Cookie Decorating Differences

This Christmas, James decided to get in on the last few minutes of cookie decorating. I was surprised and pleased to think he wanted to participate!

Looking over his handiwork, I asked him why his gingerbread men all look miserable or leprous. "Because they're about to be eaten!" he replied.  Of course.  Silly me.

just noticed...

For the past two years, Laura and I have been studying Chinese in the same exact classroom. This classroom is bittersweet for us. Some days, we feel like we can speak and understand so well, and other days we feel like we're all the way back at day one! In general, we spend 8 hrs/week learning how to speak/listen, and another 1.5 hrs/wk learning how to read/write. As you can imagine, our reading/writing comprehension has moved at a snail's pace, but we've seen a lot of improvements during this semester. As our reading comprehension grows, we've discovered a whole new world of advertisements and signs. It's actually been really fun discovering the advertising techniques of Chinese companies as well as other signs and markers explaining what things are. For example, our classroom where we've been studying for the last two years has one sign on the door and one above the door. See picture below.

The dark blue sign on the door says, "Foreign language department classroom." This is appropriate, all the classrooms in this hallway have this same sign on the door because it's the foreign language dept wing. But the light blue sign above the door is only above our classroom. Well, it says this, "Mental consultation room." Haha! This is even more appropriate then the dark blue sign! I feel like after every class I need to seek mental consultation. When asked why this sign is above our classroom, our teacher said that our room was originally intended for this use, but later changed as the foreign language dept moved in. We told her that it was still an appropriate place for the sign as we often leave the classroom with mental headaches!

It's Been Three Years!

Three years ago James promised to commit to forsake me.

And then he promised to commit to NEVER forsake me.

And I became the luckiest, most blessed woman in the world.

I Married One of the Mario Brothers

This is my husband. I left him for two weeks and came back to a scrawny, bearded man. After many protests, he shaved the beard.  But left the stach. He looks like a certain famous Italian plumber.

Or Captain Hook.  Of course, I love him anyway.  I just won't kiss him.

Disputed islands

 Recently, Japan and China have been feuding over who owns a few islands in the East China Sea. Japan recently bought them off a few private Japanese citizens who had plans to develop them, causing strained relations with China. After Japan bought them, they nationalized them and promised not to develop them to calm the waters so to speak with China. Well, China takes issues of sovereignty pretty seriously. They saw this act by Japan as an encroachment on islands China claims they have owned for hundreds of years. It's a bit confusing, but nonetheless, we have seen/experienced some interesting things here in our small city.

Red sign says: Pigs and dogs along with Japanese can not enter

.

Red banner says: Open business Sale: 1. Say disputed islands are China's, 9 kuai discount. 2. Say Japan is also China's, 8 kuai discount. 3. Japanese people say the above 2 sentences, 5 kuai discount.

The Golden Arches

Look what just opened in town! Oh the bliss of a Big Mac and McFlurry! We now have a Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonald's. What more could we ask for?  (Starbucks, Chipotle, Panera Bread...)

A+B

One of the great things about living in a beautiful, mountainous, high tourist city like Lijiang is that the flow of foreign visitors who are seeking an adventure never stops. For some, this might seem overwhelming, but for Laura and I, we warmly welcome the idea of being involved in people's lives as they experience China for the first time (or second, or third, or fifth...).

And this is no exception for our friends Austin and Brit. Last night, we dropped them off at the train station after a 3 month stay in LJ. We didn't know them prior to their arrival in LJ (we had mutual friends in San Diego), but after these 3 months, we felt like we've been best friends for years.

A+B are also married with no kids. We would often stay up late playing cards, watching movies, and eating out. It was so fun being spontaneous with them. But our time together wasn't just entertainment based; we visited the countryside many times to visit friends, celebrate torch festival, and help with a health clinic. Their service and friendship this Summer will be greatly missed!

At Blue Moon Valley below YuLongXueShan

Torch Festival, ladies dressed up in traditional Yi clothes

Brit holding a little Yi baby

Austin during our mushroom hunting time on XueShan

Culture Acquisition

Laura and I have been in China for over 19 months now. Culture acquisition has been a primary goal of ours since day 1. We've read books, developed friendships with locals who can be honest with us about our cultural blunders, and we've spent an abundant amount of time in the rural countryside soaking up every nugget of information we can gather. I can honestly say that I'm feeling quite comfortable in a city that was once completely foreign to me. But, there are some things about China that I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to. For example, Laura and I went to a hole-in-the-wall noodle place for lunch the other day. As we sat and waited for our meals at a little miniature size table, the women next to me got these delivered to her by the waiter. It still shocks me.

Neighborhood Cheek Graffiti

Recently James and I invited our neighbor, He Ya, and her friend over for dinner and a game of cards. We tried introducing her to Mexican food.  I made sour cream, fresh corn salsa, and chicken fajitas. We even busted out some of our imported cheddar cheese!  James did a great job of demonstrating how to wrap everything up in a neat little bundle.  Ya was hilarious.  She took one bite before everything fell apart and spent most of the meal pushing the contents of her fajita around her plate with chopsticks.

After supper we played a card game called "dou di zhu," or "fight the landlord." It's basically a Chinese version of Scum or President played with three people. Normally it's a drinking game where the losers take shots, but as that wasn't the direction we wanted to go with the evening, we opted out of the alcohol.  Still, Ya insisted there be some form of punishment for losing.  She asked me to go get my eyeliner.  This is what ensued.
 

It amazes me that an unenthusiastically received Mexican meal and eyeliner can be bridges into deeper relationships with our friends here.  It's laughter and life together and the random things that He uses to build friendships.

School's Out!

James and I just finished our third semester of language study! Our goal is to be conversational in Mandarin after three years of school, and we find ourselves already at the halfway mark. Though it is easy to feel discouraged as we tackle this difficult language, I know we've come so far in our abilities to communicate.

This is Laura's final exam paper. She typed it out in Pinyin (the phonetic version of Mandarin) because we have only just begun to learn Chinese characters. Still, our teacher was pretty impressed!

Much of that is due to our language curriculum, GPA. We sought to learn like infants, and now we can talk like toddlers!  We also have to give credit to our amazing teacher, Melinda. She has been a patient instructor, an ever willing help, an insightful bridge to local culture, and a wonderful friend. She was recently accepted to a graduate program in another city and will be leaving us for two years! We are excited for her and this opportunity to further her education, but we are going to miss her SO MUCH.  Especially me.

As we study on next year, I know our goal to become truly conversational will only succeed if both James and I stretch ourselves in conversations and immerse ourselves in Mandarin daily. We hope to start watching soap operas (popular here) and news programs in Mandarin to pick up new vocabulary and culture clues. We plan to be stricter with ourselves while we speak with our Chinese friends--even if they can speak some English, we're going to do our best to communicate entirely in Mandarin. It's hard to follow through with some of these ideas, but we want to be good students.  We are so looking forward to the day when we'll fully understand and be understood!

The girls

Last month Alli, Cori, and Christine came to visit us in Lijiang. They were only able to stay with us for 36 hours, but it was well worth it on our end. We showed them around Old Town and took them to some of our favorite restaurants in town. The next day we hired a van and drove to Tiger Leaping Gorge, arguably the deepest gorge in the world. Though their stay was short, it was so refreshing to have friends from home enter our Chinese life. Thanks girls for coming! And this is the only picture I got of all three of them (I didn't even get a picture of all 5 of us together!). Laura and I are not great picture takers.

the Kingdom of Thailand

We just got back from 2 weeks in Thailand. We spent 5 days down in the islands, 5 days in Bangkok, and the rest of the time in Chiang Mai. We had an absolute blast. We went snorkeling down in the south, watched movies and ate tons of western food in Bangkok, and gallivanted on a motorbike in the North, showing Laura where I used to live. All-in-all it was a trip to remember. We spent lots of time with new friends, and we got to re-live some memories with old friends. Here are some pics:

Ouchie

Yesterday James took a hard fall on the basketball court. He jumped to block a shot, collided with the other player mid-air, and got knocked to the ground. Sort of. He managed to slam his head into the hoop's post, ram his back and ribs into the pole's metal base, jam his elbow against the corner, and sweep the pavement with his left hand all before landing in a heap beneath the basket.

James came back to the house looking like he'd just left the scene of a nasty car accident. After waiting a few hours, we decided that his left wrist was probably broken and made a trip to the local hospital to get it checked out. X-rays show that he has a hairline fracture between his index finger and thumb, but that his wrist is just badly sprained. James refused the hard cast, but took the "herbal aerosol spray" that the doctor prescribed.

His overall take on the accident is that "The game was so awesome! We played great. I was making nearly every shot and had this great three-pointer... And we won!"

Boys.

Ribbon Jell-O

This Christmas we got together with some of our foreign friends in town for a yummy pot-luck. We'd just received a ton of Jell-O packets in a recent care package from our wonderful Aunt Teri, so Laura decided to make Ribbon Jell-O for a dessert. Now, Ribbon Jell-O has been a long-time Thanksgiving tradition in the Chapman household and is excellent for testing how level the refrigerator is. Ours, apparently, sits pretty straight because it turned out awesome! It was a complete hit. Thanks Chapmans!


So yummy.


So striped.


Notice that James coordinated his outfit to match. And little Nate coordinated with James. Haha, so festive.