Today, some friends and I went to the orphanage to celebrate the birthday of a very special little 8 year old. We wanted to make sure every kids was included, so her entire class “shared” the birthday, each getting a cupcake with a candle (melted icing and all- apparently my imported-goods-store-bought Betty Crocker frosting wasn’t strong enough to withstand the lack of air conditioning at the orphanage!) and a little treat bag. They were so excited and adorably gracious!

We played “pin the trunk on the elephant” and “hot Fuwa” (i.e. hot potato using a fuwa doll).

I love this little guy in the blue/red shirt- he has the best facial expressions!

I’m so thankful to get the chance to love on these little ones!

My electric scooter’s battery melted last night.  I think that’s a bad thing.  Anyway, the part that has a fuse in it melted onto the rest of the battery.   I was completely annoyed with it and had no idea what to do, but every Chinese person who I talked to told me I needed to exchange it for a new battery.   I knew I would be creating a lot of stress for myself if I tried to do this alone, so I left a note for ayi asking her to do it.  She completely rocks- I came home and she was getting ready to leave to do it- it took her 30 minutes from leaving to returning with a beautiful new, non-melted battery.   I love her.  How could I do this without her?

Have a great, melted-battery-free day!

Eliza headed off to kindergarten today. She’s officially a big girl and the only tears that were shed came from Katie, who was grieving the fact that she has to wait until tomorrow to start junior kindergarten.

The girls and our neighbor girls, Joy & Jennifer. Jennifer is attending a Korean preschool, but Joy is in kindergarten with Eliza. They are sweeties!

Eliza and her teacher. Her teacher moved to China (from Australia) on Friday morning. She started teaching today (Monday). I’m sure she’s more than 1000% exhausted!

Eliza and one of her best buddies, Anna.

Katie in her classroom- this is a brand new school so everything is soooo nice!  We’re excited to use the new facilities this year!

Keith’s class.   He has two TA’s this year (yay for him!).  And a bigger class- 18 kids.  This is considered “really big”.

I think this is adorable- two girls in Keith’s class wore the same outfit (and matching pigtails, to boot!) today.  They did not plan it and were a little embarrassed when they realized it!   This is the risk of shopping in the Korean stores here!  Eliza was given a dress last year and wore it the last day of school.  Another little girl had the same dress on- both purchased from a local Korean store!

Have a great “beginning of school”!

Sometimes I get a little bug in my ear and I can’t stop until I follow through.

This week, it was crumpets.  I was thinking about them, which is rather random since I haven’t eaten them in ages.

Obviously, China is not exactly the hotbed of crumpets.

So I started looking up recipes for how to make them.  Apparently, not very many people make crumpets.  But I’m not really deterred by that.  My biggest challenge was finding crumpet rings to hold the crumpets in their perfect circular shape while they get thick.  Metal cookie cutters are supposed to work in a pinch, although they aren’t nonstick.  So I tested it out.  I mean, really, can you even say you’ve eaten a crumpet unless you’ve had a Texas-shaped crumpet?

The poor gingerbread man didn’t do so well, losing his arm in the removal process.

My heart-shaped pancake maker held up the best, yielding decent heart crumpets.

They were better this morning, on day 2, toasted.  Fresh from the pan was just a bit too much like a pancake for me.  But they have the right holey texture.  I think I need a proper crumpet ring if I want to make them again.

If you want to give it a try, the recipe is >here<.

While watching the Olympics, I’ve knit a couple hats to get started for this winter.  My first fair isle type knitting, for Katie’s winter hat:

Tomorrow starts KINDERGARTEN for Eliza.  Katie and I will enjoy one last day together with her at home and then she heads out on Tuesday to junior kindergarten.  And then we get to enjoy routine again!  I can hardly wait!

I had my photography students do the obligatory first-day-of-school informational sheet. On the sheet, I asked them to tell me their pet peeve about teachers/school. The responses varied widely:

When the teacher tells absolutely no jokes during class.

Teachers who shout at me.

When they smack books on the table. (I don’t like the sound)

**My note on that one: Um, does this happen often? Yikes. I told her that since we aren’t using a textbook I promise to be book-smackin-free.

Someone who talks the whole time and then gives homework that does not to relate to his/her long speech.

Teachers who give homework for the holidays.

Being tall.

**My note: At first glance, I thought this was a case of ESL and not understanding the question. But this is from a native English speaker! Maybe this is his pet peeve about life? I’m not sure! But either way, I’m completely short, so this should be no issue.

When teachers are too serious and don’t have a sense of humor.

I do not like it when teachers are bad.

When they pretend to be someone they’re not.

Not nice teachers.

>>

In other notes: I wanted to share some take out food China-style. To get the true picture of Chinese take-out you really need to see this with soup or pizza. I love when I had leftover pizza at a local cafe and they stacked the slices one on top of the other and put them in a plastic bag and tied the top of the bag and handed it to me. I stood there going “Seriously?” It was spicy Korean bulgogi pizza too, so I was sad that it became “pizza-casserole”. I can no longer eat pizza without tabasco sauce doused all over the crust. I have a feeling I’m not a true American anymore.

Today, we picked up some take out noodles on the street. I actually prefer my homemade cold noodles to street cold noodles, and I’ll share a brief recipe if that interests you.

But this is how you get take-out here.  See the plastic bag?  This has 3 orders of noodles inside, each in their own plastic bag.

Inside one order of noodles, there is a small baggie filled with a vinegar-based dressing, and the larger bag full of noodles, cucumber, and sauce.

We keep wondering when China will start importing the “Chinese take-out box” which, by the way, does not exist here.  That, along with the fortune cookie, has to be one of the greatest myths of Chinese-American culture!  Sorry, no fortune cookies in China.  Sorry, no Chinese take-out boxes in China.  Oh yeah, and no crab rangoon.  The last one’s the real kicker, isn’t it?

To make this type of noodle at home, I use 1 tsp McCormick “Turkish Seasoning” or 1 tsp Uighur meat-on-a-stick seasoning (they are almost identical in flavor), 1 clove chopped garlic, 2 T soy sauce, 2 T sesame oil, 3 T vinegar (white/apple, both are ok). Mix and pour over your cold noodles (the above photo shows 2 of the main kinds of noodles this is served on- skinny spaghetti type and a white kind that is called “skin noodles” in Chinese and I don’t really like the texture of those ones- any spaghetti type noodle will do for this!) & chopped cucumber. You’re not really going to eat all of that oil and soy sauce, because most of your sauce will be left in the bowl. But you want it to be good and saucy.

I like it at home because, well, I have a bit more quality control going on in the Geswein kitchen. But for 30 cents, a bowl on the street isn’t half bad either!

I started teaching high school photography this afternoon.   My class of 4 kids (yesterday’s planned enrollment) grew overnight, so I had 14 students in today’s class!

As I was preparing my lesson plans, I was thinking through why photography is such a passion for me. If I want to share with my students how much I love it, I probably should know why I love it.

I was flipping through old photos I’ve taken and getting sentimental. Forgive any sap that drips from your computer screen while reading this. I love the way photos capture a moment in time and allow us to go back to revisit those moments.

This photo of Katie is one of my favorites. It was taken last November when we were in Beijing for her EEG/MRI when we got the diagnosis of her brain cyst. It was such a difficult day, emotionally, for Keith and I. We had to keep her up all night so she would be exhausted for the EEG. I remember how busy life was outside (through the window), how the city was humming with traffic and life and vitality. We were inwardly focused on the medical tests and the possible diagnoses and the turmoil of not knowing what was wrong with our daughter. And Katie was just busy being a kid. I love seeing the city behind her and her blissful ignorance to the reality of that day.

I love Eliza’s pure joy over her first real snow (in Texas, of all places!).

And then I have a whole collection of old photos I had scanned before we moved to China.  This photo is of my dad when he lived in Taiwan when he was a little boy.  These pictures give me the chance to experience something I (obviously) didn’t get to experience in person.

And then there’s always the “emily-on-a-stick” reason to love photography.  In 2006, I took a last-minute, whirlwind 36 hour trip to California and brought Emily with me- on a stick.  Photographs were the only way that Emily experienced California!

Emily thoroughly enjoyed the beach!

I think my class will be really fun- the kids seem great!  It’s 2 days a week for the whole year and they range from freshman to senior year students (high school).   I’m sure they’ll keep me on my toes!

I’m trying to take advantage of the time at home with my girls (i.e. I’m going insane at home and can’t wait for school to start, but rather than whine, I’m trying to do something constructive) by having some cooking days.

Today, we went out in the morning and visited the new early childhood center where both girls will attend- 3 yr olds through kindergarten have moved to a gorgeous new campus just down the street from the main school building. It looks great and is on target to open on Monday the 25th. (6 more days, but who’s counting?)

On our way home, we stopped at the bulk produce market. It is a GIANT open air market full of vendors selling not one or two bananas but 15 kg cases of bananas. You don’t buy a pound of strawberries there, you buy 40 pounds of strawberries. I was planning to get some tomatoes to make sundried tomatoes. I ended up with 8 pounds of apples and 9 pounds of grape tomatoes.

The tomatoes are in the oven, and I’m really curious if they will be tasty! I actually caught the tail end of the grape tomato season, they told me they won’t be back in season till October which makes no sense to me but I’m figuring it must be related to the Olympics, because everything else is! Last year, we had them all fall, so I’m not sure exactly what happened this year.

I’ve got a huge vat of applesauce from the apples. Eliza said today that she misses applesauce and she was asking to eat at TGI Friday’s because that’s the only place in the city that serves applesauce. I figured I could make a gallon of applesauce for the price of one Friday’s meal. Eating applesauce takes me back to Grandpa Frank and Grandma Nancy’s beautiful farm in Missouri, and their fresh-from-the-apple-tree applesauce. Yummy.

Have I ever mentioned that they closed/banned all street food and outside vendors until after the Olympics? The bustling streets of dvd, mirror, t-shirt, underwear, sock, and home goods vendors is completely silent at night. No meat-on-a-stick vendors are filling the sky with plumes of black smoke. It feels weird. It feels foreign. I’m eager to have them all come back. And I’m sure they’re eager for their income again!

Oh, before I’m asked, here is the applesauce recipe:

Apples, lots of them, cored and wedged

I cook mine in my Chinese-style layered steamer, but throwing them in a pot with a bit of boiling water works too!  Let them cook 20+ minutes until they’re all mushy.

Throw them in the food processor and puree.  Add sugar if you like, some lemon juice (1T or so, not too much) and cinnamon if you like.

It’s not rocket science.  But it is yummy!

I make my mom’s fabulous French bread recipe often. It has been a family staple through the years.

Yesterday, I made a loaf for us and wanted to make a second loaf to give a friend. I threw it in the oven and I set the timer, I just never hit “start” on the timer. An hour later, it should have come out of the oven. But I was leaving with the kids and Keith to go swimming. Two hours later, we headed for home and it dawned on me that I never turned off the oven or took it out! EEK! We came home to some very firm, very crusty bread.

Yeah, that bread is normally a very light, pale, just barely crisp on the outside, soft-and-tender on the inside loaf. This stuff is so hard you could use it as a hammer.

Croutons anyone?

I am so forgetful sometimes!

In other notes, Keith and I have been discussing the Olympic wildcards. There are a select group of individuals who are chosen to compete in the Olympics despite not qualifying. These wildcards are not in the runnings for a medal, but they will compete to the best of their ability in their sport of choice.

Now, we understand that even wildcard competitors have to meet a certain standard. But we were discussing… if you were an Olympic wildcard what event would you want to compete in? We watched a slew of wildcards swim the 50m freestyle, some coming in several seconds behind the semifinals-qualifying athletes. But how cool is that to swim in the Olympics?

I decided I would want to compete on balance beam for gymnastics. Only, as an apology to the world, I would wear shorts and a t-shirt, cause there is just no way the world needs to see me in a gymnastics leotard. And I have no real talent on the balance beam, I just love to watch it. So I would need a ladder to climb on top of it and then I would walk across, hopefully not falling, and then sit down on the edge and oh-so-slowly slide off. See, I know gymnasts need to stick their landing, and the chances of me sticking an actual jumped landing are pretty slim. So, I think the sliding off technique would allow for the least deduction-of-points.

Keith wants to compete in synchronized diving with his brother Eric. They’re going to do synchronized cannonballs from the 10m platform. It’s going to rock, especially since they’ll be the only competitors wearing swim shorts and NOT Speedos! 2012 here they come!!

What’s your event of choice?

Before I get to soccer/football… btw, out of curiousity: Do you say soccer or football? I’m slipping deeper into saying “football” as it just makes more sense that a game where you kick a ball with your foot is called football vs. a game where you wear giant shoulder pads and grunt a lot and smack people down is called “football”.

So ayi and I were having some raucous debates over the superiority of the USA vs. China in every sport. I mean, not that we’d politicize or nationalize the Olympics (USA USA USA). We were discussing the final medal counts and who will be the ultimate victor. She says the USA because “China doesn’t have any black people”. I nearly peed my pants over that one. The reasoning for her argument is that, as she says “Black people can run fast, but Chinese people can’t. So we (China) won’t win any medals in track & field.”

We’ll see if she’s right. I love the bluntness of China sometimes.

On Thursday night, we had a family at our house who just moved to Tianjin this week (hello Sharon & Patterson). After dinner, Sharon and I went shopping. In the taxi on the way, we had a very chatty taxi driver who was asking lots of questions about Sharon and her “very pretty husband” (taxi driver’s words, not mine!) and why she had 4 kids. He asked how old she was and it made me pause. I’d been talking to her via email for 6 months or more and I’d had dinner with her that day. Yet I didn’t know how old she was. He’d known her exactly 3 and a half minutes and had already asked! I always thought I was a bit too direct and blunt in the US, but I think I need to work on that some more.

Oh, more gems from that conversation included him asking why I hadn’t adopted any Chinese kids and why Sharon hadn’t adopted any Chinese kids. I don’t know if he was satisfied with my answer that with a 7 year old, 6 year old, 4 year old, and 9 month old, she didn’t have time for another child at the moment?

So yeah, tonight we saw the quarterfinal women’s football match between Brazil and Norway. No comment on the score is necessary.

My Chinese teacher and I outside the stadium (check out our newly blue skies- they finally returned after a rain shower yesterday- our first blue skies since the torch relay!). Oh and yes, in case you’re wondering, those *are* homemade cardstock Norwegian flags duct taped to our shirts… thanks for asking!

During halftime, I ran to use the bathroom and ran into a Norwegian Olympic official with the nifty “official person” tag and I could NOT figure out why he kept staring at my chest. I was feeling so inappropriate about the whole thing until I walked away and looked down and realized “DUDE! I have a cardstock flag taped to my chest, of COURSE he was staring at me!”

Here’s Keith and I… doesn’t he look Nordic? He can totally pull off the Norwegian look! The bandanna in my hair is actually a Texas flag bandanna that a girl found in a street market here in Tianjin! Isn’t that crazy???

The TV tower (seriously, how clear is that sky today??).

In the stadium ready for the game:

We bought our flags on the street before the game for $3 each on a stick. We have a comment on the “quality” of the flags though.

I guess they (as in, the people selling not-quite-legal things on the street in front of the stadium) didn’t know which teams would be playing until very recently, because the flags were very obviously painted onto white material and then cut and slapped onto a stick.  Here’s a close-up…

Our friend had her US flag get wet in the rain at the last game and it completely bled together into a sea of red/white and orangeish…

This “halp-time” score report on the jumbotron had us giggling…

So this ends Tianjin’s Olympics time… no more games are being held here!  It was fun while it lasted!  And we’re so happy we got to be a (very small) part of it!

At one point in the game, the Tianjin tv station interviewed me (in Chinese- thankfully my Chinese teacher translated a few of the questions for me- they were WAY too fast for me to catch!).  I thought the questions would be about the game we were seeing but they were all like “Do you like China?”  “How do you think China’s sport atmosphere is for the Olympic games?” “How do you feel about the Chinese people?”  etc…  My only really ignorant answer was when I said to “Do you have many Chinese friends?” “I have many Chinese friends, don’t I?”  I was trying to say “dui” at the end, but I added “Dui ma?” which made it like I was asking HIM a question.  It is hard to explain in English what I said wrong, but just trust me that it sounded silly.  The interviewer and the cameraman and my Chinese teacher all laughed at me while I corrected myself.  Hope *THAT* is edited out if the interview makes it to tv!

I think reality is hitting and we are actually going to have to return to our “real” lives this week with school starting, but this was very fun while it lasted!

My sweet little nephew Adam has had a pretty rough week.

Last weekend, he fell off the roof of their backyard playhouse and split the top of his head.  That time, it was superglued at the ER.

Last night, he went to a local water park… not even a water slide park, but just a park with some little dorky toys to splash on…  (Eliza playing at that park a year + ago)… it doesn’t look dangerous right?

Last year, Adam split his chin open there and had to get it stitched.  This year, he did the SAME thing at the SAME place!  Wild boy!

The girls were very sad for their little Adam needing 2 ER trips in 5 days, so they made this sign:

(Hey, and check it out, Katie can finally write her own name!  Go Katie!  She’s had some difficulty getting started with writing)

We are going to see Norway v Brazil tonight in women’s soccer quarterfinals!  Should be fun!  My Chinese teacher is going with us.

Have a great day!

The Olympics has introduced a whole new world of vocabulary to us. We’ve been watching the Chinese broadcasts on our cable and have had to learn the characters for preliminary, quarterfinal, semifinal, and final. It opened a whole new world when we could quickly read whether this was a medal round or not!

We have been trying to learn sports terms: Weightlifting, gymnastics, volleyball, basketball, soccer, hockey, diving, etc… The word for decimal point, which is so handy for hearing scores in diving and gymnastics. Gold medal, silver medal, bronze medal. Underage, prepubescent gymnast <Oh wait, we didn’t learn that word>.

We’ve also had to learn the names of all of the athletes in Chinese so we can discuss them. I’ve taken Eliza to the pool 2 days in a row and everyone sees my white skin and wants to talk about Fei Er Pu Si (that would be Michael Phelps, to the rest of us). If you want to talk gymnastics, you’ve got to know Xiao En Yue Han Xun and Na Si Jia Liu Jin (Shawn Johnson & Nastia Liukin). I feel like I can’t keep up with the athletes “names” so I just stutter the names out in little syllables and hope it is close enough!

We’ve enjoyed the language incentive and in 2012 for the next summer Olympics, we should be fully prepared to dish it out on all of our favorite sports. As long as we don’t forget it all and the athletes don’t change, of course.

In other notes, school starts a week from today!  We’ll have a kindergartener and a junior kindergartener on our hands!

And I wanted to share this highlight of yesterday. I went to buy a swim discount card that gives you 20 swimming sessions at a cheaper price than buying them individually. I was told to go to the first floor. Following is the account I shared with fellow foreigners here:

DO NOT, under any circumstances, make this mistake that I made!!! I was told to go to the first floor to buy a card, so I went to the first floor and walked around and went in the first open door I found. This was a very very bad idea. After I got inside, I found out that EVERY door inside was locked- including the door I had just entered- it had locked behind me. I was locked into a small area with no way to get out (with my 5 year old). There was an elevator so I went to the 2nd floor and found myself in another area where every single outside door was locked. Finally I found a door to the handicapped women’s bathroom which led to the swimming area where I could see and yell at a lifeguard to help me get out- so then I had to walk out in the swimming area in street clothes and with bags and stuff and get yelled at. They let me go through the lifeguard area so I could go outside again. It was a very long 30 minutes between the door closing and finding our way into the swimming area. I highly do not recommend it.

Also, what if there is a fire? How in the world does a person get outside in that situation? I later showed one of the security guards the situation and explained how unsafe that was in a fire and he just laughed at me and said no one should go in that door unless they have a fancy card to get out. I asked why you don’t need a card to get in and he laughed some more and said everyone knows you don’t go in that door. Everyone, that is, except the stupid foreigner, of course. So, boycott stupidity and don’t make my mistakes! (also, when will I learn to stop asking questions like “why do they ___?” Does this come in our 3rd year?)

Have a great day! Jia You! Have you heard this being screamed at Olympic events yet? It sounds like J-Yahh (rhymes with awe) Yo. Listen for it!