Chinese New Year Holiday

The last week and a half our family has spent being even more overseas than we usually are!  Ha!  If that’s even possible….

We’ve added 3 more stamps to our passports, and realized in the process that we need to add more pages to them before any more international travel (so a trip to the US Embassy in Beijing looks to be in our future; one more first for the Joseph family).  I decided to try a slightly alternate flying route than we’ve taken before, largely for the sake of curiosity.  But it seems like no matter where we go, the travel always just seems to be LONG and exhausting. 

So last week on Wednesday, our family rode the bus to school (rather than driving our car, as we didn’t want to leave the vehicle at school for 2 weeks), I taught my English class for 1 hour while the kids made an appearance in their respective classes, then we threw on our travel clothes (it was China Day at school, so we were all wearing our most Chinese-ee outfits, which were not my first choice to show up at the airport in) and waited for our driver to give us the ride to the airport, who was 45 minutes late!  Ahh!  We managed to make it to our flight on time, largely due to the fact that it was delayed a good hour and a half.  We then eventually made the final destination (at least for the first day of travel), which was Bangkok, 13 hours later, after passing through Korea on the way.  Here are a few of the highlights from the travel:

·      Karis asking the flight attendant for “cha” during the beverage service (this is Chinese for tea); this was not even being served at the time, but the flight attendant was so tickled that she went to the back of the plane to bring her a steaming cup of it

·      Hudson overhearing 2 restaurant workers at the airport in Seoul speaking Korean; upon hearing their speech, he enthusiastically informed me that they were speaking Korean (which he hears a lot of from his classmates at school); I then continued by explaining to him that them speaking Korean made sense, as we were actually in Korea; the look on his face as this realization sunk in was pretty priceless

·      Quizno’s sandwiches—discovered in the Seoul airport and purchased (and eaten!) in spite of not being hungry AT ALL, but rather just thrilled to make such a splendid serendipity

The second day of travel was MUCH easier.  It only required a 20-minute ride to the airport and a 1-hour flight before we arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  We had another family traveling with us, and we made it through that leg of the journey as painlessly as could be expected.  I guess I should add that the van that picked us up from the airport was a not what I’d call the latest model, and we ended up stalling on the side of the road before reaching our hotel.  We all sat in the van, sweating, for about 5 minutes while the driver tried to cool the engine by pouring a bottle of water over it, with us laughing that whole time about how there was a time when that sort of minor inconvenience would have rattled us all a bit.  As it was, we ended up getting to ride in several open-air tuk-tuks, which are basically motorcycles with bench seats and a cover over them on the back; this also happens to be the kids most preferred mode of transportation while we are in Thailand (and now Cambodia, too!), so it ended up being a win-win (almost!).  We spent the next several days getting to learn more about Cambodia culture and visiting with friends.  It was informative and refreshing in many ways.

I had one afternoon of down time that I used to go on a quick walk through the neighborhood of our hotel, and I discovered a charming (if quite muddy and polluted-looking) river that was nearby.  On my walk I was struck by how little I understand of the Cambodian culture.  As I walked, men regularly called out greetings to me.  My immediate reaction was to avert my eyes and pretend I hadn’t heard them; in Chinese culture this would never happen.  If a man was so bold to make eye contact, much less call out any sort of boisterous greeting, you could safely assume he was either drunk or being inappropriate to some degree.  But what if the Cambodian culture is much more like the Latin American one, where it is common and even polite to greet anyone passing by with enthusiasm?  I found myself laughing at the quandary I was in, and even more amused at how uncomfortable I was with my lack of understanding and ignorance of how to handle such a simple inter-personal interaction that is so seemingly innocuous as a greeting.  I guess the good news is that I have definitely grown in the area of cultural sensitivity!  I no longer am content to live in oblivion about how what I’m communicating both verbally and non-verbally might be being received based upon the culture and context I am in. 

We had one afternoon off to go explore the city, so we had an absolute blast letting the kids help in setting the agenda.  They had discovered several tanks filled with small fish; the tanks were designed with benches on top of them so that you would sit and dangle your feet into the tanks, allowing the small fish to literally eat the dead skin off of your feet.  We’ve seen this before on previous trips to Thailand, and the kids have always wanted to participate in this obviously touristy activity, but on this trip we finally agreed that the price was right (less than a dollar) and that it would constitute a fun family activity.  So we all fed the fish for a full 10 minutes, with quite differing reactions, depending on the family member!  Hudson made it maybe 15 seconds before he decided that the fish were biting him too hard; Eli, on the other hand, would have actually put his face in the water to let the fish nibble if we’d given him permission to do so!  Kevin and I were squirming and squealing for the first 8 minutes until we finally got accustomed to the snake-like feel of fish swarming between our toes and all around our ankles.  The seemed especially to prefer my heals and feet, which was good support for me in convincing Kevin that he obviously needed to be sending me out to get more pedicures than I am currently in the habit of getting!

After our fish-feed, we took another tuk-tuk to the night market, which is also the area of town with the majority of restaurants.  We LOVED our meal of Mexican food, and enjoyed doing some souvenir shopping as well.  While we in the market shopping, we ran into an adorable, skinny, probably 8-year old little girl with her 1-year old baby sibling worn in a sling over her shoulder.  The little girl came up to us, asking me to buy her a bag of expensive chocolates that were at a stand nearby where we were standing.  Looking at her rotting teeth and skinny arms and legs, the mother in me revolted at the thought of buying her such a non-nutritious snack.  But I couldn’t find anything else that seemed a healthier option.  So as I was looking, I asked if I could get a picture of her standing with Karis, who was trying to get her sibling to interact with her.  The little girl immediately responded with, “Picture—one dollar—one dollar only.”  I had no US dollars on me, and was shocked at how boldly she had answered.  I reached into my wallet and pulled out what little Cambodian cash I had, but it was obviously LESS than the $1 fee she required; so she forcefully exclaimed that it was not one dollar and quickly walked away.  Karis and I both stood there for several minutes with shocked looks on our faces.  I still don’t understand why this little girl was not willing to accept the money I did want to give her; I realized later it was close to $1 (about 75 cents), but I figured she had a story.  Was she keeping the money for her family?  Was it for something or someone else?  Was the baby she was carrying in the sling even related to her?  Was the whole thing just a racket?  Was there some significance to US dollars as opposed to the Cambodian money?  It was all a mystery—and still is!  We did run into the little girl in the same spot about an hour later, but this time I had found a stand that sold somewhat healthier food items (like dried fruit).  Karis and I ran back and quickly purchased some to bring to the little girl, for which she said a curt thank you and stuck in a bag before quickly continuing on to pursue the next tourist passing by her patch of ground.  I couldn’t help but think on His sovereignty over all things, over all people and situations, over all of the families we are born into and the lives that we lead, as I walked away thankful for the one He has blessed me with.

I continued this vein of thankfulness for His blessings throughout the week—particularly thankfulness for life itself!  Eli came up to Kevin and me at the breakfast table one morning while we were in Cambodia, surrounded by a group of his friends, and grinning from ear to ear as he held forth his trophy—a large frog he’d found in the outdoor dining area of our hotel.  The kids all had a blast playing with the frog for the next 10 minutes until it made its fortuitous escape. It was only after the frog’s escape that we learned, according to one little girl in the group who spoke Cambodian and happened to hear some of the staff talking amongst themselves, that apparently that kind of frog has a poisonous coating on its skin!  We of course had the kids wash their hands thoroughly upon this news, but I still kind of held my breath, hoping that we wouldn’t see any negative repercussions to the kids’ handling of their morning toy.  So far, so good, as no one has seemed to be any worse for the poison that may or may not have been a reality!

I also ended up sick to the point of wishing that my life might just end the day before we had to leave Cambodia.  As far as I could tell, I ate something that did NOT sit right with my stomach, and I had to spend the last day of time with our friends in bed all day, feeling like I’d been hit by a truck.  I was sooooo incredibly thankful that my system finally righted itself, and literally just in time, as we had another day of travel ahead of us to get to Thailand, and I didn’t even have to make any trips to hospitals or other medical facilities in the process.  My one regret, besides missing time with friends that final day and feeling so crummy in the process, is that I failed to check through our laundry bag that Kevin picked up from the Laundromat that was just around the corner where we had dropped off some of the clothes we needed to have cleaned; I didn’t discover until our arrival in Thailand that several of the long-sleeved and long pants clothing items had not been returned, so I’m actually off on an afternoon adventure of trying to find some suitable clothes for those who are now missing them so that we can be appropriately dressed for the sub-freezing temperatures we’ll be hitting upon our return home!  There’s a decent chance I’ll end up with some boys in sparkly pink sweat pants for our flight back to China…

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So no sparkly pink sweat pants, but I did end up selecting 2 of the only 2 choices for long pants for the boys!  Noah will be donning a stylish pair of red skinny sweatpants (which he loves, because they have a Ben 10 logo on them) and Hudson will be wearing a pajama shirt (which he loves, because it is Batman).  And I actually found tennis shoes for the boys, as all 3 of them had their current pair splitting at the seams (I think they have worn them enough out in the snow that it weakened them in places that normally aren’t a problem!).  The interesting thing to me was that amongst racks of girls’ shoes, they didn’t sell a single pair of athletic shoes—they were all cheaply-made sandals or flip flops.  I suppose it’s like it used to be in the US, where girls only have more dressy or casual options for footwear, rather than the selection of athletic wear we’re accustomed to. 

Our days of rest and relaxation here on the beach in Thailand can best be summed up, as cheesy as it may sound, as an oasis for our family, both on the emotional, physical, and spiritual level.  Our bodies have time to clear the junk out of our lungs, and for the first time in months none of us have a nagging cough in the morning when we awaken.  We have a break from the cultural stress that is to be expected when living cross-culturally.  We have quiet (at least when we take turns watching the kids and escape for a brief walk on the beach)!  I was astounded at how few people I saw as I took advantage of just such an opportunity a few days ago.  I walked for half an hour with only the sounds of nature buzzing around me: birds chirping (a rare sound to my ears, indeed!), the ocean waves rolling in; the odd variety of horned cattle and chickens rustling around in the brush near the dirt road I was on.  It was beautiful!  And we have the time away from life’s responsibilities to truly be able to be still and reflect.  To be honest, this time of reflecting is not something we’ve been out of practice on recently.  I regularly wonder if our family is unique in how much time we spend asking questions about where we are and if we’re doing what we’re supposed to be.  Not in a bad or anxious way, but it feels that we are in a constant state of re-evaluating if we are being called to move elsewhere, be spending our time doing something different, or investing in people that we haven’t paid close enough attention to.  I’m thinking there’s a good chance that a lot of this has to do simply with our lifestyle; the fact that we live in a place where the needs are so great, the community itself is so transitory, and even our visa (and therefore ability to stay here) is so unstable.  Anyway, Kevin and I have both sensed a sort of numbness during this last leg of our journey, and I kind of think it might be because we just need to focus on being still, enjoying Him, and allowing the questions to be answered on His timeline rather than our own.  A good place to be, but not exactly one that comes naturally to either Kevin or me, who would much rather have all the answers and the 10-year plan all mapped out!  My solution:  early morning time with Him, an hour-long foot massage during rest time in the afternoon (which you can get here for under $10 and feels divine!), and enjoying a coconut milk shake with the kids at the pool after dinner.  Ahhhh.  One more day before we head back to the real world!

 

To sum it up, some of my favorite moments from our week of vacation:

·      Taking a 20-minute boat ride to Monkey Island to feed the wild monkeys there, making it back with none of the kids getting bitten or mutilated in any other form by the enthusiastic wild things, and seeing a dolphin on our return trip

·      Finding new discoveries every day on the beach—everything from a dead baby stingray to tiny jelly fish (which we caught in our buckets) to countless crabs of all types and varieties

·      Seeing the kids LOVING every minute; Karis making friends with every other kid in the pool and Eli designing a trap to catch the school of small minnows on the beach in order to put them in his bucket to feed his crabs; Hudson laughing and smiling the entire time he was digging in the sand and going down the pool’s slide; Noah delighting in every sign of nature that passed by, insisting that any bird with color on it was a parrot (he only ever sees common sparrows and an occasional Magpie while in China)

·      The load of fish that the kids and Kevin caught on an early-morning (5:30am) fishing expedition; we had the restaurant here at the hotel cook them up and had fish for lunch that day!

·      Eli and Hudson not having any major negative health side effects after being eaten alive on the beach by these tiny blood-sucking gnats; I did have to make a run into town to buy another tube of ointment to put on them to try to stop the itching and I spent a good portion of 3 days explaining to other concerned-looking parents that my boys did not have some strange, contagious disease, but had merely been brutally attacked by an insect I’ve never seen before

·      Noah, after throwing at least 3 fits before noon at the mere thought of having to take a nap, laying in bed and saying, “Mom, thanks for making me take a rest.  I really am so tired.”  Not what I was expecting from my three-year old!

Tomorrow we start the return trip home.  We leave the beach at 7am for a 3-4 hour drive to get us to Bangkok, then fly for about 7 hours to Seoul.  We’ll spend the night in Seoul, then fly the next day for about an hour back to Tianjin.  We should arrive around noon on Wednesday, have the afternoon to unpack some bags and get ready for school that starts up again on Thursday.  Hoping we don’t have too many obstacles to getting back to Tianjin when we’re scheduled, or we might have a tired crew come Thursday morning when it’s back to the grind!  For now, I’m just thankful that Noah at least can’t wait to hit the road and start the traveling so he can wear his new clothes!

Cross-cultural laughs

I awakened early this morning and should be using this time to get some papers graded, but couldn't resist grabbing a few minutes to jot down a few of the more funny cultural moments from our party yesterday.  I love the adventure of living in China!

I've got to start off by saying that my kids, once again, rose to the occasion of a somewhat challenging event for them.  We spent a full 50 minutes in the car on the way to our friend's party, as we had to drive through Tianjin traffic to pick up a blind couple Kevin has gotten to be friends with.  Karis entertained us for most of the drive by singing Taylor Swift songs (without the music of the CD in the background, but rather the back-up singing that her 3 younger brothers provided from the back seat).  Our friends loved it!  We arrived to join a group of about 20-30 (depending on the ebb and flow of the guests) at a relatively small apartment.  We had a really fun time playing "get to know you" games (which all centered around being able to remember people's names after they had introduced themselves).  This alone was hilarious, as I, between trying to keep the kids seated and quiet and STILL not having Chinese names be easy to recollect for me, did not remember ONE single name of the 20+ people who were introduced!  Luckily, Kevin came through big time for us, and when either of us were called on in the game to answer, he was able to make a joke out of it (usually by naming either a really famous Chinese person or using an incredibly common name--like Wang--to get a laugh out of the whole group).  We also played some fun group games, like you can see in the picture of passing a pretzel from one straw to another that was being held in the mouths of the competitors.  Our friends loved it!

After the games, we had a time of singing praise songs, then watched a video, and had several performances by those in attendance.  The video part was humorous (to me, but not to those watching it).  My kids endured the entire 30 min of terminally-ill patients talking in Chinese about their beliefs and the hope they had, sporadically coming in to where I was helping prepare food in the kitchen to check in with me.  The kitchen was incredibly small, with literally only enough room for myself and the hostess to be in there at once, and then only if we were willing to be bumping rear ends the entire time as we faced opposing counter-tops to chop and wash the food.  So whenever one of my kids came in, the sweet hostess, a single western gal about my age, got visible flustered at their presence!  At one point, she was encouraging Noah to return to the movie, at which he replied honestly that he was bored watching the movie.  She responded to him with, "That's okay!  Just go in and you can pray for them."  Great thought, but I couldn't help but try to hide my raised eyebrows and chuckle as I thought of my 3 year old sitting quietly for 30 min watching a video in a language he doesn't really understand, all the while praying for the hearts of those who were listening!  I figured this sweet girl was either deceived about the spiritual maturity of my kids, was out of touch with a typical 3-year old's attention span, or was more flustered than I could tell by her hostessing duties!

One of the highlights of the evening was Kevin and the kids telling a baseball story.  They all dressed up in their matching Cardinal uniforms and stood with Kevin while he told, using repeating hand gestures and active motion, the story of his baseball career (at least an abbreviated version that takes about 1 minute).  He has the kids go through the part of the story that talks about how many hours he practiced, lifted weights, how much he traveled, etc., before he finally made it to the Major Leagues.  The kids sit down after the interactive part, then Kevin shares a brief portion about how on his Major League debut, he was waiting in the bullpen for the call to go into the game and pitch when a sunflower seed got caught in his throat.  As he was still trying to dislodge the seed, he got the call to come into the game!  He shares how as he was standing on the mound at the climax of his baseball career, after working so many years to accomplish his dream, all he could think of was that he was going to puke all over himself just because of this small seed that he couldn't get rid of.  He then goes on to share about how easy it is for things of this world to be shaken by something as small as a sunflower seed, and thus the importance for our foundation to be on something that cannot be shaken.  Both the story he shared with this group of athletes (those who were at the party) and the performance by the kids went over seemingly well with all who were there, and the kids love being involved in that kind of thing (and they were rewarded with the promise of getting to set off fireworks later tonight!).

We made it about 3 hours before the tight quarters and lack of a nap for Noah started to make my boys get close to the "explode" stage.  (Not sure if any of you with high-energy little ones can relate to this; when the tension is building and you are just buying time before something gets broken or one of the kids implodes???)  I made a polite exit with the 3 boys and Kevin stayed on to enjoy the rest of the party with Karis (he needed to drive our blind friends home).  Noah, Hud, and Eli accompanied me to a late dinner at Papa John's (which has recently opened up near us; funny though, they won't deliver to our apartment as it is too far away; they only deliver within a one mile radius of the store, and our apartment is about 2 1/2; we find it pretty humorous that our area is so densely populated that a business can have more business than they can handle by limiting their delivery distance so much!).  The boys got out their extra energy by racing up and down 2 flights of stairs that were lighted outside the restaurant as we waited for our pizza.  After we ate, Eli suggested we see how far we could walk rather than taking a taxi home.  I was ill-prepared for this, as none of the boys had their hats or gloves, but we stuck our hands in our pockets and managed to make the 2+ mile walk home (it took us an hour!).  They had fun running in the grass as we passed by Trash Mountain and hiding in the "jungles" we discovered on the way (shown in the pics).

Meanwhile, Kevin and Karis enjoyed the craziness at the party!  Kevin came home to tell me of one of the more awkward moments--a sort of pole-dance (minus the pole) by one of the girls in attendance!  It is pretty normal at these parties for each of the guests to take a turn on center stage, performing something they are good at.  So we heard different musicians, vocal choruses, and then a dance.  This young woman turned on a song from someone's phone and gyrated for several minutes in a way Kevin described as "Even though I've never been to one, it's what I would have imagined goes on at a strip club, only with clothes on!"  I asked how Karis and the others responded.  Apparently there were some high kicks and other gymnastic type displays that Karis was impressed by, and the majority of the young men spent the time focusing on the young woman's wriggling rear end, but Kevin says he was too busy averting his eyes and feeling embarrassed to notice much more!  Wish I could have been there to more fully appreciate the unexpected....China parties.  You gotta love 'em!

These final 2 pics are of the kids and their impromptu performance when we had guests the other night.  Once again, a Taylor Swift song performed as Karis informed Eli that they were "never, ever getting back together!"

Snow for a few more days...

I never thought that weather could have such a profound impact on my life!  These past few weeks have been COLD--with only the last several days getting above freezing.  But the real kicker has been the "smog," as our Chinese friends call what we prefer to more accurately label "pollution!"  And I really shouldn't be complaining at all; we had the first day of seeing the sunshine today--and let me tell you--it was glorious!  Now in order to be able to see it, we had a strong wind that blew in, thus blowing out our usual canopy of gray that seems determined to suffocate all life beneath.  But the wind won out, and we gladly donned extra layers to embrace the chill in the air in order to play outdoors longer than we usually would care to be.  We kept encouraging the kids to run and breath deeply, rather than our usual jokes about holding our breath whenever we are in the open air.  What is so shocking to me is how much the general atmosphere of pretty much any location is altered by having the clear sky and visible sun.  My class of students, the neighbors I pass on the way to the market, even my own demeanor has a lightness to it that we haven't felt much these past 3 weeks. 

We have been blessed by an incredible amount of snow this year.  I forgot to count how many days, but I think it's been about 5 days in the past 2 weeks that we've had a significant layer of snow fall.  Our first major dusting happened 2 weeks ago when we went to Beijing to meet up with Kevin's cousin who was in town for business from the States.  It was SUCH a blessing to have time with cousin Tommy!  We never cease to delight in being able to share with loved ones a bit of our life and the culture which we are so absorbed in now after 3 and a half years of life in China.  Tommy  spent the day visiting a few of our favorite tourist spots and humoring us as he listened to some of our stories about what life is like for us living as foreigners in a "strange land."  It was totally refreshing to us to have the time with family; and he even came armed with gifts for the kids--so they were on cloud 9 and are definitely major cousin Tommy fans!

Speaking of cultural differences, we just finished having another jaw-dropping conversation with one of our closer friends here about business in China and the bribery that is so normal to encounter.  He used to be a professional baseball player in town, and he was explaining how the team was never as good as it could have been because the players who got the most playing time were those who paid off the coach the most.  He was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing; there was no sense of resentment or frustration in his tone.  But he was telling us how he wished it could be different for the sake of wanting to see how good a team (in baseball and other sports) China could produce if those players who were truly the best were the ones allowed to play.  He was also telling us about the pressure at his current workplace (he's teaching English to little kids) because his boss just hung a huge sign outside the building that the government has decided is not attractive.  Because their building is so close to a large government one, they have asked the English school to take the sign down.  But the cost is exorbitant!  Approximately $10,000 to hire the equipment and manpower needed to remove it.  So rather than just removing the sign, our friend's boss is in the process of trying to build "guan xi" (relationship) with the right people who can decide that the sign does NOT need to go. And this is done by inviting the "right" people out to eat, then paying them off under the table.  The complicating factor is that you never know for sure if you're inviting the right person who has a high enough statues to truly pull the strings you need pulled.  So you might pay off one person, but then have to go 2, 3, even 4 levels higher before you're really in the clear.  And what's even more shocking to me is that this bribery system is really in play in pretty much every market place we've encountered--even the educational system.  I have had several moms talk with me about how to handle the pay-offs that are expected to be given to their kids' preschool teachers!  It starts that early; and if the teacher is NOT paid off, supposedly the chances of your child being treated fairly are pretty much slim to none.  Not what most moms want to hear, especially in a society where education is really the most important thing in one's life.  So how does one navigate in this culture that requires so much of what goes against every cultural idea of justice that we Americans hold so dear?  Still in process on that one...

On a lighter note, we've had some fun on our weekends as of late.  We even made it to a new shopping mall that has an indoor ice skating rink!  Our dear friends Ying Ying and Michael went with us, and I was VERY thankful for the extra hands, as having 4 kids on the ice (3 for the very first time) was about as much as my 2 hands could handle.  We miraculously made it through with no major falls and no injuries.  Noah made one full lap before he decided he'd had enough (actually, he wanted to quit after about the first 20 yards, but I convinced him to remain skating with the flow to make the complete circle to the nearest exit); Eli and Karis loved it, and Hudson had fun clinging to either myself, Michael, or the wall for most of the hour.  It was a fun get-away for our family, and almost made us think we were back at the Dallas Galleria for the afternoon!  (Oh, we even found a Subway in the mall for lunch, completing our "back to the US" nostalgia.)





We only have 2 days left of school, then we're out for a 2-week long holiday (the Chinese New Year).  We're going to make the most of our 2 weeks by doing some travel--first to Cambodia, then on to Thailand.  We're truly counting down the days til we can hit the warm weather and sunshine!  The bags are packed already and we've got a packed weekend trying to say goodbye to all our Chinese friends for the 2 weeks before we go (it's kind of like Christmas to them, where it's really important to spend time with your closer friends to celebrate this time of year).  We have a 6-hour long party tomorrow that we're attending with the whole family (it's a party friends of Kevin's are hosting for some of the professional athletes in town), so we're hoping to turn in early so we can get rested and geared up for what is sure to be some Chinese-ee craziness!