China Team Building

Scott's office consists of one American (Scott) and about 20 Chinese. They did team building last August where they went on a river trip and then ended up at a farm with deer. There was a nice lady who gave a presentation about the incredible properties of deer products (all in Chinese, of course). This is the kind of thing that makes it so darn fun to live in China. Below are some comments that Scott sent to me from his Blackberry during the presentation.

"So we ended up at a farm that has deer. The lady is pitching the benefits of eating thinly sliced horns, how to tell which are good quality and things like that. She just said not to put them in the refrigerator. She said in the fridge they only keep a year and a half, but in the cupboard they keep 5 years. Wow, that's special stuff. Maybe we should put some in food storage.

"Next to discuss: Lu4bian1 -deer you don't want to know what part of the male anatomy. I guess they put it in alcohol like the worm in tequila."

He ended up learning that men love this last part because it increases their libido. :)

Depeng Fortress

I finally found some historic places in Shenzhen that are interesting! Shenzhen is such a new city that it is hard to find old places that show the great China architecture and history.

Below is me at a Hakka Enclosure. The Hakka minority migrated to southern China hundreds of years ago. Their name means "Guest people" because of this. They are very numerous and have since migrated to Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US and many other places. It would not be surprising if some of the chinese people you knew were Hakka.

They built their homes in clusters. Some were round and some square. The round ones remind me of stadiums because they are 3-4 stories tall and are open in the middle to a courtyard. The one below is square and held many families. It had room after room of old tools and furniture: baskets to sort rice, simple grain grinders, typical chinese 4-poster-type bed, wooden wedding chair, and even a raincoat that was made of feathers and bamboo leaves sewn together in a cape to be worn over their shoulders.

Here I am at Dapeng Fortress. This is an ancient walled village with the arched entrances on each side with a tower and drum. I love the view of the roof tops from the tower.

Next, in true Chinese style, I wrote a wish down on a paper, hooked it to a mandarin orange for weight, and now am throwing it into the wishing tree. Only if your wish lands in the tree without falling to the ground does your wish come true.

I had a great throw. My wish went in towards the top of the tree, but continued to fall down through all the branches. Luckily, it caught on the very lowest branch! My wish is the one on the right (not the withered one on the left).

Here are two super cute girls who were running through the town playing. We stopped them and chatted with them for a while -- all in Chinese of course! The little one on the right finally smiled at me as we turned and left.


Some ladies in the town were sewing the tops of fabric shoes. I asked if they were for sale to tourists or for their own use. They said they were for their own use! So interesting. All in all it was a great day.

Obsession with Cute

Asia has an obsession with 'cute'. Or is it that we westerners have a complex about what is 'cool' or 'macho'?

This is from a blog I was reading but it captured my exact thoughts on the matter.....

"Do you all know just how darn cute everything and everyone is here in Asia? They all have a thing for what we would consider little girl stuff, that includes adults, teens, & kids of both sexes. It is a weird cultural aberration that I don’t get. Reason I bring this up now is the packet of paper napkins we received at the restaurant - they came in a plastic folder decorated with cutesy Hello Kitty characters. It is common to see, dangling from a backpack or purse, a colorful trinket or two. Truck drivers line up stuffed critters and toys on their dashboards. Good luck charms dangle from rear view mirrors. T-shirts abound decorated with spangles and ever so sweet sayings. Squeaky shoes for toddlers are hip. Restaurants have whimsical names like Dumbo or The Hystevical Wave or The Happiness Cafe. Are Westerners just too serious? Did the Puritans strip away our fun loving souls? I think I wear too much black. " http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-15376.html

Innocence

I subbed 2 hours for the HS choir teacher this morning. When I came home, I had to laugh when I saw my babysitter's shoes on the front porch. (The Chinese always take off their shoes before entering)
It's so funny because she is the nice 40-something Chinese lady who I'M SURE has no idea it's a 'playboy' bunny logo. For all she knows, it's a cute little rabbit...And this isn't the first time I've seen this logo around. I've seen it in Wal-mart on a shoebox, on kids clothing, etc.
You just end up smiling to yourself and musing, "I wonder if I should tell them what that is?"

Zachary's Personality

We went to the neighborhood Kodak Shop because we had to get Visa photos taken to submit with our application for China visa renewal. As always, we had onlookers as we marched in with our 5 small kids. The older ones went smoothly as they sat on the stool, backs straight, looked at the camera and gave a stiff smile. Then we got to Zach (almost 4 yrs old). There was NO WAY he was going to sit still on the stool and look serious on one side of the room, while everyone else was crowded at the other end trying to make him smile. I'm not sure he completely understood why we all stayed at the far side of the room, but it was like a dream come true for him to be able to have such a captive audience and do whatever he wanted to do. He noticed the more he acted silly, the harder we tried to motion, cajole, plead and beg for him to sit up straight and look normal. He had the time of his life! When all was said and done, the camera guy gave us a CD with a few of Zach's poses so that we can pull them out whenever we want to be reminded of his funloving, crazy sense of humor. By the way, I never knew he could cross his eyes until now! Enjoy the photos below..................

Typhoon

We had a typhoon here a couple of days ago. Now when we Americans hear 'typhoon', we think of a massive storm with a possible tidal wave. Unfortunately, it's not quite that exciting here in China. The Chinese words for typhoon are "tai feng" which means 'big wind'. They rate these typhoons, or strong winds, from 1 to 8 in severity, 8 being the biggest. This means typhoons can range anywhere from regular rain with some gusts of wind all the way up to a hurricane.

This past 'typhoon' was a 3 which means it had strong wind. Maybe Californians would've been impressed, but being a Texan, it was nothing! (does this mean things are truly bigger and better in TX like the saying goes -- even storms?)

If we were in the mid-West, you would've said to your friend about this 'typhoon', "Hey, did you notice that strong wind last night with the (regular) rain?" They may or may not have noticed it or thought it noteworthy to even mention! I used to get excited and run outside to play in Texas during a 'typhoon' like this #3.

I (unfortuately) took Zach to Disneyland on Tuesday and they'd closed the outside rides because this typhoon was "coming in the next 24 hours". There was no rain and no wind, but it was 'coming'! They are very conservative here...maybe because so many people have housing that is more susceptible to the elements than our US houses? or maybe so everyone can rush home and get their laundry off the lines that hang out their windows and not lose their clothes? I really don't know.....

We are fine for those of you who may have heard about our 'big typhoon' and enjoyed a nice mid-western-style rain. It came down pretty hard -- you could hear it from indoors, you'd get soaked if you didn't use an umbrella. But it wasn't anything like the storms in Texas where I remember having the windshield wipers on as fast as they would go, rain coming down in sheets, and BARELY being able to see the car in front of you.

Olympic Opening Ceremonies and Nutcracker on Ice

I missed the opening ceremony of the olympics when I was in the states this summer so I bought a DVD of it. WOW! It was neat even though there were a few slow spots. I was impressed how it appealed to my western taste, but had so many Chinese elements in it. I reminded me of many Chinese shows I have seen here, but was missing (thankfully) the loud MC blasting the dramatic chinese speaker.

I took my three oldest kids (10, 9 and 7) to a Russian troupe doing Nutcracker on Ice. Don't know why it was in Sept. but we'll take it anytime we can get it. It was different, pretty, and fun for the kids. Life is so different for the chinese now that it was 15 years ago. When Scott was here in the early 90s, he only saw gray and blue clothing without much variety. Now, here I am sitting in the theater thinking, "I am in China (although Shenzhen functions capitalist), watching Nutcracker on Ice with people wearing elaborate costumes and sticking their bare ballet legs into the air. This never would've been allowed back in the 70s or 80s. It would've been considered evil Western influence". China has come so far and the government seems to be trying to hold a balance between keeping things stable and letting the people take care of themselves.

They do block some internet sites, like Wikapedia and blogspot (although we can post, but just not see). These have been unblocked for the past couple of months (for the olympics?) so we'll see what happens when the ParaOlympics are over next month if they revert back.