A Very Aussie Christmas

We've been in Sydney for just over three days, long enough to hear several, "No worries," "Yeah right" and be addressed as "luv, dear and mate." We've enjoyed touring Sydney's iconic opera house, and the views of the stunning Sydney harbor (including the Harbor Bridge, where we viewed other brave tourists scaling it!) We've taken the ferry to Manly and the Taronga Zoo, been wowwed by the beautiful Royal botanic garden and attended the Childrens Christmas mass at St. Mary's Cathedral on Christmas eve with thousands of other Sydney siders. We've experienced Australia's troubled past, rich texture of culture and their amazing array of fauna at the Australia Museum. We watched ripped surfers ride the waves @ Manly beach and dined alfresco on what else, but equally iconic Fish and Chips.

Today is Christmas Day and we're heading off to experience more of Australia's holiday traditions... the beach in December!!

A CAT Christmas

"Marry" Christmas!!

A Caterpillar Christmas @ the Joliet facility usually consisted of pizza and beers at Cemenos from 5:00 -8:00 the Wednesday night before the Christmas holiday began (with the department managers picking up the bill.)

At the Qingdao CRDC facility, however, the members of the employee engagement committee take their roles very seriously. They too ordered pizza, but in addition also ordered in a stuffed turkey from the Shangri La, which Sean was on hand to "carve" with a meat clever (the only knife available) and which was served up on flimsy paper plates sans silverware. The dark meat went immediately, while Sean and his remaining Western colleagues (who have yet to leave for home or holidays) savored thick slabs of white meat. 

After the meal, they started into games. Winners could chose a wrapped gift from under the tree (which was decorated only as high as they could reach... check out the photo above!) The first items to go were new bed pillows. Sean was the lucky recipient of a Shirley Temple DVD!

 

Candy for Christmas

"Candy," Bea responded tentatively when Santa (whose voice bore a remarkable resemblance to a British expat we know!) asked our baby what she wanted for Christmas. (Her response was no doubt generated as a result of the giant bowl of candy sitting beside the jolly old elf!)

The Jazz Nativity Drama

1 International School Christmas Program
Nearly 100 kids
representing 15 countries
(60% of these students speak English as a second language,
and for 30% our mother tongue is their third!)

Its a Marshmallow World

Yuletide events are continuing at the household of The Johnson's in China! Eliza and I out did ourselves this week, making home made marshmallows to float in hot chocolate. Eliza, our patient, rule-following middle child, carefully read the recipe directions, measured with precision the basic ingredients, and dutifully set and minded the timer. When the mallow had set, all three girls dipped small cookie cutters in hot water and cut the sticky goo into cute shapes that we then dusted with powdered sugar.

After sipping their seasonal beverages, they unwrapped the portable CD players that were waiting for them under the tree, and sorted through the Christmas CDs to find the perfect slipping-off-to-sleep yuletide tunes. With the promise of mellow music, they were surprisingly interested in going to bed! (Which left plenty of time for Mom and Dad to watch, in entirety, the SNL’s Christmas 2008 show, which was waiting on the DVR!)

12ish Days (continues...)

Sunday Night found our family reading the Christmas favorites: The Night Before Christmas, Luke 2 and a great little board book with little doors through which Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus can pass during each phase of their journey. It’s a tattered favorite we’ve had since Millie was little, and yet it remains a hit!

Gifts from Mema and Bopa included Christmas stickers and lip frosting… Yes lips were quickly frosted, and in Bea’s case several inches of her face in the general area of her mouth. The fact that it was called frosting was not lost on her either-- as she quickly sampled the glittery lip balm!

Earlier that day, you could have found our family posing in front of the Crowne Plaza’s multi-story Christmas tree, much to the amusement of the concierge and patrons at the hotel. We waltzed through the revolving door, set up the tri-pod and started snapping away! Those pics are now part of the slide show above and the stills below!

Hallelujah

The 12-ish Days of Christmas

“So… what are you going to do? Bring the gifts and stockings with you?” My friend Joan inquired of our Southern Hemisphere Christmas.

“No, I think we’ll just do it at home before we go,” I replied rather lamely, wondering if the kiddos would be disappointed the morning of the 25th.

But, the more I’ve thought about it (thanks Joan for the inspiration!) I’ve thought, “Why not take these moments before the actual holiday to really celebrate Christmastide.”

So, every night we’ve been planning a little something Christmas. While it won’t be exactly 12 Days of Christmas, it’s been a prolonged event with several small special things each evening.

(Thanks to Mema’s preparedness, we’ve also got gifts from our family in Illinois to spread out over those nights too.)

Above: Millie's Cookie Skills

Our 12ish Days began last week, where after the course of the week, after dinner and baths and homework where rushed through, we decorated Christmas cookies and watched holiday favorites like Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown Christmas, and our new favorite Shrek the Halls. (DVRs and Slingbox offer amazing technologies, allowing our kids to stay connected with Western culture while living in an Asian context.)

Countdown to OZ

So... we are now just 10 days away from our trip Down Under. Sean, our resident travel agent/tour guide, has booked us six days in Sydney, and four in Cairns (where we're planning a family excursion to the GBR w/SWJ scuba diving and the girls and I snorkeling.) We'll travel on a giant catamaran from Cairns to a small sandbar/cay where we lounge on the beach and/or snorkel in the warm, clear water off the sandy shore. Then, on to open water reef for diving and snorkeling. At the end of the day-long trip, they kill the engine and we harness wind power to sail back to Cairns.

We can't wait.

Check it out @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vYrJROSvo

Eliza's Letter

For a homework assignment in literacy this week the year twos were asked to write a letter to Father Christmas, who needs a new helper for his workshop. They had to give at least one good reason why they would be good at the job. Here is Eliza's letter:

Dear Father Christmas,
I could be your new helper because I can fit down the chimney. I also can make toys if your elfs are on holiday. Christmas is my favorite holiday! I am glad Jesus was born!
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Eliza (in Qingdao)

Even MORE Taidong

Click on the photos
to see greater detail.
These small pics do not
do the area justice!!

More Taidong

Here are some more pics taken in Taidong. These ones of the Yao Jiu (literally medicine alcohol) were taken last summer (before I became a blogger!) It was 20 yuan (about $3) for a glass of this funky drink.

"Maybe not for kids," the owner said.

"Yeah, maybe not," I agreed.

( For lots of reasons: Like, it has snakes in it, it has turtle carcasses, and it looks like its been sitting out for about six months ...)

In preparing this blog and researching I found out that the concoction is usually made from 100 proof sorghum wine. Another reason, in a long list of reasons, to be a teetotaler when it comes to this jiu!

(See http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/article.php?id=30255.)

(Millie is clearly not impressed!)

******

This video was taken during our weekend visit to Taidong. This drumming troupe seemed to have simply been practicing together in a busy pedestrian area. These kinds of drummers usually accompany the dragon/lion dances common at traditional weddings. (Non traditional weddings have Mickey and Minnie live in costume, or sometimes an combination of both Disney characters and Lion Dancers!)

Wu Shu Woman

So, yesterday we made a weekend foray into the Tai Dong district, which is one of the most happening areas of our city, and the place that my sister, when she visited, said felt most like the China she had anticipated.

I took some photos and a video clip of this Wu Shu practitioner. The Chinese word wushu translates as military or martial arts. It is both an umbrella term for martial arts and a specific discipline of full contact.

Any guesses as to how old this woman is?

If you click on her photo you can see the detail in her traditional wu shu/qi gong jacket,
and her stylish gold earings.
Watch her in action and then post a guess in the "comments" section.
I'll post the answer in a few days.

Sorry for the Convenience

JUSCO, our Japanese Supermarket and Mall has three sets of escalators: One set in the Department store end of the mall, another set just outside the Grocery (by the dried fish vendors - and thus the aroma of dried fish wafts up the escalator with you) and a third set in the middle (by the Beard Papa cream puffs kiosk which smells wonderful, especially in concert with the fabulous smells escaping Starbucks, also in the general area.)

Today the dried fish escalator was broken. Here are some pics of the repairmen who did a quick job and soon converted the "stairs" back to an escalator. (Note how they tried to put the broken motor into the less than robust shopping cart. I'm not sure how that turned our for them as they were not keen to be photographed!)

"I like an escalator, because an escalator can never break.
It can only become stairs.
You'll never see an 'Escalator Out of Order' sign,
only 'Escalator Temporarily Stairs'.
Sorry for the convenience.'"
Mitch Hedberg

The Line Crosser

“Gosh, Jennifer, your girls are so well behaved,” our friend and host for our Thanksgiving dinner in Shanghai last week said to me, proving why he had crafted a successful multi-decade career in sales.

It was true that Millie had been an excellent conversationalist and gamely tried most of the creative interpretations of an American Thanksgiving feast prepared by a Chinese chef. Eliza, too, has sat quietly and politely through the meal and later slipped off to sleep in her padded dining chair around 9 pm.

By contrast Beatrice, our resident line-crosser, had scraped the caviar off her scallops and submerged the tiny black seeds into her over-priced bottle of Evian before the end of the first course.

“She’s busy,” Sean said, making the understatement of our parenting career, “but she’s flexible too,” he added thoughtfully, and I have to agree he is right.

By the end of the evening her shoes were off, her ponytail out, and she was covered in the remnants of her palate cleansing mid-course raspberry sorbet. After playing a messy game of house, using her butter knife as the Daddy and her gravy-laden spoon as the Mommy, she was very carefully trying to cover sleeping Eliza with her own sweater.

She can be busy, naughty, and cute, but most of all our three-year-old can be flexible. She can survive a low-lit Thanksgiving eve at a five-star hotel restaurant without complaint, nimbly navigate security at airports, and survive long international flights that have adults begging for a cocktail and an eye mask within an hour. By her first birthday she had hiked the Great Wall in a Snuggli, and by two was snorkeling with the family in a pair of arm floats. She tries new food and also, at times, our patience. When we draw a line or set a limit, she is the first to see if we mean it. Why else would she be the one in the photo standing with one foot poised for the wrong side of the “Do Not Cross” Line?

“Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History”

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Happy December!

Thanksgiving

Our American day of thankfulness arrives in Asia about 12 hours ahead of North America. This Thursday differs very little from any other in China. In fact, we sent our kids out the door this morning to their British International School and Chinese Kindergarten like any other morning.

Are we more or less Thankful when we celebrate this day by not celebrating in the usual way?

While it is true that in a little under an hour I will retrieve Bei Bei from her kindie, and snatch Millie and Eliza from their mid-day Thursday routine in time to catch our flight to Shanghai, I wonder, are we thankful on the ordinary days, on the routine ones, the ones that involve scrambling for backpacks, lunch sacks and homework. The days when a kiss and a to-go mug of Joe @ the door is a rushed affair.

I savored a rare moment of alone time this morning @ Starbucks (where I nipped out to buy a last minute gift for our Thanksgiving dinner host in Shanghai.) As I sat enjoying my pumpkin scone and mocha in the relatively quite coffee shop atmosphere, I thought of all the collective moments of our China experience, and in our life in general, for which we can be thankful.

Almost on cue, I looked up to see huge white fluffy flakes of snow floating by outside. It was an unexpected event, beautiful and fresh. As I ventured out the back door of Starbucks, leaving the serene environment of mellow jazz and comfortable armchairs, I stepped into the crisp November air with wind gusts sending the snow swirling like autumn leaves. The atmosphere was not pristine, but unique, as techno music blared outside of a clothes shop and people scurried doing their Thursday things, but most smiling with the unexpected sighting of snow in the fall. Unexpected things on a Thursday morning. Smiling, happy people doing their routine.

I am thankful for this morning, for the warmth of the indoors, and the cool crispness of the outdoors. I am thankful for the moments we share together as a family, and those we share with our friends in this foreign land.

As you carve your turkey tomorrow, think of your thankful moments, both those that come to mind when the table is set with the best china and surrounded by those you love, AND life’s other moments: the rushed and scattered, the busy days and times. May your thankfulness be at hand in both kinds of moments. May my thankfulness be the same.

Happy Thanksgiving to all we know, love, treasure and miss! May your day be blessed, and our hearts truly thankful.

Sailing Sister's Journal

Sunday night at bedtime, after Eliza and Bea were tucked in, I crawled in with Millie, our resident sailor who had 30 minutes before lights out. I miss my big girl when she’s gone six days a week (Monday -Friday @ school, and either Saturday or Sunday sailing.)

Sunday night her cheeks were flushed with a windburn. The weather has changed since she started her sailing course nine weeks ago, and now we were hard pressed to find clothes that would keep her both warm and nimble in her one-girl boat.

“It still feels like I’m floating,” our Sailing Sister said as we cuddled under the down comforter in her canopy bed and she talked about her sailing experience.

With her permission I am sharing the following journal entries from her sailing lessons, logged in her Hannah Montana notebook.

Sailing Sister’s Sailing Journal

Sailing WEEK ONE
In the morning we had a lesson and assembled our boats for sailing. Then, we walked to McDonalds in Jusco. I got a Happy Meal- chicken nuggets. I got a little brown puppy in a pink bag.

Afternoon
We walked back to the sailing center. We brought our boats down to the dock. We tightened a rope to join our boats. We did not use the sail. (We used the small oar instead.) We played a game: Whichever team got the most balloons [that were floating in the water] wins! Gabriel and I won! Dad picked me up. We got sailing homework!

Sailing WEEK THREE
Dad dropped me off as usual. We had a lesson and assembeled our boats. I ate at McDonalds- Happy meal with chicken nuggets. I got a black and white puppy in a black and white bag. We walked back to the sailing center.

Oh NO!! There is too much wind! I could not/would not get going! One of our sailing teachers got in my boat and started sailing with me. She is a great sailor! After a few laps she tells me to try it. I do (but not ‘til she had convinced me to!) I get the hang of it. She helps me in my weak spots. Then she gets out and I do a few laps. When I get out my dad gives me a Starbucks hot chocolate. “YUM!” But, I am cold. We go to pick up some [takeaway] food then we went home.

by Millie Grace 9 and a half

(aka Sailing Sister)

My Cosmo Life

My Cosmo Life

My last week featured a fabulous blend of cosmopolitan living that reminded me again of how much I appreciate life in our present international environment. (And by cosmopolitan I mean worldly in an excitingly international and global way, and not a skanky Cosmo mag kind of way.)

It was an eventful week socially.

MONDAY
It started off with a bang with the celebration of another CAT wife’s 40th birthday. We pulled out all the stops (or at least as many as can be pulled out on a Monday morning working around our husbands' travel plans and kids school schedules.) Pedicures, waxed eyebrows, paraffin feet and champagne to lessen the blow of the big 4-0. We followed it with lunch at another friend’s apartment where we shared a big pot of chili—an American fall favorite. We chatted in American accented English and covered the gamut from holiday plans to the new scene in American politics. It was largely an American affair, but in China, not the heartland where most of us hail from.

TUESDAY found Bea and I off to playgroup in the morning hosted by my Turkish friend and with representation at the international playgroup of families from Denmark, Germany, China, the UK, France, the US, and Holland. While most families in our playgroup operate in English fluently, it’s also often a place of language potpourri where mamas scold and console their offspring in their mother tongue. Tuesday afternoon I volunteered in Eliza’s classroom, and listened as children from all corners of the globe honed their oral English and reading skills by reading aloud.
With all my flitting about between playgroup and school I didn’t prepare dinner, which meant at our usual dinner hour, the Johnson’s in China were dining on fabulous satay, steaming bowls of noodles with delicate strips of beef, spring rolls and spicy minced chicken wraps at a new Vietnamese place just 10 minutes from where we live.

Most WEDNESDAY mornings find me seeking to increase my global mindedness by studying Mandarin: a process that both excites and overwhelms me. Wednesday night I joined several other playgroup moms (or is it mums?) for our monthly dinner. We have found that often the conversations our Tuesday meetings are lacking. We created our Wednesday dinners to facilitate conversations that include complete sentences and exclude wiping sticky fingers and diaper changes. Of course our conversations inevitably turn to our kids, life in China and it seems the parenting challenges we face in the United States are no different in other parts of the planet. When to start kindies, how to successfully potty train, and more specific to our China experience how to live in a world different from the one we know.

Wednesday we dined at the interestingly named Boiling Fish Township, a restaurant in QD’s Central Business District specializing in Sichuan cuisine. When it was time to select our fish, I bravely joined my Chinese friend (who fluently speaks Mandarin, German and English and picked me up in her cool Jeep Cherokee which she daringly drives herself) for the selection process. Live tank… fresh flailing fish… the place isn’t called Boiling Fish for nothing.

“Too big,” my friend complained, prompting the fish guy to scoop up the flailing scales and tail and lob it back into the tank. With his net he deftly trawled for a slightly smaller one. He threw the slippery, thrashing fish on the scale where it flipped off only to be caught by the tail and whacked hard against a crate. Literally minutes later it arrived at our table in a big vat of spicy oil and laden with the lip numbing pepper corns Sichuan food is famous for. And for the record, the fish at Boiling Fish Township was delicious. (My Chinese/German friend ate the venerable fish head!)

THURSDAY afternoon found me rug shopping with an American friend seeking to spruce up her living room space. Like Monday, it was American event, but took place in China. Because it was in China, the selections where more varied, vibrant, and not within the more muted color scheme she sought. We went to Haibo the huge furniture mart, which features, what I call rug pits where every possible floor covering can be found (except possibly something tasteful and demur.) We searched Home Depot (yes… we actually have a Home Depot) and B & Q (its British twin) but to no avail. (Although she did find a couple of fabulous rugs for her kids' rooms.)

FRIDAY morning found me off to Starbucks to share a coffee and a chat with a new friend from Australia, with whom we shared notes on life in China and raising kids here. Friday afternoon I had a late lunch with my sweet and soft-spoken Korean friend who introduced me to a new restaurant in the leafy old section of Qingdao. We dined Korean style: seated on a heated floor, on comfy silk pillows around a tiny table and later sipped cappuccinos together while continuing to sit “like pretzels” as my kids would say.

SATURDAY afternoon we joined other CAT families for an early Thanksgiving feast. Our newest CAT family, a Lebanese American couple and their three children who just arrived this autumn after spending years working and living in France, hosted. Their French neighbors joined us. 50+ people dined on a traditional American meal complemented by the unique additions of jiao zi (Chinese dumplings), Asian noodles, and “international wines”, as our French friend Olivier (as in Sir Laurence Olivier not Oliver as in Oliver Twist) calls non-French wines. He considers all the “international” ones to all taste the same. His father, who was visiting from the south of France, also joined us. Even though he didn’t speak any English, except for “I don’t speak English,” Obama still came through pretty clearly! Despite differences in language, culture and cuisine, the time we shared together proved particularly poignant.

On SUNDAY morning we attended our International Christian Fellowship where again we were a less than homogenous mix.

Seven days of international, global living. This is my Cosmo Life. This is our cosmopolitan experience in CHINA.

ELIZA'S Number Poem

Year go faster, I want to grow more
Yes I am three, but I want to be four

When I am six, I want to be seven
And then eleven . . . All the way up to heaven

Eliza wrote this poem in school yesterday. Her class is doing a unit in literacy about poetry.
She helped with this post by formating her poem's fonts and colors.

THIS IS CHINA

When you’ve entered a bathroom stall, used the toilet (either Western or squat) and then realized (too late) that there is no toilet paper provided. This is China.

When people approach you and tell you your children are too cold (in the winter) or too hot (in the summer), while their own child, regardless of the season, sports trousers that completely lack a crotch. This is China.

When (unsolicited) advice is offered, telling you should cut your three-year-old daughter’s shoulder length hair while you are unable to distinguish if their six-year old is a boy or girl given their buzz cut. This is China.

This is China. Or TIC for short. It’s the phrase we reach for when an adult man in a Speedo crouches beside our beach blanket with a cig and chats with our three-year-old (or maybe just in his wet undies, if he has come to the beach on a whim.) We’ve come to say that the only thing worse than a Speedo is a baggy Speedo, or perhaps baggy, soggy undies! This too is China.

TIC… the words we utter when we’re frustrated, irritated, puzzled or ticked (or is it TICed?)

But there is another side we often fail to consider:

When ... the heating element goes out in the dryer.... An hour later a repairman arrives on a beat up 125 cc motorbike and one hour and ten minutes later your clothes are tumbling again. You’re only out 6 bucks. This is China.

When you hop in the back of a taxi and the driver tells you are: lucky, pretty or young (or some combination of the three.) This is China.

(It could also be cheap therapy… hop in the back of the cab and cruise around the city for a half hour while he tells you your hair and kids are great and you come from the best country on earth. America… very goodah… usually followed by a thumbs-up.) This is China.

When you can buy GAP socks out of a carry-on size roller case or picture frames from Target or IKEA on the street, for a fraction of the U.S. retail price. This is China.

I think you get the idea.

This is China.

And, this, is our China experience.

Saturday Morning Pancakes

enhance your viewing experience of this blog entry by
switching the playlist song at the bottom of the page

to J J Cale and E Clapton's Three Little Girls

Its a great way to watch our three little girlies!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

(don't forget that you can click on any picture to see a full view!)

Just a little over a month ago
we spent the better part of a day
@ the fabulous Singapore Zoo.
We saw the rare white tigers
that yesterday gained global attention
after mauling to death a disturbed zoo employee.

Follow this link to see the news report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7727100.stm

The Grass is Always Greener...

Growing up in the Lutheran tradition, Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's (fill in the blank... ) was covered by both the 9th and 10th commandments. In the small catechism written several centuries ago by the thesis and hammer toting Luther, the act of coveting is condemned not once but twice, suggesting the importance of being sated with one’s own lot.

I must admit, in China they are usually two of the easiest commandments to keep (in my mind they’re a two-fer anyway!). There is little in the way of my neighbors' possessions I covet, except perhaps my neighbor Mrs. Yang's new ride (a post-baby gift from her richy pants husband.)

But, even that momentary desire fades when I consider actually driving that German luxury automobile (with the top down of course) through the unruly streets of Qingdao.

In the same vein as coveting is the “keeping up with the Jones’” philosophy so prevalent in the West - for China it is perhaps instead, “keeping up with the Zhangs’” Again…. I am largely reluctant to desire the opulent light fixtures, mammoth pieces of furniture and other over-sized, over-done items of Chinese luxury.

But… I would love nice grass in our back garden!

This is the present state of our yard:

When we moved in our landlord assured us we had kind of grass that did not need to be cut (because it didn't grow!). We have tried, in vain, each year to prompt a more lush lawn. The soil is poor, and our complex is built on the remnant of a limestone mountain.

Even after these guys dumped two truckloads of fertile soil in our backyard space, the grass failed to flourish.

Is the grass greener on the other side of the fence?

Not on this side… where Mr. Li gave up entirely. After thrice re-planting, he opted to tile his back yard!

But... is there Greener Grass on the other side of the other fence?

Yes... and in the verbage of Mr. Luther ... This is most certainly true!