When things are not as they seem.

What  are these?

What are these?

If you put them side by side, can you tell what they are?  Are they the same...or different?  Which one would you put in chili?

What is this?  Is it a slow cooker?  Could you use it as a slow cooker?  If the sales person assured you in Chinese that yes, it could be used as a slow cooker, would you think it was a pressure cooker?  Are you sure?  What if all of the directions were written in Chinese?

Please feel free to laugh at this story.  We did.

When we first arrived in China, we went to Metro, the big grocery store to stock up on kitchen supplies.  I wanted a rice cooker and a crock pot.  We saw both and then we saw this glorious, shiny machine.  We looked at the picture- rice, vegetables, meat!  We asked the sales lady-of course you can cook things slowly in it.

Okay then.  We bought it. We made stew.  Which took about 15 minutes to cook. Thus confirming that it was a pressure cooker. Not a slow cooker.

What do you make in a pressure cooker?  Beans for chili of course!  No canned beans here-that's for foreigners!

We had friends over on Christmas Eve and I made stew and a big pot of soup.  I bought beans from the grain man at the store-he is next to the fish woman and the meat family.  Less than a dollar for a jin of dried red beans.  I soaked them over night, and cooked them in the steam cooker.  They did seem a little firm but who likes mushy beans anyway?

The chili was a hit and eaten very quickly.  I actually never got to taste it.  In the middle of dinner, some one asked if there were peanuts in the stew.  I quickly dismissed that notion and we went back to eating.

I would have forgotten about this except that Paul occasionally mentioned the peanuts in the stew.  I'm sure he was laughing with me, not laughing at me.  The other day I asked him to go to the store to get some red beans.  A friend sent me a magazine from the USA that featured a recipe with red beans. So Paul went to the store to buy red beans.  He talked to the grain man and asked him about the bin with red beans....which are actually red peanuts.  Yes, it's true.  I soaked and pressure cooked red peanuts for our  Christmas Eve stew.

So which are the peanuts and which are the beans?  You can probably tell from the pictures..but could you tell if they were in a big grain bin?  I couldn't.  But I can now!

Winter in Shenyang

View from our friend's window- they live on the 14th floor of their apartment building. Can't you just feel the cold?
China is heated by coal. This coal plant is literally across the street from our apartment. The smoke is everywhere in winter.

You can see a tall building in the background. It is currently under construction. The workers live behind the white fence in sub-standard dormitory type housing. For every skyscraper in China, there are hundreds of these poor migrant workers, trying to support their families.

Mandatory volunteerism. These are college students clearing the snow. Every school and university has an area that they are responsible for. In winter, you see students clearing the snow with brooms and shovels. The idea is to teach community spirit and responsibility.
Imagine college students doing this in America! Or school children! But here, it is totally normal.

Ice skating on Christmas Day. NorthEastern University (DongBei Daxue) floods their sports field in winter. They are then used for PE classes. You can skate there for about RMB 10 or a little over a dollar. It was pretty empty on Christmas because the students were clearing snow and ice.

That is Elisabeth on skates with the face mask.

Paul and I went out one night. We put on long john's, double socks, jeans, shirt, sweaters, ear muffs, face mask (for Sandy), hats, scarves and double gloves. Then we rode our bikes over for sea food hot pot.
We didn't actually know it was sea food hot pot until the sea creatures appeared in our hot pot. We also had sweet potato, lamb, and some other vegetables to cook. All for about $10.00.
One day, we went to see some friend's who live on the north side of the city. This involved about an hour an a half bus ride. We had to change buses and Elisabeth was hungry. She is eating Ji Dan Guan Bing or the Chinese equivalent of an Egg McMuffin. Street food is the best.
One last view of ice skating and hockey. Paul and I skated, too but no pictures are available of that!

Christmas in China

Christmas is long over but the decorations are still up all over our city.Our English Corner reading a Christmas carol and hearing the true story of the Nativity.
Outside a restaurant. The more traditional Chinese looking building is not historical, just decorative.
Offerings to Buddha in the window next to the Christmas tree pictured above. Three apples and a mangosteen, plus some tea.
Pictures of Santa are everywhere. Pictures of the nativity are no where to be found.
Wu Ai shopping area. A mixture of Christmas stuff and Chinese New Year's decorations.

Santa is everywhere! Even at Wu Ai in Shenyang!
Our sad little fake Christmas tree. No wonderful pine smell, but no needles either. The lights lasted about three days. First they blinked all over, then the bottom half blinked, then they didn't blink at all, then no lights. They cost about a dollar so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Santa also speaks Chinese! WTG, Santa!
And a Christmas Merry to you, too!

The chocolate gold yuan that Elisabeth got on Christmas Eve. Tangible proof of His love for her.

The Meat Market-literally

What do three American women do on a cold Saturday morning in China? Why take a taxi to the meat market of course! In the north part of our city, there is a huge outdoor market that caters to restaurants. They often have foreign goods at a discount-things that you can't usually get at a local market where we usually shop.

The other two women had been there before and they knew what they wanted. I just went out of curiosity.

Here are some pictures-some are not for the faint of heart! Some may make you want to go vegetarian!
Goose eggs.
Sea food.

More sea food.
Beautiful vegetables-peppers, chili peppers, beans and celery.
Meat.

Intestines

More meat.

American's have a nebulous relationship with meat. I felt a little queasy when I saw this.
Hope my meat doesn't come off the floor.

It's interesting to me that many of my Chinese students have told me that American's smell like meat! Yet we are surrounded by meat here all the time. A few weeks ago, I brushed past half a pig on a cart. I wasn't at the butcher-I was in the lobby of our language school.

Yes- China makes it very clear where meat comes from. One more culture learning experience for me!

Where we live.

I thought I'd post a few pictures of where where we live in China.

We live on the 6th floor of an apartment building in the south end of the city. Sixth floor-no elevator. It's a small three bedroom apartment with lots of light.

Yes- that is someone hanging out of our windows washing them. No, not it is not me. This picture was taken in September before winter set in. Notice the beautiful blue skies!
Paul on our sofa that we had made. Basically, you go to the furniture market, find a sofa you like, bargain for a reasonable price, choose the fabric and have it made. Then they deliver it (for a negotiated price) and carry it up the six flights of stairs. If you don't have an elevator, you have to pay extra for the delivery!

Paul is not wearing his glasses in this picture because they were broken. Later he fixed them with superglue and he had to get new ones. Going to the optometrist is great language learning!

Sadly, he has picked up on the tendency to do the V for Victory sign when a picture is taken.
Elisabeth in one of the leather chairs that came with the apartment. We've told her that the orange slippers are a little like the ones they hand out in prisons.

The desk in Paul's office/man cave.

Traditional Chinese two burner gas stove. That bottle is the milk we buy. It comes like that or in a box.
Our kitchen that leads to our laundry balcony. No diswasher but we do have a coffee maker!
No built in stoves in China! Most foreigner's have counter top stoves. This can actually get a full sized cookie sheet in it. When you use it, you set the temperature (in Celsius) and the time that you want it on. It works pretty well.


Our backwards tub. Notice what is hanging over the drain-our towels. When we moved into the apartment, we negotiated to have a tub put in. The bathroom had a traditional Chinese shower-no tub or shower enclosure around the shower head. coming out of the wall. You basically stand on the floor and the water drains into the drain. The floor stays wet all day.

So we asked them to put a tub in. When we moved in, I looked at the tub-the drain is at the opposite end of the tube than the faucets and shower head! Apparently this is pretty common and has to do with the drainage system. It's not super efficient but it does work. And it's much better than showering standing on the floor.

Most important-our slipper collection that we have to offer guests. No shoes are ever worn in Chinese homes. We have a growing collection of slippers that we have for when people come over.

Hope that gives you a picture of where we are living.

Christmas in China

We spent our first Christmas in China. It was wonderful, relaxing and focused. We relaxed as a family, spent time with friends, skyped with family and went ice skating. The university near our house freezes their athletic field and uses it for PE classes or recreational skating. It costs RMB 5 to skate and RMB 5 to rent skates. So it costs us a total of RMB 25 (E. owns her own skates) to skate for a few hours. In American dollars that is about $3.50.

People might be surprised that Christmas is a big holiday here. Santa is everywhere-Santa says "Christmas Merry" or even "Feliz Navidad." There are trees decorated, tinsel and glitter. I can't seem to get my pictures to upload but you might be surprised at what is here.

However, it is totally secular. There is little knowledge of the incarnation, that Immanuel has come with us. And that is sad.

We spent Christmas Eve at a local registered body. We sang, we watched a pageant performed and generally had a good time. At the end, something redemptive and wonderful happened.

Every Christmas, our daughter has had gold coins in her stocking. You've probably seen them-the coins in a mesh bag. It's a Dutch German thing. I saw them a few months ago at the foreign grocery store but didn't grab them. Lesson learned- if you want something and you see it, buy it!

Elisabeth was sad about not having them this year. She had even asked me that day if I had found any. Tradition is important when all your roots have been pulled up and everything is new.

So, as we were at the end of the service, they started to hand out candy. I looked back at what she was holding and there it was. A gold coin. A gold yuan-the old ancient Chinese money. She got her coin in a new form! It just was a wonderful reminder of a loving Father who cares for her.

A typical day.

We've had some intnernet issues that haven't made it possible for me to post. I still can't upload pictures but I can write!

Some people have asked us what our life is like here in China- what is a typical day? Well, the only thing that I can say is that no day is typical! Things that are just so different here. We have quickly gotten used to the noise, the crowdedness, the traffic. We have come to realize that everything takes twice or three times as long to get done. For example- we shop at mostly local markets. This means that when we go to the store, we walk down to the basement to get our bikes, ride to the store, go to the butcher, the fruit and vegetable people and the the main grocery. All is done in cash so if we don't have cash, we first have to go to the ATM. This takes much longer than when we were in the states and simply got in the car and drove five minutes to the store, shopped, paid with our bank card, had someone bag our groceries and drove home.

Our main activity right now is culture and language learning. We are in language school five days a week and meet with language helpers at least two afternoons a week. We are involved with an English Corner on Friday nights that is sponsored by a local group with the same world view as us. We've had many good conversations at this group. Paul is involved in a different book study on a different evening.

I tutor an ESL student one afternoon a week at the international school and am doing some teacher training at our language school.

Here are some descriptions of a few days in the last week.

Day One. It is well below freezing. Paul gets on his bike and rides 50 minutes north to a meeting which was very fruitful. After the meeting, he rides 40 minutes to the post office to pick up a package (mail doesn't come to our home). At the post office, he is told that the package is not at this post office, it's at a different one on the north side of the city. Right near where he had his morning meeting! So he rides his bike home where I am working with my language helper.

After she leaves, we get on the bus to go to the post office. It is still well below freezing and there is no heat on the bus. There is ice on the windows. Paul studies Chinese on the ride. I feel sleepy and consider whether I have hypothermia. I think about getting out and getting a taxi. Then I realize that getting off the bus will mean standing outside of in the cold and that there was no guarantee that the taxi would have heat. So we stay on the bus for the 45 minutes it takes to get to the Beizhan post office near the north train station.

At the post office, we show our passports and get a nice little package from my friend in England. Then, since we were on the north side of the city, I asked Paul if we could go to the Manna Bookstore. This is a religious store that sells books and CD's and they also have a business where they make beautiful scrolls.

We get a taxi remarkably quickly. When we pull up to Imperial Palace (the bookstore is near there), we realize that the driver has turned off the meter and has charged us three times what he should have. It's dark (even though it's only 4:30) and Paul realizes that the guy had told him that was what he was going to do. That's not an uncommon practice around the train station. So we paid and went to the bookstore.

The store was nice and the scrolls were beautiful. We bought each other scrolls for Christmas.

Then we stepped out into a cold and frosty night right around the time that the taxi driver's change shifts. We are in a part of the city where we don't know the buses so we needed a taxi. Most tell us no because it's too far across the city to take us. We were far north and we live far south in the city. Finally, one has pity and we get home. For less than what we paid the driver who took us ten minutes from the train station.

We arrive home exhausted and order Chinese take-out for dinner!

Day 2. In the morning, we took a young teacher to the airport. She has been here for a few months and it was her time to go back to the US. Negotiating a taxi to the airport takes some language skill and bargaining. We found a driver that was very reasonable and fit three people, a driver and four big suitcases into a taxi. We arrive at the airport, check her in, have a little kerfluffle about overage and overweight charges on her suitcase and leave her as she makes it through security. We took the airport bus back to the city, got off near a large grocery and went grocery shopping. I've learned to always carry a grocery bag with me! That and toilet paper.

In the late afternoon, we got back on the bus (same as the other day) to go speak at a private English school. We traveled about 45 minutes and then met the owner of the school at a bus stop. We got into his car and went to the school. There Paul taught vocabulary and the true meaning of Christmas. He had them read Christmas story from some excerpts and then we taught them "Silent Night." Many knew it in Chinese. There were many good questions and we really enjoyed talking with these students.

After the talk, the owner drove us home in his car. It was the first private car that we have been in since we arrived in China four months ago. Aside from a few taxi's a week, it's mostly buses and bikes for us! On a cold night, a car with actual heat is preferable to an unheated bus any day!

Life here is busy, complicated and demanding. Everything take a long time to accomplish. The coldis very wearing. We wear long john's all the time-sometimes two pairs! We have heavy coats, gloves and hats. I even bought a "nose Warmer." It looks like a surgical mask but really keep the face warm. Our government regulated heat keeps our apartment warm, and for that I am very thankful.

Our lives are really very ordinary. We are just trying to live faithfully in an extraordinary situation.