China Trip No. 3:
Part I of Email #3.
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EMAIL #3:
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(Note: Email #3 was written over several days.)
I've been doing my emailing during nap time. :) Nap time begins around 12:30 (or 1:00 for the older kids) and lasts till 3:00. Right now Chuckles (2 yo (for those of you who don't know :)) is dealing out the Uno cards for the two of us to play a second game. (He isn't napping right now because he had a three hour nap this morning.)
It's hilarious...
…commercial break during which
I play a second game with Chuckles. :) ...
…Uno (Chuckles's style) is played by dealing out the entire deck of cards. When it is your turn, you just play the one on the top of your stack. To play, you place your card in one of the four piles of cards in front of you depending on what color of card you have.
So there's a red pile, a green pile, a yellow pile, and a blue pile. I love to hear him whisper (we were whispering so we didn’t wake anyone up), in his often-hard-to understand language,
"'Or (your) 'urn ou (to) deal!" Or, now that Mrs. A brought Baby down, he plays a card, waits to see that I play, and then runs to play a wee bit with Baby. :) Now he comes running back. And in a moment he'll disappear to climb in Baby's playpen and play with her for half a minute.
On our third game, we had just started when he says,
"A'mos done." Another thing that cracks me up is how he almost always says z instead y. So "yes" is always "Zes!" (accompanied by a emphatic nod of the head). :) :)
CHUCKLES PLAYING UNO. :)
BABY LOVES IT WHEN THE KIDS CLIMB IN AND PLAY WITH HER. :)
Yesterday after nap time we went to the school that Mr. A teaches at. We played ball, and then Mr. A, Dad, and the boss went on a tour. They didn't see even half the school. :) The boss is really big into the history and meaning of things. Around the grounds you’ll see huge sculptures, either of wood or stone, that have some meaning. There was a series of rooms that were created for when parents come to visit or when the school has some distinguished visitor. They must've spent close to an hour in those rooms. I think they saw the greenhouse, the gardens/organic farm (they have really yummy grapes that I learned to eat the Chinese way!), and that series of rooms specially decorated. They had a good conversation with him about spiritual things.
THE BOSS & HIS WIFE AND DAD & ME (AND BABY :))
THE BOSS SERVING TEA.
One Chinese custom I've struggled with is not saying "thank-you." The reasoning behind this custom is that the deeper the friendship, the less need to say thank-you. So if you say "thank you" you are basically telling the person that your friendship isn't very deep. The Chinese people are shocked when Mr. A or Mrs. A say thank-you to their kids.
Friday night it rained, so Saturday morning we took the kids out to play in the puddles. The streets don't have good drainage systems so the streets fill with water. The kids had a fun time. :) Unfortunately, Mr. A decided there must've been sewage in those puddles too. :-/
Before we took them out though, the police came. Coming in on the airplane, you are to write down where you’ll be staying at. If you’re going out into the country, you are to register your presence with the police of the town when you get there. We were going to go to the police station Saturday morning at 9:00, but Mr. A got a phone call saying that the police were going to come to the house instead! I don't remember what I was doing, but all of a sudden Mr. A calls out, "Hurry, Abby!! Grab your camera!! They're comin' down the street! Get a picture!" (Or something like that. :)) So I ran to the window, but I couldn't see a single person. I'm looking all over the place when I finally look straight down in front of the stairway door. There's a big group of people walking towards the staircase entrance. A couple of people are hauling cameras out of their car. I started thinking "What!!!! Reporters!!!??? Please NO!!"
They all trouped up the stairs and into the house. There was half a dozen police besides the TV reporter, a lady with a still camera, and a boy maybe Cattleman’s age or younger. The reporters took pictures of everything - even our passports! Everyone was very friendly and enjoyed looking at the pictures we brought.
When the police were ready to give our passports back, I had to stand up with a policewoman. She handed my passport back to me with a formal gesture. I felt extremely silly.:) Then the camera guy who was filming everything said I had taken it too fast. So we repeated the gesture.. slower. They not only gave Dad his passport back like they had done with me, but they said “You’re going to say this and this and this.” (Or something like that. :))
Well… as you can imagine, that was not too appealing to Dad. But he didn’t want to mess up the good relationship Mr. A had with the police department, so he thought of something else to say that was still complimentary but also truthful. :) He said something about how convenient to was for us to have the police come to the house. They had Mr. A sit beside him on the couch and translate. Sherrie's mom said that we were on the city news.
Sunday morning Mr. A preached a sermon on the last four verses of Ephesians. Then we had a song service. We sang "The B-I-B-L-E," the growing song ("...read your Bible, pray every day.."), and "Dig, Dig, Dig." Right before bedtime we had a time of thanksgiving where we all praised God for things we were thankful for.
Sunday afternoon the boss's sister-in-law and wife came over with their oldest boys. Some other girls, Megan, Susan, and Hannah came over as well. I think Sherrie came too. Sherrie is very sweet. :)
Sunday night we went to a restaurant called Hot Pot. Everyone has a pot of water at their place that sits right on the table cloth. There must be some sort of heater under the table. I'm not sure how it works. You have a control attached to whatever heats it so you can turn it off or change the temperature.
Then in the middle of the circular table is a big circle of glass that is like those spinning things (they look like mini lazy susans) you put in cupboards to hold spices or whatever. (I'm sorry, but I forgot what they're called.) The sauces and raw veggies and meats are put on the piece of glass. If you want something, you spin the piece of glass until what you want comes around to you. You put whatever you want to eat into your pot to cook. When you think it is done you fish it out with your chopsticks, add sauce if you want, and enjoy! :) There's a lot of tofu in China. I liked the tofu noodles we had at Hot Pot, but I haven't cared too much for every other form of tofu I've tried. :) You'll find about every form of peanuts here as well. Sesame seed sauces are very common too.
THE WAITRESSES ENJOYED PLAYING WITH BABY. :)
THE TALLER GLASSES WERE THE TEA CUPS!
THIS WAS MUCH FULLER BY THE TIME THEY STOPPED PUTTING THINGS ON.
On the way home from Hot Pot we stopped at the bakery and got a cake.
THIS LADY WAS INCREDIBLY FAST!!
SHE HAD OUR CAKE DECORATED AND READY TO GO IN LESS THAN TEN MINUTES!
THE KIDS REALLY ENJOYED WATCHING HER. :)
(Sorry that the picture is blurry!)
CAKE AND OTHER GOODIES! YUM-YUM!!
THE CHINESE WRITING SAYS "WELCOME"
1995
2009
