photo shoot

We stopped in a photo studio on our street last week to get some pictures of Catherine and hopefully some family pictures we could use in Christmas cards.  

Catherine at 16 months

Don't be confused.  We didn't travel to Italy.  We're still at the photo studio on our street :)

trash

When we first moved into our building there were very very few residents who had moved in yet.  Most were still fixing up their places.  Occasionally there would be construction trash left in the elevator.  Annoying, but not really a big problem. Mostly just an occasional box or packaging material or something like that.  Now that more neighbors have moved in, in the past few weeks a terrible habit developed.  People were just throwing their bags of leaking, nasty trash in the elevator.  Seriously.  for about a week everyday the back half of the elevator had either bags of trash or leftover gross-ness after the cleaning ladies had to clean it up.
In my head, I was drafting a sign that I could print out and hang up.  I was wondering what words I could use that would express my disdain for the situation and not be too blatantly rude.  I hadn't yet completed my masterpiece when I noticed someone beat me to it....and did a much better job than I could have:

"Take out the trash.  Maintain civility."  

That's my rough translation.  Anyway, it seems to have worked.  Since the sign was posted the elevator has been trash free :)

Thanksgiving 2012

I'm a bit slow at getting these pictures up, but we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  It is more "trouble" to make those special dishes from home here, but it also makes them seem more delicious and appreciated.  

I really wanted green bean casserole.  We have an imports store that had cream of mushroom soup, but I had to make the french fried onions.  It wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be, and we had batter left to have more deep-fried goodness a few days later.  

 Pumpkins (although a different variety than we have in the US) are more commonly eaten here and easy to find.  Where there is pumpkin, there can be pumpkin pie :)

 Ovens are NOT standard in homes here.  What we have is more like a toaster oven, but it gets the job done.

Our Thursday feast:   pumpkin pie, pound cake, Russian bread (authentically Russian.  one of James' classmates from Russia has begun baking loaves and selling them to her classmates for about $1.50/loaf), green bean casserole, salad, chicken (the turkey cost $74 at the import store.  no thanks), and sweet potatoes.

Our friends.  James' best friend here who teaches at a college and one of James' American classmates.  She's here doing research for her dissertation.

Our family

We went to another feast on Saturday but didn't think to get out the camera.  There were somewhere between 20-30 of us there.  It was nice to meet some of the foreigners in the city we hasn't met and to again fill up on such delicious treats.  When we got back that evening, we decorated our Christmas tree.

Someone really liked the lights.

 Our little helper

weddings

We've been to a couple weddings recently.  Weddings here are one thing that I can't seem to culturally adapt to very well.  There's not much formality to them and generally they don't include any kind of public commitment or vows or anything.  The marriage is "legal" whenever the couple registers for their marriage certificate at the government office, and the wedding is just a meal to celebrate with friends and family.  

The thing I find even more interesting is that most of my friends also don't like their wedding customs but don't feel like they any other choice than to do what's "normal" since it's what their parents expect.  

A welcomed change since I was here last is the presence of a beverage other than alcohol.  The bride and groom and whichever set of parents are hosting the event normally toast each table of guests.  The custom is to use very strong alcohol, but at both the weddings we attended recently, peach juice has been offered as a substitute.

Bride and groom is traditional clothing.

groom carrying bride on his back.  Probably in response to some request from a guest or family member.

part of the wedding feast

another bride and groom

The host or announcer.  He introduces the family and the bride and groom as well as any performers.

At the second wedding the feast included lots and lots of mutton (sheep).  Nothing was wasted.  Not even the parts I personally wish could have been :)

the alcohol used for toasting

Fire

We were sitting at home watching a little TV on Sunday night after we put Catherine to sleep.  I smelled something burning or maybe something like plastic melting.  We hopped up to look around our house and see what it was.  We couldn't find anything.  Then we opened the apartment door into the hallway and it was filled with smoke.  

James jumped in to emergency.  "You get Catherine up. I'll get our things. We'll go down floor by floor and use this hammer to break out the windows when we need to get air."  

We tried this plan, but realized almost immediately that the smoke was too thick.  We called 119 and told them we had a fire.  They were already on scene and already working to bring people out of the building.  They told us to open the windows, to breathe through wet cloths, and hold fast until the firemen got to our floor.

We knew by now that the situation was serious enough that we wouldn't be returning that evening and we had a few more moments to gather a few more things and prepare to be out of our home for awhile  I sat with Catherine by an open window while James gathered our things.  By now the electricity was out and we could hear the sounds from the firemen breaking windows and people yelling at each other from various floors to those already outside.
  
After a while 3 firemen burst in our door.  I wondered what Catherine was thinking at this point.  It was dark with no lights and then 3 men with reflective coats, air tanks, masks over their faces, and huge flashlights just came in.  I'm sure it was a scary sight for her little eyes, but a welcomed relief for us to see them.  They helped us get down 18 flights of smoke-filled stairs.  We would go down 3 or 4 flights and then stick our heads out one of the windows to get some fresh-ish air.  The farther down we went the thicker the smoke and the harder to see and breath.  Finally on the 3rd floor there was a balcony we could climb out on through the window.  From here they gave us their masks we could wear for the last little bit and they went without. I went down first and James followed a few moments later with Catherine.  I'm sure it was just a few moments, but being outside on the ground floor and just waiting for Catherine and James to come out of the building too seemed like hours.  They had taken a bit longer because they were (to no avail) trying to find a mask Catherine could wear.  Another big relief when they cam out of the front doors.  

We went across the courtyard to the complex office and waited for bit while we decided the best course of action was to get to a hotel, get cleaned up, and let C get back to sleep.  

That day we thought the fire started in the basement, but when James returned the next day he found out it was actually one of the first floor apartments.  I don't know if anyone was living there, but it was being used as a mahjong parlor.  We also found out that one older man had passed away.  Here are some pictures (although not very good ones) of the first floor where it started.

When James returned, the elevators still weren't working.  They had at least unlocked the doors to the roof which meant we could go to the second entrance to our building, take the elevator up to the 27th floor, walk up one flight of stairs to the roof, cross the roof to our entrance, and walk down 9 flights to the 18th floor.  Complicated, but better than having to walk up 18 flights.

We stayed at the hotel 2 nights and at at friend's house one night.  Catherine and I mostly stayed away and James and another friend took care of all of the cleaning.  Almost every piece of clothing and bedding had to be washed, all surfaces had to be wiped down and because our kitchen cabinets are open, ALL our dishes had to be washed (by hand).  It was a big task.  We don't have a dryer so we could only do as much laundry as we could find a place to dry so it took a week or so to get caught up.

Now almost everything is back to normal.  The first floor still looks terrible, but all the windows that were broken have been replaced and bars across the windows in the stairway have been repaired.  At least one of our elevators works each day.

We are so thankful we got out safely, that our possessions were unharmed, that we had friends to watch Catherine, friends to help clean, friends to stay with, and the finances to stay at a hotel for a few nights without any worry.  We're thankful for all the friends and family who wrote and called to check on us.  We're mostly thankful the whole ordeal is over :)

Decision made

Short version:

Assuming all goes according to plan, our second child will be born in…………………….THE USA!

Long version:

We had a home birth with Catherine and had a very positive experience.  We loved the care we received from the midwives and being in the comforts of our own home to welcome her into the world.  We knew moving to China that having the same experience probably wouldn’t be likely.  We also knew that Chinese hospitals don’t have great reputations and that the C section rates are very, very high.  We also knew that traveling for the birth wasn’t ideal because of the time we’d have to be away from the city we now call home.  (due to flight restrictions for pregnancy before the birth and waiting for passport/visa processing for new baby after the birth)

We had done a little research prior to coming and found a hospital in Beijing (just a short flight, overnight train, or 6-8 hour car ride away) that seemed to support natural birth.  When we arrived in August we made a trip there to check it out.  The quality and standard of care seemed good and they seemed to truly support natural birth.  However, the cost was significantly more than the US and the English level of the staff didn’t make James feel confident enough that he could communicate with them if an emergency arose.  We looked at some other Western hospitals in Beijing but they were even more expensive.

Our next option was to look at hospitals and birth centers out of country.  We contacted a birth center in Korea and a hospital in Thailand and planned to check them out further as the pregnancy progressed. 

Meanwhile, we knew we do our prenatal care in our city.   The first appointment was a disaster.  I went to a hospital where many of my local friends had delivered and that they had recommended.  It was one of my worst experiences in China thus far.  I’ll skip the details but the lack of privacy, the rudeness of the staff, and the cultural differences were more than a hormonal pregnant lady could handle.  I started crying just before I got in a taxi to come home and stopped some hours later that afternoon.  Seriously.  The taxi driver kept handing me tissues from the front seat not really knowing what else to do about the foreigner crying in the back seat of his car. 

After that, we knew we needed to find a different hospital.  Another friend gave us the name of another hospital where we went for our next check-up.  It was a completely different experience.  They had nice ladies who walked us from room to room, it wasn’t crowded, and the doctor was so nice.  The doctor’s daughter is studying in America and she was well-aware of all of the cultural differences in giving birth in the US versus in China and seemed to want to accommodate us and make our experience comfortable.  We were still planning to go out or country to deliver, but the hospital, our doctor, and the staff were so great we began considering delivering the baby at that hospital here in our city.  Each visit we asked more questions and the doctor seemed willing to create the kind of birth experience we wanted, but we still weren’t sure she had the authority to make the exceptions we were asking for. 

At our last appointment my local friend Juliet, who is an English professor with GREAT English came with us to make sure we were understanding everything the doctor said and that she really understand what we were asking.  It was clear after that appointment that we couldn’t comfortably deliver here.  Our due date is just a couple days before China’s largest holiday and since our last visit our doctor had made plans to travel to see her mother which meant she could not assure us she would be at the delivery.  Having a friend to translate also allowed us to ask/understand clearly about the delivery process and what they could and could not make exceptions for.  The biggest issue for me was that James would not be allowed to be in the delivery room and I’m not sure I can handle hours of labor in a second language without any support.

We decided that even though it meant being gone for 2 months we would need to travel for the birth.  If we went to Korea or Thailand the delivery cost is comparable to the States but we also have living expenses and travel expenses.  Not to mention that we wouldn’t have help with Catherine in those places.  We began to consider returning home.  Through hours of prayer and consideration we have decided to return to America to have the baby.  We booked tickets for December 30 and will come back here March 3^rd. 

We’ll look forward to seeing all of you that we can when we’re there!

Hotels in China

Our recent trip to the countryside involved staying in two different hotels which prompted me to share some of the differences between hotels in China and in the States.  

Every hotel I've been to in China requires you to insert your room key in a slot near the door in order for any of the electricity in the room to work.  I think it's an energy-saving method so that you can't leave things running when you leave.

Also standard in Chinese hotels rooms are disposable slippers :)  They are actually quite useful and especially appreciated in carpeted rooms which in my opinion are a bit nastier than tiled rooms.

This is a standard bathroom for an average hotel.  (This one was a 3-star hotel in the countryside, but the only one where foreigners are allowed to stay in that county).  Except in nice hotels, the shower generally isn't divided...it just gets the entire bathroom wet when you use it.

Mostly it is standard now, but it is still always a good idea to make sure the hotel has hot water available 24 hours a day.  This same hotel had a unique feature.  Hot water was available all the time, but you had to leave your room card in the slot for 2 hours before it would work.  (#1)  This sign also informs guests not to wear your disposable slippers in the bathroom because they are slippery when wet.  (#2)  They generally provide two pairs of regular rubber slippers you can use.  You then have the decision of putting your own feet directly on the bathroom floor or in slippers that have been used by all the previous guests :)

What isn't standard is a refrigerator.  At our last stay it just happened to be cold enough to use the area between the two window panes to make our own.

A standard room in a Chinese hotel also means two TWIN beds.  You generally have to pay more for a room with a larger bed.

Standard freebies left for guests in the bathroom include a comb, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a shower cap.

A tea kettle (not a coffee pot) is standard.  There are generally also packages of ramen noodles available.  Sometimes free and sometimes for purchase.

this season's fashion trend

This fall/winter in our city there seems to be one prominent fashion trend that I just can't understand.  It is apparently completely acceptable to leave your house wearing only pantyhose on your bottom half.  Granted, sometimes the ladies are wearing a long sweater or jacket, but not long enough to make the fact that they're not wearing pants ok.  You also need to know that one major form of transportation is bike or scooter/motorbike which requires a great deal of leg movement to get on and off, making their entire backside visible to anyone who may be passing by.  You may be thinking.....maybe they're really tights or leggings.  Nope.  They are definitely pantyhose.  Another reason I don't understand it is because it's already below freezing here.  When I worked at the hotel it was common for the ladies to wear multiple pairs of tights or a pair of thermals under their tights (as we were lectured by the higher ups about how many layers and what kind/color of tights were acceptable for the work environment.  This year's fashion trend enthusiasts clearly didn't work at the hotel because, I promise you, there are no layers.  I just keep waiting for the day it really will be to cold for the trend to continue.  Sheesh.

more pictures

 My dear friend and former hotel colleague.  So crazy how much life has changed since I was here before.  Neither of us had children then and now they are big enough to play together!

 Our friends who came to adopt last week  brought Catherine some dress-up clothes as a gift.  Here she is sporting the skirt over her pajamas.  :)

 Suction cup hooks we used to hang a clothesline in our 2nd bathroom,  Notice the English: " absorption in the jail."  I have no idea.  The Chinese says nothing even close to that!  Ideas for what they were trying to communicate???

 This picture doesn't even begin to accurately portray the chaos of this particular intersection.  If you looked at it from above, you wouldn't even be able to tell which side of the street people are supposed to drive on or which way traffic is supposed to be moving.  For example.  I am in a taxi going straight through the intersection, yet somehow, we are on the farthest left side of road. (they drive on the right side of the road here too!)  It's a four way intersection without a traffic light, so drivers just take it upon themselves to get through it any way they prefer :)

Someone couldn't wait to get home to take her nap.  (And I'm so so so so so very glad our bike was found!)

a first for me in China

...the bike I thought was stolen, I found 2 days later.  I'm still not sure if someone was trying to steal it or trying to be nice, but either way, I found it in the stairway of another building in our complex.  It's good to have it back and it means we can continue procrastinating about if/what kind of scooter/electric bike to buy.  :)

bike 麻烦

When I first moved to this city some American friends who had lived here before me had written a song called "bike mafan" (I'll have to explain mafan in another post) about bikes getting stolen, bikes seats getting stolen, and having to ride one bike while taxing another bike beside it.  

I have had my own share of bike mafan during my days in China, starting with the first bike I owned in China getting stolen in less than 36 hours.  

Today, we're writing a new verse.  Because our complex is still being built, the underground parking garage is one area not yet finished.  (although we found out today it's suppose to open tomorrow).  Until the garage is finished, the normal bike parking area is behind the building next to us.  Yesterday it was POURING down rain and I was trying to get Catherine out of the rain as quickly as possible so I left my bike outside our building.  

Today...no bike.  :(  I can't remember exactly, but I think it's the 4th bike I've had stolen.  (total, not since we've been here this time).  This particular bike was left here by some folks who returned home over the summer so it wasn't new or especially nice or pricey.  The biggest issue was that it was the bike we had Catherine's bike seat attached to.  And not just any child bike seat.  A child bike seat made from 2 child bike seats that we had taken features from both and wither sewed and/or wired together to make it as safe as possible for little C.  grrrr.  bike thieves.  

Our discovery of the stolen bike came when, thankfully, Catherine was napping and our house helper was watching her so at least we didn't have her with us.  But it was, of course, the time of day when it is most difficult to catch a taxi because they are all changing shifts.  So, like any good Chinese couple, I hopped on the back and James pedaled himself and his pregnant wife to our destination.  What a man, right?  :)

We were already considering buying an electric bike/scooter.  I guess now we'll be doing that sooner than we expected.  

engineering

Most days I feel like having a degree in some form of engineering should be a prerequisite for living in this country.

Take example one:  Judds versus the shower curtain.
Like most Chinese houses/apartments, our walls are solid concrete.  This fact makes hanging up anything a challenge, not to mention that it is technically our landlord's house, so we can't just go drilling holes in the walls wherever we want.  Also, our bathroom concrete walls are covered with a layer of a plastic paneling-like surface.  We wanted to hang up a shower curtain but can't install a proper rod because of the drilling/screwing issue.  We hung two sticky hooks on each side and strung a wire between them to hang the curtain.  The east side fell down in about 24 hours.  We got a new, different sticky hook for that side.  The west side fell down.  We tried a steel nail and wrapped one end of the wire around it.  Again, roughly a day later, the nail pulled out of the wall.  We currently have two sticky hooks on the west wall, and a large suction cup hook on the east side.  So far, our shower curtain hasn't fallen down in about a week.  Winner:  Judds.

Example two:  Judds versus the refrigerator.  Our landlords provided us a really nice Haier brand fridge.  It has 3 compartments...ideally one for regular refrigeration, a beverage compartment, and a freezer.  It has 4 buttons on the front and a display panel displaying various temperatures.  One would assume the buttons are to select the temperature for each compartment.  That's what we and all our local friends think, anyway.  However, no manner of pushing any of the buttons seems to actually change any of the temperatures.  Then there's the mystery of the 4th button.  It's name translates "artificial intelligence" which not even our local friends can figure out the meaning of this term in relation to a refrigerator.  So, we currently have a standard freezer, a not-quite-so-frozen freezer, and a beverage compartment that serves as the place we can put things we don't want frozen.  (And to anyone who may suggest it, we've already tried to find the owner's manual online, but our googling has failed us).   Winner:  refrigerator.  :)

Example three:  heating.  The heating (at least in the north part of this country) turns on on October 15 and off on April 15.  Today was the day we had been waiting for.  I woke up so ready for it to be the last day that it would be less than 60 degrees in my house.  I checked/touched the radiators every time I passed by hoping they would feel warm to the touch.  James had one class cancelled today so he came home earlier than normal at about 10...still no heat.  Our landlord (kindly) called about 11 to ask if it was on yet and told us to call the "wu ye" if it wasn't on.  James called our "wu ye" which is like the complex groundskeepers/maintenance/guards.  They said it would slowly warm up throughout the day to wait until evening before we worried.  We came home at after 7 and still nothing.  Another call to the wuye.  Two guys came up to check it out.  Sure enough, the water to our radiators hadn't been turned on.  They went to find another guy who came back with a big wrench asking us where the "blah blah blah" in our house was.  It's hard to tell him where something is when I have no idea what he's taking about.  He proceeds to move stuff out of our kitchen cabinets and remove the back panel of the lower cabinet.  Huh.  Who knew that was there?  Sure enough, behind it was a row or pipes.  He turned one of them, then went into the hallway outside our door, opened a panel containing hundred of pipes and turned one there.  It filled the radiator with water that is supposed to warm our house.  However, as I sit and type this, no such warming is occurring.  I guess we'll call again in the morning since we have no idea which pipe in which panel to turn.

Example four: two adults, one toddler, one toddler's diaper bag, and any stuff we purchase traveling on 2 bikes.   "If we put this here, we can put that there and then one of us hold the...."  You get the idea.

Example five:  our second bathroom.  Our house technically has two bathrooms (even more technically it has 1.5 baths).  One (the .5 one) just isn't finished yet.  By unfinished, I mean that it was essentially a room with a water spout, some pipes, and some holes.  Our landlords told us before we moved in that they would get around to it sometime, but that it wouldn't be finished when we moved in.  A couple weeks back they showed up one afternoon with a toilet.  At the time, our washing machine was in the bathroom, so they set the toilet in the hall, where the washing machine should go, once we get a hose long enough to reach from the hall to the spout in the bathroom.  Last week we got the hose and switched the placement of the toilet and washer.  And discovered that if they plan to install the toilet they brought, the door to the bathroom won't open/close fully.  I'm glad that particular engineering failure isn't on us :)

I don't mean for this post to sound like I'm complaining.  These are the things that make life here interesting.  And, our lesson on Sunday was a reminder to learn to be content and to give thanks  in all circumstances.  So, I'm thankful for a bathroom with hot, running water that at least temporarily has a shower curtain.  I'm thankful that our food doesn't spoil because it's kept plenty cool.  I'm thankful for our landlord and our wu ye and their willingness to help us and a husband that takes care of us and our home.  I'm thankful we had bikes provided for us and that we don't have to carry Catherine while we wait for buses and taxis.  And I'm thankful for the possibility (maybe even alter this month!) of having another working 1/2 bath, even if you will have to squeeze through the door to use it.

parenting

Of course, one of the hardest parts of transitioning back to life in China is not only that I am no longer single, but that I also have a child.  It is also one of the areas of life while I feel the greatest cultural gap.  Here are some examples of how parenting differs.

China loves fat babies.  A common way to say a baby is “cute” is to say that he/she is “bai bai pang pang” (white and fat).  Fat is not a word that can be used to describe Catherine so everyday older ladies tell me things like…”you should have breastfed her longer, she’s too thin.”  Or “don’t you feed her enough?  You need to make her eat more.”  Or something else similar.

I could probably count the days on one hand that someone DIDN’T tell me that she needs more clothes on.  It’s true that the climate is colder here.  People (especially old and young) wear at least two layers, even in the summer.  But even on a nice day, the general expectation is for babies to be wearing multiple layers of thick clothing.   An interesting recent addition (for me) to this topic was a visit last week to my friend Abby’s house, who has a daughter just 11 days younger than Catherine. (pictures on facebook)  She was so surprised that we had never shaved Catherine’s head (another common cultural difference…most babies/toddlers have shaved heads).  I just said that we don’t have this custom.  Then she asked me,  “But doesn’t Catherine get sweaty?  That’s why we shave her head, because she gets so sweaty.”  I didn’t say it, but I was obviously thinking….Maybe she is sweating because she’s wearing four layers of quilted clothing when it’s 65 degrees outside!

Here are some of the most interesting (and to us, funny) pieces of parenting advice we’ve received:

o   “If you stop kissing her on the mouth, she will stop drooling.” - lady at the police station who was very concerned about the amount of Catherine’s drool: 

o   “If your daughter is this naughty, then your second child will surely be a son.”  -Jill’s Chinese teacher from 10 years ago who is now James’ language teacher

o   “If she has this much energy, that’s a skill that needs a special kind of training.  The energy just needs redirected into training for the Olympics.”  -same teacher as above

o   “If she takes her shoes off all the time, it’s because her shoes are too small.”  -taxi driver, while Catherine was taking off a pair of shoes too BIG for her. 

o   “Your mother is crazy and has lost her way in the world (rough translation)” –from a construction worker lady in our complex to Catherine, offering her commentary about us having a second child when Catherine is 18 months old. 

o   “In China, only the women do that.  We men can’t handle the smell.”  -our bus driver from our recent trip to the desert, to James, while James was in process of changing one terribly dirty, smelly diaper.  The bus driver then went on to open all the windows he could J

We have had two grandmother age people watch Catherine for us while we went out.  One of the hardest things for them to accept is that Catherine doesn’t always drink hot drinks.  They think we’re crazy if we give her some juice from the fridge or water that isn’t hot. 

They (the grandmothers at least, I’m not sure about folks our age) also think it’s crazy that Catherine sleeps in her own bed, in her own room, and that we don’t hold her until she falls asleep.  This situation is also why Catherine’s afternoon nap was only about 40 minutes long yesterday instead of the normal 2+ hours.  I think the grandma’s just really can’t handle leaving her in there!  

Desert Adventure

What we thought would be 16 hours of travel ended up being 24.  More stories later.  For now some pictures from our trip.

a traditional Mongolian house.

James, putting his ranch up-bringing to work :)

James' new camel herder friend

Mongolian girl

Catherine playing in the sand.  This picture was taken as the rest of our group were doing some kind of 15 km race/scavenger hunt through the desert.  Thankfully, our hosts allowed us to opt out of hiking through sand dunes with a 13 month old.  We instead got to actually enjoy the desert at our own pace.

Please ignore the fact that Catherine's clothes down't match.  Our course she peed on her clothes the one time we didn't have a proper change of clothes for her :)

The oasis that marked the end of the race.  There's a big, new, fancy hotel to your left that isn't pictured if you're looking for your next vacation spot.

A not-yet-finished monument of Genghis Khan.