The Blithe Traveler

Goldilocks and the Seven Dwarfs

There were two year end plays this year, one for the Foundation group (which includes Hope) and the other for the rest of the school (Tom!). Hope's production was Goldilocks, and she got to play Goldi herself.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Hey! Couldn't they find a blond kid to play Goldi??" Nope. Not a girl blondie in the bunch. And, here's the kicker, each "part" was actually played by two children doing the thing in tandem. Seriously. Hang on with me while I attempt elucidation in an lucid kind of way.

Both of these children are Goldilocks. The one on the right is mine. And thus it went for each character. There were two Goldilock's Mom's, two Daddy Bears, two Mama Bears, and at least two, although maybe there were more Baby bears. And everybody else got to be a "Special Bear." These little ones had the best of both worlds: they got to sit around and watch on stage while wearing really cool bear outfits.

The thing that is full of awesomeness with this, of course, is that every kid has to at least get up in front of all of the grown ups. And that's really the point of these exercises. The children get used to, at a quite young age, being up in front of a group and speaking, wearing silly costumes, etc. One imagines schools do this in the US, also, but when you are talking about a school with 100 children in it, every kid knows every other kid; and the whole thing works really, really well.
And this bed is JEST RIGHT!
 
Hope's beloved Mrs. Sutherland. She was wonderful with the little ones. I secretly hope that she is going to move up a year and teach Hope's class again for 2009/1010.

And then there was the Key Stage 1/Key Stage 2 production.

Last year they did Roald Dahl's "Red Riding Hood," this year, "Snow White." Now, you may (or may not) know Mr. Dahl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I am of the opinion that the guy is a little out there. If you have ever read James and the Giant Peach there's a lot of death and dismemberment that goes on in these books. Not in a gory, Halloween/Friday the 13h kind of way, but in a wacky, sipping-the-sherry-all-afternoon British kind of way.

And while for the most part, I think I get and love English humor (they Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman sort anyway), I find Mr. Dahl's humor just a tetch too warped for moi. Case in point, here is what the entire school chorus sings while describing what happens after Snow White's mother dies: (the king puts an add in a magazine to find a new queen) "...The king said with a shifty smile, I'd like to give each one a trial!" Ok for the 8th grade set, but maybe sailing over the heads of the little ones. Whatever. Tom got to be a tree, and an awesome, cool slow growing tree he got to be. 

A Tree Grows In Our Fair City

Dear Old Golden Rule Days (1)

End of School was always a rush, if I can remember back that far. And since Jeff and I and the children all love the school they are attending, it's an even headier time. So, lots of cool stuff happened that I would like to Document For the Ages. 

First, by dint of location, the compound that we live in is the most popular one for children who attend the British School. The school just finished up its second year, and so is still relatively small, with about 100 children enrolled from Pre-Nursery (age 2 1/2) through the equivalent of US grade 7.

Probably something approaching a quarter of the school live in Yulan. The school runs four buses through the city to pick children up, with our bus being the largest. Bus time in the morning and the afternoon is a flurry of activity as the moms bustle the littlest ones to the bus.

A key benefit of living in a closed compound is that every child who has wheels, tends to ride them to the bus stop. There is a little bike parking area next to the guard shack, so the bike are able to be left unlocked all day.

With the newest two wheeled biker pictured below. Awwwww!
 

And the end of the day is always the end brings home our tired, tired children.

Who quickly revive when you dunk them in the pool.

Good Morning Myrtle Beach

I couldn't resist posting a few photos from our Sea Turtle walk this morning, mostly because of the distinctive "China moment" that occurred near the end.

We are staying rather nearby the Myrtle Beach State Park, so we joined Ranger Ann for a Friday morning stroll (6am, if you are interested) along the beach searching for sea turtle tracks. The future-mom sea turtles crawl up the beach during the night, lay eggs in the dunes and then crawl back to the ocean. They leave distinctive crawl and burying-nest tracks, so they are easy to find on the rare occasions this sort of thing actually occurs. The Rangers have a set crew of volunteers who scour the beach at sunrise every morning, but on Fridays, they invite the general public to join for a nature walk.

We did not expect to see turtle tracks, as they average only one or two egg deposits a season (inside the confines of the park, that is), but it was a great opportunity to see the sunrise and have an early morning nature walk with a very knowledgeable ranger.
As the Early Bird in the household, I was the cheerleader on this expedition, although maybe drill sergeant would be a more honest assessment. Without a combination of bribery (the children are earning patches for program participation) and chicanery, I would have gone on this adventure by myself. It seems in retrospect a reasonably good time was had by all, although I am not sure anyone will raise their hand if I ask if they want to go next week.
 
This is a turtle nest that is under watch. They begin hatching around 55 days, which will be some time in August for this clutch. I bike down to this park in the mornings, so now that I know that the clutches are here, I will check them to see if they have hatched. The hatches are meant to happen at night, so for the sake of the baby turtles, I hope to not see them scrabbling to the ocean (if they are marching in daylight, they will be picked off by birds before you can say MINE! MINE! MINE!).

But, if I am lucky and they hatch before we leave, I will get to see the empty nest and the tracks down to the ocean. Cross your fingers! 

And now for the China moment. There we were hanging out on the beach watching the sun rise, when we almost got run over by a random car. Ah, there's no place like home.

Close But No Cigar (3)

Business Development might have been more appropriate.

Sometimes a Thesaurus is your friend. Other times, not so much.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Barbecuing is an American (and Australian!) staple. Apparently, the newer countries really like to cook with fire. There must be something to that, but I'm in a bit of hurry, as I am using pool time right now to write this, so if someone else would like to make the connection, be my guest.

One of the things we have noticed is that most Americans in Our Fair City (which is, like, four) brought their trusty Weber with them. When the company that is sending you over seas provides you with a shipping container, most Americans packed up that trusty grill right next to their favorite cheese platter and champagne glasses. Hey, you must have the essentials when you are roughing it, n'est-ce pas?

Anyway, since we arrived with suitcases, sans container, we do have every piece of Thomas the Tank engine track ever produced, but no grill. Grills certainly can be purchased in China, but gas grills are quite pricey. If you are planning to ship the thing back to your home country, that might make sense, but we have a fine grill waiting for us in our Storage Unit, so we were not looking to make a long term investment. But. Summer came, rum punches were longed for, and what is a rum punch without the smell of crisping meat in the background??

Off I went on my trusty bike and purchased a grill.

This is a stand in photo, by the way. The thing on the bottom in the back is a case of ginger ale. Watson's brand. This stuff is addictive. It's very gingery and not terribly sweet, so despite my aversion to all things carbonated, I drink it. Ideally, I open one at lunch and down it at dinner. Less bubbles that way. But I digress. The grill did come in a reasonably smallish box and did arrive home on the back of my bicycle. The advent of bungee cords has greatly enhanced my carrying capacity.

The brown corrugated box with green print is a container of charcoal. It is imported from Germany (pricey!!) in 5kilo boxes and 10kilo bags. See below.
Right. 25RMB for 5k, 69RMB for 10k. You do the maths. I ultimately stockpiled a few of the 5kers for future use, but left the 10k bags right where they were sitting.

So here's our trusty Lilliputian grill! Lit by trusty moi! On my trusty deck! Our neighbors quiver in fear every time they see me coming with the not shown, but trust me it's there trusty container of lighter fluid.
 
But, I do think that grilling should be left to the experts. Men are just better with chopsticks than women, don't you think?
 

Close But No Cigar (2)

I have no idea who the joke is supposed to be on with this one.

H1N1

I was sitting next to a woman on a recent flight from Shanghai to Seoul. I sneezed. She went from bare faced to masked faster than you can say bubonic plague. I felt bad, but I did sneeze a few more times, throwing the poor woman into paroxysms of fear. I seriously thought she was going to crawl into the lap of the person next to her to get away from me.

Interestingly enough, when the news first broke that there was a scary new flu working its way North in the US from Mexico, I wasn't particularly concerned. I mean, Mexico is a world away from where we are. I was having coffee with a friend of mine later that day, though, when it suddenly hit me just how vulnerable those in the international community are: her husband had just gotten back from a month long stay in Mexico City. Ooops!  Not to mention that several of our friends work with companies who regularly move people back and forth from Mexico to Our Fair City - via 15-hour plane rides. Friends whose children all go to school with our children and whose wives all drink coffee with me. Suddenly, Mexico seemed quite nearby.

Who are those masked men getting body scanned? The scanners take temps as you walk by. I'd say there's no hiding from it, however rumor has it Tylenol's a safe bet to get you through a dicey flight.

That said, we don't know anyone who has actually contracted H1N1, although we do know a couple of people who have been stuck in quarantine. In one case, the individual in question was seated with six rows of someone who was H1N1 positive. She was coming from Oz on a business trip, so had nothing but winter clothes and was stuck in a dingy hotel in Shanghai for 7 days. This would not be the way I would recommend to see Shanghai, by the way. The service is apparently terrible.

Do they do this in the US? Every single person who entered the British School for weeks had their temp taken. Every single person, every single day.

Another friend of mine coming back from Germany was unlucky enough to be seated next to Mr. H1N1 positive. She, however, was lucky enough to have a husband who was a higher up at a Rather Large American Company, so she was able to live out her quarantine in her own home (the ubiquitous Masterland, if you are so interested). Although apparently she did have her own personal guard rotation to insure that she did not leave the house. 

The rumor is that coming in on a flight from the US can be a roll of the dice, with random enforcement of 7-day in-home quarantines (although I have not managed to verify this rumor with any real data via Mr. Google, so consider the previous sentence suspect and reflective of my own paranoia). But, real or imaginary, as we think about our return trip to China, we are planning to be prepared. We'll have enough gluten free munchables to get Jeff through a week of quarantine, and we'll be sure to have enough books, DVDs and other assorted Kid Entertainments to get the children through a week locked in a hotel room. Not a lot of fun to think about, but it is possible, so better to Be Prepared. 

And, alas, because we are spending our summer in the country with the greatest number of reported cases, we have already been pre-labeled as "pariahs." The murmurings around the pool before we left were along the lines of, "Have a great trip, enjoy your summer, see you seven days after you get back!!" and, "Give us a call if you need to have us stop at Suguo for you to get supplies! We'll leave everything outside the door for you!"

Hmmm, maybe I should stock up on ground coffee and shelf stable milk, just in case.

This Is Some Kind of Awesome

What do you mean you don't want to eat your peas!?

I have been meaning to do a post on Cross Cultural Flavor Differences for years, and one hopes someday I will get around to it. You, dear reader, need to know about Meat Floss. Not to mention the range of more savory flavors that are favored in China: prawn is a favorite, as in, prawn flavored crackers, prawn flavored chips, you get the picture.

Although, I do confess that one of our favorite special treats is to buy "American Flavor" Lays Potato Chips. I cannot buy those without wondering what in the heck they use as a flavor source.

Close But No Cigar (1)

First in a series of vaguely entertaining snapshots of life as I slowly catch up on my stories and photos.


This is a fancy schmancy mall not far from the British School. I worked in the library Monday and Wednesday each week and would bike from our home in Yulan to the school (about 40 minutes going the longer, ostensibly safer route). If I needed something fancy schmancy (like a birthday gift, or the rare treat of some fresh western style bread), I could park my bike in the basement, fluff out my hair (from under my bike helmet) and shop in fine style. Assuming anything I purchased could fit in my bike basket, of course.

What does it mean? Obviously, no shop lifting. But I haven't worked out what they were trying to say literally. Debbie is pretty good at puzzles, so we'll let her have at it.

***********************************************************************
Close But No Cigar Disclaimer. I somewhat uncomfortable being entertained by what is commonly refered to as "Chinglish." Reason being, of course, that if I were trying to write signs in Chinese, one can only imagine what sort of nonsense I would spout. That said, some days when the air is so thick you can walk on it, you have just survived another Taxi Driver Obstacle Run, and managed to avoid being flattened by the number 19 bus again, a sign like this can make you smile. So, no making fun. Just a mischevious grin that says, "Hey, excellent effort! But no cigar for you."

Pardon Me, You Look Familiar

First an interesting story concerning my friend, Monica. We were working together in the school library, as we were wont to do a few days a week, and she commented that she had a terrible time telling two of the little boys in Nursery, Sascha and Jacques, apart: While Monica is quite a bit wiser than I and I often feel as though she is about 100 time sharper on the tack scale, I had her this time. "Monica," I said, "What do you mean you can't tell Sascha and Jacques apart?? Sascha has blond hair and blue eyes, Jacques has brown hair and eyes. Please." and I rolled my eyes.

She rolled hers right back at me, "Look, I am Chinese! I don't notice at hair color!"

She had me there. I thought about that conversation quite a bit as I biked around Our Fair City in the next few weeks, looking at faces. I mean, really looking at them. When first in China, it was easy to get lost in the sea of black hair. Does everyone walking along the street look alike? Of course not, not even at first blush. And yet, I would have to agree that during my first months in China, there was a monochromatic sameness to crowds. I spent the first 40-odd years of my life in a place where hair color is one of the first signals to identity who is who. Not so where Monica comes from.

I surreptitiously studied the faces of Sacha and Jacques for a week or so, and I came to the conclusion that the two kids do look an awful lot alike. The shape of their faces and features are startlingly similar, once you get past the shock of blond hair on one and the dark, brooding uni-brow on the other. On the flip side, Jeff actually thinks Monica was pulling my chain and will tell the story about the naive laowai who fell for the "I'm Chinese! I don't see hair color"-story for years to come.

Anyway, that shaggy dog tale doesn't lead much of anywhere. Except that now that we are back in the US, all of humanity suddenly looks, for want of a better word, familiar to me. How to explain this? I wander around a small corner of China everyday and I am surrounded on all sides, all the time, by people who look very different from me and who look very different from the people who have surrounded me most of my life. This fact is so much a part of life, it does not permeate my consciousness.

But now we are in the US and surrounded by blond haired, red haired, brown haired, black haired people with western features. And I am caught in this weird place where my brain seems to be trying to place everyone: it's like my brain is convinced that every western person I see is someone I should know.  And there are a lot of western people wandering around here. I see a woman walking across a parking lot with blond hair and I think, "Hey, did I work with her at Nabisco??" or a see a tall greying gentleman in the bank and I think, "Wait, I know I know that guy, who in the heck is he??" 

It's weird. I wish I could find better words to explain this, but I am hoping it goes away soon. Going to Wal-mart can be a very trying experience.

Hope and her cousin Kate. There is a striking family resemblance.

I will also add in the spirit of absolute randomness that seems to be driving this post that yesterday we did actually run into someone we know on the street. The children and I were killing time in Flemington before heading to their annual physicals when I heard a voice on the street, "Hey, I've seen those kids on your blog!" And it was someone we knew! Not only did I recognize Laura, but I knew immediately who she was. Which is good, since she is the person taking care of my horse while I am out and about in the world (*waves hi!*).