Halloween

It has been extremely busy around here over the past few days. As I said earlier, we have been moving into a new apartment about 12 blocks away. All of our stuff is now in that apartment, and we are quite comfortable there. Except for a few trips using a car, I pretty much carried all of our stuff to the new place on my back. On one trip, I had a comforter and two pillows on my back sandwiched between me and an enormous backpack full of clothes. I was also pushing our double stroller, but inside the seats were our water cooler, water tank, and plastic bags full of food. Needless to say, I got a lot of stares from the locals. But it was all worth it. There are just a few more kinks to work through. First, we had to fix the hot water, but hopefully now we have that working. The new place also does not have a phone hooked up, but we have informed the landlord and we think she is taking care of this. We will provide the new phone number (via email) once it exists. Lastly, our new place does not have a computer or internet hookup. [I am actually sitting at the old apartment now working on the old computer]. Rather than lug the computer to the new place, we decided that we will just buy a laptop when we come home in January (electronics are actually cheaper in the U.S.). I will still try to get to posting as soon and as much as possible, though.

Here are some pictures from the past week or two. First, next weekend is when we have our traditional 3 day weekend. Our schedules have been changed a bit, and now I do not work on that last afternoon, so I actually have a 3.5 day weekend. Jane and I also heard through the grapevine that we will not have to teach on the following Monday or Tuesday, so we are going to basically have 5 days off. Resultantly, we are going to take a trip. There are two front runner locations, right now. One is Chingdao, a small beachfront town that use to be a German Colony (and the place where Tsing-Tao Beer is made); or Daishan, a beachy island that is scenic and laid back, accessible by an overnight ferryboat. We have heard good things about each, we now just need to make up our minds. Here is Evelyn (the true author of this blog), doing some research as to where we should go. Here are Evelyn and Dan in the old apartment, most likely watching Annie. I remembered my younger sister Kathleen liking Annie as a kid, so I got it at a local dvd store. In the past two weeks, we have probably watched it 75 times. The songs are, regrettably, permanently etched in my brain. (It actually is a good movie, though). Evelyn does a hilarious impression of Annie when she is going to fight some boys for tying cans on her dog's tail. Our family must remember to ask her to do it when we come home to visit.

We headed downtown the other week with our day off. Here is Dan, waiting for the bus, practicing some tai-chi moves.

Here is Dan later that day climbing one of the statues in the park. As you can see, he has taken off all of his winter gear that he was wearing earlier. The mornings are nice and cool, but mid-day the temperature has been perfect. I would be happy with this temperature all year long, but I do not think it will last more than a few more weeks. (I may be wrong, but I always thought that I heard people say that "Indian Summers" would be followed by harsh winters. Here, they do not have Indian Summers, but they did have a "Tiger Autumn", which means winter will be bad. It should be no surprise to us Missourians, though, who are use to seeing the weather at its worst.)

Here is a shot of Etain after a bath. Jane thought she was looking especially angelic, so she decided to take a photo. Unfortunately, she says, I had to be in the frame as well.

A big event over the past few days was Halloween. The Chinese do not celebrate this holiday, so it was up to the foreigners to coordinate any activities. Whenever activity coordination comes up, especially if dealing with kids, Jane jumps up and takes charge. She played a huge role in our school's Halloween celebration, and she also planned with another mother/teacher a party amongst all of the foreigners who had children. Here are Dan and Evelyn dancing at the foreigners' party (most foreigners are from Europe, and specifically France, just in case you were curious).

Here is Etain, caught red-handed trying to "pick out" a Halloween treat.

Here she is in a more flattering pose.

Here are the sanga (three) kids at the party. It was held in a ping-pong room in a complex across the street from us. There were three ping-pong tables, covered so that we would not destroy them. We had to be out promptly at 6:30, because that is when the games began.
Another picture of the kids at the party, showing off the decorations that Jane played a major role in making.

Here is Evie eating her popcorn. I am excited to visit in January so that family can see all of the kids, and especially Evelyn. She seems to have changed the most since leaving. She talks constantly, and is a total performer. Other notes on the kids. Etain is doing pretty well, but for the past day she has been feeling somewhat sick. She is not her normal self, which is independent and happy. She walks everywhere, as she did from day one. She climbs everything. One of her favorite things to do is climb onto whatever piece of furniture you are sitting on, climb into your lap and lie down, waiting for you to tickle her belly.

Evelyn is on the brink of being ready for potty-training. She tells us when she does her business, and we bought her a potty seat. She sits on it a lot, but so far with no results. As soon as she is trained, Jane plans on trying to get Etain trained early. In speaking, Evelyn uses both English and Chinese, with plenty of Evelyn-ese mixed in as well.

Dan is doing well. About two weeks ago, we took him out of the school at which Jane was teaching. The days were too long for him, he was too young, and (most importantly) he was learning very little Chinese (the main thing that we wanted). We thought he would benefit being home with Jiu Jie, which he has. He is doing very well with Chinese, and he plans to teach everyone when we come home to visit. The other night, he and I went out for dinner. I ordered jiedan lomien [gee-dahn low-mi-en], which is like home-made chicken noodle soup with a fried egg on top. I could eat it twice a day, seven days a week. Dan had some noodles, and he also had lamb kabobs. The kabobs are prepared on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, so while I sat at our table, he watched the man barbecue. At one point, he jumped up and down, saying, "I did it! I did it!" He then informed me that the cook asked him if he wanted lao jiao (lao-jao [I don't know how to spell it any differently for phonetic purposes]). Lao jiao is hot sauce, and Dan said, "Bu yao," which means, "I don't want it." He was very proud of himself. Tonight, before I left, he counted to 100 in Chinese, without any problems. [He is 4. I saw an old kindergarten report card of mine from when I was five, which said that I could count to 27 without error. He can do four times better, and in a different language. But, to my credit, Chinese counting is much easier. Instead of having confusing terms like twenty, thirty, etc., they just count two-ten, three-ten, so instead of thirty six, they say three-ten-six. Heck, I can even count to 99 (I do not know the word for 100).] Right now, Dan's Chinese vocabulary is probably 5 times what mine is, and I have been studying in my spare time. Also, we plan to enroll him in another Chinese kindergarten. It is on the campus of a housing complex in which many foreigners live (across the street from our place), including some of his friends. Though it is totally in Chinese, it is very well run. We are hoping that it is the best of both worlds: he learns Chinese and has entertaining activities (we suspect he may be getting bored hanging out at home with his two younger sisters). He starts next week.

Back to the pictures. Here is Dan at the school party (he no longer goes to school there, but they had him as a special guest). He is playing pin the nose on the pumpkin, a game that Jane made.

Here are Jane and Dan and the other students of the school (only her primary school took part in the Halloween party, my teenage students are too cool.) As can be seen, Dan was Batman.

Striking a pose:

Here is Dan and his buddy Eric, from his old class. Eric is 6 or 7 and is the top student in the class. Despite the age difference, he and Dan had some sort of special bond, and they both missed each other when Dan left the school. They were happy to see each other.
After the Halloween parties ended, we were exhausted and went to bed. The next day, Saturday, was Jane and my 5th anniversary. We planned on having Jiu Jie come over that evening to watch the kids so that we could go out. At 7:30 a.m., our front door opened and Jiu Jie walked in. We told her she did not have to work for another 10 hours, so she gave us some breakfast that she bought and headed back out. Jane was sure that she told her the right time, and she thinks that she just stopped by because she likes us. She came back later that evening, and Jane and I headed out. First, we went to an Indian restaurant in our new neighborhood. They served, along with the food, large Budweisers, and it was the first time I had this beer in China. It tasted better than Chinese beers, but different from Budwiesers you would get in the States. After dinner, we found a hotel nearby our house, because Jiu Jie was going to stay overnight with the kids. The place was extremely cheap, and quite nice. I would recommend it for any visitors. We then headed out to a dance club, which gave us a free bottle of champagne at midnight. We hung out there for a long time, probably too long, and then crashed back at the hotel. The next day, Sunday, was my birthday. My gift was the greatest gift of all, a day of rest. Jane took the reigns with the kids and let me relax.

After that, it was back to work, which has been the situation since. We saw today that Obama is the president-elect. For the most part, American politics are not heavily discussed here; any discussions take place among foreigners, and the opinions are all over the board. Of the Asian people that I have spoke with, they are happy that Obama won, because they are very anti-war (any war, in general). On our one English speaking television channel, though, there is concern that Obama will hinder free trade between China and U.S.A., hurting the Chinese economy (a concern here, and probably a desire for many in the U.S.). I have no intent to discuss our political views (especially since Evelyn, the true writer of this blog cannot vote for another 16 years), and so I will say simply that I hope it all works out.

Thanks for reading.