Cheese!

Today was group picture day. There are three groups of families here. Our group consisted of 10 families and all of our babies came from the Hunan province. The first picture is of our Hunan group and the second picture is all of our babies. The other two groups went to the Fujian province and the Hubei province for their babies. The last two pictures are each of those groups. Enjoy!


Hubei Group
Fujian Group

"Is she for real?"

Check this picture out. One of our more amusing instances of the discrepancy between Zoe's personality and Eden's. Zoe is such a little fireball and it's pretty much all about her. If she's not happy she'll let you know it without hesitation. One of her un-favorite times is bathtime. Eden doesn't seem to mind the bath so much. Can you tell what Eden is thinking. Something like, "Is this chick for real? She is so immature!"

The Great Shopping Adventure

The day the ladies have all been waiting for has come and gone. Our big excursion to Shamian Island to shop and shop is over. You can see it on all the ladies' faces the look of sadness and regret - sadness that it's over and regret that they didn't spend more money. It's like they've said goodbye to a good friend and they'll never see them again.

Shamian Island is the reminder of Guangzhou's colonial history. From the 18th to the mid 19th century, it is the only place where foreign traders were permitted to set up their warehouses and factories. It became a British and French concession after they won in the Opium Wars, and is covered with decaying colonial buildings which housed trading offices and residences. This island is where The White Swan hotel is located. Many Americans adopting here stay in this hotel. The Goulds and Petersons stayed in The White Swan on their trip. I've posted a picture of the girls on the infamous "red couch" of the White Swan hotel. There are probably 40 or 50 shops near the White Swan on the island that offer a last chance to get souvenirs before we head for home. It's a fun experience in a way because you get to negotiate the price of the items you are buying. It's also somewhat draining because everybody knows that they're selling the same things everybody else is selling. Thus it's their task to keep you in their store because once you leave you're not coming back. They don't have anything unique that can't be bought next door. So we got some good deals and some not so good deals. If you're curious, I did end up getting my set of golf clubs. They're imitation clubs but you would have a hard time telling the difference between them and the real thing. For you golfers out there, I got a set of Cleveland CG4 irons, a 60 degree Cleveland wedge, a White Hot two ball putter, a very nice Cleveland golf bag and a travel bag for $150. I figured it's worth taking a chance!

We stayed on the island pretty much all day after lunch. We ate at Lucy's which was a very nice taste of home. Real hamburgers! Kristi and Becky ordered Quesadillas which somehow I find it strange eating Mexican food in China. They were very good though. I would say the most eventful part of this excursion was the ride home which shouldn't surprise me. Our tour bus left at 5:30 and we decided to stay on the island until about 9 so we caught a cab to get us back to the hotel. Well we had so much stuff that we couldn't fit all our stuff and us in the same cab. So we split up. I put our suitcase full of purchases (literally - no joke) in the trunk of the cab and my golf clubs rode shotgun. The Fraziers got a head start because they were in the first cab and that was all they needed to take home the victory of the cab race back to the hotel. I'm not joking, our cabbies were literally racing. The Fraziers' cabby was more aggressive than ours. Up until we lost sight of them, we saw them using the left lane of oncoming traffic several times to get around buses and the sort in their lane. Our cabby, I guess, didn't feel comfortable crossing over the solid yellow line on the city streets so we lost by about 30 seconds. I'm sure their cab ride was more fun and I'll bet they posted some insights into the victory on their blog (http://frazieradoption.blogspot.com).

Cantonese Surprise

The adventures continue! I call it venturing "off the resort." Every time we venture away from the hotel, we get to experience true China. We took a little walk last night to find some local shopping and an authentic Cantonese restaurant. The local shopping is very cheap and negotiation is accepted everywhere. We ran across a few good items but quality is always the unknown. I did find a store selling sets of name brand golf clubs that I will have to investigate further. If they're the real thing, I may need someone to help me exercise restraint because they are way too cheap. For example, a full set of brand new Ping irons and a driver, 3 wood and 5 wood was $110. Wow! Something sounds fishy I know. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Speaking of fishy, we did eventually find our Cantonese restaurant. The Cantonese cuisine is a particular type of Chinese cooking. The Cantonese are known for eating everything. Our guide corrected us and said that actually the Cantonese are know for eating everything of everything. So while we were walking down the street, we were supposed to be looking for the restaurant with all the tanks out front. We had one of those experiences that you have no doubt that you found what you were looking for even though you didn't really know what you were looking for. So we, the "dumb Americans", proceed to take picture after picture of all the "food" in the tanks out front while the locals laugh and point at us. Take a look at some of my pictures. They had snakes, ducks, birds of some kind, worms, beetles, alligator, frogs, eels, and then some of the more traditional foods like crab, lobster, fish, and the sort.

So we proceed into the restaurant and you would have thought the Emperor of China just walked in. People started scrambling everywhere. They don't see Americans in these parts too often. The hostess in calling in reinforcements on her radio, the waitresses broke out in a cold sweat, and all the patrons turn to look at the "dumb Americans" that just walked in. Well we kept our cool. They took us upstairs to a semi-private room to essentially put us away until they could figure out what to do with us. We sat there probably 10 minutes before they found someone who could speak a little English. I'm not sure if she was on the restaurant staff before we walked in but she played the part well. They even had her put on some clothes they found in the back that made her look like part of the staff.

Anyway, she walks in and asks us if we're ready to order. We say we need menus. She says the menu is downstairs in the tanks! It was all fun and games as long as we thought we were in a petting zoo. Now the game has changed. You should've seen the look on Kristi's face at about this time. All she could say was, "I only want rice, I only want rice." She'd say it like a chant, "No thank you, I only want rice."
Thus, Wilson and Becky proceed back downstairs to look at the tanks again with a new perspective that they will now be eating one of those creatures. Kristi and I stayed upstairs to try to negotiate getting some high chairs. This is where being a highly skilled cherades player comes in handy. I point to the babies and then to the chair. Then we try "sounds like" and point to the sky and then point to the chair again. The waitress nods her head in acknoledgement and we wait to see whether or not we were successful in communicating the need for, not just one, but two high chairs. About this time, Wilson and Becky return with a look of shock and awe. They proceed to tell us that they have no idea what we are going to get but that they got five of them and they think it'll be good.

About 60 seconds after they get back, we get rice. At least Kristi can breathe now. But all the presence of rice did for her was give her more confidence. She now proceeds to charade for Sprite. She is way out of her league here because I've played charades with Kristi before and there is no way the waitress got Sprite out of that mess of mixed signals. She was pointing to water bottles and lights and all kinds of things. We started placing bets on what she brings to our table. About halfway through the meal, the waitress showed up with a water. Kristi decided to wait until the English-speaker showed up to try the Sprite again.

I digress - back to the meal. After rice, they brought us a plate of sweet and sour pork. This dish looked fantastic and the sauce was excellent but the pork was not so good. It had way too much fat. The third dish was something like cashews and beef and steamed green beans. This was excellent. The fourth dish was the best - two whole fish. I've posted a picture of the fish after we were finished with them. This was probably the best fish I've ever eaten. Once we got past the head and tail still being attached, Wilson and I devoured these guys. They were cooked in a sweet and sour sauce and had a side of hot spicy sauce. Awesome! The other dish was a plate of noodles with slices of beef. Wilson and Becky were feeling very proud of themselves about right now since what was sitting on our table was way over our expectations.

The English speaker came back to check on us. You'd think we just found our long lost friend. Kristi orders her Sprite, Becky decides to go for Diet Coke and we're all giving her the universal "thumbs up" sign which after the look on her face may not be universal after all. Well, the high chairs showed up, Kristi got some Asian version of a 7-up and Becky got a Pepsi. Not bad though. When we finished, we figured we'd head downstairs to try to pay. They met us on the stairs with the bill. With four drinks, this whole meal came to $25 total! It pays to venture off the resort!

Headed to Guangzhou

We're all packed up ready to leave for Guangzhou - our last stop before home. We'll be there tonight (Friday night) until we leave Wednesday morning. Our last day in Changsha was very eventful! We ventured out into the city stopping at of all places Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart happens to be one of my least favorite stores in the world. Long lines and low prices. You get to spend a lot of money to save a lot of money and you get to wait to do it! I'll have to admit though, this Wal-Mart had live shrimp, live frogs, live fish, and live turtles. I guess the Chinese people somehow manage to get these things home alive and kill them before dinner. Can you image the games before dinner? Let's play "Catch the frog! OK kids, 1-2-3 get the frog! Hannah, he's over there! Get it Tristan! You almost had him Justin! Macie don't eat the shrimp yet, we've got to kill them first!" The Dad comes in with the spear and gigs the frog to save the day! It definitely would give a new meaning to "quality family time."


On another note, we got our portraits back from the photo session we had with a local photographer. They are absolutely wonderful. She made these authentic Chinese photo albums and they turned out just fantastic. Please come over when we get back to see these. They only cost us $170 and they would have been ten times that expensive in America. I've posted a couple of pictures to give you a taste of what she did but these really don't compare to the album. We'll give you a new update once we're settled in Cuangzhou. Chow!

Chinese personal space

The Chinese people are really nice people. You can tell that they are very genuine people when you talk to them. They are eager to learn more about Americans. The hotel and restaurant workers are very eager to serve us and they do it happily. Even when they have trouble communicating with us, they are very sorry and they feel almost like they have disappointed us. I have really grown to love these people. That being said, they are very small people! And they have a very small personal space! Our first encounter occurred as soon as we stepped out of the airport in Beijing on Friday. These women ran up to us and started pushing and shoving trying to get our bags out of our hands. They wanted to carry them to the bus so they would get a tip. Well I had a very large sum of money with which to process our adoption with in my bag and there wasn't a chance she was getting it. She pushed and shoved trying to get me to let go and she finally resolved herself to just hang on with me and walk beside me. Well I pushed and shoved back trying to get her to let go and she wouldn't. She was very strong. Probably wasn't her first rodeo - literally! Our guides came up to us and told us not to let them carry our bags because we had important stuff in there. Well I told her that I've done everything I can to get her off my bag and my only option left is to just have a throw down right there in the parking lot. Evidently our guides speak Chinese because she said something that sounded like Chinese and the woman let go of my bag. (Our guides are fluent in both Chinese and English so I'm just kidding).

My second encounter was in the tourist sites we visited in Beijing. Chinese personal space is very small. There are several places at the Forbidden city where they won't let you in the building but you can go up to the door and look inside. Well, imagine a room full of about one hundred people with one door to get out of and the guy in the back is yelling, "fire!" This should give you a good idea of what it was like trying to look into the building. Then imagine trying to swim upstream of that stampede after you are finished looking into the building! What is wrong with these people!

Another example of Chinese personal space is the stadium seating. This doesn't have so much to do with Chinese personal space as it does the size of the Chinese people. Although there does seem to be a correlation between the size of the Chinese people and their corresponding personal space. Anyway, our church service on Sunday was in a theatre of a local secondary school. This theater had stadium seating. If you are over 6 feet tall, you might as well just stand in the corner because you're not going to sit down anywhere other than the front row unless you want to take up the seat in front of you too. Just whip your legs over the back of the seat in front of you and put your feet on the floor of that row. I'm not real sure if they weren't expecting Americans ever to visit that theater of if they just didn't care. We had one guy about 6'3" who was trying to sing the songs but couldn't get his knees out from under his chin to get his mouth open. I don't even want to tell you about the acrobat performance stadium seating seating leg room. You could barely fit adult Chinese people in those seats!

It's funny reading things like room capacity postings and elevator capacity postings. Take our hotel elevator posting for example. It says that you can fit 13 Chinese people into the elevator or 1000kg. Do the math. That's 169 pounds per person. Good luck! You get 5 Americans in there and you're having a good day. You might get close to 13 Americans if you have 4 Americans holding two babies each. It's kind of a challenge now to see if we can hit the head count capacity of the elevators. We're asking strangers if we can take their babies on the elevators because we've run out of room for adults. Did you notice the picture of our beds on the post Becky wrote yesterday? The beds aren't even knee high. I walked into the room and tripped over the bed! No joke!

China has some strange customs

We went out on the town a little bit today and to some new restaurants. I've been reading in my language book about some of the different customs that the Chinese people have that Americans should be aware of. Take for example this picture to the right. Today was a very hot day of about 90 degrees. The Chinese ladies use umbrellas to shade themselves from the sun. We've even seen some ladies trying to walk as close to buildings as possible to stay out of the sun. This custom doesn't come so much from the fear of skin cancer, but mostly because the Chinese people think tanned skin is not pretty. The Chinese people think that brown hair, blue eyes, and white skin are all signs of beauty. Thus, the more the ladies can stay out of the sun, the more beautiful they think they are.

Then there is this picture of the lady on the motor bike. You might think that she was wearing a bug shield because she has a faster motor bike than it would first appear. Although it does work well as a bug shield, this apparatus is again keeping the sun off of her face. Notice that I said that today was about 90 degrees. She is wearing a long sleeve shirt and pants. Granted she does probably have a fast ride, but it's not so fast that I would be wearing two layers of clothes in 90 degree weather. She is obviously more concerned about her skin tone than the fashion style she is displaying with her outfit.

Then there is the custom for which I have no picture of at the moment but I am working on it. This is the custom of spitting. I read in one of my guide books that the Chinese have a "widespread habit of spitting." I thought to myself that that seems odd. But I grew up playing baseball and I've been around a good deal of spitting with that sport and I don't really mind people spitting if they need to. Well, in America, if we chew tobacco or feel the need to spit, we usually spit in a cup or empty can or just on the ground outside if necessary. This is not what the book was talking about. The book was subtly warning me about the Chinese habit of spitting anywhere. Take for example my first encounter. Becky, Zoe and I were walking into breakfast on the second floor of our five star hotel with marble walls and carpet everywhere. I notice about 30 yards in front of me a lady walking towards us on her way to her table with her plate that she filled at the buffet. I see her hoch up a big one and let it fly. This I had to see. I told my wife that I would meet her at the table and I took a detour. I went over to where she was sitting and looked for the remains. It was large enough that I spotted it in stride and didn't have to ask her where she put it. And yes, she spit on the carpet. I need to remind you that we weren't eating at Texas Roadhouse. This is a five star hotel with marble walls and carpet everywhere. Becky and the Fraziers doubted my story I could tell. But an old man at lunch today sitting at a table next to us let one fly and my story was confirmed. The book also says not to walk around barefoot. Duh!!