Updates, air pollution and red underwear

It's Saturday morning, I have no new photos to load, so this will just be an update. It's been a foggy morning, unseasonably warm and sticky..we are getting mosquito bites again. In January -- that's hard to believe, even in Xiamen.

Hard a scare last night when Helen took a plunge from her bed to the floor and split her lip open and knocked two baby teeth loose. She maintains they were loose already. I had visions of taking a taxi to the nearest hospital, calling our friend Tian on the way....but the bleeding stopped with an ice pack, and while its still a bit of a mess, we're hoping for the best. Really our lives here are built on the hoping for the best motto! There has been a clinic here that catered to foreigners, but it closed its doors last week, so of course this week Helen has an accident and I have developed a chest cold. Not quite severe enough to send me to a Chinese hospital yet! The language barrier is one reason, but also people say that the doctors use antibiotic IVS to treat everything ..people call it "going on the drip." Instead I am following the home remedy route..including tons of ginger soup.
Ginger soup is something Deborah discovered at our favorite patio restaurant. Its made with brown sugar, water and A TON of sliced ginger, simmered for a while. Ginger has obvious medicinal properties and the taste is very soothing, so since Michael discovered the recipe online, we have been making it. What did expats living here do before the internet?...it's such a lifeline and source of information for us on everything .. even the best way to catch up on local news.
Speaking of local news, here is a link to the article I mentioned last week about the chemical plant that will not be built in the Xiamen area due to successful mass protests here last spring.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080109/full/451117a.html

The protests were the largest in china since Tiananmen Square, but the government reaction has been quite different. Air quality is a huge issue in China. The reports of other Fulbright families, especially as the winter months brought with them lots of coal burning heat in the north, are fairly appalling. We are having more hazy days as well, but usually the air is quite breathable on the island -- on the mainland the air is visibly polluted some days. I can see why the people of Xiamen were so passionate about keeping the chemical plant out. And amazing that the local government tolerated the protests and acquiesced to their demands.

On a lighter note, I have been meaning to blog about the red underwear. The stores are full of red underwear and socks as the new year draws closer, along with the more expected household decorations. Here's the story...most people know about the Chinese zodiac animals if you've ever eaten in a Chinese restaurant in the US. When "your" year rolls around, you should wear something red every day of the year to maximize your luck. Hence the red underwear for people who might not want to wear the same color shirt every day. Helen's tutor told me that she remembers when she was a kid (turning 12, since there are 12 animals in the zodiac) she remembers the year her mother gave her a bunch of red underwear and a pendant with her animal on a red thread to wear all year). The coming lunar year is the year of the Rat (or Mouse, if you prefer) and guess who is about to get red underwear???? Our Thomas, the Rat amongst us! I was discussing this with my coworkers when I made another cultural discovery...you can find out how old someone is by knowing their zodiac animal. This caused me a little consternation when my boss stated that she was a monkey and I blurted out, "so am I!" and then began to laugh because I am obviously older than her, and now it was clear that she is only 28 and I am turning 40!