It's Spring!!

I've been running behind!  I've actually got a list that I've been adding to of things that I thought would be fun to include in my next blog update; but the list has gotten so long I'm thinking that I need subheadings.....So here goes!

Hud's Birthday

Hudson celebrated his 6th birthday last week.  It was complete with cupcakes for his classmates at school (chocolate cake with chocolate icing at his request) and gifts from the family that he opened after school.  Unfortunately, whether it's his age or just a bad habit, his tendency to be dissatisfied with his gifts came out again this year when it was time to open the gifts!  After tearing through the wrapping of his 6 or so gifts, his response was, "Is that ALL?!  There aren't any more toys?!"  We're obviously still very much in the process of being thankful for what he does get and figuring out how to control what comes out of our mouths even if we are disappointed (but thankful that this go-round was just with our family, so no major offense to anyone else!).
     Now several of Hud's friends did end up giving him some gifts.  The toys, he loved playing with (until the ones from China broke within 24 hours of getting out of the package!).  My favorite one was from a Chinese friend:  a baby spoon!  The looks on  all our faces when Hud opened the gift was pretty priceless (luckily the gift-giver was NOT present for this one)--the stunned silence as we all cocked our heads to the side and kind of let out a "hmmm" in unison.

     Two of my favorite parts of his day involved the dinner meal.  When I asked him what he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner, his reply was, "Macaroni and cheese.  And NO broccoli and NO potatoes.  Well, maybe the broccoli is okay.  But NO rice!"  I thought this was well-spoken for a six-year old who eats more than his fair share of rice (like 3 times per week).  My other favorite part was where he wanted to sit:  his request was to sit in his Dad's lap during the meal!  He remains our snuggle bug whose love language is surely physical touch.  Watching Kevin scoop up his macaroni and cheese and get it into his mouth with Hud between his plate and its final destination was enjoyable for me! :)
   

Chicken Shortage
Speaking of food, we've really felt the effects of the bird flu.  I actually went to a presentation at the school this week to get more information about the virus, and I must admit, it was pretty scary!  The virus has been found in birds as close as Beijing, and some of the birds have even come from Tianjin.  The good news is, although it's an extremely serious virus with a high mortality rate, there are still relatively few cases that have been found in China (like 130 throughout the whole country).  The bad news is, besides the fear of actually catching the disease, of course, is that finding chicken has gotten really difficult!  All the local meat markets are not stocking it, as so many people are scared to purchase it now.  I've had to get creative, finding it frozen at some of the larger super markets and even finding one vendor who will deliver fresh chicken (convenient, as long as I plan ahead with enough time to get an order placed and delivered before the planned meal!).  Think we might be getting creative with "the other white meat"....

Kevin's Wedding Officiating
Kevin was asked to officiate his second wedding in Chinese last weekend.  The circumstances and location were something else--he performed the ceremony for a blind couple out in the middle of the Chinese countryside.  He was really excited to be a part of the celebration, but it was, as we expected, truly a "Chinese experience"!  He ended up leaving late on Friday night to drive a group of 7 or 8 others to a village that was about 3 hours away.  They arrived in the village around 1am and Kevin got the "opportunity" to continue a late night of conversation with the rest of those he'd traveled with (mainly young, single guys) until the wee hours of the morning. 
     The next morning he helped with the wedding.  He said a few of the more anxious moments for him were when the couple linked arms and drank from their glass of wine; he just knew that disaster was looming, but they escaped with no red wine spots on any of their wedding apparel!  He had his eyes opened to how so many people live here in China; the house he stayed in had no running water and no electricity.  The bed was as hard as a rock (but he did have a bed!).  His other favorite part was the 40-year old wedding coordinator wearing the shortest dress he's ever seen.  Unfortunately, short skirts are not really considered risque here in China (low cut shirts, however, are).  With the change in weather, the warmer temperatures have also brought out the spring mini-skirts....almost enough to make us wish for the winter cold once again!  Yikes!

Parenting Study
My group of ladies meeting regularly to do a moms' study has now become a parenting study, as the number of dad's present has increased!  We never know who will show up at the door, but small kids and dads have become much more of the normal than the exception.  I'm thankful that my husband and the kids (Karis especially) are so flexible and are ready to help host whoever walks in.  The highlight from this past week's study was a pineapple.  It is normal for guests to come to your home with a gift, and lots of times this is fruit.  This week a family came with a huge pineapple, with the price tag still on (which is also pretty normal in this culture; so people know how much you spent on their gift!).  This pineapple was 80 RMB (which is almost $13), whereas most of them at the market are about $1.50!!!  I haven't quite figured out what makes this pineapple so special, but am anxious to try it.
     My other funny moment came when I got the giggles at one point.  One of the things we do often is read a portion of something all in unison.  The only problem:  I really can't read Chinese!  The number of Chinese characters I know is so minimal, that I'm lost when we're trying to read a text that is completely in HanZi.  So it kind of ends up feeling like a test, or a skit from "Saturday Night Live," where everyone else is going through the passage as fast as they can and I'm half trying to pick out one or two characters in every sentence that I know and half trying not to crack up!  (This, BTW, is also very normal culturally, based on the Chinese educational system.  From a really young age on, the students are taught to recite things in unison and memorize large amounts of information.)

Car Accident
We had our first run-in, literally, with our car this past week.  Kevin was in a crazy situation (which is the norm around here, unfortunately!), and long story short, ended up bumping into a lady's car and bending her fender.  Everyone was fine, our car was not damaged, but it was a tricky situation for several reasons.  We've been told by many sources that if we are to get into a car accident, the best thing to do is hand off some cash and get out of the situation as quickly as possible.  Supposedly, the chances of a foreigner ever being given the benefit of the doubt are slim to none.  Furthermore, the underlying thinking of the Asian culture is geared toward equality in all things; which means if you have more, you are somewhat obligated to give more to those who have less.  So the assumption that we are wealthy, because we are foreigners, works against us, in that anyone making a decision about who is responsible to pay for damage done in a car accident will automatically look to us to foot the bill, regardless of who is at fault.  Kind of makes you think through the whole issue of justice and how culturally it can be swayed, huh?!  So this being known, Kevin was hoping to give the lady some money and drive away, but he also had a car full of Chinese friends with him, and he didn't want to be seen as the rich foreigner who just throws money around to get out of a situation (all his friends were insistent that he was not at fault, so he shouldn't be held responsible for the damage to her car).  Kevin was able to get out of the situation (showing great guile, I must say!), by explaining to our friends that our insurance is not very good (which we're pretty sure is true) and therefore would not cover the damage to the car, so therefore he needed to go ahead and pay out of pocket for the damage done (he ended up bargaining her down, so he paid her about the equivalent of $100).  As far as we knew, he was able to get off without having to give her any more personal information, so we're hoping that it's done and settled!
     Even after the accident, I told Kevin that I still had no regret, but only thankfulness, that we have the wheels we do, especially after my taxi experience this weekend.  While Kevin was out of town with the car, I took the kids in a taxi with me to school for Eli to go to soccer practice.  Instead of it taking us the usual 25 minutes, it took us a full hour.  I'm convinced that we had the VERY WORST driver in all of Tianjin driving our taxi.  He took so many wrong turns, in spite of me sitting in the front seat to give him directions, and sat through so many green lights waiting in the left-hand lane when he could have moved over and just gone through the light, that I literally held up my hands and let out a small scream of frustration at one point!  I thought about asking if he could pull over and just let me drive, but was pretty sure that wouldn't fly....

Weekend Visitors
Two weekends ago we actually had friends from the US come to visit.  We had a great time taking them to the international school, attending the school play, and having a picnic lunch at our new favorite spot at the lake.

     On our way to Beijing to pick them up from the airport, we made our first trip to the US Embassy because a few of us needed to have pages added to our passport (which I find really funny, in and of itself!  Guess we really have become world travelers!)  I brought my camera, but didn't end up taking a picture, as I was afraid they might think I was up to trouble.  The building was pretty much what I expected, and the nicest part was that although there was an incredibly long line of people waiting outside to get in, we were able to walk right past and go through the gates.  I'm thinking this was one of the fewer times we've experienced that being a foreigner actually works to our advantage!  Kevin and I couldn't stop chuckling at a remark made by Eli as we were making our way to the Embassy.  We had to park quite a distance away and then walk through a dirt parking lot, filled with cars, broken glass, and a very small number of scraggly trees.  As we walked, Eli made the comment, "This reminds me of Colorado!"  Kevin and I were both stunned.  Have we been away from natural beauty that long?  Have we warped our child's perspective by where we live?  Or has maybe his mind been renewed to some extent that I can't even imagine, that he could find beauty in the midst of a pollution-filled, glass-littered parking lot....Left Kevin and me much to ponder over the next few days.

Combined BDay Party
Since Hudson and I have birthdays that are only 3 days apart, we decided to do a joint party this year.  So this past weekend we had a group of our close friends come join us at the lake for a family dinner of pizza and time to play outside and enjoy the beautiful weather we're having.  The kids had a blast, playing soccer, riding bikes and scooters, finding fish in the lake (some of which made it home with us, only to make our fish tank smell more like the lake water than their mom would have preferred!), and playing frisbee.  We had a pretty large group to start off with, since Hud and I both got to work on putting together the guest list (there were to be about 48 in all), but I was a little bit thrown off when Kevin told me the day before the party that he had invited one of our good Chinese friends who we describe as "all Chinese"--meaning they have not had as much western influence from having other western friends, which makes the cultural differences sometimes seem more pronounced.  This friend was so excited about the party that he proceeded to invite a group of his closest friends--adding an extra 8 guests to our list!  I wasn't totally surprised.  This really is pretty typical of Chinese culture, in that if you are in someone's "inner circle" of friends, if you are invited to do something with them then it's usually accepted that your inner circle is also their inner circle. (Or at least, they're willing to go along with them in the way of hospitality, service, etc., as if they too were your closest friends or family members.  This is a big part of the reason why Chinese friends are really selective in who they let into their inner circle; the obligations that come with such a relationship can become pretty draining of your time and resources.)  But thankfully, for me this just meant calling the pizza place (which is normally closed on Sundays, but were thrilled to have our huge order on a Sunday afternoon so much so that they even delivered the pizzas half-way across town to the lake where we were picnicing!) and adding a few more pizzas to our order.  And the party was GREAT.  We had a blast celebrating with our group of friends from all different walks of life, switching back and forth between a little Chinese, a little English, and a lot of pizza and cupcakes.


Hud and I were both very satisfied with our party and rejoicing with thanksgiving at the friends we have been blessed with here.