Getting Ready for Christmas

There is a store here in Tianjin that has been around for 19 years that sells Christmas stuff. Last week, one of the veteran westerners here took me there for some holiday shopping. I was thrilled to find several really cute things for our apartment--including a tree! We decided to make today our family decorating day after we went to a Christmas bazaar at the international school. So we had our usual Saturday morning breakfast of pancakes (with bacon, this time, as I found some at E Mart recently!) and homemade syrup (would you believe all you have to do to make syrup is add 1 c. water to 1 c. brown sugar and 1 c. white sugar and boil together?!) and then met our friend Joel at the school. We shopped (or rather, I shopped while Kevin reined in kids!) for a few hours, had lunch there (shown in the pic), then taxied home to start the decorating. We had fun putting the artificial tree together and stringing up the lights. The kids played the wii for a little while when they got bored with the decorating, then we finished the evening with dinner listening to some of our favorite Christmas cd's. Our goal these last few days has been to stay really busy, which has helped us make it through our first holiday away from "home" without being too homesick. We've really missed time with friends and family, but overall have done well as we feel like we are really being lifted up right now and are truly blessed to have such a great community here that has embraced us and encouraged us in many ways!

The other pic is of the Christmas tree that we put up in our living room.

Thanksgiving--Part 2

Part 2 of our Thanksgiving celebration was just as much fun as Part 1! We spent the morning finishing up decorating our turkey cookies, had some play time around the apartment (as you can see Eli and Hud got into Kevin's t-shirt drawer and helped themselves, making their game of baseball much more realistic!), and then went to our friend's house in the afternoon. We ate an early dinner there with about 15 other adults and 10 kids. We did get to eat the highly-prized turkey, along with a ton of side dishes. I have to be honest, the food was fantastic, but still all a little bit different from what we are used to! (For example, I made a pumpkin pie earlier this week. It was really good, but made with fresh pumpkin that I steamed and then pureed rather than pumpkin out of a can. And it used sweetened condensed milk rather than evaporated milk, which is next to impossible to find here. Oh, and I'm not sure my homemade pie crust would win any prizes over Pillsbury's. And there is no Cool Whip, so while the heavy whipping cream is nice, again, it's just not quite the same. So you get the idea!) Besides a great feast we had a neat time with the adults going around the room and sharing things we are thankful to have seen Him do in our lives over the past year. Lots to share for everyone at the table!

The family who hosted us has four kids, ages 9 to 14, and they are incredible with younger ones! They were so sweet to share their toys and take care of the little kids who were there, that it was a real treat to our kids to spend time with them. Not to mention the fact that they had a house full of toys and a trampoline outside! We told the kids on the way over there that they had a dog, and their response was, "A real one?"! We definitely see quite a few dogs in our apartment complex, but we tell the kids never to touch them and they haven't actually spent time with anyone else who owns one here. We are really thankful this holiday for His provision of friends that we can celebrate His goodness in our lives with! And we hope that each of you reading this too has had a wonderful time celebrating as well!!

Thanksgiving--Part 1

Since no one, except other Americans, celebrates Thanksgiving here in China, we obviously don't have any change in our schedule for the holiday. So we've decided to stretch the celebrating into two days instead of just one! That way, we can more easily get together to celebrate with people on Friday, when most of the folks in our group have greater flexibility to skip out of work or school early. Today, our actual Thanksgiving Thursday, we had some fun family time. I ran errands with the kids in the morning, getting a cold start on our three wheeler, but with the battery fully charged this time! We made it to the International School library and playground and then to our favorite chicken place to buy a rotisserie chicken for dinner. I tried shopping at a local market for plain colored t-shirts for everyone (we were going to paint turkey hand prints on them), but couldn't find them anywhere and finally gave up! What I wouldn't give for a Super Target and a package of Hanes. . . The clothes shopping here is super cheap, but much more like a garage sale, where you just have to sort through a stack of clothes laying on a table and then guess at the sizing, as it is normally different from our US sizing.

This evening we did a craft from our Thanksgiving craft book that showed us how to use our hands as a pattern for a turkey, then use the patterns to cut out cookie dough. We got the cookies baked and plan to decorate them with icing tomorrow (a special treat, as powdered sugar is hard to come by!). The kids had a blast, and Kevin and I were entertained by the conversation. We asked them each to think about a few things they were thankful for, and here are their responses:

• Karis: "My new friend, Adah."
• Eli: "That we had fish. They are dead now, but we did have fish." (we got two goldfish at a market, Dori and Marlin, who survived for about a month. not bad, considering the Chinese tap water in the bowl they were inhabiting!)
  
• Hudson: "Baseball fields." (Of which we have seen not one since we've been here in China! So show you how the mind of a two year old works!)
• Noah was surprising quiet :)

We'll show the cookie completion tomorrow after we return from our Thanksgiving celebration with friends, a group of about 20 of us (including kids) all bringing our favorite dishes and even one turkey on the way!

More New Stuff!

The highlight of any week in the Joseph household is when mail arrives. This week we received our fourth care package in the mail, and the kids were ecstatic! The postal service worker shows up at our door with a notice, asks to see our passport, then leaves us with a slip of paper telling us where to go get the package. Thankfully the post office that receives the international packages is close, so we just taxi over, show our passport once again, and get to take home our package. This one was from Nana and Papa and Mimi and Pop. The picture shows the kids enjoying some of the contents--footie pj's for everyone (except Kevin! Wouldn't we all have loved to see that!) and a new Curious George Christmas movie. We love getting stuff in the mail, especially during this holiday time, as it makes us feel not quite so far away!

Another "new" thing we were blessed by today was our first milk delivery! A friend of mine here discovered a man who delivers fresh milk--the kind we've only been able to get by going to E Mart. I break either a bag or a hand (ha! ha!) pretty much every time I go to stock up on milk, as it weighs a lot and is hard to carry further distances (like from the taxi drop off to our apartment). So I can't tell you how excited I am to have this! And I was even super encouraged by the fact that I was able to communicate enough with the milk man to set up a regular delivery twice a week and a payment schedule (at least I think I did--I guess we'll see how successful I was if he comes when I think he is!).

And we have a new friend to add to our list of praises. I was introduced to a young woman through a friend at the international school. She speaks fluent English, is a little younger than me, and is wanting to grow in ways of being like-minded. She is going to start coming over weekly to join our family for dinner and then have some girl time with me, and I couldn't be more thrilled! We hit it off immediately, and she is a huge answer to my request specifically for a Chinese friend who can also speak English, as I struggle through the language-learning process.

One quick funny story. We have some Western friends that brought us a wonderful beef stew meal right after I broke my hand. We all loved it so much, that I asked for the recipe. My friend gave it to us in both English and Chinese, so I passed it off to my ayi and asked her to make it for dinner for us for Monday night. Our ayi NEVER uses recipes, as all the stuff she cooks is Chinese food (which means no recipes and all on the stove top!), so she asked a few questions and Kevin and I were able to clarify a few things. Then I showed her the Tablespoon measuring spoon and the bag of beef bouillon (which I had just been given and was so excited about because it is really hard to find here--lots of chicken, but not beef). When I got home from class, ayi was about to leave and she showed me the stew on the stovetop, asking how it looked. I was really excited, as it looked and smelled delicious. After she left, I tasted a bite and almost spewed it out immediately! It was the most salty thing I had ever eaten in my life! I went to my cookbooks and started trying all the tricks that were suggested for soups being made too salty (adding vinegar, adding sugar, putting in a raw potato to absorb some of the salt)--all to no avail. We ended up raiding the fridge for leftovers for dinner instead. When I was getting our "alternate" dinner on the table, I ran across the bag of beef bouillon--completely empty! I realized that our ayi had used not 1 Tbls. of beef bouillon, but rather 1 bag (which probably contained 20 Tbls.)! As Eli put it at the dinner table, "Mom, now you have two problems. Our dinner is too salty and you have no more beef bouillon!" I guess from here on out I'll save the recipe-style cooking for my nights and let our ayi work her magic in our kitchen without my interference. . .

Sunday with Friends

On Sunday we had lots of good time with some of our new friends here in China. My teacher, Zhen zhen (pronounced Jenn-jenn), has become a dear friend to me here. She is as sweet as they come, and super patient and gracious with me. She knew that I wanted to get my hair cut, and we'd practiced some of the different things I wanted to communicate during the hair cut while I was in class, so she offered to go with me. She wanted some of the kids to come along, too, so she could have more time with them in the process! So Karis and I met Zhen zhen and her long-time boyfriend at the salon on Sunday afternoon. I'd had several friends recommend Sunny Hair Salon, and was definitely not disappointed!

The experience itself was great--everything you think of when you want a fun "salon experience" even in Dallas. The guy who cut my hair was truly an artist. I couldn't get over the way he could flip the scissors and comb around in his right hand without ever knicking himself (or me!). He didn't speak any English (that I could tell) and I didn't have a picture of what I wanted, so I kind of just gestured and smiled a lot to tell him that I would like a few layers and angles in the front. It must have worked, because I was really pleased with the outcome! And even more so with the price. When I checked out, I paid 50 kaui, which is about 8 bucks! And you don't tip in China, so the $8 was the total. Pretty amazing, huh? (Oh, and to clarify from a previous entry: we did have to pay about $800 for our heat, but that was not to repair our heat, but rather the cost of having it operate in our apartment for the 4 months that it is turned on. Sorry for the confusion!)

And Karis had a great time while we were at the salon, too! She had brought a whole book of things to do with Zhen zhen while they waited (which was about 45 minutes). So the two of them colored and looked at these kids' books that are in Chinese (for Chinese practice!). They bonded so much that Karis insisted on giving Zhen zhen several presents even before they left that night! And Zhen zhen's boyfriend was a great sport, too. He doesn't speak much English at all, but once we came back to our apartment for dinner, he played with our boys for quite some time, chasing them around with our nerf gun and shooting at them!

So after the cheap, but oh so great hair cut, we returned to our apartment for dinner. We'd asked our ayi to make some Chinese food (which is obviously our friends' preference) on Friday, but didn't think it was enough. So I made a few western sides for them to try (including chocolate chip cookies, but no one used chop sticks to eat them this time!), and then we decided to order a few dishes from our local favorite restaurant as well. Kevin tried to order two chicken dishes for delivery over the phone, but after going back and forth for about 5 minutes with them telling him something he couldn't understand, we ended up with one chicken and one broccoli dish! We all just laughed--who knows?

After dinner, which our friend Joel was in on too, we put the kids to bed and then the adults (no make that the guys--aka "big kids!") had a blast playing the wii. Zhen zhen's boyfriend had never played, but he and Joel in particular had a ton of fun and played for several hours before they both decided that their arms were tired and it was time to go home!

The picture of the three little dolls is one of the gifts from Zhen zhen. This culture is SUCH a gift-giving culture (as I've mentioned before), that people are always giving you things! So Zhen zhen had already brought me back a stack of post cards and a pair of earrings from the school trip she went on a few weeks ago that Kevin and I decided not to go on (it involved a 24 hour train ride and some crazy boat travel--not ideal with the 4 little ones!). When she came for dinner she brought me a beautiful table runner she had gotten on the trip, too, and then these little dolls. All just to say thank you for dinner! I have a long way to go in learning how to be a good guest!

View of Tianjin

Such a fun weekend--but I definitely have some catching up to do! On Saturday, we took the kids to the water park. We thought that since the wind wasn't so bad, the 40 degree weather wouldn't feel too cold. We were slightly mistaken! We did manage to stay for over an hour, giving Kevin enough time to go up in the ferris wheel with the older three kids, which is something Karis has been wanting to do since spotting the giant contraption. The kids really enjoyed it, and Kevin survived in spite of his dislike of heights, and Noah and I cheered them on from below. We brought a picnic lunch with us and stayed long enough to wolf down at least some of it before deciding we'd rather eat in the warmth of our own kitchen at home!

Before we left we fed some of our leftover bread to the brightly colored fish that reside there at the water park. Not sure if the fish or the "sige" (four) blonde kids drew a bigger crowd! (You can see the fish in the background of the picture of Karis.) We also saw a group of Chinese folks playing their version of hackey-sack. The "ball" that they use is more like a combination of a badminton birdie and our USA hackey-sack; we were really impressed with the skill of the older people who were playing! (Can be seen in the background of the photo of Kevin and the kids. And fyi, you can click on the photos to get them larger on your screen--new discovery for me!!)

The picture of Noah is of him upon our return. We obviously wore him out because he didn't even awaken when I put him down to unbundle his multiple layers (also known as his marshmellow suit).

We had a friend stop by that afternoon who has lived here long enough to be able to read the Chinese characters, and he informed us of a notice that was posted on our building door. It warned parents to watch their children, as rat poison, also called "anti-rat medicine" in Chinese!, was being put out around the building. We were thankful for his knowledge of what was going on around us--as we were obviously unaware!

Lesson Learned

Lesson of the day--cold weather drains the power of a battery-operated three wheeler! We found this one out the hard way today. I took the kids to the International School library and playground this morning before lunch to get some new books and play for a (very!) short time out in the cold. We did get the top put on the three-wheeler, which makes it more usable in the cold (at least for the passengers in the back, if not for the mom driving up front!), but also (as I discovered today) makes it much heavier. After lunch I took the older two to our homeschool co-op group, again on the three wheeler. The power gauge was still reading that we were in between High and Low, so I thought we would be fine, but by the time we arrived at the house where the co-op meets we were pretty much only sputtering along. The ladies there told me that the electric bike batteries just don't hold their charge very well in the cold weather. And I think that our Dungeon Master friend (the woman who lives in and runs the underground parking for the electric bikes and three wheelers) wasn't expecting us due to the cold--so our bike wasn't as fully charged as it normally is. At any rate, I was really thankful that the host of the homeschool group happened to have a three wheeler with a compatible charger, so we got it a little bit juiced up before heading home.

Unfortunately the juice wasn't quite enough, however, so after I dropped off the two kids and one other mom who were on our route home, I ended up pedaling us the rest of the way back! I am soooo thankful that we opted for the three-wheeler model with the pedals (there was one we looked at that didn't have that option!)!! As I huffed and puffed up to our apartment complex's entrance, quads getting their work out of the year, the "electric" part of the three wheeler would kick in every few seconds and give me a burst of power that would help me to at least make it over the speed bumps. I'm prettty sure we will be the talk of the town (as if we aren't already, with how we seem to stick out wherever we go!), due to my pedaling the large three-wheeler and looking rather silly in the process. Oh well, we did make it home. Luckily, the ramp for the parking garage was downhill; otherwise, we would have had NO chance! When we got back to the dungeon, Karis gave our Dungeon Master friend some beads that she'd made and we took a picture there with her.

So I guess I need to be sticking more to taxis now--or at least charging the three-wheeler a little longer--but am slightly intimidated to spend a huge amount of time in the taxis alone. We have been encouraged to take advantage of a captive audience, and practice our language skills (or lack thereof!) when we are riding in one. So yesterday when I was in a taxi alone, I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and started trying to communicate. Of course the problem with this is that the drivers usually get excited that a Westerner knows any Chinese, so they start chattering away at break-neck speed--well, at least in sounds that way to my rookie ears! My driver followed this pattern, and I found myself trying to break in to state in my well-rehearsed Mandarin that "I speak only a little Chinese." I was of course flustered in the process, and ended up telling him that "I speak only a little China." He kind of smiled and grunted, and I realized my mistake, but only a while after exiting the cab. Kevin and I did have fun laughing at my folly later that night when I relayed it to him. One of my many verbal blunders these days! (Kevin's favorite is how I keep trying to say "y" (pronounced "ee") for "and" like you do in Spanish. Of course "yi" in Marndarin (also pronounced "ee") means "one" in Mandarin--so basically I'm confused and confusing others everywhere I go. Oh well, we're pretty sure we'll get there someday. . . :)