We finally have spring weather here! We are sooooooo thankful to actually even be able to pull out short-sleeved shirts to wear as of yesterday. It's amazing how much brighter the world appears when the sun is out and the skies are a little bit clear! (On a weather sidenote: an interesting fact about our city, Tianjin, is that if you can see the sun, the temperature outside is most likely a lot colder than you think it will be. This is because really only when the wind is blowing strongly enough to clear the pollution can you see the sun, rather than a hazy ball in the sky. And if the wind is blowing that strongly, it is most likely making the temperature significantly colder. So we're learning to adjust our expectations! Sunshine for us is normally now accompanied by colder weather and more layers of clothing!!)
We've had a fun-filled weekend. On Saturday morning we all went to trash mountain for me to run in a 5K race benefitting the international school's summer trips. I jogged (for the second time in our 7 months of being here!) while Kevin watched the kids play at the playground there at the park. Everyone had a blast, and the gorgeous weather was enough to lift even the dreariest of spirits! After the race and play time, we three wheeled over to the large grocery store to make some purchases for the party that we were hosting that night for all of our Chinese teachers from this semester and last and their significant others (boyfriends, husbands, or fiances). We had 9 of them come, and the party was a huge success (at least, we think it was!). We even remembered to have slippers for everyone this time--so hopefully our social ills are slightly decreasing with the longer time we are here! The wii was a hit once again, as were the kids--our two main selling points in the Joseph house as far as entertaining Chinese friends goes!!
You might note something missing from our normal Saturday schedule--the older kids activities. We've decided, after much deliberation, to pull them out of swimming and kung fu after 2 months of participating in them at a local Chinese kindergarten (kind of more like an activity center). Last weekend was the main deciding factor. I took Karis and Eli, as Kevin really wanted me to sit in on Eli's kung fu class. He had already decided that it was not a good idea to keep him in the class any longer, as none of our goals were being met (the kids meeting and making Chinese friends, having extra physical activity to expend energy, and better learning the language). The Chinese culture for classes like this makes the classes really intense in the structure, allowing virtually no time for interaction amongst the kids and NO time for anything close to fun. They mean business--even for a 4 and 5 year old class! In addition to this, we realize now that kung fu is just a bad fit for Eli. He gets his flexibility from his parents (which means he has NONE naturally), and considering that nearly 2/3 of the class time is spent stretching (and it is an hour and twenty minutes), it ends up being just plain painful for him. The instructor takes turns coming around to each of the kids and pushing on their legs as much as he can until they are (literally) crying our or have tears in their eyes. Let me tell you, as a mom, this is NOT fun to watch!
So this past week, I was really proud to see Eli holding his breath whenever the instructor came to him to push on his stretching. At one point I walked over to the bar where his leg was to put my arm around him and reassure him, and he was literally choking on holding in his sobs! This is after he had slipped at least twice as he is the shortest one in his class (and the youngest, I think) and his leg doesn't reach as high as the others. Each time he slipped, I was shocked to hear the other parents (and not just one or two, mind you) erupt into laughter as he clamored off of the floor! I tried not to take it personally, and continued to note throughout the remainder of the class a similar reaction to any of the other kids' responses to pain or frustration. Whenever a kids in the class started crying our hollered in pain as the instructor "worked" with him, all the parents would start laughing and often cheering for the child! I kept thinking back to my psychology classes in college and how we studied laughter as a very normal and natural response to stress--but I really didn't get the feeling that this was the case in this situation. As Kevin and I have talked through it this week, we think (but still aren't sure!), that it is simply a Chinese cultural thing in which the parents are thinking that this is kind of a "rite of passage" that they too endured. The kids are going through the same kind of intense training that they too went through at this age, and managed to survive, and this is just the way things are done. I do know that within the educational system here, the main form of punishment is based on their value of honor and shame. So when a kid misbehaves in the classroom, the way they are most often disciplined is by publicly shaming them by yelling at them or mocking them in front of their peers. Talk about a little different than our western thought of doing all of that in private behind somewhat closed doors!
So while Eli is enduring his pain-stretching in one class, I keep looking over my shoulder at Karis in the swimming pool through the glass (where I can see her class in progress). She had a sub that day, which I wasn't too thrilled about. She normally loves her sweet young female teacher, who even speaks a few words of English, but this week she had a young guy in a speedo! Enough to kind of creep me out! So during Eli's class a dad walks in and asks me if I have a daughter in the swimming class. I immediately run out of the kung fu class and make it to the pool to find Karis sitting on the side absolutely sobbing. By the time she can catch her breath to answer my question of what is the matter, she sobs that "This has been the worst day of my life!" Bottom line was that she was totally overwhelmed by the language barrier. She needed to go to the bathroom and tried telling her teacher, but he couldn't understand her. She was totally frustrated and cold, and she just wanted to go home. And I couldn't blame her!
As we left class early, I had a great talk with both Karis and Eli. They had seen mommy in tears the day before over frustration over life and the many transitions we're facing here, so when I said that I understood how they felt, they really believed me! We all agreed that sometimes we just needed a good cry to get it out in the open and deal with the fact that things are hard some days! I then was able to explain that although there would be times that their dad and I asked them to continue doing something even though it was hard, this was not one of them. After Kevin and I had a long talk about it, we gave them the option to be done with their classes; and they agreed that was probably best!
So there's the long story. I'm so glad that we endured the two months of trial--and really don't think that the kids are scarred at all from the experience. But we learned a ton, and unfortunately, have even more questions now as to how much we push to get our kids (and ourselves) to acculturate to a culture that is sooooo vastly different from our own. We so want to deeply connect with the Chinese people--which means becoming Chinese in many ways--and yet see the differences (and apparent weaknesses) that exist in some of these cultural gaps. I think it's good that we don't have to figure it all out in a day!
On a lighter note, we did have a fun conversation at the lunch table this week. Ayi was in the other room talking to Noah (obviously in Chinese), and Hud asked Kevin, "Daddy, who's that talkin'?" Kevin said, "That's Ayi, talking to Noah!" Hud started laughing and replied, "Oh! I thought it was a Chinese person!" Kevin and I looked at each other quizzically and said, "It is a Chinese person--it's Ayi." When Hudson protested that Ayi was NOT Chinese and we asked him "what" she was then, he said, "She's just a girl!" As we asked the three older kids more questions about who was Chinese and who was not, it was apparent that they were thoroughly confused! The could identify our Chinese teachers as definitely being Chinese, but that is about where the accurate observations ended. They couldn't identify any physical differences (except that Eli said most of them were short), and anyone they knew who could speak any Mandarin was labeled as being at least "a little" Chinese! Kevin and I were cracking up. Who knows how jacked up our kids will be in their thinking when it's all said and done. . . :)
