How I wish I could transport each of you reading this into our living room right now. As much as I try to capture our life here in China and the daily activities as well as the challenges and differences, it really is just kind of one of those things you have to experience to really understand. There is still (after 2+ years of living here) a sense of strangeness in how many things seem the same and yet are so different! We've lived several of those differences out this past week...
The first was this weekend. Kevin took off early on Saturday morning to meet a group of ex-pat guys at a local sports bar that opened early in order to show the final game of the World Series. He got to watch an hour of the game with the guys before taxiing off to the International School where he had previously committed to help coach Karis' soccer game. So he was able to enjoy watching the big game with the guys--only instead of doing it in our home or someone else's, he was in a Chinese sports bar (which is unusual in and of itself) eating breakfast burritos because the game started at 8am!
Karis' soccer game would have felt like any other Lake Highlands league that we would have been a part of before we moved here to Tianjin, except that she was the only girl AND the only Caucasian (besides Eli, who was the guest player for the 2nd grade team as they were short a few) on the field. The kids had an absolute ball and they didn't notice anything strange about their team make-up or the environment (it was a pretty bad day on the pollution index, leaving Noah confused as to if the light in the sky was actually the moon or the bright enough to be the sun!). But I looked around me and observed the languages being spoken to encourage the young soccer players by the parents and felt again the uniqueness of our situation of being "foreigners" in so many different situations.
After the game, Kevin took Eli and rushed back to the sports bar to catch the end of the game while I kept the other three on the playground to play. I finally looked at my clock to discover that Hudson and Noah had both been on the swings for a solid 40 minutes before either of them was willing to get out! Swing sets are rarely ever found around here, and the boys were taking full advantage of the time being able to do so, chatting and singing the entire time. After getting off to stretch for several minutes, I was again taken by surprise when my incredibly active 2 and 4 year olds only wanted to return to the swings for more time of, as Hud put it, getting to "fly like a bird"!
After lunch we indulged in a super-fun treat--going out to eat lunch at a new Mexican food restaurant that has just opened, and happens to be close by our home, too! We were elated to find out that the food was really good and the atmosphere even conducive to bringing the kids along. And the place was crowded enough that it looks like they have a chance to stay in business, which, after one meal there, Kevin and I were thrilled about!
Saturday night we had a group of Chinese friends over for dinner and a movie night. After watching the movie "Soul Surfer", Kevin was fulfilling the role of the host by "song-ing" our guests home (which is when you walk your guests either to the taxi stop, bus stop, or their car; it used to be that you went all the way back to your guests' home to make sure they arrived safely, so we feel like this slight change in what is considered polite is a change in the much more convenient direction!). The group split up, leaving one single girl left alone to walk to her car. Kevin decided that it made the most sense to walk her to her car, and was really glad he had done so when upon arriving at her vehicle, they discovered that the car next to her had double-parked and had left no reason to believe that they were returning any time soon! Kevin was able to solve the problem by pushing the car that was double-parked (and apparently had a driver unfamiliar with the concept of using a parking break or leaving the car parked in first gear?) down the street and out of the way! Kevin said that the entire time his mind was worse-case-scenario-ing as he imagined bumping into the closely packed surrounding vehicles or losing control of the car he was pushing and watching it roll away.... Thankfully none of the scenarios played out, and he was able to push the blocking vehicle out of the way and then push it back (and least close to the original space!) to where it was previously parked with our friend being able to move her car out of the way and off down the street. Definitely a feeling of "where am I?" in the midst of the common courtesy of seeing a guest to the door!
Today in our International Fellowship that we attend on Sunday mornings, we were blessed by a student's spontaneous outpouring of worship. Our fellowship has about 200-300 in attendance on any given Sunday, all required by the government to be foreign passport holders, and a large number of those attending are students from Africa (mostly studying medicine of some sort). This weeks' worship team was being led mainly by several of these African students, and therefore had more of a African cultural feel to it. About half way through the time of worship, one of the young men who is a leader amongst the group jumped up on stage with the worship leaders, clapping his hands above his head, dancing around, and encouraging those of us in attendance to raise our voices. Kevin and I just looked at each other grinning, both thinking how refreshing it was to see such a genuine overflow of the heart in a way that was so culturally normal to so many in the pews, and yet how strange the scene would appear in any of our home groups with which we have fellowshipped in the US. We are thankful for the diversity in worship and cultural norms for which we get to engage in weekly with those we serve and worship with!
The last thing I've been taking note of this past week is Noah's responses to things that we experience here. As his language is developing, it is so fun to see what he says, what he notices, and how he pieces together both the world around him and the way he desires to express what he sees. His regular response to seeing those around us noisily clearing their throats and then hocking large loogies is, "Ew. Gross." Might I add here how thankful I am that this aspect of acceptable culture here in China has NOT become normal enough to him to think that it is okay to participate in! Another is the daily dodging of dog poop on the sidewalk as we walk through our apartment community. He has taken to announcing for all to hear (and avoid traipsing through), "Yucky! Doggie poo-poo!" His final, and my favorite, in spite of the severity of the situation, is his reaction to the electric bikes, three wheelers, or bicycles that regularly speed by, often times frightening him in the process because of how close they are to hitting you. His standard response once they pass: "Missed me!" Thankful for his ability to be able to laugh at situations that could be (and probably should be!) considered dangerous, knowing in Whose hands we reside.
