by Amy
While we were in a hotel a few weeks ago, I called down to housekeepping and requested an extra blanket/quilt for our kids. Our language is a tonal language, and if you don't get the tones just right, it can change the entire meaning! So, about five minutes after my phone call, a housekeeping guy promply came -- with a coffee cup in hand. I had tried to ask for a for a BEIzi (quilt), but he brought a beizi (cup) instead. We got a good laugh out of that one! Ugghh!! Will we ever get this language down!?!?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
The Joys of Being a Foreigner!
by Amy
Being a foreigner definitely has it's drawbacks, but there are a few perks... For example, our Wal-Mart is on the second and third floors of a four story building. You can enter Wal-Mart from the second or third floor, but they only want you to exit from the second floor by the check-out counters. On the fourth floor, there's a fun arcade that our kids call "Chuck-E-Cheese." (not quite, but it's as good as it gets here!) Anyway, there have been several times on our way to the arcade where I've run into Wal-Mart to see if they have a particular item. But -- shocker -- they did not. Well, I don't want to drag the kids all the way downstairs to exit the store just to go back up again. So, I don't... I exit through the entrance on the third floor. As the greeter tries to stop me (speaking Asianeese, of course) I speak loudly and slowly in English, " I DID NOT BUY ANYTHING! I AM GOING UP STAIRS, NOT DOWN. THANK YOU, THANK YOU." It usually ends in both of us laughing and her letting me pass as my kids are already half way up the escalators....
Well, the other day we were having dryer issues.... We've been having dryer issues for about a year, actually. But, this last week I noticed a drastic turn for the worst, so since we were leaving town for a week, it was great time to have them take my machine away and fix it. I think Brad's mentioned before how difficult it is to find good laborers here ... they don't get paid much, and don't have much incentive to work hard. To make a long story short, we were not pleased with the worker and he knew it. After asking several times, he would not give us his name. So, while he was on the phone explaining to Leigh (my house helper), his repair plan, Brad took his picture, (to have on file if we need to complain about him.) He definitely wasn't sure what to think about that, but what could he say? Oh, the things we get way with by being foreigners!
Being a foreigner definitely has it's drawbacks, but there are a few perks... For example, our Wal-Mart is on the second and third floors of a four story building. You can enter Wal-Mart from the second or third floor, but they only want you to exit from the second floor by the check-out counters. On the fourth floor, there's a fun arcade that our kids call "Chuck-E-Cheese." (not quite, but it's as good as it gets here!) Anyway, there have been several times on our way to the arcade where I've run into Wal-Mart to see if they have a particular item. But -- shocker -- they did not. Well, I don't want to drag the kids all the way downstairs to exit the store just to go back up again. So, I don't... I exit through the entrance on the third floor. As the greeter tries to stop me (speaking Asianeese, of course) I speak loudly and slowly in English, " I DID NOT BUY ANYTHING! I AM GOING UP STAIRS, NOT DOWN. THANK YOU, THANK YOU." It usually ends in both of us laughing and her letting me pass as my kids are already half way up the escalators....
Well, the other day we were having dryer issues.... We've been having dryer issues for about a year, actually. But, this last week I noticed a drastic turn for the worst, so since we were leaving town for a week, it was great time to have them take my machine away and fix it. I think Brad's mentioned before how difficult it is to find good laborers here ... they don't get paid much, and don't have much incentive to work hard. To make a long story short, we were not pleased with the worker and he knew it. After asking several times, he would not give us his name. So, while he was on the phone explaining to Leigh (my house helper), his repair plan, Brad took his picture, (to have on file if we need to complain about him.) He definitely wasn't sure what to think about that, but what could he say? Oh, the things we get way with by being foreigners!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Olympic Wall
By Amy
This is my last Olympic post, I promise! But, I have mentioned our "Olympic Wall" a few times, so, I thought I'd post a couple of pics.
I plan on taking most of the things that we made, minus the torches and big rings, and making an Olympic Binder. We spent a good three weeks making the stuff on that wall, so I'm just not ready to throw it all away - yet. I will say, I am ready for it to come down though, but Savannah really wanted Sue to see it, so it's staying for another couple of weeks.
This is a closer look at Savannah's tally sheets. Almost every day, I'd get the medal count online and have her add tally marks under Gold, Silver, and Bronze for the US and China. By doing this and counting them everyday, she learned how to count by 5s! Above the tally pages, is what we call the Jing-man. As you probably picked up by watching the Beijing Olympics, this was one of the symbols of the games. It is an artistic rendition of the Jing character in Bei Jing.
Here you get a closer look at our medals and torches. Our torches were fun! We made them out of coke bottles, foil, and foam and sparkly papers. They have been loved well and now look a little ragged! Our medals were pretty messy/glittery, but the kids had fun making them by working glitter into homemade dough, using biscuit cutters to shape them and baking them. We made 3 for the wall, and then 3 for each kid, including Clara and Chloe who came to play that day. I'm not sure if Rachel has forgiven me or not yet for causing her home to be covered in glitter by sending these home with her girls.
Finally, this is our map.... I often would find a map online and show Savannah where our new country was located and let her find it on our map. She did a great job!
I really enjoyed doing a big unit-type study like this, so if you have any other ideas of fun things that we could study and would branch into to lots of different subject areas (history, math, etc.) let me know!
This is my last Olympic post, I promise! But, I have mentioned our "Olympic Wall" a few times, so, I thought I'd post a couple of pics.
I plan on taking most of the things that we made, minus the torches and big rings, and making an Olympic Binder. We spent a good three weeks making the stuff on that wall, so I'm just not ready to throw it all away - yet. I will say, I am ready for it to come down though, but Savannah really wanted Sue to see it, so it's staying for another couple of weeks. 
This is a closer look at Savannah's tally sheets. Almost every day, I'd get the medal count online and have her add tally marks under Gold, Silver, and Bronze for the US and China. By doing this and counting them everyday, she learned how to count by 5s! Above the tally pages, is what we call the Jing-man. As you probably picked up by watching the Beijing Olympics, this was one of the symbols of the games. It is an artistic rendition of the Jing character in Bei Jing. 
Here you get a closer look at our medals and torches. Our torches were fun! We made them out of coke bottles, foil, and foam and sparkly papers. They have been loved well and now look a little ragged! Our medals were pretty messy/glittery, but the kids had fun making them by working glitter into homemade dough, using biscuit cutters to shape them and baking them. We made 3 for the wall, and then 3 for each kid, including Clara and Chloe who came to play that day. I'm not sure if Rachel has forgiven me or not yet for causing her home to be covered in glitter by sending these home with her girls. 
Finally, this is our map.... I often would find a map online and show Savannah where our new country was located and let her find it on our map. She did a great job! I really enjoyed doing a big unit-type study like this, so if you have any other ideas of fun things that we could study and would branch into to lots of different subject areas (history, math, etc.) let me know!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
And We're Off....
by Amy
Wow, with home schooling everyday and studying this crazy language many afternoons, I don't have much time to blog! This past week was a little extra busy as the kids did not go to kindergarten in the afternoon. We are actually changing kindergartens as one is opening in our apartment complex. Talk about convenient! If we walked to their old school, it would usually take about 20-25 min. to get there, maybe 5 min. inside and about 15-20 min. to walk home. I could stay home for about 1 hour, then it was time to head out the door to go pick them up. So, Brad and I would often trade taking or picking up. And, if one of us had to do both ways, we'd usually just sit in a KFC about 5 min. from the kindergarten and study. So, having them just across the parking lot will be great! It also will be nice because we've asked one of the teachers, who speaks English, to work on teaching our kids the local language. We'll see how that goes, but that's the goal! Also, since it's in a 2 bedroom apartment, they'll have about 15 kids & 4 teachers, not 30-40/class. So, hopefully it will be a good fit for our family!
Tomorrow morning we're off to that big city north of us. We're going with some of our other American friends from our town and will hang out for a few days together, then, we're picking Sue, Brad's mom, up at the airport! She decided to come visit us before her 1 year visa expired at the end of September. We're all super excited to see her! We'll take some time to shop and play in the big city before bring her back to our home. I actually will not be returning home with my family....Since Sue will be here to help Brad with the kids, I'm flying to another city to take a 3 day intensive language class. I'm super excited about this class! I feel like it will really help me communicate on a deeper level! So, I will be away from home for almost 2 weeks. I'm sure the blog entries will be slow coming.... Sorry!
Wow, with home schooling everyday and studying this crazy language many afternoons, I don't have much time to blog! This past week was a little extra busy as the kids did not go to kindergarten in the afternoon. We are actually changing kindergartens as one is opening in our apartment complex. Talk about convenient! If we walked to their old school, it would usually take about 20-25 min. to get there, maybe 5 min. inside and about 15-20 min. to walk home. I could stay home for about 1 hour, then it was time to head out the door to go pick them up. So, Brad and I would often trade taking or picking up. And, if one of us had to do both ways, we'd usually just sit in a KFC about 5 min. from the kindergarten and study. So, having them just across the parking lot will be great! It also will be nice because we've asked one of the teachers, who speaks English, to work on teaching our kids the local language. We'll see how that goes, but that's the goal! Also, since it's in a 2 bedroom apartment, they'll have about 15 kids & 4 teachers, not 30-40/class. So, hopefully it will be a good fit for our family!
Tomorrow morning we're off to that big city north of us. We're going with some of our other American friends from our town and will hang out for a few days together, then, we're picking Sue, Brad's mom, up at the airport! She decided to come visit us before her 1 year visa expired at the end of September. We're all super excited to see her! We'll take some time to shop and play in the big city before bring her back to our home. I actually will not be returning home with my family....Since Sue will be here to help Brad with the kids, I'm flying to another city to take a 3 day intensive language class. I'm super excited about this class! I feel like it will really help me communicate on a deeper level! So, I will be away from home for almost 2 weeks. I'm sure the blog entries will be slow coming.... Sorry!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Better to Race and Lose or Not to Race?
From Brad.
The answer to that question might be different depending on where you are from. This is a big difference between the Eastern and Western mindset. To be more specific: Liu Xiang, the Chinese 110m hurdles gold medalist in the 2004 Athens Olympics withdrew from the Beijing Olympics due to 'unbearable' pain. My question is, 'Was he really hurt?' This might seem like a strange question (or even impolite), but consider this.
When Chinese athletes (or students, workers, etc.) fail, they are inundated with an obscene amount of shame. For example when Wang Hao lost the ping pong gold medal match to a non-Chinese in 2004 his coach scolded him, “You made a lot of Chinese have their dreams broken.” An apoplectic Chinese media ripped him to shreds, demanding answers for his wilting under the stress. “I was under enormous pressure,” he mumbled then, an answer not nearly satisfactory for Chinese fans.
Again, when 7 year olds come home from school with average or low grades, their parents say similar things. When 13 year old gymnasts (oops, I mean 16 years old) fall down, they get to hear such motivational speeches for 4 years to 'help them succeed next time'. The thought is if you heap enough shame on the individual, then their motivation will be that much greater to succeed. Of course this is why suicide tends to be much higher in Asian countries.
Back to national hero Liu Xiang. Was he really hurt? Well, he was hurt last year, but had recovered and run many races recently. His times were good, but not nearly fast enough to compete with the world's elite. It was almost certain that if he ran, he would not win the race. Factor all this into the following stat (found on Yahoo), "Liu's dramatic withdrawal from the Olympics has cast a big shadow over a golden Games for hosts China. In a survey of more than a million Chinese carried out at the end of last year, the top Olympic dream was to witness Liu winning gold at the "Bird's Nest" stadium."
The Western mindset typically cares about the individual and maybe a small number of important people who are his/her biggest supporters. When he doesn't win, he feels the weight of letting himself down (and maybe them). The Eastern mindset knows he represents his family or in more high profile cases, his country. I can't say Liu Xiang was perfectly healthy and able to run, but given the above information, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he chose not to race in order to avoid 'letting down' 1.4 billion people.
The answer to that question might be different depending on where you are from. This is a big difference between the Eastern and Western mindset. To be more specific: Liu Xiang, the Chinese 110m hurdles gold medalist in the 2004 Athens Olympics withdrew from the Beijing Olympics due to 'unbearable' pain. My question is, 'Was he really hurt?' This might seem like a strange question (or even impolite), but consider this.
When Chinese athletes (or students, workers, etc.) fail, they are inundated with an obscene amount of shame. For example when Wang Hao lost the ping pong gold medal match to a non-Chinese in 2004 his coach scolded him, “You made a lot of Chinese have their dreams broken.” An apoplectic Chinese media ripped him to shreds, demanding answers for his wilting under the stress. “I was under enormous pressure,” he mumbled then, an answer not nearly satisfactory for Chinese fans.
Again, when 7 year olds come home from school with average or low grades, their parents say similar things. When 13 year old gymnasts (oops, I mean 16 years old) fall down, they get to hear such motivational speeches for 4 years to 'help them succeed next time'. The thought is if you heap enough shame on the individual, then their motivation will be that much greater to succeed. Of course this is why suicide tends to be much higher in Asian countries.
Back to national hero Liu Xiang. Was he really hurt? Well, he was hurt last year, but had recovered and run many races recently. His times were good, but not nearly fast enough to compete with the world's elite. It was almost certain that if he ran, he would not win the race. Factor all this into the following stat (found on Yahoo), "Liu's dramatic withdrawal from the Olympics has cast a big shadow over a golden Games for hosts China. In a survey of more than a million Chinese carried out at the end of last year, the top Olympic dream was to witness Liu winning gold at the "Bird's Nest" stadium."
The Western mindset typically cares about the individual and maybe a small number of important people who are his/her biggest supporters. When he doesn't win, he feels the weight of letting himself down (and maybe them). The Eastern mindset knows he represents his family or in more high profile cases, his country. I can't say Liu Xiang was perfectly healthy and able to run, but given the above information, it wouldn't surprise me at all if he chose not to race in order to avoid 'letting down' 1.4 billion people.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Fun with Flags -- Answers
by Amy
I'm sure you could hardly sleep at night, waiting for these answers.... Here they are:
E. good 'ol USA, made with our new paper cutter and glitter by us all.
K. Columbia - All thee kids were responsible for crumpling and gluing their own color pieces in the right place. 
M. Switzerland - Savannah made this flag her self by gluing cotton balls in place.
I hope you enjoyed seeing all our fun work. I'll post a pic of our "Olympic Wall" in a few days. I hope to figure out how to make metals, but I'm not sure that's going to happen before the games are over!
I'm sure you could hardly sleep at night, waiting for these answers.... Here they are:
A. Italy, made by the boys with popscicle sticks.
B. Japan, made with pipe cleaners by Savannah.
B. Japan, made with pipe cleaners by Savannah.
C. China, a collage of torn red papers by all of us.
D. Thailand, made by gluing yarn to make stripes, by us all.
E. good 'ol USA, made with our new paper cutter and glitter by us all.
F. France made with magnetics by Alex and Savannah. It didn't stay on our wall very long!
G. Netherlands by Peter. He used a bead-board thing Savannah has.
H. Greece. Savannah and I made this one by putting white tape on blue paper.
I. Australia made by all three of us. Savannah cut most of the stars and helped me and the boys glue the sequins in place.
J. Germany - each of the kids painted half of their stripe and folded it over to spread the paint to the other half.
K. Columbia - All thee kids were responsible for crumpling and gluing their own color pieces in the right place. 
M. Switzerland - Savannah made this flag her self by gluing cotton balls in place.
I hope you enjoyed seeing all our fun work. I'll post a pic of our "Olympic Wall" in a few days. I hope to figure out how to make metals, but I'm not sure that's going to happen before the games are over!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Fun with Flags
by Amy
As we've been watching and "studying" the Olympics, the kids and I have made flags from different countries around the world. I selected countries for several reasons....first of all, I selected countries that are familiar to my kids -- where we live, where we've been, where we have friends living, etc. Secondly, I selected flags that they were seeing a lot as we watched the games. Thirdly, I wanted at least one flag from every Continent (except Antarctica). Finally, I selected flags based on how easy they would be to reproduce! Another goal I had was to exhaust my creative abilities (which wasn't hard to do) and come up with different ways to make each flag. (Thankfully, my ever-resourceful-friend Rachel stepped in and offered a few suggestions!) One has glitter, one used popsicle sticks, another used pipe cleaners. All are different! It was tons of fun for us all! All three kids participated in most of the flags, but a few were individual projects.
So, here's the quiz! How many of these flags to you recognize? The answers will be posted in a day or two.
As we've been watching and "studying" the Olympics, the kids and I have made flags from different countries around the world. I selected countries for several reasons....first of all, I selected countries that are familiar to my kids -- where we live, where we've been, where we have friends living, etc. Secondly, I selected flags that they were seeing a lot as we watched the games. Thirdly, I wanted at least one flag from every Continent (except Antarctica). Finally, I selected flags based on how easy they would be to reproduce! Another goal I had was to exhaust my creative abilities (which wasn't hard to do) and come up with different ways to make each flag. (Thankfully, my ever-resourceful-friend Rachel stepped in and offered a few suggestions!) One has glitter, one used popsicle sticks, another used pipe cleaners. All are different! It was tons of fun for us all! All three kids participated in most of the flags, but a few were individual projects.
So, here's the quiz! How many of these flags to you recognize? The answers will be posted in a day or two.
A.
B.
C. 
D.
E.
F. (that would be blue, white and red -- it's not a great pic.)
G.
H.
I.
J.
K. L. M.
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