What's in a name?

Chinese names don't really translate into English very well- the literal translation on many names is things like: Small Rain, Beautiful Pear, (our ayi's name is Small Red). So in response, many Chinese people will choose their own English name. This has lead to many humorous encounters for me over the past two years. Here are some of my favorites:

Echo

Koffe

Apple (not so strange after Gwenyth Paltrow made it famous)

Squall

Handsome

BoBo

Lucky

Rainbow (a man's name)

Boy


And my all time favorite: Rubber Pixie

But the beauty of choosing your English name is that if you don't like it, you just change it. One example is that a new engineer joined Sev's company and his name was Moses. But once he was hired, he got some feedback (from both Chinese and Americans) that maybe it wasn't the best name so the next day he came to work and announced his new name was Edward- and so it goes.

The Jersey Shore

Well, we are back in the Shanghai for the start of year 3. Yep, our one year assignment has turned to three- who knew? Anyway, before I get back to writing about life in China, thought I'd write this blog about the biggest freak show on earth which is actually not in China, but instead in New Jersey. Specifically, at the Jersey shore on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights. A fascinating combination of normal people, derelicts, "Jersey girls", and oh so many of the fashion challenged. I really noticed on this last trip how truly weird and wonderful this place is. We've been visiting the boardwalk for 30 years so I guess I just took it as a normal thing while growing up but alas, I finally had to admit to myself that it's a strange place.

(Amusement park at Seaside Heights boardwalk)

(Guy on stilts- you can't make this stuff up people.)

To begin with, Jersey isn't noted for it's fashion and nowhere is it more apparent than on the boardwalk. You are guaranteed to see things you wish you hadn't and the sight of the seriously overweight woman in a skin tight leopard print minidress with size triple D boobs will give you nightmares for weeks. In the famous words of one of my favorites bosses from Target- "Just because you can doesn't mean you should".

(The latest fashion for the Italian princess- wings on the butt- if you farted, you'd fly away. )

Next, you can't help but gorge yourself on the greasiest, most heart clogging food on the planet- but it tastes SO GOOD. Inside out pizzas, philly cheesesteaks, deep fried clams, elephant ears, etc...it's like a heart attack on a plate and worth every bite.

(Waiting for our sundaes at he best ice cream parlor EVER- The Showplace.)

(My sundae- bigger than my head and yes, I ate the whole thing.)

And don't forget the aged amusement park rides where part of the fun is experiencing the fear of the roller coaster breaking down during your ride. And hitting the vomit comet right after a greasy dinner is a must. All this after you've just lost your last dollar playing carnie games that you have no chance of winning (I personally lost about $20 playing the claw machine for a stuffed toy that I couldn't bought for $5).

(G taking a ride on the 1918 carousel- an annual tradition for us.)

(Good thing A is not afraid of clowns!)

All of this set on the backdrop of the Atlantic ocean while the seagulls screech through the air- it's truly a thing of beauty. Seriously though, say what you want about Jersey but for my money, there is nowhere else I'd rather spend a summer than kicking it at the Jersey shore.

A view from my parent's backyard- the bay and bridge connecting to Long Beach Island.

Blue claw crabs caught off the back deck from the 'rents house. Cook up with a little Old Bay seasoning- delish!

Solar Eclipse

It's been awhile since my last post and the reason for that is because I have been flying solo with the kids in the USA while Sev has been hard at work in China. Which leaves me very little time for blogging since I am so exhausted at the end of the day (and I usually can't get the kiddos into bed before 9pm) that I go straight to bed. Anyway, I am a little sad that I missed a pretty cool natural phenomenon that occurred in China today- a complete solar eclipse. I've seen partial eclipses before but never a total eclipse. Sev was kind enough to snap these before and after pictures on his cell phone and email them to me (sorry, the photos are a bit grainy). Keep in mind that these photos were taken at approximately 9:30 IN THE MORNING.

The view from the office at 9:30 AM during the eclipse- complete darkness (except for the city lights of course)!


The conference room during the eclipse- note the dark windows.

Same conference room after the eclipse- approximately 10AM. Note the smog...but that's another story!

I will say that although it's been challenging to do the single parent thing this summer, I am thrilled to be back in the USA and enjoying the fresh air and cool temps in Minnesota! We are off to New Jersey at the end of the next week to visit the parents and then back to Shanghai. I'll do my best to keep up the blog a bit better once this vacation is over!

A new fruit

Being in Asia gives you the opportunity to explore all different kinds of fruits and vegetables that we do not have access to in the USA. I haven't really come across anything that was totally unknown until my Chinese neighbors across the hall offered us a basket of yang mei. I don't even know the english translation for this fruit as I had never seen it before. It's best described as a cross between a raspberry and a mulberry- kind of. Each one is a little smaller than a golf ball. And let me tell you, it's darn good! It's only in season for about one month in June. The only problem is that it is VERY juicy and messy so after finding out the hard way by ruining one of Audrey's dresses with the juice, I decided it's best to strip the kids down to their underwear before eating!
This fruit definitely goes on my list for things that I will miss about China once we leave.

Yang mei

Grace after eating her fill. She thought the coolest part was that the juice looks like blood which provided quite a bit of entertainment around the house (while I chased after her shrieking "Don't get the juice on anything!"

My Chinese cooking class

Now, for those of you who know me well, don't have a heart attack or anything but because of the sheer amount of free time I have here, I decided to sign up for the "Healthy Chinese Cooking" class offered through the community center. In general, I don't cook. And especially in China because first of all, we don't have an oven (it's pretty common here not to have an oven since the Chinese don't bake). And second of all, imported ingredients are expensive and hard to find and I can't read the labels on the local stuff to figure out what it is which really limits my ability to plan a dinner menu.

I think I've mentioned this before but real Chinese food is totally different from the stuff we can get in the States. For the most part, it's much less greasy and fatty and they use a lot of fresh veggies and spices. Some of things that I've learned to cook in my class include a fresh spicy shrimp salad with lemongrass, pork ribs steamed in lotus leaf, and steamed clams with ginger.

Below are some photos from class:

Dana, our excellent teacher!

Fresh ingredients- ready to go for class.

Spinach and pine nuts flavored with chinese cooking wine.

Live river clams ready for cooking.

The finished product- clams with ginger, chilies, and green onions- yummy!

Swine flu from a Chinese perspective...

Let me tell you, China is having a field day with the swine flu pandemic. After the SARS epidemic which originated in Asia, they are thrilled to be dealing with a virus that didn't originate in this country! Now, it is a well known fact around town there that during SARS, there were several cases in the Shanghai; however, to this day the government denies that there were more than a handful of cases. Apparently, rumor has it that they were hiding the patients in an old government hospital. So, it is no surprise to anyone that the only confirmed cases of swine flu here in mainland China have ONLY infected foreigners or Chinese citizens who flew directly back to China from the US or Canada. I have yet to hear of a case where a chinese person infected another chinese person on the mainland.


Now, in China's defense of this claim, they have put some interesting precautions in place. For instance, if you enter any type of clinic or hospital, there is a masked nurse at the door to check your temperature. If you have a fever, you are directed out of the hospital and straight to a local "fever center" where you will be examined and tested for the swine flu. While I don't relish the fact of having to go to a government run fever center instead of my western style hospital, it does make sense to keep it under control and it's an easy way for the government to monitor the situation. Thumbs up for this one (although I pray the kids don't develop a fever)!


The next precaution that has been enacted is that all international flights coming into the country are boarded by men in hazmat suits upon landing. They then use a fever detecting ray gun and check everyone on board. Here's the bummer though- if you have a fever, you are automatically quarantined as are all the people sitting 5 rows ahead and behind you. Now, I am not clear on this but I've heard stories of the feverish person coming back with a negative swine flu test and yet they've kept the foreigners in quarantine for up to 5 days anyway. If the feverish person tests positive for swine flu, then everyone around is kept in quarantine up to 7 days. My issue with this methodology is that they don't account for all the people in the airport, the airplane bathrooms, and the flight attendants that came in contact with the sick person. And now the US State department is warning people that China seems to be randomly quarantining foreigners. I am already super nervous about our trip back to China after our summer vacation and just hoping that nobody around us is sick! Can you imagine what it's like to quarantine two kids under the age of 5?


Check out the picture Sev took on his cell phone camera on his way back from Taiwan:


By the way, we are heading to the US in early July so I am not sure how much more blogging I will get to before & during the trip. I'll try to send some updates but if I don't get to it then I promise to return after summer vacation! Thanks for reading!

Shanghai Headlines

First off, I have to apologize for not being able to blog for awhile. The Chinese government has decided to block Blogger, so I have not been able to update for the past 2 weeks. In fact, I am only able to write this blog using anonymous surfing (don't ask- Sev's a techno geek).
Anyway, I know because I don't work, a lot of people think my life is stress free. True, I don't have work stress, but life in China is a stress all onto itself. As an example, I'll share some recent headlines from the local english language newspaper "Shanghai Daily". Keep in mind, that these three headlines are all from the same day.

1) Investigation of local produce finds up to 15 different types of pesticides- apparently, the local government went around to some local grocery stores and the wet market and tested several pieces of fruit and vegetables. On any given sample, there were up to 15 different pesticides on just one piece of produce, several of which are banned. Now you know if something is banned in China, it's gotta be REALLY bad stuff. I have since decided to try and buy only organic but over here, you can never really be sure if it's really organic or someone decided to slap an organic sticker on it because they know the foreigners like it!

2) Hand, foot, and mouth disease on the rise (again). I mentioned this in a previous post but the very common hand, foot, mouth disease has mutated in China and in some children, it develops into a fatal case of meningitis.

3) City investigation shows unacceptable levels of rat infestation in local grocery stores. The investigation focused on local grocery stores and found that the rat infestation was up to 10% in some stores (with the acceptable level at about 3%). This is wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. First off, why is there any acceptable level of rats in a grocery store?
And you be wondering how they determine the level of infestation- by examining the amount of rat poop, nests, and teeth marks throughout the store. They even found droppings on the counters where bread is sold. Although my favorite Carrefour was not part of the investigation, several of my friends have personally seen rats in the store so I can guarantee you that they have at least a 10% infestation.

So yeah, I am sometimes a little stressed about living in China which has lead to an obsession with getting cancer from our vegetables, compulsive hand washing, and inspecting my groceries for teeth marks from rats. Of course, you could argue it's no worse than worrying about the things most Americans worrying about these days: swine flu, the government taking over the banks and the auto industry, and job loss. It's just a different kind of worry.