Last week I was talking with my teacher about some of the differences between our culture and the Chinese culture, in particular women and marriage. In China when a couple get married the woman will keep her old Family Name where as in the UK generally the woman will change to be the same as the man.
When I was explaining this she looked at me with a degree of confusion on her face, and was deeply surprised when I said that Jenna did this when we got married. She then started asking me about an operation in a clinic and I got the idea we were talking about a different thing.
In the end we had to resort to speaking English to try and figure out what was wrong. It turns out that the word for "Family Name" and "Sex" are pronounced exactly the same and even the characters are very similar.
So I had been telling her that Jenna had a sex change when we got married! There is a different word for "change" that I hadn't learnt yet, which would have been suitable for name change.
I'm glad I was talking to a teacher who could understand what I was saying, and not one of my friends who don't really understand English language and culture. Otherwise I could have given out a very wrong impression!
Name Change or Sex Change
Introducing Pippa
A few months we wrote about a young orphan girl who had seen a lot of rejection (her actual name is Pippa, and she lives nearby). Well Jenna and I decided that we are going to start fostering her one weekend a month, so that she can get out of the orphanage and have a small portion of "normal" life. Last weekend was our first weekend. We had a great time and think that she did too, here are a few pictures you can see the full set here:
Making Your Point
Last week there was a big crowd gathered by one of the entrances to an apartment complex just down the road from us. There were fireworks and banners hanging from the gates. It seemed like some kind of big protest.
As we were walking past, a huge dumper truck full of dirt came along and after an argument with a man, the driver unloaded the dirt in the vehicle into entrance of the complex. A few minutes later and 3 more trucks came along and unloaded huge piles of dirt in the other entrances causing chaos on the roads.
After asking about a bit we managed to figure out that the farmers who originally owned the land were angry that they didn't get a fair price when they sold to the property developers and wanted some more.
Although it was obviously a very serious issue to those involved it was really amusing watching the traffic pile up on the roads, and when we went back a few hours later they still hadn't managed to unblock the entrances. When I asked one of my friends about it he said it was a (literal translation) Chinese tradition. I think his meaning was more that it is a very Chinese way of making your point heard.
Hello Again
This blog is in need of some love. It has been ages since I have written anything....sorry.
We had a really good time in Tianjin and Weihai with our brothers. It was so good to be able to get out of our own city and explore a bit. Tianjin has advanced so much since we were last there, it was incredible. So many place we just didn't recognize because of the fast change. Weihai is apparently China's cleanest city, and certainly by the standard of cities we have been to this holds true. The air is totally clear and add that to the beautiful landscape and blue sea, it is hard to believe that you are in fact in the same country as Xi'an.
There was one bad point however. Unfortunately, although China is an extremely diverse place some things are the same wherever you go. One of them is the obsession with white skinned babies. So especially in Weihai, we were just pestered wherever we were by people stopping in front of us and staring, shouting hello at us, picking Tabitha up out of her pram without even acknowledging me or Jenna, and asking us for photos.
When we first arrived in China we tried to be as polite as we could to these people, as we know that they are kind hearted and don't mean us any harm. However after a year of this, and especially seeing that we are on our holiday where we want to relax it was just too much. So we decided to play the part of rude foreigners and just told people to go away. We came to the realization that anywhere we go for a holiday in China is going to have the same problem.
Now we are back in Xi'an. I have been studying hard at my accountancy studies and we have both been going to the gym most days. I am slowly getting my desire to study the language more after feeling pretty burnt out at the end of last term. We go back to school in just over a week and a half.
In the meanwhile a good friend of ours from Tianjin is coming to visit us. It will be great for her to see how we live here and also to spend some more time with her.
I have some interesting ideas for blog articles, so hopefully you should see a bit more on here soon, although some of them depend on getting the video camera that we are trying to save up for, so they may be a little while yet:-)
In the meanwhile here's a couple of pictures from Weihai.
Summer Holidays
I'm sorry I haven't written much on here over that past month or two. In all honesty there has not been a lot going on. Since everything has settled down from the earthquake we have been simply plodding on with the final part of our first year of language study.
Tomorrow is my last day(Jenna finished last week). It is nice that we have finished the first part of our Chinese studies. There has been such a big improvement over the last year, starting from only being able to speak about 50-100 words, to now being able to speak to a Chinese person for a few hours without too many problems.
Progress is definitely a lot slower now, I do still have to fill out my vocabulary a lot, but most of all I need to work on refining my grammar. At the moment even though I am able to communicate what I want to say, it probably sounds pretty horrible to a Native Chinese speaker.
On Saturday we are heading off to Tianjin to see Kriss, Jenna's younger brother and then after about a week down to Weihai to see my younger brother Josh. We are really looking forward to the break, we feel like we need it.
We probably won't be online much over the next 2 weeks but I will have my phone on me and so can send/receive Twitters.
Rejected Orphan
Last week I heard a really sad story about a young orphan in another province.
As I'm sure you already know, there is a one child policy that applies to many families in China. One of the results there are a great many girls and children with disabilities abandoned, and left to live in orphanages. The Chinese government has been making some efforts to encourage Chinese parents to adopt, however this is something that is not really a big part of Chinese culture and so the uptake is quite small.
This leads into the story about an 8 year old girl, Penny. A family visiting her orphanage fell in love with her and decided they wanted to adopt her. The orphanage advised rather than adopt straight away they should take her home and foster her for a few months. This was wonderful for Penny who had been in the orphanage since she was less than one year old.
Roll forward a few months and the told the orphanage that there are a some problems with Penny and that they no longer wish to adopt her. There actually really only was one problem......that her grades at school aren't good enough.
The Chinese education system is absolutely crazy, not only do the teaching methods stifle creativity but the children are expected to study for 12 hours a day in classes of 50+ students and can start taking exams as young a 5. It is extremely difficult to get into a good university and so parents are always pushing their children really hard to get good grades. Parents can be very disappointed with their children if they don't get high exam marks.
Penny recently scored 78% on a maths paper, which was deemed not good enough.
She now has to look forward to the prospect of returning to the orphanage, she will have spent her whole life looking forward to leaving.
It would be really good if you could remember this poor young girl her in your thoughts and prayers, especially that a family who could give her true, proper love would come along.
Back to Normal
It finally seems like things are getting back to normal. I am back at school and trying to catch up on all of the vocabulary that I should have learned these last 2 weeks. Jenna is feeling a lot better now although she still does have a few moments when she thinks the house is moving. In fact there was another big tremor on Sunday afternoon, which apparently rocked our apartment building quite a bit, but fortunately we were out shopping and didn't even feel it.
So there is 6 weeks left of this school year. I feel that I have made a lot of progress, but some days still wonder if I am ever going to get anywhere near the level I want to be.
Thanks to The Man Upstairs, we have received a gift and are going to be able to go on a holiday this summer and so we are going to see my brother Josh in WeiHai and the to see Jenna's brother Kriss in Tiajin. We are really looking forward to this time especially as Kriss has not yet met Tabitha.
More Drama
Last night at about 11.15 we were awoken by a telephone call from one of our Chinese friends. She was frantically trying to tell me something but I couldn't quite understand. Then her husband who could speak a little English came on the line and said "another very strong earthquake, maybe soon, get out of the building!". And so it was the same procedure again of grabbing Tabitha and getting down 12 flights of stairs as quickly as we could.
When we got down to the ground floor there were loads of people leaving the building with bedding and food. After asking around a bit I discovered that there had been a warning on the TV that in the next 48 hours there could be another earthquake as serious as the last one but closer to where we are. We were left thinking what will we do? In the end I decided to go and get some essentials from our apartment as well as warn some other friends in our building.
After doing all this we headed to Aaron and Lois's apartment (who are out of town at the moment, but their appartment is nearest to the ground) and about a dozen of us kipped on the floor.
After a pretty rotten night's sleep we are both feeling pretty fed up, wondering if this is ever going to end. The uncertainty that is accompanying all of these rumours just hangs over everything that we do, it is really hard to get into any type of daily routine. Chances are that this warning is a load of rubbish, but at the same time we would be stupid not to heed warnings that come from experts. We shoudn't complain too much, there are hundreds of thousands of people in worse situations than us, we are still really thankful for what we have, things could have been a lot worse for us. Our prayers go up for those who lost loved ones in the much worse hit areas.
There were thousands of people sleeping at the side of the roads and in parks last night. Nobody seems to be wanting to take any chances. The Chinese people are all really spooked and it seems as though this is also the case in other cities. I took a few pictures last night of the scenes on the streets:
Rumours Abound
It's been nearly 2 days since the first earthquake hit. Apparently there was a aftershock hit Xi'an at around 4am the night after the earthquake, but we were so tired that we didn't notice it.
There are all sorts of rumours going around our city now. One is that our building, which seemed to be one of the worst affected, is going to be condemned because it is not safe to live in. Chances are it's not true, but it's always scary to have something like that in the back of your mind. Especially since we've started using the elevators again since the stairs were destroying our legs.
Another is that the epicentre of the earthquake is shifting towards Xi'an and that it will arrive here in 2 weeks. Apparently this comes from some government sources, but it still sounds ridiculous to me. I always thought earthquakes were a one off thing with some aftershocks, but not something that would be going on for weeks. Maybe I am wrong, and this picture from the US Geological Survey does suggest that there is a definite line pointing here:
One thing for sure is that there is a lot of fear among the Chinese people. We are just trying keep our trust in Him upstairs, and accept whatever happens.
Jen has packed a suitcase of stuff in case the building is condemned and has to be evacuated. We will certainly be more prepared if there are any more episodes.
We also came across another website with pictures and videos of the devastation in Sichuan. Watching the videos, it is amazing to see what other people were doing at the same time we were evacuating. www.china-quake.com
An Earthquake Strikes
As you probably already know, there was an earthquake registering at 7.8 in Sichuan (about 350 miles away from us) province yesterday.
At the time Tabitha was napping while Jenna and I were just doing some language practice when all of a sudden I could feel a rumbling underneath my chair. I was a bit confused and then the water in the fish tank started swaying backwards and forwards, Jenna shouted "get Tabitha". So I ran into Tabitha's room grabbed her and we started down the stairs. We are on the 12th floor and so there was quite a long way to go down. I wasn't sure if the best thing to do was get under a door frame but we just decided to leg it. We didn't even think that it was an earthquake, we just thought there was maybe some structural problem with our building and it was going to collapse.
We were flying down the stairs. Jenna thought I was going to trip myself up and so grabbed Tabitha from me. Heading down the dark stairwells we were being thrown from side to side as the building swayed. About halfway down a man was trying to make us wait, at this point Jenna was praying in tongues and we both thought that we were going to die. We waited for a few seconds but then decided just to go for it. When we finally got to the ground floor there was clouds of dust plooming out of the side of the building.
It was only when we got to the street that we realized that it was probably an earthquake as people were pouring into the middle of the road from all of the other buildings.
We met the other foreigners from our building outside and from there we started trying to figure out exactly what had happened. We soon started hearing rumors of a major earthquake hitting ChengDu, but didn't really have any details. One of the ladies who lives 3 floors below us was just outside our building when it happened. She said she saw it swaying backwards and forwards, and the road was moving beneath her feet.
We waited in the beaming sunshine for about 3 hours before deciding to head back to Aaron and Lois's second floor apartment for dinner. They were great, they cooked for about a dozen of us on short notice, and while we were allowed to go back into our building last night we decided to stay at Aaron and Lois's.
We have just come back this morning. Everything seems to be fine apart from some cracks in the walls.
The outlook isn't so good in other parts of China, however with over 10,000 feared dead. The Chinese government is doing all it can to reach the worst affected areas but are having to contend with roads blocked by landslides. Our thoughts go out to all those who are more seriously affected than us as well as the authorities as they work around the clock trying to rescue people.
Language Progress Update
We have been studying now for just over 7 months, I thought I would write a little update about how far I have got. There are a total of six books in the series we are doing. My class has just finished book 4. After book 4 there is no more grammar to learn, so theoretically I should understand all Chinese grammar. The 5th and 6th books are studied concurrently and we hope to have them done sometime in the beginning of next semester(possibly even earlier, we will have to see how the pace goes). After this we will be looking at other books which should look at social/political issues to increase vocab. The focus of my studies now are practicing building sentences and paragraphs, increasing vocabulary and increasing the number of characters I recognize.
The aim is to understand 7,000 words and 2,500 characters. Currently I know about 2,500 words and 400 characters, so there is still a long way to go, especially with regards to characters.
Don't Fancy Going to Work?
Jenna is now having her Chinese lessons taught privately at our home four evenings a week. She has the same teacher that I had last semester and generally we are really happy with her, she is very friendly and has helped Jenna's confidence in speaking the language to no end. However last week she came up with the mother of all excuses for not wanting to teach, it was something like this:
"I'm sorry Jenna, it is raining and I have only just got back to my apartment, I took my shoes off and my socks are wet, so I don't think I will be able to come to your house and teach today"
I have heard lot's of different excuses but that has got to be by far the best. I can't come to work because my socks are wet!
About the Hospital
When I first hurt my ankle I went straight to the hospital from the football match. To start with I thought that it was broken. I was on my own so when I got out of the Taxi I had to hop to the entrance to the hospital. By the time I got inside my hopping leg was about to collapse so I asked one of the ladies at reception if they had a wheelchair. This was where I encountered my first problem
First they didn't want to give me one because I was on my own and apparently in China it is highly unusual for a person to go to the hospital on their own and so they wanted me to sit down and wait until someone arrived to help me. After I convinced them that I wasn't going to call anyone to come, (the hospital was about 45 mins from anyone I knew) they let me have one, but they wouldn't let me go to the A&E department because they said I needed to pay a 500 yuan (30 pounds) deposit before I could go anywhere. I only had 50 yuan on me because I never like to carry a lot of money out with me because there are a lot of pickpockets. My ankle was still extremely painful at this point and I was getting pretty tired anyway. After some (I would like to say "polite") discussion I managed to convince them that I wasn't going to steal their wheelchair and they pointed me in the direction of the doctor.
When I got to the relevant doctors room. I tried to explain what had happened, but the guy wouldn't even look at me! He just said I had to go back to the place I had come from and pay a registration fee! Another bloke in the Doctors room (the doors are always open and there are usually at least 2 other patients competing with you for the docs attention) very kindly offered to push me back and help with the registration. Another great example of the warmheartedness of ordinary Chinese people.
On my return to the doctor, he just poked my foot a few times and told me I needed an X-Ray, and that it was going to cost 100 yuan. The reason that I had gone to such a far out hospital was because my insurance company told me that they had a relationship with this one and money would not be an issue. When I told the doctor this he had no idea what I was talking about, and they basically told me that I couldn't have an X-Ray, or any other treatment because I didn't have any money!
To cut the rest of this long story short I was able to call Aaron and ask him to bring a load of money, and 2 hours after arriving at the hospital with what I thought may have been a broken ankle I got my x-ray.
I'm glad that this happened to me and not Jenna or Tabs and that it wasn't too urgent. We now know next time when we head to the hospital even if it is a huge emergency to make sure we have a load of cash otherwise they will not even look at us.
It's been a week and a half since I hurt my ankle
It's been pretty frustrating at times, and the crutches we have are really hard work. This morning we went back to the hospital to get my plaster changed. A friend of ours had bought in some elastic ones from England and so I now have one of those on. I'm feeling much better about it now.
Jenna has been nothing short of wonderous this week. She has carried on with school while looking after Tabs at the same time and also doing all my housework jobs. I can't wait to get better and give her a rest :p
Wow Iv'e just scrolled up and realized that was long, sorry if it was boring......
Ouch
On Friday while playing football I collided with another player on my team and injured my ankle. After waiting two hours (more on that later)to get an X-ray in the hospital it turns out that I have injured a tendon in my ankle. My leg is now in plaster and will be for 2-4 weeks....bummer.
This means that a lot falls on Jenna as she now has to do all of the house work that I usually do, as well as look after Tabitha and carry on studying. She has been amazing so far.
I am really struggling to get around, I have some crutches but they are really uncomfortable and so I didn't go to school today. I am really hoping to get back soon. I'm getting restless, sitting on the couch all of the time but it is just so hard to move around. I'm hoping that I just need to get used to using the crutches.
It looks like I will be out of the Football team (we call ourselves "Internazionale Xi'an") for a month or so, but sir Alex doesn't seem too worried he says we have the strength in depth to cope.
Long Time.....No Post
I'm sorry it's been so long since I wrote on here. We decided to change internet providers and a simple thing like that ended up taking about 10 days, which we were totally without internet. Anyway we are back up and running so expect a few more posts soon.
Friday was the annual "sweep the tombs of your ancestors day" and also a day off school. We had decided to visit a local park for a bit of relaxation, unfortunately it rained(for the first time this year) and so we went yesterday instead. The park was really beautiful and clean, and there were some very nice features.
With it being a holiday weekend the place was overflowing with people. This would probably be nothing more than a mild inconvenience if it were back home. But unfortunately the Chinese peoples interest in Tabs is huge and so we were always being stopped by people who wanted to hold her and have a picture taken with her. It was like we were part of the park.
We try to be as polite as possible in these situations, as we understand that seeing a white baby is a big thing for most Chinese people as there aren't that many around. But after a while we just had to start being a bit rude as it got a bit too much.
We know that the Chinese people mean well, and everyone that we have met have really welcomed us to their country but sometimes the amount of people can be a bit overwhelming. We are thinking that maybe in the upcoming May holiday we will try and get out of the city a bit.
Getting Some Much Needed Exercise
Today my body is as stiff as a plank. I have made some new friends who play a lot of football so last week I agreed to play a game against a Chinese team, we won 2-0. Then on Thursday I played badminton with Aaron and another friend and following that on Friday another football game, a 3 all draw. All this after about a year of close to zero exercise.
I feel pretty good about it though and as the weather continues to warm up I think I will be doing a lot more. I hopefully will be playing badminton every week now and probably football at least once a week too.
Jenna is also doing a lot of Aerobics and Pilates as well.
I think that I am going to take it easy for a few days first though and then maybe I will be able to move again!
The Soup Run
Last Thursday I had the pleasure of going out with a few others giving out food and soup to some people in an area where homeless and very poor people congregate. It is something a group of people (mainly Chinese) do every Thursday and Sunday, giving out a cup of soup, 2 pieces of steamed bread and an Orange. I have already been out once before and both times it has been quite an experience. It is just so sad to see some of the situations people are in.
There was one man who's hands were both navy blue, i guess with frostbite. One of them was really swollen and deformed. It has been a really severe winter here so there are a lot of homeless people who have really struggled with the harsh conditions.
Next to him was a lady who looked as though she was in her fifties. She couldn't understand that we were trying to give her bread and only once the people around her took the bread did she take it. I think however that she had some kind of mental illness as soon afterwards she tarted babbling and banging her head against the wall.
Later on we met a man who's left hand was in bandages and only had it's middle finger left on it. He had cut his little finger at the start of the year and an infection had got in. He had been to the doctor and they had cut his thumb and three fingers off and bandaged him up. However the doctor told him because he had no money that was all he could do. He is still really sick he couldn't even talk very well, I think he probably had gangrene in his hand and would more than likely die if he didn't get some good medical attention. Thankfully the people that I went with have some financial backing to help people like this man and so he should get some help.
There are also a lot of young homeless people. We met a couple of lads who were 14 years old, and I also had a chat with a 17 year old guy. He has had a few jobs but hasn't been able to hold them down because he lacks maturity. He makes money buy going through litter bins picking out used drinking bottles. A normal bottle will get him 1 mao(about 0.7p) and he makes about 5 yuan a day(35p). As I was talking to him I felt really sorry for him, but I couldn't help feeling that in many ways he was to blame for his situation. He got fired from his jobs because he had been playing computer games all night and then turned up late for work. Now every week he saves up his money and spends a whole Saturday night in an internet cafe playing games. At first I thought "well that isn't a very sensible way to spend your money, especially when you are so poor" but then I realized that this was the only source of pleasure that he would have in his life, it would be a chance for him to escape the harsh reality that he lives in. Then wondered if I was in such a hopeless position; "would I be any different?"
For all of the people that we met I couldn't help feeling really helpless. I wish there was a way that I could offer them some sort of opportunity, that would change their lives long term. For now I guess that all I can do is continue to help them by giving the short term solutions like soup.
Out and About
Last week we went into the town center for a walk around and a little shopping. We really enjoy all of the bustle and seeing so many different interesting things. China had such a long history and it is amazing to see buildings that are still standing after hundreds if not thousands of years. The people selling stuff on the streets are all really friendly. Here are a few pictures we took of the trip:
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
One Year Ago Today.....
Today was Tabitha's first birthday. It is crazy to think about what was going on a year ago and that so much has happened in the last twelve months. Tabs has coped so well with all of the change. We are just so blessed to have her.
We had a bit of a party for her earlier today, with all the people from our "small group" coming round. We decided that we would do a roast dinner and split the responsibility of who cooks what between us. Bunny, who lives 3 floors below us cooked the chicken, Yorkshire puddings and gravy. Our friends from down the road, cooked roasties and pumpkins and we did more roasties and some veg. It all worked out really well and it was great to be able to catch up with all of the people in our group.
Aaron and Lois got back yesterday, it was great to see them. They are working at getting a flat now. They also lent us a camera and so we can post a few pictures up again now, which is grrrrrreat.
Tabitha seemed to really enjoy today, although she doesn't really know whats going on. It all ends a busy week. I really now need to focus on studying because I have hardly done any in the 3 weeks break we have had so far and I only have 2 weeks left!
New Year Fireworks
Yesterday was Chinese New Year. This is the biggest celebration in China. There is a real sense of togetherness among the Chinese people. Before I came to China my preconceptions of CNY were that of big carnivals with dragons and stuff in all of the streets. It is actually quite the opposite, all the people in a family will make a real effort to get home from wherever they may be and spend the time inside with the family. It shows the huge importance that family still has in the center of Chinese culture.
One way that the family will celebrate is by setting off fireworks. On Wednesday night they were going off from about 6pm until 2am, non stop. Seriously; bonfire night or even our New Years Eve can't compete with the amount of fireworks going off. The problem is that they tend not to go for the pretty ones instead just endless roles of firecrackers and bangers. They were constantly so loud that we had to turn the volume of the TV up to full blast. It was like being in a WW2 film. Jen slept really badly that night as we just couldn't get Tabitha off to sleep, I seemed to fare a little better. Heres a little clip to give you an idea:
I can't believe the ignorance to safety when handling fireworks that people here have. I have seen loads of children, under 10 years old lighting and throwing fireworks around. In one instance I was in an elevator with a child of maybe 7 and his granddad. The child had a toilet roll tube with paper on each end and a fuse coming out of one end in one hand, and a lighter in the other. The kid was teasing his granddad lighting the lighter and holding it near to the fuse. I was thinking, if he accidentally lights that fuse what do I do? Try to hide in a corner or try and stamp it out?
Then that night our next door neighbors' young grandson was firing rockets, bangers and other little fireworks out of their 12th floor flat window.
Yesterday was also Jenna's birthday. We went into the center of the city and had a nice time and then in the evening we had a treat...a lovely meal at Pizza Hut....very posh.
Snow Causes Chaos
This winter has been one of the coldest on record in China. Its been down to -19C here, but it actually appears that the situation is far worse in other parts of China. In the south they are used to very mild winters and so don't have any heating, but this year there has been a huge amount of snowfall, which is causing big problems for lots of people. The army has sent half a million soldiers to aid with the snow, and also quilts and coats to the most needy areas.
The snow has also caused mass chaos on the transport system. Next week is Chinese new year which is similar to Christmas for the west. Usually at this time people will head back to their hometowns to be with family, but the snow has basically shut down a load of train stations. With millions of people stranded hoping to get home some how. These are a few pics from the BBC website of the chaos.
For us the weather has been nothing more than an inconvenience, but for others things are far worse. We pray that as many people will be able to get home safely as possible, and that illness and death would be at a minimum.
New Style
As you can probably tell, I am working on changing the style of the blog. I'm having to learn a few new things to get this template working properly, please bear with me, it should be done in a few days.
On Break
Last week we broke up for the Spring Festival holidays. Spring festival is a time in China that is similar to Christmas for the west. This also encompasses the Chinese New Year.
We are taking this opportunity to make our flat a little more homely and organize ourselves a bit. Yesterday we got a fish tank which will hopefully brighten up our living room a bit, and we are going to try and find a guy who can hang pictures on walls for us, as every attempt that we have made has resulted in either big holes in the wall of the pictures falling off and breaking.
Friday we will go to the hospital to get a Meningitis A injection for Tabitha, as well a check up. Then a week or so later Aaron and Lois will arrive in Xi'an, which we are really looking forward to.
One of my other brothers Josh is also coming to China soon. We had originally hoped that he would be able to come to Xi'an but he was unable to find a Job here and so he is going to teach English in Weihai, which is a small city on the east coast. He is coming with another friend too so he won't be too lonely. Hopefully we will be able to go and visit him in the summer at which time we also plan on going to visit Jenna's younger brother, Kriss, who lives in Tianjin.
Seems like our whole family will be out here soon.
Home Sweet Home
We have been back in China just over a week now, the jet lag was horrible it took us about five days to get over. Then on Friday the skies were worse than we have ever seen them, at 1pm in the afternoon it was as dark as evening except the skies were nicotine yellow. But now the skies have cleared and we have snow!!! Although it's not quite the same kind of snow that we are used to it is so nice to have clear skies and everything covered in white.
We had an extremely hectic trip, more hectic than we had imagined. It started off with me leaving one of my bags in a Taxi on the way to the Chinese border, thinking that we would be getting back into the same car to take us to the Hong Kong border. When we returned to China I was able to get the bag back from the taxi company....minus 2 ipods, a digital camera and a PocketPC(which were apparently to much of a temptation for the man who drove us to the border). I originally thought that the bag would be gone forever and to say I was a bit bummed out would be an understatement. However we were glad to get the rest of the stuff back which included a new Bible and my school books. So I am afraid that we may not have any new pictures for a while.
The wedding was wonderful, Aaron and Lois were both really happy and my best man speech (for which I had been enduring some very anxious months of worrying) seemed to be well received, with some people commenting afterwards that they enjoyed it.....phew.
After that we had a lovely Christmas with my family in our 2 little cottages in the middle of the New Forest. Then on Boxing day it was time to say sad goodbyes as we all went on our separate ways to Canada, Australia and the Isle of Man.
We had a great(but hectic) time on the IOM, the biggest problem was that it simply long enough, we had all in all 5 days to see everyone that we wanted to and just didn't manage to, we would have liked to have stayed longer but we just had to get back asap as we were missing our studies.
We are so glad to be back here, even though at times the climate can be depressing. We have one more week of studies until we break up for the Spring Festival(Chinese New Year). We are hoping to spend some time decorating the 2 rooms in our flat that haven't yet been decorated. Hopefully we will have some time for Chinese friends too as well as catching up on the studies we missed while we were away.
Although when we first arrived back here we didn't feel great about being here, after a week we definitely feel at home .
