Christmas in China

For those of you who are curious about our first Christmas away from home, it was AWESOME. Though Chinese people don't celebrate Christmas, they love to hear about it, and most major stores have a Christmas tree up somewhere, and sometimes a lot more :)

Christmas Carols are playing in every store you go to, both in English and Chinese. We started to learn a few Christmas Carols in Chinese at our school, which we could sing if we had the words in front of us! Maybe next year we'll be able to do it without looking.

We have managed to enjoy a lot of the festivities this year, such as singing Christmas Carols (even with other Chinese people... they love it!), making gingerbread houses (I was able to do this with some Chinese Children with some friends of ours), and we even got to go ice-skating!

Oh, and for those of you who have been wondering about Drew's skateboarding escapades, here's a quick preview of his latest endeavor. This is in front of a school of 500 students who had never heard about Christmas and all it means before.

On Christmas Day, we received text messages most of the day from all of our Chinese friends wishing us a Merry Christmas, which we thought was super cool that they remembered, and thought of us on our favorite holiday.

We celebrated in the morning just the two of us, opening presents and reading the Christmas story and eating a giant breakfast of dutch pancakes (crapes), bacon, and eggs. In the afternoon we went to a Christmas party with some of our friends and ate all of the fixings! Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, and the list goes on! That night we went home and got on skype video and watched my family open presents. The next morning we talked with Drew's parents, which was Christmas night for them.

My favorite part of Christmas day was going to a couple of our Chinese friends' places and giving them Christmas cookies. They were so excited to try Western Christmas Cookies! For both places, it was their first time. They were so grateful for something so small!

Even though it was hard to be away from everyone, I feel like this was one of my favorite Christmases. It has been amazing to share what this season means to us to so many people, and be embraced by those around us. We absolutely love China and the Chinese people! How special to celebrate our first Christmas just the two of us in the place we know we were made to be in. We couldn't imagine being anywhere else. To all of our friends near and far, Sheng Dan Kuai Le! (Merry Christmas)

Culture Shock

Moving to a new country is funny. From day to day the same routines go on around you, but for me at least, the things that make China so unique and cool are the exact same things that seem to irritate the crap out of me on any given moment. And it's not because there's anything wrong with the way things happen here! Culture shock decides when I like it and when I don't, seemingly.

The biggest cultural burier in any given country is the language. No matter if you like the food, the clothes, the people (that speak your language), the scenery, whatever, if you don't know the language, life can be pretty frustrating sometimes! When we first came to China, our favorite words were "Wo ting bu dong." meaning "I don't have a clue what you're saying." Apparently this is hilarious to anyone who talks to us... I guess it would be hilarious to me too if I had just had an entire one-sided conversation with someone and then realized they didn't understand a thing I just said! This is the one thing that when I'm tired and just want to go home, I just don't want to deal with! Haha, poor sweet-polite-people-who-actually-make-an-effort! By the time the last word has left your lips, I've already blurted out "Ting Bu Dong" and ended THAT friendly conversation!

For the last month we have been in intense language study. This has been extremely good for me and extremely painful to my brain! By the time we leave that classroom I don't want to speak in ANY language! Our teacher is absolutely incredible... so patient and so encouraging!  I'm not sure how she perseveres through our bumbling attempts to speak and our frustrations when we discover the word we THOUGHT we were saying actually has four other meanings, and we used the wrong one!

I was having one of those turn-off-my-brain-and-walk-home-without-looking-anyone-in-the-eye evenings a couple weeks ago when a girl interrupted my trance and said, "excuse me," in Chinese... I immediately responded with "Ting Bu-dong" even though I at least understood the two words she had just spoken. That didn't stop her and she immediately went into a stream of words in that annoying, unknown language. For some reason I didn't just repeat myself and walk away. I stuttered in Chinese, "What?" She repeated herself again, two more times. Suddenly it clicked! She was hungry and didn't have any money to buy dinner! Could I spare ten kuai (equivalent to a dollar fifty)? I picked up my purse and handed her ten kuai without second-guessing myself. "Thank you very much!" She exclaimed in Chinese, "What is your name?" I knew this one too! "My name is Deanna." "Deanna?" "Yes, Deanna." I replied, with a giant smile on my face. She thanked me again and walked away. 

I walked on air the entire distance back to my apartment, completely unconcerned with the fact that my first conversation in Chinese was with someone asking me for money. Someone else caught me in the elevator and started speaking. I didn't have a clue what she was saying. I gave her a giant smile, and responded in perfect Chinese, "Wo ting bu dong!" 

Celebrities

It's funny being the white people in China... kinda like being the white people in our old neighborhood. Sometimes it's like being a celebrity. We actually were nicknamed "the white people" in our old neighborhood. Not because were anything out of the ordinary... just not Afro American, which was apparently hilarious to ALL of our neighbors. Here is pretty similar, except the language barrier seems to be a point of interest for old people in particular. They find it hilarious that we don't understand anything they say! However, they're all very sweet and helpful! Okay, so that part of it really isn't much like being a celebrity. The stares, the (not so) subtle picture taking, and (my favorite) people waiting until after you pass them to yell out 'HELLO!" at the top of their lungs. That's the part that sort of makes you feel like you're somebody important.... or something.

Since being here, Drew has become an instant celebrity, and not because he's white either. Drew met a group of skaters the first week we were here, and by our second week, it was brought to his attention (and to the attention of any skateboarder that he ran into) that he was better than every professional skateboarder in China, which led to him being sponsored by the local skate shop. This has provided Drew with a plethora of unique and/or exciting (sometimes just unique...) opportunities involving skateboarding:

Week 2: Professional Skateboarder Kenny Reed came to town and looked for the local skate shop to find someone to show him around. Of course the first person they called after the team manager was Drew. Needless to say, Drew jumped at the opportunity to show around the guy who was his favorite skater when he was 14.

Week 3: KTV was filming a commercial and needed some skateboarders to gape at a Beijing Opera Singer. They called the local skate shop, who of course knew a great red-headed-skate-boarding-gaper (they asked some other skateboarders too).

Week 4: A local arts college was celebrating their 50th anniversary and decided that in the midst of the classical piano and organ pieces and the ballet dancing, it would be a great idea to have some skateboarders do a demonstration. They called the skate shop, and the skate shop decided that Drew (and his friend Bofly) would be perfect syncronized skaters.


Week 5: So far, so good. No ballet dancing opera singers have asked Drew to catapult over them yet. Too bad. Maybe next week...

First Post

Hey guys,

We have  been in China for three weeks now and thought this would be a great way to keep in touch with all of you.

Here is a list of the top 10 things that have shocked and amazed us thus far about this culture:

1. Kids pee on the streets... their parents tell them to.
2. Old people walking backwards does not mean they're senile (well, it might). They believe they are walking backwards in time, and de-aging.
3. There is no wrong way on a one-way street.
4. Eye contact on our part is not necessarily the cue on their part to stop staring, haha!
5. BYOTP... Bring Your Own Toilet Paper.
6. Old people actually hang out and do stuff... like playing authentic Chinese music together every morning in the park!
7. KFC is BETTER here!
8. We knew they ate just about any kind of meat, but we didn't know we could witness it being killed and skinned at the market before we took it home to grill out! Mmmmm.... Fresh!
9. Skateboard culture transcends every culture. As different as we are from Chinese people, when it comes to skaters their habits, priorities, and lifestyles are the same as skaters in the US.
10. Leaving your underwear out to dry in front of your business doesn't drive away customers.

So that was a very small glimpse into our new lives. We love it here, and can't wait to learn more about our country, so we can adjust, and give you awesome updates like this one!

We love you all, and hope you enjoy hearing about our adventures as much as we enjoy sharing them with you!