Last week, Caleb took his Yellow Belt test for Tae Kwon Do.  It would be an understatement to say that he had been looking forward to that day.  He was talking about it from his second Tae Kwon Do lesson, as soon as he figured out that there were these belts that you could earn.  For about a month and a half, if you were someone new (or someone not so new) coming to our home, you would be treated to a martial arts show complete with the requisite screaming (Gi-hap as it is called in Tae Kwon Do.)  One time, Michael Brown and Rob Campbell came to our home for a visit, and Caleb instantly went into Tae Kwon Do mode.  But this particular show did not end well.  Caleb seemed like he was trying to set some records for how high he could kick, but in the heat of the moment, he slipped and landed on his back which required some consoling.  Sometimes it’s good to have an injury during the show to remind the audience that it’s not just all fun and games… so the audience can feel the danger involved…

The Yellow belt test at first seemed like it would be a breeze for Caleb.  Most of it was punching and kicking which he could do well.  There was another section on reciting Korean words.  We clearly had an advantage on this one as Caleb already knew most of the Korean words and the other kids were mostly Hispanic with no predisposition toward Korean.  But, there was a final requirement – busting through a board with your bare fist.  When the instructor was telling Caleb this particular requirement, I smiled an uncomfortable smile at the edge of the DoJang (Tae Kwon Do Studio).  Was my little 5 year old boy really required to break a board to get his yellow belt?  I got up to Green belt, but I don’t remember breaking any boards.  Usually that was left to the Red and Black belts in exhibition type events!  I wondered if he was joking.  But, the seriousness in which he told Caleb made me worry.  Perhaps, it was a way to keep little kids from advancing too fast.  I could tell that Caleb had some apprehension about this too.  Sometimes he mentioned it and asked me if I thought he could do it.  I tried to be encouraging, but I didn’t know. 

The day finally came, and I took off from work a little early, so that I could watch this day.  Needless to say, Caleb was very excited.  He had been punching and kicking every day that week.  Maybe even a little more than usual.  We studied all the Korean words that he was supposed to know, and he had mastered counting to 10.  He could probably actually count to 30. 

Caleb’s turn finally came up, and a cohort of all the white belts took to the mat.  There were 3 of them.  They were asked to do some basic punches and kicks, which all of them breezed through.  They were each asked to say a few Korean words.  One kid hesitated a bit, but for the most part they all passed easily.  Finally, the board.  From a distance it looked like a fairly thin board.  Maybe about a 1/3 of an inch thick.  Caleb was instructed to make a fist, and pound it down on the board like a hammer.  He did.  And he was the first to bust through his board in one thwack.  Those few seconds seemed like it was the proudest single moment in this boy’s short life.  I confirmed this by asking him a few days ago, to which he also added.  “Do you know what the proudest day of my life will be?  When I get my black belt!” 

He grabbed his now split pieces of wood and sat down at the edge of the mat anticipating his award – the yellow belt.  After all of the belts were handed out, he came over to us, his family, and beamed as he held up his split piece of wood, his yellow belt certificate, and his old white belt which was now replaced by his new yellow belt which he wore. 

As I was growing up, my mom had created a binder of awards that I had received over my school years.  When we got home, Caleb said that he also wanted to start a binder.  He put a picture of himself, his yellow belt certificate, and one of the shards of wood into the binder.  He is quite anxious to fill up his binder.  He keeps asking me when he can get another certificate…. when he can get as many as me…. Hold on buckaroo… I have a feeling you’ll dwarf your old man in the awards department pretty quick…

Later, Caleb and I were playing around and I was inspecting the piece of wood that Caleb broke.  Caleb asked if I could break it again.  Well… I suppose if my five year old son could break it, it certainly couldn’t be that hard….  I tried.  Several times I tried to punch through it without success.  To the point that it scratched up my knuckles and drew some blood.  Admittedly, I was trying to break it against the grain which is a bit harder… I’m not trying to dispense excuses, but it sure wasn’t a piece of styrofoam.  The piece of wood now stays (intact) in the award binder where it belongs.   Apparently, I’m no yellow belt…  

Tenille gets all the credit for the Hyun Family Halloween this year.  She found the costumes for the kids, made her own costume, and put together mine.

We went with the Winnie the Pooh theme.  If it’s not obvious from the pictures – Caleb was Tigger, Andrew was Pooh, Tenille was Piglet, and I was Christopher Robin.

The kids’ costumes were great for trick or treating outside because they’re nice and warm.  Indoors - there was high risk of heat stroke.   Also, Andrew had some balance problems because Winnie the Pooh’s head was a bit heavy sitting on top of his own head.   But it was worth it… This year we won the Best Family Costume award at church.  After years of Halloween Family costumes and the years of failure.  (2008, 2007, 2006, 2005)  We finally did it.  My life is now complete.   I’m not really sure what else there really is to accomplish.

We were also invited to Kennedi Kersavage’s baptism, and spent the day with them trick or treating in our old neighborhood.

Hyun Family at the church Trunk or Treat.

We spent Halloween day at the Kersavages after Kennedi’s (Hannah Montana’s) baptism.

Caleb and Klare – like peas in a pod.

I took a day off a few weeks ago to head down to Ocean Shores for the opening of Razor Clamming season.  Last year was a lot of fun, so we recruited my mother and my sister to come with us this year.  Tenille’s big requirement this year was that our housing include Internet service, because last year, there was a lot of downtime, and we watched a lot of movies between low tides…

We rented a condo called Anchors Ashore, which was great.   It had 2 bedrooms.  It was new.  Had a great kitchen.  They had a TV, DVD player, and some movies.  And, of course, they had Internet.  In some ways, I somewhat regret the Internet connection, because it would have forced us to do more creative things with my mom and sister  (play games, explore the town, etc)…    Next year, we’ll see how many people are coming, and use our judgment on this aspect of the trip.

Day 1:  After a few stops, we ended up leaving our house about 1:30pm.  There were a few major traffic jams on I-5, which ate up almost an hour, and we ended up pulling into the condo about 5pm.  Low tide was 5:40, so we hustled to get everyone ready in their clamming gear and headed toward the beach.  On the way out to the car, we met some folks that were just returning, and they had apparently caught their limit.  It was raining pretty good, and so I was prepared for a bit of a rough time.  When we got out to the beach, I would classify the precipitation as no less than a torrential downpour.  To make it worse, the wind was almost unbearable.  You could see the rain streaking sideways, and if you’re looking the wrong way, it was like looking straight into a hose.  All this rain caused a sheet of water on the sand.  Typically to find clam, you need to find a little hole or a divot where the clam is digging.  With this excess of water, all the holes and divots were getting washed away.  There were no clam divots.  I saw Caleb and Tenille in full rain gear starting to walk towards us.  When I looked up again, they were walking back toward the van.  Apparently a few minutes was enough in these conditions.   My sister was out there for about 15 minutes with me.  The water had soaked through to her feet by about the 2nd minute and she expressed some dismay at walking around in wet socks and boots.   She was quite a good sport considering how miserable it was out there…   My mother, ever the wise one, opted to stay in the van and watch Andrew, our baby.  That left me, the lone clammer, out on the beach with other loser clammers that got to the beach too late, desperately looking for a clam hole.  After another 15 minutes of aimless wandering, I noticed a few people that were on a sand island.  I crossed the channel which came up my mid-thigh and the surge of the current was a bit frightening.  I wore my waders again this year, which was great for this kind of thing, but was also thinking that it’s probably allowing me to do things I shouldn’t… Luckily, I didn’t get swept out to sea, and made it to the island.  During a 2 minute break when the rain slowed down, I found a divot and started digging.  I got on my hands and knees and dug up the sand as fast as I could.  Victory at last!  One clam!  The rain started pouring again.  No divots.  After another 15 minutes, I gave up and came back to the van, a bit disappointed.  It ends up that the cops had visited the van while I was out.  They asked my family if they had clamming licenses.  When they all produced licenses, they gave the limit of clam to each of them.  Apparently, they had confiscated some clams from illegal diggers.   Ended up that they got 45 clams just sitting in the van… Add my one clam, and the daily haul was 46 clams! 

We got back to our condo and cleaned them all up, and fried up a plateful of clams.  Tenille and the kids didn’t like them and opted for something else, but the rest of us finished off the plate.  I can somewhat understand.  Razor clams are enormous, and when you fry them up without cutting them into bite size pieces, they look grotesquely big.  Nevertheless, they were delicious.

Day 2:  We spent a lazy morning watching some TV, playing on the computer and bumming around the house.  We made some clam chowder for lunch which was quite good.  It was basically cream, bacon, and some clams… Tenille ate the chowder, but picked out most of the clams.  

In the afternoon, we went driving around Ocean Shores to kill time before clamming.  We were afraid that it was going to be another rainy day.  And my fear was that my sister and my mom who have never been razor clamming would go home without having experienced the thrill of the dig…   But when we stopped at the grocery store in the afternoon, the sun started poking out.  By the time we got home, the sun was blazing and it was even a bit hot inside the condo.  We excitedly got all our gear on and got the kids ready, then headed for the beach.  There were clumps of people all up and down the beach, and we found a little section that didn’t seem to be too crowded.   Later, we found out that the reason it wasn’t occupied was because there weren’t very many clams.  Tip for next year:  Just go where all the people are digging- they’re there for a reason…   Once we started walking down the beach and got to an area where a lot of folks were digging, we saw divots everywhere… Sometimes there were 3 or 4 clumped super close together.  And under almost every divot was a razor clam.  After I dug up a couple clams, my sister rolled up her sleeve on her hot pink jacket and wanted to give it a try.  I used the shovel to dig down about 6 inches, then let her start digging with her hands.  You don’t want to dig too deep with the shovel, because it will cut off pieces of the clam or sometimes bust the clam.  On the first dig, she felt the clam and tried to wrestle it up from the sand.  But alas, the clam was too strong and she didn’t dig enough around the clam, and had to let it go.  By this time, Tenille started rolling up her sleeve and gave it a try.  She never dug for a clam last year, because she was watching the kids.  This year, Tenille got a clam on her first try, and became a clam digging machine.  My sister also after a few tries developed her clam digging technique and within an hour, we had caught our limit – 45 clams!

When we got back to the van, we found mom and Andrew eagerly waiting.  Mom was impressed at how quickly we had caught our clams.  We went back to the condo, dropped off the clams, and went to Alec’s for dinner.  There might be other semi-nice restaurants in Ocean Shores, but it seems we always end up here.  The food is decent, and everyone had their fill.  After returning to the condo, my  mom and I cleaned all the clams (which took longer than digging them), and put them in some water in ziploc bags and froze them.  A guy at the Ocean Shores supermarket told us to preserve them this way last year. 

Sunday morning, we packed up our things and headed back to our home.  Another successful clamming trip.   Razor Clams are delicious.  They are sometimes referred to as the filet mignon of clam.  If you want to try some, there are cheaper and easier ways to try them (like a restaurant or Uwajimaya supermarket).  But, you’ll miss out on the thrill of the dig…

Started my new job at Amazon a few weeks ago.  I’m working in the high availability team.  Our team works cross company to increase availability of the Amazon.com retail website.  If for some reason you see an I’m Sorry Page while you’re shopping on Amazon, our team is likely tracking the incident. 

I have been so impressed with the amount of data that is freely made available to the employees.  In one week at Amazon, I got access to take a look at the number of orders that are being generated on a daily, hourly, by minute basis, errors that are being thrown, and dig down into various incidents.  These are metrics that are available to all employees.  Some metrics are, of course restricted, and some metrics pop you on the restricted stock trade list.  Measuring is often quite difficult for a large scale companies and so far, I’m quite impressed with the effort put into measuring almost every aspect of the business and making it as widely available throughout the company as practical.

Some significant differences between Microsoft and Amazon – At Microsoft, I more or less felt like I had an unlimited operations budget, and we were always building services for millions of users.  Some services I worked on hit “Microsoft-sized scale”, but several others topped out at a few thousand hits per month at their peak…  At Amazon, we actually have millions of users (hundreds of millions), and every minute of every day there are HUGE numbers of people placing orders.    But, it’s also clear that the company is extremely frugal.  It’s a bit like the wild west, and people/groups make do with what they have and keep their services up and running. 

It’s a bit too early to make any commentary on Amazon culture.  So far everyone has been friendly enough, but not shy about pushing back when it’s warranted.  As with Microsoft, I’m not sure if I believe that there is a single Microsoft culture.  I’ve heard people say that Microsoft culture is aggressive and can be perceived as rude by the uninitiated.  But, I’ve been in 3 different groups all with their own very distinct micro culture.  There are cohorts, managers and GMs that are extremely courteous and encouraging, to those that pop off on the other end of the spectrum.

So far, it’s been exciting to explore a new business (retail), and especially one with so many customers, and so much data.  The charter is seemingly broad enough to keep me busy and engaged for a long time.

Since working in Seattle, I started riding the bus from Day 2.  It takes about an hour door to door, but honestly, it's great.  It takes about 10 minutes to get to my transit center from my house, and then for about 45 minutes on the bus, I usually have wireless, and if I don't I at least have a book I can read.  I can take care of all my emails and read the news while somebody else does all the driving for me. 
I'm not particularly someone that is extremely environmentally conscious, but I suppose it's also good to know that I'm doing my part in reducing pollutants and not creating higher demand for imported oil.
It ends up that there are 3 different options from Federal Way to Seattle.  There is the 577 which is the Sound Transit express bus from the FW transit center that goes near Union Station.  There is the Light Rail that starts from Tukwila and goes right into Union Station.  There is the Metro 194 which is not an express, but goes from the FW Transit Center (or I can hit it on the onramp at the Star Lake Park and Ride, and goes right into Union Station.)
So far, I've only taken the 577.  I've had wireless about 80% of the time.  The other side benefit of taking the bus is that it keeps me on a fairly regular schedule.  I'm usually home by 6. 
It seems like a hip thing to be working in downtown Seattle, but I haven't really gone exploring too much except for some lunch mostly in the international district.  Perhaps this new job will force me to finally get a little more familiar with downtown Seattle.  For now, it’s just where my cubicle is….

It has been a long and rich tradition in our home that Caleb got a puppet show for his Birthday since his very first birthday…. until this year when he (to my dismay and relief) expressed his preference for a soccer party rather than another puppet show.  It’s hard to let go of traditions sometimes, but considering our hectic circumstances having just returned from China, spending a week at Lake Powell, switching jobs, moving to my mom’s home, preparing our home for renters – it was also an enormous relief.

So this year, we wrote a check to Arena Sports who did a fantastic job of entertaining a dozen 4-5 year olds, and making Caleb feel like a King for a day.  Hopefully, the outsourcing of parental duties is an exception and not a trend… but regardless, it worked out great for this year.

Coach Marty runs the kids. 

If there was any energy left, it must be completely burnt off running around the balloon toys.

Traditional party fare, complete with soccer cake.  I thought Caleb was going to burn his chin blowing out the candles.

Pull-string pinata – an interesting concept… It kinda eliminates the fun of beating something senseless… but I guess it also eliminates the injuries…

Klare shows off her loot.

Happy birthday boy and happy parents…

Mission accomplished

Caleb also proposed a “Science” party…  If you look at the Lake Powell pictures, there’s one where Caleb is reading an Encyclopedia of Science book while his other cousins are playing in the water…. He loves science, but hopefully it will be tempered with a love of other things as well – like sports, friends… girls….  and believe it or not, there are “scientists” that you can hire for birthdays…. If scientists are moonlighting at birthdays, the economy must be pretty rough…. Ended up that we couldn’t get the scientist because he was totally booked.  I proposed that I could get a lab coat and mix up some vinegar and baking soda, but that got a thumbs down….  I’m assuming the puppet show is off for next year, too…. so perhaps my best chance to get back into the act is to beef up my science acts… Anyone know where I can get some anti-matter?  fusion reactor?  String Theory for Dummies?

Summary:  Awesome time with all the cousins!  No injuries except for some bruised egos of aging water sports enthusiasts.

Two weeks ago, we moved into my mom’s basement - a life-long aspiration finally realized.  It was amazing that we were able to put everything we owned into a 26’ truck and somehow squish it into my mom’s house.  For a few weeks before the move, we had been triaging everything we owned into one of several piles  - keep, donate, sell, throw away.  After we moved in, we went through another round of triaging, except now we are going through my mom’s stuff…. Stuff that her and my dad had accumulated over 25 years.  My sister told me today that she knew that mom and dad were packrats, because she is finding that she has been turning into one… There is a lot of stuff…. I don’t know how many RCA cables one man needs, but after throwing away about 90% of them, I still have a bucket full.  I’ve had to make a LOT of runs to the dump.  I think I made my last run to the dump today… The lady that works there is probably starting to recognize me as one of her regulars coming in every weekend.  Maybe I can qualify for some frequent dumper program…

We had a few hiccups in the move-in plan, but it’s finally starting to feel like home… On the weekend that we moved in, a contractor was finishing up some work in my mother’s bathroom.  To test whether or not the shower was leaking, he kept the hot water on for 45 minutes.  I’m not necessarily saying that this is related to the next part of the story, but it does seem that there is a possibility that there could have been some correlation.  That afternoon, the water heater burst and flooded the entire basement (same basement that our family moved into with 26’ truck worth of boxes.  )  When I got this call, I was at the office.  Tenille was stunned, and most of the answers to my questions were “I don’t know.”  I don’t blame her.  There’s something about standing in your own house with water sloshing up your pants that slowly shuts down your brain.  I know, because this happened a week before we left for China earlier this year at our Bothell house.  And as I saw the water rush in from outside to inside the house, it wasn’t clear to me what we should do.  Similar to wife, my reaction was – call someone…   Someone else who hasn’t been brain-zapped by the kryptonite affects of flood water between my toes. 

Just as in our Bothell home, when people who knew what they were doing finally got to my mom’s house, they were able to get things in a stable state pretty quickly.  They suctioned up as much water as they could.  They took off all the baseboards.  They piled all our boxes into the middle of the rooms.  They set up about 20 heaters/blowers throughout the basement.  By the time I got home, I told my wife that it didn’t seem so bad and everything looked like it was under control.  She almost gave me a black eye with her dirty look.

This was the state of our home for the next 7 days.  We got out Caleb’s kid tent and set it up in the middle of my Mom’s upstairs living room to make it seem like a fun thing for Caleb to be sleeping on the floor.  He loved it!  Andrew slept in a pack n play in the den.  Tenille and I got the couches.  I’m not sure if it was because I was dead tired from moving, but the couches weren’t so bad… It was slightly crowded, but again, not so bad… I think the worst part was just our own antsy-ness to get moved in once everything dried. 

Last  week when all the dryers were finally moved out of the basement, we started the process of setting up our home.  Today, we hit a milestone – my mom can park in her garage again.  It’ll probably be another few weeks before we’re able to get Tenille’s van in the garage also.  That should be a big day…

1.  Built in baby sitter that loves the work.

Save $25/month – Since being in China, we got used to our Ayi who watched our children.  We probably went on more dates in China than we have in our whole marriage.  It was just so easy to get up and go out.  Back in Bothell, we have great baby sitters, but we’re always mindful about getting home early enough, and that it costs us money every time we want to go on a date.  With mom in the house (and sometimes Grandma (my mom’s mom)), it’s much easier to head out for an evening spontaneously, or attend some events that we normally wouldn’t because we can’t justify paying someone to watch our kids.

2.  Great Korean Food, the way it was intended.

Save $25/month– Every time I sit down at a Korean restaurant and pop open the menu, I ask myself what I’m doing there.  I get better food for free at my mom’s house.  And usually, mom won’t let me leave the table until I need to roll out of my chair like a blimp. 

3.  Mom can teach the kids Korean

Save $50/week – Our experience in China has definitely taught us that being multi-lingual is a special skill.  It draws you closer to nations of people as you understand them and are able to express yourself in their native tongue.  Tenille and I have both agonized about how we will teach our kids Korean as we are both not very good.  But living with mom, I think our kids will get more exposure to Korean, and it will likely force Tenille and I to both speak more Korean which also will in turn help our kids.  There are classes that we can enroll them in, but typically they are on the weekend, and yet another bill to pay.  Can’t ask for a better teacher than mom, and best of all, she’ll cut us the mom discount.

4.  Rent out the other house and share the utilities.

Save $25,000/year – This was an eye opener for us.  We never really seriously considered moving out of our house, but when you start calculating the rental income, utilities such as phone, cable, Internet, water, sewer, garbage, etc…. it adds up very quick.  As a family, this move will cut our expenses by more than half.  In most of the world, this is probably one of the driving reasons that most households are multi-generational.  Whether you like it or not, it makes eye-popping economic sense. 

5.  Share our lives with a family member we love dearly

Priceless – As we’ve mentioned that we’re planning on moving in with my mom, we’ve found that many families don’t have spectacular relations with their parents.  Typically, either the wife or the husband will quickly chime in and say, “Hmm… yeah… we couldn’t do that… “  We feel fortunate that we have a great relationship with my mom.  She has always been welcoming to us and supportive of us.   Sure, there’s a small concern that living together might create new problems, but for now we’re naive enough to think that the good times we’ll have spending our days and evenings with each other will outweigh any issues that may crop up as a result of living together.

Ask in a months how it’s working out for us.  We’ll see if the actual results are as good as the theoretical….

But, perhaps you’re already convinced that maybe this might be the right thing for you and your family also.  You might be asking – how does one pull off such a feat?  How in the name of all that is good, do you convince your wife that this might actually be a remotely sane idea?!  I think the only way this can really be done is to live outside of US/Canada/Europe for an extended period of time.  Living in China for 6 months, a few things quickly got deprogrammed out of us.

1.  We need a bigger house! – In the U.S., when you’re about to have another baby, it’s not uncommon to hear, “we need more space… another room… etc”  In much of the world, children sleep in the same room as their parents until they’re almost teenagers.   Many homes are single room shelters that are really only used for sleeping.  Also, living in a 900 sq ft apartment in Beijing, we figured out quickly that living in a place that is less than half of the size of our home is not so bad.  Moving into my mom’s house will actually give us more space than in Beijing.   Not that we need it, but we know we certainly don’t need 500 sq ft per family member.  I’m not one that really needs much privacy from my family, and I enjoy all of us being together in the same room.

2.  We’ll be losers still living with our parents! -  I’m not sure where this mentality came from, but again, most of the world lives in multi-generational households.  I don’t mind throwing my lot in with the majority of the population.  And it may be because I’m getting older, but I’ve stopped caring what other people think.  Frankly, if I could be even “more of loser” for another $25k/year, sign me up.  Sign me up a couple times, and I’ll even wear a hat… I have a feeling that this propaganda might have its origins in the real estate industry.  I can’t believe our government is paying people to buy their first homes.  Despite what your real estate agent tells you, despite what the government tells you, the secret is that most of the world does not feel they need to pay tens of thousands of dollars per year to live away from their parents or risk being labeled a loser. 

3.  I need my own stuff! – I can certainly understand why we might want our own room… but a rice cooker?  a refrigerator?  a dining room table?  Again, most of the world live in tight communities where people pool in to buy things together and share it within the community.  You can sometimes see glimpses of that in the poorer communities in the States, where neighbors have informal agreements and various necessities and conveniences are shared and/or borrowed.  We’ve seen one end of the spectrum where bathrooms and faucets are shared within a community.  As we get wealthier, we lose a lot of that interdependency as we can pretty much afford anything we need or want.   We end up buying things that we use 4 or 5  times a year like boats and swimming pools.  (This is an illustrative statement rather than a commentary against those who own boats and swimming pools.  Our family also has plenty of things in this category like an Xbox, camper, gardening tools… )   

4.  I need my privacy!  - This was an interesting issue.  Tenille ended up finding out that she actually very much enjoyed the company of other adults during the day.  Luo, our Ayi, had become a wonderful friend to us and Tenille looked forward to her visit and enjoyed talking with her throughout the day.  She much preferred it to her life in the States where she often kept busy, but didn’t always have social contact with friends.    She mentioned that if she wouldn’t have had this experience, she wouldn’t have realized that living with another adult during the day could add a different kind of richness to her life.  For my mother, my dad passed away 3 years ago, and we hope that having our family in her home will contribute to the richness of her life.

These are not the things we thought we’d learn in China… but we can’t always choose what we want to learn… we just choose what to do with what was given us.  We’re looking forward with hope to the next chapter in our lives.    

With all that said, one down side is that we’ll be leaving our very good friends in Bothell.  We have developed many good friendships through worshipping together, serving together, and just through fellowship.  Federal Way is a mere 45-minute drive, so hopefully we’ll have an opportunity to pop in occasionally.  And we should note the disclaimer that we’re renting out our house not selling it, so in case our party boat starts taking on water, we still have one foot on the shore…

First week back from China, we had an interesting weekend.  We invited our good friend Zhiguo from China to spend the weekend with us at my mom’s house.   Zhiguo took special care of us helping me with learning Chinese and took me to restaurants in China.   On Friday, we got down to my mom’s house and got the boat ready to go crabbing.  We managed to launch my boat, despite by reverse driving skills with a trailer.  After a false start (because I forgot the bait in the truck), we got out to dash point and dropped the crab pots. We went back to Redondo to pick up Tenille and the kids.  By the time, we got back to dash point, it was time to pull up the crab pots.  When we pulled up the pots, we had 4 crabs!!  Only one was big enough, though.  I thought that the proper crab picking up technique was to pick him up by the rear by the hind legs with the thumb on the underside and the other fingers on the top of the crab.  I thought that this would keep the crab from being able to reach with those threatening claws.  I thought wrong.  He got me.  He got me hard. 

Tenille mentioned later that the crab had grabbed me and was hanging off of my thumb.  I vaguely remember that part.  Perhaps because I was distracted by the blood that was quickly pooling around my fingernail where he squished my nail into my flesh.  Big drops of blood fell on the boat.  I’ve never been mauled by a wild animal before…  It hurt a lot.  We somehow managed to get the bad boy into the cooler, but honestly I don’t remember how.    I just remember that he tasted pretty good when I exacted my revenge.  The hypochondriac in me was a bit afraid that I might get some weird crab disease, but so far so good .  We ended up getting two crabs that day, which was apparently more than enough for us.  We saved half of a crab for my mom.  We also caught a starfish which was entertaining for Caleb.  We tried fishing, but only caught a dogfish.  We had to cut the line, because I forgot my de-hooking pliers, and I wasn’t about to reach into the dog fish’s mouth, especially after the crab attack.  Oh well… it was worth the excitement. 

One person that didn’t enjoy the excursion was Andrew.  Andrew is a bit of a tinkerer… and he doesn’t really like to just sit there… It made for a tough experience for Tenille trying to keep him contained.  With Andrew as an exception, a good time was had by all, and we filled our bellies with crab.  Zhiguo told me the next day that he spent the evening talking with his parents and telling them about the day.  He had never ridden in a boat before, nevertheless drive one.  He said that he had never seen the ocean before getting on his first plane ride to Redmond a few years ago. 

The next day, our family and Zhiguo went down to our good friend, Michael Brown’s dad’s farm out in Enumclaw where apparently there are no laws…   We had some yummy BBQ, and the kids had a great time lighting off some small fireworks before the big show.  Caleb loves fireworks.  He was quite good at running away from them as soon as it was lit, which I was thankful for.   (note how far Caleb is in front of Michael in the first set of pictures)….  Sometimes I see kids linger… I’m glad they’re not my kids… One day there will be a price for lingering…

As dusk set in, the adults started entertaining themselves with roman candles.  Apparently, cows must be Tories, because they did not appreciate the fireworks as much as we did.  In fact, many of them started running off causing a mini-stampede.

This year, at the farm, I saw one of the most spectacular private fireworks shows I’ve ever seen in my life.  There is one firework show that I distinctly remember as the best I’ve seen.  It was in Junior High school, and I was in the University of Redlands California for a summer camp…   There I remember the fireworks being so ENORMOUS, and they seemed to linger forever in the sky and slowly drift down until I was afraid that would land on my face.  This private show at Michael’s dad’s farm for 20 or so people definitely rivaled that spectacular experience.  I am not sure how much money Michael had to spend to put on such a show, but I felt a tinge of guilt that such a wonderful show was delivered to such a small number of people.  Using my kids as an excuse, I got to sit in the lawn chairs and watch the festivities from afar.  Zhiguo, on the other hand, was not so lucky.  He got a VERY close view of the fireworks as he lit the fuse of most of the explosives.  It seemed like he was having fun though as he and the other 20-somethings lit off the fireworks and ran for cover.  There were a few close calls where the fireworks exploded on the ground, and I saw Zhiguo running away from the blossom.  Hmm… I wonder what he’ll tell his parents.    For next year, if you know Michael Brown, I highly recommend you attend the show.  If you know someone that knows Michael Brown, you should ask if you can come.  The show was city fireworks quality. 

I thought that after seeing the 3-week long Chinese New Year celebration in Beijing, 4th of July in the US would pale in comparison.  But, the show was incredible, and it was an extra special occasion because we got to share it with our Chinese friend, Zhiguo. 

I was invited for the first time by a group of colleagues to celebrate the end of a project.  There were 6 of us.  I was the only non-Chinese person, and the oldest in the group.  They moved the party date to accommodate my schedule, so it seemed important that I attend. 

We went to a Korean BBQ buffet.  In some ways, I was sad that only now (that I have 2 weeks left) am I discovering this wonderful enclave of all-you-can eat meat.  Best part - $6. 

When everyone arrived, they started pouring the beer.  (Approximately 30 cents per bottle – cheaper than bottled water.)  When I explained that I do not drink alcohol for religious reasons, they were disappointed, but understanding.  They said openly that their plans to haze me was foiled, and the leader of the group lamented because the obligation would now fall on him.  The rest of the evening turned into a cultural lesson on how important drinking is to the Chinese.  Almost every proverb about drinking (loosely translated into English) was explained to me between toasts. 

“To be a good leader, you must first be a good drinker.”

“A poor man will still buy liquor and drink with his friends.”

“In China, you show that you’re good friends by getting drunk.  The more drunk you get, the more good friends you are.”

There was also some regionalism:  “In Shanghai, you drink with people who will make you money.  In Beijing, you only drink with your friends.”

They toasted each other, they made toasts to good health and long life, they toasted to the end of the project… it went on and on for about 4 hours.  Graciously, they let me participate with my plum juice and Sprite as they yelled out Ganbei (literally “Empty Cup”, but more accurately “Bottoms Up”).  They were very kind to me and took time to explain the conversation, and as the night wore on, they referred more and more to their cell-phone Chinese-to-English translator dictionary to include me in their conversation. 

I asked them if their wive’s will give them grief when they get home in their drunken state.  The two that were married said that their wives will set out some fruit and water for them realizing that they need some help.  Then they will likely get a lecture in the morning about drinking too much.  It seemed like it was a ritual. 

One of them was from inner Mongolia.  Apparently, this region is known for their very heavy drinkers.  He recognized that this reputation does exist, but he himself can not drink heavily.  He lamented that often times he is tested by his friends just because he is Mongolian. 

One of them drove a car to work that day, and proclaimed that he could not drink.  This was followed by an evening full of ridicule accusing him of driving purposely to avoid the drinking.  He was playfully called all kinds of insults most of which roughly translate to “coward.”  Later on, as we were both getting some sprite together, I reassured him that he was a wise man.

The drinking culture seems like it’s prevalent across Japan and Korea as well.  It is a symbol of establishing friendship and trust.   But honestly, they seemed quite understanding that I will not drink for religious reasons.  For me to do business in Asia, I am almost certain that I’d be at a disadvantage at first.  But with that said, I am also certain that there are other ways of establishing friendship and trust within any community and/or culture that will be more profound and lasting.  But, like anything meaningful and lasting, it takes time.

A last word of advice for those that do not want to get drunk in China.  Never drink.  If you drink with one set of friends, you will risk offending other friends by not drinking with them.  And this will definitely be a pretty serious offense.   Pretend you are allergic…. or Mormon… or better yet, don’t pretend… just become one.  :-)

Every Sunday we go to the Beijing branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly called the Mormon Church.  There are 3 different branches that meet in the same building.  Our branch is for foreign passport holders that live within the city limits.  There is another branch that is for foreign passport holders that live outside the city limits, most of them living in a expat community called Shunyi.  Many foreigners with older children tend to live in Shunyi because that is where some of the best international schools are.  There is a third branch made entirely of Chinese nationals. 

There are approximately 200 members (including kids) in our congregation.  The other foreigner branch meet before us, and from what I’ve seen their size looks about comparable.  I have never seen a member of the Chinese branch.  I was told that we are not to have contact with them, and we should be out of the building before they begin their services.

My understanding is that the Chinese government has a concern over a non-government leadership structure that is based in another country.  I could understand their concern about people’s loyalties potentially conflicting between their religion and country. 

Printed on our program every week are the rules under which we are allowed to congregate in China.  At the start of each meeting, the branch President brings our attention to these rules and reminds us that we must abide by them.  The hope is that the Chinese government will recognize us as an obedient, law-abiding community that will be positive for the Chinese people.  And hopefully this recognition will lead to invitations to participate more fully within the native Chinese community as a religious organization.  I think I can safely say that is the hope of each LDS member in Beijing.  Long time members of our church have expressed that this hope is slowly being realized and policies are slowly opening up.  I took a picture of the rules as hopefully it will at some point be an interesting relic of this transition period.      

This last weekend, I learned an incredible lesson that I will never forget and will likely affect my thinking on wealth forever.  I was invited to our housekeeper, Luo’s house.  She asked Tenille why we kept inviting people to our home.  Tenille answered that is what we do with our friends.  The following week, she invited us to her home. 

Luo has been wonderful for our family.  She is one of two native Chinese people that we have grown very close to during our stay in China.  She has earned our trust with our kids, our most valued treasures, and our kids very much love Luo.  So, when we got this invitation to her home, we were excited to see how she lives.  She told us that she has a computer at home.  I assumed from that, that she probably lived in a lower end apartment complex. 

They live near the American Embassy.  Around the East side of the embassy, we walked by strips of buildings that were being torn down by construction machines.  Apparently, at the request of the American embassy.  Then we got to the end of the asphalt and continued on a dirt road into a complex made entirely of brick.  We walked past very loud speakers blaring music. Luo told us that the music sometimes plays until midnight, and people dance in the street. Seemed like a happy place to be. The roads quickly narrowed that a car could not fit through them.  There were a lot of people walking about and some people riding bikes through the narrow corridor.  She pointed at a small concrete box-looking building and said that was the shared toilet. Luo said many houses don’t have a bathroom so the bathroom is overused and stinky.

She turned a corner through a gate, and pointed to a doorway and told us, this is my house.  She had warned Tenille that we had probably never seen anything like her apartment, and she was right.  The doorway had strings hanging down to serve as a summer door.  The house was little more than a room.  The concrete floor does not change from outside to inside.  It was perhaps around the same size as our storage shed in Bothell - maybe  12 x 8 feet.   It was divided into two spaces - one for the parents, and one for their 9 year old daughter. 

In the daughter's space, there was a small bed (smaller than a twin.)  There was a small shelf with two bins of food supplies.  Luo said she keeps packets of milk and a little bit of bread and jam on hand for her daughter to snack on. Otherwise, she buys her food on the street or at markets on a daily basis.  There was a rice cooker and a water machine.  There was a fan and a computer on a small computer desk. 

Tenille later admitted that she couldn’t believe how poor her circumstances were, and it made her very sad.  She was fighting back the tears and covered up her emotions with compliments and understanding.  Luo was quite happy to show us around.

In the parent's area, you could only walk on one side of the bed.  The other 3 sides were touching a wall.  On the open side of the bed, there was a TV.  Some clothes hung above the bed.  Apparently, there were pictures over the walls, but Luo had ripped them down to clean it up for our visit.  I think she had meant to put something else up, but we came earlier than she expected, so she apologized that it looked so messy.

Her daughter was very polite and welcoming and instantly started taking care of Caleb.  She offered him some juice.  It was some Chinese equivalent of Tang and she had mixed it herself.  I had some sanitation concerns, but I felt it was more important to be gracious.  Caleb tried it and enjoyed it.  They had two apricots and a cherry.  Luo offered it all to Caleb.  He ate the cherry. 

They had a fan in each area, but the one in the parent's area was broken.  Luo showed us a window in her daughter's area that she had punched two holes in.  She said it's for the winter.  They burn charcoal in a tin can to keep warm, and they need ventilation.  The winters in Beijing are nothing like Seattle.  It gets frigid cold like in Salt Lake or Boston.   Her daughter sleeps together with them during the winters.

Luo's husband came home.  He greeted us enthusiastically and welcomed us.  He didn't speak any English, so it was a bit tough to communicate. 

Then Luo and her husband offered me a tie as a gift.  I had mailed a package for her in the United States a few weeks ago when I was back in the States.  She had asked how much I had to pay, but I told her that it wasn't a big deal as the amount was trivial.  The tie was a thank you for that.   Tenille gave her some indoor slippers and some chocolate.

Right outside their door was a a makeshift table with what looked like an old portable gas burner.  It had a wok on top.  When you look out into the courtyard, every family seemed to have this arrangement.  The courtyard was about 20 feet by 20 feet and there was a lot of activity among the 8 other families that lived in this compound.   The compound was two stories and surrounded the courtyard.  There was one communal faucet in the courtyard where a man was washing his chicken legs.   One lady was washing her hair in a bucket.  One man was cooking his chicken in his wok/burner setup.  Many of the women came up to us and were welcoming to the kids.  Some people asked Luo why she brought us here.  I think implied was the question, "aren't you embarrassed?"  Luo told us straight out that she was not embarrassed, but wanted to show us how she lives and thought that it was something we wouldn't normally get a chance to see.  She told us that the rent including all the utilities is about 400 kuai per month ($60). 

Then we went outside the courtyard and took a walk through her neighborhood.  There was a main strip of retail activity along a dirt path.  People were selling food, live chickens, toys, plastic buckets, and whatever else is necessary for everyday life in this neighborhood.  It was about 100 meters long.  Luo said she knew or at least recognized most of the people in the neighborhood.    On our way back, we saw a lady cut a live chicken and put it in a pot.  Maybe it's to let the blood drain? 

Then, we met her husband on the road and went out to the main street to catch a cab.  Andrew and I went in a cab with Luo's husband and their daughter.  Tenille went with Caleb and Luo.    In the cab, I talked with Luo's daughter who was quite good with English and wasn't as shy about using it.  She loves all her subjects at school and likes to read books and play basketball with her friends.  I told her my favorite food was chicken wings.  (This is the extent of my survival Chinese.)  I tried to pay for the cab fare, but Luo's husband would not let me.  He quickly handed the driver a 100, and that was that. 

We got to the restaurant and Tenille was already there.  When we sat down, I noticed it was a restaurant called Guolin which my coworker had recommended to me as good and affordable.  Luo was very concerned about everything - the table being near too many people, thus being too noisy, too much smoking, the food being spicy, the glasses not being clean enough, making sure we ordered food that we like, etc.   She was so concerned about being a perfect hostess.   We were all very touched by her thoughtfulness and reassured her over and over that everything was just fine.  Luo was very concerned that the food would not be suitable for Tenille because a lot of it was spicy.  We reassured her again and again that it would be fine, and we ate at restaurants like this all the time.  She kept insisting that we go to a more western friendly restaurant.  After several minutes of back and forth, we finally convinced her that we could stay.   

They insisted that we order, and I ordered 3 or 4 dishes that Tenille would like and were affordable.  Then they ordered.  We asked them to order things they like, but they kept asking what Tenille would like.  They ended up ordering a duck, fried mutton, and shrimp.  All very expensive (relatively).  At this point, I was sincerely hoping that we could pay for dinner.  It was way too much food, and there was considerable leftovers.  When we were done, I asked for the waitress and asked for the bill.  We found out that Luo had already paid for the dinner.  She said that I worked too hard, and she wanted an opportunity to take us out to dinner.  This was at least a 200 RMB meal.  Honestly, it's probably a bill that Tenille and I are accustomed to paying.  But, for Luo's family, this is half of their monthly rent.  If I were to pay for a meal that cost half of our rent, it would be a $600 meal.  I can’t remember doing that for anyone.

After the meal, they put us in a cab, and Tenille and I had a moment to reflect.  Of all of our time in China, this was probably our biggest lesson in unfairness.   We felt embarrassed, in some ways ashamed.  We reflected back to how often we have referred to our apartment as small.  We've seen people living in caves and small dwellings, but somehow it was different to see someone we considered our friend living in those meager conditions.   There were two big lessons that we took away from the experience.

Our immediate reaction was how can we help them.  But perhaps there in lies our own problem and a lesson for us.  Luo will get a bonus from us for the wonderful work she has done with our family, but this experience has probably taught us something much more important and valuable about wealth.  I’m not talking about the fluffy stuff about being wealthy in non-monetary things… like love in the home, health, and all that stuff.  That’s important, too – but I’m talking about true monetary wealth and how it should be measured. 

There are a few ways that people measure wealth:

1.  A person’s lifestyle

This is the way most Americans measure wealth.  Many Americans have a negative savings rate.  They are spending more than they bring in.  But, they are living a wealthy lifestyle with their iPhones and living in homes that their incomes can not sustain.  This is the most visible measure of wealth, although more often than not, it can not be sustained for long periods of time without dire consequences.

2.  A person’s net worth

This is how I’ve always measured wealth.  The bigger your net worth, the wealthier you are.  Many that are financially savvy tend to measure wealth this way also.  Wikipedia defines wealth as net worth.

So, the odd thing is that I look at how Luo is living and realize that I’m incredibly wealthy comparatively with respect to net worth.  Then how come we don’t feel incredibly wealthy?  I was offered the following definition of wealth which very much resonated with me.

3.  A person’s net worth divided by their expenditure to support an acceptable lifestyle

If I thought that living Luo’s lifestyle was acceptable for me and my family, I would truly be incredibly wealthy.  I could likely sustain that life style merely on the interest I earn every year.  That’s wealthy.  The irony is that using this measure of wealth the more modest we choose to live our lives, the wealthier we become.  Another way to say this is, how long can you go living your acceptable lifestyle on your assets before you run out of money.  If your answer is forever, you’re done. 

I’ve always thought that I needed a higher paying job to become rich.  The funny thing is, I can just become rich by being happy with less (and convincing my wife likewise).  [That last note was an AND not an OR]  I can become REALLY rich by being happy with VERY little.  Conversely, you can be very poor by never being satisfied with what you’ve got.

In our church, this message is drilled into us constantly through counsel to live modestly and within our means.  However, in the thick of the battle, it’s often difficult not to compare with the neighbors and make purchases, vacation plans, etc, that seem in line with what our peers are doing.  This quick visit to our good friend’s home was a life changer.  We can obviously live on a lot less and be perfectly happy.

It has sparked a discussion about what we can get down to, and what is non-negotiable.  For me, healthcare and my children’s education are non-negotiable.  Providing these things in the United States does put a high bottom on how low we can go.  But, it has sparked good discussion on everything else.  For instance, I’m very much willing to change my eating out habits so that I can be filthy rich.

The second lesson we learned is about kindness and generosity.  In some ways, I am reminded of the story of the widows mite.  Luo doesn’t have much, but she just about gave us her all as she hosted us.  And you could tell she cared for us and loved us with everything she did and said.  She has set a bar that almost seems impossible in terms of expressing her generosity and friendship toward us.  Tenille and I were later thinking, “what would we have to do, to match what she just did for us?”

We can only pray that the experience will take seed in our own hearts, that we may emulate her kindness and generosity throughout our own lives – to her and others we befriend along the way.

Chengde (not to be confused with Chengdu) is a mountain resort city about 4 hours away from Beijing by train.  As Tenille was planning out another packed itinerary for her parents visit to Beijing, I suggested taking a train somewhere for a true Chinese experience.  There’s only so many palaces and cheap shopping complexes you can go to (or should go to.) 

I don’t want to say a four hour train ride with two little kids was a bad idea, but everyone was brainstorming ways to NOT take the train back when we arrived in Chengde.  It’s possible that waking up at 4:30am to catch a 6am train had everyone a bit edgier than normal (including the kids).  Or it could have been the musical chairs that everyone plays for the first 15 minutes of the train ride.  Apparently, in the Chinese train system, they just issue you the next available 6 tickets, regardless of how they are grouped.  The soft seats were grouped in foursomes with two two-seaters facing toward each other with a table in between.  But, with a group of six, half of you could be in one foursome, and the other half in another.  If you are a pair, you could be split up between two foursomes.  So, the first 15 minutes consist of families regrouping each other.  Fortunately, the Chinese people are quite accommodating to us and each other and it seemed like everyone made their best efforts to unite their traveling parties.  One saving factor was that we did have a good McDonald’s breakfast.   Tenille’s mom and dad had a big breakfast with pancakes.  I thought I’d try something exotic and had a pork filet sandwich.  (Kind of like a McChicken… but a McPork, I guess.)  Although we all scoffed at the fact that we were eating McDonald’s, I think Tenille’s parents (and Tenille) were grateful we were eating something familiar and recognizable.

Arriving in Chengde reminded me a lot of coming to Beijing for the first time.  Except we were armed with a little bit of Mandarin ability.  By armed, I’m talking maybe a slingshot, or a dull club…. sharp stick?  Everything was unfamiliar.  We started walking down the street from the train station wondering where we needed to catch a cab.  Luckily, a lady (perhaps moved by our pathetic, helpless looks on our faces) stopped to try and help us.  She spoke a little bit of English and we asked in our best Chinese if she knew where our hotel was.  She tried to describe where it was in Chinese, but in the end hailed a cab for us.  I do have to comment that every single native person we had interaction with in Chengde was very kind to us, often going out of their way to help us or accommodate us. 

The taxis seemed to be about 80% of the size of Beijing taxis which I think are already smaller than the big cars we are used to in the States.  They didn’t use the meters.  They just told us the price they’re going to charge us and we paid them.  Nobody charged us more than 15 RMB the entire time we were there ($2).  We managed to fit our family of 6 (+ driver), and they drove us to the hotel.  The Hotel spoke minimal English.  We asked where we could eat something.  They pointed to the hotel restaurant.  Not wanting to pay Hotel prices, we wandered out into the street in search of our first Chengde meal.  First thing that caught our eye  (mostly because it was the only thing we could read) – McDonalds.  We noted it as a last resort backup and continued our adventure through the streets of Chengde.  We walked by a bunch of fruit stands and side street vendors selling unrecognizable foods.  We walked past several restaurants that looked like there was 0% chance they had English menus.  We came upon a store with piles of roasted chickens and other miscellaneous meats that we could see through the window.  We walked in and felt the heat of the food warmers and the meat smell overwhelm us.  It was clear that we were not going to eat here by the look on Tenille and her mom’s face.   

Finally, Tenille piped up that she was getting hungry and hinted that we should walk back to McDonald’s.  Tenille’s father still thirsting for a bit more adventure suggested that we walk around to the next corner.  We got to the corner and found a bakery.  Apparently, it wasn’t lunch-worthy food, so we finally decided to head back to McDonald’s.  As an American, it may seem a bit ridiculous that we’d be eating McDonald’s twice in one day when there’s presumably all this great Chinese food around.   I won’t take time to fully justify myself, but encourage those that are looking down their nose to try out a country where you can’t read or understand the language, nor comfortable with the food handling standards, and see if the sight of an American corporate franchise (i.e. McDonald’s) brings a small sense of relief. 

After gorging on some good ol’ Americana, we continued to the Summer Resort complex.  Most of Chengde geographically is covered by this resort.  The resort was built by a Chinese emperor as a summer get-away in the mountains where the weather is a bit cooler.  It sprinkled rain most of the time we were there, but it was still beautiful.  The place was enormous and about a third of it was covered with lakes.  We could have taken an hour long, 11 km bus ride around half of the complex, but decided to walk instead.    It was nice.  It was crowded.  It reminded me of the summer palace in Beijing.  I have to admit that I was thinking, “we rode 4 hours on a train to see another Imperial summer resort.”   (Tenille just told me that this summer resort was her parent’s favorite part of the trip, so apparently it was good that we went!)    We did rent an electric boat and putted around on the enormous chain of lakes.  I have to admit that it was fun to see Caleb drive the boat around for a while.  It was also nice because the boats had a cover and it kept us out of the rain. 

We caught a taxi back to the hotel and opted to have dinner in the Hotel, as we obviously could not find a reasonable alternative on the streets.  When we arrived in the restaurant, there was nobody there except a few waiters.  They seated us in the middle of an enormous dining room.   The size of the dining room merely accentuated the fact that we were the only people there.  In general, I have a rule about eating at restaurants where we are the only patrons.  (I leave and find another restaurant.)  However, we were really out of options and we were admittedly a bit early.  Having no choice, we sat down.  The odd thing was that they did not give us any menus.  Tenille asked for some menus.  They said a bunch of things in Chinese, and did not give us menus.  We thought that perhaps this might be a buffet as we saw a bunch of food warmers to the side of the restaurant.  We waited.  Nothing was happening.  I went up this time, and asked for some menus in my best Chinese.  He said a bunch of things and smiled.  I told him I didn’t understand.  He said slowly and deliberately, “Tuan dui.  Tuan dui.”  (I gave him my “I don’t understand” blank stare.)  He asked me to wait.  I smiled and sat back down.  Mission failed.  We noticed that a Chinese couple came in and sat down in the restaurant.   Strange – they got menus.   After another 5 minutes, something odd happened.  Food started coming out.  Not out to the buffet tables.  Out to our table.  How could this be possible?  How do they know what we want?  And an even better question, “how much is this going to cost?”  As they started putting dishes of miscellaneous chinese food at our table, Tenille and I both started a rant of incomprehensible Chinese to our waiter.  This must have not played out as the waiter had imagined, as he quickly told us to wait and ran away.  Within minutes, a lady appeared and spoke a bit of English to us.  I asked her where this food was coming from as we had not yet ordered.  After some back and forth, I think we figured out that there was another party of Americans or foreigners, who I assume had reservations at this restaurant.  We think we know who they were, because we saw them on the train, then they appeared at the hotel (and we saw them in the same train going back home, too.)  (Which was all a bit of a coincidence as there are several nice hotels in Chengde, and there were probably 20-30 cars on the train.)  Once we figured out that we were not the foreigners they were expecting, we got menus and we were able to order.  A little pricey for Chinese food, but it was quite good.

After eating and overeating, we returned to our rooms and hit the hay.  This bed was by far the hardest bed I’ve ever slept on in my life.  It was as if they took a piece of plywood and then chemically treated to make it even harder.  Then they put a thin sheet over it (perhaps so we don’t get splinters or get a rash from the chemical treatment.)  Luckily, I had enough body fat to compensate and surprisingly got a reasonable night’s rest.

The next morning, we gathered up the troops and went to the bakery we found the previous day.  We each got 2 or 3 things because you never really know what you’re getting sometimes. 

We headed to the Putuo Zongcheng Buddhist Temple which was completed in 1771, just about the time the American revolution was about to gain steam.  It’s built into a hillside and is quite impressive.  It seemed like we wound up an endless number of stair cases to reach the top.  Along the way were statues of Buddha, Pagodas, an open air theater, paintings, pottery, and all sorts of artifacts.  Just as we got to the very tippie top, it started raining.  We joined the throngs of Chinese people as they made their way back down the endless sets of staircases to the bottom. 

If I had known how many stairs we were going to have to climb, I would have paid the $3 for a ride to the top!

Prayer Scrolls

Dad at the entrance of the temple

Almost there.....

The view from the top was worth the climb!  Awesome!  The wall in the distance is the wall surrounding the Mountain Resort.

Caleb as royalty.

Many buildings, many stairs, many beautiful things

The yellow roof signifies royalty as this is a temple where the emporer would go to worship.

After the temple, we hopped in a cab, and just for good measure made one more stop at McDonald’s.  We got back on the train, played our 15 minutes of musical chairs until everyone got in their optimal seating arrangements, then headed back home.  Since our train ride home was in the middle of the afternoon, we were all in a bit more of a sociable mood and played several card games.  Caleb was quite good at Uno (that we approximated with a normal deck of playing cards).  I’ll probably get a deck of real Uno cards sometime soon for him.

These two ladies were awesome!  They entertained Caleb and Andrew for a couple of hours on the train ride back to Beijing. 

I imagine Tenille’s parents will likely remember the difficulty we had getting around more than the sights that we saw.  It’s hard to forget the feeling of helplessness when you can’t communicate or read anything.  Overall, I thought it was a great experience and a great reminder of how difficult things were when we first arrived in Beijing.  I didn’t really even think about how difficult it would be in a new city with relatively little foreigners.  I suppose that could be a testament to how far we’ve come along… or how over-confident we’ve become.

Last weekend, we took a train trip to Xi’an with the Robinson’s.  Xi’an is a large city in the central part of China.  Thousands of years ago, this region was the capital of China.  One emperor (that is known to be the first to unify China under single rule) built his own tomb.  He surrounded the tomb with hundreds (if not thousands) of life-size clay warriors.  They are known in English  as the Terra-Cotta warriors.  As with any Chinese capital city, this city, too, was sacked by invaders and the tomb was long forgotten.  It was only in 1974 that a farmer digging a well discovered a piece of one of these warriors.  When the archaeologists arrived to dig through the rest of the field, they found hundreds of these warriors.  They were dressed in battle regalia, some charioteers, some calvalry, and many just foot soldiers.  Apparently, these statues are studied to give us answers about ancient China.

No two statues are the same.

This is the largest of the 3 pits.  Truly an amazing discovery.  The farmer who discovered the statues while digging for a well was there at the gift shop signing books for a premium price.

A picture board showing how the warriors look when they are excavated.  Most of the paint quickly fades away, so they have stopped excavating until they can figure out a way to preserve the paint.  They continue to try to piece together fragments of statues.

I’d have to say that the most exciting part about this trip, and perhaps one of the most exciting things I feel I’ve done in China was ride an overnight train.  It was an 11-hour train ride.  The train station in Beijing was enormous and grand.  And the best part was that I was actually a participant in it.  It was different than the Forbidden City or Summer Palace or some other ancient structure that was big and grand.  Train is how most people travel in China.  I felt like I was doing something that the natives did and participating in the purpose of this enormous structure. 

However, I should clarify.  We weren’t exactly travelling like most Chinese people.  We did buy tickets for our children and got a soft sleeper car which gave us a private room with 4 beds in it.  On Chinese trains, you can get:

a. soft sleepers – nicest accommodations.  Four beds to a room with a locking door.

b. hard sleepers – beds that are stacked closely against each other in an open car.

c. Soft Seats – similar to coach bus seats.

d. hard seats – I don’t know what these are like, but I got the impression that they were like benches that people squeeze in tightly on, like a subway.

The average Chinese person will take this grueling red-eye 11 hour ride on the hard seats.  Our family arrived at the train station in our pajamas at about 8pm, got on the train, watched the country side go by for a while, then woke up on the other side of the country.  I slept with Andrew (so he doesn’t fall off of the bed) and Tenille got a top bunk bed all to herself.  In the morning, she complained that it wasn’t too comfortable.   I thought it was ok.  Honestly, I preferred this to plane rides.  If we had a high speed train from Seattle where I could sleep on it and wake up in LA, I’d be going much more frequently.  Furthermore, the prices were much cheaper than an airplane at $60 per person.

There was also a restaurant car, but I didn’t get anything.  There was a flat screen TV for each bed.  They had 3 or 4 channels that played different movies throughout the ride.  I watched one in the morning about a basketball team that learned mystical kungfu skills to pump up their game.  On the other wall was an Oxygen port.  This train continued on to Lasa, Tibet.  I’m told that the elevation was so high, that people wear oxygen masks through certain portions of this trip.

The enormous railway station

Caleb entertained himself on some broken chairs while waiting for the train.  It was an overnighter, so we came in our pajamas.

Our cabin with 4 beds.  We could have only bought two beds, but we didn't want some random Chinese guy joining us for the night, so we bought all four beds.

We came home by plane which only took us a few hours. On the way home from the Beijing airport to our home, I got yelled at by our taxi driver again.  The bill came to 64 Yuan.  He asked me if he could just take a 100.  I laughed at him, trying to communicate that he was speaking nonsense.  This was China.  There are no tips.  Then he asked for 80.  I told him 65 because he kept the meter running and it charged an extra Yuan while we were arguing.  Then he mumbled something about being Korean.  It’s a good thing I don’t understand Chinese, because it didn’t seem like a compliment. 

I realize that I’ve only written about my bad taxi experiences.  It’s because they’re typically the most interesting, or there’s something funny about them.  Although there are quite a few taxi drivers that will take the long way to a certain destination to cheat us out of a few extra Yuan, I’ve also run into very nice and extremely honest taxi drivers.  Once, on my way to work we got lost.  I’m pretty sure it was my fault.  Once we figured out where we were and got me to my building, he discounted the fare for me.  I’ve had a couple incidents like this where they’ve either discounted the fare or stopped the meter early to compensate for some issue. 

Tenille:  The most interesting part of the Xi'an trip for me was visiting a man who's house is built inside a cave of a mountain.  These "homes" are slowly dwindling as the government is trying to help these people move into more suitable living arrangements.   

The cave is closed in with bricks and clay from the surrounding hills.  This man really lives here, and he kept saying how bad his house is.  It was really sad!  If you think you have it bad, remember at least you're not living in a cave.  It made a huge impression on me, and I hope that Caleb will internalize how blessed we truly are!

Inside the main living quarters, there is one bed where everyone piles in.  You can see how meager their lives are.

Another room in the courtyard.

We assumed this was the "bathroom", which was located outside the house courtyard.

We also took a golf cart around the Xi'an city wall, visited the Wild Goose Pagoda, saw the Tang Dynasty Jaozi and Dinner Show, and visited the Muslim Quarters Bazaar where we got some "groovy souvies" (Adam's friends' name for souvenirs.  Love it!)

One of the gates of the city wall.

Caleb enjoyed running on the open city wall

Dads having fun with the armor displays.

A rare picture of our whole group together.  Thank you, Robinsons for an awesome trip!  We love you guys!

The jaozi (wontons) are shaped into the animals whose meat was found inside.  Here are some duck jaozi.

Caleb and Tenille getting their "zen" on.

Cute little monk at the pagoda.

The pagoda....it is famous because it has Indian architecture.  One of the most famous monks had it built after living in India.

Monk getting his head shaved.

We got a chance to visit a southern Chinese city called Guilin.  It is known for its beautifully terraced rice fields and cormorant fishing birds.  If you’re curious, I highly recommend watching a documentary series called “Wild China”.  It’s on Netflix.  For me, watching the documentary was pretty close to being there. 

You do miss out on being solicited every 5 feet by someone who wants to give you a special price on a tour.  And if you have a baby with light colored hair, getting mobbed by other Chinese tourists that are there that have never seen a white baby.  We don’t have white babies, so our children get the normal version of baby admiration….  

When we were in Guilin, we travelled with our good friends, the Robinson’s (Adam published the squatter the toilet how-to that was linked in a previous entry).  They have a 3-year old daughter with curly, blond hair and cute as a button.  At first, it might seem like it’d be cool to enjoy celebrity status where strangers mob you and take pictures of you.  After travelling with them, I could see quickly that it’s not always fun.  Strangers want to hold your child and touch their face.  Sometimes, mobs gather and press up their cameras in their face.  Some are more discreet and stand at a distance, but have their cameras creepily and steadily pointed at your child like they’re taking some kind of video.  When you need to get somewhere, sometimes you’re stopped every few feet by a new mob of people asking if they can take a picture with your child.  At some point, you have to say no so you can do the things you planned to do, and that sometimes causes bad feelings.  And very quickly the child also gets tired of being prodded and held, and photographed.  Lizzy (Kay and Adam’s daughter) quickly learned the phrase for (I don’t want to). – Bu Yao!  If you’re travelling with the Lizzy and see the amount of attention she is getting, you can certainly understand why she is screaming “Bu Yao, Bu Yao!”, covering her face, and running away.  However, if you’re an admiring Chinese person who sees a blond little girl for the first time, and that’s the first thing she yells at you, you’re probably left with an unpleasant impression.  I only got a glimpse of this life, and hopefully the Robinson’s will publish a more detailed account of their experiences with Lizzy.

Back to Guilin – Cormorant fishing birds are pet birds that are raised by fisherman.  They remind me a bit of pelicans, but they don’t have the big sagging beak.  These birds are taken out by the fisherman on a narrow bamboo raft into the river.  Their throats are tied with a string, not tight enough to choke them, but snug enough that they can’t swallow fish.  The fisherman then releases them into the river.  Less than a minute later, the birds emerge and hop back on the raft.  The fisherman picks up the bird and pulls fish out of their mouths that are stuck in their throat because of the string.  Their fishing basket is filled within minutes.  At the end, the cormorant birds are relieved of the strings around their neck and are given a few choice prizes to feast on.  Although the technique is amazing, apparently, it’s not the most economical way to fish.  We were told that very few people actually fish this way any more.  Mostly cormorant bird fisherman are really only left around for the tourism industry. 

In Guilin, there were also a large number of caves.  We went through one that was impressively enormous.  When I think of a cave, I usually think of a tunnel.  But naturally formed caves are very different.  They are not uniform.  They have all kinds of crazy formations that have formed over thousands of years.  The Chinese have all kinds of creative names for the various formations jutting every which way from the cave walls, ceilings, and floors.  I suppose in that way, it’s somewhat like cloud formations.  This particular cave was quite well developed for tourists.  They had it lit up with all kinds of colored lights, especially the formations of interest.  There were narrow areas where steps were carved into the floor, and there were large expansive rooms with benches for the tourists.  In the middle of one of these large expansive rooms, there were a laser light show.  In some ways, it took away from the naturalness of the place, but it also did a good job of highlighting the points of interest (in a vegas light show kind of way.)

We also got to see some beautiful scenery as we floated down a river to a smaller community called Yanshuo.  This is the stereotypical scene that I think of when I think of China.  Rocky hills jutting vertically from the ground laced with lush greenery.  The views were pretty spectacular and photographs could hardly do it justice. 

Then we got to a little village in Yanshuo.  When we got there in our little electric cart, an old woman (maybe in her 70’s or 80’s) dropped a bunch of things she was carrying and took off like a bullet and at first I thought perhaps she was scared of us.   Ends up, she ran over to a manual wooden water pump and was demonstrating it for us.  She smiled and waved.  We stopped the van, and a horde of other old ladies showed up all with their circus act selling trinkets.  One lady brought out her bull.  Many of them wanted us to pay them to take pictures with them.  One thing that was obvious was that these old ladies were living in poverty.  The interesting thing was that they weren’t begging.  They were selling.  I’m not sure if there’s really a conclusion to take from this.  It could just be that offering photo opps was more profitable than begging.  Or, it could be that there’s a prevailing negative attitude about begging.  I don’t know. 

Along our trip through the village, we did see little kids being carried in baskets and a lot of old people.  Many of the young working-age men and women have all left the village for a better-paying job in the city.  The tour guide explained to me that he used to live in a village when he was growing up.  He described a place where he would run around with his friends from house to house.  They didn’t have TV, so they would gather around an old man telling stories.  When they were done, they’d find another old man and beg for another story.  He said the village was very tightly knit and acted like a big family. 

It reminded me of the neighborhood that I grew up in.  After school, all the kids were outside in the cul-de-sac organizing some kind of game or riding around on bikes.  Many of the adults were out either watching the kids or doing some household chore.  What I know is that I haven’t seen a neighborhood like this in a long time, but I yearn for it for my kids.  I wonder if it has to do with income and independence.  Or perhaps all the information that we are exposed to in the modern world that prevent us from letting our kids run amok.  Regardless, I’ve talked to several of our good friends about creating such a community.  I’ve called it “the compound” but I’m sure there’s a more marketing friendly name.  Perhaps, “the village” might be a bit easier on the ears.  Compound sounds like we’re going to amass weapons and drink poisonous koolaid together. 

I’ve seen such a place up in Marysville.   Our good friend, Kate grew up on one.  Her father owned a large piece of property and as the children all grew up and got married, they would build another house on the property.  In the end, there were four other houses all living within a stone’s throw from the house they grew up in.  Kate says that it was wonderful to grow up in such a place.  She could go to every house and see who had the best dinner brewing.  Kids would run around the large grassy fields in herds playing all kinds of games.  I’m not sure what it would actually take to create this kind of community.  Do we need to be poor?  Do we need to be friends?  Do we need to be family?  Do we need to own the property together?  Do we need ownership in something together?  Whatever it is, I’m interested.  And as the Guilin tour guide described his experience of village life, it’s something I desperately want for my kids.  Something different than the sterile world of video games and computers.   It’s something I’d want for myself.  Even now, I’d rather spend an afternoon sitting on the porch playing checkers with a friend (or even a stranger that will become a future friend) or help sift dirt for a garden, than spend it browsing the Internet.

Our Chinese teacher told us that he aspires to go to America to further his studies in English.  He was thinking about the U.S. or Canada.  Being Americans (citizens of the United States), we tried to convince him to come to the U.S.  He did mention that it was very difficult to get a visa for the U.S. and mentioned that it takes considerable amount of money.  

Then, he asked me if I owned a gun.  This was right around the time that there were these string of shootings across the U.S.  Apparently in China, many people see the movies with buildings exploding, car chases, and automatic weapons being wantonly discharged by ski-mask wearing villains.  And then there’s the real stuff, too – like high school shootings, shootings at Jewish centers, immigration centers, post offices, etc.  He thought that the U.S. might be too scary for him, and that his parents would worry too much.

I like to believe that the media portrayal of violence in the U.S. is a bit over-exaggerated.  However, I should note that on the day of my father’s arrival to the U.S. (when he was fresh out of high school), he was mugged and beat up in Manhattan.  He stayed in his hotel room for several days, scared to go outside.

With that said, I think the people I know that had first hand experience with a violence is far and few between.   Unless you start counting video games…

Apparently, it’s a well-known secret that Beijing has an intricate tunnel system underneath the city that was dug out many years ago when they thought that there might be a nuclear threat from Russia (or other countries.)  Apparently, the massive tunnel system can hold millions of people. 

I’m not sure what the plans for clean water and unradiated food sources were, but concern was probably not much unlike the nuclear attack drills in the US during the 50s and 60s. 

We’ve seen on the web that we could actually take a tour of a portion of the tunnel system.  Most of the websites warned that it was quite difficult to find and gave some directions through neighborhoods and alleyways.  The fear of not being able to find a place has never stopped us before. 

We hopped in a cab and got off about where we thought it would be, then started asking random people where such and such street was.  We found a non-descript hutong alley and a lady pointed us down the alleyway.  We walked a long way.  I was carrying Andrew in a front pack, and Tenille pushing Caleb in the stroller.  The few people that were out biking or walking stared at us as if aliens.  But, the two guys riding an enormous tricycle, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a face mask hardly got a glance.  About 3/4 of a mile down this dusty hutong, we finally found a building that looked approximately like what we’ve seen in the pictures on the web.  We excitedly hopped into the gate.  To our disappointment, we just saw an 8.5x11 piece of paper on a window that said, “Underground City closed.” 

Then some people came out of the courtyard where we thought the underground tour would be.  They looked at us and waved their hands at us as if saying, you’re in the wrong place.  Then he pointed at the sign.  With heavy steps, we went back outside.  As a consolation prize, we took some pictures outside, That’s when we noticed that the signs have been taken off of the walls and left an imprint of the words “Underground City Tour”.  The place wasn’t just closed for the day.  The place was closed for good.  We started the long trek back out of the Hutong. 

That day, we did end up looking at a new upscale retail area by Qianmen.  It reminded me of a Disney’s main street (or the Promenade in Santa Monica), with tracks laid down for  a trolley and an enormous pedestrian only boulevard.  The only difference was that 1. It was all Chinese themed buildings, and 2. 98% of the buildings were empty.  It was an eerie ghost town of brand new retail stores.  But, what was weird was that there were thousands of Chinese people walking up and down looking at the empty stores.  Walking through this empty prime retail location felt like a gloomy reminder of the economic condition that the world is in.

I thought this subject was worth a write-up.  In Bothell, most of our friends are all approximately in the similar income range and in general no one feels extremely wealthy.  In China, it’s difficult not to notice that you’re in the top 1% of the income bracket.  (If you make more than $48k, you’re in the top 1%)

Perhaps it is because of this obviousness of the wealth distribution, that this topic has been lingering in my mind.

In general, I rarely give handouts to those that are asking for it.  I am aware of the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5:42 – Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

I have to admit that turning down a solicitation is not comfortable for me.  But, there’s something that prevents me from giving freely.  In the States, I thought it was because I was afraid of being suckered or tricked.  Whenever I’ve been in a situation where someone aggressively asked for money, usually someone around me will say that they will just use it to buy alcohol, smokes, drugs, etc.  Or that they look completely capable of working and that he should be working rather than begging us for our hard earned money.  I’ve never been completely satisfied with those types of justifications, but as I’ve said, I rarely make it a practice to give to those that ask.  I think my justification has been that there’s food banks and shelters that take care of the poor, and a donation to these institutions is money better spent.  Tenille and I do make it a practice to set aside a percentage of our income so that we can be very deliberate about our charitable giving.  Sometimes, organizations like the Seattle Gospel Mission make it on our list… sometimes they don’t.  But, this controlled, deliberate giving does not always relieve me of the guilt I feel after I’ve turned away someone that asks me for charity.

Here in China, most people are probably poorer than those that we would consider “in poverty” in the U.S.   I don’t think they necessarily see themselves as poor.  You see them on their bikes, setting up shop on a corner and cooking up sausages or steaming corn for the subway rush.  You see thousands and thousands of migrant workers that have come from the rural villages to work as waitresses, cleaning ladies, guards, factory workers, etc.  There are so many enterprising people here, trying their best to make ends meet.  I’ve started a small project to try and take pictures of all the entrepreneurial folks I see.  At first I was a bit shy about getting in someone’s face and taking their picture.  But, I’m slowly starting to get over my shyness.  People on the subway certainly are not shy about taking pictures of our babies with their cell phone cameras.  So, I figure culturally, it’s not too creepy.

Amidst all these people hustling and bustling, now and then, we’ll run into the truly poor.   These are women carrying their infants wrapped up in blankets and begging for money in the freezing cold.  An old lady with her forehead on the sidewalk and her hand outstretched for change.  A lame man with a sign around his neck dragging himself with his hands through the subway begging for change.  Children, maybe between 5 and 10 years old, with dirty faces and dirty, torn clothes pressing their face and hands against the taxi window begging for money. 

They are not going to buy drugs.  They are clearly not capable of working.  Very likely, they will take the money I would give them and buy something to eat.  Maybe for themselves.  Maybe for their children.  I’ve turned some away and it has really bothered me.  Because I truly have no excuse.  And one day, I sat and thought to myself if I knew for a fact that the money I was giving was going to feed the person I was giving it to, would I give it?  My initial reaction was that I can’t possibly help everyone.  But, everyone hasn’t asked.  In my entire time in China, I’ve probably been asked less than 10 times.  And I’m counting the times where they haven’t really asked me directly, but I saw that they were clearly in need.  My hot lunch costs me about 8 Yuan in the Microsoft Basement.  Giving enough money for a hot meal to everyone that has asked so far would probably be less than $15.  And if I project that out to a year, that’s maybe $60.  And even if I did give that much at every opportunity, and I was asked what percentage of my income I spent in the last year providing for the hungry that has asked me directly, my answer would be to my shame. 

It’s coming to my realization, that it’s not really about the person asking, or their intent with the charity.  There’s something in me that needs to be fixed.  People pay thousands of dollars so that they’re no longer fat.  What do I need to pay so that my heart is no longer hardened against the poor?