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!

Teaching English to small children

I haven't said much about the work I am doing teaching 4-7 year olds English. Christmas was a big time for us -- since, as I like to say: "its always Christmas at Join Kids", just like its always Chinese New Year in classrooms that teach Chinese in the US -- at least from a decoration standpoint. The children attend a weekly 90 minute class with a bilingual (Chinese) teacher. Once a month I see each class for 45 minutes of "oral English". About 10 of Helen's classmates from the Kindergarten are also my students at Join Kids, which is fun, since I feel like a celebrity when they all rush up to me, saying "Huan Huan Mama!"

I think it has been a pretty successful so far. Not every lesson I have come up with suits every group, but most of the time it works, and I always enjoy them, and most importantly, we have a positive experience every time. Some of the children have very good ears and good accents, especially the youngest ones! I have also met several friends of Malinda's girls (last year's Fulbright family).

We try to be game oriented, and the teachers, especially my boss, are very dynamic and engaging. Near Christmas we had a couple of "open classes" for prospective students, and of course I had to be visible as the token native speaker. Since I wasn't teaching I was able to take some pictures. Actually, Thomas and Helen came with me that night, Helen just for fun, and Thomas to "help" in the other class by playing along and calling out some numbers in English during a game. Aren't the kids so cute!

"Santa" is an English professor from Xiada who helped to develop their curriculum and interviewed me..

I really want to try and upload a short clip of them teaching, but I have to wait for the early morning hours!

Just a couple more pictures for you -- Sophia and the Baby Deborahs (all her dolls are named that now, I think she misses Deborah as much as I do)..also her new tiny umbrella, which we bought while shopping downtown today, and Sophia drew the attention of everyone passing by waving it around and saying "its raining". We got off Zhongshan Lu and onto some side streets and found all kids of things, including a store that sells coffee and pasta, cheap clothing and a paper goods store with a whole floor devoted to Spring Festival lanterns and other decorations -- you can bet I went pretty wild in there.

Kite flying with the Xiada Kindergarten

On the weekend before New Year's Helen's school organized the older children and parents for a kite making outing. January 1 was to be a holiday from work and school, and so as to have the 31st off as well, the Saturday prior was schedule as a make up day on campus -- the professors held class, including Michael, and the kindergarten had classes in the morning. The parents were invited to attend and bring the makings of a kite FOR THEIR CHILD TO MAKE. This is Helen's principal, welcoming everyone.

Helen was at a big disadvantage here, in that I have never made a kite, and I had the directions translated. I was quite self-congratulatory at finding kite string in short notice. so with chopsticks, duct tape and construction paper, she set to work.

I should have known I was in trouble when the parents began working feverishly on the kites while the children were still lining up. I guess the competitiveness of parents is an international phenomenon. Some of their kites were huge, with elaborate designs and the sticks were clearly perfectly lightweight bamboo -- no other chopsticks in sight!

Here are the kids parading down the soccer field with "their" masterpieces...I will say this, Helen was a very good sport about it, even when hers didn't fly more than 6 inches off the ground, she still ran around gamely! It was not a great day for kites any way -- not much breeze, and only the store-bought kites really got off the ground.

But still a fun morning and Helen is proud of her certificate...Sophia had fun running about, too.

I just love these inflatable arches..if there is something to celebrate in China -- you can be sure there will be an inflatable dragon to greet you!

Xiamen Marathon

Early Saturday morning we dragged the kids out of bed and went with one of Michael's students to watch the Xiamen Marathon, which passed right by the campus along the Island Ring Road (along the beach). It was a fine clear day, chilly but not cold -- just right for a marathon. There were lots of students out volunteering and a fair amount of spectators for the race, which is one of the top marathons in China. We had our free flags to wave, and waited anxiously to see the leaders, who passed by on the way downtown to the turn, and again on the way back , with about 6.5 miles to go to the finish..

Here's the timing truck and the leaders... at this point the Chinese runner was in the lead, which really pleased the crowd..but in fact the two Kenyans were working together to set the pace, and the one pictured on the left Kenei Kiprotich apparently pulled ahead in the last 500 m and won the $30,000 prize easily in 2:09:49, and the Chinese runner finished third. The Chinese women did better though -- the woman in the yellow shirt running in this pack of men, Zhang Yingying led most of the way and won with a fast time of 2:22:38, and Chinese women took second and third as well...after seeing Zhang run by we hurried home to catch the results on TV and saw her cross the finish line on TV..

You can see the story on the marathon by pasting this link:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/sports/2008-01/05/content_6373155.htm
It was a good time watching the runners, we had heard about the Marathon, but it has usually been held in March -- I guess they wanted to avoid the rain and the heat!





On a technical note -- I am having trouble posting photos and can't see them as I am posting -- someone please let me know how things are looking these days..Thomas is finally back to school tomorrow for a few weeks before the next holidays begin, so I can get back to a regular schedule. I went back to Tai chi today after an absence of nearly 2 weeks and it made a big difference in my energy level -- also I had been feeling like I might get the kids' cold, but now I feel fine.

Today we went to the famous "Yesterday Coffee" of Chinglish fame for lunch after church. Not sure if I posted this photo before or not of the "bunsen-burner" like method of making the coffee...I noticed some postcards around of Lijiang, the city in Yunnan we are planning to vacation in, and managed to ask the owner if he was from there, and we got in a conversation about Yunnan and coffee -- which is apparently grown there and this method of preparation is typical...we'll have to check it out when we go.

Xiamen Science and Technology Museum

On Friday, the last day of Thomas' Christmas break, I kept Helen out of school and we joined some friends -- Julia, who teaches at Thomas's school and her 2 girls, 5 and 10 -- in an outing to the science and technology museum. Helen was there on a field trip there the first week of school, and has been bugging us to go. It is brand new -- and we were the only ones there, just about. I was really quite impressed -- it was very hands on, as you can see in the photos -- filled with interesting experiments, and most of the signs were translated to English (not always clearly, but the effort was there, and physics was not my best subject anyway).

We were pleased to discover a playground, complete with ball pit-- and I realized they had not been on a real playground in months - only these "fitness playgrounds" designed for adults -- so I was so relaxed watching them run around with fewer worries about someone getting hurt. I have been realizing lately that the constant vigilance of keeping them safe, especially Sophia, with all the time we spend walking along the streets and through the campus -- it really gets quite tiring, mentally and physically..she is becoming quite an handful some days as her two-ness goes into full gear.


One of my favorite exhibits was the body functions, which included a nose which sneezed when you filled it with water, to everyone's great delight, and a boy who burped after drinking a giant soda. There was a staff of two dozen or more on duty at the museum with nothing to do, so they were quite into the kids.


Our last stop was the giant bubble station...a really fine day -- my standards for children's museums are pretty high, living so close to the Strong Museum in Rochester, NY, but I was very impressed with this one. It is in Haicang, an up and coming light industrial area on the mainland.

Speaking of Xiamen and industry -- some of you may know about the massive protests in Xiamen this past spring to oppose a planned chemical plant close to the city. The organizers used blogs and text messages to rally thousands of people to march to city hall to oppose the building of this plant, which is widely believed to present a serious threat to Xiamen's air quality, which is outstanding by Chinese standards. For thousands of Chinese to organize a protest, and for it to be tolerated with no arrests or violence, was quite a stunning event(try searching "Xiamen protests" -lots of interesting stuff comes up). People have told us "it could only have happened in Xiamen" Anyway, a friend told us this week that it has just been announced that the plant will be built somewhere else in Fujian province, but not in Xiamen. People had feared that it might be built here anyway after the dust settled, but apparently the government has decided to respond to the local concerns -- rather a victory for the forces of free speech and environmentalism I think.

Hot soup on a cold day

I have already failed at one of my new years' resolutions, which was to blog every day, instead of "falling behind"...now I have 3 days worth of material. But Blogger has been very slow lately -- maybe its our computer or all the students online. Anyway -- this past week has been a chilly one, as I mentioned, and we have spent some time huddled around the space heater in the evenings. Michael and I have a weekly lunch out usually, and the first day Thomas was feeling better, we headed out at midday for a nice bowl of noodle soup.

This restaurant is not too far from the campus -- it is around the corner from the 2 bookstores. I met the owner at the temple this fall when she was out with her nephew and I was feeding the turtles with Sophia. She invited me to come to her restaurant, and now we are regulars..in fact when we walked in on this day, the owner said-- "Sophia -- I haven't seen you in a long time!". We think of it as Beijing-style food -- homemade fresh noodles in a nice broth -- mine was beef and cabbage, Michael had vegetables, Thomas chicken (Helen was at school on this day) and we also had some little pork sandwiches on thin sesame breads. I also like the ambiance of the place -- there are polished dark wood tables with marble tops and the classic blue delft style china serving ware, also framed calligraphy on the walls -- some real taste has gone into the place...

Finally - a picture I had to snap before the decorations come down -- a palm tree decorated for the holidays by Helen's bus stop:

New Years' Day ...shopping

While the really good people of the campus were out climbing the mountain in droves -- we were told this is a tradition among the students, plus we could see them all up there from our window -- we took it in our heads to go shopping with the rest of the population. It has turned quite chilly here, as our friends in the north may be secretly pleased to hear..lows in the upper 40s at night, only up to 59 or 60 in the day. So we could all use some warmer clothes. We are going to Beijing in February, so winter coats are required! Michael and I went in shifts because Thomas is down with a cold.
Helen and I had a great time on Zhongshan Lu, the main shopping street downtown:
She brought her own money in a little "Pucca" purse (relative of Hello Kitty) and made some little purchases, while I focused on the big stuff -- jacket for Thomas, winter clothes for the girls and myself. We each got an outfit - I was particularly happy with my Eddie Bauer lambswool sweater, with the US price tags still on it ($42), which I got for $7. I have developed my favorite clothing haunts -- with good quality stuff, and open to bargaining. Usually I pay 50-60% of the opening price. When we got tired, Helen and I enjoyed a break in the sun with some candied fruit on a stick -- I could live on that stuff!