Frigid

It is colder than lint in a snowman's belly button here in Shanghai.

We don't know why it's so freakin' cold here because the temperature says it's around 30 degrees fahrenheit, which is cold, but not Icelandic. People say it's the humidity. It might be - who knows, but this is the coldest 30 degrees we have ever felt.

It certainly has us yearning for July when it's 95 degrees with 100% humidity and we all have 100+ mosquito bites.

A Big Fat Liar

Last spring, Annie (who possesses a disdain for winter, and in particular, snow) asked Scott what the weather was like in Shanghai. His response was as follows:

"Well I hear it's similar to Houston - really hot and humid in the summer. People say the winters are pretty cold but they NEVER have snow in Shanghai."

Below is the picture taken of our neighbors front yard this afternoon. Needless to say, even the "Good for Man" won't do him any good tonight.

Airports

Airports are a bit different here in China. The differences are fairly striking and our experience at the Shanghai Airport has us yearning for Southwest’s “Cattle Call” and Chili’s Too.

First, the airport is gigantic – there is no doubt one could see it from space.

Second, the runway is forever and a day from the terminal. Imagine taxiing from Dallas to Houston or Kansas City to St. Louis.

Third, the dining choices are a bit limited. If you’re not interested in the government run noodle diner (where even the waiters smoke) then you’re pretty much S.O.L.

Fourth, the bathrooms are in the basement, with no elevator access, and the stairs are at an angle so steep the guy who climbed Mount Everest wouldn’t even attempt it. Thus, if you have some form of disability or are old, you have two choices … hold it or wet yourself.

Fifth, if you have never been burly enough to participate in American Gladiators or Professional Wrestling, then it’s best if you just wait until everyone else has retrieved their luggage before approaching the bag belt. Never before has Scott wanted to “go postal” until he was upended by a spry 95 year old Chinese woman trying to get to her box of luggage large enough to contain a dead body.

Moral Dilemma

We have written about “English Names” before, but we’ve run into several women recently who have presented us with a moral dilemma. Their names are:

Chocolate
Twinkle
Dolly

All seem to be very nice women, so we can’t decide if we should go on about our business or give them the memo that they chose “Stripper Names” to identify themselves.

An Answer to an Old Question

It’s amazing what sticks with you throughout life. Commercials and tag lines from years and years ago are etched in our brains. Will we ever forget “Where’s the Beef?” What about Max Hedroom? … or Spuds McKenzie? – all absolute greatness.

One old-school commercial that keeps popping up in our heads ever since our move to China is the Dial spot that asked “Aren’t you glad you use Dial … don’t you wish everyone did?”

After riding in elevators, seeing the buses, walking down the street, etc., we have an answer to that question:

“Hell Yes … Hell Yes!”

Bu Chou - Update

Bu Chou’s surgery seemed to go well. The doctor inserted a new shunt to help relieve the pressure in her head. The surgery was last Monday and she will probably be in the hospital for another five days or so. She is in good spirits and appears to be feeling much better. She still has enough fire in her belly to curse at every single nurse who comes into the room. She despises IVs and lets them know it with vigor. Of course, whatever she's saying must be pretty funny because the nurses always laugh and they seem to love her.

Bu Chou - Surgery

Bu Chou is going under the knife again Monday in Shanghai. The doctor will be inserting another shunt to help drain the fluid from her cyst. Bu Chou has been doing well since returning home from the hospital at the end of December, but without the shunt, the pressure in her head has steadily risen. Her headaches and vomitting had gotten a little more frequent recently and, thus, it was decided that she needed another shunt.

New Year’s Treat or Lost in Translation?

In the building Scott works in, there is a Chinese restaurant that serves local Shanghai food. It’s a good restaurant as far as Chinese food goes and he eats lunch there with colleagues on a semi-regular basis.

This week he and several co-workers went down there for lunch to catch-up after the holidays. They had a great meal and when the waiter brought their change, he also brought a desk-top calendar for each of the patrons.

Scott didn’t pay much attention to the calendar until today when he was clearing off his desk before heading home for the weekend. He opened the calendar and thumbed through it – each month had a picture of a dish offered at the restaurant with the name in both Chinese and English. Scott turned the calendar to January and thought it an interesting choice to ring in the New Year – “Fried River Shrimps Balls.”

Now for those of you who don’t know, River Shrimp is a common dish in China, but Scott is not so sure he really wants to sample the balls of said shrimp.

A Good Visit

While Hooters for Christmas dinner was quite exciting, it wasn't the only highlight of H.D. and Jill Reed's visit to Shanghai. Despite Bu Chou's hospital stay occupying a good portion of their visit, we were able to give them a good flavor of our day to day life in China and were also able to do a little sightseeing.

At the end of the visit (which concluded today on Jan 1), they had developed some significant learning's about our life in China:

• Mr. Chen (our driver) and Mae (our housekeeper) rank right up there with Morgan Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy" and Fraulein Maria.
• No fireworks laws means that every Tom, Dick, and Hong can have a glorious show in his or her backyard or apartment roof. This makes New Year's Eve is REALLY cool - even without the presence of Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest.
• Traffic laws are merely suggestions (unless there is a police car within plain view).
• 15 people really can fit in a 4' by 4' elevator.
• Brett Favre jerseys can be purchased a LONG way from Green Bay, WI from someone who is convinced that football is played by kicking a black and white round ball.
• $10 boxes of cereal do not come with bars of gold as the prize inside. Despite the extraordinary price, they come with alien decoder rings just like in America.
• One bicycle can hold not only a person, but also a water dispenser, a full size refrigerator, and a washing machine.

A Christmas to Remember

About 20 years ago, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers recorded a holiday album. One of the songs from that spectacular audio classic was the hit "A Christmas to Remember." This year, we surely had that kind of Christmas and just as Kenny and Dolly promised, it gave us that "springtime feelin' in the middle of December."

Annie's parents, H.D. and Jill Reed, were here in Shanghai to celebrate Christmas with us - Chinese style. With Bu Chou in the hospital until Dec. 27th, our plans just kind of evolved all week. With the help of our housekeeper (who could sit with her at the hospital during the afternoons) we were able to spend some quality time with the Reeds. On Christmas we we had a nice morning here at the house before heading out that afternoon for Christmas dinner.

We had several thoughts on what to do for a perfect Christmas meal. We thought about doing a turkey at home. We also thought about having a large Chinese meal at a restaurant. In the end, however, we decided the best place for a memorable holiday meal was the Shanghai Hooters. We didn't exactly know what to expect, but were definitely not disappointed.

Upon walking into the restaurant we were greeted by 15 Hooters girls shouting at the top of their lungs in unison "Merry Christmas and welcome to Hooters." We were also surprised to see a very large Christmas tree in the foyer (as an FYI, we now know what Charlie Brown's Christmas tree would have looked like if it had been 20 feet tall). About halfway through our meal, 7 waitresses crowded around our table and one of them made an announcement:

"Attention Hooters! We want to extend a special greeting to this lovely family that decided to have their Christmas meal with us here at Hooters. Please give them your applause." The 7 nice ladies then proceeded to serenade us with a version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" that none of us will EVER forget.

After this one hour of fun, we all (especially H.D. and Scott) certainly had that "springtime feelin' in the middle of December!"

Bu Chou - The Latest

Sorry for the delay in updates, but the last few weeks have been quite a whirlwind. After Bu Chou had her shunt removed, it took about 4 days for her fever to go away. It took about another 3-4 days for the vomiting to subside. They did a spinal tap a week after the surgery to determine the status of her infection and they determined it was basically gone.

She seemed to stabilize the weekend before Christmas and we thought she might be able to come home in time for Santa's arrival. However, the doctor decided on the 23rd that she needed to remain in the hospital a while longer. But, after seeing her on Christmas day, he decided she was stable enough to come home on the 27th. Here is the discharge picture with Scott, Bu Chou, and the nurses. The nurses insisted on snapping a photo because quote unquote "they (Scott and Bu Chou) both looked so cute that morning."

Thus, last Thursday Bu Chou returned home. She had a really great weekend and is now walking again and eating like a horse (after over 3 weeks in the hospital, the rice congee at every meal had gotten a bit old.)

Her current medical status is still a bit in-flux though. She now does not have a shunt to help drain the fluid out of the cyst in her head, and still has the hydrocephalus issues that originally brought her to Shanghai. Hopefully she will remain stable and there is a chance the fluid could drain on its own, but we're effectively in "wait and see" mode right now.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers - we very much appreciate it!

Update 2

Unfortunately Bu Chou's infection did not get better - in fact, the doctor felt like it was getting worse and thus removed her shunt on Wednesday. They are now trying to get rid of the infection and will decide after that what steps to take next. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. We'll hopefully have some good news soon!

Update

We found out last week that Bu Chou will be in the hospital for at least another two weeks. The infection she has is very serious and if it doesn't go away soon, they will have to remove the shunt. Her mood is good though and she has been walking around and playing a little more. She's no longer vomiting and is eating like a horse again. However, she still runs a fever on a daily basis.

Hopefully she will continue to improve and the infection will dissipate over the course of the next couple of weeks - we're hoping to get her back to our house for Christmas, but if Santa has to come to the hospital, then so be it!

Annie is holding down the fort at home and at the hospital as Scott had to travel to the U.S. on business - she is now demanding that Santa bring a REALLY nice gift to her this holiday season. Jill (Annie's mother) arrives on Thursday, so she too will soon get to experience the greatness of a Chinese children's hospital.

But at least now Bu Chou and Annie have a private room (of which, we think only a handful exist in the hospital.) We tend to think our roommates were getting a bit sick and tired of us always having to translate for us, as they were much better at charades than the nurses.

Back in the Hospital

Well, we're back in the children's hospital. Not for Juliet this time, but rather Bu Chou. She has developed an infection in the shunt in her head and therefore, has been running a high fever periodically now for almost a week. They admitted her on Tuesday and started her on high doses of IV antibiotics. Hopefully, the fever will break soon and she can get back home, but until then, Annie is spending her days and nights sharing a room with three other sick children and their families - none of whom speak English.

Like a Rock Star

One of the more common things Juliet has to deal with is being oggled everywhere she goes. This was quite prevalent in Beijing where there are a number of Chinese tourists that are not accostomed to seeing Westerners. Juliet made at least 20 people's day by posing for photographs. She posed with men, with women, with old people, with children - she even posed with a lady that had pink highlights in her hair. Here is a picture with a student who was traveling with three other young men. All four had their photos taken with Juliet.




Even Scott was asked by a lady to pose with her in front of Chairman Mao's picture at the entrance of the Forbidden City.

Bu Chou, however, did not get to enjoy such a rock star's welcome in Beijing. After getting sight of us pushing her in the stroller, scores of people would come sprinting towards us to get a glimpse of what our baby in the pink coat might look like. All of them were stunned when, instead of seeing a blond, blue eyed curly headed American, they were greeted fiercely with Bu Chou's darting brown eyes, which stared crossly back at them as if to say:

"What are you looking at? Yes, I'm with them. You would be to if you had someone that bought you as many fake Polo outfits as you wanted and hands you a package of Raisinets every time you wimper."

Turkey Day Weekend

No turkey?
No pie?
No football?
Thanksgiving dinner on Friday at Outback Steakhouse?
A lousy holiday you might ask?

Quite the contrary – we boarded the overnight train last Thursday night for Beijing and had a fantastic holiday weekend. We spent the weekend seeing the historical sites in China’s capital – including Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, The Hutongs, and The Great Wall.

Here are some pics from our day at The Great Wall:

CHA-CHING!

FYI - Scott will be having "Good For Man" again for lunch today.

Good For Man

During a business lunch today, Scott was presented with something that looked like thick green hair that had been soaked in something. After conferring with his travel companion, he was told that “they don’t know what it is, but it is “Good For Man.”” Now when someone says “Good For Man” it means two things. One, it will taste like doo doo and two, it apparently will help you “keep the Mrs. happy” when you get home that night.

Scott’s experience with the Green Hair certainly tasted like doo doo. We’ll let you know tomorrow if the second quality came to fruition.

A Different Scale

At times it’s really unimaginable how many people live here in China. For example, this week Scott traveled to the northwest city of Yulin (basically almost to Inner Mongolia). The “metropolitan area” of Yulin has approximately 3.6 million people – which is considerably larger than Dallas-Fort Worth. He had to fly to another city from Shanghai and connect to a 32 seat regional jet because that is the only way to get there. Upon arriving, he walked off the plane (which just stopped at the end of the runway) and observed the following:

• The runway resembled a really large church parking lot
• There was no building to go into - just a rusty gate to walk through about 20 yards from the plane
• They did have Baggage Claim. It consisted of a guy in an Isuzu pickup pulling up and everyone just grabbing his/her luggage.
  

After this experience, coupled with other travels, Scott has created a new categorization for places in China:

“Collection” of more 15 million people = Big City
“Collection” of more than 10 but less than 15 million = City
“Collection” of more than 5 but less than 10 million = Town
“Collection” of more than 1 but less than 5 million = Small Village
“Collection” of less than 1 million people = Farming Community or Fishing Neighborhood

Tying the Knot

The other day, Scott, Annie, and Juliet were able to attend a wedding. It was really a great opportunity to get immersed in the local culture.

The wedding itself wasn’t too different than a Western ceremony – with the exception that there was no “officiant.” Instead there was really what is best described as an emcee that walked us through the proceedings – including offering his commentary during the one of the solos – which was a very good rendition of Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up.”

One of the more embarrassing moments for us was during the second solo – which was another great vocal performance – this time of “Amazing Grace.” About two stanzas in, all of sudden Annie and Scott looked at each other because the accompanying vocals in a low voice were coming from our 5 year-old. The giggles were difficult to contain as we tried to shush her, but the song is in her soul and she just insisted on humming along. As people began to do a “half-turn” in our direction we tried to obtain forgiveness by claiming she was a long lost cousin of the bride, but for some reason no one was buying it.

The reception was the typical Chinese meal with the lazy-susan rolling around with a good assortment of local cuisine. Juliet, who was not in adventurous mood, tried two things. After having to spit out “Cheesy Lobster” and “Some Kind of Salad” into Scott’s napkin, we decided she should just stick to Sprite.

The highlight of the evening occurred when they asked the guests to complete a small card offering well wishes to the bride and groom. Little did we know (because our Mandarin is not that good yet) that by completing one of these, we were giving ourselves an opportunity for fabulous prizes in the night’s “Lucky Draw” giveaway. Scott was really kicking himself that he had failed to complete the card after seeing one guest take home a toaster oven and another take home a blender.

Experiencing the Greatness of a Developing Nation

A fusion of "East" and "West" is certainly occurring in China right now. We are lucky enough to witness firsthand a country being introduced to new things, but at the same time maintaining its history and culture.

This point was really driven home today when Scott was walking through McDonalds and saw a man using two straws as chopsticks to pick up a French Fry.

Dilemma

One of the more common uncomfortable situations we often encounter here in China is the mid-conversation belch from the person we’re speaking to. It’s often not loud and obnoxious, but rather soft and light – just enough to throw your whole train of thought off kilter. What do you do? Do you laugh? Do you cry? Do you try to out-burp your friend?

We just can’t stand by and be flabbergasted any longer. Thus, we’ve decided to respond the next time this happens – here are thoughts on how to react to this curious problem:

• "Whoa … that sounded like it came from down deep”
• “Good one – not too deep, not too rumbly … but at the same time, not too pitchy.”
• “My goodness, friend, your eyes are starting to water”
• “Smells like you had fish for lunch … need a mint?”

Universal Appeal

It has been quite interesting to see an almost three year old from China learn about new things from a “Western” family. Amazingly enough, some things are universal in appeal – whether the girl is from Dallas, TX or from Central China:

Purses and Sunglasses – We thought Juliet was alone in her addiction to accessories, but Bu Chou is right there with her. Considering no one needs sunglasses here given the smog cloud that hovers over the city, she gets some very curious looks when out on the town.

Papa John’s Pizza – It might be the abundance of pizza sauce on every slice. It might be the tasty toppings. It might be the mouth watering garlic butter sauce that comes on the side. Whatever it is, it’s a family favorite in the West and the East.

Toy Cell Phones – Whether you call it a Cell Phone or a Shou Ji (pronounced Show G), it is so much fun to fill the house or the car with an incessant beep sound.

Barbie – Despite her very public breakup with Ken, Barbie continues to have worldwide appeal. Coupled with new friends like “Kimono” and “Mika”, Barbie is back and better than ever.

Settling In

We apologize for the lack of blogging recently, but Scott’s been busy at work and we’ve been trying to get Bu Chou (our new foster child) settled in at home. Bu Chou arrived last Friday so she’s been with us for over a week now and is getting comfortable in her new surroundings.

She seems to be feeling pretty well after having brain surgery 2.5 weeks ago and doesn’t appear to be in pain. In fact, she spends most of the day smiling, singing, and repeating EVERYTHING Annie says. She answers questions when asked in Chinese, but when someone speaks English she just mimics the conversation.

Annie: “Bu Chou do you need to go potty?”
Bu Chou: (not having a clue what she’s saying): “Bu Chou you need go potty?”

Annie: “Say Hello.”
Bu Chou: : “Say Hello.”

Here are a few pictures:

Bu Chou on her first day home:

Bu Chou and Juliet:

This one was actually taken by Juliet (pretty good we thought for a 5 year old):

Bu Chou with a mouth full of goldfish...her favorite:

Bu Chou eating Cheerios...another fav:

Bu Chou with her Purse (which never leaves her arm):

Don't you know anyone?

In the U.S., when you’re away from home, it is not uncommon when you meet someone new for them to ask “Where are you from?” It also not uncommon after your response for them to say “I know a guy who lives in Dallas, do you know Mike Brown?” Instead of responding how you really want to, “Of course not, you imbecile, there are 2.5 million people in the Dallas area and probably 300 Mike Browns.” Instead you politely respond one of several ways: “No, the name doesn’t ring a bell” or “You know, the name does sound familiar.”

Here in China, surprisingly enough, we often have similar conversations with people with just a little twist:

Local Person: “Where are you from, U.S., England, …Australia?”
Richardson Family Member: “We’re American”
Local Person (deadly serious): “Ohhhhh … so you know Yao Ming!?!?!”

Now, granted, we’re sure a 7 foot 6 inch Chinese man does probably stick out a tad, and we’re sure he has a lot of friends, but it’s not like America is the size of Dodge City, Kansas.