Back in China

Nothing says welcome back to China like a little boy peeing the moment we get off the plane (on the tarmac no less, and unfortunately just in front of the door we were to use to alight on to the bus that would shuttle us from our plane to the airport.)

We just spent the October holiday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the city/country of Singapore. We enjoyed the vibrant cultures both cities offered, and relished the clean streets and strict sense of order instituted in Singapore.

Our jolt into Chinese reality continued in the bathrooms of the QD airport that we could smell before we saw them. Beatrice's newly acquired skill is to use a squatty potty with the ability of a native Asian, so she insisted that she use what they call in KL a "squat pan," whereas the older sisters insisted on queuing up for a traditional Western toilet (there were two in the restroom, but one was broken.) While we were squatting and queuing in the toilet, Sean had his elbows out retrieving our suitcases from the luggage belt and witnessed what we call in the Midwest a "farmer blow." (Fine perhaps in a bean field to blow one's nose directly into the dirt without the benefit of a tissue, not as comforting when the splat in heard on the tiled floor of the airport in a high traffic area!)

Nonetheless... we are home, in China, our home for the next nine months, (not that we're counting.) In fact, it is like we have a new found kinship with our host country, and a slow sense of loss that is already developing when we consider how normal our life will seem, and also how average, after a life now filled with dodging pee and snot in the airport and speaking a language we couldn't understand three years ago.