I didn’t quite feel like Amy Tan’s Joyluck Club when we set out for China: my mother and I, my three aunts and my two aunts’ first-borns. I was kind of right! As the days went by, we became more and more like the Potluck Club. The food just kept on coming and being the good citizens we were, wasting the scrumptious spread was out of the question!

In between our food feastings, we managed to tour the beautiful city of Xiamen and a couple more adjacent cities. And here are some of the things I’ve noticed about the sleeping giant—ahem, more like the awakened giant!

Things I’ve noticed lately…

1. LOW FAT.

I have yet to see a fat person in Xiamen! My eyes could not believe how lean most of them are. Even the men are tall and wiry, just like the characters that I’ve seen in my sister’s Japanese anime.

It must have something to do with their diet, I guess. By now, our Potluck Club have eaten like, nine COMPLETE meals in Xiamen. And not once did we miss the soup, fish, leeks and tea with the course. I don’t know if it was just our party or the rest of the population ate the same soup-fish-leeks-tea menu we did.

The tea sure made us answer the call of nature more times than we should.

But to our horror only hotels have the “Western Style” toilet bowls. Most of us had to make do with the squat position. While the braver ones ignored the ringing of nature on their doors and just held on until we reached the comforts of our hotel toilet.

Note to self: Since we bought a lifetime supply of tea, I better beautify our bathroom since I’m going to be spending a lot more of my time there.

2. TOO PHAT!

Skirts and stilettos galore! People here are quite fashionable. I was told that they even go to market wearing dresses and heels. (Not the men, of course!) I believe the tale ‘cause one time I passed by a female, young, slithe and slender in a short baby doll dress pulling the heavy shutters of her shop down.

But if I lived in Xiamen, I would wear 3-inch heels everyday, too. The streets are as smooth as marble. Few dangers of tripping over bumps, lumps or excavations. No problems of dirtying your feet either in their clean pedestrians. And everything looks manicured, from the road side to the islands in the middle of their wide 6-lane roads. Even the little triangular mounds in intersections have blooming greens and colors! Yup, everything is in style and in place.

3. TOO FEW…

Where have all the people gone?

That was on our mind the whole first day in Xiamen. We kind of pictured China as the country crawling with too many people just like what the media always show. But hey, where are they?

We couldn’t help but burst out this question to our tour guide. His answer? “Of course, you don’t see people outside because they’re inside—at work!” (Emphasis mine. And he said that in Fookien, not in English.)

Yikes! That made me cringes! Because in our country, many of our population are seen outside, out of work and out of school. Everybody seemed to have some kind of work. The people I’ve seen who were on the outside were builders working on roofs and bridges. And when they work, they really dive into it. Like the intricate and detailed stone-carved diorama of their past and current history. I saw this in a school they call Jimei University. They carved it for ten years! That’s something!

In my whole stay in Xiamen, I’ve seen only one lay-a-bout sleeping under a tree. Whew, just how sad is that fact for us?

Another one of their ingenious “disguising the population” methods were

high-rise apartments. Talk about a metropolitan Pleasantville! If you can imagine matching shoe boxes piled high, then that's how they live here. But bongga! ‘Cause every “shoe box” has its own air-conditioning unit! Hmmm, maybe that’s why they’re all inside…much cooler…

4. NO PREGNANT WOMEN.

Okay, okay, I’m stretching the “no” thing a bit ‘cause I did see a couple of pregnant women. Just a few. Unlike in our country, where almost every corner you turn you see a blooming sign of motherhood.

China’s One Child Policy took place in 1979 and has been in effect since. If I were born here, I would have all the rights and privileges of a citizen of China. (Obviously, I’m a first born. Haha!) But my sister wouldn’t. All non-first born child in China have zilch of this document (They call it an I.D. Card) that would give citizens the privilege to have a passport or even a bank account. It’s either that or mama and papa pay a very large lump of RMB (That’s their monetary unit) to get 2nd child an I. D. Card.

Brrr! Am I glad I’m a certified Philippine-born infant, or I’d miss having my wacky sister!

5. I MISS ENGLISH!

I never realized that I could miss a language! People, yeah, but a language? But when I saw HBO on TV