Massive Headwound Dan

Here are some picture from the past week. I will explain the small picture above later. First, we received an
Easter package from Gakie and PaPa early in the week. It was a nice treat for the kids, especially because it was a long day prior to opening the package. Here is a quick picture of Evelyn modeling the pencils that Dan received.


Here is a picture of Dan and Evelyn showing off their Easter cards. You may be able to notice that Dan is wearing some sort of head bandage. Earlier that Dan, Jane and I dropped Dan off at school as normal. We then went to work, and we both went to the gym over our lunch period. While we were at the gym, our telephones were in the lockers. Dan's school had called Jane's cell phone several times while the phone sat by itself. I finished working out and went back to school. I was at school when Jane checked her messages. She frantically called me, saying that school called and said that Dan had been in an accident at school. Because of communication problems (and because the Chinese speak very matter-of-factly), the teacher said something to this effect: "Dan was in an accident at school and we couldn't get a hold of you. He has been taken to the hospital and he may have needed stitches. He is back at school now. Please come." Well, readers that know her could image how Jane reacted. She called me and we both rushed to Dan's school. During the five minute bus ride to his school, all I could picture was Dan having a huge gash across his face, which would be poorly stitched up by a Chinese doctor in a dingy hospital. I got to his school first to find him sleeping (as were all of the kids; it was nap time). It turns out that Dan was underneath a jungle gym and stood up quickly, hitting
the top of his head on an iron bar. It caused a small cut on the top of his head. I think Dan calmly reported it to the teacher, who then freaked out and took Dan to the hospital to make sure he was ok. At the hospital, they shaved a small patch of Dan's hair, inspected the cut and cleaned it, putting a whole-head bandage on top of it. When I got to his school and saw him sleeping with the bandage, I thought it could be pretty bad. It turns out that it was just a small cut and Dan was perfectly fine. The teachers and principal were very concerned and upset, and Dan could have cared less. I guess it was a pretty lucky situation, but after the fact it is a bit funny as well. (This explains the small picture at the top. There was a Saturday Night Live skit in the early nineties called Massive Headwound Harry. Harry had a huge gash in his head, exposing his brains. When he showed up to a party, he lied down because he was feeling woozy. The dog then took that opportunity to eat his brains. I tried to get the video, which is pretty funny, but I could not get it in China. We can laugh after the fact that no dogs ate any of Dan's brains).

Here is a good shot of Dan in his head bandage, which he had to wear for two days. He is intentionally making a silly face, acting as if he was dazed and confused from a concussion.

Here is a random picture of Etain, who thought that we were not taking enough pictures of her during the week.

Here are Evelyn and Etain, taking a break from annoying and fighting each other to enjoy a loving sisterly moment.

Etain woke up one morning with a bit of diaper rash, so she enjoyed a warm bath in our bathroom sink. Jane took that opportunity to make it a Kodak moment.

Here is Dan playing on the playground outside of his school. He is still wearing his head bandage. That day he dressed himself in camouflage. His teachers really love him, and they asked us if it was ok if they bought him a present (for no reason, they asked us this before he hit his head). We said ok, and they bought him these bright yellow shoes. They are pretty cool, but I think this ensemble makes him look like he is trying to escape from a mental institution. I tried to get a picture of him hiding in the bushes and looking suspicious, but he was not in the mood to do that much acting.

Here is a picture of Dan and his friend Kevin playing on the playground.

Here are the kids playing with a nice Golden Retriever in the lawn near Dan's school. The lawn is in the apartment complex across the street, and it is one of the few lawns in China. It is unique in that people are allowed to hang out on it. As a result, on nice days, there are usually a dozen or so families hanging out while their kids run around. This dog is owned by one of the people that live near the lawn, and it is a really cool dog (I think it was the dog that I saw earlier carrying a bag of groceries in its mouth). It loves to be petted, and it sits nicely for the kids, who love to pet it. I think it is also funny because it looks a lot like the dog that ate Massive Headwound Harry's brains. (I don't know why it isn't loading correctly).

When Dan went to the hospital, they shaved a small hole in his hair to inspect the cut. As a result, his hair looked a little odd. We decided to give him a buzz cut, but we ended up leaving a bit of hair for a mohawk. This was a true buzz cut, I even got my razor out at the end a shaved the sides of his head. Here we are in an action shot of the hair cut.

Here is the final product. People here now think he looks like David Beckham.

Here is another picture, showing the small wound on his head that caused such a panic for everyone at his school.

Here Dan is, striking a more presentable pose.










Below is a video of Dan taken the night after he went to the hospital. He was watching Kung Fu Panda, and he found parts of the movie especially funny. He was laughing so hard at times that he couldn't breath. We had cause to be a bit worried that he had a concussion and was going crazy, but all was well; this is normal laughing for Dan when he thinks something is particularly funny, such as animated slapstick comedy.

As of writing this, Mizzou is beating Memphis by 12 with 8 minutes left to play. Hopefully I will not have to re-edit this later to say that MU lost. I'll write later when we have more updates. Zaijian.

Here are a few picture from the last week or so. To the right is a picture of the girls enjoying their suckers. There is a small shop across the street from us, and they are always happy to see us because they know that we will buy suckers every time we are in the vicinity. At 5 mao (about 6 cents), they are not a bad deal to keep the kids happy.

Here is a lunch that we had the other week at a Muslim noodles restaurant. Jane and Dan had noodles (la mien), pictured in the top left. I had fried noodles (chow mien) with onion. Evelyn and Etain had joudzas (dumplings) and qing cai (chin-tsai = vegetables; like collard greens). Hot tea finished off the meal. Here are Dan and Jane enjoying their meals. Jane has jidan (egg) on her noodles. Jidan la mien (noodles with egg) is probably my favorite meal in China.

When we were on our way to lunch (at the small restaurant that we eat at about twice per week), I snapped this picture from across the street. It is a restaurant preparing for the dinner rush. All of the staff line up every day to prepare for work. They go over their duties for the day. Sometimes you will see the group of them doing exercises or dances or songs. It is pretty interesting, and just about every bigger restaurant, salon or store does it.

We had a three-day weekend these past few days. On Thursday I went out bowling with some of the other teachers while Jane got to bed early. My bowling is not as good as it use to be, but I can pretty much average a 150 game now. On Friday Jane and I had a movie date night, in which we watched downloaded movies on our computer. On Saturday we had a few people over to our place for a Chinese version of a pot luck dinner. We had bamboo shoots, fruit, spicy peanuts and a dish that seemed similar to a beef stew back home. Here are Evelyn and I playing a losing hand of Uno. Below is the group playing Uno. Evelyn and I are on the right, with Jenny to our left. To Jenny's left is Martin, who is a math teacher from Australia. He has been living and teaching in China for many years, and he dates Sara, the Chinese woman to his left. Dan played next to Sara, teaching her how to play (He may have taught her too well; the Chinese are ruthless when it comes to games and competitions. After learning, she kept playing cards that skipped or penalized Dan).

On Sunday we all woke up and wanted to get out of the house. It was a bit damp and cold, however, so we did not want to go very far. After Etain woke up from her morning nap, we headed a few blocks down the street to a Japanese restaurant for an all you can eat lunch. It was a good deal, as the kids really enjoy sushi. Here is Evelyn enjoying some shrimp rolls.

Here is Etain enjoying the strap of her high chair. (Side note: Etain has spoken her first distinctive words within the past week, other than mama or baba. She now says 'mao' and 'gou' (pronounced GO), which are cat and dog in Chinese.)

Evelyn and I eating the last of the Japanese food that we stuffed ourselves with. Everyone went home and took a good nap after this meal.

Jane and the older two eating their dishes. On the far right is grilled eggplant, which was eaten by everyone but me.

Here are the kids with the wait staff. Our family ate in our own private room, separated from the main room by the Japanese-style paper doors that you can see in the background.

On Friday Evelyn got to have a special day with her mom, while Dan was at school and Etain was at home with me. The two of them went out shopping for clothes and for some kids products. Here is Evelyn eating some chicken nuggets at McDonalds. (This is a food that she could not eat when we left the U.S., because of the breading on the nuggets. She tolerates them well now.)

Here are the kids playing on the playground across the street from us near Dan's school. Dan is on the right, Etain is standing under the bars. On the bars are some kids from France and Israel. With the nice weather coming back, this playground and the large grassy area behind it have been a popular place for people to hang out in the afternoons after school.

Here are Jane and I at a local pub on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day. Jane arranged a special night out on that day for me. About 50 or so of our friends came out that night, though only about 5 or so knew anything about St. Patrick. This picture was probably taken after a few pints of relatively cheap Chinese beer.

Here are Dan and Jane standing outside our apartment. Though it was cold, the trees have started to bloom in the past day or so.

Here we are back at the pub on St. Patrick's Day. I am on the right, next to Fitz, a math and English teacher from Trinidad (now living in Canada). To his right is Alex, who is the husband of a teacher from France. He works in the steel business.

Well, I have to run off to class. More has happened since adding these pictures, so I will get up another post very shortly with plenty of new pictures. Zaitian = goodbye.

Change in Weather

Hi all. Sorry it has been so long since posting. Today's weather was great, it was nearly seventy degrees. I am hoping the nice weather is here to stay. Yesterday was Sunday, which meant no work for us (we worked on Saturday). The weather was nice so we walked to a grocery store about 20 minutes from our house. On our way back, right in front of us a minivan turned in front of a scooter, which ran into the side of the van. It was a relatively low speed accident, and I didn't think much of it. Jane, however, noticed that on the scooter was a woman and her baby, about one year old. She ran over and helped them up, and both of them appeared unhurt. Jane then yelled at the guy to watch where he was going. He apologized, but you could tell that he felt 'inconvenienced' by the accident. Drivers here are pretty bad, many people have only recently gotten their licenses after never driving before. Couple that with the general feeling that they own the road, and there will be accidents. (It is really annoying, but it seems like if someone can afford a car, they are better than the ones who can not, and therefore they always deserve the right of way). Well, with everyone appearing OK, we headed home, took naps and played the rest of the day.
There were two other weird things that I saw. This morning I saw a couple walking back from the fruit stand, and walking behind them, carrying a bag of fruit in its mouth, was their golden retriever dog. There is nothing specifically Chinese about this, but it was a pretty amazing sight. Another thing was when I was walking to the bus stop. A cab driver pulled over to the side of the road, while his fare waited in the back seat, so that he could pee in the bushes. This is China.
St. Patrick's Day starts here in 5 hours. Jane has planned a night out at a local pub. I would say only one out of five hundred people know anything about St. Patrick or St. Patrick's Day. If we take any pictures tomorrow night, I will be sure to post them here. Regardless, here are a few random pictures from the past week or so.

Above is a picture of Jane and a few others whom we went out with the other week. The bald Chinese guy to her left owns DM Pub, a bar that we go to sometimes (He has asked her to drum up business for him). We went there and Jane met the other people in the picture, I believe the guy is from Switzerland. This picture was taken well after I left (I was feeling like I had the flu). We are going back to the pub tonight for St. Patrick's Day.


Here are pictures of Evelyn and Dan. With all of the toys that we have bought here in China, they still favor this old toy from the United States, in which they cook us imaginary meals.

Here is Etain dressed up like a pretty pretty princess.

Here is a shot of Evelyn acting tough. She is actually acting out a scene from "Annie", when Annie is about to beat up some boys for picking on her dog. In the movie, Annie makes this face and says "Anybody else... Then get lost". Evelyn does the exact same face and the exact same line. Very funny.

Here is Etain enjoying the nicer weather out on the playground in our apartment complex.

Dan went to a birthday party the other day for Anetka, the girl from the Check Republic who came to his party (pictured above at the far left). Dan wore his tie, since it was a special day.

Dan and Etain playing in our toybox. Last week, we did a spring cleaning of our apartment. The toybox received a major cleaning.

Here is a picture of the kids playing video games at an arcade in the mall in downtown Changzhou. It is very large, with an indoor skating rink and two floors of games. Dance Dance revolution is the most popular game. The people that do it are excellent, the dance for about a half hour without ever making a mistake.

Here are the girls hanging out. Evelyn is in one of her self-chosen outfits. Etain was halfway through getting dressed.

Here is a newer complex across the street from us. This picture was taken from inside our complex. We live in a pretty nice, upcoming area of town. As I think I mentioned before, Jane says it reminds her of Manhattan.

Here are the kids hanging out on one of the sculptures in our complex. Between the eight buildings are small lawns. Our kids like to play there, as they are some of the few lawns in Changzhou. I don't know if this is allowed, but they do it anyway.

This picture is not very good because of the odd lighting, but it is a picture of Jane and Dan buying fruit at the fruit stand near our house. This fruit stand is less than one block from our house, and we can see it from our kitchen window. Unfortunately, there is a canal between our place and this stand, and to get to it, we have to take a seven our eight block route to get to the bridge crossing the canal.

Well, the weather has been great for two days. It is about 75-80 degrees. Hopefully we can pack away our winter clothes for good. We will try to take pictures tonight and I will post again soon.

A Few Pictures of the Girls (Sorry, Dan-Fans)

I am sorry that there have not been many pictures or postings up here lately, but the weather has still been pretty bad. Today was the first day in about two weeks that it was not raining. It was still cold though. As a result, we have not been doing too many things that are picturesque. Here are a few shots that we have taken though. The other day Jane went to a ladies luncheon with about 15 or so women that are in her group of friends. Here is a picture of that, with women from France, Spain, China and Turkey. They ate at a Thai restaurant that we like, where, as you can see, you are served family style.


Here is the Transformer Bumblebee, dressed for a nice Sunday stroll.

Here are Evelyn and Etain playing with the fish bowl that they received from Grandma. It is one of Etain's favorite things.

Here is Etain enjoying her chocolate cracker sandwich snack.

Evelyn wearing one of her get-ups that she picked out.

Here is Etain showing off her big eyes, which are quite rare here in China. I think this is her "It surely wasn't me!" look.

Again, here is Evelyn showing off her fashion sense. She is wearing sunglasses which we received in a packet from Gakie today. (Colleen, Dan also received your birthday card on 3/3/09. He loved it. Thanks.)

Things are going well; we feel quite busy lately. I have agreed to teach extra classes during the day so that I can get a bit of overtime. I now teach chemistry, biology, math and reading. I also sit in on an entry-level Chinese class each day, which I am really enjoying. I can not speak or listen very well, but I like trying to understand the characters, so my reading and writing is (slowly) coming along. Jane has taken up some classes at Dan's school, teaching one or two hours per week. It pays pretty well, and it is nice for her to teach Dan, but I think it is a lot of work, both in class and in preparing for class (I could never teach little kids). She also gets called every once in a while to give seminars, which she is giving this Sunday on women's issues. On top of that, she is helping out a club nearby that is trying to cater to foreigners, she is talking with a company about doing some work in Shanghai, and she is working on making goods for a small business that she and I are starting (I also failed to mention that she is trying to organize a soccer league for foreign kids). It sounds like a lot, but that is the way she operates.

I am hoping (and for some reason personally expecting) that the weather will change next week. Once it does, we will be out and about a lot more, which will mean more pictures.

Until then, we wish you shenti hao (good health).