Molly turned 7 on September 7, and China was nice enough to have a national holiday weekend at the same time. :) It's the Mid-Autumn Day festival, and nearly everyone had a three-day weekend to celebrate. We didn't have our usual English classes for adults and children with disabilities on Saturday, and there was no school on Monday.
Since Hudson's birthday is later in the month, we decided to have a joint birthday party for them to celebrate together with their friends in mid-September. That made this weekend about quality time together as a family, and we made the most of it. The highlight was playing at the mall near our house.
Molly has always wanted to jump on this big trampoline, and she decided she was definitely brave enough to try the two-story ropes/obstacle course as well.
She went up, over and across all manner of tightropes and swinging bridges. A worker followed closely behind to attach the ropes of her harness to the various sections of the course.
Molly said crossing these wooden posts was the hardest part, and she felt her heart racing:
And this is my favorite video because you can see Hudson bouncing on the trampoline and watching Molly:
Happy 7th birthday to our sweet girl! She has learned so much this year, growing in confidence and ability. We love you, Molly!
~Dayna
Welcome to a new school year! While North America was celebrating Labor Day on September 1, China's students were heading back to class. Molly is in first grade and Hudson is in pre-k at a wonderful private school that combines the best of the American and Chinese education systems.
I set my alarm for 6:15, and when I stumbled out of our room in the morning, Molly greeted me entirely dressed for school. I'm not sure what time they got up, but they were excited! (Pieces of the school uniform are still being ordered. For the first day, Molly had the skirt and knee socks and Hudson had his long-sleeved shirt.)
Molly's teacher is Cici, and Hudson's is Amy. His classroom is on the second floor, directly above Molly's. Hudson is most looking forward to violin class, which takes place every Friday.
Hudson's class doesn't begin until 8:30 so the students who arrived early chose books to read. (Hudson found "Clifford the Big Red Dog.") The books are a mix of Chinese, English and bilingual.
The school is a little far from our home and not accessible by subway. We figured out the bus routes, and that's the way I'll travel home from school in the mornings and back again in the afternoons. But the neighbor of a friend of a friend is a taxi driver, and his wife is able to pick us up at our door in the morning at 7:40 and meet us at the school door at 4:00 to drive us home. (Isn't it amazing how relationships work in China?) She is only charging us $5/day to do that, and the time and effort it saves is remarkable.
Taking the bus requires waiting 10-20 minutes at the stop, riding about 30 minutes, and then a 10-15 minute walk to the school. This is the path: First, up and over the road via pedestrian bridge. Then down through a tunnel under the train tracks. (See the train going by in the photo below?)
Coming out of the tunnel, you cross another set of train tracks. The first time we did this, we had to wait for the train to pass, and there's no guard rail of any kind at the crossing.
Then there's a few more blocks to walk through a residential area before crossing one more street in front of the school. When the kids and I first navigated it a week before school started, it was raining and it couldn't have felt any more like an adventurous exploration. They had so much fun! But they are also very grateful to be driven because they recognize the difficulty of doing that every day. (Not to mention how cold it will be outside before long!)
They were very happy this morning to head back for Day 2!
Bonus pic: Kids posing in front of the cutest foliage sculpture in front of a department store near where our international fellowship meets.
~Dayna
I think about blogging as I'm walking to work. I wish I could bring you all along on a typical 20 minute walk through our city. There are things I'd tell you about the traffic laws, which have been considerably more enforced in the two years we've lived here - especially stopping for red lights. (Although motorcycles and bicycles don't stop for them at all.)
I feel very safe living here, but hands down the most dangerous part of life is crossing the street. There's not a rule about stopping before making a right-turn on red, so even crossing with the Walk signal turns into a game of Frogger.
Construction is constantly underway. I can't count the number of new buildings, apartments and shops being built just between our home and my office. They do shut down during the winter months but now that it is April, they are back in full swing. There is often a night crew to keep up the work nearly around the clock.
My office building is on the right, with the orange billboard on top. The company is on the 13th floor.
The company trains ladies to be live-in caregivers in Canada. I work with them 6 hours a week.
Our friends we get together with on Saturday nights invited us to a big dinner together this weekend.
I should've taken photos of the food! My favorite dish was sugared peanuts surrounded by sweet potatoes dipped in a honey-glaze and rolled with small krispies. It was warm and sweet, soft and crunchy all at once. Chinese meals don't end with dessert -- you eat the sweet dishes right along with everything else.
I've been wanting to write about shopping in our city, but I hate feeling like a tourist and snapping pics everywhere. Our city has one exceptionally large market for shopping/bargaining for pretty much every kind of item you can think of. I shop there for shoes and winter gear and stationery and sometimes clothes. We are fortunate to have an IKEA so we've gotten some decorative items, kitchen utensils and much of the kids' bedroom furnishings there (like their bedding and cute containers for their toys).
We buy fruit and eggs from local stands in our neighborhood, and that is one fantastic about living here. It is so convenient to pick up fresh produce at fairly inexpensive prices without going out of my way or waiting in checkout lines. As far as supermarkets go, we have several Wal-Mart locations and three big European stores are represented: Carrefour (France), Tesco (England) and Metro (Germany).
We do most of our shopping at Carrefour. The location closest to us has a small import section, but the biggest store is only two subway stops away (and what is pictured here).
Imported products we tend to buy are: cereal, granola bars, olives, salsa, pasta, tomato sauce, sour cream, refried beans, tortilla chips, cheese. Avocados are virtually impossible to find here in the northeast. I've heard of the fanciest import stores selling them on occasion for $9 each. Then last week my friend called me from Tesco and said she was holding a package of two avocados for $3.25 and did I want her to get some for me. You can imagine how fast I said YES. They were worth every penny. (And made me think I should take time to go to Tesco more often.)
I know I've mentioned this beautiful shopping mall before -- it is not far from Kevin's office and right across the street from my new job. It has a fancy (read = expensive) import store inside and nearly every designer shop you can name.
I may have taken a peek once or twice in the two-story Tiffany & Co store. I've never actually seen people buying things from these stores (the import luxury tax is off the charts) but the mall is a really nice, quiet place to walk around.
There is a restaurant/bakery in the atrium on the fourth floor that's become our favorite lunch date location.
Speaking of food and lunch, here are two pictures from the Christmas Eve luncheon at Kevin's office. Not everyone is pictured, but it'll give you an idea of where Kevin spends his days and who he's privileged to work alongside as they assist and advocate for people affected by disability.
Living in a foreign country has its daily challenges, but it is also a bigger blessing than we imagined when we applied for work here. I know we are right where we are meant to be.
~Dayna
We hope you've had a wonderful holiday season! We didn't have any of our family members travel to China to celebrate with us for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but we enjoyed the times with our friends here. It is always nice to share the meanings behind the various Christmas decorations and symbols with our friends who come over during December.
We get the most questions about our Little People nativity set. (Hudson's t-shirt says "Jesus loves you.") Christmas decorations are becoming more common all over town but it is always trees, wreaths, bells, Santas, gifts and lights.
Molly was so excited when her preschool started decorating for Christmas. She gave me a daily progress update on how many trees there were in the classrooms and hallways, and talked about making ornaments during craft time in class. One day as we were walking home, she announced: "Mom, my teacher doesn't know that Christmas is Jesus' birthday!"
The children's preschool was decorated to the hilt. Molly asked me to come inside and take pictures when I picked them up, so I obliged and then understood why she wanted me to see it. Tinsel and lights and trees EVERYWHERE.
On Christmas Eve, the preschool hosted a party at 4:00 in each classroom -- I started out in Hudson's room while Kevin went to Molly's, and then we switched halfway through. It was very different than an American preschool party, mainly because it's a party for the parents more than the kids. There are games for the parents to play and the kids come up in groups and sing or dance, and then the parents are invited to join the dancing and sing a song with their child.
The above picture doesn't do it justice, but I had to offer photographic proof of the first game in Hudson's class, which was for the moms/grandmas. They tied balloons to their ankles, and the object was to pop everyone else's balloons while protecting yours. I didn't volunteer to participate, but it was hysterical to watch. The moms took this game very seriously - at least one was wearing high-heeled boots! - and the Christmas tree in the corner of the room was knocked over twice. All the kids were cheering on their moms, and it was great fun.
I went up to Molly's room and watched her sing two songs with her class. Meanwhile, Kevin was in Hudson's class participating in the game for dads/grandpas: musical chairs with the kid-sized preschool chairs, of course. How I wish I could've seen that! He made it three rounds.
The video above is a clip of Hudson singing with his classmates. (At the end, they are saying thank you to the audience.) His teacher also asked me to prepare a song to sing together with Hudson and Molly in front of his class. We sang a medley of "Joy to the World" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Next time we should sing a song in Chinese instead.
We spent Christmas Day at home together, opening stockings and gifts before Skyping with our families. (IKEA had rolls of wrapping paper! We had lots of candy-cane covered gifts to open.)
I made sweet potato casserole as a side dish for lunch, which was hawaiian pizza. (It is possible to order turkey from an import store, but it is something like $5 a pound. Our Chinese friends have no idea what it's like to eat turkey.) We waited until Sunday, Dec 29 to share more of a traditional holiday meal at the home of our Canadian friends: baked chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, corn, meatballs and gravy. We have been spoiled these past few months with many delicious, homemade meals with them.
Warning: this post is random. People ask us about our daily life here and it's hard to explain. Parts of this city are more developed and polished than you could imagine, and then right next door, it's very clearly not. Here's a glimpse of some of our regular activities around our city of 7+ million people.
Let's start with shopping. Ten years ago when Kevin and I taught at a college in Changchun, we were the star attractions when shopping or walking down the road. Now, people hardly notice us because they are only focused on our kids. They are fair-skinned, blue-eyed and always mistaken for twins. They've had their pictures taken with strangers 174,000 times. Approximately. Here we are shopping at Wal-Mart:
Here's a shot of the Christmas decor section at Wal-Mart:
In October, there was much smaller display of Halloween masks and children's costumes. I don't remember seeing that at all last year. Decorating for all Western holidays is definitely increasing. Many shops and restaurants will have Christmas trees or wreathes displayed. There is a fancy four-story shopping mall close to Kevin's office. We had lunch there on Thanksgiving, and I noticed Haagen-Dazs was beautifully decorated for Christmas.
But the funny thing was right next to it, in the middle of the mall's main walkway, was this enormous Halloween display (still there more than a week into December).
In another shopping mall near our home, a Charlie Brown Cafe opened this year. We visited it a few months ago with two volunteers from our Saturday English classes. I had fun getting to know these girls as they translated for me in the adult class for several months.
Speaking of coffee, another friend of ours opened her own small "Book Cafe" for people who enjoy coffee, books and wifi in a cozy environment. She lives in an apartment on the cafe's second floor.
I've been meaning to explain for ages how we pay bills here in China. Bills are never received or paid by mail. Phone, cable and internet are paid upfront on a pay-as-you go system. Every month or two, we add money to our cell phone number by going to one of many China Mobile shops. (Anyone can add money to any phone number, so it can be a fun way to anonymously bless someone with unexpected money on their phone.) Every six months, we bring our cable box's sim card to the telecom office and reload it. Every two months, our electric bill (along with the electric bills of all of our neighbors) are pasted on the downstairs door of our apartment building. We detach it from the metal door, and take it in person to pay the balance.
For water and gas, a worker comes to our home to check the meter, and then we pay in cash on the spot and are given a receipt. This usually happens between 6 and 8 pm, about every two months. We pay our landlord six months of rent at a time - all in cash. We pay preschool tuition on the first day of the month with all the parents waiting in line either at drop-off or pick-up to pay the cashier. Our Chinese friends have bank accounts and debit cards, but credit cards are rare and personal checks don't seem to exist.
Let me know if there are other aspects of Chinese culture you'd like to see or know more about.
~Dayna
