From Grits to Chopsticks

If you’ve never been to China, here are a few photos that we took this past week of things which might catch your eye.

One of the few stores that sells some Western products (Metro) is quite crowded on the weekends.  Interestingly, a major contributor to the crowding are pallets, stock clerks, and forklift trucks (in spite of the fact that it is a busy Saturday afternoon).

On a recent visit to our local Walmart we bought two small bags of sugar.  Even though they were packaged the same, it was interesting to see the difference in colors when we poured them both into a clear container.

While riding to the store today, we passed this large apartment building.  We were somewhat surprised to see that it was being painted by a bunch of guys hanging from ropes and using rollers.

Coming from the west, we find it unusual that similar stores often open side-by-side (or many filling an entire city block) with no visible differentiation.  Here is the grand opening of a second drug store right next to one that has been in place for a few months.

Here is the stack of money that we used this week to pay for our apartment rent (6 months in advance) and prior year utilities.  Most transactions here are still done with cash, usually requiring several trips to the ATM.

Finally – a point of familiarity, regardless of where you go in the world.  A road repair crew with a few guys working while the rest stand (or sit) around.

Unless you have been here, it is hard to comprehend the pace of growth in China.  Many things have changed during our six month absence.  Here is a nearby school that didn’t exist when we left:

Last summer, I shopped at some popular 2 kwai stores in this district.  It is now condemned and being demolished:

With the addition of many new buildings, the apartment complex near our university continues to grow:

When you get closer, you realize how huge these buildings are:

With all of these new apartments, it’s easy to wonder if there will be enough new city residents to fill them up.  It may not be a problem – while walking by the train station on Sunday morning, we shot this photo:

On our first night back in China, our dinnertime conversation with friends was interrupted as “Lantern Festival” fireworks began erupting right outside of our restaurant door:

Chinese people are generally frugal, but not when it comes to fireworks.  Many of them are blasting away on the streets:

They start very young:

And even before it’s over, the street cleaners try to get a jump on the aftermath:

Before heading back to China, we had a taste of another culture right within the USA–the Amish who live in our daughter’s hometown.  The local stores even have dedicated parking spots for their buggies: 

Here are a few of the things that we will miss when we return to China this week:

Although it can get quite cold in our city, we don’t have central heating or air conditioning systems.  (But we do have long underwear!)

We have really enjoyed using a car in America, even when we have to scrape off the snow.  Although many people in China are buying cars, we usually ride the bus or taxi, limiting our shopping trips to whatever the two of us can manually carry.

We have also enjoyed the small kitchen in our US apartment.  We will miss the refrigerator INSIDE the kitchen, a full-sized oven, a LARGE coffee maker, and our favorite appliance – a dishwasher!

Of course, we will miss our kids and grandkids most of all.  We have truly been blessed to spend time together over the past few months.

At 12:42PM on Tuesday, January 8th, our newest family member took his first breath!  Samuel Luke was 8lbs, 3oz andwas 21″ long:

Laurie went through the painful process without an epidural – but survived.  When Elijah met his new little brother for the first time, he quickly came to the realization that his entire world was about to change:

After a couple of weeks, he’s finally warming up to the idea of sharing his parents with a new member of the family.  Of course, NaiNai and YeYe (Grandma and Granddad) are pretty excited to have another little fellow to hold:

After a year of our family being scattered around the world (China, Australia, and a couple of States), we were blessed at the end of 2012 to have our entire family all together for a belated Christmas celebration.  During our evening devotionals, we kept our focus on the greatest Gift of all.  We also traded gifts with each other:

In keeping with tradition, the kids unwrapped an unusual present that sent them hunting for their gifts.  This time, it was a puzzle with a riddle written on the back:

They followed the clues to a cemetery, a geocache, and then to this covered bridge:

They proceeded to a lakeshore, to a gazebo in the town park, and finally, to a hatbox back at Laurie’s house.  Along the way, Elijah got to swing with Nai Nai in the park while the big kids goofed around:

We had a beautiful snowfall on our belated Christmas day:

Somehow, the “snowperson” ended up bearing some resemblance to Laurie: 

Of course, we enjoyed eating some delicious food together, like this Chinese food cooked by our resident Asian chefs:

And as usual, we played a number of board games, including this Asian edition of “Ticket to Ride” gifted to us by Stephen and Jessica (who also won the overall competition this year):

We are truly blessed to have a family that enjoys spending time together!

Since we returned to the States in August, we’ve spent a lot of time visiting family and friends.  According to our calendar, we haven’t stayed in the same place for longer than two weeks over the past four months.  We’ve seen a lot of North America out of the window of our car, including farmland in Pennsylvania:

Cottonfields in Arkansas:

clear streams in the mountains of Virginia:

Blue sky and the emergence of fall colors in NC and TN:

Lake Michigan from the shore of Sheboygan, Wisconsin (that’s just fun to say!):

and a snowstorm in the Canadian northwest:

We rented a truck and drove some stuff up the east coast to our daughter’s house:

and borrowed my brother’s Suburban, making many trips to haul old stuff from Susan’s parents attic to the local dump:

Although we are planning a couple more trips up and down the east coast before returning to China in February, we rented a temporary apartment in Pennsylvania to “settle down” a little bit.  We were very thankful to find a one-bedroom apartment just a few minutes away from Laurie’s house.  Hopefully, we’ll be in town when she goes into labor!

With over 3000 locations in China, KFC is the market leader among fast-food restaurants.  And fortunately for the Colonel, chickens are easy to find around town.  But most locals don’t look in the “chilled food” section of the grocery:

If you don’t like today’s selection of hens, you can “bag” a rooster:

Some folks have them prepared in the market, while others just bring them home in a basket on the bus:

Bringing home a live chicken has its advantages – you can just tie it up for later instead of refrigerating it:

Chickens are not the only food fowl around.  The entire life-cycle of quail can be found in our local market:

The foreign affairs department of our school treated us to dinner at a nice restaurant last week — one that served pheasant:

Recently, while eating with a student and his father, we had some delicious roasted duck.  A nearby restaurant also serves duck and gave us a free duck dish one time as an appetizer:

Yes, there’s nothing like a plate of heaping duck tongues to energize your appetite!

Stephen (our oldest son) has been living in Perth this year, working for the Boston Consulting Group in support of the west Australian mining industry.  Jessica (his girlfriend) has been visiting him this winter (remember: southern hemisphere) and recently made the long journey to spend some time with us in China.  She had the privilege of flying into the new Kunming International Airport:

This new airport is huge – the second largest terminal building in China – they even have a Starbucks and a KFC (but no McDonald’s).

Jessica arrived on Sunday, allowing us to take her to Green Lake Park for some free entertainment.  Among the many dancers, there was this group from the Bai Minority inviting people to join them in a circle dance:

Click here to see them in action: Minority Dance

The next day was the opening ceremony of one of three English Summer camps held at our school.  140 rural English teachers came to this camp to improve their teaching skills.  I used balloon animals in my opening speech to illustrate a proper amount of “stretch” to help students retain and use their new knowledge:

There was also an English Camp for primary school students.  Since all of the university teachers can send their kids to camp for free, they let me adopt “Bruce” for the summer so that he could also attend:

Jessica was able to join us for meals with students and teachers:

We have now entered our rainy season, but that didn’t stop us from taking Jessica for a hike on the nearby mountains:

At the end of the week, we caught a taxi to the bus station to begin a journey westward.  It’s always “fun” to buy tickets:

We stopped first in a nearby city where we joined an English summer camp for the day.  Here are some of the students who were celebrating Christmas in July:

We spent the next day at a friend’s house in the beautiful city of Dali.  From his rooftop, you can see the misty mountains in one direction and turn the other way to see Lake Erhai:

We then took a long bus ride to Lijiang.  While there, we rode the gondola up near the top of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.  Unfortunately, this time of year, it should be called “rain” mountain:

For the sake of contrast, here’s a photo from a visit with our sons during Christmas of 2010:

At the end of our brief visit to Lijiang, we were able to get a “soft sleeper” compartment on the overnight train back to Kunming.  Although it’s not very clean, it is a good substitute for hotel rooms and busses to make the 9 hour trip: