X-Mas in China

cock-a-doodle-doo

Our downstairs neighbors were recently given a live rooster by their grandparents. It's a traditional gift for Chinese New Year. Unfortunately, the bird is going to live in a coop right outside our bedroom window until January 23. It's screeching in the morning isn't the most pleasant thing to wake up to--especially at 4 AM! Good grief. It's so loud it's hard to believe it's not actually in bed with us! James keeps mentioning to our friendly neighbors that their rooster is very fierce and crows very early in the morning. They always laugh heartily at this very good joke!

It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!

At least, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas inside our apartment. Outside it still looks like China. No snow, no yard ornaments, no light displays, no town square nativity scenes or Santa huts. But James and I have enjoyed making our living room look as Christmas-y as possible! And I've loved the excuse to spend some time crafting! Here are some pictures of our handiwork.

These pretty 3D stars look so beautiful hanging over our dining table.


To make this sign I cut out squares of cardboard, covered them with white paper, painted each piece red or green, and then stenciled on block letters. It turned out cute, I think.

We cut out a flurry of paper snowflakes to tape up in our front window. It's almost as cheery as the real thing!

Here is our scraggly little Christmas tree! We found it in a local market and looks so much cuter than anything we expected we'd be able to put up this year. It's fun to have a real, live Christmas tree, potted and all. As long as we don't kill it, we should be able to use it for a few years! (And aren't our lumberjack stockings cute!? Love 'em.)

These origami ornaments were slightly tedious, but they turned out great.

And these 3D paper ball ornaments really helped fill out the tree.

Our last decoration is this antique nativity scene that we purchased this summer and brought back with us. It reminds me so much of the set my mom always puts out each Christmas! I am really looking forward to using it to tell the story.

And now I just want to sing "Deck the Halls!"

turkey, dog, and pumpkins

Though the title of this post includes all things that you can eat here in China, I assure you no dogs have been eaten by us since we've moved here. Rather, we wanted to update you on a few happenings this Fall/Winter. First off, we had a great thanksgiving with some ex-pats in town. We hosted 16 adults and 10 children. Everybody brought a ton of food and we ate our brains out. I even downloaded last year's macys parade and fooled everybody into thinking it was this year's.















Next we got Laura making some delicious acorn squash cookies. They were sssooo delicious!















Below we have a picture of Maggie. She is some kind of Yorkshire Terrier from Chengdu. The owners of this dog are busy having a baby in Thailand so we volunteered to watch her while they're gone. She a bit of a hassle, but for the most part very mild.



















And last we have a picture of a wedding Laura and I attended two weeks ago. The bride is a member of the Pumi minority group and the groom Mousu. It was our first wedding to attend in China which made it extra special for us.















Other than that we've been enjoying X-mas decorating and receiving fun packages from the States. School is still session. We have another 5-6 weeks left of class (with one day off for the holidays, haha). We are seeing a lot of improvement and continue to enjoy our teachers.

Happy holidays!

Two Years Today!!!!

It's our two year anniversary! Honestly, I can believe it! It seems forever ago we were standing at the altar in Dennison, Ohio. So much life has been shared in these last two years. Blessing after blessing has been heaped on my undeserving head--the best of which is my husband James.


We took a little road trip this weekend and got to celebrate in snow! It was magical.

China's driving test

Recently, a friend of ours bought a new truck and said that we could use it for special occasions. It's nothing fancy but it is a diesel truck with a low gear ratio which makes it easy to get up and down the tough dirt roads around our city. We were very excited about this and wanted to make full use of the new truck. But first things first, I needed to get my Chinese driver's license.

Here in China, a foreigner can get a license 1 of 2 ways. If you don't have a driver's license issued from your home country, then you most go through the process a Chinese person would. You have to take classes and pass both a written and driving test. The cost could be upwards of $600. If you already have a driver's license issued from your home country, then all you need to do is get the right chops (google: chinese chops) and pass the written test. Easy enough, right? No.

The written test is notorious for being badly translated into English, lacking common sense, and downright hard to memorize. Many people here in our city have attempted to pass the test, but have come up short. For example, one of our close friends in town took it 4 times before passing it on his fifth. The test is compromised of a random 100 questions out of a possible 1300. There are about 40 true or false and 60 multiple choice. You most get a minimum of 90% to pass within a 45 minute time frame. The questions range from understanding street signs to knowing how to stop the bleeding from someone's flank (yes they use the word flank). There are two ways to study for the test. 1) get the paper study guide which consist of all 1300 questions and their answers, review, and memorize, or 2) download the ipod app (yes someone made an app) which breaks down all the questions into categories and let's you take practice tests.

I wanted to pass the test on the first try, so I downloaded the app and studied like crazy. Last Tuesday I took the test and scored a 97%. Woohoo, it's official. Now I just have to learn how to drive on these crazy Chinese roads :)

As I was studying for the test, I came across some really funny questions that I wanted to share with you. Below are pictures I took of some of the most bizarre and funniest questions I came across. I broke them up into four categories, 1) bad translation, 2) courtesy, 3) comical, and 4) just weird. Enjoy!

Weird:




































































(you would think the answer to the above question would be (D), but it is actually (A) :)

Funny:







































































Courtesy:






































Bad Translation:

sad october

This past week was the "national holiday," which means everybody gets off school the entire week; well at least the foreign students. The Chinese students here in Lijiang have to make up two days worth of the holiday on Saturday and Sunday. Why don't they just use the weekend as part of the holiday and have class two days of class during the week? No one knows why, it's just the way it is.

So what did we do for our break??? Well, Laura is currently in Indonesia. Her best friend Sheila is also on her vacation and decided to spend it in Indo and asked Laura to tag along.....so Laura did....for 12 days! Yes, I know what you must be thinking, "How is James gonna survive 12 days without Laura?" That's a great question. I've already lost 8 lbs, I can't find anymore clean clothes, and I have a mild case of pneumonia because I get too cold at night! But seriously, I miss her. I knew it was going to be hard, but not this hard! But she's having a great time in Indo. She'll tell you more about it when she gets back.

So Laura wanted me to post some pics of our finished (almost) apartment. The process of "making home" has taken forever. It's hard to find things you like and harder to get them to LJ when you do find them. But here are some pics of what we have so far. Enjoy!

James & Laura unwrapping the furniture we ordered:





























Patio, dining table, entry way:



















































Living room:

































Kitchen:

































Guest bedroom and bathroom (wet bathroom, no division):





































Master bedroom (still unfinished):



















Master bathroom:

Photo Booth

our first (real) home

About two weeks ago, Laura and I moved into our first real home together (I say real because we feel some permanency here). The process of getting into this home has been a lot of máfan, but we are glad to make it our home, an oasis of America in a sea of Chinese.

We first agreed to rent the house when it was still being zhuāng xiū (a word that means something like decorate). All houses here are bought completely empty; cement walls, pipes exposed, no finishing what so ever. Since we caught our landlord in the middle of the zhuāng xiū process, we had a bit of say into how we wanted the house to be finished. But to no avail, we couldn't get everything we wanted. As it stands now, there are 7 different kinds of tile (white, blue, green and brown, etc), and 5 different kinds of wood color (dark, light, medium, red, etc) scattered throughout the house. But don't hear me wrong, our house is beautiful. We have an outdoor patio, a big open layout, three medium size rooms, two full bathrooms, and really friendly neighbors. In fact, our neighbors are so friendly, that if we leave the front door open, they will walk in and check out the place. This was a bit alarming at first, but now we find it inviting (until they start asking how much we paid for things like lights, chair, etc. and continue on about how we paid too much and they could of got it for cheaper). Our neighbors directly across the hall are especially welcoming. They gave us a house warming gift of raisins, almonds, and a "really cute" tea set (as Laura says it). She invited us over for lunch in which she cooked up a feast; fish from Hunan, pork, and 4 other vegetable dishes I couldn't put my finger on, but it was good. She also has a dog named kělè, which is cola in Mandarin. The dog is a brown haired poodle, cute but an ankle biter.

We haven't finished our own personal zhuāng xiū yet. We have couches from Ikea coming next week (thank you aaron and stacy in Chengdu for ordering and shipping those for us), we have a full kitchen coming at the end of the month, and we are furnishing everything else as it comes, màn man lái. You're probably wondering how we're eating or what we're sitting on. Well, we have a makeshift kitchen set up of a single burner and refrigerator (we do dishes in the bathroom!). And we are currently using our bed for just about everything, office, sleep, eating, and I'll stop there.

School is still moving on. We finished Phase I of GPA and are moving on to pīnyīn (the Latin pronunciation of Mandarin) and other grammar topics. We can feel the progress we are making, but some days are much harder than others. Still though, we are enjoying our classes and especially enjoying our teacher. We are grateful for our school.

Here are some recent pics:















Laura and I were walking through a quiet part of Old Town when we saw some white folks in pairs with backpacks and big cameras. I said, "Laura, this looks like the Amazing Race," and she replied, "Look, and there's the clue box!" We asked them what version of The Race they were filming but they wouldn't tell us. Based on their accent, I would say it is the Australian version (yes there are multiple versions of The Race, maybe 4 or 5 total).

















A confusing pronunciation lesson.





















Local fried cheese (not sure what kind) sprinkled with sugar.





















Cute little walrus street dog. ("Walrus" because of the splay-footed paws.)





















Who would have thought?

staying busy....

Life keeps on moving forward here in Lijiang, though sometimes it feels like we are at a stand still. Classes have picked up in difficulty as now we are speaking full time. I'm starting to realize why Mandarin is the hardest language to learn for English speakers. There are a few pronunciations that are just about impossible to create with my mouth. This is OK, I don't mind speaking with an accent. At least that's the way I feel until I hear the Chinese person at the grocery store say "Sank you," instead of "thank you."

Below is a picture of one of our lessons. We put out a 100 or so of the 400 flashcards we've learned and attempted to say them all. It was tough.















Life is becoming more and more normal. Our routine has kicked in and we are learning how to survive in this culture. Not everything is foreign to us here in Lijiang. Some things are very familiar, but not completely familiar, like this picture below:















And there are other things that I'm sure we'll never get used to:



















One thing that will definitely contribute to us making China our home is our first apartment. We just signed a three year contract starting May 1. We are the first renters and have had a lot of say on the remodeling process. We are excited to make it our first home together. We'll upload some pics of the finished apt soon.