Ho Ho Ho

Christmas in China...never thought I'd be starting out a Christmas card with those words :) My apologies for waiting so long between posts. A lot has been happening since early October and I guess we've just been too busy living it to take a second and write about it. So now that we're on Winter Break and have plenty of time...here goes my attempts at highlighting some of our life and adventures in China over the past few months.

Let's move backwards...we spent Christmas Eve trying to conjure up some Christmas spirit in Ningbo. The Chinese do put forth some great efforts to try and make it feel like the holidays, despite the fact that almost none of them celebrate Christmas and the Chinese New Year is still another month away. The hotel we stayed in last night had a huge Christmas tree, staff in Santa hats and "Silent Night" on repeat all night long. Of course we missed all the Christmas traditions of the U.S. and our families/friends, but hats off to the Chinese for making our holiday memorable...we had a gingerbread house, chocolate santa, cookies, hot tea and a card signed by the entire staff delivered to our room...and we had a beautiful view of the city to keep us company all night long. I guess if you think about it, it's like if American hotels were asked to decorate, prepare foods and celebrate Chinese New Year in Jan/Feb. I have a feeling we would not do half as good as the Chinese do at pretending we embody all that the festivities mean.

Earlier this month, the local government also had an "Overseas Experts Friendship Party" for all the expats in honorof the holidays. This video is of Adrienne and George whenthey were brought on stage for part of the traditional Mask ChangingPerformance. Very cool. I was also asked to do some drumming for a "hot potato" type game, there was some hand shadow art and plate spinning ceremonies to ring in the holidays :) The Chinese do know how to entertain!

The snow gods also blessed us with an unusual gift for Beilun...2 inches of white, powdery loveliness that caused school to be closed for a day! Fortunately, we were able to welcome this winter "el nino" with several friends over many, many drinks and proper celebrating. After we all called it a night, Erich and Travis snuck out to the school grounds and built this massive snow man to greet the staff/students when we returned. The guards werethoroughly entertained as they watched the guys use a cardboard box to pack the snow, find a plastic vacuum attachment for the nose, and "borrow" some ornaments from the school xmas tree for finishing touches. We will be lucky to see this much snow in Beilun again this year, so we cherished the sight and feel of "real" winter for a few days :)

Amidst the cool and sometimes rainy days of winter, we've also had some really beautiful, sunny days to explore the surrounding area. I would never have the courage to blindly ride bikes, hike, or take the bus to these places by myself...but with Erich and friends as my guides, we have uncovered some amazing spots around Beilun. We took an amazing and breath taking bike ride into the mountains one morning...riding along the lakes and bamboo forests outside of town. I snapped this photo as Erich and Tim took a break to help a local man move huge poles of bamboo down the street. This other photo is us in front of one of our favorite temples/pagodas that we've explored. It is so peaceful, quiet and has so much to see and think about there...definitely a great place to spend a few hours and relax.

We're constantly stumbling upon surprises as we walk the streets and chat with locals. Little bits of American pop culture sneak into our lives in ways that sometimes we don't realize how weird and out of place they are. Take for example this...as we meandered out of the grocery store towards our bikes awhile back, we both began to sing the words to a familiar song. "Hey Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind..." huh? Where the heck is that coming from? As we turned around, we were greeted by a lovely show of song and dance. Three Chinese girls in cheerleading uniforms adorned with pom poms were doing high kicks and "spirit fingers" on a stage in front of a small crowd. I have no clue what the purpose of the staged performance was...Selling bloomers? Chinese "So You Think You Can Dance"?...we will never know.

The world is full of mysteries and we are lucky to be uncovering so many of them here :) We miss and love you all...Merry Christmas and cheers to a peaceful New Year...