I finally have reliable email access after a week on the roads of rural China! But of course I return to Beijing tomorrow and then to the US on Wednesday, so after ‘surviving’ without much technology around me (even making phone calls were difficult since we did not have Chinese cellphones). At any rate, this past week has been a little tiring between all the travels to various sites (especially the first 3 days) and trying to adjust to being in new places.

My first real stop in China was a small town in Heilongjiang province via a very bumpy 2 hour car ride from road from Harbin. I got in on the evening of August 18^th and I joined the team from the hospital to the village site about 20 mins away the next morning at 3:30am. Some of the villagers get up at 4am daily in order to leave for work at the crack of dawn, and so we had to catch them in time for that. The response rate wasn’t as high as we would have liked it to be, and there are numerous recruitment problems that needs to be addressed, but from a technical standpoint, the staff know what they are doing and I thought did well. It was too bad that our delay in Washington meant that I was unable to watch the recruitment that day before, but only heard things second hand.

The village probably had around 200 inhabitants, and each household had some garden/yard space in the front and back of the homes for growing a variety of vegetables, flowers and plants. Many have larger plots further away, but some grow enough for themselves and to sell in nearby markets, and also have full-time jobs elsewhere. I saw a lot of very large and tall sunflowers, zinnias, morning glory, many tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes and pepper plants. The first two households were very cooperative and it did not take long at all to finish up the work there. Unfortunately, the team had less luck with many of the other homes. We headed back to Harbin that morning and observed the hospital staff handle and analysis the samples.

By the afternoon, I was pretty exhausted between the lack of sleep and jetlag. I really didn’t do too much the rest of next 24 hours other than eat, sleep, do a little work and finally found a way to call Marc from a ‘phone/internet cafe’. Our phone line was cut numerous times, but it was good to reconnect after 3 days, and especially since it was our 3^rd year wedding anniversary! The hotel in Harbin was right by the train station and so it was always very busy and crowded. Traffic was terribly chaotic and there was a consistent cacophony of vehicles honking and people yelling. The streets had people selling various snacks but also produce (lots of good looking fruit – beautiful mangos, apples, apricots, bananas, mangosteens, etc.; and some odd looking spiny orange gourds).

That afternoon, I headed to the airport to leave for Liaoning province and arrived in another small town about 1.5 hours outside Dalian city. There, I connected with two of the Beijing CDC folks and the provincial CDC’s food safety director and we went to the village site the next day.

The village was about a 20 min drive from where we stayed. Along the way we saw an amazing number of trucks and carts brimming with peaches. There were mountains of peaches rotting along the roads, peach orchards along the roads we took and peaches everywhere we turned! Unfortunately, the prices of peaches have fallen dramatically this year. I was told that last year they were going for about 1.2 yuan (US$0.20)/kg last year, but this year the farmers are only getting 0.4 yuan(US$0.07)/kg. Wow, even at 20 cents/kg a year seems very low to me already. Many of the good (no worms, not rotting) peaches go to canneries to be made into canned peaches. Most of the ones with worms are immediately tossed, hence the mountains of rotting peaches. As you walk around the village there is a bit of a sour but slightly sweet smell in the air due to the peaches rotting along the sides of the streets.

Hence it was peach harvesting season, most people were not at home during the day and so the survey efforts would really only happen in the evenings. On Friday, I went with the survey team into 5 households where we asked about what they ate and drank that day. We needed to take flashlights with us as it got dark by the time we left the first household and there are no street lights in the villages. The locals were all very welcoming, patient and cooperative – and of course they all offered us peaches! Even within a village there is a variation in the wealth of the folks there. Most households do not have bathrooms within the home (mostly dug out pits), but there was one we went to that was renovating their home and had a full shower and flush toilet getting installed… and the bathroom was getting beautifully tiled. Another thing we noticed during my time in this village is that many of the school-aged children are rather overweight. I had expected that in the more urbanized areas, but was surprised to see how common that is even in a poor village. The biomarker efforts in this village went a lot more smoothly with a high response rate, with much credit to the local CDC staff.

It has been challenging for me to get any running in since my overnight stay in DC/VA. On Saturday, I did go with 4 others to the Fuzhou township’s government office building which had some green space around it and I basically ran loops around the compound for 45 mins while the others walked/strolled. There was an older man (looked like he was in his 70s) there walking and shouting marching commands along the way (I think he must be a retired military guy), and then later he did some push-ups, which was all rather impressive.

Otherwise, there isn’t much to see in Fuzhou, so during the daytime when we aren’t in the village, I’ve spent a fair amount of time catching up on some work, reading with the news or cheesy mainland China drama serials playing in the background.

A "Trader Zhou's" in Dalian City -->

I am a little worried about my marathon training situation. I should be able to get a run in tomorrow AM and in Beijing (but will have to get up at 4am!), which will help.

Off to bed! More updates and stories when I have time in Beijing tomorrow/Tuesday.

~ Shuwen