on vocalizing observations...

I had a reminder on wednesday morning of just how different Chinese culture and American culture are. I mean sure, I can look around here and tell things are really different, but occasionally things happen that are so blatantly different that they still throw me for a loop.

In America if you make an observation about someone's appearance you only vocalize that to them if it could be taken as a compliment. You'd never vocalize it if it would offend them.
That's not the case in China. Regardless of if something might be taken offensively, they vocalize these simple "observations" because that's just what they are...observations. Not compliments, not cut downs...just observations.

So, back to wednesday morning. I was leaving our apartment when our upstairs neighbor, a really nice woman, said to me, "Oh April, you look a little fat!"
I smiled, refrained from slapping her as I reminded myself of this odd cultural difference, and politely responded, "Well, yes. But that's because I'm pregnant." She of course smiled and said, "oh that's wonderful!"

Then I drove myself crazy trying to remember if we had already told her I am pregnant and she thinks that not only am I pregnant but just fat as well...or is that the Chinese way to approach the subject of someone being pregnant when you aren't sure if they are or not?!?
You know, in America we'd rather be safe than sorry and not say anything at all to a woman who might or might not be pregnant. But maybe in China when they aren't sure they just say, "hey, you look fat." And then the person either says, "Yes, I am." or "No. I'm just 6 months pregnant."

Anyhow, I could have gotten really offended, but in this country where you just aren't sure what might come out of their mouths as simple observations not meant as cut downs...you just gotta take things in stride.

A Tale of Thai Visas

This story is a little belated...but none the less blog worthy.

While in Beijing we set aside a specific day for acquiring our Thai visas that we'll need for our two month stay in Thailand this September. So bright and early that Thursday morning we made our way to the Thai Embassy. After our taxi driver finally figured out exactly where it was we pulled up in front only to be greeted by a guard with a paper in hand titled "We've Moved!" ... or something to that effect.
So we got back in our taxi cab and took off to the destination listed on the paper. This place is some sort of international building with all sorts of offices inside. When we arrived & headed towards the door decorated in all things Thai we were quite disappointed to see the doors chained shut and all the lights off inside. Completely bewildered, we looked to the ladies standing behind a counter near the doors. Their reply? "Buddha Day!" Apparently it was some sort of Buddhist holiday and they failed to mention they'd be closed on the day we said we'd be there.
Oh well...shrug it off...we'll come back tomorrow.

Friday rolls around and we wake up bright and early again, hoping Buddha day only lasted one day, to head downtown to the Embassy. Making sure we had all necessary requirements for applying for the visa, we head out the door...thus making our first mistake. Online they posted the specific photo requirements (that we all know can be quite picky) and we just assumed that any place doing Visa & Passport paperwork would have a camera & printer on hand for fulfilling those specifications. I mean, that's the way we do it in America...so logic told us that's the way they'd do it here as well.
Seriously, after living overseas for 10 months you'd think we'd know better by now. Our motto from now on: Never Assume. Because most often the things that make total sense to us are usually exactly opposite in China. (and apparently Thailand as well)

So, after we filled out all the paper work they gave us directions to a little Kodak shop across the highway where we could have pictures taken and developed (because apparently they've been in this situation before of people making assumptions). So we cross the highway and walk in to the closest Kodak place that we see. We show the guy behind the counter what we're needing and he literally starts yelling at us. I'm not talking about a raised voice...this was all out yelling...in unintelligible Chinese...for no apparent reason. Shocked and a little frightened, we both just gave him the "wow that was really strange and unnecessary" look and scurried off.
We rounded the corner outside hoping that wasn't the Kodak store we were supposed to go to, and sure enough a big yellow Kodak sign appeared up ahead.

As we neared this store we could both tell something was awry. The lights were all off inside. Not having a good feeling about what we were about to hear we ventured in and told them what we needed.
"Sorry, no electricity. Come back in one hour."

Not having an hour to spare we began to frantically search for another photo store. We crossed streets, asked passers-by, & I'm sure looked like lost little tourists.
Then suddenly, like a beautiful ray of sunlight shining through the darkness, we both noticed a sign with a huge arrow marked: USA VISA. We were so happy we could have stopped and sang the National Anthem right then.
Still a little unsure if this was evil big-city-Beijing trickery, we followed the arrows cautiously and lo and behold! they led us straight to the strategically placed American Embassy. Hoping all American logic would not be cast aside at this embassy, we prayed they'd have a camera, white back drop, and printer on hand. Sure enough...12,000 miles from home, American Logic is still at work in the American Embassy in Beijing!
We paid our hefty dues for the small 2x2 inch Visa photos & made our way back to the Thai Embassy completely satisfied for being scrappy and so Amazing Race-like.

Three days later we picked up our passports with our newly stamped Thai Visas inside!

And three days after arriving back in our city Brandon's passport was stolen! booooooooooo

So, today my friends, he is in Beijing picking up his new emergency passport at the strategically placed American Embassy with the working camera, white back-drop, and printer. And after that he'll head to the Thai Embassy where he'll attempt to replay the story I have just told you...only without Buddha day (hopefully) and having 2x2 photos already in hand.

26 Weeks

I thought you all would enjoy seeing April's growing belly. Eden Grace continues to get bigger and bigger. She is now 14 inches long and weighs approximately 2 pounds.

Frito Pie

After Brandon's passport got ganked (woops I think we forgot to write a blog about that...anyhow, you get the picture), we realized we could easily take advantage of the situation of him having to go to a nearby larger city to turn in his papers for a new passport. This city has an incredible import store of all sorts of American food items. So when he left yesterday at 3:30 a.m. to travel by train to said nearby city, he took with him a large empty duffel bag so he could bring back all sorts of goodies.

So this evening we indulged in a Texan delicacy. Frito Pie.
He bought a large can of Hormel Chili and one big sack of Fritos. This evening as I was heating up the chili, the smell brought back a flood of memories.

Memories of 4th of July Hot Dogs.
Cold, overcast days where mom made chili for dinner.
5th Quarters for our youth group after cold football games where we'd indulge in Frito Pies and Mexican Pile On.
Chili cookoffs as a good excuse to raise money for our youth group.

....visions of smokey chimneys, snow covered backyards, & corn bread began to fill my Chili-focused brain.

And as we indulged in this delicacy, we couldn't help but mutter through our frito filled mouths, "Oh my gosh...this is so good!"

Actually, we recalled that neither of us has ever been a huge fan of Frito Pie. Brandon commented that the last time he might have eaten frito pie was when he was 13 on a camping trip...that might or might not have left him digestively challenged. (sure we may be feeling those same effects later tonight or tomorrow morning, but that's to be expected after not eating chili for over 11 months...)

But none the less, it was a great evening recalling back to wintry times when we were younger & reminding our taste buds that though we may be thousands of miles from Texas, we are in fact still very much Texan at heart.

Girl Baby, Great Wall, & Good Eatin'

Who knew that a doctor's visit would be the most exciting thing about a trip including the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square?
The rest of our trip in Beijing seems dull compared to the news of finding out we're having a baby girl...but none the less, here are some pictures of our trip!

It only seems appropriate since we're both from Texas that our first picture be of a (real)Truck...something we haven't seen in 10 months. It was exciting...and our taxi driver thought we were nuts for taking a picture of it.

Us outside the entrance of a really cool Chinese restaurant. It was so pretty!

While visiting a touristy area of the city we came across a sketchy rendition of Hotel California. Though Simon Cowell might not agree, we thought their effort of a raspy Eagles' voice was completely blog worthy.

EDIT: You Tube hates our video right now...so what normally would be a cool
video right here is me apologizing for not being computer literate
enough to fix the problem. Sorry!

Brandon & Mao posing together so nicely in Tiananmen Square. Had we been there a week earlier we might have seen the angry protester toss a molotov cocktail at the Chairman's portrait.At the entrance to the Forbidden City:

The Great Wall was an incredible sight! It was very surreal to be there and walk around on it. They really chose a beautiful place to build it! The area we visited had a ski lift that we rode up to get to the wall. We both agreed it is much easier to get off a ski lift on skis! (we miss that so much!) Then to get back down the mountain there is a tobaggan ride which is completely unsafe and dangerous but looked totally awesome. Brandon did it...I chose the safer route down because of my growin' belly.

It was hard work walking around on the wall! It has such steep steps & ramps that you really get a good work out! Check out these huge steps:

Brandon inside one of the guard towers on the Wall (with our friend's cool hat):

He got to see a little more of it because I had to stop in one of the guard towers and take a "pregnant lady" rest from the heat & the hike. But it was so beautiful & an incredible thing to see.

We've got a lot more pictures from our trip in our Pictures Link if you want to check those out.

Another fun thing we did was eat! Outback, TGIFridays, Starbucks, Subway, Haagen Dazs... and we found a great grocery store to buy all sorts of fun American food items. We bought a lot and shipped it to ourselves!

It was a fun trip but it also reminded us of how thankful we are for our comparatively small (4 million), only-takes-5-minutes-to-get-anywhere city!

IT'S A....

GIRL!!

We found out two days ago at an International Hospital that our first born will be decked out in pink clothes instead of blue! We thought we'd do a special blog tribute to our little baby girl with the new back ground color.
But...we assure you that the pink is not here to stay. So don't let it scare you off! :)

We're having fun shopping for pink clothes now (although Brandon is a little overwhelmed by it all!)

We're enjoying our stay in the capital for a few more days. We'll update with more pictures soon.

HOORAY!!