A Nice Late Christmas

Hello. I am at work now typing on our new computer. We have exams right now in all of our classes. I do not give any exams today, so I basically have most of the day off. As a result, I can play around with a few things here, such as how the pictures are loaded. Two days ago, we received a package in the mail from my mom full of Christmas gifts. The kids tore into them and it was nice to get some gifts a bit after their ones from Santa have already become a bit stale (to them). Evelyn, still in the Christmas spirit, wore her Santa outfit. As you can see above, Dan received a Game Boy Advance, along with a few games. He has been playing them religiously every night. The girls also received a lot of dress up clothes, which they really enjoy. Evelyn has been wearing her pair of play high-heels constantly. Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying their toys, which we are thankful for.

Here is Princess Etain, dressed in her royal garb. Interestingly, she hates having barrettes in her hair, but she loves wearing her tiaras. I guess barrettes are not fancy enough.

We also received a doctor's uniform. Both Dan and Evelyn really liked it. When Evelyn put
it on, we thought that she really looked like a
physician (except for the pink princess high heels).

In addition to looking like a doctor, she also looks like any Chinese woman walking down the street. It is very common to see people wearing these masks to cover the mouth and nose. In the warmer months, people wear them so as to not get others sick. I think this is also true in Winter, but I think they wear them as well for an extra layer of protection from the cold. It has gotten noticeably colder in the past few days. It rained for the first time in a long time a couple days ago, and ever since there has been a cold dampness in the air. This morning when I walked to school, there were very small snowflakes falling, though they would melt immediately. Snow is quite uncommon in this area of China (We are on the same latitude, roughly, as Jacksonville, FL or Austin, TX, and so weather in these places is similar. As a result, we are always just a bit warmer than in St. Louis). According to accounts, last Winter there was a foot of snow that fell here, and the entire city shut down for about a week (which is not too terribly surprising to me; imagine trying to ride your bike to work in a foot of snow).

Here is a picture of Dan wearing his Star Wars costume that he received. The legs were very tight on him, so it took a bit of work to get it on him. After it got on, it stayed on, and he wore it to bed that night. The costume is great because lately he has been using construction paper to cut out masks of different Star Wars characters, so I am sure it will get a lot of use.

Yesterday, when I woke up for school I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. However, no water came out of the faucet. When I turned on the shower, a few drips did come out, which I used for brushing. We found out when Jiu Jie got to our place that our entire building's water was turned off for the entire day, to be put back on at midnight. Luckily we had a full bottle of drinking water for the girls to use. When we got to school, the water was not working, and we found out that it was not working for any of the other teachers as well. It turns out that the entire Northern part of the city (where we live) had no water. (I assume about 2.5 million people were affected). [Imagine Chicago telling the entire North Side, "Sorry, no water today."] I guess everyone used the bottled water for cooking and cleaning, but what a mess (to make sure you know the extent of the issue, toilets could only flush once, taking half of the day to refill with a slow trickle of water.) Luckily, we cooked a lot of pasta previously, so we had dinner without the need for a lot of cooking or cleaning. As promised, the water was turned back on at midnight; this morning there was water, though it spurted out of the faucets erratically. Hopefully this problem solves itself very soon.

Also, along with the water, another weird thing happened yesterday. I went to my bank to find out all of the deposits and withdrawals that have gone on in the past two months. (We get paid by automatic deposit, but we do not get any receipts or anything, so it is up to us to check that we have been paid enough. (I also worked some overtime, so I wanted to check)). When I got to the bank, they showed me all of Jane's transactions without a problem. When they pulled up my info, though, nothing worked. They could show me my balance, but they could show me no information about my account history. When I asked if they would have it later, they said probably not. I will try again later, but it seems quite possible that that information is simply lost.

These are just two of many different things that happen all of the time. As a foreigner, you are definitely not use to these things happening. But, you are taught that sometimes, you simply have to shrug your shoulders and say "T-I-C; This is China."

Sai chen.