Life in Harbin as an American English Teacher - carseat tourist
My family and I are from LummiIsland, Washington. We are teaching English and adopting from China.

Waiting for little Guy
Harbin, China
blossoms
TGIF!
I opened my email today and found out that the American adoption agency needed my phone number to send me some "important documents"...it must be the LOA!
Letter
of
Acceptance
That means that China is goingto let us adopt little guy!
So I decided to start a blog for the journey to bring him from our hearts to our home!
written by  carseat tourist on June 12, 2009 from Harbin, China
from the travel blog: Life in Harbin as an American English Teacher

300 wishes
Harbin, China
Captured Fairy
American Girl makes a cute little card game, 300 wishes. It is designed for girls maybe 6-10.I brought it from the States to play with my students. I teach university students and staff. They loved the game! I think people don't get enough opportunities to be nice in life, so it was a completely different experience for them. 2 years ago I taught the word "philantropist" in Shenyang to a class and then asked who wants to be one. Nobody, wanted to be a philantropist, I again said that it meant you were filthy rich and had extra money, still no takers. In the end the told me that the Chinese way was to help your family and not people you don't know. So this time I tried a different approach, using Yao Ming. What do Yao Ming and Bill Gates have in common? And told them they get to be like Yao Ming for a class. The premise is you get a bunch of wish cards and you give 1 to everyone, facedown so you don't know who gave what. The wishes range from cool, dream car, climb Mt. Everest, ride a ferry to the Staute of Liberty - to girly, get flip flops in every color, and then there were a bunch of family options, go to a spa with mom, go on a road trip with your family, etc. After you give evryone a wish, they rank them best to worst. Then we read them aloud. This is when it got interesting...almost everybody would rank things with family as #1. Even if I knew the person (a male student) really wanted to go abroad he would have their #2 as surf the waves in Hawaii and get a pedicure with mom as the number 1. One class was really interesting because a husband and wife take the class together, he is so sweet; he gave her a trip to England to have tea with the Queen, and she gave him a trip to the Eifel Tower, but strangely enough they both ranked the trips as #2. He wanted blueberry bushes in his backyard and she wanted
to scrapbook with mom as the number 1. All the classes liked the game. In some classes I let them give me wishes and I could tell they really thought about the ones they gave me. Lifetime supply of Mac and Cheese, teach a gorilla sign language...I actually miss my grandma so much that in one class a I ranked doing something with her over being President of USA. I told them I hope all their wishes come true. It was nice to do an activity with them that they liked and was not competetive.
written by  carseat tourist on June 13, 2009 from Harbin, China
from the travel blog: Life in Harbin as an American English Teacher

Trouble at the ranch
Lummi Island, United States
Cabin on Lummi Island
Back at the ranch....in 2003-2005 we undertook the massive job our building our own cabin. We watched too many episodes of PBS's frontier house and decided if those guys could build a cabin, so could we. We left the suburbs of Marietta, Georgia with a U-hual of junk and a dream and ended up on Lummi Island. Lummi Island is in the San Juans. It is closest to the mainland, just a $4 ferry ride to Bellingham. After a lot of sweat and tears, many many tears we did build our cabin ALL BY OURSELVES. With power tools, of course, actually I got pregnant so we did get somebody to help with the roof. We really found that working with others was more work than doing it yourself, but we had to contract the wiring out because the building inspector, State of Washington, and untold busybodies said we couldn't live there if we didn't have a liscenced contractor do the electricity. Anyway the cabin was completely legal and finished (the trim in the loft doesn't count) in October 2005. That was my dream come true, my husband's was China!
Fastforward to now, we've been in China for 2 1/2 years, the ferry now costs $10. The first year we had a housesitter/pet sitters, we came back to all of our tools stolen. Ouch...we are still working on that yurt on Sinclair Island! So the next year, we tried a different housesitter couple and came back to an even worse nightmare. All the pipes had frozen it was nasty and dirty and there had been some serious drug usage there. So we are done with housesitters. We spent our winter vacation replacing everybend in the pipes and cleaning. We got a property manager in hopes of renting it. We really wanted to provide affordable housing on the island, it seems unfair that a beautiful place like Lummi Island is out of the ballpark for your average person, so we put the rent at $750.
Little did we know, the property manager decided that they are too busy to show the proprerty on the island that is going to generate so little money for them, so it is sitting unrented for the 4th month. So we are switching to the island vacation rental manager.
Weekend get away on Lummi Island anybody?
written by  carseat tourist on June 13, 2009 from Lummi Island, United States
from the travel blog: Life in Harbin as an American English Teacher

Rainbow in Harbin
Harbin, China
rainbow
the flower and the rainbow
the 1st bloom
Well, I was having a hopelessly homesick day today. The paperwork that we thought was coming, is not the paperwork we need to progress the adoption, just more paperwork really. Augh....Then I proofread this Chinese Engineering textbook last week to make a little extra RMB. That was another nightmare for another day...anyway I was told I get paid "about 2000" and then they had some random word count thing and are cheaping out and now paying 1350. Ugh, of course I should have known reading some of the errors I saw, the command of English could naturally be so bad that "about 2000" could be translated to whatever. Then in my Chinese class, its near the end of the semester and so even though I love my teacher and classmates, it is so frustrating because I got a little lost a few weeks ago and by now that means I'm really lost. My name #@#$#@ is #####@% airplane America. Huh? So we get out of class and it just pours. Course we have no umbrellas but I wanna go home so we run. We live close so its not too bad. Then the ayi cooks rice and green goop. My teenager has a fit and doesn't eat and my 4 year old wants to pick out all the meat scraps, so we are sitting there with the ayi at dinner, all exhausted. And the ayi says flower, picture (in Chinese, of course, she knows my limited vocab). She just is so proud of this amazing pink african violet plant I have. It is truly an amazing plant, it blooms from May to December. Blooms and blooms. Anyway this week, it is having the best bloom ever, over 10 flowers. The ayi is so taken with it, she pulled the water delivery guy in to look at it. She even pulled out the fertilizer to show him exactly how we have such an amazing plant. Poor guy was like, nice flower, people are thirsty, I gotta go. So at dinner, I thought we were making small talk. I nod and turn to look at the flower. There is a rainbow.
I so needed to see that. Yeah, it arched at the coal towers. It wasn't a spectacular rainbow, but it was real. It is the first rainbow I've seen in Harbin. I've lived here for a year and a half. I so need to see natural beauty in the concrete jungle. And I've looked and looked for rainbows here. Everytime it rains we look, where's the rainbow? We guessed we couldn't see it due to the skyscrappers or pollution. But there it was today.
So I have hope again.
written by  carseat tourist on June 15, 2009 from Harbin, China

The real LOA
little guy
It's our 8th anniversary and we turned on the computer to find out we got LOA!!!!
So How did we celebrate?
Well with an adventure of course!
We went to Hamamas Kofi Haus.
Hamamas
It is a cool place with really good food. The owners are from Papu New Guinea. The food is as close as it gets in Harbin to real Western food short of McDonalds. It's pretty clean and the menu is great, you mark it yourself and then the waitress goes over the ticket to confirm everything. It is the only place I trust salad. The coffee is strong. They are closed Sundays, which is too bad because it is the only day Chris and I are off together. But today is Wed., so we went early for lunch so we could be back to teach a class at 2pm.
Then we went to St. Sophias to have our picture drawn by street artists. We had thought of having the whole portrait thing done, they make these hardbound books with couple's pictures in several wedding gowns and costumes and then add Chenglish. It is very Chinese and not suppose to be too expensive. Our daughters have had them done for free to advertise for the studios. I was worried that the gowns wouldn't fit our I would feel too self conscious and I didn't want to wear Chinese makeup.
Wedding photos
So we decided on the street artists. it was quite nice actually. Business is pretty slow on Wed. at noon, so we chose our artist and set the price. We are sitting there with our guy and the other guys start drawing us too. It was quite interesting. At first I thought they were bored and just were doing it to pass time or put out as a display, but then I realized they were planning to sell these other pictures to us. Our artist was sitting quite pretty and the others were drawing their hearts out like it was a contest on survivor or something. What to do? We were really worried that it could turn ugly when these guys, 5 of them, all finished and wanted to get paid. We had just planned to get one. We kept calm and when it was over our guy showed us the picture and we got up and the other guys sheepishly showed theirs and they were just so strange that we bought 3 of them, 2 of Chris with a Chinese nose and one of me with a big Russian nose. One guy drew me with me nose (a huge one at that) wrinkled in an unattractive way, so we didn't get it. We paid the agreed price for the picture of us and the others we half of that price. So we didn't feel too taken, and they guys were so happy about it that I didn't feel bad. I sort of feel sorry for other foriegners that might find themselves in the same situation, because we bought them they will be more likely to try the same trick again.
Artist
Then for diner we had a little cake. I was going to make a homemade one but I'll save it for our TA (travel approval).

Summer teaching plan
Dalian, China
Dalian fisherman
We are planning to make the big yuan this summer. Last summer, we taught in Dalian for Aston English School. I loved Dalian and the people, but hated the whole for profit language school thing. The boss was actually the best boss I have had in China, if not the world. He was just awesome and would do anything for us, without asking.
Every night we played in a maze near the beach. Hide &seek, race thru the maze
It didn't really feel like teaching because you use a book that is more for a parrot. Teacher says something, parrot gives response. There is no thought, just this statement gets this response. Maybe over time this language method results in good communication, I dunno. Then, to make matters worse, my heart was breaking for these kids. It was summer, they should be playing. The grandmas and the parents would watch the whole class thru frosted glass. It was so much pressure for these little guys. In the younger classes, the parents would be in the class with them, pushing them to answer every question. I did see that these little kids could read at an amazingly young age, so there is something going on right. The word "elevator" and "balcony" were read by 6 year olds with no hesitation. I assume it was just from memorizing word lists, but it was quite impressive.
Count the shoes, 1st we counted starfish but there were so many more shoes so it was a little game each night, don't worry, the recyclers came each day to collect them.
The thing that broke my heart the most was on the last week of class. I had this little girl all summer (6 weeks), her parents signed her up for every class there, mine, everybodies. 7 days a week, they had her in English. That actually is some big time money, well needless to say, for 6, her English was pretty good. So she could go a little beyond the basic parrot talk, so for some reason the textbook had words about daily life and showering. So I'm joking with her about oh, you need a shower, the chinese teacher was there too, and she was joking with her. And the little girl whose family must pay their whole salary so she can speak English said, that they didn't have a shower, they go on Tuesdays. She was very matter of fact, not even embarressed. It was all I could do not to cry. I still water up thinking about it and it is almost a year later. I felt so awful about joking with her, I felt so awful that the dumb book had this conversation in it that shouldn't be brought up with little kids anyway. Especially little kids in a developing country. They are learning English so they can pass some exam, go to college abroad, or work in a foriegn company. Unless they are in the hospitality industry, showers aren't going to be on the test. These children are their parents future, and they know it at such a young age. And the parents really just want the best for their kids and they see English as the way. It is just so mind-numbing. Culturally so different.
The Dalian zoo 1/2world class& 1/2 old school-pose with the animals,etc
Since we built our own house from scratch, on an island. I have lived without ammenities. I know what life is like with no indoor plumbling. In fact, this winter thanks, to the housesitter losers, we didn't have plumbing 17 of the 45 days we were in USA. It is a humbling experience to try to figure out where you can shower in America. It is even more humbling to do dishes outside in the snow... Anyway, I've been there. I can tell you in my budget of priorities, water is number one. Electricity is nice, but indoor plumbing is neccessary. I can't imagine the situation where I would feel that my money is better spent on English classes for my 6 year old than a water heater. I think most apartments in China do have plumbling, it is just the water heater that is missing. I certainly wasn't going to ask the little girl to diagram her pipes or anything.
Dalian has a even has panda
But it killed me that here we were, in this school, with all of her families dreams; learning to parrot talk. And I felt like I wasn't in a position to give her the most amazing vocabulary and language skills possible. She deserved so much more. I just gave her a hug and changed the subject.
The whole time, I worked there, I kept the adoption in the back of my mind. I kept the images of the kids I volunteered with in Shenyang in the forefront. Everyday I told myself, I'm doing this so we can adopt. I know I can't change the world, but I can change the world for one little guy. If I didn't have that big picture in my mind, I couldn't have done it. At the end of the summer, when we counted out the pile of yuan, I couldn't decide if it was worth it.
So now we are going to do the summer camp experience again. it's daunting. Poor Dalian has been hit by the world reccession and since it is the Redmond of China, the language schools are getting hit. I think they make the big money on business English for the software giants, and the kids are just a nice and steady stream of income, but I dunno. Anyway, when the software giants close/layoff, English classes are put on the backburner. So they said, that enrollment was down and they were just going to have their teachers work overtime for the summer classes instead of hiring people. yuck, overtime.
So, we decided to spread our wings and check out the South of China. We are very happy that we found a job in Anhui. I think it is a public school that is offering a summer program, so should have a different feel than the language school. The lady on the phone sounded really nice.
Our second job is in Wenzhou, or Ruian to be exact. That's going to be teenagers. We have found that job by way of recruiter. Sometimes recruiters are good, and sometimes they are fishy. So I feel a little uneasy about it.
Our plan is to go to Anhui by plane and then train the rest of the journey....
written by  carseat tourist on June 19, 2009 from Dalian, China

Father's Day
Playing on the exercise equipment
The guide books for culture shock all say to observe your holidays from your country.
Somehow this is suppose to allow you to feel better and integrate the 2 cultures. I dunno.
This is our 3rd Father's day in China. By the time we go home, next January we will have had 3 of every thing in China. I think we should skip all the holidays, but observe anniversaries and birthdays. Holidays are not the same over here. The expectation for the holiday is the same, but the execution of the events are disappointing. And it is not like in USA, we had big holidays with all the bells and whistles either. But over here it seems like a big reminder that we are not at home.
I think as a family living abroad, we try to make this our home. Who wants to grow up feeling like they live out of a suitcase in a temporary home? Yuck. We decorated our place, the suitcases are unpacked. Even last summer when we were in Dalian, we unpacked and threw up some posters on the wall even though we were just there 6 weeks. I think it is really important to make where we live feel homey. When we come inside, we can close the door, speak English and feel like it doesn't matter that on the otherside of the door is a completely foriegn country.
Then a holiday comes, and suddenly you are very aware that this is not home. What do Americans do for Fathers Day? All week I have answered this question in my classes- the gift- a tie, the food-BBQ, a lovely day spent at the lake or pool, man stuff.
So I tried to take my daughter shopping for the tie. No luck. There are no displays for Fathers Day, no cards. A tie? Not in the RT Mart. I was in Walmart last week, none there either. A tie, now that is a luxury item. Yep, they are all made in China. I'm quite sure of that. Are they for sale here, sure if you know where to go. They are in high end shops, businessmen wear ties. Business men don't shop at the market or Wally world. I imagine they do shop these places, but the average shopper at these places does not buy a tie. Maybe they sell them at the tourist shops in other cities. The city has a Russian influence so the touristy stuff is Russian. Nesting dolls, furs, vodka, Russian chocolate, watches, and binoculars. A few weeks ago in the teeny booper mall we bought a spider tie that is for a teenie booper chic to wear. We would have given it to Chris for Fathers day, but it truly was not long enough for him. Did I think I should go pay American prices for a tie that Chris doesn't really need, when we are trying to save for the adoption? No. He got a glass mug instead.
BBQ at 5 mile park in Shenyang
Then the meal, mmm do I miss BBQ! No way possible to pull of that here. I've been to a Chinese BBQ, it's good. But not the same. If we were to go outside with a little grill, we'd have a crowd around so fast. Everybody would be standing around watching. It would be a nightmare. So we went to KFC. Nothings wrong with KFC, it's just fast food. If we were in America and went out to eat for Father's Day, it wouldn't be fast food. Even if we did go to fast food for Fathers Day in America, I'd bet it'd be Taco Bell cause the KFC in Bellingham shut down.
Eating corn at KFC
So the activity...we went to KFC and the traffic was rough going down the market street and horns were honking us to get out of the way every few steps. There is no sidewalk, so everytime a car comes you press up to a vender stand. It's ackward because we don't need anything, but then the sellers are trying to touch the blonde ponytail or offer the little princess something. So that starts the whining. After all the honking, we make it to the mail drag, which is under construction. Everyone is confused by the construction, so it takes the craziness of the Chinese drivers to a new level. So crossing the road with a child is very intense. We finally arrive, and then the stress of ordering. I want to just order in Chinese or using the picture menu but the eager cashiers want to practice their English. So it is a long drawn out thing. So we eat. The big bucket, much cheaper here than in USA, that's a bonus.
Then back out to traffic. Chris decided that the closest thing to fishing was buying a fish. So we walked to the plant/fish shop. It's not like Pet Smart at all. A couple converted their 1st floor apt to this shop. They have quite a collection of things. Some would not be for sale in the States. They used to have a 2 1/2 ft croc or gavial, but I guess they sold it. What was amazing was that their bed is on a loft that is really just inches above the croc. They have lots of turtles and strange fish. I think some are for eating and others are for pets. We just got some Mollies and an algea eater. You have to bargain, and I thought she said 3 fish for 2yuan but when we paid it was the opposite. But the lady is interesting and just adores our daughter and since she has a house of critters, our daughter tolerates the adoration.
We got home and the survival rate for our fish was a rocking 20%. In fact one of our previous fish went belly up upon meeting his new friends. Princess said,"the new fish swim sideways"
Not the dream day. But if we were in America, I'm sure it wouldn't have been perfect either. Last year we said, next year will have a new somebody to celebrate with...this year we are saying it with more conviction.
Swinging family. Give the brother a push.

Beijing Baby
Beijing Baby!!!
Beijing Olympics row 8, AKA front row, everybody knows 8 is a lucky #
We got another summer camp lined up, a nice one I think. We will start our summer gigs in Beijing now. We'll be teaching chinese English teachers. I like teaching teachers! They want to be there, they speak English. I teach one class of English teachers now and I really like it.
Beijing is good because there is lots of yummy Western food and the English book store!
The bad thing is that I was looking forward to being done teaching on July 4 and having a week to get everything together before we live on the road for a month and half. Now I'm teaching in Harbin on Sat. riding the train on Sunday to Beijing and teaching on Monday. No break at all!
The LOA made the journey back over the ocean and is now in our hands. There was much sweat and tears involved in tracking the package down and having the post office shut 10 minutes early so that we couldn't resend to Beijing.
This is the sweating it part
But no piece of paper in the dossier came without sweat and tears, so why would this one be any different. So tomorrow, I hope the post office opens 10 minutes early and we get that baby up to Beijing!

The coal trucks
In America, there seems to be this whole substainability movement. People are trying to get back in touch with their food sources. Buy local. It's great. I'm all for it. We like to be in touch with everything. We are a hands on kind of family. We leased a vineyard and berry patch for a year, the year before we came to China. I understand exactly how much work goes into a bottle wine.
our grapes
I know about the berries, I learned that bird nets keep the birds out, infact the birds that get in die if you don't get to work early enough to save them. I mainly learned how little money the farmer got and how much money was invested. That same summer we built the yurt.
princess building the yurt
We kind of did hands on overkill, which no doubt was why my husband wanted to come to China the next spring.
We don't do manual labor in here. We watch it. To me witnessing someone else breaking their back is more painful than doing it yourself.
The coal trucks are rolling in. We have a 5th floor apartment with a view of the coal boiler. We live in Harbin, it's way North. Its colder than you can imagine in the winter. Amazingly our apartment and the classrooms are warmer in the winter than they were in Shenyang. So at this time of year, the university buys coal to stockpile for the winter. We aren't talking a little coal. The will make a mountain higher than the 7 story apartment buildings. Coal trucks are big. They are loud. They are ugly and dirty. They are only allowed in the city after dark. So that means that they begin to deliver coal when we want to sleep. The noise is crazy. Truck after truck rolls in, all night, for 2 weeks. By the time all the coal is delivered the trucks will have destroyed the blacktop road.
The work that goes into each truck of coal is backbreaking. Somebody dug it out of a mine. Students have told me stories of the mines in their villages. They don't have happy endings. Then the coal is driven here. Nobody in the truck has a mask on. It is weighed, no workers wearing masks. And it is dumped in a pile. And that massive mountain of coal will be shovelled by hand to the boiler that will push hot water into my radiator. It will keep me warm next winter.
the coal trucks rolling in
The noise will make me crazy, but thinking about the hardships of the workers makes me just as crazy.
So, even though I wanted to get up at the crack of dawn to mail the LOA to Beijing. I couldn't get to sleep until very late because of the coal trucks.
BUT WE WERE SUCCESSFUL IN MAILING IT! We grabbed one of Chris's students and she helped us at the post office to address the label in Chinese and it was placed into the hands of the postal clerk that mailed our dossier a year ago almost to the day. Yeah!!
Filling out the label

Double Rainbow
building where we teach
Last night, I was delivering food to my wife @6pm local time and it was sunny but sprinkling. I looked around for a rainbow and sure enough there was one, or two in fact. We have been in China 3 years and I have only seen three rainbows here. I have seen all three in the past two days. I showed the rainbows to the local card players; who were huddled under a shelter outside. I did not know how to show them exept to point at the rainbows and shout" Kan Kan , Kan Kan!". That is as close as I can say to watch, look or read in Chinese. They finaly understood me and came over. They took pictures and I delivered the food to my wife.
I usually make homemade food for my wife, but last night I sent the teenager out to buy (McDonalds) food.
big M on the jean pocket
Chicken Nuggets, those are real birds in the bag, they were quite loud
I gave my wife- a burger, fries and drink. We showed the class earlybird's the rainbows and then I went back to the apartment. It was a nice and relaxing experience. It helped me finish grading the final exams and submit my grades.
final exams

The wedding.
The ayi's son fell in love and now will live happily ever after.
We attended the wedding on our lunch hour from teaching Saturaday classes.
The lunar calandar has double May this month. And this was an especially lucky day because it was dragon boat day again, although the dragon festival was not celebrated a 2cd time. The weather was very unlucky with a big downpour and flash flood. We walked to the wedding, so were quite wet.
It was a loud fun time!
Walking to the wedding.
Teenager. High heels come in handy in the flash flood. A little dangerous though.
Dress 1. Bride and groom arrive in the same car.
The bride gets out of the car & pins a flower in the ayi's hair
The ayi (groom's mom) gives the bride a red envelope.
The red bowl is very important. It is carried to the various apartments before the wedding and to the ceremony.
Groom's family
The front entrance has giant inflatable lucky animals.
We've been facinated by this place for a while. We were excited to go to a wedding in there!
These mean good luck.
Giant statue in the wedding facility
This palace was wedding dreams come true. They seemed to cater to every imaginable bridal fantasy.
The food. Several dishes straight off the China Survivor food challenge. Nothing we haven't eaten before!
This dish was good, some kind of coconut fried pastry
Dress 3, the familis say things & they drink together
The bride & groom toast each table, about 20. She's drinking H2O, he's toasting with chinese moonshine, baijiu
After the wedding guests were given bags to take home food, our table was rushed because we had lots of leftovers.
Teenager and the bride
Ayi's mom age 70, so proud & sweet!

Beijing?
Well, when I started the blog, I wanted it to be very positive about China. I think many people write culture shock blogs and they are not fair to the country they visit. I wanted to be different. I wanted to point out some fun differences and share some cultural stuff. I wanted our son to read this in a few years and think, "oh, I'm glad my parents lived there. I'm glad to know that about China."
But days like today make it hard to stay positive. And I think it is more of a people problem, than a country issue.
The recruiter for the job in Beijing flaked out. We had been in contact with this person for a while. We had felt it was legitimate, we had numerous emails, 2 phone interviews and even submitted sample lesson plans. I'm annoyed that they have cancelled at the last minute because we already have train tickets, and from there plane tickets... We think it is better that they flaked out before we got there, but it doesn't mean we are any less frustrated. My biggest irrational thought is it is a scam to get lesson plans and our well thought out design for the week of language training is going to be used and sold for whatever. If I was in my own country and this situation occured, I wouldn't be worried about plagerism. But if I was in my own country I would have different problems, so that's life.
Now to make the best of a tough ticket situation, vacation in Beijing or hours of rebooking negotiation at the ticket agency?

Moving On
Good news, train tickets can be exchanged without too much trouble in China. Yeah! We will go to Beijing the day before our plane leaves for Anhui and enjoy that yummy Western food and visit the coveted Foriegn Language Bookstore.
The semester is almost over...3 classes left to teach!
I had a moving experience with my class. I teach mostly faculty so they can further study abroad or people from abroad can work in their labs. I thinkit's a great program that they offer for the staff, I wish I had a job where my employer wants the whole company to speak another language and they invest in training classes for us. Oh wait I have that job, let me say I wish in America I had that opportunity. Anyway I also teach 2 classes of students. They are just there to better their English speaking skills. There are no grades, that part I love! Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, wow! Anyway, in one of my student classes, they are a sweet bunch of students, very honest and open. So we were talking about names and then we got on the subject of adoption. And one of the students told me how she had read a book about a girl being transracially adopted. The girl used make up because she wanted to look like her mom. So I said, oh yeah. It will be a difficult thing to be adopted out of your culture and race. I told them how just the week before princess blue eyed/blonde hair feels lost here in China where everyone has black hair and brown eyes. She took the black marker and colored her hands and her hair and legs. They said, she wants to be black? I said, noooo, she wants to be like everyone else, we didn't have the exact skin tone marker and she just wanted not to be different. So then they asked where little guy was born in a village or city. So I was honest and said I don't know, and talked how maybe because it is illegal to abandon kids that maybe the people rode the train from one place to another and left him in a different city, I don't know. I thought that sounded callous and so I reworded and said, "in my heart, I can't believe that this was done with malice. I think it was done out of poverty and lack of education. I think they loved him and when they realized he was deaf, they didn't know what to do. In fact maybe it wasn't even the parents, it could have been the grandparents. Maybe they got pregnant again and decided they couldn't afford him. And what's just as sad is maybe he's deaf because of mercury piosoning. Maybe his mom thought she should eat lots of fish and the fish contained mercury. Even in the USA there are cases of deafness associated with eating too much tuna. So here is someone trying to do the best for their baby and it causes this, what caused the mercury in the fish, environmental pollution, who buys the things the things cause the pollution, its all so sad. I don't think any of this was done out of malice." So I look up and 3 of the students eyes are brimming with tears. The only guy in the class had one running down his check. I was so moved that they were moved. So, I said we are glad to be getting him, and moved on to the class topic.
The summer palace is a nice cool place to visit in Beijing. Incredible buildings, a lake, Temples and trees. We even saw a traditonal style singer playing in a courtyard. Our student guide did not like his music. Despite the crowds our young princess charmed a shopkeeper into giving her a free drum. I think that only could have happened in China, people are so nice here. Teenager did not visit the palace last year, she had a bad experience with something she ate and stayed at the hotel. Maybe she will visit it this year.
written by  carseat tourist on July 2, 2009 from Harbin, China

4th of July
I love America! I love the 4th of July because it is my Grandma's birthday. She is a wonderful person. I have the best memories of celebrating her Birthday and 4th of July together.
This is my 3rd Fourth of July in China! I can't believe it. The first one in Shenyang was lame. Last year we had enough foresight to bring some decorations, so it was better. Our Australian buddies gave us some fireworks. Last year I swore I'd be in America on the next 4th of July. This winter I didn't go see my Grandma because I thought I was going to fly home for her birthday.
Grandma 1982
Then the swine flu hit. My grandma lives in Ottumwa, Iowa in a beautiful retirement center. With all the fuss about the swine flu, I knew it would worry her to death if I flew home. I would felt so guilty if I picked up the bug and brought it to her retirement center.
So here I am in Harbin. My grandma has been to China. My grandpa was a doctor and when they first opened up China for foriegners he came over with my grandma and a bunch of other doctors and they learned about chinese medicine and taught the "barefoot doctors" Western medicine.
So my grandma toured China's hospitals. They weren't impressive back then, and I must agree that they aren't too great now either. She thought I was crazy when we moved over here with our kids.
So what did we do for the 4th of July?
All week I tortured my students with a power point about the 4th of July. They loved that the majority of fireworks and flags are made in China. They all seem interested in what things cost, so I quoted prices of all the various fireworks for them. The word Philadelphia nearly killed them, so they weren't that excited about the history stuff. There is a big pow wow in Flagstaff and they were very interested in that. Why do the indians celebrate 4th of July at all? Ugh...well the Native Americans are American and the Britsh weren't that great to them either. Then we talked about how Lummi Island is across the water from the Lummi Rez and they make a killing on fireworks and their displays are awesome. I ended the show with a bunch of pictures of traditional American 4th of July food. They go crazy over the food pictures. I used to make the big US jello mold every year, so I have a picture of that. The students are so sharp-where's Alaska and HI? They wouldn't dream of showing a map of their country that wasn't complete. Ugh..It wouldn't fit on the screen...umm, we use a strawberry for Alaska and the islands get a blueberry. They know the picture of the hot dog and when I show the mustard jar, they all wrinkle their noses like that is the most disgusting thought ever. The beverages are beer and lemonade. Lemonade is just starting to take off in China. I'm so glad, I love lemonade.
Then I had them do a speaking activity with used postage stamps. It ended up being so funny. I save all the stamps from letters I get over here, and divided them between the students. One person is suppose to be the stamp collector and goes around and the students try to sell them their stamps. One gal did a good job of detailing her collection, so the next guy really had to one up her. He came up with the funniest story about how Tom Cruise had licked this stamp and it was from the movie mission impossible and had secret codes if you held it to the light. The buyer was just as clever and said, "if it has spit on it, it's used, so I want a discount." The best thing was my last class was on the 4th of July! I'm free!!!!
Back at the aprtment...We made the red jello (not in the mold of the 48 States) and chocolate chip cookies. We actually bought on deep clearance in the States bags of Christmas chips that were red and white striped and green and white striped. Princess got the job of sorting out the red from the green chips. We decided to support America and grabed some McD's burgers since buns can't be found here if we made the burgers ourself. We had Doritos and were going to make baked beans, but then forgot. We bought the can of baked beans 2 months ago at the import store for big bucks, but then forgot about it until dinner when the ayi was cooking. We thought it didn't go with her dishes and in general if she's in the kitchen she considers it quite rude that we try to cook to.
Afterwards, we went to a party with the other foriegners. We found out that in Australia they call jello-jelly. And ice cream floats-spiders. There were 2 other Americans there and one of them didn't realize it was the 4th of July. The English gal told us they were glad to be rid of America anyway. Friendly banter. The coal trucks were rolling all night so we didn't even try any fireworks cause we be covered in coal dust and our eyes would burn, etc. But I must say, that this was the most fun we've had on 4th of July in China.
written by  carseat tourist on July 4, 2009 from Harbin, China

Gearing up for the journey
In less than a week we will be in the same province as our son! It's so exciting.
We spent the day taking care of details...
the best thing was collecting the yuan...payday has a whole different feeling when you go get a stack of cash. Back in the States, half the time you never see your money, it just is automatically deposited, automatically spent. But here, you are going around GO in Monopoly and collecting the real stuff. When we first moved to China and experienced the cash payout we were a little freaked. Nobody except drug dealers in the States handles that many 100 bills, course they aren't worth 100 US dollars, but it still was a little mind blowing. Now we are seasoned cash kings and kick back and pretend to be laid back when we count the yuan.
The the social worker called. We love her, she's very cool. We had the foresight to update our homestudy in Decemeber. Actually we did it 2 days before we flew back to the US so we were really quite frantic, but tried to be calm while she was around. Imagine having your house checked out when you are leaving the country for 2 months. That was the physical part of the homestudy, the paperwork is always expiring, so she wanted to give us the report closer to the time of adoption. Anyway because we like to do everything under such pressure, we're meeting her in Beijing to get the copy of the homestudy. We are going to take the red eye train to Beijing and then try to find our hotel, then try to meet her at a different out of our price range hotel lobby to get the paperwork. She says it is very near the import store where we can get those things from home we miss but aren't for sale in Harbin. I don't even know what I'm hoping they have. My list of things I miss is very long.
The bad news about her call is that she wants an updated police clearance. We aren't criminals and if we were, we wouldn't still be in China, that much is a given. But for some reason, nobody wants to issue this document. I swear every piece of Chinese paper that is needed for the adoption has been this way. So we are hoping for a miracle to get this clearance before we leave on Thursday.
Then just to roll with the punches, the Wenzhou job cancelled. Ugh, more swine flu rumors. It's hard to understand. We are indeed Americans, but we haven't been there since March, so really we don't have cooties any more than anybody else. In America, you'd whine and say you can't discriminate. But actually in America, if somebody was from another country, you could claim that you wanted to hire a local. Even the UK says you need UK passport to teach English over there. So I guess, this situation really is no different than anywhere else in the world. It just hurts, because we are Americans and it is hard to hear that we are losing job opportunities just because we are Americans. So we are sending out those resumes again. The Wenzhou job was going to pay our way in the final step of the adoption, GuangZhou and home. Augh, we'll be half way there and what will we do? We wanted to pay for all of the adoption with the yuan, so we really hate to think about plan B (or in this case, it's about plan F now).
Fundraiser, fundraiser, fundraiser!!!
the stuffed family
On a side note, kudos to blogabond. Facebook is the latest to go down behind the Great (fire) Wall, but here I am typing a way at blogabond!
The poster that is everywhere. Creating loss of job and many mean looks.
The small print has what I believe is a little misinformation, the swine flu started in Mexico.
written by  carseat tourist on July 6, 2009 from Harbin, China

Goodbye blue skys
Tonight's the night we hop on the midnight train.
Chris's students took us out to eat at the 100 year old restaraunt.
This place is suppose to be 100 years old. I was glad for the AC, we ate on the 3rd floor.
The original chef invented Gu Bao Ru when he cooked for the Emperor. It's like sweet and sour pork without the sauce or pinapple. It's good. But the big hit was the bugs.
Bugs and other chinese food
I don't know why the students ordered them because only about 2 of the 14 tried them. I think it is a status thing. Anyway, princess was facinated.
Got it.
They were cooked, sometimes they are served live. Chris ate one and then princess really wanted to eat one. She got it on her plate ands then realized everyone was staring at her,
MMMmm, princess really wants to eat it
and chickened out and fed it to her dad. She saw how much attention she got from that and immediately picked out the student who was most squeamish about it and offered to feed him. It was a good time. Chris dissected one of the bugs and taught the students all the moth part names in English. He was really getting into the dissection and afterwords the students said, "I now believe that you are a biologist".
The ph.d students
So the big ride is tonight.
Today we will take the cat to our friend's and give away all our plants and fish. I love my orchid, it's going to be hard.
Since we had the ticket swap, we don't have seats together. We don't have seats at all, actually we have bunks. Our previous journeys via the rails, we have had bunks 1, 2, and 3 and somebody else has the other 3. Tonight we have three level 2 bunks, 2 in the same compartment and one 5 compartments away. The problem with level 2 bunk it that you can't sit up all the way. Usually you hang out on the bottom bunk until it's time to sleep then move into your upper bunks. Not a problem for us if we have the bottom bunk, but this time we don't. So there is the tension of princess being a monkey on somebody's bed and the fact that we will have to socialize. The plan is to run her ragged today so she will be exhausted when we get on the train. This plan has never been successful for us. The train is just too exciting for a 4 year old. The second challenge is the squatty potty. I find that a challenge everywhere, but the train is an added element of difficulty. I, personally could go the whole journey (10 hours) without visiting that place, but princess thinks that public facilities should always be checked out.
And if you are in there, well, it's hard to not go. Not that it is easy to go! The key is to dress appropriately and carry hand sanitizer. Since the train is moving, keeping the clothes dry requires skill. I find that a skirt is the easiest traveling garment. Since we are on an upper bunk, it does have the drawback of climbing up while your bunkmates are checking you out. So, I'm wearing a big hippie skirt, managable in the WC and can be gathered to climb up. In the past, we have found that our bunkmates are not as modest as we are and won't think twice about changing clothes infront of us. We have had some unusual bunkmates before, so today I'm hoping for a student. All the colleges are letting out for the summer so there should be lots of them.
Tomorrow we have an interview for a gig after Anhui in Beijing!!!!!!! We have hope...

Humid and happy
Hefei, China
Can I say how happy I am to be out of Beijing! In our 2 1/2 years in China, lets just say that city has a record of 2 MIA cameras. This time the MIA camera began it's new career with someone else associted with the hotel. Also MIA is our ear endoscope, who has a bright career ahead as a flashlight. I'm quite sure the new owners will not have a clue to its real purpose.
The ride to the airport was quick, thank goodness because in the shuttle was another middle age woman complaining profusely about having to ride with the foriegners.
The flight was quick and complete with a Western breakfast. I always love the Chinese idea Western food. Of course, we eat white hot dogs with our eggs and brocolli and warm tomatoes all the time when we are in our native land for breakfast. I ate it except for the white hot dog because I had no idea what food might be in store for me later. My only experience with someone from Hefei was listening to a student report about the food. I remember the student said they eat anything and then rattled off a bunch of things that I would never eat.
Western breakfast
Well, I have been pleasantly surprised! First, the weather is just like Georgia in the summer. Oh, I miss Georgia! It is hot and humid. I feel my skin just soaking it up. Harbin is sooooo dry, we look old within a day of arriving in that climate. Then I was expecting it to be very impoverished. Well, they took me on the scenic new developement route so I didn't see anything worse than we'd seen before. In fact it was cleaner than Harbin. Then a majority of the scooter/motorcycle riders were wearing helments. Nobody wears helments in Harbin, so that was nice to see some concern for personal safety.
But the best thing is that the school is on an island! I love islands! It is on the campus of a science academy.
We were treated to a big feast and one of the dishes was my favorite corn thing.
My favorite corn dish
The co-workers seem nice. We've been issued our uniform yellow polo and our schedule, so we are ready to go.
On the downside, they thought they were going to be able to give Teenager a job, but they had low enrollment so they couldn't do that. She was bummed, but has been very cool about it. She knows we are here for little guy and she's going to be an awesome big sister to him.
written by  carseat tourist on July 11, 2009 from Hefei, China

first day of teaching & trip to town
Hefei, China
Newspapers are posted for students to read
The first day of teaching went ok. I started with 17 students, but had 20 by the end of the day. The classroom is not air conditioned, but has ceiling fans. My book is ok, but not enough activities to last 4. I brought Bingo and old maid and some menus to keep them busy. Bingo was a hit, but Old Maid was too tough.
I have noticed that the older ones have really taken the younger ones under their wings. My youngest student is so happy and having a blast.
Princess and my youngest student, age 5 (maybe)
After class we took the bus to town. We walked forever and finally found the Carrefour.We cried because they had the best selection of cheese we have seen in China. It was so unfair, because we don't have a fridge!
We tried to take the bus back but it stopped running before 9pm. We took a taxi and we were afraid that the driver would overcharge us, but he was great! The trip back only cost 22rmb.
written by  carseat tourist on July 13, 2009 from Hefei, China

Day 2 teaching
Hefei, China
Standard Issue box of chalk
My biggest frustration with the for-profit education scheme is the cheapness when it comes to supplies. In Dalian, I was issued 2 dry erase pens for the whole summer of teaching. They lasted about 3 days because they were old pens from the last teacher. Now this summer, I have blackboards. I have the left over box of chalk from the previous class. The English camp is using a school that is out for the summer. Now I watched these parents pay a huge amount for these English lessons, I don't understand why I can't have a box of new chalk. I'm all for recycling but these nubs are the worst. I'm on an island and there isn't any chalk for sale. During the school year, I work for the public university system and each room is stocked with boxes and boxes of chalk.
On a more pleasant note, Princess has curls again! When she was a baby, she had the cutest curls, now with the humidity they are back! She's never experienced hot weather for very long, but doesn't seem to mind at all.
Curls
She has fallen in love with a family of cats at the island market. They are the skinniest things. I was impressed with the mama cat (who is skinny too)
Mama cat feeds baby cat at island market
that brought her kitty a big stuffed bun from the garbage. The little cat that it was given to, started eating right away and the other little kitties were creeping over on their bellies. We would have stayed longer to watch the scene unfold but it smelled too bad.
written by  carseat tourist on July 14, 2009 from Hefei, China

English camp
Hefei Science Island
There is something in the air and it seems like things are turning crazy. Someone in Chris's class ran away last night. He was caught.
Then in my class, the little guys have been fighting.Not just a little shove here and there. A full throw down with punches that you can hear go thunk. These little dudes fight hard. I have Chinese assistant teachers and she'll step in and try to break it up and then she walks away and they start up again. I'm not sure what to do. As a foriegner, I have to just watch. If they seriously get injured and I'm involved, then it becomes something more. It is almost the extreme opposite of the responsibilities of a US teacher. In US, you have to break it up or else it is your irresponsibility that causes the injuries. In US you would break it up and then talk to the guys individually, call parents, etc. Here they just stop the punches and walk away.
Then in the cafeteria, one of the students (maybe 14 at the most) spilled soup on an older guys shoe. This school shares a community cafeteria with the island. People from other schools eat there, workers, who ever. Well, the soup was spilled on the worker and he went nuts. The Chinese assistant teachers jumped in and protected the kid. The guy was still verbally upset and the lunchladies jumped in on his side. The school manager came in on the action. The kid changed tables and the worker followed him and kept yelling.
The big eclipse is next week....

Gotcha Day
gotcha
It was amazing. The last few days have been a whirlwind. We only found out we could get him yesterday and then this morning we got him at 9:30am.
He's a sweetie and a ham! When I started this blog I wasn't sure if it was a good idea. I mean, what input did he have in us telling his story? Well he loves the camera and he loves seeing his picture on the computer. Then tonight in the grocery store he attempted to gesture to the produce dude "check it out, this is MY family."
So I guess that is the big ok for the blog.
I've never adopted before but I volunteered at an orphanage for 6 months. I had dreams of my son being in an ideal place and really adored and just the apple of the eye of everyone at the orphanage. And that they had kept him until he was 4 because they couldn't bear to let him go. I've seen the blogs of several of the kids I worked with that were adopted, if they are the favorite of the orphanage the ayi (or ayis) comes and there are big hugs and tears. If they are not the fav, the director or the assistant director comes.
Little guy galloped into the room with the director. Little guy is the right blog name for him 'cause he is little. No meat at all on my little man. We were given a minute to meet him and then the paperwork. Apparently we are a highly unusual case because nobody, Nobody, adopts on a Thursday. Monday is the day, not Thursday. We just smiled and nodded our head.
The director said she didn't know much about him. Teenager was given a schedule to translate to us. Hey-didn't we have a guide? Why of course, the agency insisted that we use their guide, not the translators from the company that sponsored the camp last week. Nope, had to be their guy. Anyway on the cab ride he figured out that Teenagers chinese is really good. On the phone yesterday, I figured out that he had a standard speach and didn't appreciate any out of the box questions. We thought having a translotor was going to be very vital for us establishing the pecking order of the family, we didn't ask Teenager to deliver her sister when she was 11, so now at 16, should she be responsible for passing on the vital info? No fears, she is indeed a teenager and told him that she wanted to play with her brother and didn't want to translate right now.
It was decided that tomorrow we can meet with his teacher when we do the final adoption and ask questions.
Anyway, the stuffed animals with our face were a big hit! He walked in carrying them. He matched each one to our face and was so excited. It was very cool. We brought a white board and we drew stick family and put chinese characters over the people. He took the pen and drew lines between each figure and showed them like all holding hands. It was so sweet!!!!
He loves cameras. He knows a few signs and says ma and ba.
i love you in chinese sign
The director said if you talk real loud he can understand you. Yeah, hopes for hearing aides! Of course, we didn't see any signs of him responding to sound. In some way because he is deaf, even though he is 4, he is like a baby. It feels good for bonding, I think. He makes little sounds or facial expressions and it feels very natural to be like "oh baby, what can I get for you".
Princess is handling the arrival of the prince very well.
They love looking at themselves in the mirror
There was only one episode of big heartfelt tears when after I carried him on my shoulders to dinner, his dad carried him back. That just broke her heart.
We spent the day playing and enjoying him. It was raining so we got him an umbrella and he just loved it. The schedule was right on til bedtime. We got back a little late from dinner and missed the scheduled laydown time by 30minutes. That error took about 3 hours to correct. At the nap today, he woke up a little confused, but grabbed his stuffed animals and was happy again. We know he should be sad from leaving his previous life. I think maybe he thinks this is a fabulous vacation. I hope he comes to understand that he really is part of the family now.

Failed attempt to hire deaf ayi
Sunset from Apartment
We have an ayi, but have seen this group of recyclers with a deaf woman. Last semester we gave them all of our recycling and they came up to the apartment to get them. The deaf woman was so sweet. After they came up, Chris thought maybe we should try to hire the woman after we got little guy to play with him. We thought why not give this lady a chance...we'd be home the whole time and maybe Little Guy would like some special attention.
So we saw them outside and we went down to try to negotiate the deal. I thought the person that was with her was her brother, but it turns out it is her husband. The lady was so excited that we were talking to her husband, I think she could lip read. Anyway he said no. I thought maybe he didn't understand me, so we got a higher level translator and it really was no.
He thinks his wife is stupid and can't be trusted to do anything. She is too dumb to watch his cart much less a kid. She can't speak or hear and she doesn't know English. We over and over explained that our son was deaf and that it was ok that she didn't speak and that we would be there the whole time and it was just one morning a week. It was so sad. I felt bad for her because he acted like he owned her. We were offering to pay her more than the University cleaning people make in a month to for just work 4 hours a week.
Oh, well. At least we offered her a chance. It was a glimpse of how a deaf person is treated in China. Perhaps he refused because he was worried we were going to hurt his wife or something, or maybe they don't have the id # and are afraid that if she works for us they will be scrutinized....who knows. We told him if they change their minds to let us know.
written by  carseat tourist on August 27, 2009 from Harbin, China

Sept 11
Princess was born on Sept 11. We have celebrated her birthday in China for 3 years. When I tell my my students they say, in shock, that's a bad day for a birthday.
My neighbor (in China) just had a C-section to prevent her baby from having a bad birthday Sept. 3, all ghosts day. Actually the C-section rate in China is quite high. I was really shocked because in the States the cost of a C-section is quite high. In China it is high too, but when you only get one shot at a baby, the mom's are easily talked into a C-section if she can afford it.
Anyway, Princess was not a C-section and she took her sweet time coming out so her birthday is Sept. 11. In the States, I think it is a heavy thing for a little kid to have that birthday. On 9-11-01, we were thinking about having a baby and I thought the world was just so sad, that we should just not do that. My husband, the optimist, said that we should have a baby since so many people had died that day, we should make more Americans! So 3 years later, Princess was born. I think that her birthday is good, it represents hope and that life goes on.
At age 5, she wants to just have a birthday and not a history lesson. So we have enjoyed letting her have a fun birthdays in China. Definitely the Chinese know the date as being important in the world, but it is a normal day for them, business as usual.
We selected the cake from the same bakery as last year, they make some beautiful cakes but the taste like whip cream and cardboard. I always thought the displays were fake cakes, but theirs were actually crumbling so I guess they are real. The freshly made one was much more amazing than the display.
Freshly made on the stand
The display
So last year Princess took a big cake to school and they threw her a party complete with gifts and even made us a DVD of the occasion. This year we brought a cake in the morning and picked her up at lunch and they had given her a giant stuffed dolphin among other things.
Now they know that we live in a little apartment, just like they do, so why they gave her such a huge thing is just crazy. I know it is the thought that counts, but the ocean of problems that this dolphin has created is drowning us.
Dolphin
Little Guy has continued to not blend at school. They say he doesn't listen. He still fights, but they are play fights and they aren't worried about them. The problem is that he won't sit in a pink chair. He wants to sit in the teacher's blue stool. So yesterday, we took the time to get a show everyone working with him the sign for sit. He sits pretty quickly when show the sign. In fact sometimes when he is having a rough time at home we sign sit and he sits and seems to feel successful in being able to know what to do, so he gets up in a better state of mind. So Princess's birthday was not doubt to overwhelming for him. It's her birthday so she gets to sit on the special teacher's stool (the very one the had been not wanting him to sit on) and she has cake and gets this enormous dolphin. So they had a big fight.
The teachers had been patient with him before because they want Princess to come to class. She gives a lot of face to the school, she really is their poster child. But now Princess and Little Guy are fighting in class. Not good.
We arrive to pick them up and they are screaming about the dolphin, so Chris quickly takes Little Guy out of there while I stay with the dolphin and Princess to talk with the teachers.
The good Chinese English teacher is pulled in to translate for the head teacher of the class. She is a perky little gal and I could see it hurt her to translate. I asked if they had tried signing sit to him and they said yes, he had done it 2 times. I'm thinking sitting 2 times is better than the day before, so it is progress. But the bottom line was that he is on a month trial in the class. And that they believe "it is his fate" to go to a special school at the end of the month. It got kind of ugly in the reasons why they didn't think he could stay, and they were very clear that they still wanted Princess to come. Our original conversation in enrolling him was that he would try that class for a month but they would put him in a different class the next month if it didn't work. They forgot to translate that the different class was a different school entirely.
So all this was said in Chinese and English, and I imagine the English version was probably watered down. Princess is bilingual. She knows what was up.
I knew what was up too, this was just the first of what is to be no doubt a long series of uncomfortable conversations with educators as a parent of a special needs kid. Yuck.
I biked home with the giant dolphin and Princess in the rain.
Princess got home and said she never wanted to go to school again because they didn't want to be friends with her there. I thought her interpretation of events was so sad for her to say that.
I don't know what will happen with the school since the director of the school wasn't there and she is they one that really says whats up and there is a whole big picture university politics involved so the actual teachers are just saying how they feel. And I do feel for them.
So we tried to not let it spoil the rest of the day.
We had McD's for dinner. And yes, the hamburgers in Harbin have suffered the same distasteful change as the Beijing and Huai Rou burgers. At McD's there were 2 deaf guys and we tried to get Little Guy to notice them because they were conversing quite passionately in sign and we are pretty sure he hasn't seen to many deaf folks signing other than on our DVDs. Princess was fascinated by them, but he wouldn't even notice them. He has associated that we are a family and that he is like us and everybody else is different and is staring at us so he shouldn't bother with any looking at anyone unless he is having a tantrum and wants that attention.
We got yummy Maky Baky cakes. With the exploding birthday candle that sings.
maky Baky cake Real chocolate, frosting, strawberries and blueberries
written by  carseat tourist on September 11, 2009 from Harbin, China

Go Fly a Kite
flying high
Yesterday we took Princess and Little Guy to fly their kites. We had gotten free kites at Sun Island during May Holidays. It was a kite festival and they had lots of cool kites on display, but none for sale. Everybody got a free kite instead. The whole Sun Island thing was strange. We ended up going because my co-worker asked to take Teenager because his brother wanted to take her. He asked me and I said, "no, I know she doesn't want to go with your brother alone." How creepy, I didn't know this brother at all and what a wimp to not ask her directly. So shortly there after somebody in my department (a VIP) comes in the middle of one of my classes with the co-worker and says my whole family will now go to Sun Island and I should not be so closeminded to limit my daughter's opportunities. Basically they just didn't take no, so we were dragged to Sun Island. And it was so bizarre because the co-worker didn't come and neither did his brother, instead we were escorted by a bunch of women and middle school students. It was a strange elaborate plan for practicing English for the middle schoolers. Teenager was beyond angry so she refused to speak English at all and answered every question to her in Chinese. So it was an uncomfortable couple of hours before they gave up and took us to lunch and then home. But we got 4 free kites and saw that Sun Island is just a tourist trap and hardly worth a taxi ride back.
So we finally put the kites in the air. Little Guy must have been kite flying before. In fact he was a little miffed at our lack of professional equipment. We were unpacking the kites and he showed me that we had forgot to bring the thing that attaches to a belt that the Chinese guys use.
got it going
He quickly got his in the air and Princess chased after him with hers on the ground.
flying kites by the soccer fields
Princess gets hers up, now they are running in opposite directions
Eventually, they both were flying high. It was a fun afternoon.
Chris came & helped keep the kites afloat
Little Guy continues to not enjoy our cooking. He actually doesn't like the ayi's cooking either. Just his school cafeteria's. So today Chris bought a fresh chicken at the Muslim butchers, it came with feet. Teenager joked that her brother would probably like them. She was right. In fact he was just tickled because he got to eat both of them.
Just for you buddy!
The rest of the chicken went into the crock pot for yummy chicken soup. Little Guy didn't want to eat the chicken soup from our nice soup bowls, he didn't even want it set in front of him. I had the idea of getting out the stainless steel bowl like they use at school. We took him into the kitchen and scooped him some soup in the bowl from the crock pot. He took it back to his seat and proceeded to eat 3 bowls of soup. Presentation is everything!
written by  carseat tourist on September 13, 2009 from Harbin, China

Carepackage
My best friend sent us a care package!!!! Yeah! I love mail!
Our mail goes to our boss and then he calls us and we come get it. His office is about 3/4 a mile from our apartment. I took both Princess and Little Guy in the stroller.
Just finished signing "airplane"-boxes mean airplanes in his life
Little Guy was so dejected when he saw the package. I loaded it on the stroller and he pointed to the box and to himself. I smiled and nodded. He just looked confused. The whole walk home he is pointing to the box and to himself. I decided that maybe he was too excited and wouldn't want to share so I pointed to the box and to Princess and him. He looked even further worn down. So we keep walking, and pointing to the box. Finally he shrugs, points to the box and puts on his foster mom's expression and does a thumbs up followed by an airplane sign.
I understood. The last box he got was our care package. The one thing they had done to explain his adoption to him was indicate that it was good and he would go on an airplane. He thought inside the box was his next family's picture. Or that Princess was going to a new family.
Wow.
line of cars
We opened the box and he is just so sweet and easy to please! She sent matchbox cars. He opened one and kindly started passing out the other cars to the rest of the family. He was just amazed when we showed him that all the cars were for him. Then she sent some underwear. The stuff they sell in China is the no fly style. Actually maybe little dudes don't always wear that cause we don't see many in his size and he came commando. So we pull out a pair and show him. He signs swimming! And he grabs his goggles and does a couple of swimming poses.
Look at my car
Luckily my friend forgot to put any pictures in the box, so he should be a little less insecure.
Princess got some cool duds and Teenager got some sweet Teenybopper magazines. I got some chocolate.
I'm really thankful for the chocolate cause our town is in the news with the big bug and we now are confined to the campus somewhat and the chocolate supply is pitiful.
Speaking of care packages, we can still send the cool face critters
care package
to future adoptees in a care package.
Little tiger
Please email or leave a comment if you're interested.
written by  carseat tourist on September 15, 2009 from Harbin, China

filling out forms
Healthy Kids outside of the clinic
Now I thought I had filled out my life time supply of paperwork with the completion of the adoption this year. I was wrong. I am now living in Formville.
One book of forms must contain everyones temperature by 8am. I was instructed to not bother with my kids names and just list them as elder daughter, younger daughter, and son.
Welcome to our Apartment Building
One book of forms is completely nullified by the big sign posted on our entry door.
The other one concerns our leaving the campus.
This is discouraged. My chinese teacher/students are telling me they are not allowed out. We think not allowed may soon be the situation for us. So I went to Carrefour (owned by the French) and bought everything I could carry that isn't sold at the overpriced campus store. Chris went to Walmart (support America!!!) and bought everything that you can't buy at Carrefour. We have not yet made it to RT mart (owned by the Japenese). I'm hoping we can still go tomorrow. They are the only sellers of hot chocolate and decent pasta and cheese. I have 9 packets of hot chocolate. I'm going to be pretty sad if I can't get more since we only have 1/2 bag of decaf coffee left and I can't drink the leaded coffee.
Now on top of the forms we have been handed the big blow that they have cancelled National day week for our university. We must teach during that time.
And we aren't even sick! We know we aren't because two kids have had a blood draw to prove it.
In my opinion, if they were serious about the spread of germs they would put soap in the bathrooms (along with tp) and they would have garbage service. But they are serious about the forms!

Wedding #2
Teenager's chinese teacher from last semester was married today. She invited Princess to be her flower girl.
It was quite a different affair than the ayi's son's wedding. This was at a fancy dancy reception hall. It was modern and elegant. The food was really expensive. Her dresses were very fancy and high quality.
It was not as loud. It was quick. It was like a fancy business lunch with a wedding on the side. Very different.
We were late because "the bug" has forbidden taxis from enter the campus, so we had to walk a mile to find one and then even when they were zooming by it was a while before someone gave us a ride.
Princess provided her own dress and shoes. She actually wore the dress-up bride dress that I sewed for Teenager when she was 5. Her little cohort was a Japanese fellow and he had the cutest silver/white tux with a giant tie. I didn't get a picture of it. It was a big deal to have the foriegners in the wedding. The teacher had lots of her students give speaches.
All the chinese men wanted a photo with Teenager
Princess was put to work throwing petals and we were escorted to a table where there were not enough chairs and dishes and we couldn't see anything. We actually were with some of my former classsmates from when I studied chinese. Little Guy freaked out immediately and crawled under a table.
under the table
He stayed there almost the whole time. We tried to get him out by offering a bathroom break but the second he was in range of the table he dove under. We showed him the food and he wanted nothing to do with it. Oysters-definately not his style. Rather than drag him out, we endured the strange looks from our table. Had we been seated with Chinese guests I think the on the floor stuff would have been a big deal. But the international crowd didn't make it into a scene.
Location of wedding
I think the old folks are so cute
The bride didn't toast the tables but the whole room at once. She came by and brought Princess a gift-a doll lamp.
The dramatic stairway
The highlight was a remote control helicopter delivered the rings.
That was pretty cool.
We were kind of sad (in addition to the embarressment) he was under the table.
Happy couple
We had gone because we thought it was a chance for him to connect with his culture. At this time he seems to have no interest.
under the table, not getting out
I think the ayi's wedding was more fun. Everybody seemed to have a good time and they went out of their way to make us comfortable.

Who's Your Daddy
Well, we thought we were making progress with sign language. We thought Little Guy had mastered the sign for Mom and Pop at least. Maybe not! Today I was doing a image search online and this guys picture is one of my choices. Little Guy was sitting on my lap and immediately pointed to the picture and signed Dad.
Littles Guy's thinks this is his Daddy
Hmm...maybe he thinks that sign is for any white guy with red facial hair.
On Skype, he makes the grandpa sign when he see's his grandpa. It was very interesting that on the last video call he touched Chris's nose and Princess's nose and pointed to his grandpa's nose and indicated that they all matched. He kind of curled up in after that. He doesn't seem to be interested in Chinese folk's faces. I think he would freak out if I showed him that his nose was the same as some of my students. I'm quite sure my students would freak if I tried this anyway.
Princess is on the other end of the spectrum with her identity.
All the boys in the class
All the girls in the class
She is blond in a sea of dark haired people. If she sees anyone remotely like our features she just is so fascinated. "Look, they have honey colored hair". She just looks at them with such awe.
Little Guy has been learning the sign alphabet with some luck. He can sign his name now. He wants us to sign any words he sees on tv (like the movie credits), so he does get that the letters correspond to the signs for letters. We have an old fashion label maker and he really likes feeling the letters and then signing them.

Easter Eggs Take 3
Jello, Grape Juice, and tea
Third times the charm...
1st try
Before actual Easter we died eggs the "natural way" following all the tips online for people not wanting to use commercially available egg kits. I think those people are personally not looking at the globalization of holidays. Egg kits create jobs in China! They aren't sold in China, but I'm sure that somebody is feeding their family cause they make or package egg dyeing kits. Anyway, those haters of the commercial product say that you can color eggs with grape juice or tea or some other ways. Well, those folks didn't use brown eggs I guess. Why would you use white eggs if you were against commercial stuff, again I don't see their logic. We tried their tips and failed horribly. So we thought what stains clothes that we have on hand in China. Hmmm, jello. Some people had left China for life back in the states and had given us a 2 year supply of cherry jello. They tastes like cough syrup so I think previous repatriates had passed them when they left and that no doubt we will be doing the same. So we tried dying the eggs in cherry jello... well it did create a slightly pink egg.
The day after Easter, my brother's Easter package arrived containing the real kit! Redo, success, happiness!
So many colors
Take 2
My brother was so kind and generous that he sent a couple of kits that we saved one. We were thinking about when we adopted Little Guy that we'd take the kit and dye eggs and take them to the orphanage. Our experience in Shenyang SWI volunteering was that the kids got 1 hard boiled egg a day and that egg was like gold to them. We thought how wonderful it would be to show up with a whole bunch of colored eggs for the kids instead of candy. Well, we ended up in a hotel room in Hefei and were shocked when we found out we were going to be allowed in the SWI much less trying to figure out how to boil eggs, dye them and then transport them. In retrospect it could have been done- all the room come with the electric teapot so you could boil eggs in that, then dye them in the water cups, but anyway, we didn't do that.
Little Guy is the pickiest eater in the world. The foster mom said she kept him alive by force feeding him a hard boiled egg everyday for breakfast. Personally, I think maybe it would have been nice if she would have worked on getting some solid food in him. But the egg was what she could do and she did have 6 other hungry kids to feed so no doubt Mr. Picky Eater was lucky that she cared enough to force that down his throat. Our situation is that we want him to like food so we thought maybe dyeing eggs would make him like eggs.
Take 3... he was not at all sure about turning his egg blue! He may not like eggs but he was in the orphanage long enough to value that you do not play with that egg. Princess was a pro by this time and was having a blast playing with her eggs. Little Guy finally decided that it was cool. If fact he even got his hands dirty! Progress.
Getting his hands dirty
Take 3
Both were equally happy to peel and eat the eggs. We are not sure who ate their eggs because under one of the chairs was a big blob of spit out egg. Oh well...
On a separate front all our light colored clothes have been died yellow. We bought Little Guy a yellow shirt and threw it in the machine with the lights. We don't have a drier. So now our apartment has these clothes hanging to dry everywhere and it looks like a dog came in here and peed all over everything. Lovely...my favorite is the now yellow "I heart China" Sometimes that's how I feel about this place. Before we came and lived here we had all these dreams and ideas and now I sort of feel that they have been trampled on, spit on, and then had some chihuahua pee all over them.

Mooncakes Baby
Mooncake baby
It's that time of year again. We have received our first gift of mooncakes.
Our favorite foreign affairs guy has retired and the first evidence of change has been the quality and quantity of mooncakes has decreased. Last year we got a beautiful elaborate box with about a dozen mooncake surprises. I like the box best, I'm not a big fan of mystery food, so the reduction was not heartbreaking, I'm just worried about where else this guy is going to try to cut corners. This year we got 6 mooncakes in a so-so box. Actually we get 2 boxes each year from foriegn affairs since we are two teachers. Sometimes students give us mooncakes too. They usually give one little mooncake and it comes in the cutest box.
Mid-Autumn Festival is falling on the same day as National Day so we only get one day off. The first year in Shenyang we were required to give a performance for the school's celebration. They wanted us to sing or dance and I'm not a sing and dance kind of gal. We gave a little speach with our fellow foreign teacher that included some very simple jokes. The brave Chris tried to sing with Princess the "milk song". It is a girl scout camp favorite and very cute. Princess was 3. Before going on stage the host took Princess (who was quite bored and being silly after being in the audience for 2 hours) aside and told her that if she sang onstage that afterwords she would get mooncakes. That triggered a nightmare, the night before Teenager came back from school and had told Princess that someone had bet her and her English teacher 100RMB to eat a mooncake. Apparently it was so distasteful that money loving teenager couldn't complete the task. She went on to tell gullible Princess just how horrible she thought mooncakes were. So Princess hearing that she will get mooncakes for going onstage begins to go into super naughty mode the second they hand her the microphone. She doesn't sing but loudly talks jibber-jabber and starts spinning and doing whatever else she felt like. Poor Chris tried to sing but it was a horribly embarrassing scene witnessed by 4000 of our students.
But since we have adopted Little Guy we don't want to diminish his culture. So we graciously accepted the mooncakes and with full fanfare opened up the boxes. Little Guy was pretty excited. He is the worlds pickiest eater and if he liked mooncakes I was going to rush out to the market and by a years supply.
Not loving the mooncake
Well, lets just say he is one of the family and there was no need to go shopping.

National Day
Yeah, I'm almost an American
Due to the fear of pig flu, the cut our National Day Holiday to 1 day. We celebrated by picking up Little Guy's custom made clothes. Since the addition of him to the family, shopping has become quite a chore. He came with the clothes on his back, so he has needed a complete wardrobe. We have been able to pick up somethings at Wallyworld and Carrefour, but he seems to have a shortage of pants. Rather than spend a half a day traveling by bus looking for the specialty area of boy's clothing in Harbin we decided to just have them made at the closest seamstress'. It actually is about the same cost as retail, if not a little cheaper. I sew back in the States, but have no machine here. Little Guy had 3 pairs of pants and some overalls made. Princess is so lucky to get hand-me downs that she hardly ever needs clothes, but she likes to match her brother. So she had a skirt made from the pant leg of Teenager's cut-off jeans with a matching patch to Little Guy's Obama'lls.
Checking each other out-vest is handme down handmade for Teenager
We watched the parade and gala on tv and were amazed at the ability for an open air limo for a world leader.
Back at class, the next day the students gave lots of feedback of their feeling of the celebration. They thought that the parade was very "serious" and the gala was "easygoing". They really like to share their feelings about the Western reporting of the events.
The parade didn't have clowns, but our house does!
Getting into the full handstand-don't drop him!
The best news is that last night was the first night we heard Little Guy laugh in his sleep. Quite often he wakes us up crying in his sleep. It is so sad because he won't open eyes for us to sign comforting things to him and since he can't hear, there is not much we can do. So we were really happy that he woke us up laughing in his sleep.
National Day Wear
written by  carseat tourist on October 5, 2009 from Harbin, China

Spiritual
The many faces of Little Guy
Little Guy is so spiritual. I think it is really fascinating since he is deaf. When he first came to us, we took him to a temple and he was so serious in praying to all the Buddas. Since then, we have seen him pray to almost any statue. Our least fav is when he insists to bow down at all the Mao's all over our campus.
Anyway at dinner we always hold hands and say the simple Madeline grace-We love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all we love each other. We have learned it in sign as well. Little Guy loves this part of the meal. He actually hates mealtime, so this usually is the only part of the meal that he is happy. I still don't know how someone can be so picky, but anyway...
photobooth girls
So, last night he was looking at his little car book. I saw him touch one of the cars and sign the Madeline prayer.
I was really amazed that he had made the connection to the fact that we are praying at meal time. We have never attempted to explain it to him, it's just something we do. And I was in total shock that he had the insight to pray for a car.
he loves cars
written by  carseat tourist on October 6, 2009 from Harbin, China

Onions, the smell of fall
The sign of fall in the treeless urban jungle is the appearance of vegetables everywhere out to dry.
First fall in China
My 3rd year in China and I do still find this as fascinating as the leaf changes in the South. My awe is the amazing places they will put the veggies.
bike parking
And how they are so symmetrical and orderly with the arrangement.
hanging cucumbers
The fall butterflies just love the onions. In Shenyang we had a first floor apartment and people would ask us to dry their veggies between the bars of our windows. Nothing like opening your window in the morning to a stack of onions.
Butterfly
What I am really waiting for is seeing the herd of chihuahuas (that yips and wakes me up everyday) pee all over them. I am quite interested in the double standard that the chinese think everything that is on the ground is dirty-yet they leave their entire winter supply of veggies out on the ground to the mercy of the dogs and spitters.
Roll out the green onions...fall is here!
I have been told that they dry the veggies because in winter prices go up and it is too cold to go out anyway.
park bench last fall
Happy face red peppers
The funniest thing happened at the store yesterday. Actually yesterday was a really bad day for little guy but I don't want to talk about it. So I went to Carrefour by myself last night to buy groceries. The check out line at Carrefour is the slowest on earth. The lines are long and people finally get their two seconds with the cashier and want to pester the poor girl about the price of an egg. Like she can bargain with them or something. Anyway they will argue and hold up the line and about half the time after waiting in line 15minutes they will walk of in a huff with nothing when the cashier won't change the price. So I'm in line about 7minutes into my wait. Always people come along with just a few items and try to cut in front. So this guy has about 10 bottles of beer without a basket or cart and wants to cut. He is whining about how heavy the bottles were. I'm thinking- you picked them up, if you want them, deal with it. So the lady behind me lets him in between us. He continues his whining. I refuse to budge so he starts to rant about how I'm a foriegner and can't understand anything. I think he really worked up and was going on about how selfish I was to not let him infront to set down his beer. He stands there a few minutes and his cousin shows up (this always happens if you let them cut). The cousin has more beer and a bunch of tea with instant coupons on them. Instant coupons always result in a big argument with the cashier, so I was really glad I didn't let him in front of me. So I wait out the line, probably 10 minutes. The guy and his cousin continue to have there foreigners are stupid conversation and the woman behind them is contributing to the conversation. Nothing like enduring racial prejudice just to get your groceries. They did analyze my purchases too. Little Guy cooperates for marshmallows so I had about 5 bags of them, so they had lots of fuel for their foreigners are fat and unhealthy rant. Finally it's my turn and the cashier pokes a hole in my dried red beans and they spill all over. The guy then starts telling the cashier how I don't understand anything and I'm stupid. So I'm packing the groceries in my bags (brought from home-Mr. Beer was so smart that he hadn't remembered his). The cashier tells me the total in Chinese and I handed her what I thought was the right amount. I had miscounted and was off by 5RMB, so they guy is still going on about how I don't understand anything. I pulled out another 5 and handed it to the cashier and said "Ming bai" ("I understand" in chinese) in perfect tone and looked at the guy right in the eye and smiled. He was so embarrassed!!! He just covered his face and started laughing and all the other people behind him started laughing too. He said (in chinese) "OMG, she understood everything I just said." I felt so vindicated. I didn't say anything else and just left.
written by  carseat tourist on October 10, 2009 from Harbin, China

Ethnic Museum
The restoration complete
Sunday we decided to visit the Temple/Museum on our campus. It has recently been restored and is free. I'm not sure if it is a Province or City Museum. The restoration was really grand.
Restored Scholars
I had been to the non-restored part over a year ago.
Headless roof accent piece-display of restoration process
They didn't let you take pictures inside the buildings before. Now there were no signs saying not to take pictures and the building ayi didn't stop us.
baby carrier
They have some cool stuff, it's just not displayed the same as at the Smithsonian, plus there are no English signs.
Ethnic cap
So it is kind of like being the archeologist yourself and figuring out what the item is and what purpose it had. I really like the fish skin clothes.
The fish coat
This province used to have "fish people" and they lived in tree Houses and fished and ate fish and even made their clothes from fish skin. One student once drew me a picture of his dream House and I was really impressed when he told me the Story of the fish people. I said that I wanted to see the tree Houses, but he sadly wrote the government tore them down on the picture. Anyway, last year my boss gave me a gorgeous fish people art piece. It is so cool it made of fish skin and shows a woman with a baby. The museum has quite of collection of fish skin clothes. They also had some baby carriers and silk shoes that I thought were cool. Little Guy liked the bow display and the canoes. The museum is inside a temple that is "not Buddhist" according to our students. The students say they go there to pray before a test.
Praying for good grades...Pre-K is tough these days!
It was Sunday so there were no students, but there were some Japanese folks
Re-actment or photoshoot??
dressed up in old costumes. Princess was really taken with them.
So overwhemled with the Blue princess
Not into girls yet
Bashful Wisteria & the Japanese Princess
She said "Why didn't I wear my Princess dress today?" when she saw them. We usually refer to her Princess attire as The Uniform because she wears the dress 5 days out of the week. The kids thought the highlight was the fish pond and bridge. They played on the bridge until closing time and the guard started chasing people out.
Fish God??
The fish
Looking at the fish

The kitchen sink
The dishes
We have a kitchen sink the size of a bathroom sink in America. We have no automatic dishwasher. We do have 3 potential dishwasher children. Teenager has no interest in developing potential in this area. Little Guy and Princess actually fight to see who CAN wash the dishes. Due to the shallow sink, there is about no way for the job to be done with out getting soaked, great fun if you are 4 or 5. Getting soaked even applies to the adult dishwashers. The adult dishwashers have the added problem that the kitchen was designed for a really short person, so even though I am 5'3'' I have to stoop to do dishes. Yuck. The ayi does dishes (yeah!!!!) but her method is to take a big bowl and fill it with water and wash that way on the counter. We are not sure of her rinsing method (some things are meant to be a mystery). Her method doesn't result in the dishes being as clean as out of an American kitchen. But we are not in America!
We have finally come upon a method of dishwashing that doesn't result in more laundry. The rain poncho!
The poncho
Lets say the kids went wild and there is much more enthusiasm dishwashing!!!

The water cycle
fall leaves
A few days ago they turned on the heat full time.
Yeah, we like to be warm. In Shenyang, they waited until 3 snows before the cranked the furnace and then it was never very warm even. One of the reasons we moved to Harbin was that even though it is super cold, they believe in cranking the heat so you are really warm inside. When we were at the consulate in Shenyang, we talked to one of the workers (they do outreach stuff to Americans living in Harbin) and she said that in Shenyang it might be like-16C and Harbin it might be -19C, but really when its that cold does 3 degrees matter because you don't want to go outside anyway. Good point, so we chose to be in Harbin where at least we are warm inside. My experience last winter was -16C your camera works, -18C it doesn't. Anyway...
Sprayers
Just before they cranked the furnace, (right outside my apartment window
) they sprayed something on the coal. I didn't remember this last year, but maybe I wasn't paying attention. I said to my husband, ew, what ever they are spraying we are going to be breathing it out the chimney. Sure enough when they cranked the furnace, our blue sky went smog orange.
So finally it has rained, knocking that stuff out of the sky.
Puddle downtown Harbin, far from our apartment
Lets just say things are bubbly.
Whatever fell from the sky, landed on those veggies. Can you wash dried veggies?
Everywhere!!!
bubble puddle
Teenager by courtyard
The leaves have turned and the campus is
Campus path
pretty.

Fall inHarbin
Pig
This fall has been the nicest and longest we have had in China.
Fall
We have taken some nice walks around campus.
the Goat
The new library at our school- in top 5 largest in China
We enjoy the Chickens.
Free Range Chickens
Chicken
Walking is like playing chicken with the motorcycles
But don't like playing Chicken!
Ducks don't swim in the toxic stuff, the floating balloons are nice.
We like people watching.
Padded clothes with split pants. Why must the baby freeze it's buttt off?
They seem to watch us too.
modern china
Woman knitted with kids climbing all over her
Warming up with some hot tea
The good thing about China is that is never the same place twice.
Princess got some
Even Wallyworld will throw in a few astonauts.
Blast off
Teenager
Sax

Little Guy's 1st Birthday with US
Birthday Boy
Wooohooo! More cake.
The cake
Actually we didn't pick his cake out the ayi did. We have been sick and were at the hospital yesterday and the day before. I went thru with monks and my bill was quite low. Chris was charged 4 times as much as me. Usually our prior experience with illness in China is that the foreign affairs dept. comes holds our hand and escorts us through the maze of medical stuff. This time we used the cell phone.
I coughed in class and my supervisor translated thru my students that I should go home and make my husband come here, now. Your students translating for your boss is always a delicate balance. As a wife, ordering my husband to take over my classes is equally delicate. I refuse to be put in that spot. I just always say, "No, he can't"
So the foreign affairs office called him and told him to go to the hospital immediately after reviewing his symptoms. Now my supervisor told me to go home and wait for foreign affairs to call me (via my students translation). After Chris finished at the hospital it was too late for me to go, so I went the next morning.
Cake with new chopsticks
None of this would have happened had the hospital chosen to treat our kids last week. We took the ayi because foreign affairs said the previous time that she was fine to go with the kids. She speaks little English but knows in Chinese the situation with the kids. For some reason, it was Friday, the hospital refused to look at the kids. We had been 2 weeks ago so we were a little confused. The ayi got in a heated debate with the doctor. Apparently they would look at Princess but refused to look at Little Guy. The word deaf and no and he doesn't belong here were thrown around. After discussion, they let the ayi take the temps. The ayi read the thermo and it showed fever. I looked at it too. The thermometer were handed to the doctor who looked ayi and said a number a good 2 degrees different and said there was no problem here, good bye. So we left. The ayi went off on her bike and procured some chinese medicine that worked wonders for Little Guy. Everyone else continued on the downward spiral of sickness made a little worse by whatever germs we picked up in our attempt to treat the kids.
We faithfully filled out our temp forms and placed them in the box each day. 3 days went by, no one called.
But one coughing spell in class and there was immediate concern for our well being. Anyway, we are sick. No one translated a diagnosis other than the dates we can go to back to work. It is not the pig flu. And Chris is not as serious as me, so he can return to work on Friday. He said he wanted to go back today, but they said "No, you need to take care of her and your family" Awe, how sweet is that. No boss in America has ever said that to us before---your wife had her baby (on Sat), great see you Monday-- is what you get in America. I have really found that the Chinese guys are unfairly stereotyped as not being compassionate. They really seem to bend over backwards to care for their wives and kids.
It turns out the foreign affairs office is down to 2 healthy people and so they really couldn't afford to get sick walking us thru the hospital. The remembered that I was allergic to everything and took great measures to translate all the medications to us and to make sure there were no reactions. For months, we had been terrified of getting the pig flu and villianized for being evil Americans trying to sicken everyone. But we really found that getting sick of course sucks, but that our bosses were much kinder and understanding than we imagined. Course we don't have the pig flu, so that may be why.
So anyway, back to the big day. We used our way cool software and were able to view You Tube for the first time in a year or 2. We had heard that there were alot of sign language songs on there, so we looked up Happy Birthday and learned it. It was very sweet.
How you get the kid and cake to school at the same time
We started his celebration by biking the cake and kids to kindergarten. But the kids were going on a field trip and loading the bus "right now" and the not so good English teacher told us to take the cake home and bring it back tomorrow. Little Guy was not to happy about the parting of his cake. We were a little baffled about the field trip. Yesterday we had discussed bringing the cake and there was no mention of a trip. We still don't know where they went, something about a performance. It is almost better to be blindsided this way because there is no pre-field trip anxiety for the kids.
So after school we picked him up and had cake and song at home. He was happy. We thought the cake was quite pretty, we had hoped for dragons or tigers, but flowers are at least peaceful.
They have the best candles over here, light the bulb
Then fireworks
And it opens to a flower of many candles
For dinner we served his favorite food so far, pork roast and boiled potatoes.
He got a remote control car and it has provided hours of entertainment until the wheel was stuck in Princess's hair and Little Guy wouldn't give up the remote or stop pushing the go button.
When we are well again we will take him out for a birthday celebration at KFC or McD's.
Opening the car the tie was a gift too

Haircut
Little Guy needed another haircut. His first haircut happened when I was teaching in Beijing. He didn't enjoy it. There was much discussion about his sideburns. The hairdresser wanted to leave them and refused to cut them off. Sideburns are thought to be good here. Apparently it means you have good energy. Lots of guys work at growing sideburns.
This time my student volunteered to take us to his guy. The place was much nicer than the usual hole in the wall where we have gone before. It was full of hip guys. Little Guy wanted nothing to do with it. He started shaking his hand "no" as soon as we walked in. He had a throw down when we tried to take off his coat. He refused to go over to the hairwash area. The barber was so cool about it. He said decided to just cut the hair. Little guy was wrangled into the apron and just sat so dejected. It is interesting because when he goes to the doctor he doesn't mind blood draws or anything like that. But a haircut....
Little Guy's fighting face
After a while he realized it wasn't torture and he got very excited! He started making faces at himself in the mirror. I don't have the sign for "be still" so it became a little challenge. But the barber was so patient.
Trapped in the chair, Wouldn't look up
The barber had a long discussion about the sideburns and then shaved them off. The barber had fake side burns, so you could really see that he thought it was a pity to waste natural sideburns.
It's not so bad, but I'm still scared. Check out the barber's do
My student is a law professor and so we had a long talk about the profession of haircutting. I found it quite interesting. If you don't pass the high school entrance exam then you can go to technical school to become a barber. It costs 4000rmb for one year. The barber graduates and makes 3000rmb a month. So it is a pretty good job. He said that our students of the university pay 4000RMB each year and graduate and can't find a job, so maybe a being a barber is a good thing.
The haircut cost 6RMB.
On the way home Little Guy remembered the way we had come and we were quite impressed with his sense of direction since he had never walked that way before.
written by  carseat tourist on November 6, 2009 from Harbin, China

Things you buy in China that you'd never buy in the States
Artists made us look so young!
We went downtown to try to get Little Guy's picture drawn. The artists were gone, so we snapped a couple of pictures of St. Sophias instead.
Little Guy at St. Sophias
Teenager at St. Sophias
We thought of walking to the flood monument because sometimes artists are there, but Little Guy is not much of a hiker. Little Guy certainly is spiritual, he had a throw down tantrum because we wouldn't go in St. Sophias. It is a museum of Harbin, my students said it wasn't worth the entrance price. My Russian friend said Harbin used to have alot of Russian built churches, but it makes her cry to see what they've been turned into.
One of Teenagers favorite places to shop is underground St. Sophias. So we went down.
One of the things that is great about being in another country for Teenager is that she can wear what ever she wants. Everybody thinks she is amazing just because she's different so her clothes don't have the same message that they do back in the States.
Halloween outfit from Hot Mama shop
Harbin is a Russian town and one of the big differences between us and the Russians is that the Russia chics always wear something form fitting and usually wear heels.
Russian chic on Halloween
This has given Teenager some ideas...I think in the States she would be too embarrassed to wear these outfits, but in China she feels very confident.
The dramatic stairway
Course as a mom, I'd prefer she pick some more conservative stuff. But she's been such a trooper living over here for 3 years that I figure she can have some fun. Plus the Chinese boys are SOOOOO intimidated by her that they aren't going to try try an funny business, they are just happy to get their picture taken with her.
Young man asked to take picture with Teenager
Chenglish at Hot Mama Shop
Inside the Hot Mama shop
Her favorite shop sell "hot mama" dresses for 15RMB in a sales bin. The seller just loves Teenager and brings out all sorts of other dresses and gives them to her at the sales price. Occasionally, she will bring one out for me too! She seems to know I'm a little more conservative so she usually brings me something that you'd wear to a ballroom dance competition. Shopping is such an experience.
I love the displays.
Leather and fish net underground mall
Display underground mall
We also had some sweet potato custards...it was a lot like sweet potato pie from Georgia except there was a layer of bean curd. It was really good.
Sweet Potato custards
written by  carseat tourist on November 9, 2009 from Harbin, China

First Snow of the winter
Me and Little Guy
Snowman
Snowdude
child labor...kid was so happy to clean the car, my kids wished they had a car to clean!
At the doorway, Little Guy's first daylight view of snow
Friday it snowed for the first time this winter. I'm sure the stuff will be here until we go home New Years Eve, but the 1st snow is always the funnest.
It was late for the 1st snow this year, other years we had snow in early October. The snow is bittersweet because I rather have pretty snow if it is so freakin' cold, but we can't ride our bikes anymore...so everything becomes so much more of a chore.
Little Guy is a Southern boy so he doesn't have much snow experience. He liked it but thought it was too cold. Princess just loves snow!!!! It was hard to get pictures of her because she runs and plays so fast in the snow that the camera just gets a blur.
Princess and our apartment complex
We went to Hans with the other foreigners on Friday night.
Walking home 1st night of snow
Snow graffiti
It is like a buffet with kabobs. They bring out these huge kabobs of meat and slice it on your plate. All kinds of things including tongue, Chicken heart, squid, and Normal stuff like steak and hotdogs. Then there is a buffet on chinese dishes an odd pastries. It is suppose to be a German theme, but I've been to Germany and never had food like that.
Hans, German wannabe restaurant with Chinese cowboys
Little Guy was astonished at this, he wanted to get the clothes down
How to build a snowman in China, pile snow, add head
Saturaday thie kids played in the snow and then the power went out (just like every snowstorm on Lummi Island).
Teenager
Teenager was pretty sad without the net so she even played with us.
Deep...just kidding, the coats too big for the kid
written by  carseat tourist on November 15, 2009 from Harbin, China

Yarn Market
Big spools sold by weight
We went to the yarn market today. I had been to a good one in Shenyang and had been trying to go to one in Harbin forever. Finally I had good directions!!! The material market in Harbin was sooo awesome, I thought up here in freezing Harbin, the yarn market would be the best.
Do you know the button man
I was a bit disappointed. The one in Shenyang is has much better lighting and the vendors are really friendly.
Harbin's yarn market is bigger but sells many more sweaters and things. But they are very bland sweaters, not hip cool stuff. It occupies 2 floors. The fifth floor is cheaper.
Handmade hats for sale
In Shenyang we bargained for everything, but this place had bargaining for sweaters, but the yarn was all set prices by spool or by weight. They didn't let us take pictures of all the woman knitting. It was really cool, because now I've seen "handmade in China". They looked like they were having an ok time, I just wished they had better lighting. They could really knit and crochet quickly. There were some shops that measure you and then handmake a sweater for you.
Princess did not enjoy the yarn market because it was full of little old ladies who pinched her cheeks every time we paused to look.
Oh, The yarn
But I noticed that they pinched the Chinese kids cheeks too. Those kids looked just as unhappy as Princess. The yarn place is a chic thing, so Little Guy stayed home with his Dad.
I liked the Shenyang market better, but I still came home with lots of yarn.
Yarn, some real wool, some cool unknown varieties
Real wool and lots of it!!!
We got Little Guy a pair of knitted overalls. In my mind prior to living in China, I pictured all the little kids wearing silk padded outfits with dragons on them. Well, that isn't what they really wear here. They do wear the padded pants (me too, it's freezing), but the most "chinese" thing that I have seen kids uniformly wear are these knitted outfits.
The real Chinese outfit
Little Guy was so happy when we put his pair on him.
Immediately, the second we got home, both children tore into the bags of yarn.
Finger Knitting
Maybe they are part cat or something. They had fun with the spools and then they wanted me to roll the yarn into balls. They think it is very funny to sit in the middle of a skein and have the other one run around them and make the ball. To be 5...
Just as you imagined, we tie up Little Guy a force him to work

4 months later, the story of Little Guy
4 months-his hands say love in Chinese
I think Little Guy is starting to have real progress. He has been in the family for four months.
It has not been easy. At all. But love conquers all.
The most amazing thing happened at Kindergarten yesterday. We dropped off the kids and
Going to School in the Artic
unbundled them. The lead teacher comes running out in the hall. Ms. Lead teacher that previously said that Little Guy was fated not to remain at school. Ms. Lead teacher that in October only decided that he could continue to go to school because she likes Princess.
She says "wait a moment". We are thinking, oh, no if she was going to kick him out of school, couldn't she tell us before we took all his coats and gear off? She is talking very fast in Chinese and is very sincere. I caught the general idea as "Not Princess, ping-pong Little Guy" We assumed he had committed his final act of trouble with the ping-pong paddle and Princess could stay at school and he needed to go. So I told her that we were going back to USA on Dec 31. Her eyes started welling up. She left us in the hall and came back with her calendar and the good English teacher. The good English teacher shocked the mittens off of us. Little Guy has been "selected" for ping-pong. He is getting free ping-pong lessons, not Princess. This is a great honor. I have had a former child ping-pong star in my class at the university and he is revered as king at the university. You can just say his name and people just gasp in happiness.
Likes to make music at school
So to be selected for ping-pong lessons by the kindergarten ping-pong master is a tremendous opportunity.
Cheers to the ayi who has beared with us during this time. I am amazed in her tender care and incredible patience with our family.
Ayi ties on scarf (made by Teenager too) -18C
In the beginning Little Guy wanted nothing to do with her or her cooking.
But even so, she has done what she can to help with him. In the store last week he had a throw down over not getting ultraman shoes when we were boot shopping. The store people and crowd were, as usual, offering awful advice or rude comments.
Look at the patience in the ayi's eyes during the shoe shopping tantrum
She just ignored them and helped us get the boots we needed while enduring his fit.
And Little Guy is quite a trooper having 2 sisters that like to dress him up.
Hat by Teenager
Teenager has gone to town with that yarn and
pumped out a hat a day!
We are all happy that they are making the ice rink
Making the ice rink!!!
at the soccer field. They painfully spray water on the field and level it. It should be ready this weekend!

Thanksgiving
Thawing the bird
Our third year in China, and you would think we would have Thanksgiving down. The main problem is that most of the ingredients in a Thanksgiving are native to the States, not China. We planned ahead by bringing over some ingredients and hiding them in our cupboard all year. It is really hard, brown gravy sound really appetizing about July when you have not had any since Feb. This years feast started with a conversation with my students on Tuesday about where could I buy a fresh bird. I knew that if I wanted a turkey I could pony up and go to the Metro and pay a lot of RMB for a 2cd rate imported bird. I see they raise ducks and chicken all over, I wanted to find a fresh one. When you go to the Chinese restaurants the ducks are amazing. I wanted to get one like that. The chickens we buy seem to be tough old birds. My students said that tough old birds are good for you and somehow it will make you live a long life to eat them, so that's why they are sold like that. The restaurants get their birds from special duck farms. They thought there might be a market near where I bought yarn that possibly I could get a good duck, but they weren't sure if I could get a raw one. Meanwhile one student was busy playing with her phone. I thought she was using her translator to follow the conversation or else was just rude and texting in class. I teach adults, and many of them are very very important in the university so sometimes they have real business that goes on their phones during class. Anyway, they are all adults so I figure that I don't need to babysit them and tell them not to use their phones. So we continue to talk about the food safety issues surrounding butchers and poultry dealers and the phone student sets down the phone and says, "My husband is bring a goose". I, of course, offered to buy it. No, no, no. Since I don't give grades in the class, it isn't a bribe, it is a genuine gift. It still felt really awkward.
Her husband's friend is a bird dealer, wild and raised, and lives in the country. Did I want the bird live? I asked for no feathers.
This student is also in my husbands class. Some people really want to improve their English so they come to mutiple classes a week. The die hard one we call "English junkies", they can't stand to miss any classes. She is more like a "fair weather fan", if she has time she comes to every class in a week and then there will be weeks that we don't see her. So on Wed. she delivered a large frozen goose to Chris's class. I was so relieved that she did it in his class because I wasn't sure how I would receive the bird properly or what do you do with a big frozen bird while you teach for 2 hours. Plus, how would the other students react to her giving us the goose.
Anyway, the bird was big and frozen at 4pm and because we had to teach all afternoon on Thanksgiving, we planned to eat at noon. Teenager has class 'til 12 and I begin teaching at 2-6 and Chris has the night shift at 6:30pm. So noon was the only time we had for the feast.
Everything in our kitchen is the size of the dwarf's in Snow White. We have a little bitty sink with a little fridge and an oven about the size bigger than a toaster oven. Counter space does not exist. The ayi uses the cutting board over the sink to work on when she cooks.
We chose to thaw the bird in the crock pot. The problem is that the crock pot is near where the cat usually eats.
One plug for the whole kitchen limits your cooking range
It has never been a problem before because the crock pot has a lid on it, as does the rice cooker. You load up your pot on the stove and then plop it down into the appliance on the floor. It as as clean as you can get in China. We talked of moving the operation to various rooms but decided it was best to just provide supervision of the cat outside of the kitchen. The cat has to go thru the kitchen to the balcony to take care of her business so we didn't want to have issues with that either.
So we put the bird in the crock pot and went to sleep. At 1am we woke to the delicious smell goose. Half the bird was done. I mean really done. The other half was thawed. We decided to put it in the fridge and go back to sleep.
In the morning we found we had cooked off the wings, but the bonus was that now it was the size that could fit into the oven.
The goose
The second big problem was the pumpkin pie. We had carefully researched how to make a pumpkin pie from scratch online. The plan executed perfectly and we had wonderful pumpkin goup that looked just like the stuff in the can. Then the recipe called for the crust. The problem was that a crust uses lots of butter. Butter is expensive here, about 22RMB a stick. 4 sticks for a pie!!! So we raided our cabinet and found a gingerbread kit we brought from the States, just add water! It actually was delicious and now will forever replace the crust of a pumpkin pie in our house.
For our Thanksgiving feast, we also had deviled eggs (only tricky ingredient in China is yellow mustard), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (no normal mini marshmallows, but the white with rainbow centers browned nicely), cranberries (from the States), brown gravy (mix from the States, green bean casserole (tasted quite Asian because the mushroom soup here is different), jello (from the States), beer biscuits (beer is more reliable than Chinese yeast), the goose stuffed with oranges and mushrooms (no stuffing, and we were too late realizing we needed to make croutons or find puffed millet (maybe available), we could have used rice, but we are kind of sick of rice), and pumpkin pie. We invited the other American teacher and he brought cherry tomatoes and Chinese pastries. This year we invited our two biggest "English junkies" because they have come to sooo mannny classes that we couldn't help but become their friends and we thought if you like English that much, you might as well see a "real" American Thanksgiving. And Little Guy decided to be "that whiny kid" that always is at a family get together and he cried for the first 5 minutes of the feast. His sister had is favorite plate and then a guest had his favorite fork and on top of that was sitting on the stool that he usually plays with. But everyone just talked over his fit and he was happy when he got the biscuits and his sister traded plates with him. It felt like a very normal Thanksgiving meal, so maybe China has become our new normal.
But I was really Thankful that this will be the last Thanksgiving in China for at least a few years!
pumpkin pie, from a real pumpkin
I wanted to take more pictures, but so much was going on that I forgot.

In touch with our food sources
Bloodbath in the snow
There is all this stuff in the media how Americans are not in touch with their food sources. One summer we leased a vineyard and berry patch, so we actually are quite in touch with our fruits, thank you. Now Princess and I were on our way to the market to buy eggs and frozen chicken breasts on Sunday and witnessed for than most American 5 year olds do about the food chain. The free range chickens outside our complex are no more. In the time it took to walk the length of our apartment building in the snow/ice, one chicken was slaughtered. Right there in the snow, in broad daylight. It was the exact method my student from a village had described to me. Oddly I thought he had described the steps out of order, but indeed the protocol was exactly in the order he said. First the chicken is force fed some vinegar and something to cause the feathers to be removed easily. This is in preferance to the boil off the feathers method. Actually it is cheaper and uses less fuel. We missed the ingestion of the substance, but witnessed step 2 and 3. Step 2 plucking the feathers, while Step 3 slicing the chickens throat and draining the blood of the bird so that when Step 4 the head is all the way cut off it doesn't run around. I was quite amazed that they plucked the feathers while the chicken bled to death, I thought that was rather cruel. But it was -18 so maybe the bird was numb with the cold anyway. The process was pretty quick and there wasn't time to shield Princess from the truth of the food chain. My guide to parenting children while living in another culture had said that the easiest way to deal with these eyepopping culture shock scene was to act like its no big deal. The idea being that if you make a big deal of it then your kid will be more scared by your reaction than the actual situation. So, I just walked by like this was an everyday thing. She was quite interested and asked what was happening. I said they were going to eat the chicken and that actually that is what happened to all the chickens before we eat them. She walked along and said she wasn't sure if she wanted to eat chicken like that. I thought that she might turn into a vegetarian from the experience, but nope- we walked by McD's and she asked for chicken nuggets.
This one reminds me of Lummi Island-the eagle & mountain
New cakes on display the dragon and the pheonix
We didn't get McD's but we did get our eggs and frozen chicken breasts. I took the picture of the snow on the way home. And Princess ate chicken and pesto (from the last of our American sauce packets) at dinner and then grossed out Teenager by relaying the whole picture to her sister during the meal.
Chris has bought whole chickens at the Chinese Muslim butcher and witnessed the chicken demise. At the Muslim butcher they put the chicken in a metal pail and then chop off the head. They use the scald method to remove the feathers after the bird is not moving.
written by  carseat tourist on December 2, 2009 from Harbin, China

Rink is open
The university zamboni
Sunset at the rink
The ice is frozen and we can skate! It is super cold so we don't want to skate for long! The former soccer field set-up requires that you sit on the ice cold bleachers and change into your skates outside. My little toes can barely handle that part. Princess loves the cold and it doesn't bother her a bit. Teenager used to competitively skate in the States before we moved to China. So we have lots of videos of her skating. There is a video of another little girl skating during her performance. The little girl is as cute as a button, and blond haired and blue eyed. Princess watched this video for a year before she ever skated, but she believed that little girl was herself. Her sister was in the video so naturally that blond haired cutie must of been Princess. She believed she could do all these fancy tricks because she saw what she thought was herself doing these fancy tricks. Amazingly the first time she ice skated she was really sure fitted and could even spin in circles. The power of the mind! Anyway, that was last year.
First try skating 2009
This year her skates had gotten wet being stored on our balcony that has leaky windows. We put them on the radiator to dry out. I think they shrunk a little.
One skate was a little bit too tight and narrow
Poor princess took to the ice for the first time this year with all her confidence and fell on her butt.
poor baby, just couldn't figure out why she was down
She was so baffled. She tried skating around and kept falling. I felt so bad for her because she loved skating so much last winter and this winter was not having the same experience. We are going to try to stretch her skate so that maybe she is more comfortable.
This little cutie was playing hockey with her Baba
Back at the apartment....poor Little Guy is so sad. He saw us get out skates for everyone in the family. He thinks they look very cool and he would like to try. But he has a had a former (before us) skull fracture and we are too afraid with his lack of balance on land to let him go on the ice. We talked about using our helmet, but it is really not the right size for him. The scariness of the Chinese hospital just doesn't seem worth the risk. On a separate sad, painful note I got coal in my eye. The air is so polluted with coal dust that when I was taking the munchkins to school I felt like I got something gritty in my eye. A few hours later I was in unbearable pain. So I took out my contacts. Well the coal dust was under my contact and scratched my eye as i removed the contact. The pain was much worse. We flushed and flushed my eye. I spent the night in misery and in the next morning we flushed my eye out again and finally a little fleck of coal flushed out. Coal is acidic so it was just the worst pain, grit plus acid burn. Augh!!!! Life in the land of frigid pollution...
written by  carseat tourist on December 3, 2009 from Harbin, China

Shopping weekend
Teenager and the quest for a taxi with the oversized case
Last weekend Teenager prepared for her big trip back to the States. She is leaving ahead of us because she needs to take some test so she can do Running Start(early college) when we go back in January.
First we went on the GuZheng quest. The GuZheng was the big 16th b-day present so she really wanted to take it home.
Her teacher told her we could get a hard case from her friend's shop. So we went all the way downtown. First we stopped at the place we got interesting jade. We were disappointed because the vendor said because it was cold she had no selection and would be getting no selection. We bought a few things then moved to the next booth where and old bitty attempted to pickpocket me. I have met my fair share of pickpockets in China, it actually had been nearly 8months since the last attempt to steal from me. I used to work with monkeys so I view this as a weaker monkey trying to steal food from a more dominant or higher ranking monkey. The monkeys will sort it out scratching and biting and usually the low ranking monkey goes crying back to where it came from. Of course, I'm civilized. But when you try to rob me, naturally I must defend my things. I really see it as picking a fight. The pickpocket chooses to bother me so I can either fight or flight or force them to do that. Last year a woman in a fur coat attempted to unzip my purse and instincts kicked in and I slammed her up against the wall in front of my children. She was in a fur coat, so really, did she need to steal? After that I realized I needed to chill out because I don't want to become such a violent person. Some guy actually got my camera last year and I stared him down and Teenager screamed in Chinese and he decided to give the camera back. Most of the time it is kids and I feel sad for them because I know someone is forcing them to do that. Anyway this 50-60 year old woman tried to get in my purse in the crowded mall. I grabbed her hand out of my purse and she immediately admitted defeat by showing both hands and rolling back her sleeves a little. Ugh...we let her go.
So we went on to the GuZheng store where they overcharged me for this beat up used hard case. It was freezing because it is Harbin, and thats what it does, so we wanted to take a cab home. No. The case was too big and no cabs would let us roll down the windows. So we had to take buses which was so cold and we were so unwelcome with that big case. Mutiple busses.
You know its cold when the ice cream isn't in a cooler
Ice cream vender "off grid"
We get home and thaw out to find that the instrument doesn't fit!!!! So we have to make a zillion calls and it is decided that yes the case can be returned, but the GuZheng needs to be bubble wrapped put in a box. Since no taxis would take us we decided to return the case the next day and bubble wrap another day. After riding 2 buses back with the case the next morning, we were happy to be free of the case, but wanted to go to the material market.
and more silk
silk
Teenager doesn't love material like I do, but she offered to take me for an early birthday present. Fur and silk are all mixed in this massive dirty warehouse. We bought enough silk to make all new curtains for the Lummi Island cabin (the crackheads stole every curtain rod and curtain, why, why????). Then we bought some fur scarves. In America, I used to be against fur. Mainly because of the waste of the meat product and the cruelty of the industry. In China, I know they ate that animal. In fact, I know they treated that animal just like they treat the chickens and their dogs. Once I had a student whose aunt raised foxes and sent him to college, so I really have changed my opinion on the fur issue. Plus it is soooo soft. Harbin is suppose to be the cheapest place in world to buy fur. The scarves I bought were actually even the by-product of the coats. They take all the trimmings from fur coats and make them into balls and string the balls together. One of the things I admire most about the Chinese is that they don't waste anything.
After the shopping we had to pack up my girl. The ayi's son drove us in his new car to the airport. He is a taxi driver. Before he had a normal red cab, now he has a little red car. I guess he is a private driver now. He is a sweet boy. The airline lady was so mean.
We went to check in and she was only going to let her take one bag even though she was transferring to an international flight. Then she was trying to short us on the weight saying the weight to Canada was less than to the US, well Miss Smartypants
Getting ready to meet the agent
lost that argument because Teenager was flying all the way to America via Canada. Unfortunately the bags were slightly over so we had the heartbreaking repacking scene at the airport. Teenager was trying to be all grown up about it, but the ayi's son was seeing that her heart was breaking so as the airline lady was printing the labels he was unzipping the bags and stuffing back in some of her things. It was really touching.
Teenager got stuck everywhere she went...she left our apartment on Wed 8am China time and I finally got the message she arrived at her destination at 2am China time on Friday morning.
written by  carseat tourist on December 10, 2009 from Harbin, China

The big countdown
Life has moved into super speed...we are leaving this place in 15 days!!! Augh! I'm so ready but so terrified! Here I have no food I like, but back in America I may have no job to buy food I like either!
Princess and I do like these candied haws on a stick
What's worse seeing and smelling yummy food at the grocery store and not being able to get it or looking a websites and drooling over food that you can't possible cook in your itty bitty oven in China? Hopefully tomorrow I will wake up and get one of those zillion jobs I applied for and I will go home and eat happily ever after. The US media is filled with horror stories about unemployment so it does make me appreciate the ignorance is bliss media approach in China. My experience from rejection letters is that the zoo field is having about 25-30 applicants per job. The Husband actually got a nibble today from someone saying that due to the holiday season they hadn't had enough applicants so he can come in and fill out an ap. So that kinda made us think it maybe just a myth that there are no jobs. Last year we were thoroughly scared enough that we came back to China for another round...course we were still in line for adoption (naturally you don't leave the country without your completed family). Now we have Little Guy
Little Guy
and he really needs some services that can't be found here (it's not really fare to let him drool over sign language websites, when he can go have real friends to chat with) and Teenager is already in America. So we are starting to pack.
Speaking of food, I was getting down those pretty mooncake boxes so I could pack some breakables or something in them. I was quite shocked to see that we still had 5 mooncakes left. Lets say I'm not going to be wasting my luggage space with those little tidbits. I tried presenting them again to Little Guy and Princess. They took a bite and ....
I don't feel that bad about disposing the rest. I know the donkeys eat the food scraps outside. Everything gets recycled here.
Some of the store displays are so interesting
To end this journey on a positive note, I'm going to countdown stuff I'll miss in China.
I will miss my students....they are so cute! They have told me more amazing stories than I have ever read or seen in movies. They will and would do anything for me. Today I came to class and they thought it was the last class. My boss had told me last week I was mistaken, I will be teaching until Dec 23...there was some confusion about the school calendar and the loss of the National Day week and then possible the few days we had "the illness". I was kind of like "oh". So I go to class and the students had wanted to have a little
Wallyworlds Christmas Gingerbread Land-luv Santa!!!
Christmas Party (always a strange idea of what Western Christmas must be like) so I made them gingerbread cookies (from the mix I hoarded all year) and brought them candy canes (hidden from my munchkins) and sowed them our advent chocolate calendar (I didn't dare try to steal that from the munchkins). So I said, "you know we have another week of class" as I walked in. They screamed, and hugged each other! They said "we get to see you again!!!" They immediately texted the person who was absent from class because she had to sub. They were so happy. The other teacher left her class and ran over to mine and said, "I'm so happy, I wanted to come to class so much today!" I have other students, I call them my English junkies and they come to all my classes that they can. I will really miss them. How often do you get paid to do a job where people are soooo happy to see you and want to learn from you? I can't remember ever having kids in America scream of joy because we had to make up a snow day and they get to spend a nice sunny summer day in my class.
We had a nice little party and they were so sweet. They brought little bitty oranges (always they bring these to all events) and pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chestnuts, and Russian instant coffee. I showed them how to stir the coffee with the candy cane and they thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And they are so polite, Teenager used to have a class down the hall and would come visit. Last week the Husband subbed for me when I took her to the airport. They were so worried about her traveling alone.
Gingerbread girl...thinking of warmer places
So today they asked about her test and I told them her scores were 96 and 98 out of 100 and they screamed again. In their mind their is only one college entrance exam and it is such a life changing score that they think her test is just as important. It was sweet that they cared and are so enthusiastic. I will miss them.

The cheese factor
No, I will no miss the lack of cheese in China...
Beijing cheese
But I will miss the cheesyness of China. This place does cheesy with pride. What in American cool schools has been labeled as cheesy, uncool, the chinese embrace and have fun with.
All over there are people dressed in matching couples clothes. One of my students came to class wearing his half of the matching black scarf with a bright pink heart ensemble without his girlfriend who usually comes to class. I asked if that was her scarf and he looked down like I had crushed his very spirit mentioning that he was alone in wearing the scarf. He was actually sad that they were not matching together at that moment. If I ever got my husband to wear a black scarf with a giant pink heart I'm sure he'd rip it off the second I was out of sight. Anyway I think its sweet that the guys love matching their girl friends.
wedding photos at St. Sophias
And the wedding photos! Everywhere you go people are taking cheesy wedding photos. They put the couples in the cutest poses and take a million pictures. Not at the wedding, that is a videographer, but months before the wedding the rent outfits and have tons of photos made all over town, in every town across China. I find it cheesy but sweet...signs of love everywhere!
They are sooo cheesy, but sweet
Last year in Shenyang our friends hooked us up with a photography studio and they took lots of pictures of the girls and made them into a board book album of Chenglish. It would have Princess doing something really cute and under the picture would be random words from the English language that made no sense together or in the context of the picture. It was very cheesy, but cute! They used Princess and Teenager as ads for their studio.
The family
So this year we decided to pay for a studio in Harbin to create a cheesy masterpiece for us. I must say they achieved the goal. Although the album is not as Chenglish as we thought it would be....maybe they thought we were french because they wrote Paris New Vision all over.
Virtual twins
My student went with me to supervise the transaction and the photo shoot. The place in Shenyang had been a furnace because it was summer with no a.c. The girls were unpaid models, so we joked about it being a child labor sweat shop. Harbin we were paying customers but there was no heat, it was a complete freezer. They had an entire apartment full of costumes, but only a few for little boys. Most photo shoots involve 100 day old babies and wedding couples.
The family photo
We decided to do a Chinese theme and they had a get-up for the husband. As chics, of course we think Chinese costumes rock so we own a few. Little Guy thinks he should do a show every time he puts his on. Husband is not a fan of dress up, he hated that hat. In fact he took that off so fast that it was lost in the shuffle and the photography studio called after we left and pestered my poor student to find the hat. It was found in the bottom of our bag with Princess's dress and we had to humbly return it to the studio. My student had done 100 day baby photos of her princess and paid the same price as us, 400RMB. When we went to pick up the package- a glass pendant, a silk wallhanging, a poster size print, a wall plaque on fake wood, and The Album; she was amazed that everything for us was upgraded to the largest size available. Anyway, I will miss the cheesy China that gives foreigner upgrades!
That's a pencil not a cigar

Cake
Thank you cake from student
I will definitely miss the cakes from China. They are so elaborate. They look so amazing. It is always a shock when you bite in and found out that they don't taste as yummy as they look. They make every occasion seem so quaint. Today a student brought a cake for the last class. It was so thoughtful.
The amazing details
Little Guy really likes cake. In the beginning he wanted nothing to do with cakes. Yesterday a homemade cake was made for a birthday and it was chocolate. Usually he hates chocolate anything. But after assisting with the candle blowing, he plowed right in. And even wanted another piece.
So today-viola another cake. He grabbed his fork and waited 15 minutes for everyone to come. He signed for us to light candles, but didn't have a fit when it didn't happen. He polished of a slice and wanted more again.
We are going to use the leftover Chinese cake to make rum balls for Christmas....
Pink Santa rocks!
we'll see how that goes. There was no leftover homemade cake.

Not what we planned
Little Guy is not too happy
We had planned to spend our last two weeks enjoying China and then going back to America and living happily ever after in our little cabin on our little island and working in some high paying low stress positions, and so on. I had been brazen enough to begin a countdown of all the fun and interesting things I will miss about China. Well, one day you are eating cake and the next you are in the Chinese hospital. That's life. Poor Little Guy. After a month of trying to get glasses for him and being told no, we can't look at him he's deaf, there is no way to communicate with him and you are a foreigner anyway. We got that exam and it was a little more than we were bargaining for (actually we didn't have to bargain for the exam). So we went for a 2cd opinion and he ended up on the operating table. And the next day he ended up back on the operating table. And today we ended up back at the hospital to see if things went well. I guess so because we don't have to go back until next Monday.
So no chance to la-la-la and say how wonderful things are because that would be a big fat lie.
But actually I'm glad I'm in China during this Christmas season. On top of the medical stuff, I would hate to have the pressures of Christmas that are in America. There is no massive build up for the holiday, so there will be no massive let down when the perfect Christmas is not achieved. My kids have not seen a commercial for toys since last February. Their friends are not comparing lists. Christmas is so out of place here that anything we do will be seen as exciting by our kids and our Chinese friends.
In America, I can remember countless radio and tv stations doing big publicity for all the kids in the hospital, etc. I always thought- oh how sad to be sick at Christmas. Teenager happened to always get sick the day before or after Christmas when she was little and my experience at the doctors offices were- oh, how inconvenient that your kid is sick. In China, there is no pity and there is no inconvenience at the hospital because it is Christmas. It is a Chinese hospital and you can walk in anyday of the year and have your heart broken by what you see. And you can also walk out and be thankful for what they did do.
Which was to save my Little Guy's vision.

Dolphin

maky Baky cake Real chocolate, frosting, strawberries and blueberries

Freshly made on the stand

The display

Cakes on display

Just for you buddy!

Dang it!

Chris came & helped keep the kites afloat

flying kites by the soccer fields

Princess gets hers up, now they are running in opposite directions

got it going

flying high

Look at my car

Welcome to our Apartment Building

most of the dishes

the wedding

oysters

under the table

under the table, not getting out

Happy couple

The dramatic stairway

I think the old folks are so cute

Location of wedding

Taxi..taxi

Taxi

All the chinese men wanted a photo with Teenager

All the boys in the class

All the girls in the class

Getting his hands dirty

Not loving the mooncake

Checking each other out-vest is handme down handmade for Teenager

Yeah, I'm almost an American

Getting into the full handstand-don't drop him!

The parade didn't have clowns, but our house does!

National Day Wear

The many faces of Little Guy

photobooth girls

First fall in China

Butterfly

hanging cucumbers

park bench last fall

bike parking

Happy face red peppers

Roll out the green onions...fall is here!

60th Anniversary

Re-actment or photoshoot??

Bashful Wisteria & the Japanese Princess

Cool wig

Not into girls yet

The temple

Praying for good grades...Pre-K is tough these days!

Restored Scholars

The fish coat

baby carrier

Ethnic cap

Fish God??

Headless roof accent piece-display of restoration process

The restoration complete

The fish

Looking at the fish

The poncho

The dishes

Whatever fell from the sky, landed on those veggies. Can you wash dried veggies?

Teenager by courtyard

fall leaves

Teenager

Blast off

Free Range Chickens

Sax

Pig

Fall

Walking is like playing chicken with the motorcycles

Dog

Chicken

My little Monkey next to the Big Monkey

Horse

modern china

stuff for sale

the Goat

The new library at our school- in top 5 largest in China

Padded clothes with split pants. Why must the baby freeze it's buttt off?

Princess got some

Popcorn

Woman knitted with kids climbing all over her

Ducks don't swim in the toxic stuff, the floating balloons are nice.

Warming up with some hot tea

They have the best candles over here, light the bulb

Then fireworks

Little Guy's fighting face

It's not so bad, but I'm still scared. Check out the barber's do

Little Guy at St. Sophias

Teenager at St. Sophias

Young man asked to take picture with Teenager

Leather and fish net underground mall

Halloween outfit from Hot Mama shop

Princess and our apartment complex

Finger Knitting

The real Chinese outfit

Look at the patience in the ayi's eyes during the shoe shopping tantrum

Hat by Teenager

Thawing the bird

The goose

pumpkin pie, from a real pumpkin

One plug for the whole kitchen limits your cooking range

Bloodbath in the snow

This one reminds me of Lummi Island-the eagle & mountain

New cakes on display the dragon and the pheonix

One skate was a little bit too tight and narrow

and more silk

The bag recieves the sticker of approval

travel advisory

Wallyworlds Christmas Gingerbread Land-luv Santa!!!

Gingerbread girl...thinking of warmer places

Little Guy

The family photo

Beijing cheese

Virtual twins

The family

That's a pencil not a cigar

They are sooo cheesy, but sweet

wedding photos at St. Sophias

My other job

Building 41

blossoms

Captured Fairy

Dalian fisherman

Count the shoes, 1st we counted starfish but there were so many more shoes so it was a little game each night, don't worry, the recyclers came each day to collect them.

Every night we played in a maze near the beach. Hide &seek, race thru the maze

The Dalian zoo 1/2world class& 1/2 old school-pose with the animals,etc

Dalian has a even has panda

the coal trucks rolling in

our grapes

princess building the yurt

Filling out the label

big M on the jean pocket

backseat cyclist, that bike is nicknamed "the stationwagon"

building where we teach

final exams

The ayi (groom's mom) gives the bride a red envelope.

The bride gets out of the car & pins a flower in the ayi's hair

The red bowl is very important. It is carried to the various apartments before the wedding and to the ceremony.

Teenager. High heels come in handy in the flash flood. A little dangerous though.

Walking to the wedding.

Groom's family

Dress 1. Bride and groom arrive in the same car.

This palace was wedding dreams come true. They seemed to cater to every imaginable bridal fantasy.

light fixture

Lamp in waiting area

The food. Several dishes straight off the China Survivor food challenge. Nothing we haven't eaten before!

Dress 3, the familis say things & they drink together

The bride & groom toast each table, about 20. She's drinking H2O, he's toasting with chinese moonshine, baijiu

After the wedding guests were given bags to take home food, our table was rushed because we had lots of leftovers.

This dish was good, some kind of coconut fried pastry

Teenager and the bride

Ayi's mom age 70, so proud & sweet!

Grandma 1982