Back from Beyond

Phew! I am back in Beijing after nine days in the United States. Well, really eight days once the 24+ hours of trans-Pacific air travel is factored in. During the trip, I was in Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando and Boston.

I was able to take a breath and put my feet up at a true Chicago barbecue, complete with some super luscious sweet corn. Ahh, sweet corn. I saw my parents, gave a baby doll to Zane, and attended a wonderful doll workshop with the fabulous Mimi. Oh, and I worked too.

Still jetlagged and pooped, so I will save some stories for later this week.

Bad China Day

If you stay in China long enough, you will start to notice some of the expats grumbling about "bad China days," as in today is not a good one. Bad China days are days where the cultural divide is really hard to overcome. Days where you just do not understand why people are behaving the way they are. Days where you just want to sit down and cry. For me, today is a bad China day.

I left for the airport at 7:20 this morning, which was plenty of time for my 8:30 flight on a regular day. We live right by the airport. The main intersection by our house, however, had a broken traffic light due to an early morning storm. In the United States, drivers tend to behave quite civilly in this kind of situation, allowing one car after another to proceed carefully - in turn, in line. Not so here. There is no such thing as civil behavior when it comes to broken traffic lights. All people can think about is pushing ahead to make sure that THEY get through. The problem is that if everyone pushes ahead, no one can go anywhere. We all get stuck.

After 20 minutes of sitting in the middle of a crazy pileup in the center of the intersection, I got out to signal to the cars perpindicular to ours that they needed to wait a minute so that order could be restored. Despite my quite respectful request for them to stop (where I stood in front of the car and held up my hand), they gunned the engine once a spare inch opened up and crept forward, blocking us further.

At that point, I slammed my hand on the windshield and raised my voice. I needed to make my point, you see. After that, the driver started screaming at me saying that I am a waiguoren (foreigner) and don't know anything. Then my driver gets out to defend me (sweet man) and screams at them too. At this point, I am so livid that all I can do is yell YOU ARE RIDICULOUS at the van full of male workers. Which did not do much good because I don't know the word for ridiculous in Chinese.

Eventually the driver and I stormed back to the car, where we waited for 15 more minutes with the van right in front of us. You see, they gained a foot and blocked our path (and the 50 cars behind us), but they could not go anywhere either.

I made it to the airport, but missed my flight. Changing my ticket was another long complicated story, which involved three counters and several irate people trying to push ahead of me in line.

Because, obviously, they were more important than me.

Bad, bad China day.

Spin

I am preparing to take a quick business trip to the United States. It will be quite the whirlwind tour, with stops along the way to squeeze in some family and personal time. I have to take a number of gifts back, including an engagement present and a house hostess present.

It is hard for me to buy gifts here in China because, well, this country makes a whole lot of crap. Don't get me wrong, there are manufacturers of nice things here too, but most of the quality items are made for export only. It is difficult to find something that is representationally "Chinese," high quality and not commercial.

That said, I do have one very favorite store here in Beijing (now in Shanghai too) called Spin ceramics. This shop sells pottery that is very clean, very modern and very Chinese. The items are all exceedingly simple and well designed. Usually they are finished with a subtle celadon glaze, but they also make some stunning red glazed pieces as well. The teapot on the left is a piece that Chris and I bought for ourselves.

The only bad thing about Spin gifts is that they are not so easy to pack. I will probably be dragging these guys through several airports before the trip is over. That's ok. Sometimes the perfect gift is worth the trouble.

Family Painting

Chris is working on a new idea. He has never painted before, yet got the hang of it right away. His piece already looks great.


The background is all done. It needs to dry this week and perhaps next before the final work is added. How very fun.

Sweetest Little Dress

This weekend I put together the "Sweetest Little Dress" pattern by Jackie Clark. I am not sure where I bought the pattern, but I was attracted by the simplicity of the design. The pattern came with embroidery instructions for the bodice and the skirt. I really wanted to use my Liberty stash fabric, though, which was busy enough without embroidery.

Sadly, the dress was uninspiring, and I do not recommend the pattern. Easy to make, yes, but I think the fabric is the only thing that rescues it from looking like a sack. Also, it has a very weird shoulder button closure that I didn't quite like. I prefer a traditional back closure. To be fair, I was able to pull out my new covered button press, which was fun.

Sizing was odd too, as it "fits up to 24 lbs." I can handle European sizes and US baby pattern sizes now, but this one is confusing. Once finished, the dress seems to be either a 12-18 or 18-24 month size. Its sack-like nature could make the sizing deceiving, however.

All in all, this dress was a bit disappointing.

On Letting Go

One of the things I have been careful about lately is making sure that I do not try to do to many things. I really enjoy crafting, sewing painting and handcrafting stuff, but sometimes it is much better for me to just say no and let someone else take over. I do work 60+ hours a week, and I am on a plane or in a hotel more often than I am home these days. So I try to do projects which make me happy. If something starts to stress me out, then I need to put it down.

I realized this summer that making a baby quilt for Miss G was too much. It would have been fun, but ultimately it would have made me cranky. And nobody needs that. Luckily though, I found this wonderful non-profit community development organization in Ho Chi Minh city in May. Vietnam Quilts brings employment and income to some very poor women in rural Vietnam. They learn new skills and can support their families with their income. I have a long history with the development field, and my personal philosophy lines up well with that of this organization.


With no regret at all, I sent the nursery fabrics I had bought and stashed away for my own quilt. Four weeks later, they sent back a beautiful baby quilt. It was, in truth, much better than I could have made myself. A custom order with shipping was something like US$50. The only problem was that they are pretty backwards with respect to foreign orders and could only accept a wire transfer. The additional bank fees doubled the cost for me, but it was still well worth it.



In letting go, I was able to support a wonderful organization, take one step closer to my nursery vision, and retain my sanity. All good things.

Checkup

We took Frankie to the vet this morning to see about his teeth. Boxers have bad teeth, you see, so we have to take him in once a year or so for a cleaning. We also brush his teeth regularly, as a preventative measure. Actually, Chris normally brushes his teeth while I sit by helplessly.

Chris has been worried about some gum inflammation, and we decided to consult with a western vet. Teeth cleaning for dogs is quite serious, with anesthesia and everything. So we scheduled a pre-cleaning checkup to talk about his issues (sounds funny, right) and make sure everything was OK before the real cleaning visit.

It is always such a big deal when Frankie goes out of the compound in China. First, he elicits such a strong reaction from people; it is always a surreal experience. Second, he gets so excited and worked up that he sheds like a maniac. We have to place towels or a blanket in the car to minimize the damage, but little white hairs still wind up all over our clothes.

Frankie did really well with the vet, though. He has grown up quite a bit since we first met him almost four years ago. He remained calm even when the med tech stuck a thermometer up his butt for three minutes. I wouldn't have been so relaxed if it had been me.

The verdict is that his gum inflammation is really a growth. Because Frankie is a Boxer and Boxers are susceptible to cancer, we have to have it biopsied. Odds are good that it is not cancer. We are worried nonetheless.

If you are so inclined, please pray for our sweet little Frankie this week. He will be going through a lot in days to come.

Happy July Fourth, Peeps!

So I am sitting in a Chinese business hotel in Shanghai, musing over the fact that it is a big holiday in the USofA and I am definitely not holidaying. Chris and I will have been in China for two years soon, which is a very long time to be away from your home country. It is a long time to be away from familiar things like barbeques and baseball games and fireworks. Oh wait. Scratch the fireworks.

I am not homesick at all, probably because Chris is with me to share all of crazy China. Every now and then I think things like - Why can't I buy pantyhose here? Or shoes? If I were in the States, it would be no problem.....

In all seriousness, my dad always used to say that there is nothing like living abroad to make you appreciate your home country. For all of its war-mongering, for all of its crazy embarassing people who don't know how to travel, for all of its many other issues - I am still proud to be an American.

What a Magical Day!

On Saturday, Chris and I were standing in line for the Jungle Cruise ride at Hong Kong Disneyland. From behind us, we heard a two foot tall little one say: What a magical day! Indeed it was.

Chris flew down to meet me in HK on Friday as I was making my way back from Taipei. We expected to spend three to four hours at Disney, but we wound up staying for over seven hours. It is the smallest Disneyland around, but it was more than enough for us.

The Stitch interactive show was crazy technosavy. We still don't know how they got that one to work. I survived Space Mountain (I hate, hate roller coasters), and Chris turned out to be an Ace Buzz Lightyear fighter on the space blaster ride. The Lion King show was really spectacular. Disney does it all well: staging, lights, vocals, choreography, timing.

I was most impressed, however, by the logistics of getting to and in the park. We bought our tickets at the Central MTA station, took the train for about 25 minutes to a station near the airport, switched to the Disney line, and then walked right into the park. No driving, no trolleys from the parking lot to the gate, no long lines to get inside.

Chris took this picture of me on the teacups. Who says Disney is just for kiddos?


For those of you who have not yet been, take note that HK Disney is a great time.