Category: China Trip

Kiki came for my tutoring today and we talked again about how totally SILLY the dialogues and stuff are in the text book. Here’s an example of the insanity. In lesson 3 (which is just past saying Hello and how are you?) you are supposed to learn the word for ‘reporter’, that’s right, reporter. Now in lesson 11 I just learned the terms for all the types of money and what they look like. The people using this textbook are supposed to be LIVING in China. Don’t you think knowing about money would come a whole lot sooner than learning the word for reporter? It’s just too funny.

Kiki brought Nadia a bunch of Chinese children’s DVDs as a gift. She also brought her some year of the dog business card sized calendars for Nadia that are too cute. For me she brought a book of her grandfather’s paintings that have been turned into postcards. What a gift!!!! I will treasure them. She told me last week that she misses him very much. They are really beautiful paintings of fish. That is what I will be doing in Week 4 of class and Jenny told me they are hard and now that I have looked at these, I can see why.

Several days ago Kiki and Jing invited us to dinner at their house tonight. I was very excited and so was Kiki – she’s been talking with me about it all week. We wanted to take something for a hostess gift and I was told that a dessert or fruit would be good, but nothing was expected. We decided to give them 4 Wonderbars (made in Texas) and I went to the pastry shop to get a cake. These cakes are so beautiful that it was really hard to decide on one!

We headed over to their apartment by bus, and let me tell you, that was an adventure in itself at rush hour. Kiki told us what bus to get on and what stop to take – thank goodness she wrote that down. We got on the bus. Here is how they work in Beijing. A) you have a driver. His job is to drive as fast as possible, stop for 3 seconds to let people on, and honk the horn really loud at the pedestrians and bicycles. B) you have a woman in the middle of the bus next to the back door who collects the money from the people who don’t have passes. She collects this after the bus is moving…none of that while on the 3 second stop.

Now I went through this once this week with Kiki in the middle of the week to go to the Tea House. Except for getting on and off in a hurry, it was a mellow event. Tonight we had as Mike said, “The Little Dictator looking out over her domain.” We got on the bus, she saw Mike with Nadia in the carrier and starts yelling at this guy to give up his seat. She then tells Mike to SIT! I give her the money and she asks where we are going. I show her the paper. She nods and gives me the tickets. Next stop. A seat opens up, so I take it. About 600 people jam onto the bus at this point. 7 get off. Next stop another 300 people get on, but at least 100 get off so it’s practically roomy inside. All the while I am trying to protect the cake! As we are getting close to the stop the lady tells Mike to get up!! And me to get up!! And she tells this other girl to take my seat and get out of the way. Then another person takes Mike’s seat. All right…..I am psyching myself out….we only have 2.5 seconds to push our way to the door and get off before the crazy bus driver takes off honking down the road. Oh yeah, don’t drop the cake! As we are standing up – jammed with all the people I say, “Oh the humanity!!!” The bus stops….we jam our way out and off the bus. I am laughing at this point because the whole thing was so crazy. If I could have got the camera out it would have been an awesome shot to see my view looking to the back of the bus. But sadly the sardine can didn’t allow me to get to the contents of my backpack.

Now we got to Kiki’s house and they were waiting for us in the courtyard area and took us up to their apartment. It was bigger than the one we are in and decorated very nicely. It was the same style though…a long rectangle with the rooms all branching off one area. Tiny, tiny kitchen. Bathroom with no shower curtain (why I ask you? why?) But, if I moved to China, their place is how I could see our apartment being. The place we are in now is just a rental, so it doesn’t have those homey touches or nice furniture. We got there and visited for a bit and Kiki served up some of her tea for us. She did the same kinds of things they did at the tea house which was fun – as she said, her set is just smaller. She had some strawberries out and Nadia had a great time playing with them rather than eating them.

Then Kiki started cooking and I had to go over and watch her with the wok (or whatever they call it here) and I was practically drooling from the smell and how fresh the veggies looked. She made snap peas with garlic, Chinese cabbage with mushrooms, pork and monkey-head-mushroom soup, English cucumbers stir fry, and rice. She also made a fabulous potato, onion and spicy bacon fry with pepper. Everything was delicious and I ate a ton. She had strawberry yogurt for Nadia which was really sweet. I was very excited about tonight because we were going to someone’s home for dinner. That was way more fun than going to a restaurant because you are able to see how people live and spend time with them in their home.

After dinner we all just watched Nadia. What’s new, right? Nadia was having a grand old time and Kiki said something about her dancing and so I started singing. Nadia started the toddler riverdance and I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. I have been working with her on it, but this was the first time that I have seen her really go to town and keep doing it for a long time. Nadia also liked their kitties, and one was almost as big as her! We all visited a little while longer and then we headed home in a cab because it was Nadia’s bed time. Oh, and Kiki gave Nadia one more Chinese DVD when we got there tonight.

Now about the cab. The guy took us right to our apartment building and as we were driving up to it he pointed to the building and I shouted out, “Si!” Then Mike swooped in and told the guy in Chinese, “Here.” I paid and got out and Mike started teasing about me saying “Si.” He was like, “We’re not in Mexico.” At that point I was just laughing hysterically. I just knew I needed to answer the guy in a different language, but the Spanish just popped out! That was a great funny way to end our evening out!

First off – I was sleepy last night and forgot to say what the food was. LOL. The first one is the pizza hot-dog. The second has dough like a croissant rolled up with thin layers of hot dog and cheese. The third is like an eclair, but the pastry part is made of cake rolled up with cream in the middle and topped with chocolate. YUM!!!

Here is my 3rd Chinese painting. Mike thought it was great and that I seem to be really good at this style of painting and I didn’t know. I have never tried to do any type of painting and I am finding through this that I really like it. My Grandma Johns paints with oil and if you have been to our house, you have seen her stuff. My sister Tahni paints too and she made the wonderful painting for Nadia’s room that was on the blog in the past.

Here is my teacher Jenny.

Here are some shots of me on my practice flowers.

Jenny showing me how to make the petals. On the left side is the traditional Chinese black ink that is used in most Chinese painting. A little goes a long way.

At lunch time we took the subway over to Wal-Mart to pick up some presents for Savanah at New Day. I just loved her and she is the oldest at the home…if you look at the photos from there, she is the one who was sitting in Mike’s lap while he was taking pictures of Emma. We also got some crayons and other gifts for the rest of the kids. We were searching for some coloring books for the kids when we came across a bunch of children’s books. There is a set of 10 called “Happy Baby” that has all the items in Chinese and English. We went through them all and found all 10 and bought them for Nadia along with some other children’s books. Total cost for all 13? — $11.90. It would cost that much for 2 at home. 4 if you hit Half Price books and could actually find a whole set. The prices here are crazy!

P.S. Kiki didn’t give me any homework today except to watch the DVD that goes with my textbook. The lessons introduced about 50 new words this week alone and they are all starting to sound the same to me. Hee hee.

Lots of photos in today’s album.

Today Kiki, Nadia and I went to a tea house. I really wanted to do this on our adoption trip, but it was such a whirlwind, that time got away from me. And Mike is not into tea, so I would have been sort of out there drinking it on my own. Kiki loves tea, so I asked her to take Nadia and I – my treat. So she found the best one near her house and we took the bus over there today after Nadia got up from her first nap. When we got to the place there were some businessmen leaving and they told Kiki that her baby was cute or something. And she said it was my baby. And they wanted to know how? She told them Nadia was adopted. One of the men gave me the 2 thumbs up and a big smile. They said she was very pretty.

The name of the tea house is MingZhiGu and it means “The Tea Valley”

Kiki said that we could sit anywhere we wanted and so I picked a table I thought was neat compared to the others. Some of the choices could be closed off for a meeting. It dawned on me pretty quick that babies are not frequent guests at tea houses. Kiki’s husband joined us and I asked about it. They said that tea houses are for conducting business. Pretty soon after that we heard yelling coming from one of the other areas. I told Kiki the woman sounded mad and Kiki said she was yelling at the other person saying, “You owe me 10,000 yuan!” (that’s about $1400). The girl who served the tea got a big kick out of Nadia and I just set her in one of the adult chairs and the girl came running back with a big silk pillow for Nadia to sit on. Nadia thought that was fun and I kept telling her that it was, “Her big girl pillow.” Then she would pat it with her little hand. Too cute!

The girl came back with the tea menu and Kiki translated it for me, except the ones that she thought were too expensive! So I chose one that was not a floral flavor that they said was slightly sweet. So the girl went off to prepare our choice. She came back with the tray and showed me the tea. I just said, “Okay” since I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. It was like looking at the wine bottle or something. So as the girl starts the progress, Kiki is rapidly telling me all the steps. I took a couple of videos during the service, but the rest were photos.

First the girl brought out the boiling hot water and poured it on our cups, the tea pot and everything else on the tray. Kiki said this was to get everything warm. Then the girl put some hot water in the tea pot with the tea. Then she dumped all that out immediately. Kiki said this was to remove the dust from the tea. Then she poured more boiling water into the teapot and let it sit just a few seconds. Then she poured it into the serving pot. Once that was done she poured tea into the tall skinny cup, placed the drinking cup on top upside down and put it on our serving tray right side up. So the tea was trapped in the taller cup. Kiki told me to pick up the tall cup releasing the tea into the drinking cup and then smell the tall cup. She asked if I could smell a hint of flower and the tea flavor. I said yes.

The next step was to show me how to hold the cup and to tell me to finish the whole thing in 3 sips. I did this and then the serving girl refilled our cups and left us alone. Nadia was watching all of this in fascination from her big silk pillow. Kiki asked me on the second cup if I could taste the sweetness. I said yes, but I also told her that is was so different from tea in America. I told her about sweet tea and making sun tea and the color of tea in the south compared to what we were being served. Kiki’s husband came a little bit after our second cup and he had some too and we all talked. It was very nice and “foo-foo”. I found it funny that Nadia was such a sensation in the tea house, but I have to say that I was very relieved that it wasn’t filled with businessmen trying to work some important deals. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have Jessica P. there with me 🙂

We visited for a while longer and then Nadia was ready to get down and check things out. The manager of the tea house said for her to come over and play this little instrument. Nadia thought that was awesome and really had a good time playing with the thing. The waitress tried to show her a little doll with flowers and was telling her she could touch it and Nadia kept looking back at me. I think if it had been a truck she would have taken the thing and ran, but instead she kept poking the dolls nose, but she wouldn’t hold it. The bill came and Kiki looked it over and then told them we wouldn’t pay it without a discount. So the girl came back and said, “12% off.” And Kiki said okay and they told me the total. That cracked me up!

Kiki sent us home in a cab and the guy stopped right next to the pastry shop. So Nadia and I ran in there to grab some lunch. I took a photo of my 3 favorite things from this pastry shop. YUM! I got Nadia down for a nap and then headed over for my Chinese painting, but that will be a post for tomorrow.

And finally, don’t worry about us and the whole police thing. It was a lot more mellow today. We registered with the local police when we first got here, so we have little forms in our passports in case we ever get stopped. It states where we are living and how long we are going to be here.

Today Kiki came to tutor me and told me that I am doing great on the pronunciation, but still need to work on the grammar. It’s a killer. Then we started the next lesson and it added about 30 new words. I foresee that the lessons are just going to get more intense over the next 2 weeks. At least I finished my homework for today 🙂

Nadia had her blanket wrapped around her like a towel and so I told her she could make it a cape. I got one of the clothespins for the laundry and set her up. She looked so cute it just cracked me up. Then I asked her if she wanted to make a cape with her “baby” and she nodded. So we got cute photos of Super Nadia! In between naps I decided to take Nadia on a walk in a new direction from where we usually wander. I found that you don’t have to walk far from our area to find a more poverty stricken area. I snapped a couple of photos, but from a distance because I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. You can see in the background there is a lady selling fruit and veggies and she just has them all laying out on the ground. So as people walk by, the dirt gets all kicked up in it. Down that little street there were a bunch of tiny (like 2 tables) restaurants or just people with a burner out cooking food and trying to get people to buy their offerings.

We walked a little farther down Chengfu Lu past Microsoft and found a bunch of little stores. There were clothing places, eyeglass places, barber shops, a place with DVD’s for $1.80 each, another little grocery store, an ice cream place and a store that sells hair clips and makeup. I went in there and bought Nadia some cute clippys with frogs on them. When we got back to the apartment, she wanted all but one of them in and I tried to get a photo, but the photos didn’t come out good because she was moving around a lot. I took this photo of “Wall Street English” next to Deutsche Bank at the bottom of the Microsoft building because I was entertained that they are next to each other. In the Lotus Center the English place has a little kiosk set up trying to recruit people everyday.

Another thing I want to comment on, but didn’t take a photo of for obvious reasons, was the amount of police that were out yesterday and today. I would think some of you have seen the news about the riot in Tibet over some anniversary of a protest 40 years ago or something. China shut that down pretty quickly as I am sure they don’t want bad news coming out so close to the Summer Games. Yesterday I told Mike that the cops were EVERYWHERE Nadia and I went. Even on the little side alley where the playground is. They were on every street corner and their cars were parked up on the curbs. Today was the same, everywhere you looked there were cops out. Mike and I think it’s because of the area we are in – The University District and very close to the Lama Temple. I guess they just want to make it clear to the college students and everyone else that they are watching what is going on very closely. It is sort of a surreal experience, not like I feel like anything is going to happen, but I have just never seen that kind of thing in Texas.