Dead Silk Worms and No Safety PreCautions

One of the first places I visited, besides Suzhou Burger King and Suzhou Dairy Queen, was the Silk Factory
If you don't know this already, silk was discovered by the Chinese. Legend has it that an Empress of China was drinking tea under a mulberry bush and a silkworm and it's cocoon dropped into her boiling teacup. When she pulled it out, she found that you could unravel the cocoon and it was a sort of thread. The Chinese kept silk a secret for many, many years. The Westerners didn't know how to make this fine, soft fabric. Finally after many years of sneaking around Chinese Silk Plants, the white men found out how they made the silk. But these Westerners lands' didn't have silk worms! To steal this disgusting creatures that made this fine thread, the hollowed out their walking sticks and shoved the silk worms into them! When they got back to their land, they bred the moths until they had enough to start killing the worms and taking their cocoons.
That is legend and I'm sorry to say that I don't really know the TRUE story behind how silk was discovered, but legend is better anyways, right?! So I went to the Silk Factory with Papa, Uncle Mark, and Kate. Kate explained that usually the silk worms were out on trays, and you could see them making their cocoons, which is essentially silk, but it was too cold for the little wormies to make their cocoons outside. So we walked through an area that was basically a display of the old fashion way to make silk: by hand. The display showed Asian ladies sitting up to a table. On the table were these bowls (that were suppose to be full of boiling water, but since it was a display, it obviously wasn't), and in the bowls of 'water' were the silk worms in their cocoons. The ladies carefully pull a string off the cocoon and attach it to a spool. Then they would wind up the spool until the thread from the cocoon was gone and only the poor, dead, ugly, silk worm was left, floating in the boiling water.
The new way is much similar, expect with machines. There is basically a trough full of boiling water and there are dividers full of silk worm cocoons. Each divider feeds one spool. The ladies feed the cocoon thread into the spool and then the spool automatically starts to unwind the cocoon until on the worm is left. The ladies then feed another cocoon into the thread and then dispose of the worm body into a little bowl. Below is a picture of my 'Papa' and my cousin Kate, standing right next to the 'trough' and the spools. The spools are at the top of the machine.

It's funny, because in a normal museums, there are all sort of safety precautions and glass to stand behind, and little ropes guiding the tours, but here, there were no ropes, no cameras, no lines, to list of rules, and no glass! I COULD have gone up and started to feed the silk into the machine if i wanted to, and I'm pretty such that the ladies would have smiled and said in Chinese 'we appreciate you helping us!'! I walk straight up to those troughs of boiling water and took close of FLASH pictures of the worms and took a picture with the workers and everything!

Then we went to the section where they made the silk into fabric. It was just like a spindle. After seeing the very Chinese looking fabrics, we went into the area where they made silk into a kind of cotton-y material, or something to stuff with. Attached, is a picture of me helping the ladies pull the silk into a big padded sheet for a silk comforter. It was really fun!

So even though the white men tried to take the secret of silk, China still produces 74 percent of the global raw silk production and 90 percent of the world export market...and that's not legend, that's FACT!

The Arrival

I have officially been in Suzhou over 24 hours and have survived. For some reason certain people (who shall not be named) thought I wouldn't last a minute in the dirty, crowed, and foreign city. It is currently 6:00am, and it appears that I have more jet lag than i thought.
My first hours in China were tired ones. Me and my grandfather, Papa, arrived in Shanghai at 2:30pm; 12:30am USA time. We were exhausted from lack of sleep. Tired also from the long, boring, plane ride, which actually wasn't that bad until i got served some sort of egg substance (picture below) that was unrecognizable and was so hungry that I forced myself to eat it...! We got off the plane and went straight to health check, which is where you hand in your Declaration of Health sheet that you filled out on the airplane. I had a cold, but did not check the boxes that stated 'stuffy nose', headache', or 'sore throat'. I didn't do this because entering a communist country with even a cold could cause authorities to send you straight to the police office to stay a couple nights, or worse,... back onto the plane for another round of UIE (Un-Identified Eggs)!

After Health Check, Papa and I went to Foreign Immigration. There, police check your passport and 'Arrival and Departure' papers. This indicates how long you plan to stay in China. On the Arrival paper, there is a section for the address of the home, hotel, or place you will be staying. I didn't fill that part out because I didn't know Aunt Pam and Uncle Mark's address. This was a problem. The lady told me that she needed an address. I explained that I was staying with my family here, and I didn't know their address. She rolled her eyes and called over a uniformed man. I was nervous that my China trip could be on hold for a few days...but then she turned to me and said that I could go. WHEW!! What a relief! Papa and I headed for luggage claim. After a few minutes of confusion of where to pick up our bags, we found our 3 large suitcases. We then headed to the exit, where we had to basically parade out of the building. When you go out the exit doors, you go through sort of a line, with bars on either side, and people are behind the bars waving signs for the people they are waiting for. ALL ASIANS!!! They stared at me and papa and pointed, like they had never seen an American! This is a common response, I later find out, when the Chinese see what they call 'Westerners'. A Westerner is basically anyone not from China, Korea, or Japan (aka someone without squinty eyes).
Anyways, while walking down the parade ail, Aunt Pam calls to me and we quickly find our way to her. We walk back to where the car is, and we meet Nikki, the Stasney's driver. We are very tired and doze during the trip from Shanghai to Suzhou, which is about a 2 hours car ride. FINALLY we arrive at the house. It a gated community with a guard, who recognizes Nikki and Aunt Pam and let's us go in. We drive right by a playground, where we see 10 children come running towards us bowing!!! Uncle Mark had told them to do that as a 'welcome gesture'. It was very funny! Kate, Alex, and Annie were very happy to see us...and Ben was probably happy too, but he ran away instead of giving us hugs :)
The kids gave me a quicky tour of the house. It has 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms, 2 living rooms, 2 kitchens, and an eating room on the side of the kitchen. I dump all my stuff into Annie's room, which is the room i will be staying in for the next few months. I have a feeling that I will become spoiled here, because there is a bathroom connected to my room, and I never have to clean my room or make my bed!!! That is because we have Ayi (Eye-EEH), which means aunt in Chinese, but who is really our house keeper/cleaner. I have not met her yet, because she comes Monday-Friday.
One of the suit cases I brought was full of clothes and stuff for me. The other bag was full of things for the Stasneys. Things like fruit snacks, Little Debbie Cakes, Muffin Mix, cozies, mini-wheat cereal, and Fun-Dip cannot be found or are very expensive in China, so i brought them over. You might be thinking, "well aren't you irritated that they took up your packing space with food?"? But I'm not. Aunt Pam knows many places where i can buy cheap clothes that usually exported to the USA and are relatively expensive when in the department stores. I plan on buying lots of clothes, jewelry, purses, and souvenirs, and I'll need room to bring them back!
As a conclusion to my first day, Uncle Mark went and got some dumplings and I took a much needed shower. It was a tiring, yet exciting day, and many more are to come!