{December}

Trip to the Tortugas

When Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands he called them The Tortugas, which is Spanish for 'turtle'. The moniker is now more famously linked to the islands' famous rum and rum company, and equally famous rum cake (which is soggy and heavy and was the breakfast of champions for The Three on our last morning ... when we picked the beach over the breakfast buffet.)

Sadly, the turtles, which where so plentiful when Chris arrived in 1503, are decidedly less so five centuries later. In the years after discovery, this trio of islands became a stop over spot in the West Indies for stocking up on rations ... Turtle meat among the provisions.

In the era of the mythical Jack Sparrow, when the West Indies were under the British crown (as they remain today) and pirates and rum runners where part of Caribbean experience, the Cayman Islands were known for ship building and turtling, which didn't bode particularly well for the once plentiful tortuga population.

But the truest, harshest threat to the big graceful Green Sea Turtle has come on our watch.

As 伊利亚 read to 贝贝 on our trip to the turtle farm, the only two known predators of sea turtles are: sharks and man.

"Hey, Daddy's a man!" 贝贝 helpfully pointed out.

Tourism is encroaching on the tortuga's territory. Sand is being mined and excavated. Loss of habitat and a build up of urban areas has squeezed out the Green Sea turtle.

On Friday we visited The Cayman Turtle Farm which has spent the last four decades building up the turtle population on Grand Cayman. Part petting zoo, part day resort, part educational, the farm guards and incubates the eggs laid by the mature turtles, and maintains a huge lagoon for the laying-age population. In separate tanks, smaller sea turtles, under one year, are on view. In the next set of tanks are turtles aged 12 to 18 months. These are the leathery reptiles guests have the opportunity to handle.

We stayed in this area for ages. We stepped aside as larger tour groups moved through, and then went back to pet and handle the tortugas.

伊利亚 quickly learned how to grasp the juveniles, how to calm them, and when to release them back into the tank.



贝贝 gained confidence too. We spent most of our visit at those tanks.



Other exhibits included: a caged cayman, and tanks of older, but not yet sexually mature turtles.

To the girlies delight, we found a small wading pool where it was possible to splash and wade with young turtles.




The farm has a hatchery and education center, and curiously a lagoon and pool facility which draws lots of day trippers. One pool boasts a glass bottom, under which is a shark tank. It's kitchy without being completely tacky (although we opted only for the turtle section of the facility).

But this tour group pleaser is making a difference. Turtle populations are slowly on the rise, and there is even debate about moving the Green Sea turtle from the endangered list to the threatened column.

And for that ... My little animal lovers are grateful!





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Merry Christmas!

Fun with Mommala's Phone

This is what our budding photogs where up to while I ran the pool towels back ...






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Last Morning @ the Beach

The Littles & I stole out before the sun was fully up...



We waded, splashed and swam in a nearly empty beach front...






Our last morning on Grand Cayman we collected and sorted shells and bits of coral













And reveled in the final sweet moments of our holiday ...







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@ the airport ...

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A December to Remember

As expats we always lived partially packed. Every school break, long week end or holiday we were usually off on a journey. It was an adventurous time and as we look back at framed photographs and ticket stubs, we are glad we took advantage of our relative mobility.


This year (although we ARE traveling), it was wonderful to have a more relaxed approach to advent/pre-Christmas season. We cut down our own tree, we decorated The Bungalow, and unearthed long lost Christmas decor that was holed away in the old cellar canning closet while we galavanted around Asia.






We made our goal of one advent candle lit meal a week. (Once it was even twice!) The Three helped with the advent readings, savored the milk chocolates behind each numbered door on their calendars, and sang "loud and clear for all to hear" at their Christmas programs.

They enjoyed the animated Advent calendar Auntie Sharron sent, and their daily Christmas email from the Canadian grands. They went with the even blonder Johnson's for Breakfast with Santa ...



When we return from six sunny days in the Caymans they will still have 10 days of school vacay remaining. Our first Christmas back & it's a December to remember!


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Hotel Pics {Just Like P Dub!}

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Let the holiday begin ...

It's been a big day ... Sunday School, Ferguson Family Christmas, the Sunday School Christmas program ... Then home to tidy up the last minute loose ends, tuck final items into our well traveled cases and head for the airport hotel.

We schlepped along a humidifier for 贝贝's pesky winter croup, and two liters of ice mountain (to avoid paying the hefty $5 a bottle hotel price!)

The girlies are tickled with the turn down chocolates and San Pel for a bedtime snack. I'm thrilled with the high thread count sheets and the fluffy hotel robe. Mr Johnson awaits his room service burger while watching football ... Our holiday is already begun and we haven't even hit the airport.

Tomorrow we bundle in layers that we will gradually pull off as we head South ...

Christmas in the Caymans ... Here we come!

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Thankful for Friendships

One year after leaving China. Six years after leaving The Midwest {and coming back again} we can spin the garage sale globe in the living room, or log into our Skype account and see places and faces of people we know and love all over the world.

Our last 18 months have been a rocky business of uncertainty and transition. Readers here probably tire of hearing of it ... but through it all there have been friendships. Some friendships for the moments, but some are proving friendships for a lifetime. And it's not just Mr Johnson and I with these connections. The girlies too have emails rolling in and out on a regular basis to places in other time zones and on the other side of the international date line.

This week I am again mindful of just how many sweet souls we have relationships with around the globe: my friend in Australia, who tells in her witty six page Christmas rant of geckos in her dishwasher and a possible python in her ceiling; my friend in Michigan who will in the coming year, re-live her expat gig in China for two months -- this time as a homeschooling mum; my Korean friend I recently connected with on FB (she is still in QD and finally procured a VPN, and I although I oft have a love-hate relationship with the FaceBook, I love that it offers me connections like this one, and has recently added, thanks to the services of BING, the ability to offer on the page translation ... most of which are far from accurate ... but offer me a window into my friend's Korean life too!)

And it's not just international friendships.

There are friends we have found with great staying power in this part of the world too. Friends who have been patient with us on this journey, and thoughtful along this year of transition.

This time of year as the mailbox in front of The Bungalow (the vintage spray painted one that sits on precarious/jaunty angle) fills with glossy Christmas photos and sometimes even newsy notes from more local friends, we are again overwhelmed with the blessings of friendships. We are rich this season in friends. And for that we are extremely thankful.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

O Christmas Tree

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Garlic and the Grinch

We've loved selecting our own fresh tree this year, bringing it home and decorating it and the rest of The Bungalow. We've sat down together as a fam and signed Christmas letters. We've promised to eat at least one meal a week in the dining room with only Christmas lights and candles (and to also light our advent candles then).

We've loved watching Christmas specials already airing on TV ... Rudolph (can I confess this is my least favorite Christmas classic?), Shrek the Halls, and The Grinch. I love, love, love Dr Seuss. I love his description of one who's heart is "two sizes too small"! (What adult and kid cannot relate to such an apt description of a fun-sucker?)

But, Mr Geisel, as my dear childhood bookshelf favorite, and an author I've passed on to my children ... I take issue with one lyric that for what ever reason has only caught my attention this week. In You're a Mean One Mr Grinch you describe with your wonderful Seusical style just how mean that old grinch really is.

I'm with you every line until the one that reads:

You've got garlic in your soul

Dr Suess and my readers, I love garlic.

Just last month I tucked 20 or so garlic cloves into the earth in my garden, where they will sleep through the long winter and erupt in the spring, and then be ready to be harvested as mature bulbs sometime after Independence Day.

I think having 'garlic in your soul' is a complement. Garlic is very dear to my heart! (And good for your heart too!) The strong, true flavor of garlic in a Mediterranean or Italian dish is what makes it. It is the distinction (along with ginger) of great Chinese cuisine. In fact, garlic is a pretty critical ingredient to most world cuisines, except perhaps in the 1957 kitchens of America at the time How the Grinch Stole Christmas was first published by Random House (the same year that Redbook also picked it up and no doubt published it along side ads for Jello molds and recipes for green bean casserole.)

And so, Dr Seuss I forgive you for your garlic comment. I will put it in cultural and historical context and hope that if there was a 2011 update, something truly unpleasant would stand in for garlic.

This Christmas season,

May you all have garlic in your souls,

(and in your recipes!)

You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch

You really are a heel.

You're as cuddly as a cactus,

And as charming as an eel,

Mr. Grinch!

You're a bad banana,

With a greasy black peel!

You're a monster, Mr. Grinch!

Your heart's an empty hole.

Your brain is full of spiders.

You've got garlic in your soul,

Mr. Grinch!

I wouldn't touch you

With a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!

Teaching a New Dog Old Tricks

Remember that puppins we brought home from Amish country last August? She's pushing 50# and still has a way to go in her puppy stage. Fifty pounds of puppy is a daunting deal.

This fall I enrolled Xiao Shan in obedience training. For eight Tuesdays I attended the hour long class with a teacher we know, love and respect. Towards the end of the session our instructor announced to the class this disclaimer, "I just want you to know that Jen has three well behaved children at home, so it's interesting to see this situation."

小山 the Wonderdog, despite her lumbering and oft un-cooperativeness is fun to be around. Her Berner smile is infectious, and the way she cocks her head when you talk to her gives the impression of a wisdom she usually seems to lack.

Lou, our instructor, suggested we harness some of her energy. And we did. Quite literally. Last weekend, using a dog harness Mr Johnson and MGJ strapped a bunch of trimmed branches for her to pull back to our burn pile. She was so determined and proud of herself. And completely exhausted at the end of her branch pulling.

The Bernese Mountain Dog is an alpine mountain dog with an ancient lineage. According to the AKC the Berner breed has "long been at home on the farms in the midland of Switzerland. One of the four varieties of Swiss Mountain Dogs, the Bernese known in its native land as the Berner Sennenhund. These dogs worked as drovers and draft dogs as well as watchdogs in the farmyards mainly in the Canton of Berne."

{November}

Rediscovering the Holidays :: Thanksgiving

It was a three day school week for our kiddos. They had an early out on Wednesday and then an extra long weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Bei Bei's class celebrated a feast to commemorate the Pilgrim's meal of Thanksgiving they shared with the Native Americans who had assessed them through their arduous first winter in the New World. Bei Bei's class are the Native Americans. The second grade class are the pilgrims. Her required at home preparation was to make a vest out of a paper bag and adorn it with Native American symbols. She also had to bring in a gallon of apple juice. The classes donned their representational clothing, put on a short play and feasted on crackers and cheese and sausage cubes, and made real butter.

Bei Bei's take away comes in snippets that she shares at random times. This morning she told us as her sister buttered her English muffin, that if a pilgrim wanted butter they would have to make it, they couldn't just go somewhere and buy it.

We find that many customs and traditions of holidays are making a big impact on the girls. We certainly made an effort when we were in Asia to celebrate holidays, but many of the ways we celebrate in the United States are intrinsically American.

In China our Thanksgiving meals were either celebrated in Shanghai with Mr Johnson's good friend KR, who was in China every other year for a bi-annual trade show curiously held over Turkey day. When we were home in QD we got together with other friends and families from Mr J's company, and enjoyed a traditional meal that was sometimes augmented by Chinese treats.

We made a point to remind the girls about all we had to be tfor, and those feelings of thankfulness sometimes overwhelmed us. We were thankful for distant family, for friendships within China, and for the uniqueness of our experience.

We didn't, perhaps, put a lot of emphasis on the Pilgrims and Squanto.

Which might be why it has captured Bei Bei's interest so.

Last weekend she disappeared to her desk in her bedroom and reappeared sometime later with a picture she had created for Thanksgiving. When I asked her to explain it she said simply that the people had captured the turkey and were going to 'torture' it and eat it for their feast.




Related Posts::

http://thejohnsonsinchina.blogspot.com/2009/11/chopstickfried-chicken-kind-of.html

http://thejohnsonsinchina.blogspot.com/2008/11/thanksgiving.html

http://thejohnsonsinchina.blogspot.com/2008/12/line-crosser.html

Repatration:: What I didn't say

A little over three years ago I began this blog as a way to chronicle our last days in China. What was supposed to be a nine month documentation became a journey much longer*. When we eventually came to the end of that international journey eleven months ago I debated whether or not to keep the blog alive.

People loved to see posts of places we traveled. They loved to hear of adventures in China and our 'lost in translation' moments. {My readership was largely friends and family from home, with a smattering of other expat bloggers.}

When we found out rather abruptly last fall about our looming repatriation, I was overwhelmed by the lack of good information available on repatriation. I pledged to document our transition for those who would be going through their own transitions upon repatriation. I would stand in that information gap, and let them know what to expect and what obstacles and challenges we faced.

I truly intended to explain our experience every step of the way.

But the reality of it all was too close to home. We were nonplused. It was an extremely emotional time for us. I couldn't write that life back in our passport country seemed mediocre or mundane compared to our China experience. I couldn't write that getting up and out the door five days a week exhausted us and literally left us feeling wiped out for almost a first semester of weekends.

And of course, there was the fact that Mr Johnson's company wasn't exactly sure where they would place him. Even before our belongings arrived on a slow boat he was already beginning his second team Stateside, which was scheduled to be short term. "Oh great," we were thinking in the back of our minds, "Our stuff will arrive and be unpacked, only to be packed back up again." We held in that holding pattern, and I didn't feel the blog was the place to vent or cry.

The kids, we knew, would face both gaps and overlaps in their education. We hoped that the pricey international school that incorporated both violin and a daily foreign language would have them up-to-speed with their Amercian counterparts. But there were certainly things we couldn't prepare them for.

EHJ had a crash course in the Palmer Method of handwriting. She had been working in the British style connected writing, and was unable to discern her teacher's script when she arrived in her new classroom. MGJ was plunked into an Language Arts curriculum that built upon itself beginning in the first grade, which was wonderful for kiddos who attended our small public school without interruption, but for our middle schooler and any other transfer student, there was an overwhelming amount to catch up on. Bei Bei, for the first time in her life was in an entirely homogeneous environment. Everyone in her class spoke English, fluently. They flushed toilet paper down the toilet (instead of placing it in the customary Chinese bin) and knew the difference between Teddy Grahams and Pepperidge Farm Gold Fish. (Bei Bei brought Korean seaweed for healthy morning snack!)

When we arrived the wide-eyed foreigners in China we were not expected to fit in to Chinese culture. Our differences were visible. Our cultural gaps apparent. When we returned to our home culture it was expected that there would be a smooth assimilation back into 'normal life.' And it is this assumption, I think, that causes all the hang-ups for repats.

After international exposure and travel, we found that our interests and tastes changed. There were things here that once held our interest that no longer seemed as stimulating. After living abroad we were some ways more open minded. And we found that that open mindedness isnt' always seen as an attractive quality in one's home culture where everyone is more comfortable when cultural mores are concrete. (This is most likely true in any culture, but our experience only involves North American culture.)

Expatriation gives you a unique look at your own culture. You see yourself outside the box, and where, in the grand scheme of things you really fit. A friend recently posted on Facebook that if the world was distilled down to global village of 100, 82 people would be of colour. Interacting in an international community and living abroad that 82% seems more realistic.

Repatriation gives you a unique look at your own culture too. Upon re-entry you see it face to face as an outsider. Assimilation back into your home culture comes when you either no longer see the differences, or you don't find them so glaring.

We are nearing the one year anniversary mark of repatriation, which puts us a little beyond the half-way point of assimilation. Eighteen months to fit back into your home culture is the general average. We have ups and downs and still miss our China days like crazy.

Repatriation is a process. It involves looking back and looking forward. Reconciling that it is both okay to miss the experiences and relationships we had abroad, while taking tentative steps to embracing the future here.

We are looking forward ...

to cutting down our first Christmas tree in years, to decorating the inside and outside for the season, and playing Christmas stations on Pandora. We are excited to hear Bei Bei's first ever Christmas piece in her Sunday School Program, and watch them rock out to Rudolph at their school concert. We are excited that a Christmas get-together with family won't include jet-lag, and we are so looking forward to using our passports and boarding a plane to the Cayman's over the Christmas break!

*Mr Johnson's gig was twice extended. Original exit dates from China included (but where not limited to) Summer 2008, Summer 2009, Summer 2010, Summer 2012. Actual repatriation date? December 2010.

Which Kingdom Really Is in the Middle?

When we arrived in China we were surprised to see a world map that looked like this:

With China smack dab in the middle.

(China has ethnocentrically always called themselves the Middle Kingdom ... the Chinese name for China is Zhongguo, or quite literally middle country.)

But peek at what American's would argue is a normal looking world map:

... and it's not too difficult to figure out which "kingdom" we see in the literal middle of it all.

Not to pick only at Americans (collectively North and South Americans), consider what a European version looks like:

The world, after all is a sphere. And as any middle schooler can tell you, there is a great challenge presented when you try to take that 3D globe into 2D. Representations are off. The Chinese processed map is skewed. The US and European ones are as well. None are expressly right or wrong... they simply differ from each other.

(This is the kind of information that swirls around in our heads as we process how we fit back into a country we haven't been intrinsically a part of for while. For our children, those great students of the 'global classroom,' with friends from many continents and an interest in the world, whether flat or spherical, we think it's important to keep these topics alive as well.)

A trip down memory lane

Fourteen years ago Mr Johnson and I were newly married and college students. I had a semester of school left and he had two when we tied the knot in July of 1997. Shortly after, we moved into an austere two bedroom apartment with all our worldly goods. We lived in married student housing on the campus of the University of Illinois, a community mainly inhabited by older international students with families, and married grad and doctoral students.

The bank of mailboxes on the landing of our building listed names we then could not (but now can) pronounce : Xu, Zhang, something African, Wang, Lu. And smack in the middle, JOHNSON. We seemed to stand out. There was some major foreshadowing going on, but we of course had no idea.

We lived humbly on peanut butter (but splurged on good bread), and would spend our time at class, at work, and occasionally, when the moon and stars aligned, at home together on our cute little plaid love seat (reappolstered by Mr Johnson's grandma) in our IKEA meets garage sale living room where we would watch a laser discs (it was the 90s people!) in surround sound complicated by the cinder block walls and eat Chinese take out.

(Little did we know that our life -- a little less than a decade later -- would include three wonderful little people, and an even bigger adventure that involved again: Asian neighbors, Chinese take out, and more concrete living room walls!)

This last weekend we drove down to Champaign and our old university/early marriage stomping grounds with our girlies ... taking our obligatory October photograph on the campus quad. The girls posed under the Alma Mater statue outside Altguild Hall. Later we snapped some more of the girlies on a cobblestone street in the historic area of Urbana.

We parked on John Street, just around the corner from That's Rentertainment (which is stil on 6th) where we rented laser discs in the pre-ipod era. We bought the girlies U of I t-shirts @ TIS book store. (Go Illini!) And ate at a great Korean joint reminiscent of a lotteria in Seoul.

We drove to the barracks style housing that makes up the married student quarters, which still looks very much like it did in the 90s. We posed on the front steps of our old building, watched as Chinese students headed back from the impressive garden plot that they work all summer, and now are harvesting di guo (sweet potatoes) and squash.

It was raining and a little bleak ... The girls were running the camera ... and somehow we didn't get a shot of the whole building, but I think you get the idea ... laundry flapping on the balcanies. Storage boxes piled up on them too. We peeked into an empty first floor and saw no updates. Still austere. Exactly the same as it was when we spent two semesters living on love in 202.