Today we visited the Chen Clan Academy. It is where the Chen family descendants would go to prepare for the exams that determined their place status in Chinese society. The architecture was just stunning and the wood carvings were beautiful. One thing that Chris has mentioned time and time again is that we don’t have any structures older than about 250 years old in the states, so to see so many things that are so old is just cool.
Today we were stared at much more than any other day. It doesn’t really bother me much, but others in our group find it uncomfortable. Austin doesn’t like it, but I reminded him that Amy will feel some of the same things when she comes home and SHE doesn’t look like anyone and SHE is being made a fuss over. The kids reached near celebrity status today; many Chinese wanted their photo taken with them. At first they obliged reluctantly; as the day wore on, they seemed to enjoy it.
After visiting the Chen Clan Academy, we went to the jewelry mall! YES ladies, you read that right – an entire mall devoted to jewelry!!! I showed much restraint, but did make some pretty special purchases for some pretty special people. A few extra special purchases were made at a pearl store. I purchased a double strand of beautiful pearls for myself. We also got both girls a bracelet for some special birthday and got Amy a strand of pearls for her wedding day.
After pearl shopping we went to lunch. We tried (and actually enjoyed) dim sum. It is actually Cantonese style tea. They serve the tea (jasmine) with assorted pastries on a lazy susan.
We did see more smiles from Amy today. It is so interesting really. She laughs hard and giggles, but then, not too long after, will cry inconsolably. The best I can figure is that she might feel “guilty” having fun when she feels that she should only be sad… One thing for sure – she has beautiful dimples!
The rest of the day was free time; mostly spent walking around Shamian Island.
For Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Jordan’s classes – I for got to mention that Ashleigh, Austin and Amy all tried a very interesting food yesterday: pigeon. They all liked it quite a bit.
Big SMILE!!!
Amy enjoying the colors and textures...
Amy LOVES McDonald's!!!
family picture at the gardens
temper tantrum with squeaky shoes
April 9 --
Our last official day of touring and sight seeing. We visited a BEAUTIFUL garden today – the Yun Tai Garden. They sell admission based on height; think the height markers at the fair. Ashleigh’s height qualified her for adult admission! She thought that was pretty fun. We had a light rain right before our visit to the garden, so the colors were magnified and spectacular!
The garden is very serene and peaceful. Peaceful that is, until a two year old throws a tantrum and screams! I think we handled it well. I am convinced that the Chinese squeaky shoes are to help the parents maintain a sense of humor during a tantrum; it’s hard not to laugh when a two year old is stomping her feet and squeaking the whole time! Ashleigh and Austin are struggling a lot with letting their sister be really mad. They don’t want us to let her cry. I don’t like it either, but when it is so obviously a defiant attitude, I really don’t have another choice.
After lunch I took my two girls out for the afternoon to shop. All the mommy’s and my two girls went to a large department store to shop for baby things. It is an interesting system for shopping here. You pick out your items in each little department and you take it to a sales person. They write up a ticket for you and you collect all your tickets for that area and then pay the cashier. After you pay, you go back and collect your merchandise. I found some baby books for Amy and some shoes for Ashleigh.
Then we went shopping for jade. I didn’t buy too much, but I did get a piece for each of my girls. Who knew there was so much to choose from?!
We all had a rough night. I won’t go into a lot of details, but it basically boils down to extreme homesickness. We miss our beds, our home, our cat and our car. We miss our food. We miss our friends and we miss our routine. After you add in the mixture that Amy isn’t always happy and that mom is weary carrying her around all time, we had a pretty sad bunch of folks.
Please just continue praying for us. These last days here are not scheduled at all; we are responsible to fill our time. Please pray that God will give us a second wind to sustain us until Friday.
Enjoy the pictures! And please keep the email’s coming…
Ash and Austin pointing to LA, CA USA
April 10 -- Another free day.......
Can I just say that we miss home? We are so blessed to be here in China for nearly 2 weeks, but we long for home… Chris and I have never been away from home for so long; obviously Ashleigh and Austin haven’t either.
With a sense of humor I present our Top Ten list of things we miss about home… (enjoy these with a light heart; the motivation is to appreciate what we have – NOT to complain about China. We DO love this country very much, but are trying to make the best of our homesickness…)
1. Ice. If you want to show us love at the airport, bring Sonic drinks with extra ice for all of us!!!
2. Washer and dryer. We are going to be part of Jennifer’s family by the end of the week. We only brought 3 outfits each, so we are doing laundry at Jennifer’s (a shop on Shamian Island) every other day. I am hand-washing the socks and undies and am not really enjoying that…
3. Our beds. I heard about a year ago that the best way to prepare for sleeping in China is to sleep on your garage floor for a few nights. That might have been taking it a step too far, but not too far. The kids are sleeping on roll-away beds and quite sadly, they are softer and more comfortable than the beds Chris and I are sleeping on.
4. Pizza Hut delivery. We keep hearing that there is a Pizza Hut, but they don’t deliver to the White Swan (apparently they did, but not any more). I really want a pan style beef!!!
5. Blockbuster. We brought a dvd player for the kids to watch movies in the afternoon while Amy naps and in the evening as a family. Even with all the dvd’s we brought, somehow we are watching Chicken Little OVER AND OVER!!! If I hear that stinkin’ rendition of that Spice Girls song one more time…
6. Dry air. Wow! It’s no wonder that the little girls from Yangjiang are known for their beautiful skin! It is SO humid here! If you have ever seen Chris’s elbows, you know how dry his skin is. His elbows are actually SOFT! This morning we walked out the door of the hotel at about 9:30 and immediately started sweating!
7. Paper products. I am not sure why, but we are hard pressed to find t.p. and paper towels in public restrooms or napkins in the restaurants. It is difficult for a germ-o-phobe to open a restroom door without the aid of a paper towel… And our Amy is a clean freak; she has a hard time not wiping her greasy chicken McNugget fingers on a napkin.
8. Potable water. Here’s a challenge for you: brush your teeth with bottled water tomorrow morning. Don’t turn on the faucet in the bathroom; instead, pour water over your toothbrush and then rinse it off only using a bottle of water. The water isn’t potable on Shamian Island so we must use bottled. Also, we wash our hands with the water, then use hand sanitizer to kill anything that might have been in the water.
9. Traffic laws. I think my friend Joy L. said it best when she said they are better described as traffic suggestions. Taking a taxi her is comparable to crossing the border at Tiajana while driving NASCAR… yikes!
10. Friends. We are so blessed to be traveling with some fabulous families and they have become very dear friends to us. But, we miss our friends back home. I miss talking to Gail for an hour every couple of days. I miss popping my head in on Lenita, Janelle and Jim. I miss the insane e-mail communication of the YAC sponsors… Chris misses the car ride to work with Christopher. The kids miss AWANA and school.
The blessing in missing home is that we begin to appreciate more the things we have.
Things went very well today!
Amy is continuing to blossom and she is such a fun little girl! She is so full of surprises!
A few tidbits…
Chris and the older two kids went swimming, but mommy and Amy sat on the side of the pool and watched. While we sat, Amy started playing tea party with me and her water bottle. The bottles have very big screw top lids; the lid is easily used as a little cup. She had me pouring water into the lid and then she would sip it or share it with me. I drank so much water that I was water logged; but you can’t blame me! How could I say “no”.
Tonight as we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Chris and I were playing silly games with Amy. She has a beautiful smile and her giggle is contagious. She likes to tease daddy. She still isn’t too sure about letting him hold her, but she loves his attention! And it is so wonderful that if he leaves her eyesight she is sad and whimpers.
Tomorrow we go get her picture taken for her US visa and she has her medical exam. YIKES! This child HATES to have her clothes off and hates to not be on mommy’s lap – both of which she will have to do tomorrow. If you are thinking about us around 10 am China time – that is about 9 pm on Monday night, please pray for her. I don’t want her to think we are betraying her confidence.
Well, tomorrow is a new day. It is always an adventure to see what kind of mood Amy will wake up in…
