Xiamen Adventure

New Blog -- Adoption Talk

2008-08-21T06:43:00.001-07:00

OK, in my last post I said it marked the official end of the blog. In case you didn't believe me, and are still looking -- you were right to disbelieve me! THIS is now the official end of the blog! But I wanted to tell folks I've started a new blog that might be of interest to adoptive families.

Our family talks about adoption A LOT! It seems that almost every day my girls or I mention something about their adoptions, their birthfamilies, their caregivers in China. My oldest, Zoe, aged 7, began asking questions almost as soon as she could talk, and this summer has really grappled with the loss of her birthparents. My youngest, Maya, aged 4 (turning 5 in less than 30 days now!), has not asked as many questions -- part of that is that she hears Zoe's questions and my answers, part of that is her laid-back personality.

I process things by writing about them, so I thought I'd get back to blogging to help me examine how we do adoption talk and how to do it better. I'm hoping for lots of comments about how other adoptive families are talking about adoption, too.So, if you want to listen in on our adoption talks and share your adoption talks, too, click here!

The Adoption Talk blog probably won't be as active as this blog was, but I'll post as I can!

Yep, I Had Brain Surgery

2008-03-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

Yep, I had brain surgery – here’s a picture of my “train track” to prove it (that’s what Zoe and Maya called my Frankenstein scar!). The "train track" makes a horseshoe turn on the other side of my head. I’m sorry I haven’t posted about it – I got all of your emails and comments of concern, but at first I could only do so much and concentrated my limited resources on the girls. And then I kept meaning to post, and then time passed, and it seemed silly to post so far after the event. So I’ve been a very bad blogger, and it was inexcusable really, given how touched I was by all my readers’ expressions of concern. Then a comment came out of the blue this week asking about me, so here it is before I miss the opportunity!

I had emergency brain surgery way back in October and I’m doing GREAT – in fact, I’m recommending brain surgery for everyone! I had a subdural hematoma, which is a blood clot between the skull and the brain. The neurosurgeon said it was a small one -- about the size of his hand (which didn't sound all that small to me!). Subdurals are usually caused by some kind of head trauma, and the only thing the doctors could come up with was a pretty hard fall I had three months before in China when we were on the way to Xi'an (thank goodness none of these symptoms manifested themselves while we were in China!). Three months is pretty far outside the temporal range you’d expect for a subdural, but they think I must have bled for a while when I fell, but the bleeding stopped on its own. Then I must have done something else that caused it to re-bleed closer to showing symptoms that led to surgery.

That long delay between trauma and symptoms is what made the doctors think initially that I had some kind of brain infection – it couldn’t be a subdural, they thought, because I couldn’t report any recent head trauma. And I’d just spent five months in exotic China, where I could have been infected by who-knows-what. And I initially presented complaining about a sinus infection.

Yep, that’s what sent me to the emergency room initially – what I thought was the world’s worse sinus infection. I’d had really terrible headaches for about 2 weeks before, and spent a week throwing OTC meds at them, think it was just sinus trouble. All the pain was exactly where you’d expect it to be for a sinus attack – behind my cheekbones and above my eyes. After the OTC meds did nothing to help, I made a same-day appointment with my doctor and saw the nurse practitioner. I trotted out all my symptoms, she diagnosed sinus infection, and prescribed antibiotics, just as I expected. I also asked for pain pills – the first time I’ve ever asked for them! I have a high tolerance for pain, but this headache really hurt! Even that didn’t clue me in to this being anything other than a sinus infection – the worst headaches I’ve ever had have been sinus ones.

Anyway, I started the antibiotics right away, and started throwing up right away. Again, no cause to worry – painful sinus headaches have caused me to throw up in the past. I spent the night throwing up (thank goodness the girls were spending the night with Mimi & Grandpa so I could rest), and when Mimi saw me the next morning I was looking sufficiently ghastly that she thought we should go to the emergency room. I agreed, thinking I needed a shot of antibiotics since I couldn’t keep any down . . . .

So the girls stayed with Grandpa and Mimi took me to the nearest emergency room. The first thing the ER doctor said was that we needed a CT scan, which I thought was MAJOR overreaction – geez, a simple X-ray can diagnose a sinus infection! But that’s why they don’t let me practice medicine – the CT scan showed “something abnormal,” according to the doc. They wanted to transfer me by ambulance to a bigger hospital with a “neurology ER.” I didn’t realize it at the time – I was pretty out of it by this time, since they’d started to give me morphine – but the doctor told Mimi with exquisite bedside manners, “this is potentially fatal, you know!”

I don’t remember anything after getting loaded into the ambulance. I had a seizure in the ambulance, and another in the operating room, and was out of it for several days. I had the easy part – I slept through it all! My mom had the hard part – dealing with the doctors, making the hard decisions, contacting family and friends, taking care of the girls. I am so lucky to have a great mom!

So, I go to the emergency room on Saturday, I have surgery on Sunday, I am apparently awake and talking to people on Monday, but I don’t remember doing it. Next thing I remember was Tuesday in ICU. Wednesday I get sent to a regular room, and Thursday I get discharged – amazing!

I was still pretty out of it, even after discharge. We went to Mimi’s house for the month – it was either than or a rehab hospital, so we’re really fortunate to have Mimi close now. I mostly slept for the first week or so, but it was still great to be out of the hospital and back with the girls. Not surprisingly, this was all really hard on them. Maya didn’t want to come see me in the hospital. Last time I had a hospital stay in 2006 she wouldn’t get up on the bed or hug me or talk to me – she was just plain mad at me for weeks. After Zoe saw me in ICU on that Monday, she asked Mimi on the way home, “Is my mama dead?” Mimi said, “No, sweetie! You just talked to her, remember?” Zoe responded, “She didn’t sound like my mom.” (Zoe is pretty sensitive to voices – she knows I have a sore throat before I do, and she knew Grandpa had had a mini-stroke after talking to him on the phone, before he knew he had anything more than a headache.) She told me later that I sounded like a robot, repeating myself over and over.

Well, it’s been almost five months since surgery and we’re home and doing great. The biggest problem is that I’m not yet permitted to drive because of the seizures, but I can drive again in another month! Yippeeeeeeee! We’re fortunate to live close to the girls’ schools, so we’ve been walking to and from school. I’m taking the bus to work, which has been an adventure. And we even have a grocery store within walking distance. So all-in-all, it’s a lot like being back in China! The girls have been real troupers, but it is harder to walk here than in China – though their schools are closer than in China, at least there we didn’t have to walk right by the mini-van in the garage to get to school! And in China, everyone was walking, so the girls couldn’t feel aggrieved about walking like they can here. Thank goodness we got used to getting stared at in China, because walking gets us stared at here. No one in Texas walks for the purpose of transportation!

Thanks to all of you who have expressed concern, who prayed for us, who’ve been checking the blog for updates. Finally, here it is!

This will also be the official last post to the Xiamen Adventure blog. We arrived in China a little over a year ago this month, and we’ve now been home longer than we were there. It was the adventure of a lifetime – but hopefully, not our last adventure in China. We want to go back, and we want to stay longer next time. Maybe soon there will be another China Adventure blog. Thanks for coming along for our Xiamen Adventure!

A few of the things that make me happy to be home

2007-08-26T19:25:00.001-07:00

Mimi & Grandpa – automatic ice makers – salad – even my crappy minivan – HalfPrice Books – Blue Mesa with friends – “What Not to Wear” – brushing teeth without thinking – Dr. Pepper – air conditioning – Frito Chili Pie – knowing where I’m going most of the time – my own bed – a really good cheeseburger – finding clothing my size in stores – fast internet – memories and mementos of China – my office – the ease of language – my new rice cooker – “The Colbert Report” & “The Daily Show”– bacon, egg & cheese biscuits from McD’s – hot water from all my faucets – my oven – Tex-Mex – NPR – Tuesday Morning – Nordstrom’s Rack – Prairie Home Companion – having a couch again! – having more than 3 pairs of shoes to choose from – the dishwasher – Ben & Jerry’s – Purple Cow Diner – cereal with cold milk – Hong Kong Market – IKEA – National Cowgirl Hall of Fame – crème brulee at Michael’s Restaurant – Target – enrolling the kids for ballet again – friends, friends, friends!

Another Expat Family Blogging

2007-08-24T13:51:00.001-07:00

Take a look at The Lewis Family Goes to China. They've got a passel of boys and one girl adopted from China.

Buddha and Mao

2007-08-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

Having told you Maya’s reaction to the Jesus portrait, I have to tell a portrait story about Zoe, too.

Before we left for China to adopt Maya, we spent time looking through my old pictures from Beijing and China travel books. Zoe was intrigued by the portrait of Mao that hangs above Tiananmen Square – probably because we saw it in practically every guidebook. So by the time we were headed for Tiananmen Square, she was fired up to see the portrait of Mao.

So fired up, in fact, that she kept up a running conversation about it as we walked toward it, and soon the conversation degenerated into a song with lyrics something like, “I wanna see Mao, Mao, Mao-ey, Mao-ey, Mao. . . .” I was beginning to wonder if we’d get arrested for disrespect or heresy or something!

Then as we passed under the Mao portrait into the Forbidden City, Zoe says, “Mao was a nice man, wasn’t he?” I hemmed and hawed and answered, “Well, some people think he was nice and some people think he wasn’t.” Zoe looked at me gimlet-eyed and said adamantly, “Well, I say he’s NICE.” Ooooookay!

There are some nutty conspiracy theorists out there who decry Americans adopting babies from China, because they believe they’ve all been implanted with microchips that the Chinese will use to “activate” this stealth army when the kids reach adulthood. For just a nanosecond there, I had to wonder . . . . [Not really, but can you imagine what one of those whack jobs would have thought if they’d heard 4-year-old Zoe singing Mao’s praises?!!]

China Expat Families Blogging

2007-08-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

The Xiamen adventure continues – I’m thrilled to be able to give you a few new blogs to follow expat families in Xiamen.

One of the families is the Fulbright family who will be in our Apartment 301 in the Foreign Scholars Guesthouse. It’ll be so great to see whether their experiences will be the same or different from ours. I feel nostalgic already! They’ll be blogging at “Our Year in Xiamen.”

The second family is blogging at “China Diary.” The dad is already in Xiamen and the rest of the family will be heading there in 2008. They’re planning to home-school their kids.

And then you can check out “G.A.C.E. in China,” a family with two kids who are living and working in Kunming. She is our own commenter, A.M.B.A. in MI.

200th Post?!

2007-08-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

According to the Blogger dashboard, my last post was my 200th. When I first started the blog, I was worried that I'd run out of things to write about. Guess it didn't happen!

Tooth Fairy, Redux

2007-08-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

OK, I need the low-down on the tooth fairy. Zoe keeps asking questions I can't answer! The most basic is "What does she do with all those teeth?" I did the law-professor/mommy Socratic method and asked, "What do YOU think she does with all the teeth?" Zoe, being into collections, decided the tooth fairy kept them in a tooth collection. But, then, "How does she remember whose tooth is whose when they're too small to write the names on?" "Well, how do YOU think she does it?" Zoe thinks maybe she glues them on a big piece of paper and writes the names under the teeth. "But how can the tooth fairy, who is so little, carry the big piece of paper?" Arrrrgggghhhhhh! "How do YOU think she does it?"

So what exactly is the story of the tooth fairy? You have to admit it's kind of a creepy thing -- what next, the toenail fairy?!

"I LOVE Buddha!"

2007-08-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

After five months in China, the girls know a bit about Buddha, and are quite used to seeing paintings and etchings and statues of Buddha. When we took Zoe to visit her school -- her Catholic school -- Maya was with us, and as we entered the building there was a painting of Jesus, but kind of in a Russian-icon way. Maya looks at it and says, "Buddha! I LOVE Buddha!" We're bound to be excommunicated any minute now. . . .

New Glasses, New Teeth

2007-08-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

I got new glasses today and I'm very excited. My mother says I look cute. I like having them because they change to dark when I'm in the sun and go back to the normal color when I'm inside. I get to wear them inside. They help me see because things don't look fuzzy anymore.

I lost a tooth and at school at St. Andrew's my teacher Ms. P. gave me a tooth cheer. The class sang, "she lost a tooth, she lost a tooth!" Then there is a tooth chart and all around it it says "I lost a tooth," and I got to write my name on it. The tooth fairy gave me 5 dollars! I have another wiggly tooth and two teeth are growing in behind the lost tooth and the wiggly tooth.

P.S. Tooth fairy inflation, indeed! I remember getting a quarter. In defense of the tooth fairy, just let me say that despite having almost 3 weeks notice of the impending event, she was caught with nothing smaller in her wallet. And I've been telling Zoe that I think the tooth fairy left so much because it was her FIRST tooth. We'll see what happens when the recession hits before the next tooth goes!

Typhoon Sepat

2007-08-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

It looks like Typhoon Sepat is going to hit Xiamen -- first it will hit Taiwan, and may as a consequence be reduced from a Category 5 to a Category 2 by the time it reaches Xiamen. Either way, it will be no picnic. Prayers requested for all those in the path of the storm, and especially for our friends in Xiamen.

Zoe, First Grader

2007-08-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

Imagine, my baby is a first-grader! And she is pleased as punch about it, mostly because at her school first-graders get to start wearing the jumper. She hated her kindergarten uniform of shorts and shirt. That was a hard adjustment for the little girl who insisted on wearing a dress EVERY DAY from the time she was 3! Is there anything any cuter than a little girl in a plaid jumper?!

Today was the first “official” day of school, but all that was required was that students show up in uniform at 5 p.m. to meet the teacher. Tomorrow is the real first day, and even that is a half day. So is Friday, Monday and Tuesday. It’ll be a week before the school day will resemble the days to come for the rest of the year. I think it’s a good thing the kids had a chance to see their new classrooms and teachers in advance – Zoe was really nervous about all these new things. As we were getting ready at home, I heard Zoe mumbling something and asked her what she’d said. She repeated it, “I said, ‘Just don’t cry.’” We talked about what was scaring her, and mostly it was that no one would remember her. Well, everyone remembered her and made a big fuss over her, so that helped a lot.

Zoe was excited about her homeroom teacher – Zoe was in kindergarten, but she went to first grade for reading, so she spent part of the day with Ms. Pastusek last year. And Ms. Pastusek’s class is the Pandas!

How’s that for a touch of fate?!

Zoe spent a lot of time checking out the other first grade classrooms, too, looking for some of her kindergarten friends. She was delighted to see Lainie, Sydney, Kennedy, Elizabeth, the other Sydney, Deborah, and lots of other little friends. They ALL remembered her, of course!
She sat still for only the nanosecond it took me to take a picture of her at her new desk – that’s another first grade advance, first graders get their own desks.

Zoe has a couple of other transitions coming up, too. She has two “wiggly teeth” with one just about ready to fall out – this will be her first! And, when we got her eyes checked on Monday, it turned out that she needs glasses. It’ll be a week before they come in, though. She looks adorable in them, and is not unhappy at all about the glasses. One of her best friends wears glasses, and Zoe has actually wanted glasses since I got mine a year ago. In fact, if there was some way to throw the eye exam, she would have done it. But with kids they dilate the eyes to relax the muscles so they can’t cheat!

So, a busy month – moving back to the States, losing a tooth, getting glasses, and starting first grade. And my amazing Zoe is handling it all just fine – a few jitters, but all in all just fine!

The Prodigal Returns!

2007-08-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

Our suitcase came home!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can hardly believe it! I had pretty much given up hope, and was trying to resign myself to the loss by reminding myself of my realization in China with our tiny apartment and our limited belongings that we didn’t need things, and we were being possessed by our possessions at home. It was hard, though, since there were so many things of sentimental value in that one suitcase. And now it’s HERE!

And remember when I wrote that the bag status website seemed pretty silly because “it seems that the only two statuses are ‘we know nothing’ and ‘here’s your bag?’” Well, we got a call at 6:20 this morning from a woman who said she was in our driveway to deliver our bag! (She actually called my dad at 6 a.m., because his number was listed first on the form for some odd reason, because I certainly didn’t list it first.). And she had no idea where the bag has been; she works for a bag delivery service, not the airline.

The bag was in perfect shape, still stuffed to the gills, still with my original name tag, but it didn’t have its original baggage tag, just a slip of paper telling the bag delivery service to bring it to us. So who knows what adventures it’s seen!

It’s keeping it’s secrets for now. And I don’t think anyone looked through it – things were still in the same order in which I packed them. I took things out and spread them on my bed so I could see if it was all there, and it was!

Looks like a booth at a Chinese market in front of any of China’s tourist attractions, doesn’t it?! I’m so thrilled to have it all here – the Zhuang dresses, the dolls from Mother’s Love, the teas, including the special West Mountain tea Mr. Gan from Guiping SWI gave us, the orange and pink sweaters knitted by Maya’s foster mom, the wall hangings she gave each girl, the children’s books in Chinese, the little Mongolian felt boots, the purses from Guiping SWI, the red silk treasure boxes holding the little mini-M & M containers with dirt from the girls’ finding sites, and so much more! All my winter clothes came back, too, including the holy grail of jeans -- that pair that women spend years looking for, that pair that acutally fit perfectly and even made you look good in them!

You can see how excited the girls are by the return of the bag – I got it emptied out before they woke up, and they climbed into the bag in their nightgowns just grinning like crazy. They were also excited that our presents for Grandpa were recovered. We just had to go this morning to give him his gifts -- and to make up for that 6 a.m. wake-up call!

As you can see, Grandpa is a great actor – the presents weren’t really that impressive: a bug zapper flyswatter (we saw these all over China, a thing that looks like a little tennis racket that is like those hanging bug-zappers – you just swing it at the fly and fly-be-gone!) and a tshirt.

(That picture’s for Mimi, who is in Vermont, so you can see Grandpa’s present, too!)
So we’re all ecstatic to have our bag back. Now we just have to find a place for all that stuff!

Our Arrival Photos from August 1

2007-08-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

It’s been pretty hectic around here, so Mimi JUST emailed me the pictures of our DFW arrival. As you can see, Zoe was first through the doors to the baggage claim area – Maya and I actually got stuck in the revolving doors! After Maya stepped into the revolving doors, she came to a dead halt, so I had to stop to keep from running her over. The automatic revolving doors did not stop! My rolling carry-on got stuck, and I had to tug mightily to get it through with the help of another traveler who yanked at the door. But we all made it, slightly the worse for wear and completely rumpled. It shows that we’ve been traveling for over 24 hours, doesn’t it?

The girls were excited to see Mimi & Aaron waiting for us, and positively glowed while we waited for our luggage (and waited, and waited, and waited . . . ).

And when we finally made it home, they excitedly explored their bedroom to make sure all was as they left it. It’s been lots of fun watching them find all their old things waiting for them. Maya is saying, “You used to sit here to feed me my bottle, ‘member?” Oh, yes, I remember – I put her back on the bottle when I adopted her at 18 months, for bonding and nutrition purposes, and then I thought I’d never get her off it again! I’m having fun finding our old things, too, since so many come with good memories!

Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig!

One Week Home

2007-08-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to believe we’ve been home one week already. I admit I still feel unsettled, since we left in the middle of winter and are back in the middle of summer (really the middle of summer – everyone who has been telling me how mild the summer has been here now blames us for bringing the real heat back with us; it looks like we’ll have our first 100-degree day this week). I’m weeding out the girls’ clothes and shoes that no longer fit, and unearthing summer clothes that do fit, so it is a bit of a muddle.

The girls have started sleeping through the night (finally!) after a few rough days. One day they fell asleep about 3 p.m. for a nap, it took me FOREVER to wake them up for dinner, they went back to sleep at 8 p.m., and woke up at 2 a.m. and WOULD NOT GO BACK TO SLEEP! The biggest problem is that I hadn’t yet been to sleep when they woke up! They spent the next night with Mimi & Grandpa so I could catch up on sleep, and I ended up sleeping from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.

We’re trying to stay busy during the day so the girls won’t be tempted to go to sleep. Right before dinner is the hardest time – they seem to want to go to sleep around 6 p.m. and I have to pull out all the stops to keep them up. At least it’s been pretty easy to stay busy since school will be starting up soon. We’ve had shopping to do (new lunchboxes, new uniform shoes for Zoe), and doctor’s appointments for Zoe and for me (Zoe is healthy as the proverbial horse and I have calcification of the Achilles tendon, which sends me to a specialist later this week), and playdates with friends, and visiting Maya’s school to start re-familiarizing her with it before she begins week after next.

Zoe has been worried that her school friends won’t remember her, so it was a good thing that we saw one of her friends at church on Sunday; of course Kennedy recognized her immediately. So that worry has ended. And Zoe’s ego doesn’t seem too impaired by the worry. We were meeting some friends at the children’s museum after church, a playdate not arranged with us in mind, but to see other friends visiting from out of town. But Zoe asks me during church, “Do you think my friends are going to church or do you think they’re making cards for me?!” I had to tell her that the playdate wasn’t really about her, so no one would have cards for her!

They still haven’t found our suitcase, and have turned us over to the Claims Department, so it doesn’t seem too hopeful now. I took my mom to the airport this morning – she’s going to Vermont to visit my sister – and then hit all the baggage claim places at the three terminals American Airlines flies into at DFW. No luck. So the next step is to fill out the claim form, which includes a detailed list of all contents of the suitcase. I’m not looking forward to that – it will be one heck of a long list!

We once saw a TV show in China with an odd magician/clown who did tricks like blowing his face off, and then making it reappear. He’d then shout, “BACK to normal!” The girls loved it, and took up “Back to normal” as their catch-phrase for a while. Well, we’re not quite there yet, but I think soon we’ll be able to say quite truthfully, “BACK to normal!”

More Photos from Xiada Kindergarten

2007-08-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

I got an email today from the mom of one of Maya's friends, Yifan. She sent me these cool pictures from swim time at Xiada kindergarten. Both girls loved the fact that their kindergarten had an actual swimming pool.

I'm particularly excited that it seems that we will be able to maintain contact with some of our friends in China! I hope we'll hear from some others, too. Yifan's mom is an English teacher in primary school (she teaches 10-year-0lds) and she was pleased with the English-language materials I gave out for the kids' parents to keep up their English lessons over the summer. She said the websites I also gave them were useful as well. If anyone knows of websites that might be good for ESL for 10-year-olds, let me know. She'd be thrilled to have more resources.

Hands of Hope

2007-08-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

Several years ago there was a fund-raising drive to raise money for an Orphan Relief Fund in China; the organization Angel Covers sold tiles to be placed on a wall in China. I bought two, one for Zoe and one for Maya. We hadn't even adopted Maya yet, didn't even have her referral.

Some friends of ours visited the wall last month, and found one of our tiles! They were nice enough to take a picture for us. Isn't it cool?! There's a virtual wall at the Angel Covers website, but it's so nice to see the real thing!

Lost Luggage

2007-08-04T17:05:00.000-07:00

Our lost bag is still lost, and I’m starting to despair of it ever being found. American Airlines assures me it will be located, but that’s little comfort to me since it seems they don’t know ANYTHING about where it is. I’m learning a lot about how poor the baggage handling system is. It seems that it should be an automated computerized system. After all, that strap put on the bag has a bar code, right? It must get scanned at various points in the system, like a FedEx package, right? Nope! It’s mere illusion. As one AA clerk told me, “The baggage tag is for the benefit of the airport, not the airline.” In other words, it merely IDs the bag.

The baggage handling system is completely manual, I’m told. Someone looks at the tag to figure out where it should go. And no record is kept unless a person manually enters it into the computer system. So the bag might still be at LAX. It might be sitting at DFW. It could be in Cancun or Nome, Alaska, or JFK, and the only way anyone would know is if they eyeballed it and realized it was in the wrong place. Having done that, they might just put it on a plane without ever entering it into the system. So it might be back at LAX after its trip to Cancun, or sent on the DFW. And then the same problem – it sits in the pile of misdirected or “lost” luggage until someone gets around to dealing with it.

And I’m told by the clerks that there’s a backlog of 2,000 “lost” bags at LAX and 1,000 “lost” bags at DFW, just sitting there waiting for someone to enter them into the system and finally match them up with an owner who can then be contacted.

All of which makes it pretty strange that they give you a locator number and a website to check “bag status.” It seems that the only two statuses are “we know nothing” and “here’s your bag.”

I’m no longer hopeful that we’ll get the bag back. And of course it’s the bag with all of the gifts the girls got from foster family and orphanages. It even has the little bottles with dirt, rocks and flowers we picked up at their finding sites. It has the wonderful Zhuang dresses – yours, too, Wendy – and books of Chinese art prints I planned to donate to next year’s Love Without Boundaries art auction. It has my favorite mandarin-style jacket and the only pair of jeans I own that actually fit right. It has all the girls’ books for learning Chinese – it’s actually pretty hard to find books with English AND Pinyin AND Chinese characters, even in China. It has 3 pairs of china dolls wearing costumes of the various ethnic minority groups in China. It has the gift we bought to bring back to Grandpa. It has the cute little felt boots from Mongolia that I wanted to add to my collection of Chinese children’s shoes.

We’re not losing any one thing with high economic value, but the sentimental value of the things in that suitcase is enormous. Sigh.

Tips for Using Blogger in China

2007-08-02T19:36:00.000-07:00

Having spent 5 months struggling with the Great Firewall of China to use Blogger (blogspot.com) for our “Xiamen Adventure” blog, I’ve devised a number of tricks to circumvent the block. I thought I’d share them for the edification of others who want to blog from China using Blogger and still be able to view their blog – because that has been the problem, viewing the blog. I can always get to blogger.com to post to the blog, I just can’t go to blogspot.com to see it. And that means that I can’t access comments to read them or respond to them by writing a comment.

So here’s my advice:

1. Use the following proxy servers to get to your blog:

http://pkblogs.com

http://www.inblog.net

This allows you to see the blog, but you can’t always click on comments from here. And at times, this route is also blocked (I’m not revealing any secrets, BTW. China knows full well about this, it just can’t do anything permanently about blocking it!). I can’t explain the technology bit that makes this work, I can just tell you it usually does. There was about a one-month period when these were also blocked, but that meant 4 months out of 5 I could reach the blog.

2. Before coming to China, use the function in Blogger to have the comments emailed to you as they are posted to the blog. At least this way you can read what people are saying. You still can’t respond in the comments, though.

3. Register for Sitemeter; there are other ways to track visitors to your blog, but I know how this one works and it allows you to backdoor into comments when all else fails. It’s easy to get Sitemeter installed on your website; just go to http://www.sitemeter.com and follow the directions. You’ll have to paste some HTML code that Sitemeter gives you into your layout & template thingie on Blogger.

4. One of the things you can see in the Sitemeter report is “Out Clicks” – the pages people go to when they leave your blog at blogspot.com. Going to comments is an “out click.” When you see that someone has outclicked to comments, you can click on the given link, and voila! you’ll be at comments.

5. If pkblogs or inblog is blocked, and you’re dying to see your blog, you can get a view of it through the Layout & Template section. Just go there and click on “Preview” as if you’ve made a change to the template. A popup will appear with your blog; maximize and it is just like you’re at blogspot.com. It works because you’ve signed into the blog, and China doesn’t care if you see your own blog, it just doesn’t want others to be able to see it! If you want someone in China to be able to see it at a time when pkblogs is blocked, you could always give them your Blogger login information. And of course this trick won’t let you see other blogspot.com blogs.

That’s it, all I know about how to make blogging from China using Blogger a bit easier – hope it helps. If you’ve found other tricks, please share (because if you’re in China and reading this, you’ve obviously got it all figured out!).

Our Trip Home

2007-08-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the “welcome back,” friends! We are happy to be back, and jetlag hasn’t hit us too terribly. The girls woke up at 3 a.m. today, asked for a snack at 4 a.m., but went back to sleep (in my bed!) around 5, and slept until 7:30. They are spending the night at Mimi’s and Grandpa’s house tonight, and I’m hoping they’ll sleep through the night since they didn’t take a nap this afternoon.

I’m struggling to stay awake right now at 7:00 p.m. I’m afraid if I go to sleep now, I’ll be up before dawn. So I figured I’d fill y’all in on our trip. As I mentioned before, it went very smoothly.

After I posted last from Guangzhou, we checked out of our room at the White Swan, and then spent a couple of hours playing in the Swan Room. When we first got there it was empty, but soon two families came in with their new babies. One of the moms pulled out her camera and said to her baby, “Maya, look at me!” I told her my daughter was Maya too, and then the other mom said, “So’s mine!” So we actually had three Mayas in the same room! Then another family came in – no, they didn’t have a Maya with them. They left their 11-year-old named Maya at home in the States!

We took the White Swan’s shuttle bus to the airport; I had no idea they had such a thing since our adoption agency always arranged our trips to the airport in Guangzhou. It cost 30 yuan for me, and the girls rode free. I thought I’d mention it for future reference. We left the White Swan right on the dot of 6 p.m.

The girls actually slept on the way to the airport. I guess all that shopping and playing wore them out. They managed to get a 30-minute nap since the trip to the airport is about 40 minutes. I was worried about how long the trip would take since Guangzhou rush hour traffic is notorious, but we had no problems.

Once at the airport it took us almost 2 hours to make it from door to gate. We spent 35 minutes in line at the China Southern counter; one of the really good reasons to go business or premium economy (what they call Pearl Class) is that you get to go to a special short line. Not us this time, though. Oh, well. We didn’t have to pay overweight charges for our luggage, but that was only because the clerk took pity on us. She said we were 2 kilos overweight on one bag, and suggested we take some things out or shift them around from bag to bag, but I said I’d rather pay overweight charges than have to mess with all of that (I was afraid if I unzipped any of the bags all the stuff would explode out and I’d never get it back in!). She just shrugged, and let it go. She said that I might have to pay in Los Angeles, but no one asked for money there, either. Hey, maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten one of the bags – they’re holding it hostage for the overweight charges! (I don’t really think they are since it wasn’t the heavy bag that’s gone missing).

After we got rid of the big bags, it was much easier to maneuver in the airport. We had to go through the quarantine line (about 3 minutes, and no one checked our temps or anything); the emigration line (showing passports and Departure Card), which took 30 minutes; and then the security line (30 minutes). At security, they asked to look in Zoe’s rolling bag. The guy took everything out of it and retrieved her blunt-nosed scissors with 2-inch blades. I had asked Zoe to give me her scissors when we were in Xiamen, and she turned over 2 pairs. I didn’t know she had that third pair, and neither did she! Of course they confiscated the scissors, and Zoe had a complete melt-down. Everything seems overwhelming when you’re tired, and Zoe just couldn’t get over the trauma of losing her scissors; she cried for 30 minutes. During that time, we were walking to our gate and stopping at the restroom since Maya was doing the potty dance during most of the time we were in the security line. Maya managed to close the stall door on her finger, so she started to cry, too. We walked to our gate with both girls sobbing and everyone we passed staring and making little clucking sounds. Sigh. That walk of shame took about 15 minutes, and we arrived at the gate minutes before they started boarding the flight. Perfect timing!

We settled in for our long flight; within an hour we’d been served dinner and within 2 hours the girls were asleep. They slept for almost 8 hours, waking up shortly before breakfast was served (they understand the important thing – food!). Within two hours, we’d landed at LAX. So that flight turned out to be very easy, much easier than our flight to China where the girls slept for less than 4 of the 15 hours there (the flight to China is 3 hours longer than the flight from China because of tail winds or something).

At LAX we had more lines – immigration, waiting to pick up bags, customs, rechecking the bags. All in all, that was only a little over an hour. We then had to change terminals for our domestic flight, but we only had to walk to the one next door! Of course, that led to more lines. We had to get boarding passes and then go through security. Another hike – interrupted by a late dinner at Chili’s – took us to our first gate at LAX. Then we were changed to another gate. Then we were changed to another gate. Then we left late. Sheesh!

The girls slept for almost the entire flight to DFW. I conked out, too, even before the plane took off. The last I remembered was taxiing, but I have no recollection of take off. I woke up two hours later!

Mimi and cousin Aaron were waiting for us at DFW, and the girls were so excited to see them. We were delayed getting out of the airport since we had to fill out the lost baggage stuff, but we were in our own home by 8 a.m. We didn’t stay long, though, since the girls wanted to see Grandpa and we didn’t have much in the house for breakfast. The girls spent most of the day with Mimi & Grandpa while I came home to do some unpacking.

It’s really great to be back, but it feels a little strange, too. I registered Zoe for school today and as I was writing her tuition check I realized I hadn’t written a check in five months! It took me two tries to get it right. I spent $100 on groceries today, which was about half my monthly expenses in China, and I’ll have to go back to the grocery store within a week. Driving again feels very strange, and the frustrations of trying to find a parking place have replaced those of sweating and walking in the heat. Not that I’m complaining. But I think it’s not just jetlag I’ll have to contend with, it’s also culture shock!

Back in the USSR

2007-08-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

Well, one of our bags may be in the USSR (Beatles song reference!), but the rest of us are safe and sound back in the U.S.A. We had a great journey back, the only bobbles the lost bag (getting 2 out of 3 ain't bad, I suppose) and three gate-changes and a late departure from LAX. The trip was really smoother than I could have expected, and the girls slept 8 out of the 12 hours on the Guangzhou to LAX flight.

I'll write more later; we're pretty wiped out right now! Hopefully we'll be over jetlag soon.

More from the White Swan

2007-07-30T23:45:00.000-07:00

We’re about an hour away from late check-out, and three hours away from saying goodbye to the White Swan, and six hours away from saying goodbye to China. It’s hard to believe that we started our Xiamen Adventure just 157 days ago and it is about to end. The White Swan and Shamian Island are a pleasant end-note, so calm compared to most of the rest of China. We’ve had a lovely 19th story room with a fantastic view of the Pearl River and the Guangzhou skyline.

Our last day has been a lazy one. We stayed up late last night and slept late this morning. It was almost 10 a.m. before we even left the room, and we only made it as far as the Swan Room. The girls played and I sat on the red couch and read. A little before lunch time we sallied forth for some shopping, and then headed to Cow and Bridge, a wonderful Thai restaurant. The girls especially liked their special lemonades, complete with flowers.

We came back to the hotel after lunch, and have been resting in our room. I’m about to repack our one open suitcase – should be a challenge with the extra shopping we’ve done! We really haven’t bought much, but we don’t have much room to spare in our luggage.

We’ll check out at 4, and spend a few hours in the playroom, grab a quick dinner at the White Swan deli, and catch the 6 p.m. shuttle to the airport. Our flight leaves at 9 p.m., and in the words of the old travelogue newsreels, we’ll say goodbye to China, land of contrast and adventure!

Next you hear from us, we’ll be back in the U.S.A.!

We're at the White Swan

2007-07-30T00:40:00.001-07:00

We made it to Guangzhou! The first leg of our homeward journey is complete.

I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning; actually, I'm not sure I slept at all! My mind was full of all the final details of getting moved out. The girls got up around 7, but were too excited to eat much breakfast. We ended up heading downstairs at 8:45 for our 12:10 p.m. flight! I wanted to give us plenty of time to convince the porters-who-do-not-port to carry down our luggage. I also expected to have to go get a taxi at South Gate to come to the guesthouse to get our luggage. Instead, the head housekeeper ran to get the taxi. We managed to stuff our huge suitcases into one cab by putting the smaller bags in the rear window and one of the large bags on the back seat. The girls were then squished into a corner of the backseat with their backpacks, and I rode in the front seat with mine. It was actually easier than I thought it would be!

This time at the airport I managed NOT to trip over the curb -- it probably helped that Zoe kept reminding me to be careful! When we checked in our bags, we were overweight, which surprised me not. I have no idea if we were overweight when we flew from Guangzhou to Xiamen back in February since we flew with 5 Xiada professors who had attended the Fulbright orientation and the airline averages the weight among many travelers traveling together. We were 23 kilos overweight this time, which cost us a whopping 230 yuan ($30). It cost me almost $100 when I was 6 pounds overweight on the American flight from DFW to LAX. I'm not looking forward to checking in for that leg of the trip -- I doubt that our luggage will get any lighter while we're here!

We were so early for the flight that the girls had time to play in the ball pit at Xiamen Airport again. They had a blast, and I got to sit and recover from a busy morning. Whew!

The girls can easily manage their rolling carry-ons and backpacks in the airport. And they can easily manage them when going from the airport to the airplane on a jetway. But riding a bus and going up a metal staircase -- not so much! Zoe handled it like a trouper, and I ended up putting Maya's backpack in my roller and carrying her roller together with mine. A kindly traveler ended up helping Zoe with her luggage on the stairs -- the same man who bullied two women to scoot over in their seats on the bus so Zoe and Maya could sit down!

Our plane sat on the runway for an hour waiting for permission to take off -- I'm not sure what the problem was. But of course the pilot wouldn't turn the airconditioning on. People were complaining left and right (even without understanding Chinese I knew what they were complaining about!). The flight attendants started passing around glasses of water with actual ICE CUBES in them! I've never seen such a thing in China! Usually they're foisting glasses of boiling water or tea at you, insisting that drinking hot drinks make you feel cooler. Hah!

I keep forgetting how big the new Guangzhou Airport is -- we walked a mile to get our luggage! We had no trouble retreiving our bags and getting a cab to the White Swan, though the security guys in charge of the taxi stand kept saying the bags wouldn't fit and it would cost 300 yuan for a taxi to take that many bags. I kept pointing to the sign near the stand that says clearly in English that a cabbie can't refuse a fare and can't negotiate for an off-meter price. Sure enough, all the bags fit in one cab and the meter put it at just under 100 yuan to the White Swan. We checked in just in time to see a group of adoptive parents with their newly-adopted Chinese babies all gussied up for their "red couch photo!" (For the uninitiated, it's a tradition in Chinese adoption to have a photo taken of all the babies on a certain red couch at the White Swan). Zoe kept asking why they were all dressed up, and Maya kept cooing, "They're so cuuuuuute!"

We did a little shopping this afternoon, and then hit the Swan Room, the play room in the White Swan for the benefit of all the adoptive families staying there. We played there in February when we were in Guangzhou for orientation, and the girls were panting to play there again (that's where Maya is in the picture above). We then went to Lucy's, a nearby restaurant beloved of adoptive families, for dinner. The girls had a bath and I'm about to do the same -- the White Swan bathtubs are soooo deep and I remember taking a bath in them at each adoption trip and finally feeling clean after a week's worth of the world's quickest showers (new mothers know what I'm talking about!).

We've arranged for late checkout since our flight doesn't leave until late. So tomorrow we'll enjoy the parks and statues on Shamian Island, do a little shopping, play a lot in the Swan Room, and then head for the airport for the next-to-last leg of the trip home.

Last Days in Xiamen

2007-07-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

We’ve been busy, busy, busy since returning from Xi’an. I’m really glad we went, but it has made the last few days of getting ready to leave completely crazy. We’ve had to pack up all the things we’re leaving behind (the stuff that was here when we got here, plus everything we bought to make our stay more comfortable but are too big to take home) AND the things we’re taking with us. And we’ve been saying goodbye to friends.

Friday evening Chen Xing (Maya’s classmate) and her family came over to bring us some gifts, and to take away some of the things we didn’t want to take home – some clothes Zoe has outgrown, some toys, all of the English-language workbooks we brought and didn’t use (!). They were also nice enough to take foodstuffs – bottles of soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic juice, sesame oil – that we couldn’t take home. I hate waste, so I’m glad they said they could use it.

Before we left for Xi’an I got a call from one of the parents in Zoe’s class. She said all the parents wanted to thank me for the English lessons and for putting together the English teaching materials to send home with the kids for the summer. They wanted to take us out to dinner Saturday night. I said that would be lovely.

Little did I know that it was going to be a HUGE party, with all 3 teachers and about 12 families in attendance! (The picture above is from the end of the evening and we’d lost some folks by then; the grownups are the three teachers). I think, though, that we were just an excuse for a party. Or maybe it was a little guanxi. Guanxi translates literally as “relationships,” but in China it’s often about doing favors and returning favors. The Chinese business world is built on guanxi, providing gifts and favors for business associates, government officials, those you hope to do business with. You’ll often hear Chinese people use the English expression, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” to explain guanxi. It’s not quite bribery, but it sometimes looks mighty close! I detected a little sense that the parents felt they owed me payback. But who cares? It was fun, and the girls had a great time!

We were picked up by one of the families and taken to a hotel with a huge buffet restaurant. The girls ate practically everything in sight, though they refused to eat a Xiamen specialty – seaworms in gelatin. Because our hostess insisted, believe it or not I ate it! Thank goodness it’s eaten with wasabi and soy sauce, so I couldn’t taste a thing beyond hot, hot, hot. And I didn't actually chew, so the gelatin just kind of slithered down my throat! Remember that old childhood retort, “Eat worms and die!”? Well, now I can say I ate worms and lived to tell about it.

Zoe much preferred the ice cream (can you blame her?).

Maya didn’t care what she ate, she just liked playing and being the pet of all the older kids and grownups.

I admit I had more fun hanging out with the kids than with the grownups – they are easier to talk to when you don’t speak the same language!

I think I’ve mentioned (brag, brag, brag!) that Zoe won a speech contest at Chinese School in Fort Worth for reciting a poem. Well, I’ve been trying to get her to say it to ANYONE here in China and she has adamantly refused. FINALLY, to my amazement, she agreed to say it to her teachers!

The teachers were amazed – they pulled over one of the English-speaking moms to translate their praise. They said she barely spoke a word at school, and they had no idea she knew any Chinese. They also said her pronouciation was excellent, that she got the tones right and everything. (But remember the rest of the story about the speech contest? I asked Zoe what the poem meant and she said, “I don’t know, it was in Chinese!” I’m still not sure she has a clue what she said!) Zoe was pretty proud of herself, and I sure was, too.

Today we went to my office to pack up everything there – not too much since I’m leaving all the books. Walking back to the apartment we stopped at the store to buy “special snacks” for the long plane ride. Mostly we wanted to cash in all of the coins the girls have been collecting in their piggy banks. I was amazed at how much they had – 52 yuan, mostly in 1-jiao coins (10 jiao = 1 yuan)! You can buy a lot of snacks with that!

As we walked home, the girls had a great time saying goodbye to everything – “goodbye, school; goodbye, basketball court; goodbye butterfly leaves; goodbye, beach. . .” you get the idea. Before long, though, the litany of goodbyes degenerated into “goodbye, stinky trash can; goodbye, beggars; goodbye, crazy drivers; goodbye rude people (that would be folks who cut in line, stare at us, pick their noses, etc.!).” Obviously they have their own list of “what I won’t miss about China!”) And just like my list, it’s a way to make themselves feel better about leaving.

Because we have had a wonderful time here. When you ask the girls whether they are happy to be going home, they’ll definitely say yes. But when you ask them if they’d like to come back to China, they say yes, too. And I admit I’m in full agreement – it will be wonderful to get home, and we’ll definitely be back!

Tomorrow morning at 9:00 we head to the airport with our nine pieces of luggage (3 suitcases, 3 carry-ons, 3 backpacks), first stop Guangzhou. We’ll spend the night at the White Swan Hotel, and then take the China Southern night flight, leaving 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 31. We arrive at LAX around 7 p.m. the same day (the international date line is in our favor on the trip home), but don’t leave there until a little after midnight, making it Wednesday, August 1. We’ll arrive at DFW at 5:15 a.m. (poor Cousin Aaron, who has to come pick us up!). Yippee! We’re almost home now . . . .

Xi'an Part IV: The Noodle Maker

2007-07-29T03:29:00.000-07:00

Hi, this is Zoe. This is my first blog post. It's been fun living in China, because there are fun things to see all the time, like statues and frogs and dragonflies and the fish at Nanputuo. I loved watching the noodle maker at the restaurant we went to for lunch after seeing the terracotta warriors (which were cool!). My mom let me take pictures, and I picked out the ones I wanted to post to the blog, and helped my mom edit them, and then I told her what to type.

To make the noodles, first the noodle maker cut the dough and put flour on the counter and the noodles. He rolled the dough on the counter to get the flour, then he put oil and water on it. He kneaded it for about 5 minutes and then started to stretch it. He swung it up in the air and banged it down on the counter with a loud boom, and he did that over and over again.

Then he stretched it until it became really long.

The dough got really long and thin, and got thinner and thinner as he kept stretching it. And then it just broke apart into noodles – he didn’t cut it or anything! He flopped it up in the air to separate the noodles, and rolled the long noodles on his fingers.

He put the noodles in a big pot to cook – that’s why the pictures look so steamy. It’s also steamy because soup was cooking, too.

While the noodles cooked, the noodle maker put soup in little bowls.

By then, the noodles were cooked. He stirred the noodles and fished them out with a big net on a stick.

Finally, he put the noodles in the soup bowls.

People were standing in line to get the noodles. I ate some of the noodles, too, and I thought they were good. They were a little spicy, but I still liked them.

It was really fun to watch the noodle maker and to take pictures so I’ll always remember how noodles are made!

Xi'an Part III: Terracotta Warriors

2007-07-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when you’ve been anticipating something for a long time, the reality just doesn’t measure up. NOT SO with the terracotta warriors of Xi’an! They are truly fantastic, actually worthy of the designation “Eighth Wonder of the World.”

We started by seeing a short movie-in-the-round (you stand in the center while the movie shows all around you on a 360-degree screen – very cool!) about the construction of Emperor Qin’s mausoleum and the pits for the terracotta warriors. It seemed that the emperor, reigning around 250 B.C., bankrupted his people with high taxes to pay for it all, and conscripted over 720,000 people to work for him rather than in their own fields with resultant famine and poverty. And what he wasn’t doing to destroy the populace of southern China he was doing in northern China by ordering the construction of the Great Wall. Still, he was a heroic figure in some ways, having joined all the kingdoms of China by defeating all the various warlords warring among themselves. And he managed to keep the kingdom together and repel the Mongolian hordes. But his son was not able to continue the Qin dynasty, being defeated by an uprising of the oppressed peasants. They opened the pits, burned everything in sight, stole the weapons the warriors were carrying, and destroyed many of the statues. Burning the underground structures housing the warriors caused further damage to the statues – they were crushed under the weight of the dirt and wooden beams above them.

The making of the statues must have been quite an undertaking. And I didn’t realize this until now – each statue is inscribed with the name of the craftsman who made it! They’ve identified over 80 different craftsmen. Each statue’s body was made using molds. There were various body types – standing archers, kneeling archers, cavalry soldiers complete with horses (the cavalry soldiers are not seated on the horses because the kilns were not big enough, so they stand beside their horses), infantry soldiers, even high-ranking officers. There were also wooden chariots, now rotted away, manned by more terracotta warriors and pulled by terracotta horses. The detail in the soldiers’ uniforms is incredible, down to the stitching on the soles of the kneeling archers’ shoes and the studs holding together the plates of armor. And it seems that the figures were originally painted quite elaborately, but all traces of color disappear almost as soon as the warriors are unearthed because of oxidation. In fact, the archeologists have decided not to unearth any more warriors until they figure out how to preserve the color. How extraordinary this army must have looked when painted!

The heads were molded, but the faces were not made from molds; each was hand-done and the variety in facial features, hairstyles, head dresses, facial hair and facial expressions is astonishing. The different ethnic minorities in Qin’s empire are represented in those different facial features and hairstyles/head dresses.

The highlight of the museum is the unromantically named “Pit One,” the largest of the pits of excavated soldiers. It is truly enormous, but only represents a fraction of what is believed to be still buried. The warriors were deployed four across in trenches, as you see them here. The earthen walls between them do not contain more soldiers – these were the walls that held up the roof and tons of dirt over the army’s head (the walls were taller then, of course).

What a bizarre and extraordinary undertaking to replicate Emperor Qin’s army so that his soul could continue to rule the kingdom he believed would exist underground after his death. And it wasn’t just the army he recreated in terracotta – they’ve also unearthed pits with statues of acrobats and civil officials. And then there are the birds and animals and stables of horses that were buried alive to populate Qin’s underground kingdom (it seems he liked to hunt, so he made sure to have animals available so he could enjoy this pastime after death). The birds, animals and horses all had terracotta attendants with them. And don’t forget the concubines – the new emperor ordered that those who had no children were to be entombed with the dead Emperor Qin. Also buried alive were thousands of officials and workmen who knew the location of Qin’s tomb, so that they could not reveal that secret.

One of the newest discoveries was bronze chariots and horses, much smaller than the terracotta variety – after all, bronze is more costly than local clay! They are also incredibly detailed, and after the archeologists put together the chariots, they were actually able to move just like the wooden originals would have.

Still, the most amazing things for me were the warriors, rows and rows of them in battle formation, each frozen in time.

Oddly poignant – after all, these are clay figures, not real men – were the broken warriors, some probably beyond repair, others waiting for their turn to be put back together again like so many humpty-dumpties.

At the end of Pit One is what I think of as the “medical ward,” where archeologists are trying to put the warriors back together like jigsaw puzzles. Almost none of the statues were found intact.

Speaking of finding the warriors, most of you probably know that they were rediscovered in 1974 by local farmers digging wells for water. We got to meet one of those farmers – Mr. Yang – who was rewarded for his discovery with the payment of 40 yuan (which he had to share with his collective!). He is now 84 years old, and is no longer an illiterate farmer – he can now sign his name, which is important in his new job. He works in the museum gift shop, selling the official catalog of the terracotta warriors. And he signs each one. Our guide told us that he was a crotchety old fellow who didn’t enjoy his new job much, and that he refused to have his picture taken. Sure enough, when we went to buy the book, there was a sign next to his desk saying “No Photos!” I thought it was pretty funny – there was a couple trying to take his picture by having the woman stand casually with him in the background while the man took a picture. No flies on Mr. Yang, he saw what they were up to and moved his palm fan in front of his face so they couldn’t get a clear shot! Still, he looked us in the eye when he signed the book and smiled at Zoe. So maybe he’s not so crotchety after all!

In between touring the museum, we ate lunch at the museum restaurant. It was OK, but nothing to write home about. Zoe was mesmerized, though, by the noodle-maker, and spent most of the lunch at his counter watching him make the noodles by hand. She took about a million pictures of him at work – I told her she’ll have to write the blog post about that herself. So look for Xi’an Part IV: The Noodle-Maker, coming soon to your local theatre!

The girls were pretty worn out by all the walking – the museum is quite spread out over 5 or so buildings. So as we waited for the rest of our group to gather to leave the museum, they rested in their “houses.”

We spent about 4 hours at the museum, and I don’t think we saw a fraction of what was there. Now I have a new goal – GOING BACK to Xi’an to see more of the terracotta warriors!

Xi'an Part II: The Great Mosque & the Wild Goose Pagoda

2007-07-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

We visited two great religions today: Islam and Buddhism. Both came to China from other countries, both came to China very early in its history, and both flourish today. Of course, Buddhism has far outstripped Islam in China. Still, there is a very active Muslim population throughout China.

First we visited a small museum dedicated to “farmer paintings.” These are familiar to me, but I’ve always heard them called peasant paintings. They are brightly colored and usually represent village scenes. Farmer painting is similar, but in the 1950s it flourished in Xi’an as Party propaganda – or as the museum docent told us, the themes were “political.” The paintings would show happy farmers reading Mao’s little red book; even in a painting where there was no overtly political theme, Mao’s little red book could be seen peeking out of a farmer’s breast pocket!

The museum also has traditional Chinese scrolls with Chinese painting and calligraphy. The girls got a chance to try their hands at calligraphy, first learning how to hold the brush.

The teacher told them about the four treasures of Chinese calligraphy – can you identify them in this picture?

They are: 1) the painting brush, 2) rice paper (which is not actually made of rice!), 3) the ink stone (where the ink is mixed), and 4) the ink stick (Chinese ink comes in a stick which is ground into powder and mixed with water to make ink). I love how elaborate things are in China; we have to name these simple instruments "treasures!"

This was also one of the usual “shopping stops” that is included in every tour (tour guides customarily get kickbacks for bringing their groups to these places – some tour companies won’t even pay a salary to their guides, the only money they earn is from these kickbacks and from tips. OCDF does pay a salary, so we’ve not had to do too many of these shopping stops while on their tours). But the opportunity to see the paintings and learn a little about Chinese calligraphy made this one the best disguised “shopping stops” I’ve seen! For most, the “museum” part is so pitiful that they shouldn’t even bother. (The next day we went to a place “to learn about jade,” and they barely tried to pretend it was anything other than an excuse to shop.)

After the museum, we visited the Great Mosque. It was hard to tell that the Great Mosque was actually a mosque, given the very Chinese design of the place. Apparently it was originally an imperial palace, and the Emperor gave permission to use it as a mosque back in the 8th century.

Following through on the Chinese design, even the minaret was a Chinese pagoda!

The prayer hall was recognizably Muslim, with rows of prayer rugs inside. We were not allowed inside, but you can see the Arabic script on this column, and behind the girls are clocks marking the times for the five daily prayers.

There were two old bearded men sitting in front of the prayer hall, and an Arabic-looking woman, with headscarf, and accompanied by a Chinese man came up to the prayer hall. She was speaking English with the man, whom I suppose was a guide or translator. One of the old men asked where she was from, and she said Bahrain. He motioned her to come to the door of the prayer hall, and let her look in. He pointed at something, and proudly said, “Koran.” He seemed pleased to be able to show a “real” Muslim that the Chinese were “real,” too. The mosque is not just an historical site – it is still an active mosque, as you can see by this group of men leaving the mosque after midday prayers.

Muslims in China are ethnically Chinese, having become Muslim from conversion. But it was an Arabic population who came to China and converted them. Not surprisingly, there was a lot of intermarriage, and Chinese Muslims still show traces of that Arabic heritage in their ability to grow beards. We saw more facial hair in one hour in the Muslim quarter than we’ve seen in our 5 months in China! (Of course, having a beard is a religious thing for them, unlike for other Chinese, some of whom can in fact grow facial hair but are likely to shave it.) The Muslims are one of the recognized non-Han minority groups in China, and the one child policy does not apply to them.

After the mosque, we visited the Wild Goose Pagoda, which was built over 1,000 years ago.

Does it look to you like the pagoda is leaning? It is, indeed. It seems that overuse of the water table has caused it to sink slightly, though we were told it didn’t as yet pose structural problems. I guess a little wear and tear is to be expected after 1,000 years!

The history of the pagoda is interesting; it was built at the request of a Buddhist monk who spent 15 years traveling in India and collecting holy books of Buddhism there in the 7th century. When he returned, he asked the Emperor to construct the pagoda to house the books. The pagoda is actually built in the style of Indian temples, and is named Wild Goose Pagoda after a pagoda the monk saw in India. What’s really interesting is that the monk wrote his memoir detailing his travels, and that served as the basis for the famous novel, Journey to the West, written in the 1500s. The fictionalized version of the journey is now much more famous than the factual version, and the girls have been watching the TV version for 5 months! They can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about BaJie (the pig), HuGu (the Monkey King, who also goes by many other names), WuJing (the friar), and XuanZang (the monk traveling to collect scriptures). The first three are the monk’s disciples, and are in charge of protecting him from humans and demons during his journey. There’s both a cartoon version and a live action version, and the girls are mesmerized by both of them.

As you can see from the picture of the girls with the happy Buddha, they had a great time wandering around the pagoda grounds and imitating the statues. Above they are happy, and below they are reverent.

And so ends our first day of sight-seeing in Xi’an. Back at the hotel, the four girls played together, had dinner together, and tried out the swimming pool (it’s an indoor pool and so frigid they lasted less than 10 minutes! I never managed to go in past my knees.)

I enjoyed the Mosque and the Pagoda, but it was only prelude for the REAL reason I came to Xi’an – the terracotta warriors. That will be the next exciting installment!

Xi'an: Part I

2007-07-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

We're back home in Xiamen after an uneventful flight -- far less eventful than our experience getting to Xi'an! I managed to take a fantastically ungraceful prat fall while walking into the Xiamen Airport. I tripped on the curb and landed face first on the sidewalk. It was such a spectacular fall that the cab driver who delivered us to the airport actually left her cab in the middle of the street to check on me! I was fine -- but I managed to split my lip with my front teeth and was bleeding like crazy. It was funny, as I was falling I realized I was going to hit my face on the sidewalk even before it happened; that whole falling-in-slow-motion thing is apparently true! Who knew?!

Anyway, I brushed myself off, checked in our luggage, and managed to secure ice for an icepack, which I found pretty amazing (finding ice, I mean)! I feel really lucky that I didn't break anything, and I still have all my teeth. And about one-third of my top lip rivals Angelina Jolie's in puffiness -- I highly recommend collagen injections over my method!

Other than that, getting to Xi'an was a breeze. We checked into our hotel, ate dinner at the hotel's buffet (pronounced by all the hostesses as boo-fey!), and had an early night. The next morning, our friends arrived by the night train from Beijing. That's Maggie and Meredith with Zoe and Maya in the picture above. My girls were really tickled to meet up with their friends from America.

Sue, Maggie & Meredith are on an OCDF tour, like the mini-tour we did with OCDF in June to Guangxi Province. Their tour includes Beijing, Xi'an & Guilin, and then they'll be visiting Meredith's and Maggie's hometowns. We arranged with the OCDF tour guide to join the group for the Xi'an portion of the trip.

We were to meet the group at 11 a.m. for the first outing, and as we walked to the lobby I saw someone who looked familiar. But it couldn't be, could it? I couldn't just run into someone else from the States in China, could I?! Sure enough, the OCDF tour included ANOTHER family I knew! I actually went to college with Melissa. We lost track of each other after I graduated from Rice, but we reestablished contact when she and her husband, Chris, were waiting to adopt Joie from China. They even came to the airport to meet Zoe when she first came home from China! Melissa was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her, and I hope she was just as delighted as I was to see another friendly face in China.

More about our Xi'an adventures in the next exciting installment of "All Roads Lead to China," same Bat-time, same Bat-station . . . .

We're in Xi'an

2007-07-24T18:11:00.000-07:00

But there's no internet in our room -- business center is a bit expensive. So expect to hear all about our adventures when we return to Xiamen on Friday!

Off to Xi'an

2007-07-23T07:07:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we head to the ancient city of Xi’an, famous for its terracotta warriors. This has been one of my dream destinations since I first heard of the army of soldier statues buried by the first Qin emperor over 2200 years ago. When I visited China for the first time in 1991, I really wanted to go but couldn’t manage it. And it never seemed to fit in the schedule for the adoption trips, either.

Every time we fly inside China, I think of that first trip to China 16 years ago. (I came to China then as a consequence of bad geography – I was visiting a college friend living in Singapore, and figured since I was going to be there, I ought to see something of “that part of the world.” I was such a dolt that I didn’t realize just how far China was from Singapore – it would have been closer to visit Australia! I always was really bad at the blue questions on Trivial Pursuit!). China was definitely a different place then; our flight to Shanghai was diverted to Japan because we were running late, and the Shanghai airport closed at 10 p.m.! Imagine, a city 3 times the size of New York City, and the airport actually closes!

The domestic flights in China back then were absolutely terrifying. And that was on major routes – Shanghai to Beijing, Beijing to Guangzhou (I was so thankful to take the train from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, just to miss out on one death-defying flying leg of the trip!).

Getting on the plane was the first adventure. I had to listen intently to the announcements so I would know when they called my flight – there were announcements in English, but it was read phonetically by someone who did not speak English so it was really hard to understand. And when the flight left bore absolutely no relation to the actual scheduled time, so that wasn’t a hint for what flight was being called. (It wasn’t that the flights left late – they all left early!) When they finally would call my flight, the stampede was worse than any Southwest Airlines cattle call. There was no jetway for any of the flights; you took a bus to the plane (there’s still a lot of that in China). People packed onto that bus so tightly I kept thinking I might end up pregnant before the ride was over!

The planes were Russian made and at least 40 years old. When we got on the plane, the seat backs were all folded forward, flat to the seat. You had to fold your seat back into shape – and then you lifted the seat cushion to store your luggage UNDERNEATH your seat. So you rode sitting on your carry-on luggage! Maybe that’s why no one seemed to have actual luggage for their carry-ons. I distinctly remember one man’s carry-on being 12 shoe boxes tied together (traveling shoe salesman? shoe fetishist?). My small tote made my seat awfully lumpy.

The pilots must have thought they were flying helicopters – we seemed to taxi for a nanosecond before taking off at a million miles an hour, and then we reversed it on landing, seeming to drop out of the sky. While in the air, the planes all made this horrible groaning sound as parts of the airplane body shifted. The planes must have been much better made than they looked, though, since they survived a dozen bounces before the wheels finally stuck on the ground.

You know that announcement they make telling you to stay in your seat with your seatbelt fastened until the plane stops? Apparently they said it only in English – the Chinese version must have been something like, “Please get up right this minute and wrestle your carry-on luggage out from under your seat. If you have anything in the overhead compartment, get it out right now and whack a foreigner in the head with it. Fold down the seat back in front of you. Don’t worry about crushing that stupid foreigner who insists on staying in the seat for no apparent reason.”

And despite that description of air travel, I LOVED that trip to China! It was a large part of the reason I chose China when I decided on international adoption as the way to make my family. So I’ve been back three times now since that first amazing trip.

It’s astonishing to me how modern and mundane air travel is in China now. The airports, airplanes, etc., are basically indistinguishable from American domestic ones. The service is distinguishable, though – it is far superior. I love it that the flight attendants here will actually help you store your carry-on bag, something that never happens on an American carrier. And you still get actual meals on Chinese flights. They’re not wonderful, but our last several flights have had basic rice, chicken, veggie dishes that were pretty tasty for airline food.

That announcement at the end, though – the Chinese version apparently still says to get up and move around the cabin as soon as the wheels hit tarmac!

Next you hear from us, we'll be in Xi'an (assuming internet connectivity!).

How Do You Spell Relief?

2007-07-21T06:47:00.000-07:00

Well, for headache pain, that's been a mystery for me in China -- at least, until now! I have had a heck of a time trying to find acetamenophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Advil) in China. I finally had some luck at Watson's, a British store that's like Walgreen's or CVS. The problem is that it isn't sold under a recognizeable American brand name -- it's Australian or European brand names!

So here's a tip for all future expats: if you want ibuprofen in China, look for Fenbid. If you're looking for acetamenophen, look for Panadol or Paracetamol.

How do you spell relief? F-E-N-B-I-D!

What I WON'T Miss About China

2007-07-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

In no particular order . . .

The net nanny. It’s been a pain to use the internet here, in part because my service provider is the university, and I think they have too many people using it. It was great when we first got here, because students were still playing and not working, but when the semester really got going, the internet slowed to a crawl. But the other problem is the Great Firewall of China. I never know when a website will be blocked, and it’s sometimes hard to know whether the internet problems I’m having are technology or deliberate blocking. Admittedly, most everything I’ve wanted to see has been available to me. But the fact that Blogger is blocked has been a real problem. It’s pretty odd to know that everyone EXCEPT ME can read my blog!

The heat. OK, I’ve already waxed eloquent on this subject. I won’t repeat myself. (Have I mentioned that it’s hot? Really, really, really, really hot? That I sweat all the time? That my children refuse to touch me anymore because I’m wet all the time? That I’m going to have to throw away all my shoes and my watch because leather really starts to stink when it’s been marinating in sweat all the time?!). It’s a good thing summer hit when it did – not having to deal with the heat is the only thing that really makes me happy to be leaving China!

The bank. Most of the time I can avoid Chinese bureaucracy; the bank is the big exception. Whenever I’ve had to actually use a teller instead of the ATM, my patience is sorely strained. I had to change money today since I needed more than the daily ATM withdrawal limit to pay for airline tickets. I gave myself 50 minutes before I had to be at Maya’s class to teach English. As soon as I walked into the bank, I knew that I’d be cutting it close. There were 4 people in line ahead of me, and only one teller. I was in line for 25 minutes before my turn for the teller. Surely 25 minutes will be enough time to change money, right?! Wrong! It took 30 minutes, two phone calls, looking at two different computer terminals, filling out 3 forms, stamping each form 3 times with a chop, counting the traveler’s checks (five of them) 4 times, counting the stack of yuan 4 times – twice by machine and twice manually, adding everything up twice on a calculator, AND THEN handing the whole mess over to a manager to do it all again! And this is at the Bank of China, which is THE bank you’re supposed to go to to exchange foreign currency. How in the world has China managed such phenomenal economic growth when the simplest banking transaction takes ONE HOUR??!!

The noise. The noise in China seems constant. I don’t know where you’d have to go if you were desperate for a moment of silence. And it’s not just that we’re living in the middle of a city. Yes, there’s traffic noise – but traffic is noisier here. The buses and trucks, in particular, are deafening. No one has ever heard of noise pollution, I guess. And then there’s the shops. You walk down a shopping street, and each store has music blaring, and each a different song, of course! Oftentimes there will be a person on a loudspeaker in the doorway, exhorting people to stop in. A salesclerk will be clapping loudly and rhythmically to draw the attention of passersby to the store. And everyone walking by is talking at top volume to be heard over the music, clapping, and traffic noise! Admittedly, some of the noise is fun noise – the girls loved it when the frogs started hatching or whatever it is they do, and we walked through the park to the sound of “ugg-ugg-ugg-ugg-ugg-ugg-ugg” every morning. I loved it when we first got here and I woke up each morning to hear the Buddhist monks at the monastery making noise to chase away evil spirits (now I sleep right through it!) And every night between 7:30 and 8:30 we hear a tenor singing opera (Western opera, not Chinese opera) and I STILL haven’t figured out where it’s coming from!

The smells. That traffic I mentioned? No one has thought to limit exhaust fumes from trucks or buses any more than noise. And then there’s garbage in the street, fumes from inefficient sewers, harsh chemical cleaners and pesticides, and who knows what else! And remember the heat? The Chinese don’t use deodorant, and you simply will not find it for sale here. The bad smells aren’t constant, but it’s a pretty rare day when one of the girls isn’t squeezing her nose closed and saying, “Stinky!” But then there’s incense wafting from the Buddhist temple next door, and the smell of fresh dirt and fresh vegetables in the market, and WONDERFUL cooking smells from the food stalls along the street, so it isn’t all bad.

The stares. Most of the time, the staring doesn’t bother me. It does bother, Zoe, though. And I admit sometimes, usually when I’m tired and hot and not feeling like being charming, it can irritate me, too. I try to remind myself that people aren’t being rude, they’re being interested. I’ll usually just look them in the eye, smile and say, “Ni hao!” They’ll dissolve into giggles and say “ni hao” back, and we’ll both feel good about the exchange. But sometimes you just don’t want to make the effort to make a good impression. It does feel like we’re on display all the time, and I want everyone to have a good impression of Americans and of Americans who adopt Chinese kids, and of Chinese adoptees, and that can get exhausting!

Spitting & picking. The spitting doesn’t get to me as much as the nose-picking does. I spend so much time telling Maya to get her finger out of her nose (one of her first phrases was “no pick nose!”) that I don’t much appreciate the role-modeling she’s getting on that front! And it isn’t just nose-picking – it’s the charming nostril clearing without aid of tissue (The first time I ever saw that trick was in a fishing village in Malaysia, where the whole town was built on stilts over the water. I figured it was something the villagers developed BECAUSE they were over water, and could handily clear their nostrils overboard, as it were. Little did I know then that it was common among land-lubbers, too!). Even when you know it’s just a cultural difference, it is a little disconcerting to make eye contact with one of the starers and have them lift their hands and casually pick their noses while we watch!

No ice. If I were to live in China permanently, I’d have to rig an ice maker with bottled water or something! I get really tired of filling up my little ice trays with bottled water, but it sure is better than nothing. I don’t mind that I can’t drink the tap water, or use it to brush teeth, etc., but it is a pain not to have an automatic ice maker. And that’s especially true since you can’t get ice much of anywhere in China (KFC is an exception to the no ice rule, and I admit to an addiction to their 9 Lives fruit juice which comes with ICE! I don’t eat at American fast food joints in China, but I’ll happily drink there!). In fact, most of the time in restaurants they’ll apologize if they think the canned or bottled drink they’ve brought you is too cold – I always want to say, “there’s no such thing as a too-cold drink!”

The crowds. We all know there are 1.3 billion people in China. What I find amazing is that all of them happen to be wherever I happen to be whenever I happen to be there! Whether at the park, the store, the bus, the street, the beach, there’s always a crowd. And if I’m trying to compete with the crowd – standing in line at check-out, racing for one of the few empty seats on the bus, trying to pass through narrow store aisles – I ALWAYS lose! The Chinese just have way more experience dealing with crowds than I have. One thing I’ve noticed, though, is that when Americans try to get through crowds, we make ourselves small – we tuck in our elbows close to the body, sidle through with head and shoulders down, take tiny steps with our feet close together. We want to maintain our space, that large bubble that prevents us from getting too close to others in the crowd. Not so the Chinese – they make themselves BIG! Those elbows jut out, the bag or purse swings, no one worries about walking into or through someone else – it’s full speed ahead! No wonder I’m always outgunned!

Limited English reading material. This has been REALLY hard! I’m a voracious reader, and there was no way to bring enough to keep me occupied. But I thought I’d have a better reading selection from the international bookstores here – not so. I’m down to old issues of the New Yorker magazine – nothing like reading reviews of 3-year-old Broadway plays! I find myself fantasizing about Half-Price Books – that’ll be one of my first stops when we get back home.

Some of you might be surprised by what’s NOT on the list – squat potties! I admit, I’m as surprised as you are. I expected to REALLY hate them, but I’ve found they’re not that bad. It’s a bigger problem that there’s no toilet paper, because you have to plan ahead, than that it’s a squat toilet. And some public toilets can be dirty and odiferous, but that’s the case with Western public toilets, too.

Also not on the list – Chinese food and/or eating with chopsticks. I have never, ever gotten tired of eating Chinese food. There’s just so much variety, especially with vegetables. There are so many different kinds of greens, and many are known only in one province, so it isn’t at all unusual for the Chinese folks you’re dining with not to know the name of what they’re eating! Admittedly, I sometimes fantasize about a really good cheeseburger, but I haven’t missed Western food enough to go on a concerted hunt for it here. Part of it is that I love GOOD food, of whatever kind, and local food is more likely to be GOOD. And the chopsticks were rough at first, but now I can do pretty well with them. I know people must have been disgusted watching me when I first got here; oftentimes I had to use my fingers because I just couldn’t manage to pick up whatever-it-was with the chopsticks. And using your fingers to eat food is really taboo here (considering that picking stuff I mentioned before, is it any wonder?!). It’s interesting to watch people eat at KFC – they’ll leave the sandwich in the wrapper to eat it and hold the piece of fried chicken with a napkin rather than directly with fingers. And KFC will give you plastic gloves on request, and it isn’t unusual to see someone eating their lunch with those cafeteria-lady gloves on. All the fast food places also have sinks for hand-washing OUTSIDE the bathroom because so many people insist on washing hands before eating the food they’ll have to pick up with fingers (it’s also handy for pottying babies – today I watched two ladies holding their babies over the sink to go potty, rather than go into the bathroom and actually do it with the squat toilet! So don’t actually TOUCH the sink in China, ok?!)

As I took the bus to the supermarket this morning I was reminded of what I will miss in China. We passed Nanputuo Temple, with the incense-and-hell-money-sellers hawking their wares. The bus then wended its way through the old treaty-port part of town, and I watched old men sitting in front of a fruit market playing an ancient game like checkers. Another old man was preparing his tea in a tiny pot surrounded by even tinier cups. We passed a park where morning exercises were in full swing. We passed an old apartment building and I watched a woman hanging clothes on her balcony yelling down to her neighbor, also hanging clothes on her balcony. A grandmother pushed a toddler in a little kiddie car in front of the apartments. As we approached city hall and the business district, I saw a husband and wife walking along the sidewalk with their portable restaurant – she carried two huge metal pots balanced from a stick over her shoulder and he carried bowls and little stools no higher than 6 inches. When a lady approached them, they set it all down, regardless of the walkers around them, and filled a china bowl with what looked like noodle soup. They and the lady sat on the little stools in the middle of foot traffic while the lady leisurely ate her noodles. We reached shopping row, and old ladies returning from the vegetable markets vied for sidewalk space with young women in colorful cotton frocks and high, high heels, talking on their cell phones. The terminus for Bus 21 is the train station, where entire families sat patiently with their belongings in boxes and shopping bags and cloth totes and everything BUT suitcases, waiting for the train back to rural China.

This is what I’ll miss – people watching, life at a more leisurely pace, unusual sights around every corner, an adventure every day!

Riding the School Bus

2007-07-20T03:15:00.000-07:00

I think I've mentioned before that six weeks after we got here we discovered there was actually a bus to the girls' kindergarten. But by that time, the weather was lovely and we were firmly in our routine of walking the mile or so to school each day. And I had to walk right by their school to get to the law school, so why not walk them to school?!

Well, as the weather has gotten hotter and hotter, I've rethought that decision! This week the girls started to take the bus. It took a while for us to arrange it -- apparently you're supposed to sign up at the beginning of the school year and pay the special fee, and trying to do it at the tail end of the school year makes everyone think you're crazy. For a while they wanted me to pay the full fee for just the last few weeks because they just didn't know how to pro-rate it, but they eventually just threw up their hands and waived the fee. I guess that's my reward for all the English classes! We finally got it arranged, and what a blessing! The bus stops two blocks from our apartment, so no more sweltering hikes in the heat! And the girls feel so grown up now that they ride the bus.

I'm glad I didn't know about this at the beginning, though. Walking the girls to school gave me a real opportunity to see the school and feel comfortable with them there. I was able to build relationships with the teachers. And sitting in the courtyard watching the girls play after school gave me a chance to know other parents and grandparents. On nice days, that was one of my favorite parts of the day.

But waiting at the bus stop this week I've met different parents. It might have made it easier to make play dates with kids in our immediate neighborhood. The best of all possible worlds would probably have been to walk girls to school a few days a week and have them take the bus a few days a week. But I can't imagine the consternation that out-of-the-box suggestion would have caused!

15,000 and Counting!

2007-07-19T04:45:00.000-07:00

Wow! Hard to imagine that people have visited “Xiamen Adventure” over 15,000 times! I don’t know how many individuals have actually visited – it could be the same 3 of you over and over again! But I really am gratified by everyone’s interest in our adventure. Some of you know us personally, but I also feel I’ve made new friends, especially in those who’ve posted comments or emailed us. Sitemeter, and especially the comments and emails, has really been a lifeline for me. It has helped me to feel connected to friends and family back home to see that folks are actually reading what I write! So, to frequent commenters like Wendy, Sophie’s Mom, Salome’s Mom, Sue, Allen, Judy in KS, Dee, H. Whitaker, Stephie, Mary, Sally, Kerri, Elizabeth in KS, Mimi, and Anonymous in all your guises, thank you!

Sitemeter has really been fun in showing how people found the blog, where they’re from, and when they’re reading. I think anyone can click on the Sitemeter button on the bottom of the blog and get the same information. And as I’ve said before, it doesn’t show anything that identifies you personally, so don’t worry! I know I’m completely nerdy to be interested in this, but I thought I’d share some of the things Sitemeter tells me.

I think, for example, that a number of you are reading on the sly at work. Evidence for that? The huge weekend drop-off in visitors! Consider a typical week in June:

Monday 145
Tuesday 179
Wednesday 143
Thursday 161
Friday 110
Saturday 94
Sunday 96
Monday 160
Tuesday 148

Of course, it could just be that people are too busy to surf the internet on the weekends, but for some of you your ISP gives you away! It’s especially clear for the government workers with that tell-tale .gov. So, welcome to workers for the State of Nevada, State of Kansas, County or City of Los Angeles, City of Multnomah, Oregon – you know who you are!

I love the wide variety of google searches that lead folks here, too. Those looking for girls in Xiamen, nude girls in Xiamen, and escorts in Xiamen find us. Lots of people get here looking for information about squat potties, spitting and smoking in China, dentists in China, and giving birth in China. They find us when looking for Nanputuo Temple and Xiamen Botanical Gardens. “Guilin floods” and “Guiping photos” have also brought people here. And who knew that so many people were interested in Liu SanJie? It is also interesting to see who googles their own name and finds the blog (teehee!) And I’m intrigued by the number of searches for “Xiamen Adventure.” Are these repeat visitors who keep forgetting the blog address? Or are people talking about the blog to their friends and saying, “Just google ‘Xiamen Adventure?’”

My favorite searchers are those looking for something off the wall, who then stick around a while to read. For instance, someone for Poland searched for “red pandas and camera.” I don’t know what they were really looking for, but they found us, and read for almost 20 minutes!

And a special thanks to those who have linked to the blog on their website. People are reading you and finding me. I’ve found some really cool blogs this way, too, by backtracking to them using Sitemeter. Check out:

Adventures with Molly

Wishing for Lia

MeiMei

Paloma

Coming Around Again

Miracle of Meizhi

Chopsticks and Tabouli

A Million Miles to Mia

Six Seven

Jack's New Family

All of these blogs are adoption-related, and between the clicks from them and from yahoogroups adoption listservs and google searches for China adoption, I can tell that most who are reading are connected to international adoption -- and mostly Chinese adoption -- in some way. Pretty cool to think that what I'm writing might be helpful to adoptive families since I read SOOOOO many adoption blogs while paperchasing and waiting for my girls!

It’s fun, also, to see where people are from. There are readers from Egypt (I know who you are!); Israel, Cremlingen, Germany; Bunnik, Utrecht, Netherlands; Halifax, Nova Scotia, and other foreign locales. And then there are the faithful readers from Norcross, Georgia; Massapequa, New York; Overland Park, Kansas; Falls Church, Virginia; Eden Prairie, Minnesota; and, of course, our hometown of Fort Worth, Texas.

Now, don’t be insulted if I haven’t named you; it’s probably because Sitemeter often reports “unknown” for location, referral, ISP, etc. You’re still counted among the 15,000.

Several folks have asked if I’ll continue to blog after we get home. I will for a little while, to let you know how we’re transitioning back to Stateside. I’m not sure, though, that “Xiamen Adventure” will continue beyond that. But who knows, maybe we’ll be back in China soon, and I’ll be blogging as “Kunming Adventure” or “Nanjing Adventure” or the like.

Blogging about our adventures has been a wonderful outlet for me. I’ve mentioned before that I process things by writing about them. And I think blogging really helped me to keep a positive attitude, to be open to new experiences, and to find the joy in everyday life in China – after all, I HAD to have something to write about (nearly) every day! Our time in China has been quite an adventure, and I couldn’t let this 15,000-hit milestone pass without saying, “Thanks for coming along for the ride!”

Chinese Parents and Education

2007-07-18T06:07:00.000-07:00

When I wrote about Zoe’s kindergarten graduation, I wrote half-kiddingly, "My goodness, it doesn’t take much imagination on my part to see her in 12 years, ... or in 19 or 20 years graduating from law school or medical school, or getting her Ph.D."

Allen commented, “I think you just sound like a Chinese parent.” LOL! I’m not sure you mean that as a compliment, Allen (even though you’re a Chinese parent)! But I give Chinese parents a lot of credit for stressing the importance of education, though they are often given a bad rap – and maybe deservedly so – for pushing their kids too hard in that regard. But it’s not like that’s an exclusively Chinese phenomenon – one of my all-time favorite book titles is Toilet-Trained for Yale: Adventures in 21st Century Parenting. The author takes a half comic/half serious look at American parenting excesses to prepare kids for future success.

One reason Chinese parents push their kids (especially sons) to excel academically is purely practical – that’s the ticket to economic success. And given the tradition of parents living and being supported by their son in their old age, the more success your son has, the better your retirement years will be. Investing money and time in your child’s education is like making payments into a pension plan – your sacrifices now will pay off in the future.

But I think the Chinese value education, in and of itself, over other kinds of success. In China, there’s a centuries-long tradition of venerating scholars (derailed by the Cultural Revolution, but back on track). Scholars are more important that politicians and rich men and basketball players and rock stars. If you asked a Chinese parent, “Which would be better – your child winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry or an Academy Award for Best Actor,” and most would pick the Nobel Prize. What do you think the answer would be from American parents?

Certainly, Chinese parents are often thought of as too concerned about education, too single-minded about academic success. Just before the May 1 holiday, I saw a poster go up on the bulletin board near the law school. It was a team photo of the women’s inter-mural volleyball champions, and one of the team members was in my class! I congratulated her, and since we had been talking about the students’ plans to go home for the holiday, I asked if she was going to take a picture of the poster so she could show her parents. She laughed and said her parents wouldn’t care, that Chinese parents only wanted to hear about good grades and only bragged about their children winning scholarships. I think that’s a little sad. Maybe she’s wrong about her parents’ reaction, but they have certainly created the impression in her that they only care about academics.

Now, I admit, as important as I think education is, I think it is more important for my children to be happy than to be well-educated. But I admit a bias in thinking that the two are rarely mutually exclusive. After all, the real value in education is in helping us to figure out what makes us happy. And I make a point of complimenting my girls for all of their talents and abilities, not just for being “smart.” They are also kind and generous and thoughtful and loyal and strong and artistic and graceful and persistent and funny and honest and curious and beautiful. I want them to know that I value all parts of them.

But having said all of that, I still respect the way Chinese parents value education. (What do you expect me to say?! I'm a university professor!) So, Allen, thanks for the compliment!

P.S. Alright, I CONFESS! I had to ask my students to translate Zoe's kindergarten report card. The students were pleased to tell me (and I was tickled to hear) that the first column, where all her checkmarks are, is "the very BEST!"

All's Well!

2007-07-17T04:50:00.000-07:00

Maya seems fully recovered, and did fine at school today. Good thing -- I had to teach my last class today, and wasn't sure what I'd do if she was still sick!

So, with classes over, my only work duties are grading papers and distributing the books and office supplies I had shipped here. The Fulbright program allows you to ship teaching materials and other books via diplomatic pouch -- I think that's really funny, that's it's via diplomatic pouch. I've always had this vision of the diplomatic pouch as a briefcase handcuffed to some diplomat's wrist. I've since discovered that there is a "Pouch Facility" in suburban Washington, D.C., and boxes and cases and crates are shipped through there to embassies and consulates overseas. I shipped 5 boxes, each about the size of a banker's box, filled with books. So much for the romance and mystery of the diplomatic pouch!

To distribute the books, I'll give right of first refusal to several faculty members who teach American law or comparative law, and then the rest of the books will be donated to the Xiada law library. I've already promised my two DVD sets on the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court (both PBS series, and very good) to the history professor I've mentioned -- I think they will be more useful to history students than law students.

It's also time to start getting serious about getting packed up to leave. We're going to try to come home with no more luggage than we left with, so I need to be ruthless about what we leave here. I've already got one suitcase packed with the few winter clothes we need to bring back (so much of the stuff is now outgrown or worn out so we can leave it behind), souvenirs, and the tons of gifts we acquired while in Guangxi Province. We'll leave all the household items we've bought and all the English reading material we brought with us for the next occupants. Once we subract everything we brought with us that was consumable -- shampoo, toothpaste, medicines, etc. -- we'll be fine, I think. And if worse comes to worse, we can always buy another suitcase and pay the overweight charge -- it'll only be for the domestic flight from here to Guangzhou, since we only had one checked bag apiece coming over and we're entitled to two checked pieces on the international leg.

We still have a little time -- our flight leaves Guangzhou for LAX on July 31 -- that's 14 days. But we're looking at taking a little trip to Xi'an next week. It's the one place in China I've always wanted to go and have always managed to miss. Some friends of ours from Fort Worth (Hi Sue, Maggie & Meredith!) will be visiting there, and we're trying to make plans to join them. And I'm about to make our flight plans from Xiamen to Guangzhou, and I'm thinking about going to Guangzhou a day early and having one last fling at the White Swan before we leave China. So all these frolics and detours are going to cut into our purging and packing time.

My goodness, I think I better stop writing and get busy! Bye for now!

Ideology or Commerce?

2007-07-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

I thought this news story was interesting when I ran across it (I don't know a thing about this news organization, so I can't vouch for its accuracy):

Next July 16th [that’s today] pilgrims and faithful from Henan will not be
allowed to go on pilgrimage to the sanctuary in Tianjiajing. The government from
the province of Henan has in fact decreed that the historic sanctuary dedicated
to Our Lady of Mount Carmel will be blown up with dynamite; a complete ban on
Catholics organizing their annual pilgrimage; a complete ban on any religious
gathering or function being celebrated in the area. A statue of the
Virgin, over one hundred years old, is destined to be destroyed along with 14
stations of The Way of the Cross which punctuate the entrance to the
shrine.
In answer on May 14th the government of Anyang city revoked the
sanctuary’s permit and the permit for the pilgrimage, defining them as “illegal
religious activity” and May 16th he issued a resolution which denies access to
the land to Anyang Church, requisitioning the sanctuary site.

What I thought interesting about the story wasn’t so much that the local government would prohibit such a religious observance – China’s abysmal record on religious freedom is fairly well known. What intrigued me was supposition about WHY:

According to some suppositions, the local government move requisitioning the
lands and abolishing the pilgrimage is due to the geographical position of the
Church, on the summit, above a valley ideal for the building of a hotel or
perhaps country villa of some Party member.

Not ideology, not control (after all, a gathering of 45,000 people is scary to this regime), but commerce is behind it?! It reminded me of my students’ doubtful reaction to the Xiamen government’s promises about the PX plant – it’s all about GDP. Ahh, the new China!

I Spoke Too Soon

2007-07-16T03:01:00.000-07:00

Maya isn’t over her cold, after all. She coughed all night and then woke up this morning with those glazed-looking eyes that tell you there’s a fever long before the thermometer does. Her temp was only 99.9, but that’s enough to spend another day at home. And I didn’t see dragging her on a mile-long walk to take Zoe to school, so Zoe stayed home, too. Maya’s fever is gone, but she still has the cough.

So, what’s it like when your child’s sick in a foreign country? Not that different from when she’s sick in the States – at least, when she’s only this sick. I admit it makes me “what if” the situation a little more – what if her fever gets higher? What if the cough doesn’t go away? What if she gets strep? What if she gets an ear infection? I can’t say I’d relish a return visit to the Xiamen Women & Children’s Hospital (where we went for the girls’ school physicals). I wouldn’t even relish a visit to the supposedly western medicine clinic in Xiamen. I not really worried, but it does make you think. We’ve been really lucky that I haven’t had to worry about it at all up to now. And as you can see from the princess picture, Maya’s actually feeling pretty good! (I couldn’t resist posting it so you could see what we do in China when we’re not doing anything at all!)

I also have to share two kids-say-the-darnedest-things comments from today – either the girls were exceptionally funny all day or I’ve gone completely stir-crazy!

First, from the Truer Words Were Never Spoken Department. We were watching two shirtless men play badminton in the courtyard outside our window. Zoe says, “Mama, when boys grow up, do they still feel like kids? Since they don’t get those lumps (breasts) that girls do?”

Then, from the Department of the Obvious Department. Apropos of nothing, Maya declares, “Mama, I LOVE dolphins! They are special in my heart!” I reply, “Really? Why are they special in your heart?” Maya answers, in a tone that reveals she considers me a complete dope, “Because I love them!” And then if that’s not enough, she says, “I wish we had one in our house.” I say logically, “But we don’t have a bathtub.” She collapses in giggles: “A dolphin is TOO BIG for a bathtub!” Yeah, like she had a better idea where to keep one in our house?!

A VERY Quiet Weekend

2007-07-15T04:28:00.000-07:00

My goodness, we were lazy this weekend! We left the house exactly once, and that was for dinner on Saturday because I was too lazy to cook! In fact, going out to dinner is the only reason we got dressed – all three of us spent the day in our nightgowns.

Part of the reason for our laziness is that Maya and I are both a little under the weather. She has a cold, and was so congested Friday night she kept waking up crying. I ended up putting her in bed with me so she wouldn’t keep Zoe awake, but that of course kept me awake! Still, she was feeling much better Saturday morning, and she and Zoe played quietly and let me sleep in. She seems completely over the cold today.

I think the heat has done me in this week. I’ve been so busy keeping the girls hydrated I think I neglected myself. And as much as I sweat, that’s a problem! Wednesday I was running around like crazy in the heat – taking the girls to school, running errands, doing laundry, going grocery shopping (and I ended up on un-airconditioned buses to and from the store, worse luck!). Thursday I was feeling light-headed and tired, and realized it must be heat exhaustion. So I took it easy on Thursday and drank water and Gatorade until I sloshed when I walked! I was feeling pretty good by the time I walked to kindergarten to do English lessons and pick up the girls. But Friday the dizziness was back. So we’ve now stayed out of the heat for two days doing virtually nothing, and I’m back to normal.

We’ve really been lucky on the health front. I brought every children’s medicine known to man, and Friday is the first time I’ve used any of it. And with all the exercise I’ve been getting, I’m far healthier now that when I got here. What with air pollution, hygiene differences, food and water issues, I expected we’d all take turns getting sick. How very fortunate we’ve been! If only we can make it another 16 days!

Zoe's Kindergarten Graduation

2007-07-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

Another milestone for Zoe – kindergarten graduation! And who would have dreamed, five years ago when she came home with me, that she’d be graduating from a Chinese kindergarten?! It’s quite an accomplishment for this little girl who was dropped in this place 5 months ago, unable to speak a word of Chinese!

It wasn’t quite what I expected as a graduation, though. It was more like an end-of-year class party. There were no mortarboards, no robes, no “Pomp & Circumstances.” In fact, very few of the kids or parents made any effort to mark the occasion with fancy clothes of any kind. So Zoe really stood out in her “grown-up dress” specially chosen for the occasion. (Of course, Maya insisted on a “pretty dress,” too.)

We got to the kindergarten early (so I could have time to stop sweating and change into a dry shirt!), so we helped with chairs and balloon decorations. The kids ran around like banshees (what exactly is a banshee, anyway?!) while the parents jockeyed for a good seat.

The ceremony began with announcements in Chinese – I just clapped when everyone else did! And then each child was called up individually to make a personally prepared speech. I had NO idea that was expected, no one told me. Zoe left her seat in a panic to say she couldn’t do that, and I told her she could just say, “Thank you, Teacher, good bye, friends,” (I could understand that much in most of the kids’ speeches) in English, and that would be fine. But she categorically refused. But she wasn’t the first to refuse. Soon kids were fleeing to their parents in panic, other kids were standing in front of everyone holding the microphone and staring like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Some would squeak out a few words and then stare at the floor or ceiling as if the rest of the speech was written there. And a few hams gave their memorized speech with professional flair.

I thought this part of the program would never end – there were 38 kids after all. And the MC (one of the moms from the class) was not merciful with the kids who stood without saying a word. She let them twist in the wind FOREVER before accepting the inevitable and ushering them off center stage. But with all the kids who wouldn’t go up at all, this part was much shorter than I anticipated!

The kids then sang a song as a group, the lyrics of which said something about teachers, friends, thanks, and goodbye.

I could barely catch Zoe in any of the group activities, because she always headed right to the back row. Once, when all the head swaying worked out just right, I finally managed to catch a glimpse of her there!

She was still upset about the expected speech-making, and I’m afraid that ruined most of the ceremony for her.

BTW, you know our image of strictly-disciplined Chinese kids, acting like little automatons, especially at school? Well, not a bit of it was evident there! During all the speech-making and refusing-to-make-a-speech activity, the kids were up and down, out of their seats, fighting with each other, playing with each other, and neither parents nor teachers did a thing about it. One mom did pull her son away from a fight, but he got mad at her for doing so, so when he was supposed to play a piano duet with another boy, he sat at the piano with arms crossed and refused to touch the keys! It was all pretty funny, I thought, especially since my two girls were behaving like angels for a change!

Soon the MC was speaking again, and I could understand “Jin YiLing’s mama” – that’s my cue! They asked me beforehand to lead the children in an English song. Well, Zoe apparently didn’t think I’d heard my cue, because she came running up to me saying, “That’s you, Mama, they want you to sing!” She tugged me out of my seat and then pushed me to the front of the room, to everyone’s hearty laughter. I had the kids sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” In fact, we did it 3 times – the kids love it when I have them sing it “slowwwwwwww.” And then we sing it “fast,” which they really get a kick out of.

The parents seemed to appreciate the performance, and I was presented with a gift to say thank you. (As per Chinese tradition, I did not open the gift then, that’s not considered polite. When I unwrapped it at home, it was a lovely wooden comb. I love the English description of it:

Regarding the dye craft of it, CaoMuRan is made by picking herbaceous plants,
extracting their natural juice, treating the juice with great care in teens of
process: wash, bleach, dye, grind, solidarity its hue, add the fragrance,
polish etc. These process then can make the natural hue of plants made
into CaoMuRan reappear.

Attention: CaoMuRan is forbidden to
wash with warm water and hard brush, so as to maintain its natural beauty and
freshness.

I THINK it’s telling me that it’s plant-dyed wood, and it is pretty and it does have a flowery fragrance.)

There was one more class song, in Chinese, and then there was a break for games. One game had the kids blindfolded and trying to pick out their moms from a line.

Zoe pulled me up for the second round, and I figured she’d pick me out easily since my shape is fairly distinctive in a group of petite Chinese women! Well, she didn’t want to leave it to chance, so she kept peeking out from under the blindfold. So I managed to trick her – I switched places with the mom next to me at the last minute, and Zoe made a bee-line for her. It was all we could do not to laugh when Zoe clutched her and realized almost immediately it was NOT her mom! Still blindfolded, she got me on the second try, and when one of the teachers tried to redirect her to another mom who is kind of plump, in an effort to fool her, she refused to let go! Zoe says this was her favorite part of graduation.

In the last part of the ceremony, the teacher gave each child a Chinese dictionary, and a memory book with group photos of the class and photos of each child in the class. (We were asked to bring 37 copies of a picture of Zoe “doing something fun,” and we brought one of the pictures of Zoe with a panda. So that’s what’s in everyone else’s book.)

The book also has a report card (I think) with checks in various columns next to various descriptions. I have no idea what any of it says. Zoe did either very well or very badly – almost all of her checks are in the first column. With Chinese being read right to left, I have a feeling that first column is not an A!

My favorite picture is the one of Zoe in the front – her official “graduation photo,” which was taken a few weeks ago at school. Here’s a photo of that photo:

My goodness, it doesn’t take much imagination on my part to see her in 12 years, grown into that gown and hat and graduating from high school, or in 16 years graduating from college, or in 19 or 20 years graduating from law school or medical school, or getting her Ph.D. . . . Heady stuff, these graduations in miniature!

Say XIEZI!

2007-07-14T04:07:00.000-07:00

After I taught English in Maya's class on Thursday, her teacher wanted to do a group picture with me and the children. That's how I discovered what you say in Chinese to get a smile for the camera -- it isn't, "Say CHEESE!" Instead, the kids were told to say "Xiezi!" Translation: shoe. Pronounciation: something close to "chedzu." Funny, huh?

This has made me curious -- there must be some make-em-smile word in every language. If you know any, share them in the comments. I'd love to know more!

Dinner!

2007-07-12T05:15:00.001-07:00

I love my rice cooker! I was actually brave enough to try steaming fish at the same time I cooked the rice, and it turned out great! (That’s a chunk of apple in Zoe’s mouth – we had a slice apple appetizer to quell the “when will it be ready” insurgency.) I will definitely be buying a rice cooker as soon as I get home! (Ok, I admit, it doesn't take much to make me happy. But a successful cooking experiment is definitely one of the little things that will brighten my day!)

I cheated a bit on the fish, though. I went to Trust-Mart, the grocery store, the other day and bought the fish already dead and gutted. (They’ll kill them and gut them at the wet market (that’s what they call the fish/seafood market), but I didn’t really want to watch that!) The fish even came packaged with sliced onions, peppers, ginger and garlic. I love this version of Chinese convenience foods, and you can find them at Trust-Mart, Wal-Mart, and Carre Four. It might be prewashed and sliced veggies with a little meat for flavor, or precooked noodles with cabbage, ginger and spring onions to be stir fried, or sliced squid with veggies and flavorings for soup, and all of it fresh & not frozen. I hadn’t seen fish before, but thought I’d give it a try. I know, I know, steaming fish isn’t that hard, but it was a first for me!

My electric rice cooker comes with a basket that fits on top of the basin; I filled the basin with rice and water, and the basket with fish and fixin’s.

Close the lid, push the button, and twenty minutes later we had rice and yummy fish!

The girls loved it – I managed to steal two bites of fish before they demolished them. Next time I guess I better buy 2 packages!

BTW, yes, Zoe is in her pajamas. As soon as we come home these days she complains that her clothes are sweaty and changes into PJs. It's a miracle that Maya is dressed, because she usually strips, too. But she won't put on PJs -- she just stays in her panties until bedtime!

Open House

2007-07-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

Open house at Zoe’s and Maya’s school this afternoon – and what an odd experience. It was scheduled to start at 2:15, and the kids were just getting up from their naps. So the first part of open house was just standing around waiting for the kids to get up and for the teachers to re-do the girls’ hair.

Wow, don’t the kids look lively?! Zoe had gotten up a little early, so her hair was already done, but she needed to change from her slippers into her shoes.

After changing shoes, the kids stand in line in the causeway in front of their classroom to wait for their afternoon snack to be set out. Zoe tells me they are supposed to stand quietly, but they didn’t quite manage that today!

While in line, we heard music piped throughout the school, and the kids started to do finger exercises – touching the thumb with each finger, bending and straightening fingers, rotating the wrists, etc. I don’t have pictures, because Zoe was trying to show me how to do the exercises, and soon all the kids were gathered around laughing at me as I mangled the exercises. When I finally got it right, the little girl in the hot pink tshirt said, “Very good,” just like I do to them in English class. Pretty funny!

Then we got to see the kids eat their noodle snack – as you can tell, a real highlight of Zoe’s day.

I left Zoe’s class at that point to go to Maya’s class, and lo! and behold, it was time for snack!

The parents just lined up in the causeway in front of the classroom and watched the kids eat like they were animals in a zoo – very odd. As the kids finished, they came out into the causeway and played. Maya told me she was all finished, but as you can see, her bowl was still practically full.

So I went in the classroom to try to get her to eat more. Of course, she refused to take a bite – until her teacher came over and fed her. Then she cleaned her bowl. The teacher thought that was pretty funny.

We were all basically standing around doing nothing while the kids ate and ran around. So I went back up to Zoe’s classroom, to find it empty. The kids were in the big playroom, watching a video. And all the parents were sitting there watching the kids watch the video. This is an open house?! I took Zoe back down with me to Maya’s classroom, to find actual activity going on!

The teacher was demonstrating how to make a frog hat. Then the kids had a chance to make their own while the parents watched.

Maya was pretty proud of her frog, but it took me a while to convince her it was a frog. At first she told me she was a duck – it seems Chinese frogs don’t say “ribbit,” they say “quack!” So the whole time the teacher is explaining the making of this green thing, the only word Maya understood was “quack!” So of course she thought she was making a duck – explains the yellow crayon she started out with, to be redirected by the teacher to a green one! But once she accepted she was a frog, she had to hop for me.

Then the whole class put on a little show for the parents. Zoe was getting pretty antsy doing nothing but watching, and it was all I could do to keep her from joining in. I finally gave her my camera and told her to take pictures of Maya. She did a great job! See for yourself:

And that was open house! I talked quite a long time with one of the dads from Maya’s class. He says his daughter talks about me all the time – what in the world could she be saying?! He says he’s been trying to teach her English (and his English was quite good) but she won’t cooperate (after the noodle incident, I sympathize!). She tells him the English teacher speaks English, HE is to speak Chinese!

And hey, my Chinese is getting a little better it seems! As we were leaving school, Zoe and Maya were eating (another!) snack, and Zoe shared her crackers with a classmate as she was leaving, too. I understood perfectly when her grandmother said (in Chinese), "Say thank you to your friend's nai-nai (grandmother!)." The little girl answered (in Chinese), "That's not her grandmother, that's Jin YiLing's mama." The grandmother looked at me, a bit embarrassed, and I just gave her a blank look like I had missed the whole exchange. Tee hee! (Yes, I get mistaken for my kids' grandmother as often here as in the States. Sigh.)

I think the kindergarten has been a good experience for the girls. There are certainly things I would have changed if I could. Zoe's class is way too big with 38 kids. There's absolutely no personal attention from the teacher with so many kids. I think, though, that I should have been more pro-active in getting them to actually teach Zoe some Chinese vocabulary rather than just relying on immersion. But it took me way too long to figure out they weren't doing anything. Still, Zoe has picked up quite a bit in her time here. I think if we were here a few more months, she'd be pretty fluent in Chinese.

Maya's class has been very good -- much smaller, with two teacher's aides as well as the teacher. And I really like her teacher. We had some rough weeks in the beginning, with Maya being the potty accident Queen, but things soon settled down and she's had great fun.

I think we've been lucky, too, that the kids have been really accepting. Before we came, I was told that one Fulbrighter family had brought their 4-year-old adopted from China and put her in a Chinese school. Apparently she was teased unmercifully, with the kids thinking there was something wrong with her since she looked just like them but couldn't speak Chinese. They wouldn't play with her at all. The family ended up sending her home to live with her grandparents for the remainder of the term. Pretty scary story to hear when planning to bring Zoe and Maya here. But we had no trouble at all of that sort. Zoe has made some good friends, and Maya seems to be little sister to her whole class.

I've been lucky, too, to find helpful English-speaking parents to facilitate communication. They've also taught me a lot about daily life in China, and how kids are raised, and how families interact. I doubt that Fulbrighters without kids, or even those with kids in international schools, can get that insight into how the Chinese really live.

Though I've said the open house was a little odd, it doesn't change the fact that I'm truly grateful that everyone here has opened their school, homes and their hearts to my daughters and me.

A New Week

2007-07-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

We’re getting back into the swing of things after our mini-vacation to Chengdu, with the girls back in school and me back teaching. When we got to school on Monday, all the kids in Maya’s class were in swim suits – it seems we missed the memo when we were gone! Her class gets to play in the kindergarten’s swimming pool each Monday. We didn’t bring a swim suit, but Maya had extra panties in her backpack, so she got to swim in her panties. Each student was also supposed to bring a floatie of some kind, and Maya didn’t have one, but the school had an extra, so she was set. She tells me it was a lot of fun, and that’s all she’d talk about when I picked her up. She had a melt-down, though, that she couldn’t bring the floatie home with her – toddler’s rules, you know:

If I want it, it's mine.
If I give it to you and change my mind later, it's mine.
If I can take it away from you, it's mine.
If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
If it's mine, it will never belong to anybody else, no matter what.
If it looks just like mine, it is mine.

It looks like we’ll have to buy our own floaties. Zoe’s class gets to use the swimming pool on Wednesdays.

We haven’t had rain here lately, so it’s sprinkler season. The sprinklers were going in the park as we walked home from school today (Tuesday), and the girls begged to run through them. It was so hot I said, “Sure!” They had a great time, but it started to occur to me that I wasn’t sure where the water was coming from. Was it tap water? We can’t drink the tap water, but we do shower in it. Or was it lake water? The thought of lake water was disgusting, since we often see trash and dead fish in the water. And then there was the time I watched a man wash his socks in the lake. One of the moms from Maya’s class walked by and I asked her, and she said it was “bad water.” OK. So we walked home and went right into the shower. I guess there will be no more sprinkler hopping for us!

I taught my class today, and I noticed that during the breaks the students were putting their heads on their desks and napping. I asked them why they were so tired, and it turns out they are all studying for the national bar examination. The exam has a pass rate of only 10%. Can you imagine?! It is a very difficult test, obviously. But they also tell me that any college graduate can take the exam – you don’t have to have a law degree. They think the pass rate for law graduates is probably closer to 30%. Still, I find it extraordinary that the pass rate is so low. The lowest pass rate in the U.S. is probably California, which usually is about 50%. The Texas bar exam usually has a pass rate around 85%.

The students seemed pretty sanguine about it, and said that the exam got harder in 2002 as a reaction to poor quality lawyers. You have to pass the exam to practice law, and if you want to be a judge or prosecutor you also have to pass the exam. If you don’t pass, you can only work as a lawyer’s assistant. Judges used to take another easier exam, and they said there used to be a very big problem with the quality of judges. Most judges were retired military officers with little or no legal training. But since 2002, judges have to pass the national bar exam.

The exam is September 15, and about 600,000 people will take it. With a 10% pass rate, that means 60,000 new lawyers in a country with a population of 1.3 billion. Wow. In the U.S., it’s more like 40,000 new lawyers each year with a population of only 300 million. I asked the students if the bar exam was so hard because China wanted to keep the number of lawyers low, but they weren’t sure (or wouldn’t say). I asked if people in China thought there were too many lawyers, and they said no. There were too many lawyers in the cities, they thought, but in the rural areas there were serious shortages of lawyers.

The exam sounds like the bar exam in most American states – it covers 14 topics and lasts 2 days. The first day is multiple choice and the second day is essay. The students tell me the most important topics tested – as in most of the questions are in these areas – are criminal law, “civil law” (which sounds awfully broad, but turns out to be Contracts, Torts, Property, Family Law), administrative law, and civil procedure. They say there are a few questions on the topic of foreign constitutional law. The 14 topics covered by the bar exam are all required courses at Xiada (I asked what the pass rate was for Xiada students and they didn’t know, but said it was probably less than 50%).

The real topic for today’s class was confession law – we covered Miranda v. Arizona and the requirement that confessions be voluntary. The Chinese system is very different from the American system. For one thing, a criminal defendant in China is required to testify in court; if he refuses to testify, there is a legal presumption of guilt. As you know, in America the defendant has the 5th Amendment right not to testify, and the prosecutor cannot even comment on his failure to testify or suggest that his silence makes him look guilty.

The students were familiar with Miranda rights from watching American TV, but there is no such thing in China, of course. A defendant has no right to remain silent in the face of police questioning. The students told me repeatedly that a suspect is “obligated to answer questions.” I asked what would happen if someone simply refused to answer questions. They just repeated that a suspect is “obligated to answer questions.” But what can the police do if someone simply refuses, I asked? It was clear that people simply don’t refuse. I pushed the students on the point, and they said the police would force the person to talk. Force how? They finally said it – the police would use violence. And, they said, it was very common for the police to use violence to extract a confession.

Of course, such things can happen in the U.S., and it was a fairly common practice until the late 1960s when the Court got serious about confession abuses. The rule in the U.S. is that involuntary confessions cannot be admitted in court. The students tell me that is the same rule in China; but, they say, judges are unlikely to believe criminal defendants who say the police used force. That's a big problem in the U.S. as well -- as between the police version of the interrogation and the defendant's version of the interrogation, the judge is more likely to buy the police version.

So, all in all, it was an interesting class today. I continue to learn more than I teach, though. No way is Xiada getting it’s money’s worth with me!

The heat is still a problem for me, and I was drenched when I got to school this morning. When I finished teaching, and puttering around my office, it was high noon and the sun was simply blazing down. I decided to take the bus home – it would take longer, but I wouldn’t be walking in the heat for very long. I just had a short 10 minute walk from the law school to the nearest bus stop, about a 20 minute wait in the shade under the bus stop’s canopy, and then about a 30 minute ride around campus on trusty Bus 47 instead of a sweltering 45 minute walk through campus. I think I’ll be doing this more often, now that I’ve thought of it! It’s amazing how much better my mood was this afternoon when walking in the heat to the girls’ school, since it was only my second walk in the heat rather than my third. (There was a fourth walk on the way back from school – the bus would have been far too crowded at rush hour!).

It looks like the rest of the week will be busy – there’s an open house at the kindergarten tomorrow afternoon, Zoe’s class visits the university library Thursday morning, I teach English at both classes Thursday afternoon, and Friday evening Zoe’s class graduates from kindergarten (how exciting!). Her teacher has asked me to lead the children in singing some of the English songs we’ve learned. I’m also grading papers from last term (more about that later) and making up an exam for this term. It’s no different here than in the States – the end of a school year is busy, busy, busy for students AND teachers! I’ll keep you posted on all our rollicking good times.

Beefcake

2007-07-09T05:49:00.000-07:00

There was a group of American law students in Xiamen last month, and many of my Chinese students spent time with them as a way to improve their spoken English. They took them shopping and to the bank to exchange money, etc. They also played lots of basketball with them.

One of my students was telling me about the basketball, and said the Chinese students were so amazed at how well the Americans played. It wasn't that they were tall, he said, it was that they were so much stronger than the Chinese students. He was literally shaking his head in awe of these super-strong Americans. He said that he and his friends concluded it must be because Americans eat so much beef!

I pointed out to him that it might not be the beef, that many young American men worked out with weights. Ohhhhhh! Well, that explains it, then.

So I probably destroyed one myth, of the red-meat-eating American strongman, and replaced it with another -- a country of Arnold Schwartzenegger wanna-be's. I'm not sure I did a good thing . . . . But even as a Texan, I didn't think you could blame it on the beef!

Help, Please!

2007-07-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to put together a packet of "English Lessons" to send home for the summer for the kids in Zoe's and Maya's classes. I need sheet music for the songs we've been singing:

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
If You're Happy and You Know It
I Like to Eat Apples & Bananas
Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes

I've looked online, and though I can find lyrics readily enough, I can't find sheet music (for piano preferably, but I'm not picky!). If you know of a link, would you post it in the comments, please? If you have them in digital form, could you email them to me? Thanks!

2007-07-07T05:07:00.000-07:00

We're back in Xiamen!

We had a good flight, including a stop in Changsha -- so I guess we can claim a (short!) visit to Hunan Province as well this trip. It's good to be home; as much as I like to travel, I always like getting back to my own pad. The girls are getting to be quite seasoned travelers, and they, too, appreciated the return home. They had to reacquaint themselves with all the dolls and stuffed animals left behind, make sure their treasures were still in their "treasure box" (a shoebox containing mostly junk!), and ceremoniously unpack their backpacks so they could spread their special blankies on their beds. I can't imagine how excited they're going to be when we get back to our "real home" in the States!

We have tomorrow to unwind and hit the grocery store -- the cupboard is bare! And then Monday it's back to work and back to school.

Exploring Chengdu

2007-07-06T04:29:00.000-07:00

Actually, exploring Chengdu is an overstatement, given that we only had one day. Yesterday after the pandas we were worn out and napped for three hours – yes, me too! And despite that, we slept late. Maybe I’m getting used to these soft beds. . . .

It was raining when we got up this morning, so we got an even later start on our sightseeing. The weather has actually been wonderful while we’ve been here – cloudy and cool the whole time. Gray days may seem a tragedy to many travelers, but y’all know my opinion of the heat, and I wasn’t looking forward to Chengdu’s reputation as one of the “Three Ovens of China.”

Once the rain died down, we took a quick taxi to the Wuhou Temple, which is dedicated to Liu Bei, the founding Emperor of the Kingdom of Shu (one of the three kingdoms fighting for supremacy at the tail end of the Han dynasty). The Shu Kingdom included Sichuan Province, so he is a hero here. His statue took pride of place among similar statues of generals, administrators and scholars of his time.

We enjoyed wandering around the temple, despite frequent misting rain. It wasn’t very crowded, which enhanced my pleasure. Zoe was on a dragon craze – she was born in the Year of the Dragon – and found each one in the rather large temple grounds.

The temple included a small museum of cultural relics of the Shu Kingdom, which were very interesting. It must have been a fun place, because many of the small statues depicted happy, smiling people, including musicians and their appreciative audience.

I loved this little fellow, the description of which read, “Musician sings and talks with audience.” Given his posture, it looks more like the Shu version of vaudeville!

Then we hit the motherlode – a concession with costumes people could wear (for a price) for photo ops. Zoe has been scouring China for one of these – she remembers dressing up in Nanning to have her picture taken as a Mongolian princess (ok, the geography was all wrong, but the costume was cute!). This time she and Maya got to dress up as princesses of the Shu Kingdom.

All the workers were also elaborately robed, so I thought this picture of them preparing the girls probably looked pretty authentic, with royal ladies helping the princesses get dressed.

We took pictures on the throne (BTW, a commenter asked about my camera – don’t judge it by the next few photos. It was confused by the setting – I was standing near the outdoors while the girls were deeper in the shadows of the open-air corridor. It couldn’t make up its mind whether to use a flash or not . . . .)

. . . and engaged in the maidenly pursuit of making music.

I love the beads swinging in front of Maya’s face, and Zoe’s head kept tilting sideways because of the weight of the headdress.

But I much preferred my own staging (or no staging, as the case may be):

Yes, Zoe found it as difficult to walk in that get-up as one would think. And yes, Maya was ready to get out of her dress as soon as it was put on.

Just one last one:

(See, the camera does much better given a smidgen of light. I especially love it in the outdoors. It’s a Canon PowerShot S315, with a 12x optical zoom built in. So it’s just a point-and-shoot, but I’ve been really happy with it. I also love the editing software that came with it. End of commercial!)

Even after shedding the dress-up garb, Zoe was fascinated by the zither (zheng or guzheng in Chinese). I thought I’d never get her away from it.

So, that was the Wuhou Temple. We walked around a bit in that neighborhood, which is near the Southwest University for Minority Nationalities. The neighborhood includes lots of Tibetan shops and restaurants, but we found things awfully touristy and I bought nothing. Sigh. I love the textiles of the minority peoples in China, and felt sure I’d find something here. Oh, well. Maybe the next time I’m in Chengdu . . . .

We took a cab back to the hotel, and we caught sight of an interesting place as we neared the Sheraton. So after a short rest, we walked to find it. Here are some pictures – where do you thing we are?

OK, here’s a big hint:

The wall around the structure had niches every few feet with statues – we stopped at this one in honor of home (-;) If you haven’t guessed it now, this one will do it:

You’ve guessed it – the Chengdu Catholic Church! (No, Maya is not having a conversion experience, she’s trying to catch the airplane that flew over just as I snapped the shot.) I loved seeing the marriage of Chinese and Western styles in the church – just as it should be in a local church, it seems to me. Inside the church this Friday afternoon were 8 or 10 elderly Chinese ladies saying the Rosary – about what we’d see in our local church in Fort Worth (minus the Chinese!).

We walked back to the Sheraton, and as we were about to cross the busy street, an older Chinese lady clutched my arm, and said in perfect English, “I need your help to cross the road! I can’t do it on my own!” I said I’d be happy to help, thinking she must be Overseas Chinese staying at the Sheraton (I figured she might have even seen us there, since we kind of stand out!). But she goes on, “I’m looking for the Catholic Church.” I was able to tell her she didn’t need to cross that nasty street after all – the church was behind her! We walked her back there to a chorus of effusive thanks. I hope she made it back to wherever she was going next. We made it across the street without any difficulty at all – we’ve become quite expert in strategic street-crossing.

We by-passed the Sheraton heading for the market we’d seen behind it to buy fruit. It was a typical Chinese market, and we bought plums, but there were also some new items for us – lots of chili peppers and buckets of red paste that smelled hot, hot, hot. The hanging meats at the meat sellers were familiar to us, except for the pig snouts (I’m REALLY sorry my picture of that one didn’t come out!). We also saw these dumpling makers at work.

The girls and I can’t agree what the little pointy dumplings look like – Zoe votes for hats, Maya for boats, and I’ve weighed in for those fancy napkins in fancy restaurants.

With plums in hand, we headed back to the hotel.

Staying at the Sheraton has been a treat. We’ve had yummy buffet breakfasts and I’ve introduced the girls to the joys of room service – we’ve eaten in the room all three nights! When I call room service, I get instead the “Guest Service Center,” where everyone speaks English. They then relay my order to room service. If we never left the Sheraton, we could almost believe we weren’t in China any more. But this evening, having plumbed the rather shallow depths of the Kids Menu here, Zoe insisted on Chinese food from room service. Maya still wanted ANYTHING that came served with French fries!

We leave tomorrow morning for Xiamen. Chengdu was just the mini-vacation we needed. The temperature was cool, the sights were interesting, the hotel was a pampered oasis, and the pandas were fantastic!

Panda-monium!

2007-07-05T04:48:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful morning! We saw pandas, and pandas, and more pandas, all at the Panda Research Base & Breeding Center in a suburb of Chengdu. This was unlike any other place I've seen animals in China -- no cages, no glass between us and the animals. The enclosures seemed quite natural, and were clearly set up for the animals to get enough stimulation. I didn't see any schizoid-animal behavior that I always see in Chinese zoos. It was even better than the panda enclosure at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. And the pandas were simply fantastic.

There’s another place to see pandas in Sichuan Province – the Wolong Nature Preserve and Panda Breeding Center, but it’s about 30 km from Chengdu. I figured 30 km wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m told the roads are terrible, that Wolong is in the mountains and very remote, and it would take 3 hours to get there. It didn’t seem worth putting the girls through that long ride when there was this panda center nearby. And I think it was the right decision; Wolong might be wonderful, but so was this place. (An FYI, though – we rented a car (with driver) because we were told there might not be cabs there for our return trip to the hotel. Wrong! There were tons of licensed cabs.)

After entering the grounds, we were off on our search for pandas. The girls were practically giddy, and there was a palpable sense of excitement as we walked through bamboo tunnels to find the panda enclosures.

We headed first for the adult panda enclosure, and soon found the pandas. We deliberately headed to the panda center in the morning, because we were told they were friskier then when it is feeding time. And sure enough, they were busily eating bamboo.

By coincidence, there was a National Geographic special about panda on TV last night (we have English channels – yahoo!), so we learned a lot about pandas, including the fact that adult pandas eat about 40 pounds of bamboo each day!

Pandas have to each so much because they are apparently carnivores who adapted to eating bamboo when their habitat shrank and the animals they fed on disappeared. So their stomachs can digest only about 1/5th of the bamboo they eat. That’s why they eat practically all the time.

Look how this one seems to be grasping the bamboo leaves in his paw much like a human would with the hand. Another panda adaptation – a wrist bone has developed into a kind of opposable thumb to make it easier to grab and eat bamboo.

When the pandas weren’t eating, they were sleeping! (So much for finding them frisky in the morning! Some might well have been stuffed for all the activity we saw out of them.)

The two sleeping above are panda babies, around a year old. They were in an enclosure called the “Panda Kindergarten.”

And it sure looked like a kindergarten, with kiddie toys at the ready – if the kinder ever wake up from their naps! (They didn’t while we watched.)

We then made our donation (1,000 RMB – ouch!) to take pictures with a baby panda. The girls were so excited – but first we had to put on shoe covers and the girls had to wash their hands and put on gloves. Zoe had to be swathed in a blue robe – Maya was deemed too young to hold the panda and so didn't need a robe.

Then they brought out the “baby” panda, and Zoe’s first reaction was as I expected – she shrank back and slid to the far end of the bench! I was really proud that she stuck, though, I half-expected her to run for the hills!

She even got brave enough to touch the panda!

She was still pretty unsure, and no way was she going to hold it! She expected the baby to be the size of a Chihuahua, not a St. Bernard. Maya then joined her, and you can tell by her smile that she’s excited – but you can also see from her body language that she's still a little apprehensive.

Maya was also willing to pet the panda.

The panda was far more interested in the tender young bamboo the worker was feeding it than in two little girls who wanted to play. And of course we didn’t have long for our “photo op.” A little more time and the girls might have warmed up to the panda a bit more – and the panda would STILL have been more interested in the bamboo, I bet!

I’m glad we did it – the money was for a good cause, to support the Research Center’s work. And the girls are still talking about “our panda.”

After seeing the black and white Giant Pandas, we toured the red panda enclosures. If you’re not familiar with red pandas, I think they look more like raccoons than pandas. (Maya thought it looked like a fox.)

They even have striped tails like raccoons. Even though there is little family resemblance, their closest relatives are the Giant Pandas.

The red pandas were much more active, pacing about their enclosure and vanishing into the foliage only to reappear in another place later. The girls were fascinated – much more interesting than just eating and sleeping. Still, they passed on the opportunity to hold one for the piddling fee of 50 yuan.

The panda center was quite park-like, with lots of bamboo, flowers and butterflies. We followed this pretty blue-black butterfly all through one section of the park, to Maya’s delight.

Look at that long proboscis, all rolled up.

The butterfly led us to Swan Lake, where it seemed that black swans outnumbered white swans 3 to 1. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen black swans before.

We had a great time watching the pandas, and the girls have deemed it the best thing that has happened since we’ve been in China. In fact, the girls were head over heels in love with the pandas!

We're in Chengdu!

2007-07-04T03:27:00.000-07:00

Not much to report so far -- we got here late, after our plane sat on the runway in Xiamen for an hour before take-off. Unbelieveably, they actually served us drinks during that time! I don't think I've ever seen that happen.

Chengdu is a huge bustling city, more like Nanning than Xiamen in one respect -- BICYCLES! They are everywhere on the road and parked 5 deep on the sidewalks.

We made it to our hotel, the Sheraton, with no difficulty, and we're being spoiled by the luxury. The beds are actually SOFT! The girls are really tickled by that, but I actually prefer hard Chinese beds. We ordered room service for dinner -- my idea of cooking! The hotel has a kid's menu, and the girls happily ordered hot dogs and hot chocolate. I actually got a salad, something I don't risk often in China since you never know how the lettuce was washed. But I don't think it's much of a risk here.

We've arranged a car and driver to take us to the Panda Preserve tomorrow morning. We hope soon to have reports of lots of panda sightings. The girls are so excited I expect it to take FOREVER to get them to sleep tonight. Right now they are clamoring to take a bath in the nearly 3-foot-deep tub. More later!

Happy 4th From China!

2007-07-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, America! We're wearing red, white and blue to celebrate -- and it's a good thing our suitcase is patriotic, too. We're headed to Chengdu today, and will go to see the pandas tomorrow. We'll be back in Xiamen on Saturday. I assume we'll have internet, so next you hear from us we'll be in Sichuan Province enjoying (!) hot weather and hot food!

Hot! Hot!! HOT!!!

2007-07-03T04:26:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned lately that it’s hot? I mean really, really, really, really HOT! And I know hot – I grew up in a city that gleefully reported their records for consecutive over-100-degree days, a city where the TV station always did a summer story demonstrating how eggs CAN actually fry on our sidewalks, a city that hosts a long-distance bicycle race each August called the “Hotter ‘n Hell 100.”

But my relationship with the summer heat in Texas is a bit different from here. At home, I go from my air-conditioned home to my air-conditioned car to my air-conditioned office, and then reverse it. Every shop, every building, (practically) every place has air-conditioning. My biggest problem with the heat is the time it takes my car to cool down. From late May until early September, we spend very little time outside. The kids don’t feel the heat, of course, so they are always asking to go outside. I say, “When it gets cooler.” They say, “When will that be,” thinking I’ll say something like “after 7 p.m.” Instead, I answer, “In October!” (And I mostly mean it!)

We don’t have the luxury of staying indoors in the air-conditioning in Xiamen. So I sweat. I mean really, really, really, really SWEAT! After the 40-minute walk to my office, I’m soaking wet. Sweat rolls down my neck, down my back, down my legs. Sweat rolls into my eyes. And all this, despite the fact that I carry a washcloth to wipe my face and neck during the walk (no dainty handkerchief will do the trick – I need one square foot of terrycloth!).

Blessedly, my office has air-conditioning, so after a few hours I cool down and dry off. But on the mornings I teach, I don’t have that luxury. So now I’m packing an extra shirt so I can change into something without obvious sweat stains before I teach.

Still, my new classroom is air-conditioned! Yippee!!!! Fat lot of good it does – the students consider it far too cold and keep opening the windows! I was still sweating like crazy when I started to teach today – not so much because of the room temperature, but residual heat from the walk – so during the break a student out of pity ran down 5 flights of stairs, to the store, and back up 5 flights of stairs to bring me a bottle of water! He, of course, never broke a sweat.

I admit, my internal thermostat is set higher than most people’s. I’ve never been cold a day in my life. I’m sweltering when others are feeling pretty comfortable. I MUCH prefer cold weather to warm weather – at least in cold weather, you have the option of just wearing more clothes. In the heat, there’s only so much you can take off and remain socially acceptable. And there’s no way that taking it ALL off would make a difference in Xiamen – if I walked down the street completely naked (now THERE’S a pretty picture!) I’d STILL be too hot and sweating like crazy!

But it’s not just my skewed temperature making me hot in Xiamen. Even the girls are sweating. Zoe sweats prodigiously from her scalp, and keeps borrowing my washcloth to wipe the drips from her nose! Maya limits herself to an all-over glow. I’m so paranoid about dehydration that I keep force-feeding them water as we walk. They just roll their eyes as I pull the water bottle out of my backpack AGAIN!

I had a student from last term visit me in my office today, and he complained that he had a terrible headache – he says he’s been in air-conditioning too much! I wanted to say to him, “Where have you been? Can I go there?!” I guess I should accept the heat with good grace. It is obviously God’s way of making it easier to leave Xiamen – only 28 days until we return to the Land of All Air-Conditioning All the Time!

Race/Racism in America/China

2007-07-02T05:31:00.000-07:00

Allen, a new reader, left a comment on a post from way back (ok, so it wasn't that long ago, it just seems like it!) in April. He raises some thought-provoking points, so I thought I'd share, since "old readers" (there's gotta be a better way to say that!) are unlikely to check back in comments from months ago.

"And in America, because of her appearance, she is seen as Chinese and perpetually foreign (after all, she can't even grow up to be President ..."

I just found your blog through google search. I have read a lot of them and thoroughly enjoyed them. I can relate to many of the things you have written about raising bi-cultural kids. I am Chinese from Fujian, China, and educated in Xiamen University in the 80's (that's how I
stumbled upon your blogs when googling with keywords 'Xiamen Blogs by Americans'). I left Xiamen in 1989 for the U.S. and have never had a chance to visit XiaDa since. I have been to China many times, though. Since my wife and I are both Chinese, our kids are naturally - you guess it right - Chinese-looking. Our kids speak Chinese at home and we have a Chinese nanny
who doesn't speak English. That helps with their Chinese. Just like you, I want my kids to feel comfortable being American as well as Chinese. As far as I can tell(from other older Chinese kids born and raised in America), it's very hard for Chinese-looking kids to feel American even though they are born in America and speak unaccented English. No matter how hard they try, they will still be viewed as Chinese. My 8-year old daughter was very heart broken one day when two of her best friends at school decided not to let her sit with them and told her that "We have lighter skin. You have darker skin." Race issue will never be over.

BTW, on another post, you wrote that your Chinese students didn't think "China has a race issue since its people are homogeneous." Nothing can be farther away from the truth. Chinese have always been one of the most racist people in the history. Ask any of your Fujian, Guangdon, or other Southern students to tell you the literal meaning of the word 'foreigner' in
their dialect. It has a derogatory racist connoation. Maybe the English equivalent is "uncivilized barbarians"? Can you imagine anyone in America label another group as barbarians? Well, maybe except for the Southern rednecks. Those guys can even make a living poking fun at themselves. You should ask your students what they think if they are married to an African or black Indian? Chinese in general are fine with Caucasians but are not at all the case with black folks. We can only hope one day people would actually look at each other by the content of one's
character instead of the skin color.

If this were an exam, I'd just write "Discuss."

The Sight and Sound of Music

2007-06-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

We’ve had a very musical weekend so far, starting with last night’s pop/rock concert. Then this morning we headed out to Music Square, a park near the ocean with large rocks etched with the faces of famous composers (when Zoe saw the Music Square sign, she said, “Look, it’s a word puzzle just like Grandpa likes!”). We ended the day at a violin concert at the Art College.

We took the bus up Island Ring Road, going a little beyond Music Square, and then walked back along the Boardwalk. The girls didn’t have any desire to go into the sand – to rocky and full of debris – but we enjoyed the walk and the view. Can you see the smoke stacks and the tanker truck? This small island between Xiamen and Tiawan has much of the heavy industry of Xiamen. There won't be much of a view to enjoy if Xiamen doesn't get a handle on environmental regulation.

We even came upon a film crew shooting what looked to be a commercial for a newspaper – it was interesting to see the cameraman pulled on a railroad track in a semicircle around the actors to get the shot. Later the cameraman was on a small crane to get a bird’s-eye view.

The composers’ faces at Music Square were interesting – look closely, they have something in common. Can you tell what it is? Post your answer in the comments! (I'll give you a hint – you can only really see it in two of the three photos below.)

The composers were not the only musical thing in Music Square – this statue is said to be organ pipes, but I have to say they bring more to mind crossed sabers or 21-gun salutes.

Maybe that impression was reinforced by the brigade of soldiers/policemen we saw in the park (I’m not sure what they are – they’re not wearing the uniform I usually see Xiamen policemen in, and I haven’t seen army people in anything but cammo). But they weren’t too threatening, since they were obviously on some kind of frolic – they were all riding bicycles built for two, obviously rented from the concession on the boardwalk.

After we frolicked in the park for a while, we headed back to the street to find a bus stop. We never quite know whether the return bus stop will be ahead of us or behind us – they don’t usually parallel the stop on the other side of the road – so we just pick a direction and walk. It didn’t take us long to find our stop, and we got to see this terrifically ornate Buddhist temple along the way.

The bus ride home was a little peculiar – there was a very strange man who insisted on communicating with me. But this wasn’t the usual communication problem of not speaking the same language – I don’t think he could speak at all. He only grunted and gestured. It started out friendly, with him “asking” if the girls were mine, and giving me a thumbs-up when I said yes. He then held up 2 fingers – are they both yours? Again, I said yes, and I got another thumb’s up and then he put a finger in front of his lips -- my secret was safe with him! He then gestures in a way that suggests he’s impressed with my zaftig physique – more thumb’s ups. Then he gestures to the bus driver, pointing at him viciously with his middle finger – pointing with the middle finger is considered very rude in China. He then makes gestures suggesting he wants to cut the bus driver’s throat! Yipes, will this ride never end?! He then gestures that he wants me to give him money, and I say no. He gestures again, I say no (in Chinese). He is no longer enamoured of my shape, it seems. And he gestures to show I’m a big-nose (Chinese sometimes call Caucasians big-noses, but this is the first time I’ve gotten that). Then he makes praying-hands gestures and points – he’s going to Nanputuo temple. Then more thumbs-ups for the girls. FINALLY the bus reaches our stop, which is his stop, too. That’s when I decide we’re not heading straight home from the bus stop and we go to a restaurant for an early lunch instead. He did not follow us, and I have no idea if he would have done anything if we'd headed home, but I really think he was not quite right in the head.

We’d gotten an email last week from the waiban’s office saying that there was a violin concert at the Art College, so we decided to check it out. The Art College is not close to us – you have to pass the law school to get there – but it seems a shame to live on a college campus and not take advantage of the things going on here. So after dinner, we headed out. It was a pleasant walk, and with the sun setting the temperature was more bearable. Forty-five minutes of walking, and we passed the lion statues guarding the entrance to the Art College.

The concert was quite good, all Western composers, and there was a student announcer who repeated everything in English which was very helpful. That’s how I know it was a Freshman concert; I would never have guessed it since the students seemed quite polished. About half-way through the concert I noticed something strange – all the students were female. Even the piano accompanists were female. Later there were two accompanists who were male, but it turned out that all the violinists were female. I have no idea why – maybe the male concert is next week?! Some of the pieces lagged, and a few seemed like overreaching for the student’s level, but most of it was excellent. The last piece was a piece for four violins, and it was wonderful. The girls really enjoyed the concert, though it was over-long for them. They behaved beautifully, though.

We walked back through campus, which is still very busy after dark. Despite Friday’s lunch conversation about rampant crime in Xiamen, I feel perfectly safe on campus. Still, it was a little disconcerting to see a police car parked near one of the apartment areas, with men with flashlights seeming to search the bushes. We just stayed with the crowds and walked on by. If men with flashlights had been in the park as we walked through, they wouldn’t have found criminals, they would have found canoodling couples. The park after dark is THE place to get romantic, since most students share dorm rooms with a minimum of three other students and no one has a car for make-out sessions. But as early as we walked through, no one was being very overt and I didn’t feel the need to cover the girls’ eyes!

It didn’t take the girls long to drop off to sleep tonight, and I’m not far behind them. We certainly enjoyed our day of musical "culture" today.

Friday Roundup

2007-06-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

We’ve had a pretty quiet week – surprisingly busy, but no blockbuster events.

Monday. I finally managed to buy airline tickets for us to go to Chengdu next week. I promised the kids we’d go to the Wolong Panda Research Center, where they actually have baby pandas you can hold (for a fee – I mean, for a “donation!”). Buying airline tickets shouldn’t be that hard, but it can be complicated here. The easy part – there’s a travel company with an English website, and they deliver tickets for free. The hard part – arranging payment and telling them where to find us to deliver the tickets.

You can pay cash, but that means trips to the bank over consecutive days to pull out 2,000 yuan at a time to amass enough money, or changing money, which entails looong lines at the bank. Or you can pay by credit card – that should be easy, right? Wrong! I decided to try the credit card payment this time. First, it can’t be done on the website, it has to be done over the phone. No problem, a very nice gentleman speaking excellent English took down my information. But it seems you have to physically sign a “Letter of Authorization” to charge the credit card and send it to them. No problem, they faxed it to me and I just needed to fax it back. PROBLEM! The fax number is not toll-free; it’s a long-distance call to Beijing. My office phone/fax doesn’t allow long-distance calls. So I go down the hill to the store to buy a phone card, and then back up the hill to the law school. Now, how hard can it be to figure out the phone card? Yes, it’s all in Chinese, but I can see I’m supposed to dial one number, key in two other numbers, and then put in the phone number. Easy, right? Not so fast – it doesn’t seem to matter what I do, I can’t complete the call. And I certainly can’t understand the recorded voice on the phone. I wander down the hall to find someone to help, and find an English-speaking student. It seems I’m supposed to also key in the number I’m calling from. Where does it say that on the card? It doesn’t! Still, with the student’s help the fax is sent.

They promise to deliver the tickets between 5 and 6 p.m. At 6 p.m., the phone calls start – a Chinese voice saying something incomprehensible, me replying that I don’t speak Chinese. The caller hangs up. A few minutes later, the same caller, more Chinese, hangs up. Last time this happened, I had to take my cell phone downstairs to the porter to have him talk to the caller, but this one keeps hanging up before I can do that! But he found me anyway – the tickets were delivered with only 3 hang-up phone calls and no trips downstairs!

It was good timing for the ticket delivery, because we were meeting an out-of-town colleague for dinner at 6. Trish is a law professor and a Fulbrighter at Wuhan University, and she came to give a speech at the law school here. The law school arranged for her and her husband, Eric, to stay at our guesthouse. (When I told Zoe that Trish and Eric were coming and staying at the guesthouse, she excitedly asked if she and Maya could spend the night with them. This struck me as a trifle odd – they only met Trish and Eric once at orientation in Guangzhou, and I hadn’t thought they’d made such a deep impression on the girls. But later I heard Zoe explain to Maya that Trish and Eric were only staying one night (true) because they had to return to America to take care of our house. Ohhhh, she thought I meant Cousin Aaron and ERICA, who are staying in our house while we’re gone!) We had a nice dinner, and Trish and Eric’s surprise over each dish reminded me of how regional Chinese food is. The food they get in Hubei Province is very different from what is served here (they said just about everything in Wuhan comes swimming in oil).

Tuesday. I taught my class Tuesday morning, so could not attend Trish’s lecture, but the Vice-Dean included me in the lunch afterwards. Class went well; we started talking about the Fourth Amendment limitations on police searches. When we talked about the requirement of warrants before many searches, I asked if the Chinese system required warrants and was a bit surprised when they assured me that it did. But, I learned, warrants are issued by the police or the prosecutor, not a judge. So it seems warrants here are more akin to subpoenas.

Lunch was nice, at the restaurant in the Yifu Building near our apartment. But the most exciting thing about it was that the Vice-Dean actually drove us there from the law school. Ahhh, a ride in an air-conditioned car, instead of a 40-minute walk in the midday heat! Doesn’t take much to make me happy . . . .

Wednesday. I decided to take the bus to Metro, a store akin to Wal-Mart, but German-owned instead of American-owned. Expats rave about it because it has imported food items like cheese, but it is very far from us – about an hour’s ride by bus, so we haven’t bothered to go. I went mostly out of curiosity, but picked up a few items of clothing for the girls and some foodstuffs. Remember I said that if you buy imports it can get expensive? I bought a package of tri-color rotini pasta for 29 yuan – about $4. Not bad, but I can buy a package of Chinese noodles that will provide 8 meals for 3.2 yuan – only 40 cents. I also bought a small jar of spaghetti sauce for 39 yuan ($5) and a small package of grated parmesan cheese for only 10 yuan ($1.30). The girls were excited to have “Italian” food for dinner for a change. And I can get one more meal out of the ingredients. Still, $10.30 for two meals is pretty expensive for us these days!

And after dinner, the girls put on a fashion show with the new purchases – which was when I realized that the shirt I bought Zoe had a broken zipper. Soooooo . . .

Thursday. Another hour trip to Metro to exchange the blouse, and an hour trip home again. Sigh. The exchange was simpler than I thought it would be – I only had to talk to five different people and fill out two different forms!

I’m still teaching English in Zoe’s and Maya’s classes each week, and because of scheduling conflicts I ended up doing them back-to-back on Thursday afternoon. The kids are learning amazingly quickly, and we’ve progressed through greetings, colors, fruits, parts of the body, counting, and now articles of clothing (they giggled like crazy when I held up a dress in front of a boy). We’re also saying “I like to eat” and then adding our fruit words. Our song list includes Twinkle, Twinkle; Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes; I Like to Eat Apples & Bananas; If You’re Happy and You Know It; and then my made-up Hello, Hello, How Are You? song. We added plurals Thursday, but I think that’s beyond Maya’s class. Zoe’s class seemed to get it, though, and I had them all saying, “One shoe, two shoessssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. One girl, two girlsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. One eye, two eyessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.” I’m having a ball doing it, but it’s exhausting — I don’t know how kindergarten teachers do it all day!

Friday. Remember when I spoke to a History Department class – History of American Intellectual Thought? Well, the professor hosted a luncheon today to thank me, and most of the students from the seminar came. It was great fun talking to them again, and they had great questions again. One student told a sad story of a friend of hers who caused two deaths in a drunk driving incident, and she wondered what would happen in America. More interesting to me was what would happen here – if he pays compensation to the victim’s family, he can avoid a criminal conviction and jail time. They were all incredulous that there are two systems, criminal and civil, in American law, and that both would deal with the accident. They tell me that criminal law is seen very much like tort law, designed to vindicate the injury of the victim not the interests of the state. The professor was very passionate about the legal system, saying that in China there is no justice. He asked me if I had read the Chinese Constitution, and when I told him I had he asked what I thought of it. I told him I thought it was a beautiful document, but completely meaningless since no citizen could sue to enforce it. He agreed, saying again that there’s no justice in China. He also said that crime is rampant in China. I said I was shocked to hear it, since I feel so much safer here than in America, but he insisted that there are murders and stabbings and robberies every day in Xiamen in the areas where the “lower classes” live. I evinced surprise, saying I thought China was a classless society, and everyone laughed.

The restaurant specialized in Sichuan food, which is much spicier than food in Xiamen. I think the professor asked them to tone it down for me, though, because it wasn’t very hot at all. It was very tasty, though. When I arrived at the restaurant, he asked me if there was anything I wouldn’t eat, and I said no. He asked, very surprised, “Rabbit? You’d eat rabbit?” Yes, I said, my mother used to cook rabbit with a very nice wine gravy – a French dish. “Frog? You’d eat frog?” Sure, why not? We get this reaction all the time – Americans have quite the reputation as timid eaters here in China.

I said I was glad to try Sichuan food before going there next week (Chengdu is in Sichuan Province), and we talked travel for a while. He said he had not taken his kids to Beijing to climb the Great Wall yet, that he wanted to wait until his youngest was old enough to walk a mile on his own so he didn’t end up carrying him the whole time. I asked how old his youngest is, and he’s 5 and a half! Amazing! I guarantee Maya would climb every step of the Great Wall on her own.

The professor had one of his students meet me at my apartment and walk me to the restaurant, not far away at all, and she insisted on walking me back even though I said I knew perfectly well the way. She fielded three or four phone calls along the way, and apologized, saying she was the vice president of the Student Union and was in charge of a concert this evening. The girls and I had noticed the stage in the park as we walked to school this morning. The student told me it was a very famous singer who was coming to perform, and that his concert would be broadcast live on Xiamen radio. So the girls and I decided to check it out this evening.

The concert started 40 minutes late – I wonder how that plays out when it’s being broadcast? And after the first song the girls were ready to go! They liked the pre-concert activity, where the stage managers were checking the fog machine, the bubble machine, the flame machine (cheesy, huh?!), but weren’t too excited by the music. I can’t blame them – I thought the singer was pretty bad and the staged stuff was pretty tame. I thought it was funny, though, that this rock concert for college students started off with a speech by a college administrator in shirt and tie!

Well, that’s our week. If you made it this far, remember that I did warn you that nothing exciting had happened this week. Imagine, I can write over 35 inches about nothing!

More About the PX Plant & Protests

2007-06-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting story about the protests in Xiamen over the building of the PX plant. The article says the number of protestors could have been as high as 10,000. Wow!

Despite efforts by local Public Security Bureau technicians to block the
cellphone campaign, thousands of people heeded the alarm during the last days of
May. Despite warnings from city hall and a large turnout of uniformed and
plainclothes police, they marched in hot, muggy weather through the streets of
Xiamen to protest the chemical factory being built on Haicang, an industrial and
residential island across a narrow strait from downtown Xismen.

The demonstrations were largely peaceful, except for pushing against
policemen lined up to stop the march, witnesses said. About 8,000 to 10,000
people participated the first day and half that many the second day.

The whole article is interesting, focusing on how text messaging and blogging spread the word about the protests.

Smoking & Spitting

2007-06-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

A.M.B.A. in MI asks: 1) Smoking? What's it like in restaurants, on campus, etc? and 2) Spitting? Is it that prevalent as I have heard?

I’ve been pleasantly surprised to note a reduction in both since I last was in China. In 1991 in Beijing, the clouds of smoke everywhere was completely toxic. I swear, every man, woman and child in China was smoking two cigarettes at a time! And I remember how shocked I was to see people not just spitting, but spitting indoors on the carpet, and then rubbing it in with their shoes! In 2001 there was less smoking and spitting, and in 2005 it seemed even less as well. I think 2007 has brought even more of a reduction. But it might be different in other parts of the country -- I can really only speak about Xiamen.

I asked my students about smoking, since I wondered if maybe college students simply couldn’t afford to smoke. They said no, people were learning more about the health dangers of smoking so were choosing not to smoke. And many of the places we go – stores, restaurants, busses – have no-smoking signs. Of course, oftentimes people will blatantly ignore such signs, puffing away directly under them. But I really think smoking is on the decline. You still see more smokers here than in the U.S., and Zoe and Maya will point them out to me and declaim in a loud voice, “He’s smoking! He’s going to get sick and die!” They did the same thing with bike riders with no helmets when we first got here, but they couldn’t keep that up – NONE of them have helmets! We’re lucky that most people don’t understand them when they point out perceived wrong-doing.

Spitting is also on the decline. There is actually a concerted campaign in place to get people to stop spitting in public in preparation for the Olympics. But you’ll still see spitting and nostril clearing onto the ground and nose-picking and people cleaning out their ears with their keys. There seems to be much more openness about bodily functions – no one apologizes for a burp or finds it necessary to cover a cough. Every restaurant has toothpicks on the table, because it is perfectly acceptable to pick your teeth after a meal, so long as you do it behind your hand so no one can see your teeth! And we see kids peeing and pooping all over the place. (I watched a little boy poop on the sidewalk at the bus stop today, and then his father put him over his knee to do a close and thorough cleaning. We all got to see EVERYTHING!)

Like I keep telling Zoe, what’s rude and what’s not depends on where you are. And none of these things is rude in China. They think it equally disgusting that we eat with our hands – you’ll only rarely see a Chinese person touching food with hands. And what’s the idea of sitting down on a toilet that someone else has been sitting on?! Completely disgusting!

One of the great things about being here in China now while the girls are so young is that they are just so accepting of all of these differences. I was a little concerned that they might decide they didn’t like China because of these different habits, different levels of hygiene, the infamous squat potty, etc. But they have been so open to everything. Being this young makes everything an adventure, and when you have so little life experience the unusual just looks like the usual. The interesting part will be how they adjust to going back home. That nose-picking thing just won’t cut it in Fort Worth!

Reflections on Guangxi Province Visit

2007-06-27T05:42:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I promised a look back at our homecoming trip to Guangxi Province, so here it is. We’re all still processing the trip, and will be for years to come, I suspect. The girls are still talking about the trip practically every day, and it’s been quite a springboard into discussions of their birthparents and how they came to be adopted. I think it was a really positive experience for us all.

Zoe really seems to feel good about her reception at Guiping SWI – she keeps saying wonderingly, “They were so excited to see me!” I’m not sure, though, that she really comprehended what her finding place was about. Since we’ve been back, she’s wanted to play-act several times her being left there and being found, but the play hasn’t really acquired more details since we visited Guiping. She doesn’t want to deal with specifics, it seems – at least, she doesn’t want to since she clarified that she wasn’t buried in her finding spot (I think I’ve figured out where that comes from – pirates “find” things, and those things are always buried. I’m still OK with calling it her finding place, despite this, because I think it’s better than many other alternatives, but be forewarned!). It's OK that she doesn't quite get it yet -- I have pictures and lots to tell her as she gets older. And we'll be back.

Maya seemed to have more difficulty with meeting her foster parents than I thought she would since she's usually so laid back – she’s young enough that the experience was very confusing, I think. But I still think it was on balance positive; she just needed lots of reassurances that she was my daughter forever and that no one could take her away. And it was good she actually saw that in action – here are these other people who seem to have a claim on her, but still she came home with me. And Maya has always been really good about asking for exactly what she wants – even before she could speak English, she would move my arm so I held her precisely as she wanted to be held. And her latest version of that is to put words in my mouth: “Mama, say ‘You’re my daughter forever and no one can take you away.’” So reassuring her has been easy because she tells me exactly what she needs to hear! And the requests for reassurance are getting fewer and fewer now. . . .

So were the girls too young for this return trip to Guangxi Province? Yes and no. I think they would have gotten a lot more out of the visit if they had been older, but it’s not like we can’t go back and visit again when they are older. At different ages, the homecoming trip can be about different things.

In a lot of ways, this was a fact-finding and fact-preserving mission more than anything else. I could talk to Maya’s foster mom while her memories of Maya’s time with her were still fresh, for example. I could see the orphanage file before it was destroyed (who knows what can happen – records burn in fires, get lost, or get destroyed because of changes in policy about record retention). And with all the growth and development in China, with the consequent tearing-down and building-up, we could see things that might not be there in a few years – the old orphanage building in Guiping, for example. And I could get pictures to preserve scenes that might soon be gone or changed. And I just couldn’t see being in China and NOT going back.

Being here in China, it was tempting to arrange everything on our own, and if we had the trip probably would have been cheaper. But I’m really glad we used OCDF, which handles lots of these homeland tours. I needed to be able to give the girls complete attention to deal with the emotional issues, and I had my own emotional fall-out to deal with, too. So it was really good to have someone else arrange everything for us. It was also good to have another family with kids along for parts of the trip. Having other kids to play with made it a real pleasure for Zoe and Maya. But I’m really glad we didn’t have another family with us when we visited Mother’s Love and Guiping SWI. With it being only us, the girls could really revel in the attention they were getting and see that the people there were genuinely interested in them, and only them. So we had the best of all possible worlds – a very small travel group, alone time at the important times, and other kids for the girls to play with when we needed it.

The most surprising thing for me in visiting Guangxi Province was the utter poverty of rural life in China. It’s so easy to forget that when you spend most of your time in urban China, especially here in Xiamen which has really benefited from China’s economic expansion. I think I understand much better the economic devastation the fine for over-quota birth would cause; it’s easier to see the desperation for someone to care for you in your old age when there is no pension to rely on and the family seems barely on the right side of survival.

I can’t know or fully understand what motivated Zoe’s and Maya’s birth families, but being there, more than any books or articles I’ve read, showed the stark reality of rural life in China.

Answers II: Cost of Living and Education

2007-06-26T04:17:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth asks: What would an average family make per month in Xiamen?
According to the Xiamen government website, the average income of rural residents of Xiamen is about 520RMB ($68) per month. The average income of city residents is 950RMB ($124) per month. Obviously, that average takes in a lot of people, some of them very, very poor. Remember that my law students would consider a salary of 5000RMB ($625) per month an appropriate salary for them.

Would that $250 include groceries? Yes, the $250 I withdraw from the bank each month includes groceries! Really, it costs so little to live here it’s unbelievable! Now, if we insisted on buying a lot of American foods -- cereal, peanut butter, etc. -- our costs would icrease a lot. But "going Chinese" it is really, really cheap.

China doesn't have a free public school system like in US? No, but it is moving toward such a system. It started by waiving tuition and fees for rural school children, and now it’s doing the same in some urban areas (not yet in Beijing and Shanghai, where I’m told education is VERY expensive). The parents here in Xiamen tell me that the program has come here and school fees for primary and secondary school (the 9 years of compulsory schooling) are only 400RMB a year – about $50! I had to keep asking because I couldn’t quite believe it, since kindergarten is 6,000RMB (about $800) a year! They said they laugh about that all the time, and claim the kindergarten must think they are training college students. But primary and secondary school is much cheaper. High school, not part of the compulsory education system with a tuition break, costs 6,000-10,000RMB a year. College also runs about 5,000-10,000RMB a year. And one of my students told me there is a new government program for loans to pay college fees. If you pay the loans off within a few years of graduating, they are interest-free.

Remember I mentioned a few weeks ago that high school students were taking the national college entrance exams? Well, the scores came out this weekend -- fast, huh? And these are students who are graduating and going to college in the fall, not a year in advance like we tend to take college boards. I'm sure there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when the scores were reported. The score determines whether you can go to college at all, because there are not enough college seats for everyone who applies. And the score determines which college you can attend. This is much more serious than in the U.S., where just about anyone can get into some college if they want to go, and where colleges look at more than test scores.

I also learned while in Guangxi Province that China has affirmative action! Members of the 52 or so recognized minority groups can be admitted to college with lower scores because of China's concern about their underrepresentation in government and other aspects of civil society.

China has stated a strong interest in reforming its education system, and part of that is to make education available to more and more people. They are rapidly expanding colleges and starting new ones, and I think this tuition waiver program is a wonderful one.

Still, one of the biggest problems is in rural areas, where there are not enough schools and not enough teachers. Many children have to attend boarding schools just because there are no schools close to them. When we were in the farming village in Yangshuo, I saw no children at all, and asked Cristy about it. She said it was likely that the students were in boarding school. But Yangshuo was only a short distance away, I said. But, she said, most farmers wouldn't have any way to get the children to school daily, even at what looks like short distances to us. And at times the roads may be impassable because of rain. So, boarding school it is.

And then another problem for rural children is that oftentimes they have to stay with relatives in their rural village when their parents go to the city to work because the parents can't afford the higher cost of education in the city. Even with tuition waivers available in the city, migrant children are not eligible for them. They're only eligible for tuition waivers where they are registered, and that is the place where they are born. It's almost impossible to change your place of registration (I know one Beijing resident who is married and has lived there for 10 years, but she is still registered in Inner Mongolia, where she was born.) So migrant children who go to the city with their parents either do not attend schools or they attend illegal schools set up by the migrants themselves. Not surprisingly, the quality of these schools is not great and many times the buildings are dangerous.

So China's education system is improving, but there is still a long way to go. But then, the same could be said for American public education, huh?!

3. . . 2 . . . 1. . . CONTACT!

2007-06-25T05:01:00.000-07:00

I've had a few requests lately about how to contact me, so I've updated my profile with an email address. Please use responsibly! I'll still try to answer questions in the comments so only email if you have something that you don't want to leave in comments, ok?

Re-Running the Marathon

2007-06-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

Today was another scorcher, but I couldn’t see keeping the kids cooped up in the apartment for another day, as tempting as the air-conditioning is! So we headed out early in the hopes of getting a little fun in before it got too warm. We decided to take the bus from Beach Gate to the International Exhibition Center – we could explore a new stretch of waterfront and see the life-size statues of runners from the Xiamen marathon (we watched the marathon back in March, and had seen the statues along the Island Ring Road when we took Mimi to the airport).

My hopes for sea breezes to cool us down were not realized; there was nary a ripple on the water. We saw, though, that there were kiosks renting bicycles, even bicycles built for 3! Despite much pleading from the girls, I resisted. Maybe we'll do it another time . . . .

Still, the girls enjoyed the statues of marathoners and had to re-enact the event.

Running . . . See, they're neck and neck with the leader! Those other runners don't stand a chance -- after all, it's a little hard to compete when you're carrying an umbrella!

Helping out at the water stop . . . After all, they are so far in the lead they can afford to help out (I hope it doesn't turn out to be one of those tortoise-and-the-hare things!)

Even photographing the winners . . . Wait a minute, how will Zoe photograph herself winning the marathon?!

Here's the solution -- Zoe suggested we take one more picture “in front of the flowers for Mimi!” So I guess this is the girls in the “winner’s circle,” having won the Xiamen International Marathon!

That was enough fun in the sun for all of us, so we hopped a bus back to Beach Gate. We stopped at the market for some fruit, went to the store for some baked goods for breakfast tomorrow, and then jiggedy-jigged home to blessed air-conditioning! Ahhhhhh!

Answers

2007-06-24T04:12:00.000-07:00

Wow! Y’all sure have a lot of interesting questions. Here are some answers:

Wendy asks: Can Chinese citizens apply to go out of the country and automatically get that request? We were wondering about inviting Madeline's foster mother to America sometime, could she come easily or is the process to get a visa to come to our country difficult or permission to travel a problem? I don’t know if there’s a problem on the China end, but it is pretty hard to get a visa on the American end. I hear from students all the time how difficult it is to get a visa, though the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou says 87% of visa requests are granted (I wonder if they include orphan visas in that?!). That 87% definitely includes all the education visas, and it’s my impression that those are easier to get than tourist visas. I’ll never forget a really heart-wrenching scene I saw at the consulate when waiting in line to get in for Zoe’s visa. An elderly Chinese woman was prostrate on the ground, sobbing, with family members trying to get her up and moving, with a guard standing stony-faced above her. I asked our guide what was going on, and she said the woman’s request for a visa to visit family in America had been turned down again. Oh, I don't know if you ever got my email about the minority outfits? Sorry, Wendy, I didn’t get an email, though I think I remember you posting a comment about it. I’ll be happy to bring one home with us, and we’ll figure out at the end of July how to get it to you, ok?

AmericanFamily asks: 1) What did your kids like best about moving to China? Zoe says, “I like that we’re back where we came from and I like that there are English people [of course she means English-speaking people, but anyone who does -- including Chinese people -- are English!) to talk to whenever we need.” Maya says, “I like going to the new school because we play." (What the heck has she been doing in preschool in American?!) There you have it, from the sources! 2) What was the hardest part? The hardest part for me is actually the loss of independence. I’m used to doing most everything on my own, but now I can barely manage daily life – figuring out what the teacher’s note says, getting a new ink cartridge for my printer from the graduate secretary, calling to make airline reservations – without having someone help me because of the language barrier. There are LOTS of things I can do now that I couldn't do so easily when we first got here, but I'm always running up against new ones, it seems). 3) Have you picked up any easy and delicious Chinese recipes? Any from Guangxi province? I wish! But I’m not really much of a cook. I’ve managed fried rice and fried noodles and I can cook simple veggies, but that’s about it. My two huge discoveries, though, that will definitely help me at home – electric rice cookers are WONDERFUL! and it is way easy to boil or steam frozen dumplings (I know I’ve seen them in the frozen foods section of the Chinese grocery store at home, and now I’ll be eager to buy them). 4) Do the law students you teach know about the huge demand for Chinese "legal consultants" to work at international law firms, even though they would have to give up their Chinese law license? If so, are they interested in those jobs? Do most of your students plan to work for law firms? (My husband is a lawyer and we have been researching how law firms work in China). Hardly any of my students want to work for law firms. First of all, the bar pass rate in China is only 10%. Second, the huge demand for Chinese “legal consultants” is actually being filled by law faculty, not law students! Some of my colleagues here are making a mint doing consulting work – I know one of them drives a brand-spanking-new red Jaguar. Most of my students want to work for the government. Now, this could be because Xiada is not one of the top-rated law schools in China – it’s a good school, but lower on the totem pole than schools in Beijing and Shanghai.

Elizabeth asks: Is there something you really wanted to do or experience in China that you haven't had the chance to do yet? Yes, I had really hoped to volunteer at the local orphanage. But I ended up not making it a priority, and now time is running out and I don’t even have permission to visit much less volunteer. I do hope to visit, though. Is there something that took you by surprise since you've been in China? Like a stereotype or image that we as Americans expect, but really isn't the norm? The stereotype I kept bumping up against is what I’ve termed “Mulan Syndrome” – the tendency to think of Chinese culture as it was rather than what it is. So it always surprised me to hear Chinese hip-hop, see modern dance, etc. I was also warned before coming here that Chinese people are very reserved and uncomfortable talking about sex, which was going to be a problem in teaching Women & American Law, I thought. How could we teach sexual harassment, date rape, etc., without talking about sex?! Well, that just wasn’t the case. Students watch “Sex in the City” and “Desperate Housewives” and are quite eager to talk about ALL kinds of things. I had also been told that that Chinese reserve meant that it was hard to make friends here, and that really hasn’t been the case. Everyone has been very friendly, even inviting us to their homes. And I guess I half-expected everyone to be dourly suffering under an oppressive regime – and I found instead that most everyone is pretty happy and pretty competent at working around that oppressive regime. That’s what strikes me now – I’ll keep thinking about it!

Dee asks: I heard there were movies for sale everywhere in China, dirt cheap. Have you seen this? Absolutely! DVDs can be had for about $1. But buying them definitely has the pig-in-a-poke problem – since it is all boot-leg, you have no idea the actual quality of the image and you have no idea what language it will be in. Some of the folks from the consulate in Guangzhou were laughing about that, while disclaiming any personal experience since as consular officials they shouldn’t be condoning the buying of bootlegs. But one said he ended up buying 4 different DVDs of a current American movie before he got one in English – and the problem wasn’t that they were in Chinese, one version he got was in Russian!

A.M.B.A. in MI asks: The family (DH and two kids ages 5 and 4) and I will be moving to Kunming China in August. Will you please do an entry on money - how much daily stuff costs, travel costs, unexpected costs, etc.? We'll be making very little money (teaching university level English) and everyone says we'll do just fine, but I'm a bit skeptical. I'd really like to stay within our Chinese salaries and not raid our home account too much, if possible. We will have a housing allowance. Thanks for your input. Wow, you’re in for an adventure! How wonderful! I hope you plan to keep a blog – if you do, give us the link to follow your “Kunming Adventure!” Things really are cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap. I basically go to the ATM machine at the beginning of the month and get 2,000 RMB (about $250) and that takes care of all our usual expenses for the month. And we’re not trying to do it on the cheap – we eat out 3-4 times a week and it seems every time I got to Trust-Mart I come home with new shoes or a new outfit for the girls.

We have free housing, including utilities, so I can’t give you much guidance on those. I’d think you can get a comfortable middle-class two-bedroom apartment here for 1500-2000 yuan per month ($200-250). Our single largest expense was the girls’ school tuition – around 3600 yuan each for the semester – but that’s about $100 per month for each of them, and that sure beats the heck out of what I was paying at home! I really haven’t paid any systematic attention to prices, but here’s a sampling of things we’ve bought recently to give you kind of an idea:

Dinner at Lin Duck House (fried rice, clams, scrambled eggs with mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, 2 cans of Sprite) – 48 yuan ($6)
2 popsicles – 2 yuan (25 cents)
2 600 ml Cokes – 5 yuan (65 cents)
1 620 ml Chinese beer – 5 yuan
1 just-add-water cup of ramen noodles – 3.3 yuan (45 cents)
Package of spring onion saltine crackers – 2.3 yuan (30 cents)
1 package cheese (like the “Laughing Cow” variety) – 12.5 yuan ($1.65 – cheese is hard to find and relatively expensive here)
Baby bok choy (enough for 2-3 meals) – 3.5 yuan (45 cents – veggies are VERY cheap)
Plums (about 10) – 6 yuan (50 cents)
Grapes (about 5 pounds) 31 yuan ($4 – fruit is expensive, comparatively speaking)
New Disney Princess backpack (Zoe’s was destroyed by overpacking!) – 79 yuan ($10)
Pastries for breakfast – 6 yuan (50 cents)

Daily travel is also cheap – 1 yuan for unairconditioned bus, 2 yuan if it has airconditioning; taxis rarely run me more than 18 yuan ($2) wherever I go in Xiamen (except for the airport, which is about as far from Xiada as any place can be, and then that’s about a $10 ride). Train travel is very cheap – it was less than $60 for all three of us from Nanning to Guilin. Plane travel is a bit more – for 3 round-trip tickets from Xiamen to Shanghai, it was around $400.If you’re interested in looking at in-China flight prices, I suggest eLong.com (they have an English website).

You didn’t ask, but let me mention two things you’ll find it nigh-on impossible to find in China, based on my experience and what I’ve heard from other expats – deodorant and sunscreen. So bring as much as you’ll need!

The only unexpected expense so far has been replacing the 2 fillings that fell out of my teeth – a $75 dentist visit. Hope this helps!

Mimi asks: Did you have time to go look for musical instruments for the girls? And did you have time to go see a ballet class? No, and no! We still have time, though . . . .

Keep on asking, and I'll keep on answering!

A GOOD Job

2007-06-23T05:54:00.000-07:00

When my class visited the courthouse in Xiamen, we were on the bus for about one hour there and one hour back. It was interesting talking to the students during that time. I was asking one student what she wanted to do when she graduated, and she said, "I just want a good job." Of course I had to ask -- what makes a job a good job? Her immediate reply, "Making 5,000 RMB per month." (That's about $650.00) . What about job satisfaction? It isn't important, she said.

I thought that was a curious response since the student told me she disliked the job she had between college and law school. She worked for the government as kind of an "Internal Affairs" investigator, or as she put it, "We looked for people to discipline who had made mistakes in their work or personal lives." And she added, in what I took to be understatement, "People did not like us very much."

But if it's a good job, she said -- that is, one earning 5,000 RMB per month -- "it doesn't matter."

Q & A

2007-06-23T04:02:00.001-07:00

We did absolutely nothing today, so I have absolutely nothing to post about! (And I mean we did "absolutely nothing" -- we never left the apartment, wallowing in the airconditioning. It was a brutally hot day, and there just didn't seem to be anything sufficiently intriguing to lure us outside. Not to mention we didn't get much sleep last night. It seems that drunken revels to celebrate graduation are universal; last night there was a huge group of young men celebrating in front of the restaurant that shares our concrete courtyard. The celebration included lots of yelling, drunken singing, and lots and lots and lots of posing shirtless for the camera while doing body-building poses. This went on for HOURS!).

So how about y'all tell me what to post about. Are there any burning questions you want to ask? Leave them in the comments, and I'll try to post answers. I can't always post to the comments -- part of that net nanny thing -- so if you've asked something in the past and I haven't answered, ask again and I'll answer on the blog this time.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch . . .

2007-06-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

Now that I’ve finally posted all of our vacation pictures (not ALL of them, though I know it seems that way to y’all! I’m worse than those people who invite you over and then force you to view thousands of vacation slides (“There are the kids in front of a rice field. . . . There they are in a truck . . . . There we are on a bike!”)), it feels like our vacation is truly over.

Back here in Xiamen, we’re settling into our daily routines again. The girls are back in school, though the hot weather has intensified the “measles check” as we enter the front door (that's what the teacher is doing to Maya in the picture above, while Zoe waits her turn). Remember the trouble I had getting the school to agree that the girls didn’t need a measles booster? They were insistent that come summer there was grave danger of a measles epidemic? Well, they’re pretty serious about it. Before summer, we just had a teacher checking their faces and hands to make sure they were clean, and trimming their fingernails if they thought them too long. Now, the school nurse or a teacher probes their necks for swollen glands, lays her hand on their foreheads to check for fever, has them open their mouths and peers down their throats, and scrutinizes any visible bumps. Today the bug bite on Zoe’s face got close attention from the teacher, who passed her on to the nurse, who promptly said “no problem!”

The short summer term has started and I’ve already taught my first of 5 classes. I’m teaching American Criminal Procedure, and again my class is small – only 8 students. We’ve just covered introductory material so far, but I’m hoping to learn a lot from them about Chinese criminal procedure. I’m not sure how much I can teach about American criminal procedure – I have a grand total of 11.5 hours of instruction time for the term and now only 9 hours left.

As usual, I spent quite a long time answering student questions at the beginning. I hope it allows us to establish rapport, it gives me a chance to see their level of English competency, and it gives them a chance to get used to my English (every English speaker is different, after all) before we get to the important stuff. I tell them they can ask me anything they want, and it doesn’t have to be about law. They asked me the usual things – did I like Xiamen, why did I come to teach in China, where did I get my education. But one asked me what I thought of John Grisham’s novels, since he’d just finished reading one (translated into Chinese). I had to confess I’d never read one – I don’t read law stuff for pleasure or watch movies or TV about law because it tends to drive me crazy – I want to correct all the mistakes (I remember watching an episode of L.A. Law once where they called a “motion to quash” a “motion to squash!” That pretty much ended popular law entertainment for me!).

They also wanted to know what I thought about the PX plant. Remember the environmental protest I mentioned a few weeks back? Well, students are still really interested in the subject. I’ve learned a bit more about it from my students now. It seems that a Xiada professor of chemistry first alerted the government to the danger of the chemical, PX. She presented a report at the annual meeting of a political party other than the Communist Party of China (did you know there were other political parties in China? I didn’t. There are hundreds of other parties, but they do not exist in opposition to the Communist Party, but instead help them – or that’s how it’s been explained to me). Someone passed on her report to the CCCP, and somehow the public became aware of the potential health risks from this chemical plant. A student told me that the Xiada scientist would not get in any kind of trouble out of all of this because she is too well-known, being a leading member of the China Academy of Science, but also that she didn’t have anything to do with the protests, anyway.

People from the neighborhood where the plant is being built arranged the protest by sending out text messages to a million cell phone numbers in Xiamen (I might even have gotten one – I get tons of spam text messages each week, but it’s all in Chinese so I just delete it on the assumption that anyone who is really trying to reach me knows to write in English! I saw the text message on someone else’s phone, and the only English were the letters “PX.”). They arranged the protest for June 1, Children’s Day, saying that everyone needed to protest to protect the health of Xiamen’s children (clever, huh?).

When the government got wind of the protest, they sent out rival text messages telling people not to come to City Hall to protest, but instead to lodge their complaints with the government via a telephone hotline they set up. People showed up for the protest anyway, though students disagree about how many people were there and no one would admit to having been there so I don’t know if I’m getting eyewitness accounts – there were either 200-300 or 1,000 people (pretty small in a city the size of Xiamen, but a pretty big protest by China standards). I was also told that the protest made the government extremely nervous because it fell so close to the June 4 Tianenmen Square anniversary (someone told me that at his university (not Xiada) on June 4, students who were party members would wander the campus at night with armbands and flashlights looking for signs of any commemorations of Tianenmen Square and would quickly remove any they found).

After the June 1 protest, the government sent out another text message saying that building the plant had been suspended pending more study. I said to my students that it sounded like the protest had worked, and was everyone satisfied? Definitely not, was the answer. Students say they think the government will allow the chemical plant, because “it’s all about GDP,” as one student put it.

A student not in this class told me that she had written about the plant and the protest on her blog, and that it was deleted by the blog administrators. Around the same time, my access to “Blogger” was blocked again (China allows blogging, but only on blogs it can control, so Blogger is frequently – but not always – blocked in China). I had been able to reach it for a couple of months before I posted about the protest, but couldn’t thereafter. I don’t take it personally – I don’t think it was my actual blog post. I think they just tightened up the Great Firewall of China because of the June 4 anniversary. It’s pretty funny to be able to post to my blog but not read it (usually I can get there via a proxy server, but that hasn’t been completely reliable, either).

Anyway, I think it will be a fun class, judging from the questions and comments on the first day.

Xiada is a busy place right now. Graduation is June 24, but for the past few weeks we’ve seen students flitting around in academic regalia. They show up in bunches in front of the library, in front of the dorms, in the park, all posing for pictures. Students are packing up their belongings, and there are temporary weigh stations set up in front of the dorms by China Railway Express. The groundskeepers are working feverishly to beautify an already beautiful campus before the graduation ceremony. And parents are already in town, being toured around the campus by their graduates. Add to that the short, intense summer term, which I’m told most students attend, and we haven’t reached the hazy, lazy days of summer yet.

Still, people are looking ahead to the new school year, too. Zoe's kindergarten class went to visit the local primary school where most will attend, and Maya's class has been taken on a tour of the upstairs classrooms to where her "Class 2" students will graduate as they become "Class 3" in the fall. I’m astonished to think we have less than six weeks left in China, and that soon we'll be shipping our stuff and ourselves back home to prepare for our fall term there. It will be a busy six weeks for us, as we try to squeeze every drop of enjoyment from our time here.

More Photos From Yangshuo

2007-06-20T05:42:00.001-07:00

More Photos From Guilin

2007-06-20T04:41:00.001-07:00

Acckkk! Unforeseen Consequences. . .

2007-06-20T03:58:00.000-07:00

OK, I knew that going back to Guangxi meant there would be tons of questions from Zoe especially – about her birthparents, about her finding place, about the orphanage, about adoption. And sure enough we’ve had those (last night she asked if she was buried in the ground at her finding place, and I was able to reassure her that she was just on top of the ground. Thank goodness she asked – who knew she was worrying about that). But I didn’t expect it to spur the where-do-babies-come-from talk!

I’m not even sure how it happened – we were talking about how she might have gotten to her finding place and she suddenly asked, “How do babies get in the birthmother’s tummy?” And my answer, “They grow there,” just wasn’t going to cut it this time!

Yet another child-rearing moment when I wanted to say, “Wait a minute – let me do a little research on how best to explain it to you. Can you wait a few weeks?!” But they never can wait, can they? So we had to do the whole seed-egg, insert Tab A into Slot B thing, and then she wants to know how Aunt Kim and Uncle Phillip and I got in Mimi’s tummy. Ewwwwww, I really don’t want to think about that! It doesn’t seem to matter how old you are, you still don’t want to think of your parents having S-E-X!

Anyway, we both got through this rite of passage, and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. All her questions were answered, and I figured I wouldn’t have to go through THAT again for a while! And then on the way to school this morning she starts again, “Does it hurt when the man does that to the lady to make a baby?” Sigh. Here we go again.

Random Photos from Guiping

2007-06-19T23:04:00.001-07:00

An Evening Spent With Liu Sanjie

2007-06-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

Saturday was our last evening in Yangshuo, and we spent it at an outdoor performance that combined minority folk songs and glitzy movie effects. The production, called Impressions: the Story of Liu Sanjie, was conceived and directed by Zhang Yimou, a famous Chinese movie director. It is a “cast of thousands” show (ok, only 600 performers!) with lights and music. Most of it is performed on bamboo rafts in the river. The action was set too far from the audience for me to take any pictures (other than the one of Zoe and Maya saying plainly, “Start the show, already!”), but you can see some here and here and here. The most amazing scene was when dozens of boatmen on bamboo rafts pulled themselves along on long swaths of red cloth rising from the river. It was really impressive, with the music setting a furious pace for the action.

The setting for the performance was stunning – the stage was the Li River and the backdrop was strategically lit karst mountains. I don’t think anyone could have designed a more beautiful stage set. As a Guilin travel website says fulsomely, “Unlike the traditional artificial stage performance, the performance on the natural stage is a great work of man and god. No one knows how long this picturesque scenery has been waiting in rain and mists. Is its graceful image made for us?” Unfortunately, nature stopped cooperating after offering the stage set – the weather was terrible. It was incredibly hot and humid, and then it started to rain!

The show goes on, regardless of the weather, and they hand out “raincoats” at the entrance to the amphitheater. The raincoats were more like Saran wrap, and created quite a sauna-like effect in the heat! I decided I’d rather be wet from the rain rather than my own sweat, so I didn’t bother with the raincoat and only got a little wet. The girls chose to wear the raincoats and did fine with the heat.

The story for the hour-long show was a variation on the story of Liu Sanjie, a legendary figure in Zhuang tales (that’s why Zoe and Maya are wearing their Zhuang outfits – we’ve been looking for an excuse to wear them and a performance celebrating a Zhuang maiden seemed the perfect opportunity! They got quite a few compliments as we walked to our seats).

The stories place the year of Liu Sanjie’s birth at 703 A.D., and there are lots of different versions of her story. They all focus on her beautiful singing, though. In some she is a musical prodigy or called the Song Fairy and she leaves her fiancé and elopes with her lover. In others a wealthy landowner tries to make her his concubine because of her beautiful voice and she elopes with her fiancé; but most of them end with her becoming some kind of celestial being and ascending into heaven on a white crane or a carp. Some have her and her fiancé/lover turning into larks. None seem to have a particularly happy ending since Liu Sanjie ends up dead!

This version, according to Cristy, went like this: Liu Sanjie (Sanjie means “third daughter” – she was the third daughter of the family Liu) worked in the fields picking tea and always sang beautiful songs while she worked. She was in love with a local boy, and was happy all the time because he returned her love. An evil landowner was imposing cruel taxes on the people, and she organized them all against the landowner by singing beautiful songs. The landowner decided that the only way to stop her was to marry her as a concubine. She did not want to marry him, and the village people helped her and her fiancé to escape from him, and then overthrew the cruel landowner. Everyone lived happily ever after (except the cruel landowner who got what he deserved, the bourgeoisie pig!) I just loved the Communist Party spin on an old folk tale!

The show was pretty impressive, except for one weird scene – the shower scene. Liu Sanjie was being prepared to marry the evil landowner, which included taking a shower, and so to confuse him all the girls in the village also showered in the same waterfall and all of them claimed to be Liu Sanjie (kind of the Chinese version of “I am Sparticus. . . . No, I am Sparticus!”). This required much flitting around by apparently naked girls (they all had on body stockings). So much for the modesty of Chinese girls that I’ve been telling you about! It struck me as true kowtowing to the tourists.

We all enjoyed the performance, but it was nice to get back to our air-conditioned and dry room at the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat. The other family in our group had to get up at the crack of dawn to leave for the airport – they were going on to Xian and Beijing. It was great fun traveling with them, and we were sad to say goodbye before heading to our room.

Our flight left later, so we didn’t have to leave the hotel until 10 a.m. Sunday. We had a car and driver, and the girls actually slept most of the 90 minute drive back to Guilin (remember that it took twice that long by boat!). We left the Guilin Airport at 1:30, bound for Xiamen.

We had a wonderful time in Guangxi Province. I know we will go back when the girls are older. I’ll also try to post more pictures, and some reflections after all of this has sunk in. I do know the trip was really good for Zoe and Maya, and really good for me, too. We have no regrets, except, perhaps, at having to leave Guangxi Province after such a short time!

Bicycle Built For Three

2007-06-18T23:09:00.000-07:00

I frequently make a fool of myself for my kids. I sing in public, though I have the world’s worst singing voice (think Tiny Tim tip-toeing through the tulips and you’ve got a bead on my voice (though I think he kept in tune better than I do!)). I tell silly jokes. I make funny faces. I publish pictures of me looking ridiculous on this blog (see above). I just generally act the clown if it makes them happy.

Well, Saturday afternoon in Yangshuo I topped all my previous foolish escapades. I rode a bike!

I haven’t been on a bike in 30 years, not since I went down Beverly Hill on the way to Lisa Honey’s house and discovered I had no brakes. A concussion and the loss of a few yards of skin pretty much convinced me that biking wasn’t for me. And it’s not like I was all that good at it to begin with. I was 7 before I lost my training wheels and 10 before I could actually turn in a full circle (I had to get off and turn the bike around just to go back the way I came!).

So how in @#%$ did I end up on a bicycle built for two in Yangshuo, China?! And yes, I only drove the bicycle for two, not three. Tom, the dad of the other family in our group offered to take Maya so I didn’t have to handle her 30 pounds and my worries about crashing and burning with BOTH my kids on the bike. The picture above is posed just so we could have the whole family in the picture! But note, both my feet are OFF the ground -- I really am riding the bike!

I have to say it was the most terrifying experience I’ve had since we came to China. When I saw on the itinerary that we were to ride bikes in Yangshuo I envisioned sleepy country roads surrounded by karst mountains, lazy parks with wide swaths of concrete, sun-dappled glades and peaceful forest trails. . . .

Nope. We rented bicycles in the center of town – crowded with cars and trucks and buses and scooters and motorcycles and walkers and about a million other bicycles. After a few practice runs in the small parking lot of the bike rental place, we were off! Cristy set a brisk pace, and zipped us in and out of traffic and around a traffic circle, and all I could do was follow blindly. I certainly couldn’t look around me – the bike had a tendency to go wherever my eyes happened to look, so I could only focus on Cristy’s umbrella ahead of me.

Speaking of umbrellas, Zoe had hers up, shading herself from the sun, and of course it poked me in the back about a million times! I bought a hat for 5 yuan from a seller near the bike rental place, so I had shade. But that didn’t stop the sweating. It was hotter than hades, as humid as a swamp, and then throw in physical exertion and pure nerves and I was sweating like CRAZY! Sweat was dripping in my eyes, but I was too scared to let go of the handlebars to wipe it away! And every time I loosened by grip, my worst fears were confirmed and the bike wobbled like crazy.

We pedaled out from the center of town for about 30 minutes, going downhill most of the way. But all I could think was “what goes down must go up!” I was actually getting the point of feeling kind of comfortable on the bike, jauntily ringing my bell when I passed a walker or another bicycle, when it was time to turn around. It wasn’t long before we hit the uphill portion of the ride, and jauntiness and comfort deserted me! All I could do was huff and puff and exhort Zoe to PEDAL!

We finally made it back, and all in one piece. The girls LOVED it! Zoe only had one request – “next time, can we all three ride the same bike?” That was easy. “Sure,” I said. “The very next time I get on a bike (read “NEVER”!) it will be a bicycle built for three!”

River Rafting, Yangshuo Style

2007-06-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

After our hike through Yangshuo farm country, we rested and cooled off by taking a bamboo raft down the Yulong River. But we didn’t take just any old piddling bamboo raft like those pictured above – those are for the hoi polloi. Cristy arranged the DELUXE double raft with a cloth-covered gazebo, table and benches, and, of course, tea! (I think she was worried that our group of hefty Americans would sink the little rafts!) She even arranged food for us – locally grown peanuts and water chestnuts. Wow, fresh water chestnuts really beat those tasteless things that come in a can!

We had to wait a few minutes for them to ferry our ride to the launch site, so we turned our trip into the “Princess Cruise” by buying all the girls flower wreaths – made from real flowers, no less.

We waited in a shaded tent where young Zhuang women were making “love balls” – embroidered balls used by the Zhuang minority peoples as part of the courtship ritual. When a young Zhuang woman finds a man she wants to marry, she tosses the embroidered ball to him. If he catches it, he has to marry her.

These are more elaborate than the ones we’re used to seeing – the tassels and beads are not usually there. I suspect these are gussied up for the tourists.

Finally our boat arrived, and we started our leisurely cruise. I was surprised that we had only one boatman, the same as for the two-person rafts. This poor man had to shove 10 people up and down the river! (Not only is the raft bamboo, but so is the pole the boatman uses to propel the craft.)

Ten people on our raft? Yes, my clan (Zoe, Maya, me), Chris, Tom, Olivia, Elaine (the other family in our group), Lili & Cristy (our guides), and a Zhuang maiden who came along to serenade us with Zhuang folk songs! Zhuang folk songs are kind of nasally, so the sound was not really improved by being sung through a low-quality loudspeaker! But at least everyone else on the river got to enjoy the same music we did.

As we neared the Yangshou Mountain Retreat, we saw a fisherman on a bamboo raft and he was using cormorants to fish for him! I had heard of this practice, but this is the first time I’ve seen it. Fishermen train cormorants to catch fish and bring them to the boat. They tie a string around the bird’s neck so that it can’t enlarge its throat to eat the fish. Instead the bird disgorges it, still alive, into the fisherman’s hands.

I’ve heard that one trained cormorant can catch enough fish to comfortably feed an entire family. This fisherman had four cormorants on his boat – either he has a very large family or his is a commercial operation. In the few minutes we watched, we saw the birds catch five fish.

Shortly after passing the cormorant fisherman, we reached our hotel. The boat pulled up to the shore, and we were deposited neatly at our destination. What service! And we made it just in time for lunch (which included river fish, of course – do you think the nearby fisherman had anything to do with that?!).

The Yangshuo Countryside

2007-06-18T05:53:00.000-07:00

We left the Yangshou Mountain Retreat at 10 a.m. on Saturday to get a taste of the countryside. We walked through farmers’ fields and visited a local farm house. (Zoe and Maya actually had fun, though in the picture above they seem to have that "how did I get here?!" look of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie down on the farm in "The Simple Life!")

As we walked down the dusty road from the hotel, the first point of interest was the village graveyard. Chinese are traditionally cremated, and the urns sealed in above-ground mausoleums. I saw these mausoleums set into the mountains from the train as we approached Guilin, but I didn’t know what they were. This one looks pretty plush; most were unadorned concrete. A few still had flowers and decorations (like this one) from Grave Sweeping Day (April 5 – also called Ghost Day (that’s an obvious one, right?) and Cold Food Day (because you aren’t supposed to light fires on this day to commemorate some ancient figure who was burned to death on this day) and Mountain Climbing Day (because you climb the mountain up to mausoleums)).

Most of the fields we saw were rice fields, the plants two months old and one month shy of harvest time. In the warm climate of Guangxi Province the growing season allows for two rice plantings. All of our guides have called the rice “paddy rice,” which was a new usage for me. I’ve heard of rice paddies – the wet fields where rice is grown. But “paddy rice?” Apparently that is what rice is called – really, I looked it up on the internet! – when the grains are still covered by the hull.

You can tell the rice is ready to be harvested when the hulls turn from green to golden yellow. They were still green when we passed by.

We also walked through fields of pomolo – a kind of grapefruit, but more pear-shaped. Cristy told us that pomolo is a required wedding gift from the bride’s family; they give four bags of pomolo and one is tied at each corner of the bed on the wedding night to ensure fertility. Apparently pomolos are a prized commodity – we saw the farmer just squatting in the orchard and Cristy said she was there to make sure no one took the fruit. In another pomolo field we saw a little lean-to, and Cristy said that someone from the family probably slept there at night to prevent thieves from stealing the fruit. We also saw pumpkin, tomato, and strawberries growing.

In the distance we could see a small farming village nestled at the foot of a mountain and partially obscured by the lush foliage surrounding it. Too storybook, isn’t it?

As we approached, I started taking pictures of what I thought must be the houses the farmers lived in – it turns out I was snapping pictures of the pig sty, which was made abundantly clear by the smell as we passed by!

But then I didn’t find that the actual houses were a great improvement over the pig house (they didn't smell, though!) – but note the satellite dish at this home!

I didn’t see a satellite dish at the farmhouse we visited, though there was a television set and an electric rice cooker in the front sitting room (I’m assuming the rice cooker was with the TV because that was the only place with electricity). Still, to say it was rustic is an understatement. Directly to the left of the door was the stall for the family water buffalo, and the tied bundles of sticks are firewood. The Chinese New Year decorations are still up, and Lili says people just leave them up until they fall to pieces – they never last quite to the next New Year.

Immediately inside the door was the sitting room, with the family altar high among the eaves directly across from the door.

Below the altar was a wall of posters – posters of movie stars (so maybe they had satellite TV after all!). One poster even half-covered a portrait of Mao (you can't mistake that high forehead!)! I bet you wouldn’t have seen that 20 years ago, no one would have dared.

To the right of the living room was the farmer’s bedroom, behind a curtain. We didn’t go in there, though. Then behind the sitting room was another room, whose function was a little mysterious to me. It had a ladder to the second floor, and it housed a rice thresher.

Next was some kind of utility room, reached via an open-air passage decorated with a lovely spider web. I definitely need to know who their interior decorator is!

The utility room had a fireplace (you can see it on the right in this photo), but you can see by the soot-blackened walls that the smoke didn’t really have anywhere to go. I’d guess that the room is basically a laundry room.

And next to the utility room was the kitchen. Here’s the cook stove – it, and the fireplace, explain the need for all that firewood.

Opposite the cook stove was the kitchen table, and a kiddie chair – Cristy explained that the farmer was taking care of a grandchild while the parents were working in another province.

The family’s water buffalo was out in the fields, but we did catch site of a neighbor’s in the shade of a patch of bamboo, to the delight of the girls. I couldn’t coax them close enough for a group portrait, though!

Cristy was careful to tell us that, though the farmers make no more than 400 yuan a month (less than $50), they are happy with their lives. When a journalist visited the village recently, the farmers told him in glowing detail how happy they were that they could enjoy the beautiful mountain views and grow just about everything they needed to live. Ah, yes, living close to the land, the nobility of labor, yada yada yada. . . .

All I can say is it looked like a miserable way to live. It made me ever so grateful for the life I lead, and I don’t think I’ll complain again about the headaches of urban living.

Cruising the Li River

2007-06-17T06:22:00.000-07:00

We left Guilin by boat on Friday, heading for Yangshuo. So far on this trip we’ve traveled in a taxi, an airplane, a van, a train, a bus, and now a boat. The scenery on the cruise was wonderful; our local guide, Cristy, told us to look for four things:

1) phoenix tail bamboo (that’s what all the curly-cue stuff on shore is). It seems we have Chou En Lai to thank for the bamboo – it was his suggestion that it be planted near the Li River. And since, according to Cristy, Chou En Lai was so beloved by the people (he was always kind to the people, it seems, when Mao was imposing hardships on them), the provincial government leaped on the idea.

2) waterfalls. There were small waterfalls, and only a few, seemingly runoff from the land rather than another river or stream. But they were lovely.

3) water buffalos (OK, so these weren’t real eager to pose for us!). On this trip we’ve learned that water buffalo are highly prized by the farmers in Guangxi Province. They are costly, running about 2,000 yuan (or was that a motor scooter that cost 2,000 yuan? I've forgotten!), and families build a stall for the water buffalo near their front door so that they won’t be stolen.

4) Chinese painting rock. We were told that the elements had “painted” nine horses on this rock, and if you could see all nine you were very clever. Well, I’m not at all clever – I couldn’t see even one! (I THINK I see one in the photo, but that still doesn’t make me very clever!).

The clever one was Cristy, our local guide, who had a wonderful plan for keeping the girls occupied during the 4-hour boat ride – the traditional Chinese craft of paper cutting. She showed us some very intricate ones – she can make twin cats, double happiness characters, and much, much more. But the ones she showed the girls were simpler, or so she claimed! They were still pretty complicated for Zoe and Maya, though they gamely gave it a try. Cristy said that the style of paper cuts she was showing the girls (you can see one in the saucer between the teacups) were often found decorating shop windows in small villages.

Zoe preferred “free-style” cutting over the intricate Chinese patterns!

The cruise ended up lasting only three hours – as Cristy says, “We’re so lucky! The flood made the river faster!” We disembarked in Yangshuo, and walked down Western Street, the touristy-shopping area of Yangshuo. We didn’t stay there long since it was thronged with tourists and aggressive salespersons. We soon headed for our hotel outside of town, the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat.

It looks more like a pivate villa than a hotel, doesn’t it? It’s larger than it looks, but it is very cosy. It’s right on the Yulong River – Jade Dragon River, sometimes called the Lesser Li River – and surrounded by those awesome limestone karst mountains. Our room had a perfect view of mountains and river, and we were lulled to sleep at night by the sounds of the river. And if you're used to Chinese mattresses, the 2 inches of cotton batting on top of a board which constituted our mattresses here presented no difficulties!

The first afternoon here, we sat in rockers near the river, and enjoyed watching bamboo rafts full of tourists shaded by colorful beach umbrellas cruising down the river. I could have happily sat there all day. Even the girls, not known for their ability to sit still, happily spent 45 minutes rocking on the banks of the river.

And it helped that there was plenty to look at – we even saw a hot air balloon skimming through the mountains.

As afternoon drifted into evening, we could see the mountains and bamboo reflected in the water.

Yangshuo Mountain Retreat lives up to its name – a restful refuge from the world.

Morning Constitutional

2007-06-17T04:52:00.000-07:00

Our last morning in Guilin (Friday, June 15), and we woke up a little early. We had time after breakfast and before we met our group to head for the boat to Yangshuo, so we decided to have our morning constitutional in the park in front of the Bravo Hotel. There’s a small lake in the middle of the park, so we thought we’d walk around the park and see what we could see. The views were lovely.

The girls loved these benches in the shape of pigs. (I don't know if they reside in the park only because this is the year of the pig or if they are permanent residents.)

The park was packed with morning exercisers, most doing exercises we’ve seen before – martial arts with swords, dances with fans or scarves or ribbons, etc. But there was one new one for us – the exercisers did their moves holding a racquet with a ball balanced on it. They would spin about, trying to keep the ball from falling off, and at times they would hit the ball upward and catch it on the racquet. Pretty cool!

The only drawback to all the exercise groups is that each comes equipped with its own tape player blaring out scratchy, tinny tunes. And of course they can't be the same tune. So you walk from one musical selection to the other. I much prefer my parks to be quiet!

We walked along, enjoying the day, and came upon a little slice of Paris and San Francisco:

We were setting a pretty lazy pace (that’s Maya’s natural pace!) because we could see our hotel and knew how close we were to it. We expected to circle the lake and reach the hotel in plenty of time to meet our party. But the sidewalk suddenly dead-ended! It seems it isn’t possible to go all the way around the lake. That meant a mad dash back around the way we came. We reached the lobby ten minutes past our set time, but our guides said no worries, we still had plenty of time to reach the boat. I guess they build in extra time just for silly tourists like us!

Despite the harried finish, we did enjoy our morning constitutional.

Back in Xiamen!

2007-06-17T04:50:00.000-07:00

We're back home after a wonderful vacation in Guangxi Province. We didn't have internet access in our last hotel, so I'm a bit behind in letting you know what we've been up to. I'll try to remedy that as soon as possible!

Playing Tourist in Guilin

2007-06-14T06:19:00.001-07:00

We had a ball today playing tourist in Guilin. It was a beautiful sunshiny day, and we took full advantage of it.

For our first stop, though, sunshine didn’t matter. It was Reed Flute Cave. The rock formations are truly amazing, their appearance enhanced by multi-colored lights. Each highlighted formation had a name of some kind – Fragrant Flowers and Singing Birds, Autumn Harvest of Bitter Melon, Mushroom Rocks, and the like. By far the most impressive was Crystal Palace. Not only were the rock formations amazing, but there was a pool of water in front of them that reflected them perfectly.

You’d never guess that the pool is only 2 centimeters deep! Crystal Palace was the largest part of the cave, and we were told that local farmers holed up there during the Japanese invasion in 1938 and survived to bravely fight the Japanese.

Can you guess the name of this rock? It’s one of the ones I mentioned above (yes, this is a test of your imagination!).

It’s Mushroom Rock. Maybe it’s a trick question – the Chinese use many more types of mushroom than we do. These don’t look much like those button mushrooms we’re used to, but they sure look like Chinese mushrooms.

After Reed Flute Cave we went to Daxu, an ancient town. Some of the buildings there are over 1,000 years old.

It was a fascinating place, though the highlight for us was not the history of the town, but current events. Painted on the wall of one home was a string of Chinese characters. I asked our guide what it meant, and she said it was a reminder to obey the one child policy or suffer a fine.

When we first got off the bus in Daxu, we saw a woman raking kernels of corn across the concrete. She was drying it to feed to pigs.

A little further along, there were piles of chicken feathers and goose feathers. Farmers dry them and then sell them to manufacturers of quilted clothing.

A few steps further, a group of women were sorting chili peppers. We could actually smell them before we could see them, and the watering of my eyes preceded the smell.

The houses in the oldest part of town were all two-story, but none of them have staircases. They use a ladder to get to the second floor.

But as ancient as the town is, they definitely had modern conveniences. You may have noticed the poles and wires in the picture of the town. I don’t know if they are phone or electricity wires. But the place definitely had electricity, as evidenced by all the electrical conveniences in this home:

We visited the shop of a Chinese traditional medicine doctor. The medicines included these bottles of liquor with snakes and baby mice in them. (Across the street was a liquor plant, and its smell was even more pungent than the chilis!)

When we entered the store, the doctor was rolling candles filled with herbs. He told us that it was a remedy for headaches. Well, given my addiction to Vitamin I – Ibuprofen – I figured I’d give it a try. The doctor burned the end of the candle and then covered the burnt end with a red cloth. He then told me to hold the candle to my forehead. It was slightly warm, and as soon as it cooled down, he’d take it back and burn it again, and tell me to reapply it. I confess I didn’t have a headache at the time, so I can’t tell you if it will cure headaches. And I guess it’s possible that the guy wasn’t a doctor but a practical joker instead – I think I look pretty silly! Wouldn't that be a funny trick to play on the ignorant foreigner?!

It was a beautiful town, and it was right on the river. I loved this view under Longevity Bridge (of course we walked across the bridge to ensure a long life):

Our last stop of the day was Yao Mountain, the tallest in Guilin. We were told that we’d take a cable car up the mountain, which suited me just fine having painfully climbed some of the finest mountains in Fujian Province (see here and here)! It turned out, though, that it was not some large staid cable car – it was actually a ski lift, a new experience for me. Zoe rode with one of our guides, and managed to mount the thing like a pro. One of the attendants picked Maya up and set her in the chair, while I just had to stand there and be dumbly scooped up by the chair. Here’s Zoe in the gondola ahead of us.

It was a fun ride, and the views were amazing. At one point we were joined by a flock? – herd? – gaggle? – of dragonflies flitting about us. We could hear birds singing and look down on the tops of pine trees with new green pine cones. It was quite an experience. Maya loved it and kept saying “piaoliang,” which means pretty in Chinese. When we got to the top she said she wanted to do it again. It was easy to say yes to that, since we’d have to get down the same way we got up! And when it comes to climbing mountains in China, I say this is definitely the way to go!

The view at the top of the mountain was beautiful, though pictures hardly do justice to it (that didn't stop me from taking dozens of pictures!). The mist-shrouded mountains seemed to go on forever.

The kids loved wandering around the top of the mountain because there were many fun props for photo ops – each requiring a fee, of course! But I dutifully paid one yuan to photograph the girls in a swing with the mountains behind them . . .

. . . and using a huge hammer to bang a gong.

Then we took the cable car back down the mountain and headed back to the hotel. We hit the pool shortly after arriving, and it felt really good after a hot day of oh-so-strenuous mountain-climbing!

Tomorrow we cruise the Li River to Yangshuo. The views along the river are supposed to be even more gorgeous than anything we saw today. The day’s sights set a very high standard, so I’m looking forward to what the river has to show us.

Maya's File!

2007-06-14T03:07:00.000-07:00

I got it! Our guide got them to fax it to him, and he faxed it to me at the hotel here in Guilin (I didn't know anyone still used that roll fax paper!). I'm so happy to have it, since it has just the information I wanted -- Maya's measurements at the time she was checked into Guiping SWI.

She was tiny -- only 4.2 pounds at 17.7 inches. Her head and chest circumference seem impossibly small -- 11.8 and 10.4 inches respectively. They report her overall health condition as good, so it's hard to know if she was a preemie or not. But there's no doubt she was an itty-bitty baby.

The file also had six-week measurements. She gained almost one pound and about 3/4th inch. Her head and chest circumference increased 2/10ths of an inch. I have no idea if that is normal growth or not -- any pediatricians out there (hint, hint, Lisa!).

I am so happy to have this piece of the puzzle! Our guide has my eternal gratitude (you've surmised correctly -- I'm deliberately NOT giving you the name of the guide at the guide's request!).

This journey has been a definite series of highs and lows. Getting the fax today was definitely a high!

Trip to Guilin

2007-06-13T07:37:00.001-07:00

Our day started early today – we had to leave the hotel in Nanning at 7:30 to catch our train. And since I basically had to repack everything to squeeze in all of the presents the girls have acquired over the last few days, I had a VERY early start! Still, we made it to the train station in plenty of time. It’s a good thing that we were there early, though, since we carried all our luggage with us. Our guide explained that if we checked any of our bags there was no telling when we’d get them. They might even be sent to Guilin on a later train. And we took over just about all of the overhead shelves in our train car. If we’d arrived later, we would never have found room for it all. (We’ve packed (relatively) light, but the other family traveling with us came from the States and will continue on to Xian and Beijing after we return home to Xiamen, so they have more luggage).

We were in a hard seat compartment. Trains in China don’t have first class and economy – they have soft and hard. I thought our hard seats were pretty comfortable, and didn’t fit my expectations of hard seat. I thought we’d be on wooden benches! Our guide says that was what hard seat looked like years ago, but not now. The train was also double decker, with a duplicate compartment above us. There was a bathroom in our car, and of course it was a squat potty. It’s a bit more challenging to use a squat potty when it’s a moving target!

The ride was a little over 4 hours, which was a bit challenging for the girls. We managed to keep them cheerful by eating our way to Guiling – after all, we had tons of peanuts, lychees and bananas with us! The scenery outside the window was much like the landscape on the way to Guiping. But as we got closer to Guilin we started to see signs of the flooding that has been reported in Guangxi Province. We saw fields completely under water, and houses that peeped no more than two feet above the water line. We’d periodically see people poling small bamboo rafts in the flood water.

As we approached Guilin, we started to see the famous karst mountains. The girls started to perk up as we saw more and more water buffalo along the way. And soon we started to see high-rise buildings and we pulled into the station at Guilin.

A local guide met us on the platform, and she brought a porter from the hotel with her. He came on the train to help with all our luggage, and then piled it all on his two-wheeler to roll it about 10 feet to the down staircase. He then unloaded it all and carried it down stairs. Again, it gets piled on the cart. He wheels it about 150 feet to the exit gate, which is too narrow for the cart to fit through with the luggage on it. So again he unloads the cart and carries the luggage through the gate. Then the bags were loaded back on the cart for the trip through the parking lot to the bus. Whew! I’m glad I didn’t have his job today!

We checked into the Bravo Hotel, which is very nice. We have a corner room with wonderful views of the mountains. We ate lunch at the hotel, and then headed out for our first sightseeing excursion to see Elephant Rock. (OK, use your imagination – that’s the elephant’s trunk drinking from the river water!)

Our guide tells us we were really lucky to be able to get into the park to see Elephant Rock – it was closed due to the flooding yesterday. (Elephant Rock is at the junction of two rivers – the Peach Blossom River and the Li River. That’s why the Chinese say the elephant is male – rivers in China are female, and this handsome fellow has two females following him.) Even if you're not convinced it's an elephant, it's still pretty amazing to think of how the action of the river water can make such a formation.

Our local guide is a real hoot -- she keeps telling us how lucky we are to be in Guilin during the floods because it is so beautiful here when in floods! We definitely saw evidence of the flooding today:

After visiting Elephant Rock, we were taken to the ubiquitous silk factory to learn about silkworms and silk making. It was very interesting, and even the hard sell to buy, buy, buy was pretty amusing. We didn’t buy, buy, buy, and when they directed us to the exit, it turned out to be another shop with enticing items on display! We finally made our way to a real exit, and headed back to the hotel.

It’s been a little rainy and cool in Guilin today, but the girls really wanted to go swimming. So we took a quick dip before dinner, and I ended up with two teeth-chattering ice cubes to defrost before dinner! Our group ate dinner at the hotel, and blessedly we’re having an early night.

We’ll do more sight-seeing tomorrow. So far Guilin is proving as beautiful as promised. We can’t wait to see more.