Silencing the airport noise

by Kevin

After a few bad experiences with poorly designed Chinese airports, last week we finally found something good about one of the worst. Flying through the Guangzhou airport -- where you often have to leave the secure area and run completely across the airport if connecting from a domestic to international flight -- we discovered the nursery.


We arrived from Bankok with almost four hours to kill until our next flight (we had just missed the cutoff to use a special "layover lounge" offered for those with layovers of more than four hours). We weren't looking forward to the prospect of trying to entertain Juliana for that entire time. Just yesterday, Juliana kept an entire crowd of waiting passengers entertained as she threw her little ball across the floor and chased it, tossing out gleeful squeals of delight or  "ut ohs" with every toss. Then I spent some time trying to divert her from the trash can and evoking pained screams when I blockaded her from following mommy into the dingy bathroom. By the time we got onto the plane, we were probably more tired than she was.


So, at the Guangzhou airport, when I noted the nearly empty baby nursery, I figured it was worth a try. Ruth seemed apprenhesive: "do you think they would just let us hang out in there?"


The answer is yes.


When we walked into the carpeted room, which is lined on three sides with 18 comfy plush chairs--the kind airports only supply in some posh first-class lounge--a pair of Chinese grandparents were changing their newborn granddaughter's diaper while her baby's parents quietly looked on. The restrooms were spotless -- better than anything I've ever seen in a public place in China.




And in another corner of the room, an airport employee had pulled a chair cushion onto an armrest, propped up a newspaper, and settled in for at least an hourlong xiuxi in spite of the noisy squelches eminating from her walklie-talkie every few minutes.


We fed Juliana some yogurt and she excitedly imitated the newborn's coos. When the family and walkie-talkie toting napper left, we decided to close the doors  and try giving Juliana a nap.


It was like shoving cottin into our weary ears. Immediately, the hustle and bustle of the airport was muffled. Flight announcements disappeared, squeaking luggage wheels faded. We were left with near silence.


Within a few minutes of rocking her in my arms, Juliana was asleep. And Ruth closed her eyes to rest. For a good 20 minutes, the silence remained.
Until another airport worker arrived. Pushing a wheelchair-bound passenger, she thrust the doors wide. Airport noise rushed in like water from behind a dam. Seemilngly oblivious to the napping baby in my arms, she made no attempt to quiet her walkie-talkie, which blared incessantly while she smugly clanked tea cups and scrawled something into a log book. I scoweled at her and scrambled to turn on Juliana's white noise ocean sounds to drown out the clatter. Thankfully, she kept on sleeping. Then, as suddenly as she arrived, the worker hurriedly left the nursery, leaving the doors ajar.


Ruth got up and shut them and the quiet returned. Ten minutes later she returned, now with three young children in tow.She again propped the doors wide. I scowled and again worked to drown out the noise, which clung to her like a shadow. When she left, Ruth again shut the doors. But again she returned ten minutes later and again she smugly propped the doors wide and sat down to sip her tea and chat with another airport employee who had come in moments before.


Soon, a mother with an infant wrapped in several layers of thick clothing joined us. Juliana finally succumbed to the clammor and woke up, but boarding time was approaching, so it was OK. As I changed her daiper, the doors stood open.
But everything changed the moment the Chinese mother started peeling away the layers of her child's clothing. Suddenly, the smug door-flinger-opener became concerned about a draft coming into the room. "The baby will catch a cold," she exclaimed as she hurried to close the doors. Again the room grew quiet as we walked to the gate to begin boarding our plane. Still, I think it was the quietest place we've ever found in an airport -- certainly the first time since Juliana hit six months that she's taken a decent nap in one.

Juliana's Travelogue: Episode 16-23

Juliana is an expert unpacker

 The good thing about traveling with a toddler is that the world is their playground. Juliana loves airports; she can spend hours running around, banging on chairs, and climbing stairs and ramps. At each new hotel room she is excited to find another phone, another fridge right at her level, and more tiny spaces under furniture to shove her toys into. At our last place on the ground floor, Juliana took great joy in walking out the patio door right outside! A nice change from six floors up.

Enjoying the playground with mama and aunt Melissa

In many ways, though, traveling with a toddler is difficult. I'm not a strict schedule person, but I do think toddlers benefit from a good deal of routine, consistency, and predictability, none of which are abundant in travel. Some days she was already waking up from her nap at 2pm; other days she wasn't getting to sleep until 3pm. Some days she ate dinner at 5pm and other nights we didn't get to eat until 7pm, pushing back bedtime extra late too. Some days she had no problem with a flexible schedule; other days it made for quite a crabby baby. And this time we didn't even have to factor in jetlag!

A nap on the go

Juliana also developed a lot of less than ideal habits while traveling. She has reverted back to only falling asleep while being held. She has discovered a love for hotdogs. When she started flipping out on an airplane or in a restaurant, she got to watch Baby Einstein on Kevin's phone. She used her pacifier about twice as much as normal. She ate a ridiculous amount of crackers. She scratched me a lot. [Juliana doesn't have a security object; instead she has a security action – picking at/running her fingers over my skin. When she is tired or feeling insecure, she starts picking at me. Unfortunately if I don't keep her nails good and trimmed I end up getting scratched.]

Finally something I love to eat!

The long days of flights and airports are tiring but the weeks away from home were also starting to wear on Juliana. By the end she started getting extra fussy, even needing extra naps. She wanted to be touching me 90% of her waking hours, and if she was as far as 2 feet away she would pitifully cry, “Mumm-ma! Mumm-maaaa!” At home, Juliana squeals impatiently and grabs her hat when anyone mentions going outside. While traveling, on the other hand, she was excited whenever we got back to our room. Oh, and did I mention that the entire time she was working on two painful molars? I've always heard that molars are difficult, but I didn't realize they took so long to come in! Poor baby.

Cuddling with mama on a trek across town

Despite all that, Juliana mostly enjoyed the travels. She got to charm hundreds of new people and play peek-a-boo with strangers on the plane. She got to ride an elephant and discovered their mutual love of bananas. She even took a nice nap while swaying along atop a lumbering elephant. She played with her aunt Melissa, who taught her important life lessons like how to climb up a slide. She went swimming and sliding and walked barefoot in the grass. She got to have bare arms and legs for three whole weeks. She played with other kids and went outside every day. She took her 16-23^rd flights. Quite a lot of activity for a seventeen month old!

Taking a ride atop a 4 ton elephant. (She's inside the carrier getting in a nice little nap).

Juliana goes for her first walk in the snow

by Kevin

It snowed a few days ago here, so Juliana had her first chance to walk in (a little bit of) snow. Enjoy...

Me, Juliana and 1000 Other People

Today I went to the supermarket, which is not interesting in itself except that it is 4 days before Spring Festival/Chinese New Year. So it's kind of like going to the mall 4 days before Christmas, except the people are all Chinese and there's a thousand more of them. I'm terrible at numbers estimation, but the store is packed. I would say a thousand is a conservative estimate. There are probably a couple hundred just in the produce/meat section. I knew it would be pretty crazy, so I decided to bring Juliana along. She's been cooped up in the house too much, and she enjoys crowds more than I do.

Outside the weather is actually starting to get warmer already. It's probably high 20's (F). Balmy. Juliana and I walk to the supermarket because it is just around the corner, not more than 10 minutes away. Well, technically she walks the first 100 yards and then I push her in the stroller. Outside the store, rows of sellers are lined up with tables covered in colorful fireworks boxes.

People are already buying up fireworks and “testing” them every day in preparation for The Mother Of All Fireworks Days. This is nothing like the 4^th of July or New Years in America. China is serious about its fireworks.

Usually I check the stroller and transfer Juliana to a cart, but today I decide to stick with the stroller and a basket, since I don't have much to buy. It's a good decision as all the carts are already taken. I see a lot of laden carts but don't actually pay much attention to what everyone is buying. I am too occupied with trying to maneuver the stroller through the crowds. Juliana gets lots of extra attention, questions, and touches. The store seems to be manned with about a hundred extra workers offering samples and hawking their goods; each aisle seems to have at least two of them.

I don't have much to buy but by the time I get to the checkout (all the lanes are open and the lines are full), Juliana is getting antsy. Several people try to cut in front of me and I give them the old “basket to the side.” I am unwilling to give an inch, pushing the stroller up to about 3mm from the lady's feet in front of us. When I first came to China I was disturbed by all the pushing and people standing 3cm from me in line. I have since learned if there is more than 6 in between you and the person in front of you, it is grounds for someone to break in front of you. I have also become adept at pushing.

Juliana starts fussing, not outright wailing, but definitely making her impatience known. Instead of giving dirty looks, the people around try to distract her; they hate to see a child upset, especially a cute foreign one. The family ahead of us tells me to go in front of them since the baby is tired. I am very appreciative. People in this country a great about children.

We break free of the store and head back home, managing to avoid being hit by anything as we forge our way across the streets. I really am more careful when I'm with Juliana, but really, everyone stands in the middle of the road. Home again, home again: no more shopping again until after the holiday!

16 Month Update

Lately at seems like Juliana has been growing by leaps and bounds. Sometimes literally! When she turned one it was hard to realize she wasn't technically a baby anymore, but now she has entered toddler-hood full force. Here are some of the phenomenal and amusing things she is doing lately:

So silly!

*Crawling is a thing of the past; Juliana walks expertly inside and out, although she has not yet mastered our six flights of stairs. Maybe next month. Walking has granted her tremendous speed, something she has found particularly useful when sneaking into places where she's not supposed to be. I open the door to the kitchen or bathroom and .237 seconds later she magically appears behind me. Usually with a mischievous grin.

All bundled up for a walk

*Juliana is still as social as ever, although she has gotten more suspicious of strangers, particularly if they aren't Chinese. She gets super excited to be around other kids and she prefers interaction about 99% of her waking hours.

*I definitely appreciate Juliana's zest for life, although I don't always enjoy the way it is sometimes expressed: a very loud, very high pitched squeal. The more excited and/or tired she is, the higher pitched the squeal. She gets soo excited about things. And by things I really mean people.

*In the past couple of weeks, Juliana has been adding a new word almost every day. Her most recent additions are Jesus (how very spiritual), trash (I really don't know why), night-night, and meow. A few times she has also said “xie-xie” (Chinese for thank you) and once she very clearly said “qu wan'r” (play outside). She also says long sentences of full gibberish, and she likes to whisper secrets in her own special code language.

*Juliana has been having a marvelous time with all the new toys from Grandpa and Yaya. In top place are a cat piano and a ride-on train. She can play the cat piano with several different sounds (organ, banjo, cat meows), she can choose her own dance rhythm (her favorite is disco), and she can also play various pre-recorded melodies. Wait till she discovers the microphone and volume control button!! When not enjoying train rides around the apartment, Juliana enjoys storing toys in its seat-compartment, pushing it around, attempting to stand on the seat, and naturally – pushing buttons and pulling levers to play even more music!

Multitasking at play: Juliana likes to sit on her train AND play her cat piano

*Grandpa and Yaya were just here for a cut-short one week visit. Juliana was very happy to have extra play pals. They built block towers, played “dig through the suitcases,” indulged in lots of tickles, and of course played lots of music. Juliana quickly learned to yell, “YA-YA!!” whenever Grandma left the room. She also learned grandparents just can't resist her charming smile and oh-so-innocent pleading eyes.

*Grandma Yaya declared Juliana to be the “dancingest” baby she's ever seen. Juliana loves to dance. Any time she hears a snatch of music (which is about 50 times a day) she starts waving her arms around, bobbing her head, and strutting around. It's funny every time. She also has an amazing sense of rhythm.

Block feet (for Grandma too!)

*Juliana has been sleeping through the night about half of the time, on average. She will do great for a while and then she'll start teething again or get sick and it totally throws her off! Lately she has still been taking a morning nap (with some persuasion) but she usually thinks she doesn't need it any more.

*When she gets upset (usually because she is overtired or hungry) sometimes she will wail pathetically, sneak a peek to make sure someone is looking, and then sprawl on the ground, banging her head just gently enough that it doesn't hurt. It's so hard not to laugh! I think we are going to have a big drama queen on hands.

*Usually Juliana still eats a large variety of foods: rice, cheese, tofu, eggs, fish brains... She has started to have some picky days when she just decides she doesn't like her previous favorite foods. I try to remember to be relaxed about it and realize that over a few days or a week, she really does get the food she needs, and when she's not eating, she usually has a reason.

*For all of her energy and enthusiasm, there are times when Juliana will focus in and work on something for 15 or 20 minutes: building with blocks, putting anything into containers. Her fine motor skills have improved a ton and sometimes I'm amazed by how adept she is at small tasks.

Practicing with the block sorter

*Our apartment has a lot of mirrors built into the walls and furniture, and Juliana loves to look at the baby in the mirror. She likes to watch her play and they often exchange friendly waves and kisses.

*Juliana learned to say “Jesus”from her “Jesus Loves Me” book I often read/sing to her at night. Lately she has tried to sing along! She also loves the songs “Old MacDonald” and “Pop Goes the Weasel,” where she adds her own “e-i-e-i-o” and “pop!” respectively.

The cardboard box: Still Juliana's favorite way to travel

*When Juliana turns 16 months (on the 19th), it will be the first time her number of flights (15) will be less than the months of her life.  That will last for a full four days before we take our next flight.  We'll be adding 8 more flights in the next month, so she may never catch up again!

Happy New Years!

I've been hearing some half-hearted fireworks going off in the distance and being a little slow, it took me a while to realize they actually have a legitimate reason for shooting them off. Legitimate in my mind, I mean; I am sure all the normal fireworks have some kind of legitimate reason.

“We're getting married!”

“We're building a new building and want to scare off the evil spirits!”

“We're opening a new restaurant and want everyone to know it's a happening place!”

“It's some kind of holiday!”

“It's the day after the holiday and I have fireworks left over!”

“It's Tuesday!”

But even though I have been preparing for our New Years Eve potluck tonight, I rather forgot it was New Years Eve. Besides, I'm not used to celebrating the same holidays as Chinese people. (Chinese New Year, January 23 this year, is a much bigger deal, but they still celebrate the solar calendar New Year too.)

I think 2012 will be a good year. After all, it's a nicely proportional even number, unlike those tricky, unstable odd ones. To celebrate, I plan to stay up until at least midnight Guam time (aka. 10pm).

Happy New Years, wherever you are!

Foreign (not so foreign) Country

After living in China for a while, you tend to stop seeing it as a foreign country. Granted, there are strange/frustrating/amusing cultural situations that come up every other day to remind you how little you understand, but you stop seeing the interesting sights you walk by every day because they have become normal. Today when we were out walking around (in the freezing cold!), I was remembering how strange some of these things were when I first came to China. I started thinking about things you don't see on an American street...

*A row of vegetable sellers with their four foot mounds of cabbage piled up on the sidewalk. They squat on tiny foot high stools next to tiny makeshift fires, waiting for someone who hasn't yet stocked up on their winter's supply of vegetables.

*Bicycle repairmen, shoe repairmen, seamstresses, and locksmiths, their equipment littering the sidewalk, waiting to repair just about anything for 50 cents. Their hands are dirty from work and gnarled from cold. Most of them are middle aged or older and very efficient at their work.

*A row of 25 shops, smaller than some people's closets, all selling an almost identical collection of random household items: wash bowls, brooms, dishes, pots, hangers, tools... How do they all stay in business? Perhaps because they have that one item that is different from the others.

*Interspersed among the household items are tiny stores filled with cages of chickens and various other fowl. And rabbits. Wonder what those are for?

*Stores selling huge bags of la jiao (dried red peppers) and other spices.

*Tiny stores filled with giant slabs of meat hanging from the ceilings.

*Outdoor sellers setting up booths with hats, gloves, and lots and lots of long-underwear.

*80% of people wearing face masks (for warmth) and only 40% wearing hats. I don't understand.

*Hundreds of people walking up and down the streets despite the cold.

*Hundreds of people walking on the street despite the fact there is a 15 foot wide sidewalk right next to them.  (What can I say...I usually walk in the street too...)

So yeah, I guess China still is a foreign country after all. But I was thinking the other day, as Juliana gobbled up her fish brains and innards, none of these things will seem strange to her at all!

Merry Finals!

Only 5 days until Christmas! ...And 6 days until final exams.

There are some things I like about Christmas in China...less commercialism (although that seems to be the only part that is catching on!), students/tutors/friends who are excited to take part in our Christmas traditions, listening to Christmas music on online radio, less overload of Christmas related activities (well, sometimes).

But a definite disadvantage of Christmas in China is that you may end up taking finals the day after Christmas. Fortunately Christmas is on a Sunday this year so we aren't taking finals on Christmas Day. For that I'm very grateful. But having a bunch of exams and studying looming over your head isn't the happiest way to spend the day. It's a good thing we are also having Late Christmas when my parents arrive (2 weeks from today!!).

How are we spending our last week of classes? Well, our teachers' responses have been varied. Most of them seem determined to pick up the pace and cram as much as possible into the last minute. Kevin's teacher decided they will cover two more units plus go over all the grammar in the remaining six units.

One of my teachers (the really good one that we love), is actually reviewing! What a novel concept! We are going through all the lessons highlighting the grammar and structures that are most important for us to remember. It's great. We love her. And she won't be here next term. :(

We asked our listening teacher how to prepare for our final exam and he said, “Review lesson 1-12 (i.e. all the content from the term). Don't worry!” Very helpful. We're going to fail.

Oh well. 8 days from today we will be officially free!

So Merry Christmas and happy finals to all.

All Bundled Up

 

With daytime temperatures hovering in the 20's (Fahrenheit), we've been getting serious about bundling up to go outside.  This winter I actually haven't gotten hardly any comments about Juliana not wearing enough clothes!!  Amazing.  And kind of strange.  I must be doing something right.  Also, they seem to be more lenient about toddlers showing skin (provided it is only the 2 inches surrounding the eyes).

The other day as I bundled Juliana up for the cold, I noticed something:  Absolutely none of her outerwear remotely matches!  She has:
1. A red and blue hat with sequins, braiding, little plastic bunny pins, fake flowers, and embroidered kid faces complete with 3D hair (a present from A-yi)

2. A red and blue scarf (so actually I lied: the scarf and the hat do match!

3. A purple, black, and white polka-dot face mask (I was trying to think if I had seen face-masks in America, but since I'm from Georgia I can't imagine actually needing them.  Face-masks are an essential part of outerwear in China, though.  More important than a hat or gloves.  I have decided that Juliana's is not very useful, though, because she just keeps licking at it until it is soaking wet and cold.)

4. A peachy-pink and white polka-dot coat (the best thing we could find to fit her, and the sleeves are still a good 6" longer than her arms.

5. Purple outer-pants with a white stripe down the side and pink and purple butterflies.

6. Buried inside her extra-long coat sleeves, she's also wearing a pair of bright primary striped mittens.

Living in China for a while does dim your sense of what it means to match.  I probably couldn't get away with this in America, but in China there is absolutely nothing wrong with this outfit.  In fact, all the color and diversity of pattern make it extra pretty!

It's possible Juliana will look back at this picture when she is older and say, "Why did you let me dress like that??"  But then again, she'll be growing up in China, so she probably won't think a thing of it!

P.S. Underneath all these outer-layers she is also wearing a turtleneck, a sweater, two pair of pants, thick tights, and an extra pair of socks.  Because it is that cold in our house!  But that's another post...

My "Charlie-Brown" Pies

by Ruth

I agreed to make pumpkin pie for our big 'city wide' Thanksgiving meal. It was a last minute decision, so I headed out late last night to buy some pumpkin. Ok, so actually it was only 7pm, but it was already completely dark outside and I am hardly ever out after dark post-baby. Thus as I biked to the nearby vegetable market, dodging the hordes of students heading out for Saturday evening fun, it felt like a late night outing. Half of the large road in front of the vegetable market was transformed into a parking lot – literally. The actual parking areas are far too small, so cars just stopped and parked in the road, along with dozens of taxis waiting for fares. Pedestrians swarmed across the street while bikes and motorbikes swerved through and honking cars inched their way through the road-turned-parking lot.

Street vendors were out in mass, selling all manner of fried foods and unidentifiable objects on sticks. I wasn't even sure if the vegetable sellers were still around at night. Some had covered their vegetables with cloths and headed home, but a number were still open for business. I picked out a couple of small pumkins and headed home (after picking up some tofu-filled egg-burritos and spicy skewered vegetables for our dinner.

I often made pumpkin pie as my Thanksgiving contribution when I was younger, but I had never made it from fresh pumpkin before. I had also never made it in China, which, as you know if cook in China (or other non-western countries), can be a little different experience.

Step one: slice and cook the pumpkin. I didn't really know how long to cook the pumpkin, so I set the oven on some medium temperature and came back every few minutes to stab pieces with a fork. By the end they had taken quite a beating. Some of the pieces were a little green looking, so I wasn't sure how that would work out either. Eventually all the pieces were pretty soft, so Kevin scraped the meat out of the rind while I worked on the pie crust. That was pretty easy except when I was ready to roll it out, I realized my rolling pin was moldy. But I covered it with plastic wrap and used it anyway.

Step two: Mash the pumpkin. After mashing and beating the pumpkin with eggs, we were left with a mixture of pumpkiny liquid and hard pumpkin chunks. Fortunately a little blender action solved the problem of the chunks.

Step three: Mix in other ingredients. I didn't actually have all the ingredients. Evaporated milk can apparently be bought in another part of the city about an hour away, but that wasn't going to happen. Kevin looked for sweetened condensed milk at the supermarket but they stocked only blueberry or strawberry flavor. Not going to work. So I settled for a powdered milk and water substitution my mom found online and added extra spices because it seemed like a good idea.

Step four: Bake the pie. Since I don't have an actual pie pan, I used a round cake pan instead. Our small toaster-oven is pretty nice for China but definitely smaller and more finicky than a real oven. I converted the baking temperature from Fahrenheit into Celsius and then the Celsius into “I wonder what temperature the oven will actually be” degrees. I generally go for about 25*C lower than called for, but it kinda comes down to what kind of mood the oven is in on a given day. The only way to really keep things from burning is to watch them closely, cover with foil, and make the baking time about 10-20% less than the recipe says. Good thing I looked in on the pie because about 5 minutes into cooking I realized the top burner was on instead of the bottom one!

Step 5: Keep baking the pie. I guess I turned the temperature down too low because I kept checking and kept checking and it was still a jiggly mess. After the third knife slice, the clean line had turned into a big gash down the middle of the pie.

Finally the pie was finished, and it actually looked good (other than the big gash). Except it looked awfully small. There were going to be 20 adults and 10 children at our Thanksgiving feast, and this was an 8” pie. I still had just enough shortening left to make another pie crust, so I thought maybe in the morning I would run out and get some more pumpkins or maybe some sweet potatoes and make a sweet potato pie.

Finally I decided I should make a pecan pie! It would be perfect. I didn't have any corn syrup, like most recipes called for, but thanks to allrecipes.com “don't want this ingredient” search, I found one using sugar instead. The only other slight problem: I didn't actually have pecans.

I did, however, have some walnuts left over from my amazing sweet potato casserole. Walnuts are definitely no pecans, but they work as a China- substitute. I made up another pie crust and covered my moldy rolling pin once more before throwing it out. There was just enough crust left over to make a few pretty leaves to cover the ugly gash in the pumpkin pie. Success!

I arranged from walnuts prettily on top of the pie, and they immediately sank halfway into pie liquid. Oh well. Into the oven, double checking the correct burner was on this time! I checked the pie about 5-10 minutes into cooking only to find the top was already burning! Seriously? I covered it with foil and kept checking on it. After a while I decided this burnt top was not going to do, so I pulled the partly-cooked pie out of the oven and used a knife to scrape of as much of the burnt as I could. The pretty was all gone, but at least it wouldn't taste burnt (I hoped). Then I put the pie back in to finish cooking, not really sure how that little cooling interlude would effect it.

After the initial burn, I kept checking the pie frequently, but even after exceeding the called-for baking time, the pie was still pure liquid. I tried testing it with a knife and struck a submerged walnut instead, creating a fissure instead of a smooth cut. It was becoming a trend. I poked around at several walnuts, trying to scoot one over the hole. Several knife stabs and 15 or 20 minutes later, the pie was finally “set” enough to take out. The pretty walnut design was completely obliterated, but it didn't really look bad, considering.

This afternoon I took the pies to our celebration and the verdict was... Success! The pumpkin pie tasted just like it should, and we were even able to buy some whipped cream from a local bakery for the top! The non-pecan pie was pretty good too. I mean, a walnut is never going to be a pecan, but otherwise it was good! And it didn't even taste burnt at all. The pumpkin pie was quickly eaten and half the walnut pie was gone (because after all, some people don't know what pecan pie is all about).

Sadly, we didn't get any pictures before they were eaten up! The pumpkin pie ended up looking pretty cute with those little pastry leaves and the walnut pie looked perfectly respectable, but now you'll just have to take my word for it.