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!

Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should.

I’ve been searching for a more Asian look for The Johnson’s in China. In my probe for a cool Asian/Modern style, I stumbled on this, and hope that this new canned format satisfies that need without being construed as too pre-packaged and/or prematurely Christmassy.

In my search to more succinctly define our site as Asian influenced, I also created a play list.

Which haunts me with the above. Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should.

Does the music add or detract? How about the counter? Or the little world map? Are three gadgets too much? It’s a slippery slope… I could also add world clocks, news feeds, a stock ticker, and a money tip of the day. When is “more” better, and when does the “less is more” idea apply?

And it’s more than just a format issue, I’ve been thinking about blogging, having a blog and being a blogger. I came across a disturbingly accurate quote recently, while following a comment thread on someone’s facebook page. It said, “Typically, blogs (and blogs on blogs) satisfy the writer's need for self expression over the audience's need for unbiased information.”

What in life is blog worthy? and does anyone really read it anyway?

A Sparkling Sea

Saturday in Qingdao dawned bright and sunny. The smoggy, foggy air we endured Tuesday to Friday had been banished. The air was crisp and cold. It was a see-your-breath kind of morning that foreshadowed a glorious fall day. And it was clear. It was a “horizon day” as Sean calls them (days you can actually see to the horizon.) Adding to the appeal, the Yellow Sea out our second story window and across the four-lane street, was sparkling in an on-the-front-of-a-postcard, can’t-really-be-real kind of way.


It was the kind of day that, were I still living in Illinois, I would feel compelled to mix up a pot of chili. I would bundle up and head out to enjoy a cup of hot mulled cider on the front porch. In fact, it was on such a day, three years ago this weekend, that we hosted our grand Moving to China Yard Sale in the front yard. It was the kind of day I would envy a cat lazing about in a sunny sill. The kind of day I could spend literally drinking in the autumnal sunshine.

Of course our fully scheduled Saturday didn’t allow for lazing. Millie to sailing, Sean and Jen to parent teacher interviews @ school (the British term for what American’s usually call Teacher Conferences.) Then on to pick Eliza’s pal for a play date, and on again to the opening of a new English bookshop.

No time today to bask in the sun, or quietly enjoy the fall weather outside. But, still time to enjoy the visual splendor… the bright red sumac glowing on the rocky mountainous outcrops that trace the coastline, the fan shaped leaves of the gingko trees that dot Donghai Lu gradually turning yellow, the sparkling water of the sea and the bright warm sunshine on this cold autumn day.

Christmas in our Hearts

A weekend ago we came home from a night out and found this piece of artwork hung in The Johnson Art Gallery (aka the small white fridge in our yellow kitchen.) The girls had watched Christmas with the Cranks, which had inspired Eliza to draw a winter themed picture even though we had been able to wear flip flops with our jeans and sweatshirts to the beach that week.

Indeed that week did feel Christmas-like, in our hearts, though not our climate, as a huge box of wonderful fall goodies had arrived from our friends the Bowlers in the United States. It was chock full of the can’t-get-it-in-China kind of things that made it all the more special. Special stuff from special people (who incidentally will add another special person to their family early next summer… yeah for #3!)

The girls have been honing their Christmas list for Grandma in the U.S. and for Mom and Dad (although unbeknownst to them their gifts from a certain shop with big red bags that hails from Michigan Ave and specializes in historical fiction and characters made the grand global journey back with us from Illinois in August!)

Once a week at bedtime we’ve been working our way through a thoughtful kids devotional book, which is careful outlining our need for a saviour. The book, full of realistically rendered oil paintings and worthy of coffee table status, was a Christmas-in-August gift from Great Grandma Lil who wanted to see the girls open her gift to them. At the end of each rather long chapter is a list of questions. After the first chapter about how God gave us the Bible as a special gift, we asked Bea the first of 15 questions about the chapter.

“Bea, who is the bible a special gift from?”

“Lilly Lew,” she answered!

“No, Bea, its from God,” Millie quickly corrected her.
“Oh, God,” said Bea, and then added, “and Lilly Lew!”

Halloween in November and other Calendar Challenged Holidays

I love seeing new Christmas decorations come out here in December, and the bright red and gold banners that arrive in stores in January to welcome in the new Chinese year. I cringe, though, when we see the same tired and sun faded decorations still up the following July or October. (It’s considered bad luck to take down the Chinese New Year LUCK banners… which are extra lucky if hung upside down.) But surely the exhausted Santa Clauses could be eighty-sixed by spring!

Halloween décor is a relatively new in QD at least, and probably still bought up mainly by the foreigners who can also be seen rushing about the tailors in the Tai Dong area having custom costumes made and scouring about the shops that sell brooms and plastic basins and other household cleaning and maintenance materials (I once bought a flimsy fly spank for 1 yuan… 12 cents… at such a shop) looking for the infamous witch’s broom. Handmade straw brooms are still used regularly used in Chinese homes, on the streets, and even in grassy areas in lieu of rakes. They do make great costume accessories in that Wizard of Oz - Wicked Witch of the West way.

Our family’s Monster Mash party was just the tip of the Halloween iceberg… as Halloween continued on November 1 @ the Expat Halloween party where international children from all corners of the globe convened @ the Best Western for games, crafts and snacks, followed by good-old-fashioned trick-or-treating in the adjacent housing complex inhabited predominately by Westerners.

Eliza wore her new red silk and heavily beaded East Indian suit that we picked up in Kuala Lumpur’s Little India. She had a sticky jewel for the center of her forehead, one for the side of her nose and elaborate design that traced up her arm.

Beatrice sported the “bottom-of-the-dress-up-bin” look, reviving the tired bride costume and headband veil she has been wearing daily since we arrived home from Uncle Ryan’s wedding.

Millie spent another windy Saturday @ the Olympic Marina, facing for the first time really strong wind gusts and a white-knuckle sailing adventure. Sean spent the afternoon with her, and they came home to warm showers and a little down time before the costumed little sisters on a sugar high returned with Mom.

Saturday night was date-night, and Saint Ayi Lucy arrived for her five-hour stint with The Johnson girls. (Our date nights could probably be a blog entry of their own… stayed tuned… )

This week we had 7:00 reservations at our favorite restaurant in Qingdao, Tratoria Verde: a tiny, six-table Italian Restaurant in the heart of Hong Kong Garden. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner and decided, after our Italian coffees and melt-in-your-mouth tiramisu to try to catch the first set @ Club New York. (When we toured Qingdao in 2005 on our house hunting trip, our real estate agent pointed out Club New York and boasted that being inside was the equivalent to being in Manhattan. The reality… not so… not even close.)

CNY is on the second floor of the Chinese Overseas Hotel, where a huge bunting on the banister reads… Welcome to Friends From Domestic and Abroad. The toilets are the nasty variety you can smell long before reaching them. The lobby is outdated marble and the carpeted stairs are worn. The draw for us though is the talented six member Filipino band (half of which also lead worship @ our Sunday fellowship.)

Saturday night was Halloween night… with huge fuzzy spiders hanging from the ceiling, together with orange and black bunting. (Hopefully this autumnal décor does not go the way of other misunderstood Western holidays in China.) The bouncers, who usually wear U.S. army fatigues, instead had on jackets that could either belong on a drum major or the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts club band. The waitresses donned flowing antebellum dresses with matching hats. Our server, curiously also sported cat whiskers. The talented band did not disappoint, and like good sports where also decked out for the night, one wore a scary wolf head and a sleeveless furry top (white jeans and go-go boots rounded out her look), superman, a hillbilly and cat-woman joined her.

If you ignore the creepy middle-aged white guys trawling for women half their age, the rest of the mix at Club New York is rather fun and eclectic. Young Chinese crazy for 80s English music rocked out to I’m your Venus. The multi-talented band crooned a Japanese love ballad for the businessmen at the table next to us who smiled and politely bobbed their heads in appreciation. Later, one of the Japanese guys joined the band on stage for a rendition of Sweet Home Chicago where he played the bass and two of the regular guys from the band blew dueling trombones with their guitars still strapped to their necks. The band threw in a Chinese pop song, and closed out the set with an amalgamation of Gloria Estefan hits.

Halloween in November, China style!