A Dog in a Box

Mimi likes getting packages. It means new toys for her. I don't mean that people send her toys (although some do), I mean the BOX becomes her toy, or her bed, or whatever. Isn't she lovely? :-)

Silent Holiday

Today is a traditional Chinese holiday, the Mid-Autumn Festival. It comes at the mid-point of autumn according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar. Some folks liken it to American Thanksgiving, as families gather together in the evening for a traditional family reunion meal. (Most people work until noon on this holiday, and kids go to school until noon.)

Well, for the past few weeks, there have been roosters taking up residence on the grounds of my apartment complex, waking me up at 4 a.m., and driving my dog crazy on walks. Suddenly, today, the roosters are silent. They are tonight's dinner. I like Thanksgiving much better, when we go down to the grocery store and buy a frozen Butterball, and the slaughter of dead birds' blood isn't on the grass where my dog plays. I pity the poor roosters who were so beautiful and friendly just yesterday when I saw them. (See the photo of my neighbors cleaning the birds on the grass a few hours ago.)

Which brings me to the next topic. All my neighbors are Beverly Hillbillies. No kidding. They were all poor villagers a decade or so ago, and came into money. They moved to the big city, bought a nice apartment, and bought a Mercedes or BMW...but mentally they are still poor villagers cooking their possum soup and killing roosters for family dinner. My neighbor on the second floor is the absolutely worst, and I've called her Granny Clampett for years now. She builds fires on the driveway (I haven't figured out why yet), dries food on the driveway, cooks up potions and brews, the whole bit.

Sometimes I feel like my life is a pilot for a TV sitcom.

Emotional Grass

Sign seen yesterday at the public park that just planted new grass: "Grass also has feeling, it will sob when you hurt it." Who knew grass could cry?!

Everything Changes

The seasons are changing, and I am so glad of that! I love all the seasons, but I love autumn the most and wish it would last longer than the other seasons. In early fall, we have all the beautiful greenery of summer without the pain of oppressive heat.

The city where I live keeps changing too. Last week I was in taxi between the local airport and my apartment. My dad called my cell phone, and for a minute or two I was so speechless that I couldn't even talk to him. In the taxi, we had come across a huge area about the length of 15 blocks square that used to be villages a few weeks ago, and now was a pile of rubble waiting to be hauled off to make way for new high-rise apartment buildings. I was gone for less than two weeks, and within that time the government had flattened the entire village area (east of the river, for those who know the city). This happens around here a lot, and every time it happens I feel shocked, and also a little annoyed that I didn't know so I could have taken before and after shots! Most of the people who have their homes leveled are happy to have a better place to live, but for others, a lifetime of memories is torn away, and there is deep sadness.

Another change to come our way is Pizza Hut! I can hardly believe that this "middle-of-nowhere" place that ten years ago earned itself the moniker "Bedrock" now has three KFC's, one McDonald's, and one Pizza Hut. I was just thrilled when they got their first grocery store in 2000, so getting a Pizza Hut is almost overwhelming for me. Anyone who saw this city in 1996 and then again today would think they had come to a different city.

Everything changes, but for now I'm still here by the grace of God. Life is good.

Mimi says to say "hi" for her.

The End of Summer

This is, by far, my favorite part of summer...the END OF IT! I got up before sunrise this morning, felt the cool breeze from the open windows, drank a pot of fresh coffee--Starbucks beans freshly ground--my dog by my side on the sofa with her mouth all scrunched up like a person who hasn't quite woken up yet--wondering why we had to get up so early this morning--just to write to you. We are not quite up before the roosters, as I heard them before I got out of bed. The temperatures are in the 60's right now, with the high today in the high 70's or low 80's. The children went back to school two days ago. I just LOVE this time of year.

It was a really long, hot summer. Summer here is rainy season, so the humidity is always really high. I feel like I sweated all the water out of my body every day. We ran a summer English workshop at the university for two weeks in August, and I was up there all day every day in an administrative role, without the benefit of air-conditioners (but we still had to wear teacher clothes and hosiery, so it was uncomfortable and made the heat even more unbearable). There were severe thunderstorms on a daily basis that lasted about an hour each time; some days we had three or four different thunderstorms scattered throughout the day. There was a four-day taxi strike during the English workshop, so getting across town was really, really difficult. We have bikes, but due to the thunderstorms, it was dangerous to ride them. It was so hot that even my dog who LOVES to go outdoors couldn't bear the heat and neither one of us could bear to drag ourselves up to the 5th floor on the stairs after her little walks. At the end of August, I traveled to Thailand which is in the tropics, and it was much cooler there than where I live in China. When I got back from Thailand, the summer weather had turned a corner (as it always does this time of year), the humidity is gone, and I feel like a real person again. I wish I could bottle this weather. God is Lord of the weather and has a reason for it all that supercedes my individual tastes, but I am thankful for the reprieve.

I'm so glad the children have returned to school and life will settle back in to "normal." The downside to a return to classes is that in the two-block distance from my apartment to the main part of town there are at least four major schools, and the traffic jams last for up to 8 hours a day. Parents drop off their kids in the morning, pick them up for lunch, drop them back at school after lunch--there is a 2-hour lunch break, then pick them up later in the day (five o'clock-ish). Due to traffic, the students schedule is staggered so that first graders get out first, then second graders, etc., making the congestion go on for hours and hours at a time. There is no other way for me to get into town though. I try to plan my trips down those two blocks for times when I know the kids are in class. It doesn't always work though.

The photo is of soldiers at Tiananmen Square (Beijing) protecting the first lady of Sri Lanka who was in town in August.

Well, I better run for now. I'll be in touch again soon!

Waking Up in Thailand

It has happened before that I have woken up in a hotel room and for a split second had no idea what country I was in. This morning though, I threw open the curtains and knew exactly where I was as I viewed the pre-dawn beauty of northern Thailand where I am staying for a week. (The jaw-dropping fact that I was up before dawn was due to minor jet lag...a one hour time difference.) This summer has been a little hectic, with visitors, projects, basket orders, melting, sweltering heat, and now a trip to Thailand. Everything is going well though. Mimi (my dog) is still a great joy, except for the dog hair she leaves all over the wood floors. I am SO HAPPY to have her back in China though; she's the funniest bit of joy to ever drop into my China life. When I return to China, I'll try to send a few pics of things I didn't have time to post during the summer...I'll try to catch up on the blogging news. I hope this finds all of you well!

Happiness

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!

The faces of joyful children light up the streets and villages of China. This one giggled and posed for the camera before breaking into fits of laughter. What a day brightener this little one was!

But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful. Psalm 68:3 (NIV)

Trivia for Today

This picture has nothing to do with what I'm writing about today, but I thought you'd like to see that my dog "collects" things around the house and puts them in the middle of the floor. She feels comfy when surrounded by as much "stuff" as possible.

Here's my trivia story for today. I get paid in America by money that is put in my U.S. bank account. To get my money over to China, I have to use an ATM machine. Every transaction with the ATM machine costs me $7.31!!! It used to be that the most I could get in one transaction was $250, but now they've raised it to $300 per transaction. I think that is rather high, don't you? The only other option is to wire myself money, which is $50 per transaction. The cost of living keeps getting higher and higher over here. I'm not really complaining, just thought you'd be interested in knowing how much things cost over here. Food? Cheap. Banking Fees? Atrocious.

Wheat Harvest

The spring wheat harvest was in June, and here I am posting a picture that shows part of it. The wheat is cut down and laid out in the middle of the road so that cars can drive over it and break down the different parts of the wheat. (Okay, I don't know any terms related to wheat, but I'll describe it the best I can). Then they use shovels to throw the wheat up in the air, and the usable and unusable parts separate. Then they lay the usable part on the side of the road (to dry maybe?) and then scoop it up along with rocks and dirt into bags to sell. I can't really tell you what these farmers are doing with their little air-polluting contraption, but it looks like something Granny Clampett might enjoy working with. In the countryside, every road in every direction was covered in wheat for a full week, maybe longer. In the city we saw no such thing, but it was kind of funny seeing BWM's driving through the city with straw sticking out from the bottom...there was no mistaking that they had been out in the countryside during the day! Hey, check out those farmers' hats...aren't they cute?!

Mid-Summer

I got out of the house today for the first time in six days. I was out of Kleenex's, so I had to go to the store to get some more. I have had a bad cold since last weekend. (Uh, well, I did take my dog downstairs to the grass twice a day even when I was sick, which is technically being out of the house since I live on the 5th floor, but that's as far as I got all week.) Even though my voice doesn't work well, I was glad to get out this morning and go into the town. It feels like I just wasted a week of my life.

Prior to getting sick, some friends and I went to visit the Venice of China, Suzhou, for about five days. It is just beautiful and quaint there. Suzhou is about an hour from Shanghai. Suzhou also has a couple of Starbucks Coffee shops and TGIFriday's restaurant, so that makes it an even more attractive destination! It is one of my favorite places to visit. The bad news is that we went during monsoon season, and most of our planned activities got washed out. We can go weeks at a time without seeing the sun around here during the summer monsoon season. It is usually really unbearably humid, but today there is a cool breeze blowing and it almost feels like fall. The apartment complex mowed down the foot-long grass blades and my dog enjoyed romping on it for a change. I don't want to get a relapse with my sickness, so I'll probably lay low for a few more days and watch a few more American TV shows on DVD. Hopefully next week I'll have something more meaningful I can do.