Our lives have a kind of routine now; we feel some small
ties to things. We stepped out
this morning for bananas and watermelon from our vegetable stand; we are
regulars and can conduct business, even though we cannot speak to the market
woman. I love to take photos of
Julia leaving the building; she has quickly picked up a ‘city habit,’ holding
the door while she twists the buzzer.
It takes care to lift the scooter out, hold the door, negotiate the
step. It’s fun to observe. Today she is in pigtail knobs, and she
‘dressed up’ for the play we are going to see downtown. There are so many plantings around the
community; they soften the otherwise somewhat shabby feel. Wild roses are proliferating this week,
with the slightly warmer weather.
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| Negotiating the building door - and those pigtail knobs! |
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| Lovely roses and a beautiful girl |
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| At the bus stop |
We headed downtown several hours before the 2 pm show time
of the play “Into the Woods,” being presented by a cast of 80 from the
International schools in Qingdao as a charity fund raiser for public school
children in the countryside. Julia
needed to go check out the toy department at Jusco where she has her eye on
some figures for her birthday. As
we entered the store, we were taken by a display of fans. The dedicated shop girl spent 15
minutes opening fans for Julia so that she could see them all and make her
selection. Do we need a fan? No,
but it is a ‘bit of old China’ and even mass produced, the fans have some
lovely details. The process of
purchasing is interesting: after
you’ve made a selection, the clerk fills out a slip and you take it to a
cashier station somewhere nearby.
There the clerk triple stamps it, takes your money, and hands you back a
receipt that you take back to the clerk who is waiting with the purchased item. It works and maybe it is a better way
to handle money for the store.
We spent a long time studying the figures in the toy
department; then we perused stationery goods in the pen and paper department, a
favorite of Mama’s. The toy
section was noticeably boy oriented; the girl section is filled primarily with
Barbie things. Is it just happenstance
in this store? I am debating the
purchase of a pot—for pasta and oatmeal—so we stepped into that aisle. An attentive clerk came right over, and
spoke Chinese to us persistently, even though it was clear we couldn’t
understand. She just needed to do
her job! Soon we had 4 clerks
around us, listening, pointing; picture the aisle about 4 feet across, and 6 of
us crowded around the smallest saucepan!
Hungry, we set out for some lunch, and I am ashamed to say
we ended up at McDonald’s. We
tried to find Subway—Julia’s form of American food—but couldn’t locate the shop
and couldn’t adequately ask directions.
McD’s was packed, not too surprisingly. It took 3 tries for me to actually get a ‘beef burger’ for
Julia; I was surprised, actually, that it would be hard in an international
restaurant with such a limited menu.
Surely the clerks all recognize the basic English words. When we finally reached communication,
the clerk stressed ‘beef’ burger; so now I know how to order one, if I find
myself again at McD’s!
In walking the sidewalks of downtown, we were startled by
very loud popping sounds, soon identified as firecrackers. We could see the smoke pouring out of a
nearby hotel drive up area. The
sidewalk was littered with red paper afterwards; a messy celebration. It was in honor of a bride and groom
who had just driven up to the door.
There was a small traditional band, with loud drums, confetti ‘cannons,’
a balloon arch with good luck dragons.
We watched the whole ceremony of exiting the car, being saluted with
confetti, posing for photos, waving to friends and onlookers, etc. It was quite exciting. We had seen several brides being
photoed in gown at the Park, yesterday.
Apparently, the photos are taken 2 weeks prior to the wedding and celebration;
thus, the photos can be displayed at the reception.
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| The festive wedding arrival! |
The play was held in an auditorium in the Intercontinental
Hotel, a lush and sophisticated hotel, by evidence of the huge and varied lobby
space. The event was an annual
one; this is the 4th play the group has staged. The play is silly; a rewriting and
merging of fairy tale stories. It
was done very broadly and noisily.
But it was fun, and some of the actors were pretty good. However, the whole show went from
2-5:30! Unbelievably long and repetitious. I simply had to doze off on two
different occasions! Luckily, most
of the plot lines were repeated at least twice, so I didn’t get lost! On the other hand, Julia was on the
edge of her seat in the second half (to get a closer view of things) and
totally engaged through the production.
So maybe the director has a really great beat on kids’ interests!
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| The very fancy lobby |
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| Lots of light and reflection in the lobby |
As part of the ticket, we received coupons to eat at the
famed buffet restaurant in the hotel.
We are going to use the coupons next week, as another outing. Too bad we don’t have Abe with us; we
likely won’t be able to get our money’s worth out of the experience. Our teacher friends, Alice and Nick,
told us that they have made a tour of the big hotel buffet meals; that sounds
like a fun way to give oneself permission to eat non-local! We may all spend our coupons together
next Friday.
Julia is going to move totally to 2nd grade
tomorrow; we made note of the upcoming school day as we were getting ready for
bed. She is in good spirits about
school tomorrow, although I don’t think she feels drawn to going to
school! Ms. Alice sounds like a
creative and stimulating teacher; I have hopes that she will develop some
deeper connections to the school in the next several weeks. That would make the adventure a bit
more satisfying for her. I’d love
to break through to some socialization with Chinese; it’s pretty easy to live
in an ex-pat bubble, which isn’t what we uprooted ourselves for!
We passed two children yesterday who were wearing ‘squeaky
shoes!’ It pleased Julia a lot to
recognize the sound. And made her
feel so much older than these little boys! The sound brought back a tiny Julia for me. She wore the 5 pairs I bought for a
long time!
We made good use yet again yesterday of Elizabeth Van
Jacob’s pink bag—thanks Elizabeth!
The photo of Julia with the bag was taken outside of Lotus (and KFC),
after we had purchased a full pink bag of groceries. Any guess the cost of this bag of groceries? 100 RMB = ~$17.00. I felt pretty good about that—we can
feed ourselves, if modestly, on a very little amount of money. With a second jar of peanut butter and
some decent tasting bread, plus a package of Saltines (from Italy) and another
of lunch meat ham, we have insured a regular set of acceptable meals for the
week. So rein in the shopping
trips, Mama!
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| Groceries in the pink bag! |
Julia said today, “I’m noticing things about China.” This was in reference to noticing
that Chinese cars have short antennae on the rear of the roof (curious
observation!). I guess that’s what
we are hoping will happen for her.
And that it will add up to a concrete sense of the country as an actual
place. One where the food
definitely smells bad to her! And the sidewalks are bumpy for scootering (what
a great idea to buy that; we’ve already gotten our $20 bucks value out of
it!). and the yogurt comes in
pouches with nozzles to drink from—and so does the ketchup! And dogs are always wandering around
without an obvious owner—this is a definite concern for Julia! And some babies wear pants with holes
in the seat—please, Mama, don’t tell anyone that I was wearing pants like that
when you got me! homely
observations, for sure!
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| China is offering many new things... |
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| ...and lots of fun! |
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