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E-mail to our Friends and Family 2/16/07

Happy Chinese New Year

Hello Everyone,

Yes, it’s the year of the Golden Pig, a very special year in China. According to legend this year only happens once every sixty years. It’s considered by many to be the luckiest year to have a baby. In fact, last year was a huge year for weddings gearing up to have babies this year. Hospitals are being built to accommodate the increase in births. The speculations have gone so far as to predict overcrowding in schools and tougher job markets when all these Golden Pigs come of age. It’s crazy, yet fascinating to see how thousands of years of tradition can shape a persons life so much. To have your culture determine the best/luckiest time to get married and have children is very intriguing.

We are headed to Hainan Island on Saturday. This is an island south of Hong Kong that is supposed to be lovely. It’s comparable to Hawaii in the States. We’ve heard from so many people that the smartest thing for us to do is to get out of town during Chinese New Year. Not only do Ayi and Mr. Lin have the week off but restaurants are closed, taxi’s are impossible to get and fireworks go off 24 hours a day for 7 days straight!! These aren’t your typical neighborhood fireworks either, here you can buy anything and set if off anywhere! The locals like to find alleys to set off the fireworks so they can reverberate and make the sound louder. Scary isn’t it? So, we compromised and are only staying 5 days in Hainan then coming back to experience Chinese New Year without an Ayi or Driver. This should be interesting!!! Next year we’ll have more time in advance to plan a more exotic trip. This year was just too insane for us to think about it.

Some very interesting things happened this week. First of all a huge ship sunk outside our apartment. It was amazing to see the ship actually sink then getting the ship out of the river and moving it. It was all over the newspaper and we got to see the whole story. (picture of river, didn’t take the ship). Can’t see that in Huntersville, NC! We also rode the Shanghai Maglev Train (see picture). This train sits on magnets (no rails) and goes 267 mph. We rode it to the airport and back in 16 minutes which would have taken us about 2 hours driving time. Sean and Sophie loved it and I’ve never gone that fast on land! The train station is very close to our apartment so we’ll probably use it to take trips to the airport. Last Saturday was a beautiful day so I decided to appease my wonderful husband and go to Hooters. Hooters is a long walk from us and Scott has been dying to check it out for some time. I resisted but finally caved (see picture). Our biggest disappointment has been eating at western branded restaurants and finding the food tasting different and not as good. Well, Hooters sauce is the exact same with the wings being much bigger. Combine that with the beers costing the same price as a coke and good western music and Scott and I were once again in our happy place. It was really, really good! Sophie, who has always had difficulties identifying with other Asian girls/ women was enamored by the waitress. Totally out of character, she drew “Shadow” (name of waitress) pictures and actually smiled and talked to her. Next thing we know she’s at the foot of Shadow watching her dance. (At Hooters the waitresses do a dance on top of the counters to popular songs.) Let’s just hope Hooters is not in her foreseeable future! Oh, one more thing, the waitresses wore the same outfits but of course were all flat chested.

Our Chinese lessons are going well. I’m actually very excited to be able to have conversations with local people. I’m very curious to learn more about their culture. Mr. Lin and Ayi are great tutors and are helping us practice a lot. In fact I’m amazed at how nice everyone is here. You’d think they’d be a little upset with us in their country but it’s quite the opposite. They want us to learn the language not to be able to function in society but to help us learn about their culture. The children are darling. They come up to us very politely all the time to “practice” their English. The Chinese people are very proud of who they are and what they represent. It’s actually refreshing.

Ok, last story and this one cost me to consume ½ bag of peanut M&M’s one day. After 3 months it was time for a Manicure and Pedicure especially before our trip to the beach. I’d been putting it off like everything else because of the unknown and hassle of having to explain what I wanted 10 times! I decided to pay the big bucks ($20) and have it done in the clubhouse where they’re used to working with foreigners. So I put on my sweats (so I could roll them up when I sit in the very relaxing message chair) and my flip flops as not to ruin my nails on the way home. I get there and the reception desk is in the main hallway with another room in the back. I tell them what I want (no problem) and they sit me down in the middle of the main hall on a little stool behind a little table then bring out a big pot of water. I thought great, I get spaghetti while I’m waiting! Then she told me to put my feet in the pot while the other one grabbed my hand and started working. No salts, lotions, bubbles, just my feet in dirty China water in a spaghetti pot. My manicure consisted of 45 minutes of torture while she cut up my hands, no lotion or salts nothing just cuticle softener that’s it. After that she did the exact same thing to my feet with my feet in her lap. This was really uncomfortable because I didn’t want to hurt her so I was basically lifting my leg up for her. All this is happening while people are walking by stopping to chat and looking at my feet (they’re very curious people)! And, you ask “well, why didn’t you just get up and leave?” I thought about this and it wasn’t the woman’s fault that my experience was bad, hell in China maybe it was a great manicure/pedicure for all I know. Also, I’ve learned to take what I get and not complain because it’s not like I’m going to change anything. So next mission is to find a western place to get my nails done.

Last thing, Sean is doing much better. Since our shipment came his scrapbook from his old school arrived. This book had a great letter about Sean and his personality, all the friends he had etc then about 20 pages of pictures of him with his friends and activities they had done in school. His teacher worked really hard on this book and it means the world to Sean. He decided he wanted to show it to Mr. Taylor (his current teacher) but was afraid he might be too busy to see it. I told him to take it in and give it a try if he wanted. So Mr. Taylor ended up reading the entire scrapbook to the class. This book changed everything for the boys in his class. They got to see Sean for who he was and not a stranger coming in the middle of the year trying to take away all their friends. The boys he was having problems with are now asking him to eat lunch with them and play soccer. It turns out 3 other parents have complained about the boy on the bus and he was reprimanded and has been much better. Having said all this Sean is much more confident now to deal with the boy in our building and is handling him like a pro. Let’s hope this streak continues.

Enjoy the pictures, sorry for the winded e-mail.

Love, Jennifer

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E-mail to our Friends and Family 2/16/07