain and headed back for dinner at Jing's older sister's house.
(Her name is Xinfeng).
While waiting for dinner to be prepared I saw that the work was not yet done. We threw the collections into
a big pile and began to separate out the roots and grass with the valuable stuff remaining. I was
able to contribute somewhat to this effort although I was not nearly as fast as the sisters. We were perhaps
only done with 20% of it when it was time for dinner. I believe Xinfeng later finished the task on her own
since on the next visit to her house Jing and Guimei picked up their portion. We got back to the apartment
in time to play a little ping pong before it got too dark. The previous night we slept on the bed in the room
that Guimei made up for us, but it was so hard that I wasn't that comfortable. When getting ready for bed I
suggested we try sleeping on the flat area of the living room couch which we did. (Jing was fine either way.)
The next night we discovered that the couch in our room was even more comfortable than the one in the living
room so we switched to that for the rest of the trip.