First Day of Kindergarten - Tears & Cheers

After much anticipation, the kids started Kindergarten on Friday September 14! But first, as part of the enrollment process, a medical exam was needed. On Wednesday, the four of us, plus a student of mine, Adalie and her boyfriend Jim, boarded city bus #98 to The People's Hospital No. 1. It had that Communist look and feel as the name suggests! It was quite a simple exam - weight, height, eyes & ears checked, a general look over the body and a blood test. Elena was a real trooper! She didn't even flinch with the blood test (a finger pricked to get about 5 drops). Carlos, on the other hand, started screaming and crying the moment we got off the bus! Somehow, we made it through the exams and the process - up and down stairs, in and out of rooms, each with a different doctor performing a certain exam. We were so thankful for the two university students who took time out of their schedule to help us get through that maze and translating (oral and written). They even returned to the hospital on Thursday to pick up the results. Here's the front cover of the "official medical exam results".


Everything was checked fine, but they told us and had written in the booklet that the kids are "small". Yep, they're Guatemalan! They are small according to U.S. and Chilean norms, and now they are small in comparison to Chinese kids. This probably means they likely won't be in the" 6 foot plus club" as teenagers!

With the exam results in hand, the kids were enrolled on Friday. Elena, our trooper, was excited and ready to go. She walked into her new classroom of 40+ classmates (all screaming "hellloooo!") and said "See ya later, Momma!" Before I turned around to leave, I saw her chattering away (in English or Spanish) with her teacher. That's how she's been communicating so far -she listens to the question in Chinese, then continues in English or Spanish!. To her it's one big language! Carlos - you guessed it - was crying and screaming all the way up the 3 flights of stairs and the long hallway to his classroom. His wails of "Momma, don't leave me!!" was a sure heartbreaker for me. His classmates also were gathered around with screams of "Hellooo!" After a few minutes, the teacher took over and Gustavo and I left our kids to the good hands in charge.

The school day starts at 8:30 for breakfast, lunch is at 11:30 and the kids nap from 12:00 - 2:00. We decided to bring the kids home for these two hours. (We're less than a 10 minute walk away.) They rarely nap anymore and we don't want to mess with their 8:00 bedtime routine. The kids return after 2pm and the school day ends at 5:30. So at noon and at 5:30, we picked up 2 SMILING and HAPPY kids. One was covered with stickers and the other had a fistful of candy! Can you guess which one had what?? When the school day ended, we hung around for a while so the kids could enjoy the various playscapes and play equipment and we met a few parents who spoke pretty good English. They welcomed us and made us promise that we will join them for dinner soon.


Here is the one of the several murals around the outside of the building. I didn't take my camera on Friday becasue I knew how Carlos was going to be. I'll post more photos of inside of the school at a later time.


Carlos is in the corner room, far left side, top floor of windows. Elena's room is two classroom to the right. The tree is blocking the view of her room.The wall is also blocking the first floor. The photo shows floors 2 and 3. The very top floor with the awning is the gym.

TODOS BIEN ADAPTADOS AL CLIMA, COMIDAS, IDIOMA Y A LA CULTURA CHINA.

Hola a todos, por aca estamos todos muy bien. Bueno después de 6 semanas en China y 3 semanas en la Ciudad de Kunming, puedo decir que ya estamos bien adaptados al clima, las comidas, el idioma y a la cultura china.
Sobre el clima en Kunming es bastante agradable entre 15 y 22 grados celcius, promedio de 20 grados celcius. Septiembre es el mes de las últimas lluvias de la estación del verano, porque el 21 llega por estos lados el otoño. Los paisajes son muy bonitos con muchos tonos de colores y muchas variedades de árboles, como por ejemplo: Pinos de diferentes clases.
El idioma no ha sido tan complicado para nosotros porque los chinos casi todos saben hablar en Inglés, pues así es fácil de comunicarse , no?. Bueno cada día aprendemos nuevas palabras y las ponemos en práctica cuando salimos a pasear o cuando vamos a comprar siempre con un libro de bolsillo que encontramos en una librería muy útil titulado; "El intérprete de bolsillo" Español-Chino por Lydia Chen y Ying Bian. Carlos y Elena ya saben muchas palabras en Chino y desde hoy viernes 14 de Septiembre están asistiendo a un Kinder, por lo que les ayudará mucho a progresar en su aprendizaje en Mandarín e Inglés.
En relación a la cultura china, puedo decir que es muy rica en muchos aspectos y llena de sabiduría, pues son muy prácticos, lo difícil lo hacen más simple y no se complican mucho en detalles que les puedan hacer perder mucho tiempo. Siempre estamos aprendiendo algo nuevo de ellos, especialmente su espíritu de trabajo.
Finalmente, las comidas son muy deliciosas y variadas. En esta parte de China resaltan los platos picantes, pues en cada restaurante que hemos visitado siempre o casi por obligación se debe comer algo de picante, es enevitable. El arroz se come todos los días y hay diferentes clases de arroces también.
Al despedirme hoy ,no puedo dejar de saludar a todas nuestras amistades y familiares. También enviamos un gran saludo en este mes de la patria, pues deseamos que pasen un muy feliz "18" de septiembre y que lo celebren en forma sana y segura, desde la distancia estaremos celebrandolo también en nuestro corazón y bailando muchas cuecas!!! VIVA EL 18 MI ALMA!! Y VIVA CHILE.

GUSTAVO

A Typical Saturday Afternoon

This is a daily scene. The Chinese LOVE foreign kids! EVERYWHERE we go, kids and adults alike want their picture taken with the Carlos and Elena.


This beautiful archway welcomes us to a shopping center we frequent near downtown Kunming.


Here we are chatting in our best Chinese with two of the Beijing 2008 Olympics mascots.


The kids love to visit the many pools of colorful carp.


Our favorite supermarket - the Carrefour. Gustavo is enjoying a sample of Nescafe that afternoon.

A Walk in the (Green Lake) Park

Here's a scene from the park. Notice the musicians in the background. The park is teeming with impromptu jam sessions, costumed dancers of all ages and many, many foursomes of mah-jong.


We have been slowly exploring Kunming. We're doing it at a snail's pace, because with two kids in tow, we really can't move any faster. On Sunday, as on the previous Sunday, we spent a little bit of the afternoon at huge Green Lake Park. We took a slightly different way there and discovered a delightlful street of shops, tea houses and to Carlos' delight - a panda bear toy store! The different route also took us to a different park entrance. At that park entrance we saw 3 "strange" sights. The first one was a funeral procession. At first glance I thought it was a wedding procession. The first car was decorated with many red flowers and had a white box sticking out - not a trunk, but also not a hearse. The next car (the immediate family?) had a huge flower arrrangement, mostly of roses, attached to the hood, and the next 3 or 4 cars all had small (real) red flowers attached as we would see on wedding cars. The second sight was an old lady (90's??) with the small, bound feet that was common long ago. What caught our attention, was her shoes - (colorful, almost round balls) and how she was walking (painfully). The third sight was much happier - a young couple with TWINS! In this one child centered country, twins are a rarity. The babies were very young (under 3 mos maybe), one each strapped and wrapped to a parent's back with matching bright rainbow knitted caps (so no hint of the gender(s)). As we were leaving the park, we spotted bumper cars! I love the bumper cars at amusement parks. Guess what we'll be doing next Sunday?

The kids really liked these animal-themed plant/flower holders.




The weather has been up and down this week (so unlike Michigan, right?!). Earlier in the week, it was cloudy and cool. We wore pants with jackets or sweatshirts. On Sunday, it started out cool, by afternoon it was sunny and hot, so we returned home and changed into shorts and t-shirts.


This is a typical Chinese breakfast. An egg with nuts/or other protein item, 2 types of "bread/rolls", a bowl of rice and water with hot milk and another hot or cold bowl of noodles. This is 2 orders which would satisfy the four of us by sharing. The kids love the hot milk.



We love your comments. Please keep them coming. Also, accessing blogs can be tricky here. If we haven't posted in awhile, that means we're "experiencing techinical difficulties". Bear with us and check back. We'll post as often as we can.

Ex-pat families in China

Please go to www.xiamenadventure.blogspot.com to get a listing of some blogs being written by US families currently in China. We're mentioned as one of the blogs! The Lewis Family blog is another family from our CCC group.

I love reading the stories. I think it's really amazing how many people have upper elementary school age kids.. Now that's a challenge! At least when they're 4 and 5 years old, they don't enough yet to complain! Read Xiamen Adventure, too. Malinda wrote some very interesting posts about her 6 month stay in Xiamen with her two young daughters. It was her description and photos of Chinese Kindergarten that convinced me that Carlos and Elena will be just fine.

First week in Kunming

We spent the week getting familiar with the surroundings. Our apartment, which is basic and functional, is all set up. We are on the fourth floor of a five story building. There are only 2 apts. per floor and we have only seen 2 or 3 of our neighbors so far. The apt has some nice features - high ceilings, nice woodwork, large windows and the kitchen is bright and sunny. I went from a bright kitchen in Dearborn to a dark kitchen in Jackson and back to a bright kitchen here. I prefer the bright kitchen! It's on the university grounds, with a lot of greenery. Since it's university housing, our neighbors are young couples with a baby, older couples with school age children and retired employees/faculty. Outside the kitchen windows are some tall pines. There is a living room, dining room with an enclosed "porch" for hanging laundry, a bathroom and 2 bedrooms. It's not really that much smaller than the Jackson condo. At a later time, I'll post some pictures of the apt., campus and Kunming.

During our adventures of exploring Kunming we found a Walmart (yuck - it's even yuckier in China), but it's closer than the other option of a superstore - Carrefour (which is French based - I remember those from the Brazil days). I found some shoes for Elena at Carrefour. Walmart has KFC, Carrefour has McDonald's. We found two fantastic bookstores - yay!. We rode the bus several times already to get to said Carrefour and Walmart. We explored the campuses of KUST (our home), Yunnan Normal University (Teachers' College) and Yunnan University. They are all connected (along with 2 more universities.) There is a grocery store across the street. We usually eat breakfast in and have lunch/dinner in one of the 6 student cafeterias. The food is just as good, if not better, than most of the restaurants and cheaper too. The four of us can have a good size meal for about $1.50 total. On Sunday, we strolled through a tiny part of huge Green Lake park.

Classes start for me on September 10. Hopefully, the kids will be enrolled in the Kindergarten this upcoming week. The school is on campus and is only a 5-10 minute walk from the apartment.

School starts in Michigan September 4. Happy New School Year to all the teachers, parents and students! May you have a wonderful year of learning!

More photos of Shanghai Part 2

Gustavo with Shanghai U. soccer mates. Although they were half his age, he really enjoyed playing a few games with them, and vice versa.


The kids in front of the "Welcome to Shanghai University". What else would a big rock/sign say as one enters the campus gate??!


Scene from our campus hotel room. See those highrise housing units?? They and office buildings cover most of the land in Shanghai.


Here I am at the RT Mart. Those signs say "Back to School". I know this only because there were corresponding signs in English!


RT Mart - similiar to a Super Target. Whatever the hour, stores are packed solid with shoppers.

More photos from Shanghai Part 1

Although we are a bit late posting these photos, we hope you will enjoy viewing some of the scenes from our last week in Shanghai.


Example of one of several motivating/propaganda signs at the high school


Some of the students at the high school - This was the final day and we were all together in one room doing some good-bye activities.

Feng Hua High School- Shanghai. Beautiful building and grounds. This is where we did our practice teaching.

Elena sure is hungry... and as always, she likes everything!

Restaurant staff w/ Carlos. We ate dinner there almost every night of our 3 week stay and they always made a fuss over us.

We're up and runnin' in Kunming!

It was touch and go there for a few days but finally we are connected to the world again.

I just wanted to touch base with all of you. I'll post later more details about our first few days here. In general, Kunming is a nice spot for us. The temps are very comfortable, the traffic is manageable (compared to Shanghai), our apartment is very doable and my teaching schedule is wonderful. So all is well!

Keep those comments coming....thanks.

Third and final week in Shanghai

We've had another busy week here. Our regular classes and teaching practice continued. We had a day trip on Saturday to Zhujiajiao, which is a watertown outside of Shanghai. We didn't take any pictures because we were very lame about charging up the battery....so, if you would like to see the pictures we SHOULD HAVE taken, you can visit a blog created by one of the other families in our group. Tim takes fabulous pictures and he also has a nice narration of some of the group activites from the past three weeks. Just go to www.lewisesinchina.blogspot.com - Carlos and Elena are in a few of their photos, too. It was a fun day. The best part of it was the lunch. The food was incredible - SIXTEEN dishes - some were vegetables, others were pork and chicken, various appetizers, noodles galore, river crab, etc. Absolutely delicious!

Gustavo's Chinese language skills are coming along. He does all of the ordering in restuarants for us. I use Chinese when it's really important. I guess eating doesn't rank that high with me. But, I did however get a very nice manicure using my own Chinese. Gustavo is amazed that I always can talk (in any language necessary) when it comes to getting my nails done.

We're getting quite used to Shanghai and now we are leaving. We head for Kunming on Saturday the 25th. Our contact person emailed and said that our apartment is clean and ready for us. Living in a hotel room for 3 weeks has been cozy, but we're ready to spread out a bit. We are all anxious to see our new home and to welcome cooler temperatures. I'm not sure how soon we will be able to be connected to the internet, so I will post as soon as I'm able.

Tonight we have our farewell dinner with the group. We'll say our good-bys and everyone goes to their host city tomorrow. About 5 teachers are staying in Shanghai and the remainder are spread across the country. It's reassuring to know we have a friendly face or two in about 5 cities in China. As I write this, it's 4:30pm Friday the 24th. In 23 hours we land in Kunming. Our adventure continues...