The True Final Post

With this post, I am officially ending the O'Tooles in China Blog.

Our school term ended near the end of June. Immediately after school ended, Jane and I planned to head to Shanghai so that we could get home to St. Louis to see friends and family. The plan was to visit America for just under two months, then returning to Changzhou. I had signed a second contract to teach at the school the next year, and Jane was planning on working on some independent business. We had round-trip flights. As such, we packed into a few suitcases some summer clothes that we planned on wearing while back in town. We left our apartment furnished and full of our stuff, planning on coming back.

We woke up at about 5 a.m. the morning of departure. The school arranged for a minibus to take us to Shanghai. When I went outside our complex, the bus was just pulling up. We loaded the tired kids onto the bus and made our way to Shanghai, which was about a 2 hour drive away. (At this point in writing, I am really happy that I kept the blog. I have no memory of what happened as we arrived at the airport. Thankfully the blog exists of our days in China so that there is no lapse of memory of the events of the year). I do remember the flight to America, which was about 18 hours. Etain was designated as a lap passenger, meaning that she was intended to sit on Jane's or my lap the entire ride (yeah right). We were nervous because we were told it was a full flight. Luckily, we had two of three seats in one row, and then two seats in a row behind it. A guy that was in the row with two of the seats either had little interest in sitting with Jane and the two girls or was nice enough to recognize the cramping, and he found another seat further back in the plane. As a result, we had an entire three seat row and two seats in another section. The plane ride was pretty long, but overall everyone did quite well, with only a few episodes here and there (as is to be expected).

We touched down in Detroit, with about a four hour layover. We found a play area in the airport and hung out there for almost the entire time. We were all pretty tired and anxious to make it the final two hours to St. Louis. When we got in the plane, the captain informed us that there was going to be a one hour delay before we could take off. By this time, the kids were pretty sick of planes, and it made for a long last few hours. Nonetheless, later that afternoon at 5:30 p.m. or so, we arrived in St. Louis.

When getting off of the plane, there was an easy to notice feeling of familiarity. People were very nice and helpful; not that they weren't in China, but there was just some unexplainable difference. We headed down the gate to see our families ready to welcome us home. It was nice to be home.

As it turns out, it was so nice to be home that I wanted to stay. Over the next few weeks, Jane and I had many serious discussions about our plans. Though we had return flights and enjoyed our time in China, we decided to stay. I was offered my old job. Jane was aware of potential employment opportunities, and eventually joined on with Merrill Lynch. We moved to Columbia, MO, buying new cars, a new house, new phones, enrolling in a new school for Dan, finding a new (Chinese) nanny for the girls. All of this was done in about three weeks. Jane headed back to China alone to retrieve the items that we had left in our apartment. She was able to talk to Jiu Jie again, being very sad to tell her that the kids were not returning (we even looked into the possibility of bringing Jiu Jie to America, but it did not appear to be legally possible). Jane was also able to see some of our old friends and say a final and proper goodbye, as well as eat hot pot a last time.

We are now back in Columbia, MO and all is well. When moving back, things seemed to really fall into place without hassle. Cars and the house were bought without problem (maybe everything just seemed easy after living in China for a year). We feel that we found the perfect school for Dan, had he and we are enjoying a role in that community. We even found a Chinese nanny, Xue Bin, for the girls. As a result, the girls continue to speak Chinese every day. I still speak Chinese to the kids, at least with respect to the little phrases that I know.

Thus ends O'Tooles in China. China was a great experience that I am very thankful that this family was able to enjoy. In the months that we have been back, we still look at all of the pictures that we took and reminisce about or experiences there. There are days when we wish that we could be back, enjoying hot pot on a street corner or sightseeing some 3000 year old temple. Being there for that year has changed each of us, at least in part, forever. I personally need to thank Jane for making the opportunity possible. And I need to thank the readers of the blog for living the adventure with us.

Some pictures of the kids in America are included. And now, a final zaijian.

Final Update from China

As the blog was shut down, I sent this update out to a few people via email. I am including a few of the final pictures from China as well. Here is the email in its original:

“I guess not having a blog can be good in that, when we get back, people will sit down and look at pictures that we took, allowing us the opportunity to explain some of them a bit better. Here are a few pictures from our past week, which was a holiday week known as the Dragon Boat Festival. We had four days off of school so we did a few random activities. First we went to the countryside with a friend of Jane's, where we had a very large feast to celebrate the Dragon Boat holiday. It was a great meal and a good opportunity for the kids to see an older rural part of China. In the pictures are me with the family at the brunch, and Dan in front of a hayfield. The next day, we booked train tickets to Suzhou, a nearby city that we really enjoy. We ended up staying in a hotel that had a pool, which is pretty rare here. We swam for a few hours each day (of two), and we did a lot of shopping, getting some pretty good deals. In another picture are Jane and Etain in a restaurant called the Blue Marlin, which served Western food at decent prices (my first real hamburger in about a year). Our trip was nice but, as always, short lived, and we had to head back home. Our traveling home went very smoothly, and we got home in time to get the girls bathed before bed. The other picture is of them two enjoying some popcorn before bed. (In the picture you can maybe see how people are always confusing them as twins. The other day people even asked if our three kids were triplets.)

Well, back to work. We will be home in about 4 weeks; we are really starting to count down the days.

Zaijian.”

Blog Shut Down

Hello to anyone that is still reading. I am typing this entry on December 16, 2009, about seven months since the last post. To say the least, much has changed since then. I will try to get people up to speed in a few postings.

First, in this post I want to explain why the blog postings stopped. Recently after Mother's Day, China blocked blog websites, including ours. They did this under the 'Golden Shield Project', which is a censorship and surveillance project operated by the Ministry of Public Security division of the Communist government of China. This censorship is how Communist China controls 1.3 billion citizens. Blogs were targeted because, in my view, they foster free speech and the exchange of ideas. China views this as a potential source for revolt or undermining of the government. As such, they keep their citizens ignorant for the greater good. In talking with some Chinese, many people dislike this, but many more people understand this as the Chinese way. This type of internet censorship has actually been around since 1998. When we arrived in China shortly after the Olympics, the censorship was relaxed, supposedly so that China could look more friendly in the world's eyes. As a result, we were able to get our blog up and running (thankfully). After the Olympic hype died down, the censorship increased, and the blog websites came down.

It was because of this block that the blog sat idle for so long. As people in America could view the blog to see that there were no updates, in China I could not even see the blog, much less update it. We are back home now (spoiler alert), so I am updated the blog to add a bit of closure. This entry explains the lack of communication for so long.

Another update will be made very shortly.

Mothers' Day Week

Here are a few pictures from the past weekend, which included mothers' day. First is a picture of Etain during a recent dinner. We had black rice, which turns purple when it is cooked. We also had chicken breasts, on which we decided to put boysenberry jam, which also turned purple. I guess Etain thought it was so colorful that she decided to wear most of it instead of eating it.

On mothers' day we went to lunch and then hung out at a small park-like area near our old house. Here are Dan and Etain hanging out in the shade.

Here are Evelyn and I playing soccer in the sun. The park is in the middle of the animation district, where there are a handful of schools and shops designated solely to cartoon making.

Here (for some reason sideways) is a shot of the mothers' day brunch that we went to. We decided to go to a restaurant that we had not been to in a long time. It was just Jane and I and the kids, and the food kept coming and coming; we received much more than we were expecting. The meal included cucumbers with dipping sauce, pork with green peppers and onions, chicken and peanut with mixed vegetables, eggplant, a very tasty Chinese spinach, rice and watermelon for dessert. We were completely stuffed; the meal cost about $14.

Here is Evelyn sniffing Jane's mothers' day flowers...

On Thursday we went out with a couple of guys that we met a few weeks prior. They are from Wales, and they are a lot of fun. We went out for all you can eat sushi, and then to a few bars to follow. Here is a very late night picture of a late night sidewalk eatery, where people grill noodles and stir-fry rice on rolling carts. They are only there from 10:00 p.m. - 4:00 a.m. In the morning the place is cleaned up and empty. It is a nice and cheap meal after any late nights out.

Here are Andrew and Ryan, the two guys from Wales, at all you can eat sushi. They are in China for 6 months, and they live in a hotel (we met them at the hotel bar one night). They told us that basically all they do is go to work, go to the hotel, eat and drink and go to bed. They are fun to hang around with, so we took it upon ourselves to show them some of the non-hotel/touristy places, which they appreciate.

Well, there you have it from the past week. I think tomorrow we are going to plan an impromptu trip to Suzhou, so we will be sure to take plenty of pictures. We look forward to seeing most of you in about 6-7 weeks. Zaijian.

Mothers' Day

Happy Mothers' Day to all of the O'Tooles in China mother-readers...

With a trip back to the States just two months away, we are starting to have cravings for some food that you can not get in China. One such type that is not available to us is Mexican food. When we get home, the first thing I want to do is go to Sams and buy a 1 gallon jar of nacho cheese, eating it with a spoon during the rest of the ride home. That truly sounds amazing to me right now.

In a completely unrelated note, here are the three kids petting a neighboring dog that they love so much.

The Past Weekend

Here are some pictures from the past weekend. Last Thursday, Jane and I went to dinner (with the kids) to her friend Shuying's house. It was a very nice meal that consisted of about 15 dishes. When the kids started to get restless, we headed home but realized that we still wanted to go out. We therefore called Jiu Jie, called Shuying back up, and we went out with her and her husband. First we went to an outdoor bar, which is pictured below. It basically consists of about 12 tables in a park, with a small stand that sells large bottles of beer. They also grill food, though we did not partake that night.

After the outdoor bar, we headed across the street to a dance club called the MT Bar. It is the very popular bar to go to right now in Changzhou. Above is a shot of Jane (and Shuying) hanging out with a group of people that we met (as usual, they invited us to their table where they gave us plenty of drinks, and we ended up not having to pay for it, which is a good thing, since the drinks are quite expensive). At this bar, everyone smokes. You are constantly offered cigarettes. You can tell this by the fogginess of the picture. Here is another shot of the bar. This, believe it or not, was a slower night, as opposed to a Friday or Saturday.

On Saturday, we headed over to the park near our house, which is called Central Park. We wanted to let the kids do something fun, so we let the girls run around the large playground for as long as they liked (despite the fact that it was quite crowded). Dan also wanted to do the inflatable spinning tube on the lake, which he really enjoyed (and was quite good at). The part that Dan really enjoyed, though, was when Jane got in it with him. She could get up enough speed to really get it moving and send him flying. Here they are spinning around...

And here is a picture of the crowd that was created to see the two faguoren [pronounced FAH-gwo-ren] (foreigners).

Here is picture of Jane and the kids admiring the flowers at Central Park. The flowers and landscaping are actually really nice, and this picture does not do it justice. This picture also has an interesting point that I did not know about until after it was taken. If you look way in the background, there is a person sitting on the ledge of the building (just above Jane). As we headed in that direction, we discovered that it was a distraught woman, who assumedly was thinking about jumping off of the four story building. We got close enough to see that she was crying very hard, but we did not stick around long enough to see any more (we certainly didn't want the kids to see if it ended badly). However, plenty of others hung around, and it was a day as usual in the park. We did see a group of firefighters watching her from the sidewalk, but they did not do anything special to keep people out from under her or away from her on the ledge. {When we walked back around the park to go home about an hour later, I did not see the woman on the ledge, and there did not appear to have been any problems, so I will assume that she came off of the ledge and was OK}.

Here is a shot of the kids and I flying a kite on the boardwalk in the park (you can see the raised boardwalk in the picture above, as well). The odd looking building just above my right shoulder is a Starbucks. Our apartment complex is across the street from that Starbucks, about two blocks up.

The kids are getting quite good at using kuidza [kwaid-zuh] (chopsticks). Here is Evelyn digging out a large piece of tofu from her bowl (Jiu Jie makes tofu at least twice a week. The kids love it; I cannot stand it). Here is Dan using his chopsticks as well. Etain actually understands what chopsticks are for, but she much prefers to throw them instead of eating with them.

Sunday's weather was very nice as well. We went for a long walk to the store when we woke up, and we headed down for a family nap after lunch. When we woke up, we played right outside our apartment building in the grassy area that they have there (this may or may not be allowed; no one else ever does it). Here are some shots of the kids playing ball there.

Etain is inheriting Evelyn's shoe fancy, and they are constantly fighting with each other as to who get to wear which pair.

Dan and I kicking around the ball. There is a group of Thai students that used to challenge the teachers in a weekly soccer match, though it has yet to take place. It would be fun to play a bit while I am here.

I showed this picture last week to show how much we needed a second 'bathtub' for the girls. As a result, here is how they bathed beforehand...

...and afterwards.