December 2011

I thought it might be fun to finish the year out by starting with a short episode of "Fun with Food".

Let's start with one that is in keeping with the Season. You know I am always keeping my eyes out for the quirky (and sometimes scary) and I can safely say that I had never seen this before on the shelf until the Holiday season.

While my Mom is here I took her to one of my favorite little neighborhoods, Taicang Lu, and had pizza at a great restaurant. The one we ordered was delicious, but I do not think I will be brave enough to try this menu offering:

I'll happily put pineapple on my pizza, but Banana??? I don't think so.

And we've saved the best one for last...This was seen in YuYuan Gardens: Skull Soup, anyone?

All in all December is always a very busy month for our family. We start the festivities 2 weeks before Christmas with Heinz's Birthday and this year we celebrated by going to an indoor go-kart track so that he could feel like a kid again! Conrad went with him on his first round

and while he loves races cars, he wasn't a big fan of go-karting (could have been due to the helmet that was bigger than he was!) so Daddy got to go again by himself!

He was always so speedy that I never did get a clear picture! Meanwhile Conrad reverted to his favorite mode of racing:

and Vivi watched and cheered everyone on from the Pits:

Everyone was a Champion that day!

Then Santa brought Grammy as Mommy's early Christmas present!

We decorated the tree

and made Christmas cookies.

We decorated gingerbread houses at Charlie and Henry's house

and more cookies at our house with our neighbors.

(Then we taught Grammy how to play Mahjong!)

Before we knew it it was time to hang up our 'happy shoes' (not to worry Santa, the candles will burn out before you have to land here!)

Finally! It's Christmas morning! Merry Christmas everyone!

Even Grammy got a stocking!

Daddy enjoys his Lindt Bear and Reindeer!

Even Barney helped open the presents.

Although there were toys all over the floor, Vivi was infected with 'Bubblic', the addiction to popping bubbles!

Aunt Jenny dresses a Princess but the Youth League Soccer shirt inherited from cousin Zachary (and worn nearly every day!) is proof of the tomboy still hiding inside!

A Panda hat and a pair of shades and we're ready for our Birthday outing to the Zoo: Conrad is 5!

He rode some rides

and saw the animals. The cheetah is the fastest!

Back to the race car theme and he finally gets the 5 candle on his cake!

His friends came over and we made balloon racers out of juice boxes and bottle caps, played Pin the Wheel on the Porsche, and had races with the pull-back racers that each guest was given. He loved his race car cake (despite the Barbie pink color and Mr. Magoo car look... the local cake industry has no need to fear my mad cake skills!)

but the radio controlled car was his favorite gift of the day!

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, it's almost time to close the lid on this one,

we just have to be sure to take all the important things out of the box before we do! 

I cannot believe 2011 is nearly over, but we are looking forward to 2012. It's the Year of the Dragon, -we'll get into that later.

We send our best wishes for a safe and Happy New Year. Maybe 2012 will be the year that you come visit us! I am ever hopeful! Love to you all~

~It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas~

Christmas is coming and Dunkin Donuts Shanghai wants to know if you've put out your Happy Shoes for Saint Nick to fill?

(As always you can click on the picture to open it in a larger window and see it better...)

But if pink and sugary really isn't your thing, perhaps you would prefer to celebrate with the Dry Pork and Seaweed cakes, just below and to the right. Just 6 RMB, about 90 cents American!

The Holidays can serve to magnify distance, no matter where you are if you are apart from many that you love.  A little chuckle like this can go a long way to brightening a day~

Wishing you all a very Happy Holiday!

"A Way With Words"

One of my favorite "feels like being back home" things to do is listen to podcasts of my favorite NPR shows and "A Way with Words" is at the top of the list. Some of you may know it. Recently Greg the quiz guy challenged Martha and Grant to play a little game: he had taken the words to a few well-known Nursery Rhymes and "Babel-ed" them. That is to say he put them into the Babelfish.com translator and took them from English to a foreign language, back to English, then to a second foreign language and back again, sometimes adding a third generation of translations, and Martha and Grant had to identify the original rhyme. The result was hilarious and I am proud to say I was able to name each and every one even before Martha and Grant did! My Chinglish exposure has taught me well. 
It is so hard for me to believe a year has passed but today we celebrate the first anniversary of our arrival as a family in Shanghai. As such I thought it would be a good time to share some of the more entertaining Chinglish examples I have come across in the last few months.   


Hanting Hotels are a local chain. We pass one on a certain route that we often take and it has this sign above it:

I was excited when the grocery store where we frequently shop advertised that it would be hosting a wine fair. This is the sign it posted with the schedule:

I've seen the following sign near a few ponds now:

Since it makes no sense to me I decided to play a little game of my own. I put "no dabbling" into Google Translator, took the resulting Chinese and reverse translated it to see if I would get something relative to water or entering or swimming: "Not involved". Maybe not.

I found this one in a menu while lunching with a friend:

Evil, Evian, maybe this translation is actually on target! (But come on, when all you need to do is copy what the label says into your menu, is there really an excuse for being so far off the mark??)

This one is on all of the fire doors in Heinz's office building. 

It makes me giggle because my first thought was that it was like a movie spoiler and my goofy mind imagined a bunch of zombies on the other side of the door waiting to grab us if we went through!

These signs identify which department you have wandered into in our local super store:

In case you are confused about what you will find in this department, (ignoring the stationary vs. stationery issue...) they have conveniently labeled some of the merchandise: 

This sign is posted at a playground where we sometimes play:

Apparently number 3 was so important that they had to list it twice. It didn't make sense the first time so it's not any more helpful the second!

I think my biggest fear is that some day these things are going to start looking normal to me. That will be the point at which I will KNOW we have been here too long... We're off and running into year number two. Will you join us?

Happy 'Harroreen'

In the end the kids had a more traditional experience for Halloween even than we might have gotten on our street back home! (Here Conrad models the mask selection at the local superstore) Our neighborhood really got into it with the previously mentioned pumpkin carving party the weekend before and we organized ourselves to do a Saturday night trick-or-treat. I would estimate that about 60 of the 100 houses in our compound participated, mostly the Americans and Brits but a few of the Europeans also got into it and even one or two of the local Chinese households (as opposed to repatriated Chinese Americans-they get lumped in with the Americans).
We went trick-or-treating with our friends and ironically, completely by accident, the boys were both Spiderman (luckily Conrad let his evil side show by choosing the 'dark' side of Spidey, with his matching rain boots!) and both girls were dragon/dinosaurs! (Although we couldn't get either one to put their "head" on)

It rained a little but at least we didn't have to wear winter coats!

The candy selection was interesting to see. There wasn't a lot of chocolate handed out (better that way, maybe that will keep me out of their stash!) probably because chocolate can be quite expensive over here. Mostly people gave out gummy candies and hard candies or lollipops. We were out for about an hour and then headed home to drop the treat bags and head to the neighborhood block party.

Dark-side Spidey takes a load off, shows us his boots and has a ciggie. (It's just a lollie but doesn't it look like a smoke?)

Then he thanks his guns for helping haul in his major stash!

It wasn't until the following morning that I got a good look at what was in the kids' bags. For the most part since it was almost all westerners participating I found that it was pretty normal stuff. Some of the flavors were a little unexpected, lychee or mango lollies, (but thank goodness no durian!) and then I found this:

Yes, look closely: that is a corn-flavored lollipop. After my initial shock wore off I thought "Hey, maybe it'll taste like Sugar Corn Pops, my all-time favorite cereal!" But no, it simply, amazingly, tastes like an ear of boiled corn. I guess it's not altogether surprising since many Asian desserts consist of a rice base topped with corn and red beans. (I was surprised not to find any red bean or green tea-flavored treats but again, this was the westerners handing it all out.) So I guess it's meant to be paired with this lollipop:

In the end I'm left to wonder:  Candy - trick or treat?



SOME things ARE simpler in China

So I'm at that point where I need to replace my running shoes. I started asking around, "Where do you buy your running shoes here?" Apparently everyone has suitcases that are way bigger than mine because they all looked at me as if I were a complete idiot and said "I stock up when I go back home". Hmmm. There just are not any stores that serve serious runners here. Well, I could go on and on about how difficult it can be to find the simplest things in China, (and truly the irony is that they are all MADE here, so why can't we just buy them here???) but I will spare you the whine-fest. However the challenge remains: find my brand, find my style and find my size.

I'm a Mizuno girl, not the most widely stocked brand even in the States so I was starting to get a little antsy. Lucky for me there is a (as in only one, in a city of 20 million, but hey, that's all I need, right?) Mizuno store and it's even on our side of the river. One down. I managed a Saturday afternoon to myself and headed out to check out what they had. Not my favorite style, but at least they have other acceptable alternatives. Two down, sort of. Probably more like 1 1/2 down. One to go. I wear a 9 running shoe, a very common size in the States. It converts to a 40 or 41 European, depending on the shoe and as a whole, most Chinese stores do not stock above a 39. Sure enough that is the case here. Okay, so I decide that I am willing to try a men's shoe (I'd rather try my luck with a shoe of the brand I love and trust, rather than start experimenting with a different brand, in a situation where it is probably impossible to find a salesperson that can tell me anything at all about the shoes in their store.) In my head I am trying to remember back to my days in the Herman's shoe department: a 9 women's US equals what in men's? I turned to the sales guy (who thankfully spoke pretty good English) and asked him "what is the men's equivalent of a women's 40?" As soon as I asked it, I realized what a silly question that was! And I really had to chuckle both at myself and the look on his face. It said "I understand your words but they are making no sense to me." (I think it is the face that I permanently wear with my mother-in-law these days!) A 40 is a 40 is a 40! How simple!

So maybe I'm taking a pretty big risk by trying a men's shoe, but the sad fact is that I need to replace my shoes 3 training runs ago so I feel like I have no choice. I'm still not enough of a runner to understand when my shoes are dead until they are DEAD and I now only have 4 weeks until my race. It could be worse, last year with our move home from Malaysia I was so out of touch with my equipment that I ended up replacing my shoes one week before the Monumental Half! I was so scared that I had ruined my chances for a good race but then I beat my goal time by over a minute. So maybe my new training strategy will be to use my shoes to the point where using them feels like I am running with boards strapped to my feet, only then buy new ones and fly like the wind! Yeah, you're right: probably not such a good idea! I'm off to give the new ones a try. Wish me luck and Happy Running!

An October Post

I cannot believe October is almost over. Between a non-working computer, a virus threat and a visiting (non-English speaking) mother-in-law, I have been away too long from the blog pages. I have also been trying to "be the model" and keep Conrad away from the computer by staying off of it myself. Good in theory, but not necessarily for my psyche. Or my blog schedule. Am trying to get caught up and stick to my minimum one-blog-a-month goal, so here goes.
Many of you asked how it all turned out so I will start with the follow up on the story of Conrad's day as a professional actor. I laughed last time about how it was turning out to be a full time job, but the craziest part was when Sophie, the Agent, called us the day before to tell us Conrad had to be at the park at 5:30 in the morning for the shoot! I told her that was nuts and if the client had any clue at all about children they should know they would never get anything good out of kids at 5:30 in the morning! Eventually she managed to get them to push it back to 6:30. I have to say that aside from the early hour I was really dreading it because I imagined it was going to be a lot of standing around, waiting for a few minutes here and there of actual shooting. The last audition shoot that we attended Conrad met the 2 other Western boys who would be participating, one German, one Italian, but they managed to speak enough English between the 3 of them to spiral each other totally up out of control. They ran around the production company’s offices at 6:30 in the evening while the other parents and I cooled our heels for over an hour, (and Heinz waited on the other side of town for us to pick him up from work) waiting to see if they had all the footage they needed for all the pre-shoot techno junk. I’m usually one of those parents who is trying to get my kids to sit down and shut up in someplace like an office but I didn’t stop them because my philosophy was that if the boys got rowdy and loud enough, they’d want to get rid of us as soon as possible. It didn’t seem to work, no one seemed to pay any attention to the hooligans, and we still had to wait well over an hour to be released from a 10 minute photo shoot!

So commercial day dawned and Conrad and I headed out to Century Park and, as I said, I was dreading it, expecting it to be a lot of standing around for 3 minutes of filming, and 3 little western boys soon wanting to do nothing more than run around like hooligans. I feared at the end of the day Conrad would be bored out of his gourd and full of energy from having just stood around all day. All I knew was that the client wanted a sunrise shot. Well, when we got there, we saw this big arch set up and soon learned that the shoot entailed the kids standing at the top of the hill and running about 150 yards down through the arch. Over and over. And over. And over. No standing around for these kids! It was brilliant! I jokingly said to Sophie “Can we do this everyday?”

About 45 minutes in, the little Italian boy was dripping sweat, saying “Daddy, can I please go home now?” It was very interesting because naturally most of the instructions were given in Chinese. They would count backwards from 3, then yell “Run!” (San, er, yi, pao!) And the 4 Chinese kids would all take off, and the 3 Western kids would kind of go “Wha, what?” and then take off after the Chinese kids. So the Chinese kids always “won” and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was by design, to some degree. But they were generally very good, taking care of the kids, giving them breaks and lots of water. It was a really hot day.

Conrad and his agent, Sophie

The professional gets into the zone

Action shots!

The talent takes a break

It was a beautiful day in Century Park, with views to downtown Shanghai

We ended up being there until nearly noon. Viv had stayed home with Heinz and when he went to work he dropped her off with me at the park so at least only one whiny kid had to get up really early. 

She does her own version of the commercial...

...and has her own adoring fans

and no trip to a park in Asia is complete until you see a bride and groom getting their picture taken!

Conrad made a few dollars and we’ve put it aside for him and all in all it was fun, and we would consider doing it again. We’ll see if Sophie calls us!
And now we are on to Halloween. Last weekend one of our neighbors hosted a pumpkin carving party.

Halloween is actually quite big here, in the expat bubbles. I think the general rule that, "if we can make money off of it we'll jump on the band wagon" holds very true here in China. As I have said before Commercialism is alive and well in this Communist country. And profitable! You don't want to know what I paid for that silly pumpkin! But it was great fun carving it (Thanks Emi and Tres for having us all!) and it's nice to maintain our own customs alongside the new Chinese ones that we discover. Our neighborhood has planned to trick-or-treat Saturday night and have a big block party afterwards. Conrad is going to be Spiderman, in a borrowed costume and Viv will (maybe...) wear a dinosaur costume that I had bought a few years ago. (Aunt Vickie, we wish we had the M&M and Little Bo Peep!) Funniest part, we will go around with Conrad's best friend Kanon and his little sister, and guess what they are wearing...Spiderman and a dinosaur! Our neighborhood is really getting into it, I'm surprised how many foreigners have also adopted the aspect of Halloween so it's really going to be a lot of fun.
In the meantime we are 3 1/2 weeks into Heinz's mom's 6 week stay. I know she is really enjoying being with the kids but with the language issues, it has had it's awkward moments. Mein Deutsch ist nicht sehr gut in diesen Tagen (my German is not so good these days) and it really gets interesting when I use my limited German with the Ayi and my more limited Chinese with my mother-in-law! I eventually get a good laugh out of it, and really I think the Ayi does too. I think she gets a good laugh at my expense on a regular basis anyway!
We hope you all are well and that you have a safe, fun and Happy Halloween in your part of the world!