Chinese Dogs

There are a suprisingly large number of dog owners living in our complex. They tend to take the dogs to the large grassy area in front of our building to run and Madelyn is always happy to join them. She has made many friends among the dogs and their owners. Many of them are Chinese, and Madelyn has figured out how to ask them in Chinese what the dogs' names are. We now know Lulu, Fur, Salala, Thompson, Marci, Ooodudu (I'm guessing on the spelling of that one!), and many others. She swears she can tell which dog is out in the field from our 48th floor window, and if a dog she particularly likes is out, she will hurry down the elevator to go play with him or her. The thing I wonder about is how these dogs came to understand Chinese. :-)

Winter Roses

I'm actually not sure what these are, but they look like roses. They have bloomed all winter, even through and after the bit of snow we had. They grow in sort of a hedge, large numbers of bushes lining walkways around our complex. I took this pictures about ten days ago. This week I noticed that the blooms are beginning to fade.

Wednesday Afternoon Thoughts on Living in China

I think I'm feeling more like this is my home. I can't even remember what the little things are that were driving me crazy about China a few months ago.

Earlier this week I walked into Carrefour (by myself) and felt for a moment that little thrill I have felt walking into Target in the US. Not that Carrefour can really compare to Target, but I think it came from the fact that I know where the things I need in that store are located now. It was a recognition of being in a familiar place.

I've gotten a little bit more involved at Concordia... helping at rehearsals for the middle school drama the last few weeks helped, using the elementary school library with the girls a few times recently, going to Caleb's volleyball game after school yesterday and talking with other parents.

We've applied for Madelyn to attend Concordia in the fall, so I'm thinking about what my days might look like next school year if she ends up attending there. I've talked with a woman at church about possibly teaching at the preschool she has in her home, a couple mornings a week, with Gwen in attendance.

Making a few new friend connections recently has also helped, although relationships here are so tenuous because of the fact that there are always people leaving as assignments end. One sweet family in our small group is going back to the States at the end of April, as is the family who organized and hosts our homeschool co-op every Monday. Another family, who our whole family is close to, finds out at the end of this month whether or not they will be staying for another year or leaving at the end of June. But aren't relationships uncertain anywhere you live? Things change in everyone's life... it's just slightly accelerated in the expat community. I'm so thankful for the friends we have here right now.

We've tossed around the idea of moving this summer to a free standing house, just for sake of conversation. I don't know if we'll do it, but we might look. It might feel good to be in a house, with at least a bit of a yard, and dirt for flowers! If we did move, it would most likely be closer to Concordia, which would be great, but it would put us that much farther from Scott's office. It would be sad to leave our perch above the river here, and the home that this is for us right now. It does feel like home... I love to open this door and come into this space... our first Shanghai home... maybe not our last.

Middle School Drama

Seth was a part of the middle school production of "Charlotte's Web" last weekend. It was a lot of work, a number of rehearsals that were five or six hours long~ but the teacher who directed it is amazing, she handles the kids so very well. It was well worth the effort for the great experience it ended up being.

There was a cast of 75 kids... everyone who tried out got a part... so there were also three skits that were done at the intermission in order to give more kids a chance to have a speaking part. Seth was a modern day Noah in this skit, explaining to reporters what he was building and why. He had a lot of lines, but memorizing is easy for him... he did an awesome job! Here Seth (balancing the balloon on his nose) enjoys the county fair in "Charlotte's Web".

The entire cast did a dance on stage after the curtain call. Here Seth is posing by his picture that was posted in the lobby of the fine arts center, with the rest of the cast. I don't think he looks too good in this picture with all the dark stage make-up around his eyes. We had a bit of trouble getting all that eyeliner off after the last performance... traces of it seemed to hang on for days!

Ballet

Rooftop Laundry

You might not be able to see it here...
I bet you can pick it out here...
Look at all those red towels... maybe from a "footbath" place... Chinese foot massage is very popular and extrememly inexpensive in little shops on the street.
Someone has taken the red towels down now. Driers are something that most Chinese people do not have.

Kota Kinabalu Sunset

Candy

Treat, anyone?I tried one, and it wasn't that bad. But I haven't had a second one.

Spring in Yu Garden

Lunch

"On the last day of Chinese New Year, my true love gave to me, a partridge to eat for my lunch."

I don't think there's a song like that, but we did see someone about to dig into this little roasted bird at Yuyuan last week. I showed Mr. Wu this picture later and he told me it was a partridge. Don't you love the little curled up claws? I'm sure they are nice and crunchy! The head is there too, should you care to look closely.

Boys and Booms

On the night of the Lantern Festival, the last night of Chinese New Year, we invited several families for dinner and to share in the fun of the fireworks that Scott, Caleb and Seth had gotten the night before. Here Caleb and Seth and their friends pose with "the goods" right before we head outside to set them off.

All these night pictures are blurry because the shutter on the camera was open so long and I wasn't using a tripod, but I think the effect is cool. Here is the huge cloud of smoke created when the big wheel of 5000 firecrackers Caleb is holding over his head in the previous picture all went off at once! It was quite a noise!
One of our fireworks! These were the ones in the big cube... one wick on the edge of the cube was lit, and then all of the fireworks would shoot off, one after another. One of our friends stayed up in our apartment with a couple of the girls, and she said they came about halfway up the building. To those of us down on the ground, they were directly overhead and seemed huge!
A mass of firecrackers going off in quick succession in the street behind our van. Lots of noise and smoke! There was quite a pile of rubble in the street when we finished with all the fireworks and firecrackers. Right after we finished the last set, while we were still standing around, a street sweeper was already there cleaning it all up. This is typical of Shanghai... always people sweeping the street by hand, with brooms made of branches. I assume they are city employees.

Chicken Dinner

Right before we left for church this afternoon, I put a chicken in the oven to roast while we were gone. I was in a hurry, so I wasn't going to do anything fancy. Just open the package, put the chicken in a baking dish, and get on out the door. I was stopped in my tracks when I found that the chicken's head was still on~ eyes tightly closed, limp necked, with a pale, flesh-colored beak. I did not know the head was there when I bought it, as it was tucked under the body. And I had purchased the chicken at my beloved City Shop, the import store with all the wonderfully familiar products. But chicken with their heads still on aren't part of the 21st century American Mid-west experience.

Now in Shanghai, I see whole, limp chickens in the Chinese grocery stores and markets all the time. I have occassionally seen whole plucked chickens hanging from a light post on the street, awaiting something. I have seen live chickens for sale on the sidewalk, tied to the sellers bike basket by their feet. But never, ever, have I had a chicken with its head on in my kitchen. I think I may have screamed a little when I saw it.

But remember, I was in a hurry. So I grabbed the kitchen shears, cut off the head, threw it in the kitchen garbage can, and put the chicken in the oven. I shivered slightly as I did the deed, but heck, I have given birth, surely I can cut off a chicken's head. I just tried not to look at it too closely.

Fast forward to this evening, when we arrived home from church and were preparing to eat the chicken. It was beautifully cooked, golden brown and moist looking. As Scott began to cut it up for serving, he discovered a little surprise inside the chicken that I had missed when I was hurredly getting it in the oven earlier. The feet. Neatly tucked inside the cavity of the bird were both feet, complete with little claws. Just in case one would want them, there they were, carefully saved, just in case.

I don't think I'll be needing them.

Costumed Pictures in Yu Garden

Yesterday when the girls and I were at Yuyuan, we went into the garden proper for the first time. It is a beautiful Chinese style, walled garden with all sorts of rockery, small caves, pagodas, ponds, etc, similar to the style of gardens in Suzhou. We enjoyed poking around in it, especially because it wasn't crowded with people like the rest of Yuyuan. We stumbled upon this spot where they had traditional Chinese costumes to rent for pictures. The girls were very excited to to this... and I had lots of fun taking their pictures in different poses in the garden.


We love these big hats!




I would have enjoyed wearing a costume too, but then who would have taken my picture?! A young Chinese student asked me if she could take some pictures of the girls with her camera, and then offered to take one on mine of all three of us. Maybe when Mark and Mindy come we should all get costumes... do you think I will be able to get the guys to do it?!

Festival of Lanterns at Yuyuan

Today was the last official day of Chinese New Year, the Festival of Lanterns, which is the fifteenth day of the First Moon. The girls and I celebrated by going to Yuyuan Garden, an area of old style Chinese architecture which I've posted pictures of here before. Today it was beautifully decorated for the New Year. Lots of lanterns, animals of the Chinese zodiac, dragons, and of course, money. It was a very busy place today... according to Mr. Wu, the Shanghainese "very like go to Yuyuan" at the Lantern Festival.

I thought this little one it her festive hat was so cute!


It may be hard to see in this picture, but the Bridge of Nine Turns was an absolute mob of people. The girls and I were going to attempt to cross it, but it truly seemed undoable. We went around the back way to take this picture. Everyone was trying to see the displays on the water.
Madelyn found this little sealed plastic pouch attached to a key chain on the ground. Inside were two tiny live fish! We later saw them for sale. Turns out fish are good luck (it's all about luck and money here, it seems) and will bring money to your house! We brought the fish home and released them from their tiny prison into a vase of water which our kitties promptly knocked off the table and shattered a few hours later. I scooped the fish up off the floor into a glass... we'll see if they are still alive tomorrow! The money god himself...

The Year of the Rat... this guy is surrounded by a pile of gold!
Lanterns!

The building to the right is many hundreds of years old, and is now a tea house. Apparently many celebrities have had tea here, including Bill Clinton.

Jurassic Park

These pictures are pretty poor quality, but I had to post about these weird critters we saw on one of the islands we visited while we were in Malaysia. The beaches were all fairly wooded after a short area of sunshiny sand. On this island, back where the woods started in earnest, these monitor lizards were lurking. We didn't see them at first, then suddenly there was motion in the brush. After we saw the first one, suddenly we realized that there were a number of them hanging around. The thing that made them so cool and scary was that they were quite large, several feet long. They seemed kind of snake-like, but then they would stand up on their legs and could run very quickly. Needless to say, we kept Gwen quite near us that day when she napped on the beach. Fortunately, the monitors kept in the shadows and never ventured out on the sand.
monitor, any of various dragonlike, mostly tropical lizards. A monitor lizard has a heavy body, long head and neck, long tail that comes to a whiplike end, and strong legs with sharp claws. Its slender, forked tongue is protrusible. Monitors range in size from the 8-in. (20-cm) short-tailed species of W Australia to the 10-ft, 300-lb (3-m, 136-kg) Komodo dragon, the giant among living lizards, that lives only on the small Indonesian island of Komodo. Some monitor species spend their lives in trees, and others inhabit lakes and rivers; they can be found on the oceanic islands and continents of the Eastern Hemisphere in all types of warm habitats, from tropical forest to desert. They feed on various kinds of animal matter, including eggs, rats, frogs, and decaying meat. The larger species will attack small deer and pigs. They often tear the prey with claws and teeth, but generally swallow it whole or in large chunks. Monitors lay from 7 to 35 leathery eggs, usually in holes in the ground or in trees. They are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Reptilia, order Squamata, family Varanidae, genus Varanus.