China-versary

One year ago, after a slight delay in Hong Kong, we arrived in our new home. April 20th marked our first China-versary.
Lots of things are different than they were a year ago. We've added another human this past year. Our daughter has started speaking Chinese. Our son refers to every Asian man as "Shu-Shu" now.  I can now carry a plastic bag full of eggs (not in a styrofoam carton) on my bike handlebars and arrive home with them all in tact. Yep, we've grown so much.



Within the past year we've experienced many differences between the US of A and the Big Chicken.
What follows is by no means an exhaustive list...by any stretch of the imagination. But just a few things that we've picked up on within our past year. Bear in mind that the B.C. is huge, and our observations are from living in one city among thousands, so things probably vary all across this vast country.

Also remember that we've got the "Big Sister" complex going on with this country. You know, the complex where it's ok if YOU make fun of your little sister, but if someone else dares to, you'll be all up on their grill lettin' em have it. Maybe that seems a little hypocritical. It probably is. So until I learn how to grow up and act like a mature (not-hypocritical) adult, I'll continue to not allow you, dear reader, to poke fun at my new home, all the while I finish my blog post...

-  In America, if you come home to your house on fire, you dial 9-1-1.  In the Big Chicken (where supposedly there are no fires) you would dial 1-1-9.   Not even kidding.

-  In America, people like to have sophisticated-looking, brushed metal appliances.
Exhibit A:

In the B.C., it's the opposite. Your choices of humidifier are either pink elephant or green teletubby.
Exhibit B, my current waffle maker:


-  This concept extends to cars. You'll have Mr. Successful Banker driving his black Lexus with a snoopy steering wheel cover (except it'll probably say Snoppy) and stuff animals in the rear window.

-  In America, when you talk about directions on a map or compass, we say "North, South, East, West."   Here, it's "South, North, West, East."

-  Kids in the B.C. don't play "Hide and Seek." They place "Seek and Hide."

-  In America, come summer time, women slather on the self-tanning lotion to get that summer glow. (at least those of us afraid of cancer but still wanting bronzy skin!)

Here, it's always a bit of a gamble when I buy skin products, besides the point that it's usually in Big Chickenese, but because women here want their skin to be sparkling white! When we come back from Thailand trips, I'm often scolded for letting my skin become slightly darker.

-  In America, when school or work lets out for a holiday, you get yourself a 3-4 day weekend.
Not so here. If school lets out on a weekday, they make it up by having school on Saturday and Sunday.

-  In America, it seems like playgrounds can be found in any and every neighborhood or apartment complex. In the Big Chicken, in any and every neighborhood or apartment complex, exercise equipment for the elderly can be found.  Our apartment complex is fairly new and we just got our token elderly exercise equipment installed. Not a single kid's swing to be found within a mile radius of our home, yet grandma can get fit right outside our door.

(source)

-  In America, you get treated to dinner and birthday cake on your birthday. In China, you treat others to dinner for your birthday.

-  If you stand in line at Best Buy in America and are within 2 feet of the person in front of you, you're probably giving them the creeps and they're thinking that you're trying to steal their PIN code. In the Big Chicken, if you stand more than 4 inches behind the person in line in front of you at the grocery store, you are leaving too large a gap and WILL get cut in line.



While on any given day, these differences might annoy me, they also remind me of how small I am. How insignificant I am. And how my worldview was so limited even just a year ago.
I wonder how many China-versaries it'll take before I'm used to all the differences...if ever.
Regardless of all the differences and flat-out opposites, I'm still maintaining my Big-Sister complex and will defend my new home if the bullies come prowling.

Happy One Year China-versary!

Dear Caleb,

Eight months. Has it really been 8 whole months? Will I say this every month? Will time always fly this fast?



You've decided to begin exploring the world by way of army-crawl. Which is a near constant reminder of my carelessness at keeping fuzz off the floor.



Watching you discover the world brings so much joy to my heart.



Your smile. Your dimple. Your amazingly blonde hair. It makes my heart flutter. The Lord is so good to me.



Your ear-piercing squeal. It makes me crazy. Soon enough, it'll be replaced with "MAMA!" Until then, I'll learn to enjoy the screams.



Sweet Caleb Turner Chancler.
Nugget, as your sister has dubbed you.
Won't you please stay 8 months old just a little longer?

Cup O' Joe

We live about 200 yards from Starbucks. Espresso frappuccinos and caramel machiattos are at our fingertips nearly any time we want one. That is...if we're willing to foot the bill for it.

That quickly got too expensive for our coffee budget. Plus, a pound of coffee beans at Starbucks in China is about $30, so even doing a coffee drip at our place felt expensive.
With Brandon's three-cups-a-day coffee habit, we had to figure out something different.

Enter: Brandon's newest hobby, roasting his own coffee beans.

On those rare evenings where we collapse into the couch after the kids are in bed and I Pinterest it up, Brandon researches roasting coffee beans. Thank you youTube for educating my husband on the mechanics of coffee roasting, brewing, and all things caffeine related.



So for his Christmas stocking I surprised him with 15 pounds of green (un-roasted) coffee beans from Sweet Maria's.* What I did NOT surprise him with was the $1,000 drum roaster he had his eyes on...because he'd already figured out a cheaper way we could roast our own beans.
Remember those old-skool air-popper popcorn machines? Thanks to taobao, we ordered one for $10, and thus, his new hobby was born.



That's one passionate-about-his-coffee, good-lookin man, roasting Rwanda coffee beans. (one of our favorite flavors!)



The orange bowl is for catching the chaff so it doesn't fly all over my kitchen. 2-3 minutes in the air-popper and your coffee beans are roasted...don't forget to turn on your vent hood!!



Dump em out into a metal strainer to let them cool off and get ready to roast yourself another batch. The golden flecks are the chaff, which are tasteless and a byproduct of not having a $1000 drum roaster. :)
After they're cooled off, store them in a sealed, cleaned, leftover strawberry jelly jar (or whatever sounds more normal to you.)
By morning time they'll smell delicious and you'll want to coat them in chocolate and eat them straight up.



When you wake up in the morning, put a scoop of the beans-of-awesomeness into your hand grinder, or if you're fancy shmancy, a machine grinder.



Poor your coffee grounds into your Aeropress...



Poor hot water (205 F to Brandon's exact specifications :) over your beans and stir around gently with what else but a chopstick.



Cap it with the Aeropress, and let it sit and brew for a minute or so. While it's brewing, don't forget to revel in the magic of these moments.



Grab your camera and take a picture of your youngest.



Now that your cup-of-gold is almost ready, press it into your favorite mug.



Add a splash of milk and a dash of sugar, and let your morning begin.

That, my friends, is an awesome hobby for your husband to enjoy!

*We enjoy buying from Sweet Maria's because we think they're coffee tastes great but even more so because they go above and beyond Fair Trade standards. You can read about their "Farm Gate" standards and the measures they take to make certain that the people they buy coffee from are being paid and treated fairly, or even more so. Because the coffee trade is often supported by child or slave workers, we enjoy contributing to a company that does its part to practice Fair Trade and invest themselves in the workers where we buy our coffee.

Friday Foto

I'm so smitten with this boy.

One day we went to the zoo...

At least once a week, Salem asks me to read this book to him.

Danny and his Dino friend wander all around the city. During their day together they visit the zoo. But at the zoo,

"Everybody came running to see the dinosaur. Nobody stayed to see the lions...Nobody stayed to see the elephants...Nobody stayed to see the monkeys...And nobody stayed to see the seals, giraffes, or hippos either."


Then the zookeeper kicks them out of the zoo because no one was watching the animals.

Today, I identified with Danny and his Dinosaur.

We have a pretty great little zoo here so we took advantage of one of the first pretty spring days and headed out to enjoy the sunshine. Our plan seemed perfect. It was a Sunday, but school was still going on because of some different holiday rotation this week.
Ahhhhh...a nice, peaceful, zoo. A seriously absurd thought in a city of 6 million people.
None the less, our hopes were set high.



As we pulled up to the front gate, a sea of turquoise stretched out before us.



Yes, apparently every elementary school within 374 miles decided to take a field trip to the zoo that day.

We forged on. Pressing past the crowd. Which was hard work as every 4th grade student was determined to practice their best English "Hello!" with us as we walked past.

As our Foreign Novelty wore off, the students turned their attention toward the rickety carnival rides, giving us opportunity to make our escape toward the back of the zoo. The zebra and giraffe exhibit.



Two things about this picture:
1. What you don't see pictured are the 7 university aged girls snapping pictures with their cell phones of Brandon and the kids. This is why I may never have another picture with my kids looking toward my camera. With 8 cameras pointed at them at almost any given moment while in public, they get fairly confused about which way to look.
2.  Chinese people are starting to get smart about their signs. We can occasionally play the dumb foreigner card and say, "But I don't understand!", when they point to the sign that tells people not to sit on the rock. Now, they're including pictures. Apparently, we were still trying to play the dumb foreigner card for this picture. There goes the foreigners, setting a bad example for the rest of society.

This next picture is where I identified most strongly with Danny and his Dinosaur. We were standing along this fence watching some enormous reindeer...truly they were gorgeous. And when I looked to my right and left, I noticed we were the only ones watching the reindeer. Everyone else was watching us.



"No body stayed to see the reindeer..."

As if we weren't drawing enough attention, we decided to throw ourselves up on top of camels and draw an even larger crowd.





That picture makes me laugh because there's not a single soul in it beside me, Salem, and Mr. Camel. And that's exactly the opposite of how that day went.

As we walked away from the camels, so did the crowd.

"And no body stayed to see the camels..."

We didn't get the boot out of the zoo fortunately,

"but we did have a wonderful day!"