Thomas invents a game and sounds of China

Picture, if you will, a boy of eleven, precociously exposed to Tolkein and the fantasy genre, cut off from 90% of his toys and with only 7 or 8 of his favorite books... marooned in a faraway land. Christmas is still months away. How can he survive? He invents a game, based on the game he most wants for Christmas (his friend Tal in Xi'an has it, called Heroscape). Thomas's heroscape actually turned out quite well. We actually played an entire game through, with much excitement as the dragon went on a rampage across the board, only to be repelled by a collection of action figures from all the blockbuster fantasy movies of the last 4 years. Even Helen got in on the action, although we had to have a quick resurrection when Thomas finished off her unicorn and she burst into tears..
We do watch a fair amount of movies here (since we acquire the latest titles so cheaply and easily --- occasionally in Russian, though), at least as much as in the US, but with fewer toys, they have definitely become more creative.


When I logged on tonight it was with the original intent of musing about the sounds I hear around here..so different from my neighborhood in Buffalo. For example, right after I put the kids to bed tonight, I heard a gong sounding first slowly and then faster, presumably from the temple. They also call the monks to prayer at 5 am with a throaty "yodel" in the wee hours. Some days we can smell the incense, too. At 9 am, a loudspeaker broadcasts instructions for a series of stretching exercises (which I recognize from the warm up at my Tai chi group). In the afternoons, a guy pushing a cart (full of what I am not sure) walks through this part of campus with a rhythmic call. Occasionally in the evenings, the guy in the house across the street from us goes out into his courtyard and sings Italian arias loudly and with only moderate skill. On Saturday mornings we frequently hear the yahoos of college students who have successfully scaled the mountain behind us. We no longer hear construction noises, now that the restaurant downstairs is finished, but we do hear happy diners coming in and out and bus boys on their break playing tag in the courtyard. What we don't hear ..sirens at all here, being a college campus, and mercifully few car horns..which is unusual because the cars and buses are insane about blowing their horns at each other in general in China. What we still hear..car alarms (once in a while) and cat fighting (every night).

Bike riding and Xiada beach

They are everywhere....even though China's reputation as the biking capital of the world is being eroded by the automobile, there are still a lot of bikes in China, most especially on a college campus. And a lot of hauling of goods is still done by bicycle..I will not easily forget the day I saw three full size file cabinets strapped on the back of one. In Xiamen, there are a lot of bikes with a tiny electric motor to boost you over the hills (its fairly hilly in parts of the island, including parts of the campus). Here is a picture of my new minivan -- a completely human powered model with a baby seat, which cost about $16. I do not miss driving really at all -- and I love riding around on campus, back and forth to the market, and down to the beach which is what I did today with the kids.


We realized we haven't been hanging out at the beach as much as we should, given how close it is -- now that its not quite so hot, its more of a pleasure to be down there in the day time, and very relaxing.

In other news, I bought a new stroller yesterday to replace the one which was lost at the Beijing airport with no tags...so naturally the airport called today and said -- we found it! SO now I have two -- although the foot rest on my old one is broken and the new one was cheap -- doesn't it just figure!!!! And score one for the lost luggage handling system in China -- slow but effective.

On a more serious note, please pray for my mom -- some of you know she had some neurological symptoms over the summer traced to a mass in her brain -- which has now been diagnosed as a growing tumor. I got the news today that she is going to have surgery to remove it in the very near future, followed by radiation....we are quite overwhelmend by the news and feel quite out of the loop. I am trying to make decisions about travelling in to see her -- pray hard for us!!!

Helen has a friend over

I made arrangement with the mother of Helen's friend Rouen for her to come and play at our place after school on Friday, which works out well because her mother teaches in the science building near our apartment. So I picked the girls up from school and we walked across the campus on a beautiful day, and they played for 2 hours. I was a little nervous because Helen's friend doesn't speak much English, but she does call me "Aunty" in English, which I find adorable. She and Helen found plenty to do, however. And they seem to get along very well, even with out much language in common. It was a real treat for Helen to have a friend over, and hopefully we can continue the arrangement.

Here are the lovely princesses!

A Xiamen Halloween

The Halloween festivities began this morning at Xiada you er yuan (kindergarten) when I brought in Helen's costume for her to put on, and in my halting Chinese and with a little help from the teacher I explained a few Halloween customs, like costumes, putting the face on the pumpkin, and children getting candy. I brought in some masks and headbands, crowns etc. for the children to put on and in groups of 5-6 they came up to me and with Helen's help said "trick or treat" and "thank you" as I gave out candy. Finally, I had made holes in paper plates for each child to make a mask..afterwards the teacher took their picture but my camera batteries died (have got to stop buying Chinese brand batteries for the camera) so maybe I will post it when she emails it.


At out home we had some decorations going, including this major find- a Chinese lantern with a pumpkin face -- I hung a flashlight inside and ta-da -- our jack o'lantern.

Sophia was some kind of a kitty/fairy, Helen a princess, of course, and Thomas a frightful monster in the scream mask. He enjoyed scaring some local folks on our way to and from the restaurant. Pizza Hut has been pushing Halloween all month, even making their employees dress in costume, so it was the perfect place for our Halloween party, which included us and our neighbors and an American teacher at the International School and her two daughters.

There was another family in the restaurant with a child in a very classy pirate costume, and his father got him to pose with Helen, who was skipping through the restaurant quite happily showing off her costume.

Then back to the guesthouse for trick or treating between our two apartments and down the hall to one of our friends, a German woman who spent 8 years in the US and was well prepared. Also the woman who babysits for us dropped off a bag full of candy.

Our neighbor Kate definitely had the most original costume -- a pop up book about herself.

To top off the fun, our Chinese tutor and her young son stopped by and we taught him to trick or treat..he also played Gameboy with Thomas..the international language of young boys everywhere. They stayed quite a while and we had a great time talking to our tutor about all kids of things, including adoption, child raising, why Chinese people dress their kids so warm, etc. Good times. Our expectations for Halloween were pretty low, but I think we had a pretty good one after all.. miss all our Buffalo Parkside neighbors -- hope you have a good night for it tomorrow!

Photos of reunion with Alvin and fun in Seoul

This fountain is at the heart of downtown Seoul. I realized as I was uploading today's pictures that we are light on travelogue and heavy on pictures of the kids...please remember my primary blog target is still grandparents, so I have to prove to them that I am keeping their grandkids happy. As the blog visitors have mounted I realize there are a lot of other folks reading along, too, which is surprising but fun for me. I hope our experiences encourage others to take the plunge into travel in Asia. Our tour of Seoul was planned by a 21 year old, so we were light on culture and heavy on FUN! So of course we went to Lotte World, a Disney-esque indoor and outdoor amusement park. It was the Halloween special weekend, so each of the kids got a mini-costume included with admission and the place was decorated for my favorite holiday -- which has definitely penetrated here more than China.

Can you guess who this is?

We really had a blast in the attractions, especially the "Ball Battle" featuring foam balls and air cannons -- but Sophia and I took refuge away from the fray..

Sophia had her first experience at the wheel..

Even Mr. Kim, Alvin's dad joined us for some fun (only Michael missed out, since he was off giving his paper to the American studies conference).

Attached to Lotte World was a folk museum which we saw at the end of the day...wished we had more time because we were quite amazed by it, especially the enormous room full of miniature dioramas of Korean life -- quite impressive and very engaging. Thomas and I kept thinking about "Night at the Museum" and imagining them come to life.

And some hands on practice at grinding grain the old fashioned way...

Korean royal court in miniature...

On Sunday we visited the Kims at their home, which is a really spacious luxury apartment, including a lovely greenhouse running the whole length of the apartment -- Mrs. Kim loves plants and flowers.

The home was fairly Western in style, but less cluttered, and we removed our shoes at the door and were given slippers to wear. In the living room the coffee table was also surrounded by cushions for sitting on the floor in the traditional manner of Koreans (and Japanese also do this). In fact, Korean homes are heated through the floor boards, so a lot of activity happens on the floor -- including sleeping. (In the Kims' case, the parents have a Western bed but the kids still sleep on the floor)

We enjoyed spending time with Alvin's family, since he really became part of our family during the 2 years he spent living with us through the NACEL program. He graduated from Canisius High School while with us, and got into a good college, and while it was not always easy having an adolescent from around the world in our home, the lifelong friendship is well established. For Helen especially, it is like seeing her long lost sibling, since he lived with us when she was so young. And the Kims treated us like visiting royalty.

This is the backyard of their complex -- it was a beautiful fall weekend.

Here we are at Mrs. Kim's favorite Korean restaurant. We are sitting on cushions at a low table. The meal involves lots of small dishes, salads, kimchee (hot and spicy pickled cabbage) and meats.

We also had rice cooked with nuts and served in bamboo cups. The lettuce in the picture was used to make a roll with meat and lots of Kimchee and rice.

In the afternoon, Alvin's big surprise was revealed as tickets to "Nanta", which means "Cookin'" in English. This show appealed to all ages, from Sophia on up, and was very funny, and easy to follow the story as much of it was nonverbal and a few words of English were provided here and there to keep the meaning in clear. Have any of you seen this show? It has toured New York and Toronto. The rhythmic chopping and banging of kitchen utensils makes up the soundtrack for the story of the antics of the chefs in a Korean restaurant preparing a wedding banquet. There is also a lot of audience participation. Our previous day at the museum gave us just enough Korean culture to appreciate the historical references and jokes. I would really recommend it to anyone!

Afterwards we had autographs and a photo with the cast,of course!

Our last outing was to the Seoul Tower, atop Namsan Mountain, which rises up in the midst of a wooded area in the heart of the city. Unfortunately it was a bit rainy and foggy at the top, but on the way down we saw a lovely cityscape to cap off our visit to Seoul.

Our trip home was our first air travel mishap so far in Asia, as our stroller never appeared in Beijing, so we were late through customs and got to the check in counter after the connecting flight was officially closed...with some pitiful begging by me, they got us on the flight by upgrading 3 of us to business class and giving us 2 single seats in coach. So we ran and they held the flight for us. Of course I had to sit with the girls....so I had a lovely flight with real silver ware, English papers and a bread basket, while Michael and Thomas suffered...maybe a small price to pay for a $25 stroller with a broken footrest? Maybe it will still turn up, I did file a claim, so we shall see.

More Seoul photos -- shopping and thoughts on being outside of China

Just to add some more photos to the ones I posted on Friday -- these are traditional Korean hanbok's hanging in the marketplace. One thing we discovered quickly is that there really is not the artificial mark up and the corresponding bargaining that there is in China. When I suggested a lower price to a merchant, he walked away and said, "well, you don't have to buy it!" I kept saying thank you in Chinese, to the amusement of the shopkeepers, although "Kamsamnida" (thank you) is the only word of Korean I know. I heard lots of Japanese spoken while in Seoul as well...I recently learned that Japan occupied Korea for more than 50 years, including half of the 20th century.


Above is one of the remaining gates of the original city wall of Seoul -- it is a rare sight in this thoroughly modern city. I think I mentioned Myendong Cathedral the other day when I posted. Does anyone have a clue who this Korean saint might be? We met a very nice nun who walked me into the church office to get a Mass schedule (although we didn't end up making it to Mass) and while I was in there, saw the standard picture of Pope Benedict in the office. And it made an impression on me because of the uneasy status of the church in China which is not allowed to acknowledge papal authority openly (I encourage you to google "Hong Kong Bishops letter" to read recent developments on this topic). Later out in the neighborhood we passed a poster protest related to religious freedom, located in the vicinity of the Chinese Embassy and I got it ...oh yeah ...free speech here in the first world....

On a lighter note -- Thomas, Helen and Sophia enjoyed tall ice creams to cap off international Western Food Day for the kids in the Myendong shopping area -- the "gold coast" shopping area we spent time in -- tons of international brands, even Starbucks for me, oh joy.

Exciting weekend in Seoul

We have had the most wonderful two days here...our friend Jae yoon (Alvin) and his parents really outdid themselves showing us around...we have so many photos I will wait until we get back to Xiamen and can resize them and upload them properly..we went to an amusement park called Lotte World, a folk museum, lots of delicious meals, saw their home, a really funny play set in a Korean restaurant called "Nanta" (it has toured the US -- maybe some of you have seen it) and went to the top of the Seoul Tower....pictures to follow tomorrow when we get home. It was a sad goodbye but temporary, since he will be back in the US around the same time we move home and may spend a college break with us next year. We fly out early so I must pack.