Puppy!

Shortly after coming back to China, we saw a puppy at the local market for sale. He was just what we were looking for - a scrappy little guy with floppy ears. I took the kids to meet him, and he tried to chew on Megan's hair which she found delightful. We weren't prepared to meet him yet so we prayed that if that was the dog for us, he'd be there when we went to get him.

And he's gone.

When Erik called from the market to tell me, I thought, "Wow, we don't even have him yet and already we're going to have to deal with the devastation of losing him." I immediately went on a local vet clinic's website where they post adoptable pets. Someone had just posted this little guy:



His current owner found him on the street when she was out buying a "jian bing" (sort of like an omlette in fried bread) so that's his current name. By her description he is quiet and pleasant, has been dewormed, and comes with a collar and leash and food.

Today our Tao Bao orders (crate, dog bed, training pads) should all arrive and we can pick him up this Friday when the woman who found him is back from a business trip.

So now we just need to know - what to name him??

The Blessing of Sickness

Last Wednesday Megan came into the kitchen and said, "I'm cold and my head hurts!" Sure enough, she had a fever. More troubling was that she had a mild rash on her feet. The next morning, it was covering her stomach. My immediate thought was "hand, foot and mouth disease" which has frequent outbreaks in China, and which had been traveling around the community here. To my knowledge, Megan didn't have any contact with the kids I know who've had it, but apparently you can be a carrier and not know, and we had 5 families at our house on Monday night so it could have been any of them.

Unfortunately, Thursday was a co-op day, and the day when our kids' very close friends returned from a 3 month absence. Being restricted from those activities was torture for Megan, even more so than the high fever or spread of the rash across her body.

When I first called the doctor and described her symptoms, he told me it wasn't HFM but just a viral rash. By the next day, I knew he was wrong (and so did he, when he called to check on her) because ugly blisters had formed on her feet, hands, and in and around her mouth.

By Saturday night, Ethan came in and said, "I'm really tired" with that look feverish kids have. By the morning his throat hurt and he had sores in his mouth. Then last night, I thought, "Wow, my head really hurts!" I don't know that I have HFM because I've been coughing a lot and my nose is getting stuffed up which are not symptoms, but I'm obviously sick.

So what to do? This thing is crazy contagious, like chicken pox contagious. We've cancelled all activities this week and I called my helper to tell her to stay away this week (though unfortunately she was here Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before I realized what Megan really had). She actually told me that if she came and someone from her son's school found out, he would have to stay away from school for 2 weeks!

So at least for the next week, we can't see anyone or go anywhere. I'm a little baffled as to how we are going to get groceries, but aside from that I am actually a little excited about this. Having such an open schedule means we can do all those things that normally get squeezed out - reading for hours, doing crafts (we've already attempted to make a bowl out of tissue paper stuck to a balloon), science experiments, baking, whatever. I'm sure they'll be a certain amount of disinfecting the house and watching Netflix to pass the time thrown in there.

What's most exciting though is that we realized this is the perfect time to get our promised dog! As soon as I feel up to it, there's a little guy at the market we've had our eye on for a couple weeks. Last night I ordered some essentials for him off the internet and they should come within 48 hours. So probably some of today will involve preparing for that.

There's something of a blessing in this I think, if we look at it that way. I think it might be kind of fun (ask me again in about 5 days if I still think that). :)

Xiao Wa Wa

When Megan was a baby, our Chinese friends (and even some of our expat friends) said she looked just like a little doll. She really did too - porcelain white skin, bald head, blue eyes.

Last night, when the McDonald's delivery guy showed up (you know it's been "that kind of day" when Gina resorts to McD's delivery), he saw Megan laying on the couch with her pink cheetah print blanket pulled up to her chin and said, "Wow! She's so beautiful I thought she was a "xiao wa wa" (little doll)!"

Still fooling them after 9 years.

Good Quote for the Day

A friend of mine posted this quote which I love on her blog recently (thanks Tracie!), so I thought I'd repost it this morning:

“It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are—even if we tell it only to ourselves—because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.”

Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

Cultural Insiders

One of the first lessons about living in another culture is the importance of cultural insiders. Initially these are people who speak your language well and ideally have an understanding of your culture too so that they can help you understand during those "What on earth is happening here?" moments.

After awhile, when you have your own language skills, just about anyone who looks friendly can fill this role. I decided that I needed to employ someone for this today at the pool because yesterday something happened that made me go hmmm, and I'm not even talking about that stuff in the locker room.

There are 6 lanes in this pool and like most things in China they were crowded. I saw at least two people in each lane, except one, so I chose that. The man already swimming didn't seem to notice me, or maybe just didn't care, because he kept swimming in the middle of the lane. As a result, despite my best efforts, when we passed each other I accidentally scratched him.

He proceeded to yell at me for a minute, then get out of the pool. I noticed that there were signs on each lane like "learning lane" and "expert lane." I was in the learning lane, so I thought maybe I had done something wrong without knowing. My character reading wasn't good enough to know for sure.

Enter cultural insiders, in the form of two older women sitting off to the side. Today I asked them the meaning of the lanes. They explained, but said they didn't really matter, I could swim wherever. I also asked if I had to wait if there was already someone in the lane. They said no, just swim down one side and back on the other (ah, you mean like how that guy wasn't?).

Armed with this information, I felt more confident. Unfortunately I forgot to ask them about the protocol for when I look up and there's an old man just floating in my lane in a Mickey Mouse tube. I'll save that for next time.

Cultural insiders. Don't attempt new cultural situations without them.

I Stand Corrected

You know how yesterday I posted about the culturally normal, not weird at all friend giving a friend a massage in the locker room? Well, I found out from an American friend today that the woman giving the massage actually is a paid worker.

This makes a lot more sense in one way, but it begs the question - why would you do that in your underwear?

A New Level of Intimacy

Locker rooms are an experience in China. I used to swim at a local university, so I have become accustomed to the, let's call it "freedom" of Chinese women in these places. They have no qualms about walking around for long periods of time totally naked. They also, incidentally, find white foreigners' nakedness fascinating. This proves awkward. I'm used to being on display here, but not THAT much.

So I cover myself in ways that I'm sure they find strange and go about my business. But yesterday at a new pool I was a bit shocked to see a new level of freedom. This pool had massage tables in its locker room. When I was getting ready to leave, there was a woman lying on her back on the table, fully exposed. Her friend stood next to her in her underwear with a jar of something that she was rubbing liberally everywhere on the naked woman. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. This massage lasted through me changing and drying my hair and was still going strong when I left.

Honestly I think it's pretty healthy to just not care what people think of you and to be completely comfortable with your body. But this still leaves me shaking my head. I just can't imagine doing that with my friends, and I have great friends!

Fabric Market

Fabric Market

I wish I could sew, but I can't. My mom tried to teach me but I seem to have retained only the ability to sew a straight line which would be super helpful if my family and I were two dimensional people.

Vera Bradley prints - some of them.

But they're not, so when a friend invited me to go to this huge fabric market on the south side of town my main motivation was, "girlfriend time, photo ops, adventure to previously unvisited part of city." It didn't even occur to me that I might want to buy fabric.

It should have, because then I might have been prepared for what I saw. The first shop we entered had about every Vera Bradley fabric available. I pondered buying some to have a skirt made for Megan, but remembered that she has three skirts and that might be capacity for our little girl who hates dressing up. Instead I bought a remnant of some material that said, "Hello, Gina, I scream your name."

"Hello Gina! Buy me!"

From there we (we being six of us altogether) branched out looking for various things. One friend bought curtain material, another bought enough to make her daughter a jacket and a couple pairs of pants. I saw pink and green camouflage material and decided I could probably find someone to make them into pants for Megan. Total spending so far: about $6 USD.

Any port in a storm - making do with a little table and stools

We ate lunch at a little "restaurant" and I use that term as loosely as possible. It was a collection of rickety tables on dirt, with an eclectic assortments of plastic stools. They were sheltered by a cluster of giant umbrellas and surrounded by carts serving various kinds of fried breads and noodles.

On our way out we stopped to look at a store full of microfiber fabrics. Across from it was another stall with tons of fleece including a pink cheetah print. I picked up 1.5 meters of that ($3.50 USD) to hopefully make Megan a bathrobe.

I'd like to go back, as we barely scratched the surface of what they had. Megan's in love with the cheetah print, I got lots of fun pictures, and good time with friends, so I'd say today was a win.

Obliviousness

Driving here is always an adventure. I'm going to call it adventure, because "taking your life and others' lives into your hands" sounds less fun.

But the truth is, it's like a game of Frogger out there and I am constantly baffled as to how this city maintains a population of 20 million people. You'd think at least a million a day should be eliminated by what's happening on the streets.

It's not so much the crazy driving, which is rampant. No, it's the obliviousness. There really is a principle of "If I don't look at you, you have to make way for me." The problem is, what happens when two people with that same philosophy meet?

I'm particularly disturbed by the pedestrians who embrace this mode of operation. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way here, but they move around the road like they do. Just this afternoon I was pondering this while coming up on the left side of a biker. I thought, "Take this guy here. I bet he's going to turn left right in front of me without looking" and sure enough, he did! I had to slam on my brakes not to hit him, and his reaction was to look at me like, "I'm turning this way now." I would have expected more of a, "Gee, thanks for not killing me" look or at least a "maybe I should have looked" look.

This happens all the time, so my question is - how do people not get in more accidents? It is one of the great mysteries of life here.

Appliance Issues

After extensive scientific study (translation: I used the timer on my watch) I have determined that my Chinese-purchased hair dryer will dry my hair at a weak setting for approximately 35 seconds before expiring. I then need to wait for it to recover from overheating (I can expedite this by blowing into the front of it until I hear a click) before I can use it again.

35 seconds is not a long time for hair, so I help it along by pushing the cool air button. That, combined with the low power means that my hair takes about 2 hours to dry.

Ok, I may be exaggerating.

But it is a fine example of the appliance issues we have here. Purchasing locally can result in poor quality appliances. Buying imported appliances will drain your bank account. Bringing them from the US carries the complication of converting power from 110-220. If you neglect to convert, things happen, like curling irons that burst into flame. Even if you do use a converter, it might not be strong enough as in the case of my sewing machine. After one use with a weak converter it became possessed and would sew on its own. I could only stop it if I turned it off.

God bless the people who made dual voltage appliances, although they failed to consider that the plugs also need to fit into variously shaped outlets. Since Singapore and China both use 220 power, we were able to bring our appliances here, although the outlet shape has been a problem as well. Thank God for a husband who knows how to take the plug off and replace it with an appropriate one.

So back to my hair dryer. I'm in a debate right now between buying a new hair dryer on Tao Bao with a higher wattage, or buying a slightly more expensive one from the States that is dual voltage for Erik to bring back from the States in about a month.

These are the kind of issues I never knew I'd have.

Confessions

Confession: I don't love China right now. It's been a long time since I've felt that way, but two months of a Minnesota summer will do that to you (Minnesota summers are the BEST!). It was hard to come back to pollution (more than usual!) and crowded, lawless streets, and "what is that smell??" and people staring at me and "I can't remember how to say that" and "I never learned how to say that in the first place."

Erik and I have been wondering why it's so hard this time. We were in the States a year and a half ago, and we didn't mind coming back then. Then we remembered that we were in Minnesota in the winter (Minnesota winters are NOT the best).

Confession 2: I'm not loving my responsibilities right now. This isn't surprising given that our Minnesota summer included grandparents and aunts and uncles who often shared the load of watching kids, and even if they didn't we weren't homeschooling which is my most time consuming responsibility. I thought those two months off would refresh me to start back up again, but it appears they made my responsibility muscles atrophy. I don't want to do anything.

Add jet lag and a little sickness and you've got a Gina who would really like to lay on the couch all day watching Hulu. This is not a viable long term option.

I've been praying a lot about how I've been feeling, and God has been gracious to remind me that my calling here isn't dependent on how I feel about it. Every moment of frustration or difficulty can be an opportunity for me to offer my heart again to Him, to say, "I will gladly endure this for Your sake." And really, if smells and crowds are my "sacrifice" I think I'm getting off easy.

As for responsibilities, I know this is all an opportunity to rely on His power, and to choose joy and gratitude. I know this in my head, and I'm hoping that it will eventually make its way to my heart. I'd appreciate your prayers!

The Aftermath

The unfortunate aftermath of spending the last three days in a whirlwind of loving our family and packing our things, being flung through the air at high speeds in a pressurized metal tube for 13 hours, sleeping 2 hours, waking for 2, then sleeping another 6, is that today I have no adrenaline left with which to do life.

Thankfully, when we got back yesterday we plowed through 90% of our unpacking. That might sound impressive, but actually it means that 90% of our stuff is now on the floor instead of in bags (ok, maybe 75% - some of it did make it back into its rightful place).

And thankfully our maid went and bought some basic food for us (and left us a note that said "Welcome to Home" in English - so sweet!) so that when the kids ran down at 5 am I had something to direct them toward eating.

Ideally, I would spend today putting away all those piles and buying more food to make meals beyond toast. I'm thinking the only way that might happen is if I slam down some Red Bull and set myself a goal like "If you do this, you can eat that whole bag of candy you brought back from America when you're done." (for the record, I have never consumed a Red Bull). But that probably won't happen.

More likely is that at some point I will get up enough gumption to shower, possibly drag myself over to the blind masseuse to fix this back ache, and then by mid-afternoon I'll find it in me to put some things away in order to keep myself awake.

A Summer of Fun

So here was my train of thought: driving to Mankato - Pa Ingalls used to drive to Mankato to deliver the lumber - Walnut Grove - where is Walnut Grove again? - there it is on my map - and hey, there's De Smet, where the dugout was - memories of our Laura Ingalls Wilder southern MN tour - I meant to do that with Megan this summer, shoot! - what else did we plan to do that we didn't do? -

And that's where I derailed myself, because it wasn't going to go anywhere good. Instead, I decided to make another list this morning of the things I'm SO glad we did manage to squeeze into our time in Minnesota this year:

1. Speaking at Erik's home church 5 times in one weekend
2. swimming lessons
3. bike rides
4. VBS
5. the cabin
6. time with family (this could count for about 100 entries - one for each day plus doubling up for extra people)
7. New York
8. Boston
9. Oxbow Park
10. Milwaukee
11. baseball
12. kickball
13. swimming at the pool
14. All comers track meets on Tuesdays
15. playing with the dog
16. speaking at my home church
17. selling things on Craigslist (seriously!)
18. knitting
19. latch hooking (those last two are Megan's new craft projects)
20. mini-golf
21. slip n' slide
22. 4th of July with the Higgins
23. Rochesterfest parade
24. Annie (the musical, not a person)
25. breakfast on the farm
26. soccer
27. camping
28. roasting marshmallows over a campfire
29. grilling
30. early morning exercise
31. working on Boy Scout merit badges
32. libraries
33. Valleyfair
34. CSU
35. libraries
36. watching Twins games
37. time with people like the Zenks, Gaugers, Wedels, Higgins, Halversons, Woods, Roises, Pedersens, etc. etc.
38. washing the car
39. House of Bounce
40. finishing my writing project
41. croquet
42. driving through the Rocky Mountains
43. a night in Vail
44. Parks
45. refreshment!

By the way, I don't think Megan really cares that we didn't do the Laura Ingalls Wilder historical tour.

The Packing Game

It's that time again - the time in our trip when I begin to strategize about how to get all that stuff back across the ocean. As always, I vacillate between, "We've got plenty of room" and "maybe we can't take that" and "we're doing great - let's go buy more!" and "good night! this is never going to fit."

After years of managing this, we have learned a few things. This is what it looks like:
1. As I buy things throughout the summer, I put them into a suitcase. This isn't how I take it back across the ocean, but it gives me an idea of how much I've been accumulating.
2. At least a week before we leave, I take all that out and start packing it for real. I gather things around the house that I know I won't use again and pack those too.
3. I know that there will be at least one bag's worth of last minute stuff I find around the house to pack, so I leave a bag open for that.
4. We bought a hand-held luggage scale so we don't have to do the "stand on the scale holding the luggage trick" anymore.
5. U-Haul has great boxes you can buy that are incredibly sturdy but slightly outside the luggage dimensions. For a few years we left them full size and were never questioned, but now we cut them down a few inches (from the bottom so you can keep the handle openings!) because otherwise they're too heavy. They're also good for carrying bulkier items. We have three of those this time.
6. We have one carry-on size suitcase that we fill entirely with books. Even completely full it's only about 40 pounds. If we're really over on luggage we could take this on the plane, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.
7. I pack about 80% of our stuff and then I usually hit a wall. Erik then swoops in and packs the other 20%. He sees it as a challenge to fit it all in. I love that about him!

So that's what it looks like to pack for an international flight. Let the games begin.