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February 27 Our NeighborsThere are many blocks of housing in our complex called Original County. There are only two other western families from New Zealand. They are in an another block of housing adjacent to us....probably a ten minute walk away. There are many empty houses around us, but we have neighbors on both sides of us. They are both Chinese families. We nod and smile and say "nie hao" in greeting, but that's about the extent of our socializing with them. I sense that they want to keep to themselves. Plus they are rarely home, they both seem to lead busy lives. Neither of these families have children, as far as I can tell. Not even sure if they have wives. They are both middle-aged men. The fellow to the left of us has a fish tank in his back yard. I like to watch him off my bedroom balcony sometimes. I don't think he knows that I'm watching him. It's very interesting the amount of time he spends doing stuff to his fish tank. I can't see inside the fish tank from my balcony, because he has it covered with a large wooden square that he props up sometimes when he's gucking around in there. He has all sorts of equipment that he uses in the maintenance of his fish tank. His equipment looks like swimming pool equipment....nets with handles to clean out weeds and dirt, hoses, vacuum-type attachments for cleaning it, etc. I think he stocks the fish tank with his future meals. I'm not sure when those fish see the light of day...probably before they hit the plate. I wish I could see the fish. I don't think they're ornamental fish...I think they're strictly the eating kind. I saw him once with a plastic pail full of long, skinny eel-like things swimming around in it. Then I had to go do something and never got to see whether or not he added these eels or whatever they were to the tank. I don't know if these squirming things were food for bigger fish, or babies that he wanted to fatten up. I'll have to keep my eye on him.
The only thing I know about my other neighbor is that he has two large, black dogs. They used to bark outside all night long. It got that we weren't sleeping. The dogs weren't, either. Well, they'd sleep during the day in the sun because they were exhausted from barking all night. The kids started complaining that the dogs had kept them up all night. This wasn't a good thing....especially on school nights. I finally had to do something, but I didn't know how to communicate with the neighbor. I called my favorite gal Rebecca from the relocation company and told her about the situation. I used the words "children" and "education", two very important words in China. I probably should have thrown in "boy children" as well, for good measure. She agreed that barking dogs shouldn't be interfering with the children's education. I told her that I didn't want a neighbor to be angry with me....this was scary territory for me...I'm a foreigner, and he belongs here. I wasn't sure what could be done. Rebecca, as always, handled it very well. She got someone to talk to him and convey to him that we didn't want any hard feelings, we just wanted our children to sleep on school nights. He said that his dogs would sleep in the garage at night and that he had no hard feelings about it. Whew! So, there are two dogs next door that must like me a lot. They get to sleep in a warm garage at night in the winter now.
The house across the street has been decorated and a "for rent" sign went up yesterday morning. It will be interesting to see who moves in there. The New Zealanders (we called them "Kiwi's" here) tell me that another Kiwi family is moving into our complex in the spring. I met them about a month ago, they are a very lovely couple. Their children are older and in university in NZ. They joked that us Canadians will be outnumbered. They're all such lovely people, I can't imagine a better group to be surrounded and outnumbered by. I made some joke back that they'll have to make us honorary Kiwi's...they told me that we'd have to eat sheep as part of the process. I'm learning some Kiwinglish, by the way. The Kiwi's have cute sayings that they use. My favorite is when they call someone a "hangman." I had to finally ask what that means. I was told that's when someone kind of does themselves in with their own antics. Naughty children are sometimes referred to as a hangman. "He's a bit of a hangman, he is," they'll say. Hopefully they don't think my kids are little hangmen.
Have to go....the driver's here. School's out in a few minutes.
Gathering & TalkingI spent the morning "gathering." I'm able to find just about everything I need to make some decent meals in Tianjin, but there's no such thing as "one stop shopping." There are various shops scattered all over this city of ten million plus. These stores are not easy to get in and out of (often the groceries are on the third floor....why????), so I'm lucky to hit two of them in one day. There's a couple of different grocery stores (they called them supermarkets here....or "chou shur" in Chinese) that stock cheeses from the U.S., France, and New Zealand. One store in town has Hormel pepperoni, so I try to go there once in awhile. It's hard to find diet soda's here, so I go to yet another store for that. Coffee filters can be found on the other end of town. Cereals in a different corner of the city. I think you get the picture.
By far, the best supermarket I've found here is a local Chinese market. One Saturday, the whole family was in town all day. On the way home, Doug asked the driver if he could stop and buy beer somewhere. Our driver went off the beaten path of the main shops and zigzagged through some neighborhoods. He pulled up to a place and pointed at it. Doug and him ran in. Doug got his beer (some Chinese brand I've never heard of before), but when he came out, he told me that I needed to come back on my own someday, that there were individual vendors selling fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs, and meat. So, about a week later, I told the driver and Ayi that I needed to buy some beer. We have a hard time communicating with our driver, and he with us. There is a lot of charades, pictionary, broken English, and broken Chinese going on back and forth. I figured it was just easier to tell him I needed beer when we drove near that market. Sure enough, he drove to that market again. This has got to be the best fruit and vegetable market in the world! I don't think many westerners had gone in there before, because all of the vendors looked at me in amazement the first time I stepped in. The freshest fruits and vegetables that I've ever seen.....large pineapples, succulent strawberries, juicy apples, various types of lettuce (and they'll take off the browning outside lettuce leaves for you before they weigh it....I've never seen that done before!), red tomatoes, green onions, regular onions, potatoes and carrots fresh out of the earth, and all sorts of colors and sizes of peppers. You name it, they have it! I now go there regularly (I'm greeted like Norm at Cheers now...they know they've got me....they go under their counters to give me the even fresher stuff), but I've learned a few things. I go with a calculator and a large wicker basket. The calculator I use so that they can show me how much everything costs...I hand them the calculator as I do jabbing gestures on it. The large wicker basket is to hold all of the fresh bounty. There are no shopping carts here. My westerner friends say that I'm crazy, and that I should just send my Ayi there with money and a list. But I love this market...this is part of the experience of being in China. My Chinese is getting better because I'm immersing myself...I'm trying to wean myself off of the calculator. Also, I like to pick out fresh fruits and veggies myself, and see what looks the best and what's in season. Anyways, after that first visit, Ayi and my driver were laughing about something. I asked Ayi what was so funny. She asked me why I didn't buy any beer. I told her that I didn't want beer, I wanted the fruits and veggies, but wasn't sure how to tell the driver that. They laughed again.
Now talking about Ayi and driver laughing together, it happened once that they got real chatty in the car. They were both speaking Chinese and they both laughed a lot. All I could do was look out the window and wonder what they were saying. I was chatting to my western friend afterwards, and we tried to imagine what the two of them were talking about and what they were laughing about. We ended up laughing, when we took various guesses.... "Why do these people eat so many dairy products and bread?" "What's up with all of the toilet paper they use?" "What the heck are they doing on the computer all day?" "What's the deal with all of the pre-packaged tomato (spaghetti and ketchup) products." "Why do they wear different clothes everyday?" "How could they possibly cook a decent meal with such little rice and oil?" (they sell rice and oil in gargantuan-sized bags here).
But I hope you readers don't get me wrong. We have two great employees. Ayi is absolutely amazing. She works way too hard and she's got to be one of the sweetest people I've ever met. I've heard a few stories about ayi's not working out with some families, but we sure are lucky with ours. Maybe it was a good fit for our family, or maybe it's her. I think it's her...she's just a very good person. Mike, our driver, always shows up on time. If I don't have a business card, it's very hard to tell him where to take me, and sometimes he'll get it wrong. But we usually sort it out in the end. He has a good sense of humor...I can see the faces he makes at the guards sometimes and I have to giggle. Mike is a very social man....I see him chat to every Chinese person he comes across. I'm very social....I chat to every English person I come across. I think this is hard on both of us, the language barrier. But I'm learning more Chinese everyday and he learns more English everyday. We meet in the middle somehow.
Speaking of social chatters, the people of Tianjin are known all over China for how social they are. Here's a quote from the book Intercontinental's Best of China: "People in Tianjin are also known as great talkers; they can yak on and on, which also makes them great arguers. Many of China's most famous cross-talkers, comedians who give hilarious pun-filled monologues and dialogues hail from Tianjin. Even if you're not fluent in Chinese, just observing the animated conversations of the locals will convince you that they've been given the gift of gab." This quote is so true. On many street corners, you can see large groups of men chatting together. It looks like they meet there regularly and are going to be at it all day. They look so happy to be sharing their stories. There's a sense of community in their gatherings. Watching them, you just know it's a necessity for their well-being to gather and socialize. Doug's American co-worker rents a townhouse across town. His landlord is a famous television cross-talker. I have yet to figure out who he is exactly and try to watch him. I should do that soon. My tutor gave me a good tip. She said that I'll learn Chinese faster if I watch some Chinese television. She said that was how she got her English better when she lived in Canada.
I should get going. Hope you all enjoyed the update.
February 24 Our trip to Beijing Well, we just got back from Beijing yesterday. We went for four days and three nights. We sure are tired, packing in so many adventures into such a small space of time. When we first arrived to Beijing, we hit a grocery store there that carries a lot of our western food staples that we were missing so dearly. The children were so excited to find Kraft Dinner, Chef Boy Ardee, and many other items. We then went to the hotel to check in, then had our driver take us to the Pearl Market to drop us off before he headed back to Tianjin for a couple of days off (and to kindly put all of our groceries in our garage). What a surprise when we learned that the Pearl Market was closed. Many businesses were closed because it's Spring Festival Holiday right now. Many of the people who live in Beijing go back to their villages to visit with their families during this week. For some, it's their once a year trip back home. We were told by many locals in Beijing that we were lucky that we didn't have to deal with crowds and crowds of people, which can sometimes be a problem in the big city. Luckily, the toy market was beside the Pearl Market. Of course, with our three boys in tow, we had to go and check that out. Our three boys were in video game heaven. Doug enjoys bartering with the merchants, and we all have a laugh watching his technique.
That evening, we went for dinner at Jenn and Scott Bailey's house. They barbecued steaks and burgers. Yummy! We hadn't seen them since last August, when they told us that they were moving to Beijing. I still remember them telling us, and me murmuring to Doug afterwards, "Wow, are they ever brave. Don't know if I could do that." Lo and behold a few months later, we were going through almost the same experience as them. I'm indebted to Jenn for all of her packing tips and pointers on what we needed to stock up on. She should really write a pamphlet or something as a support for the wives moving to China.
On Wednesday, we awoke to a fog so thick that you could literally use a knife to cut it. I later read that it brought Beijing to a standstill, closing some roads, and not many flights landing or departing that day. We wanted to go and look at Chinese furniture. We really need an extra wardrobe for clothing storage. Jenn recommended a great place called Aika, but warned us that the locals will try to bring us to IKEA, because they think that us westerners really dig IKEA. So, I asked the concierge to write out a card for a taxi driver and told him that we wanted to go to AIKA, not IKEA. Well, the taxi driver drove all over town for the longest time, and sure enough, we found ourselves at IKEA. This is something that happens quite a bit here in China. You want to go somewhere, but without a business card from that business with the address written in Chinese, it is hard to communicate that to any Chinese drivers. We need to learn better Chinese. We didn't really feel like shopping at IKEA, because we can do that almost anywhere in North America, so when we realized that the driver had no idea what AIKA was, we just asked him to bring us to the Canadian Embassy. We were told by a cultural counsellor in the U.S. that it's a good idea to visit your country of origin's Embassy when you live in another country. So, we get there and it doesn't open for another 45 minutes. It is nowhere near any businesses, so we were just forced to sit outside and wait. In the meantime, a Canadian fellow and his Chinese girlfriend were in the same predicament. Nice young couple that are getting married shortly. They were there to get their paperwork in order for the marriage. He's from Vancouver. They gave us all sorts of tips on where to get this or that. When we got into the Embassy, we were told that we should just register online. So, we wasted a lot of time going there. But this Canadian fellow gave us many great tips. His girlfriend got us a taxi and gave the taxi driver instructions to get us off to a great market. Everything imaginable that you would want to purchase.....clothing, accessories, jewellery, etc. They highly recommended an optical place where we got prescription sunglasses made up for all of us that need prescriptions (4/5 of us). My sunglasses say "Prada" and "Made in Italy" on them. Highly unlikely that they are either. But Doug bargained a great deal for us, and when we picked up the glasses the next day, we were all delighted that the prescriptions were correct. Nick looks like a secret service agent in his. Way cool. Philip and Thomas look like little John Lennon's. Very hip.
That evening, we met up with the Bailey's again at the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing. There was a Chinese rock band there that played songs from the 70's and 80's. They were so awesome, we were all singing along. I think I'll always giggle when I hear "Private Eyes" by Hall & Oates now. Jenn and I had some sort of clapping rhythm going during that song. You know how it goes....."Private Eyes....clap, clap.....they're watching you....clap, clap.....they see your every move." Our kids thought we were insane.
The next day, we went on a guided tour of Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. We got a lot of attention in the square for some reason. I think there were a lot of tourists there from all over China, and that maybe some of them had not seen many westerners. Very friendly people. We will be in a lot of personal photo albums throughout China after our trek through the Square. One family even followed us for awhile and just kept giggling. Of course, our having three boys garners a lot of attention. We then toured the Forbidden City. We walked for about three hours and still didn't see it all. I was very interested to learn that many of the emperor's had about 50 concubines. If a concubine produced a son, then she'd have a lot of power in her hands. Of course, after hearing that, I couldn't help but whisper to Doug, "See? I'm highly valued in many cultures.....producing three boys. You better treat me like the empress that I am." That comment gave Doug and our guide a good chuckle. February 14 Philip's ClassHi everyone,
Philip just brought the cutest thing home a couple of days ago. I had to share it with everyone. Philip's got this young, enthusiastic male teacher named Mr. Chad Walsh. Correction, it's Dr. Chad Walsh. He's got his doctorate in conflict resolution. So I guess there will never be any quarrels in that class, huh? He's an Aussie and he's the most beautiful man you'll ever lay eyes on. All of the mothers talk about how dreamy-looking he is. He can't be a day over 24 years old. Anyways, aside from being so dreamy-looking, he's a very good teacher, too. He set up the greatest activity for the children the other day. On a blank piece of paper, the children had to write their name on the top. Then this piece of paper was sent around the room. Everyone in the class had to write one positive thing about that student. Philip has a lot of South Korean students in his classroom. English is not their first language. So some of the comments are absolutely priceless and so sweet. I had to share them with everyone:
So, Philip came home waving that paper with a big smile on his face. I've tucked it away to keep forever. It's just so cute.
Great news....we get our sea shipment delivered to our house at ten in the morning tomorrow. Doug is taking the day off. Also, ayi will be here to help us.
Last week, I brought ayi grocery shopping with me. She's so helpful and the Chinese New Year holiday is just around the corner. We ended our shopping trip in the meat area. I told her that I'd like her to pick out a nice cut of meat for her family, and that I'd like to pay for it. Of course, we had to go back and forth on this for quite awhile. But I told her that she makes my family so happy, that I want to make her family happy. So she finally went and talked to the butcher. But she didn't like what he had to offer. She pointed to the back, and he argued with her. I asked her what is wrong. She told me that she thinks that he has fresher meat in the back. This went one for quite awhile. Finally in exasperation, he went to the back. He came out with fresher meat. Then there was a bit of back and forth between her and the butcher. Exasperated again, he trimmed all of the fat off of the meat before he weighed it. I whispered to her, "Oooooh....you're good." She laughed me off. On the drive home, she told me that her and her mother will take the pork that I bought and will make dumplings with them on the weekend, that they will mince all of the pork by hand and then freeze the dumplings for Chinese New Year holiday. This was on a Thursday. Friday she came to my house, and told me that she brought the pork to her parent's house that night. They all wanted to tell our family a big thank you, and let me know how happy they were. I told her again that she makes me so happy, that I'm glad to make her family happy. So, she came here to work today (Monday morning) and had a little bag of her dumplings that were frozen. She put them in
the freezer. They looked like the tiniest perogies. I asked her how to cook them. She told me that she would show me at the end of the day. So I made my mother's chicken stir fried rice while ayi showed me how to cook these dumplings. It starts with a fry, turns into a boil, ends with a fry....all in a shallow frying pan. She had water and oil involved. So, I finally got to try the famous Tianjin dumpling. Really, open any book about China. Go to the back, and look up Tianjin in the index. Then when you turn to the page about Tianjin, it will go on about the local dumplings. It was crazy/good. Delicate flavoring....tiny shrimps with minced pork inside and a little bit of green onion. I asked her if she could show me how to make them someday. She smiled and nodded. She told me that a family that she used to work for (Malaysians) will phone her when they're visiting in town and put in
an order for her dumplings. I know that I will definitely have to learn how to make these dumplings.
I should get going to bed now. I dropped off 3 healthy kids at school this morning, and picked up two pale, lethargic, feverish kids and one healthy one. Nick and Tom looked like rag dolls all evening. There is a virus going around Tianjin that lasts about 5 days....fever, lethargy, sore throat, etc. I just hope that I don't get it. Doug went to bed early, too, saying he didn't feel that great. Should be interesting tomorrow.....big sea shipment arriving and two kids home sick. Anyways, I can't believe that we'd been as healthy as we were for this long during such a stressful time. I've heard some CAT wives chatter about "the moving flu." I guess we dodged the bullet too long.
Hope you're all doing well.
Take care,
Sue & boys NamesHi everyone,
Well, I've been all over the city of Tianjin this week and my head can't move quick enough to try to catch it all as the driver takes me here, there, and everywhere. Just thought I'd share the funnier things I noticed this week with everyone.
When the Chinese work with many westerners, they must know that we can't keep their names straight. Their names are like their language....subtle differences in tone can change the whole word. So they choose their own English name. Some of them make wonderful choices. Some of them get it kind of wrong. It's hit and miss. Older names seem to be in vogue with younger women. I've met many Helen's, Betty's, and Susan's. Susan is a very popular name here. It must be fate that I'm here. Wendy also seems to be a popular name here, but I've seen an interesting variation it. I've met a couple of young women named "Windy." One even has a nametag with that spelled on it. She works at one of our favorite restaurants. The name suits her. Makes me think of that song from the 60's...."Everyone knows it's Windy." Now for the men's names. I've met several with names that are commonplace for us. I've met a David and a Mike. But I've also met an Elvis and another nice man named Eleven. Why did he choose Eleven, I wonder. Is it better than Ten? Oh well, the locals here kind of giggle at my husband Doug's name. They wonder why he wants to be called a dog. Our last name, Johnston, is widely recognized and respected here. There was a British professor with the surname Johnston who was the private tutor of the last Chinese emperor. The Chinese proncounced his name as Jong-shu-don. We get big smiles when we tell people here what our last name is and use the Chinese pronounciation.
Speaking of meanings being lost in translation, what I'm probably enjoying the most is reading the "Chinglish" signs on the road. There are many signs in English, but they rarely make sense to me. I jotted some down yesterday. My favorite one is "Man Kneading Shop." I wondered to myself, "Is that a clay shop, or a bakery.....no, I believe it's a massage parlor." I'm still not sure what they're selling there. Maybe I don't want to know. I also passed by the "Tianjin Kernel Cucumber Research Institute." They're researching the kernels of cucumbers? Do cucumbers have kernels? Wouldn't that make a nice name for a children's show....Colonel Cucumber? There are many new neighborhoods being developed in Tianjin. So there are many billboards advertising these new neighborhoods to lure you to move there. These billboards have pictures of beautiful, tropical areas that are maybe taken from a photo shop computer program and blown up to billboard size. I haven't seen anywhere in Tianjin that looks like these pictures. But the ads they write up over these pictures makes me giggle. It says things like, "Enjoy the same class of private," and "One of a world zone of the rich." I have to take a picture of the ad for my community, which is called Original County. It's a big, long story that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It starts off, "In Africa there exists...." There is nothing African about the design of the houses in our neighborhood. I promise I will get a picture of this sign and share it with you soon. I have to get Doug (or Dog, as he's called here) to show me how to use the digital camera, and I will share some of these signs with you. They're everywhere. When I use the bank machine, a warning pops up telling me to be aware of those peeping my password. I'll get working on collecting a file of these Chinglish signs. But don't get me wrong, they don't annoy me. They're very cute, almost lyrical. It makes me think that maybe the Chinese language is somewhat poetic and lyrical. I should find out soon, I've stepped up my Chinese lessons to twice a week.
Well, I'm off to study some more Chinese. My tutor gives me a pop quiz at the beginning of each lesson.
Zaijian (Goodbye),
Sue & boys January 26/07Hi everyone, We had quite a bit of snow today, and the roads are slippery. I've made the safe decision to stay close to home today while the kids are at school. People don't drive very good here.....I've seen a lot of accidents. I don't even want to see what's going on today on the roads. I'd have trouble driving here, too. There's a huge bike issue here. Tianjin locals only started getting automobiles about ten to fifteen years ago, so many of them still use bikes to get around. There are all sorts of bikes....electric, gas, powered scooter, etc., but they weave in and out of the auto traffic. There are pedestrians walking in and out of traffic, many have a job of putting advertisement cards on your windshield. Then there are the guys with donkey carts selling vegetables. I've even seen one sleeping while the donkey pulls him. Imagine that....donkey cart auto pilot. Sometimes I don't even want to look out the window when the driver is driving us around. I am going to the school today about an hour early. There is an assembly for some Tibetan exchange students that have been attending the school for a week. They are going to put on some sort of song and dance for our school in their traditional outfits. Now, I've seen their robes that they wear and those were very interesting, so I thought I wouldn't want to miss this. I may never meet Tibetans again. Speaking of interesting cultural experiences, my husband has been having quite a few. He has travelled all over Asia for the month of January to meet all of his business contacts. He has gone to Chengdu, where he went to see panda bears. He also went to Inner Mongolia, and was invited to dinner. He couldn't understand why his Japanese co-worker said that they didn't have time for dinner, because he thought that they did. His Japanese co-worker, Yao San, later told him that it might have ended up being sheep's brains, which is quite a delicacy there, so he was trying to "save" Doug from having to try that. Doug found Shanghai to be very westernized. He told me that if I ever felt like I needed to go to a big city for some better shopping, that we could go to Shanghai on a long weekend. That it the air flights are only about $50 return per person. We might have to do that some day. I stocked up on a lot of stuff before we moved here. The one thing I didn't buy was a new purse, because I knew that I could buy one here, and it would be fun to barter for a good one in the street markets of Beijing. Apparently I can also go about an hour away to Tanggu, where there are street markets with real designer purses (I think that's what my driver was trying to tell me). Anyways, my old purse starting falling apart on me, and I had to get one quick. So I asked the driver to bring me to the street markets of Tianjin. Now, we bought him an electronic translator, and we bought one, because his English is poor and our Chinese is very poor. So he brought me there, but then he wanted to type me a big message. So I waited while he typed. Then he showed me the message and I had to smile and nod yes. It said something about, "conscientious buyer beware....what appear to be real always isn.'t" So then I showed him my frayed purse that was falling apart and told him that I was just buying a purse to get by, until I got to Beijing for real ones. That's when he told me about Tanggu. So, in the Tianjin street market, I bought a fake Burberry. It's so obviously fake, it's funny. I liked the size of it, where the zippers where, and the compartments, plus the look of it. But it says, "Burberrys" on it. Love the "s" they tagged onto it. I started language lessons this week. My tutor is a young woman named Claire. Her English is very good. She lived in Canada for 3 years and studied at George Brown College outside of Toronto. I find Chinese very difficult to learn. There are some pronunciations that I'll never get my mouth to do, because it's never done them before. I even ask Claire, "where's your tongue when you do that?" and I'm trying to look in her mouth. Some sounds I've never heard in my life. She bought me a book to help teach me. It came with an audio CD. So I put it in my computer every day and practice saying the sounds back over and over. Still can't seem to get it. As I suspected, the kids are getting it a lot quicker than me. Our little artist, Thomas, is getting over 90 on every Chinese test. He even gets tested on the conji characters (that's their written language). Philip probably has about an 80 average in Chinese. Nick never seems to get tested in Chinese. Which is very interesting at this school.....those are the only marks I've seen. I see my children's papers are marked in red pen by their teachers, and the teachers write the corrections in red pen beside their work, but I don't see a final mark, like "87" written anywhere except on the twins weekly Chinese test. It's kind of refreshing and not as stressful. I went to a bookstore that said, "Foreign Language Bookstore." I was very excited. There were 4 floors of books, and all of them looked Chinese. I finally got to the top floor and found a few English books, but not very many, maybe about 50. I was hoping to find some magazines or newspapers. But, no luck. I do miss that....I'm a reader. I miss my daily newspaper. I had figured that I could read news on the internet, but I still can't access many sites from North America. There was an earthquake in Taiwan the day we arrived in China, and many cables under the ocean sustained damage. I guess it's tricky business repairing them. Nick is very excited about an upcoming school dance for the middle school. He's widening his circle of friends. Initially he was talking about Michael from Scotland and Alex from Australia. Now he's also hanging out with William and Oscar. I have no idea where they are from. The twins mainly hang out with our New Zealand, neighbor, Alex. They also talk about a couple of kids from France. All of the kids go on about the South Korean students. There are a lot of them at all of the international English schools here. They try to talk in Korean all day, and the teachers have to be strict about the "English only" rule. I am turning into quite the cook, because I have to. I've had to go back to basics. We haven't been able to find a decent pizza place here. We ordered from one place, but it tasted like there was a dirty dish rag involved when it was made. So, I finally found some yeast last week. I got my mother to email me her pizza dough recipe that she makes in a breadmaker. But we could not get the breadmaker running before Doug travelled out again. We are still waiting for some transformers, converters, and transformers that we put on our sea shipment. So, I made the dough by hand. That's a lot of kneading! It turned out fantastic. I told Doug that if he gave me a month, that I would be throwing the dough in the air and singing Italian songs. I haven't seen my kids eat so good in the last month as when I made that pizza. My maid watched me make the pizza dough. I asked her what her specialty is in cooking. She told me about the Tianjin dumpling. I asked her if she could show me how to make it someday. She got very excited, and told me that would be a great idea. When I got my air shipment, my maid and I (I'll call her "ayi"....which is what we call her, it means "auntie"....I hate saying "My maid") were unpacking our Pfaltzgraff dishes. She told me they were beautiful, then told me that we could drive an hour away from Tianjin and buy dishes just like that. I turned the dish over, and it said, "made in China." I told her that I would love for her to take me there some day. Can't believe our dishes have crossed the ocean twice. We are trying to plan a vacation for the 3rd week of February. That is the Chinese New Year holiday here, and just about everyone has a week off. We want to go to Sanya, China....it's a 3 hour flight south of here. It's called the "Hawaii of China." Very tropical and beautiful. Many five star western resorts, such as the Hilton, Marriott, etc. The flights are booked up pretty solid. Our travel agent (she's in Hong Kong....has worked for my sister-in-law Cheryl's brother John for years) has us booked on a flight there and a flight back, but has us pending on some other ones. The dates weren't quite what we wanted, but this has been thrown together so last-minute. We may end up going there a bit longer than we wanted.....9 days. I can't imagine going on vacation for 9 days. I'm such a homebody now after being displaced into hotels on our Christmas holidays. For those who know me well, you know that I'm a knitter. I found a wool shop yesterday. All of the wool is made in Tianjin. I bought the most unique wool. Hard to describe.....it's a few different types of wool interwoved somehow....I got a cherry/white/purple mix. I bought 4 big balls, not sure what I'll do with it until I get my pattern books. Mitts and a scarf maybe. I'm still not that good with money, so I wasn't sure exactly how much I was paying at the time. I got home and figured out the conversion. It was under $5. Some things are so crazy/cheap here, that you think a mistake must have been made. For those of you who love plants and flowers, I wish you could have been with me on Monday. I went to a wholesale plant/flower/vases/pots market. I bought about 20 fresh lily flowers to put in a vase, a vase, 2 huge pots, potted azaleas, and two very tropical flowering-type trees. It came to under $20 U.S. The flowers are different varieties here. My lilies are huge, I've never seen lilies this big. Doug loves all of that stuff....plants and pots. I'm going to have to bring him soon. He'll be in 7th heaven. I should get going. Hope you're all doing well. We miss everyone! Sue & boys |
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