Square Root's Advent Calendar

Advent calendar that looks like a 2D Christmas tree with 24 pockets under it. Image source.

So my little son is preschool-age now. He's old enough to actually have whole conversations, and so I decided I should do some more Christmas traditions with him now. He's old enough to actually talk about and understand Christmas traditions and the Christmas story. 

So I bought this Advent calendar which has 24 empty pockets, and I printed off bible verses, and I bought a little puzzle and put a few pieces in each pocket. The bible verses are from here: Bible Verse Advent Countdown for Kids – FREE Printable! It has 24 little cards, with extremely simplified bible verses that tell the story of Jesus' birth. And the puzzle is a Nativity scene.

Super excited for this Advent calendar! Every day my son can open the next pocket and we'll read the bible verse and he can add more pieces to the puzzle.

So that's my plan- but you know how little kids are... they may or may not go along with the plan. They care 0% about how much effort you put into it or how important it is to you.

Anyway, yesterday we opened pocket #1. Square Root was very interested in the puzzle pieces (there were 3 pieces the first day). While he was trying to put them together, I read him the bible verse: "God sent the angel Gabriel to a girl named Mary," and then asked him, "Do you remember who Mary is?" but he totally ignored me, and then the puzzle pieces reminded him that he has a dinosaur puzzle, so he asked me to get it for him. 

So that's how that's going.

Anyway, I'm curious about how much he'll understand about the Christmas story, and what he'll think about it. He has a few books about baby Jesus, and he has a toy nativity set, so he's at least vaguely familiar with the characters in the story. I plan to blog about this again later, to let you all know Square Root's thoughts on it. (Edit: here's the update.)

That's all~ Very excited for Advent~

 

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Related:

Taking My Kid To Church (Blog Series)

Taking My Kid To Church: God Loves My Son

Not Sure I Want My Kid Reading the Bible

I Didn't Know I Had a Culture Until I Lost It

PBJ sandwich. Image source.

"6 Years Later": A blog series reflecting on the fact that I, a white American, moved to China and have been living here for the past 6 years

Part 1: I Didn't Know I Had a Culture Until I Lost It
Part 2: On Immigration and Double Standards
Part 3: Because of an Idea
Part 4: Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China

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Living in China long-term has taught me so much about what culture is. I never could have learned this if I had stayed in the US. I've learned about Chinese culture, yes, but I've learned even more about my own culture. Specifically, the fact that I have one.

As a white American growing up in the suburbs in the northern US, I never thought about culture. Culture was when people in other countries ate weird food and celebrated weird holidays. That's all.

Culture? No, I don't have a culture, I just do normal things, things that everyone does. Eat a bowl of cereal and milk every morning, make a sandwich for lunch.

Just a regular dinner. With a cup of ice water. A fork, spoon, and knife- I don't know the technical correct way to make a place setting, but there are etiquette experts who do. And it's good manners to put your napkin in your lap. Pasta, meat, and a side of vegetables. Salt and pepper on the table. Dinner rolls with butter. Lunchmeat sliced right in front of you at the deli counter, so many varieties of sliced bread, so many different kinds of cheese. So many varieties of pasta. Buying a dozen eggs in a styrofoam carton, and a gallon of milk. Oh, and there's chocolate milk too. Pop-tarts. Raspberries. Bagels. Baking birthday cakes and decorating them myself. (And of course, licking the batter from the bottom of the bowl.) And you can eat cake and ice cream together. Granola bars. Chocolate chips. Pancakes with syrup.

Culture? No, I wouldn't call it culture. As kids we just watched normal kid movies, about believing in yourself, about following your dreams rather than being constrained by your parents' expectations. We played duck-duck-goose and HORSE. Let a slinky walk down the stairs. At birthday parties, we played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. Parents put kids' artwork up on the fridge. Swimming pool and swingset in the backyard. Fighting with your siblings. Planting sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds outside and watching as the plants grow. And we were so excited when we stayed at a hotel that had a waffle maker.

School bus. Pledge of allegiance. Spelling bee. Kids getting their family to order chocolates or whatever as part of a school fundraiser. PBJ sandwiches. Middle school band concerts. Science fairs. Reading Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and Langston Hughes and Robert Frost and Mark Twain. Prom and homecoming king and queen. High school football and cheerleaders and marching band. AP classes and the SAT. You know, just all those normal things that every teenager thinks about. Yearbooks. Class rings. Senior pictures. College admissions essays. Going down to the DMV after school on your 16th birthday to get your learner's permit, then taking drivers' ed and getting your license around age 17. Some kids' parents even bought them a new car.

Culture? That's not culture. It's just Superbowl parties and people who are only watching for the commercials. Just snow days and sledding and owning a variety of gloves and mittens. Shoveling the driveway. Painting Easter eggs. Easter baskets and the Easter bunny. Filing income tax. Spring break. Going to the garden store and buying a whole bunch of flowers for the front yard. Just summer camp and s'mores and canoeing and scavenger hunts in the woods. Wearing flip flops everywhere you go. Picnics. Barbecues, grilling hamburgers and hot dogs and sausages. Corn on the cob with butter. Just Halloween costumes and trick-or-treating and haunted hayrides. Raking all the leaves into a pile and jumping in it. Just Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie. Black Friday shopping and going to the Christmas tree farm. Candy canes and elementary school kids making their own ornaments. Stockings hung over the fireplace. Rolling out Christmas cookies, cutting with cookie cutters, baking them in the oven. Kids can meet Santa at the mall. Christmas lists, Secret Santa, white elephant. Drive around the neighborhood to look at everyone's Christmas lights. I don't have a culture, I just do all these normal things that everyone does. Things like Christmas shopping and wrapping gifts and putting them under the tree and waiting for Christmas morning. Leaving cookies for Santa. New Years resolutions. And just about every holiday has chocolates for it.

Drive thru. Pizza party. Road trip. Oven mitts and measuring spoons and meat thermometers. Swimming lessons. Ordering drinks first at a restaurant, and dessert last. Watch out for deer crossing the road. Public bathrooms have toilet paper and soap. Board games- pictionary, monopoly, scrabble, jenga. Ice cream truck. Dishwasher. Clothes dryer. Toaster. Petting zoo. Writing a check. Thank-you notes. Police have guns. Shoe sizing is different for men and women. Mowing the lawn. Joint bank accounts. Rolling the trash out to the curb for garbage day once a week. Jury duty. Fahrenheit. Debates about "is it called 'soda' or 'pop'?" Hunting. Pool noodles. Country music. Most families have 2 cars. Sending birthday cards. Tipping. Two political parties.

You should go to the dentist several times a year. You should tell your family "I love you." Eat chicken soup when you're sick. Say "bless you" when someone sneezes. You pay more than the number on the price tag because you have to add sales tax.

What if I told you EVERY SINGLE THING on this list is not part of Chinese culture? Or, rather, some of the ones related to cold weather and not living in a city might apply to some areas in China, but not areas where I have been. (I live in Shanghai now, which is in southern China.) Or perhaps Chinese people my age who watch American movies have seen some of them, but that doesn't necessarily mean they really *get* them. For every single one of these things, I expect that the average Chinese person I meet isn't familiar with the concept at all and I would have to explain the entire thing, and they still wouldn't *get* it because they don't have the lived experience of it.

When I moved to China in 2013, I knew it meant I would be experiencing a new culture and I would have to learn a lot of new things. But I didn't really understand what I would be losing- how I was leaving my own culture behind. I thought of my own experiences as "normal", like a neutral baseline that I would be adding new Chinese things on top of. My own culture felt so normal that I didn't even know it was there, and so I didn't realize that moving to China meant I'd be living among people who just didn't know any of this stuff.

Sure, of course I knew there were lots of American traditions that Chinese people didn't share. Of course I knew I'd be telling them "we hang up stockings at Christmas!" and wouldn't it be so fun and interesting to teach them about it. But it's so much deeper than that. It's so many things, so many little things that run through every aspect of my life, and I constantly live with the weight of how much I miss my culture.

Sometimes it hurts more than others.

Sometimes I really want a donut.

And it's not just that I miss it. It's living among people who don't miss it and don't know what's wrong.

And some of these cultural things I don't even like, but all of them have affected me and made me the person I am. So it's not just that I miss them- it's that most of the people in my life don't understand. Can't understand. Sure, I can explain what some American concept is, but not what it means. That's something that can't be communicated with words; you only understand if you've experienced it. How can I explain the emptiness I feel when I don't have turkey on Thanksgiving, when I don't actually like turkey that much anyway? How can they understand that even if we search far and wide in Shanghai and cobble together some approximation of the thing I miss, it's Just Not The Same? How can I explain how I feel when I see some superficial commercialized attempt at copying some American tradition, and Chinese people treat it like it's the real thing and say "China is becoming so westernized" and I feel empty and I miss my home so much more? Why do I always have to do the work of explaining these deeply-felt cultural touchstones to people? It's exhausting. I wish they just *got* it.

I know that, compared with other immigrants, I'm privileged. I chose to leave my country. I wasn't forced to. I have the option to go back. So I'm lucky in that sense. I know that, compared with other immigrants, being American and English-speaking and white puts me in a relatively good position.

But this is hard. Living as an immigrant is hard. It's really good, but I lost so much, I gave up my own culture in ways I wasn't prepared for. It's what I want, I like living here, I don't want to go back yet, but wow it still hurts.

I know what culture is now, in ways I never did before. Because I never really I knew I had a culture. My white, American, suburban, northern-US life just felt "normal" to me- so normal that I thought everyone would automatically understand and I would never have to explain it. That's not true; it turns out I do have a culture, and I've lost it now. I've lost things I didn't even know I could lose.

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Next: On Immigration and Double Standards

Related:
I Didn't Count the Cost Before I Moved To China

Happy Year of the Pig!

A red image of a pig, in the style of Chinese paper cutting, with the text "猪 2019 Year of the Pig." Image source.

Happy Chinese New Year! This year, February 4 is New Year's Eve and February 5 is the first day of the new year.

2019 is the Year of the Pig~

So happy new year everyone! Wishing you happiness in the Year of the Pig! 新年快乐！猪年快乐！

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Related:
This post I wrote in 2014, which gives an overview of Chinese New Year traditions: Happy (Chinese) New Year!

Christmas Music Round-Up

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy it's time for my annual "Christmas Music Round-Up" post, in which I post more-or-less the same songs every year because I'm a creature of habit.

So anyway. Here are my favorite Christmas songs:

"Joy to the World" (Whitney Houston)



"Gloria" (Michael W. Smith)



"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (Casting Crowns)



"Glory to God in the Highest" (Soul Children)



"Let There Be Light" (Point of Grace)



"Emmanuel" (Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant)



"Mary Did You Know" (Pentatonix)



Merry Christmas everyone and happy holidays~ What are your favorite holiday songs?

Happy Year of the Dog!

Red silhouette of a dog, with the text "2018 the Year of the Dog". Image source.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! This year, February 15 is the night that we all stay up late to ring in the new year.

2018 is the year of the dog, so go pet all the dogs in your life and tell them they are good dogs.

新年快乐！

On Telling My Chinese Husband What I Want For Christmas

A bunch of wrapped gifts under a Christmas tree. Image source.

This year I wasn't able to go back to the US for Christmas, so Hendrix (my husband) and I had to figure out how to do Christmas ourselves. I got out my little pathetic 2-foot-tall artificial Christmas tree that I bought on taobao for like 20 rmb (that's about $3), and my Nativity set that I brought from the US even though it's in this big bulky box. Like, there's a whole stable included with it. Really too big to be stuffing into one's luggage to take to the other side of the world (but I did it!). I bought wrapping paper and ribbons (on taobao again) and I told Hendrix we're going to wrap things for each other and put them under the tree. Even though we both already knew what we were getting from each other.

Additionally, my plan was that Hendrix and I would buy gifts on Amazon to send to my family in the US, and my family would tell me what gifts they want to get for Hendrix, and I buy them here and wrap them for him, and he gets the ones for me from my family and wraps them for me.

I told Hendrix all of this. I told him about how important it is for me to unwrap something on Christmas morning. Even though he already said he was buying a vacation for us as a Christmas gift, he should still get me something I can unwrap.

By December 20, I had already wrapped a few things for him and put them under the tree, but there were no gifts for me yet. And like, I don't want to complain too much, I knew that he had been busy with work so that's why he hadn't wrapped anything yet, I knew that he knew it was really important to me. But I was getting worried that there wouldn't be gifts for me on Christmas, and I told him that. Trying my best to tell him in a nice way that wouldn't stress him out.

Anyway, my husband is great and he totally got everything together the weekend before Christmas (December 23-24). He communicated with my family to find out what they wanted to buy for me, then he bought all the gifts, and wrapped them, and even did some fancy stuff with the ribbons. (And I did the same for him, except my ribbon techniques are less advanced.) And on Christmas morning, before we went to work, we skyped with my family and unwrapped all our stuff. So everything went well, even though obviously I was really homesick too.

The reason I'm writing about this is it's a story about marriage, cultural differences, and communicating clearly about what I want. Hendrix is Chinese and has lived in China his whole life. Before we started living together, he had never had a Christmas tree before. Before I brought him to the US to meet my family a few years ago, he had never received a Christmas gift before. There are so many Christmas traditions that are really really important to me, and Hendrix never knew about them before. So I had to communicate about what I wanted. I had to tell him clearly that I expected him to wrap gifts for me, to not let me know what they were, and put them under the Christmas tree. Preferably, wrapped gifts start appearing in early December and then accumulate until Christmas. And that he was responsible for writing a list of what he wanted so the rest of us would have ideas about what to get him. AND that if he gets something for one of my family members that's on their list, he has to communicate with the rest of the family members to make sure none of them already got them the exact same thing.

Like, basic stuff Americans would take for granted about how Christmas gift-giving works, but it's not part of Hendrix's culture, so I had to very explicitly tell him what he needed to do.

It kind of feels weird, saying "there aren't enough gifts for me" out loud. Sounds like I'm a kid in the beginning of a Christmas movie, who hasn't learned their lesson about how giving is better than receiving. And as an ex-evangelical, I am a little hesitant to say so clearly "I want this." Isn't that selfish and materialistic? I learned in church that I should just try to be content, not complain, not have desires.

And if I were still evangelical, I'd probably feel like I should never say the words "you need to get me Christmas presents" out loud to anyone under any circumstances. Probably I would resort to extreme hinting- "hey honey did you make a Christmas list yet? here is mine" and that sort of thing. To actually explicitly say what I want would be "selfish", right?

If that's the only lens you have for interpreting my desire for gifts, you would totally miss the fact that it actually isn't about "selfishness" at all. It's about family traditions and nostalgia and being homesick when I'm thousands of miles from my culture, in a country that doesn't *get* Christmas. I didn't ask for expensive stuff for Christmas- I wanted a hairbrush and a notebook and some things like that. It's not about the stuff. It's about the tradition of unwrapping presents on Christmas morning. That's important to me, and that matters.

Back when I was a "good Christian", I would have felt like it was wrong to have things that matter to me. I'm supposed to be "content in any and every situation." God is all I need, and if I feel unhappy about something I don't have, that means I'm "making it an idol." In this ideology, people aren't even able to understand their own desires, and therefore unable to communicate about them. What if I hadn't told Hendrix how important it was for me to unwrap gifts on Christmas morning, and then I ended up sad or mad at him? See, you avoid that problem by communicating clearly about your needs and desires. But that kind of communication isn't really possible when you're not allowed to have desires beyond "God is all I need."

Hendrix cares about me a lot, and even though he doesn't really understand why all these Christmas traditions are important, he knows they matter to me, so he plays along. And I try my best to do the same for him for Chinese traditions. That's what you do when you're married.

And really, every married couple has to go through this process of figuring out how to do their holiday traditions together (for whatever major holiday[s] they celebrate, doesn't have to be Christmas). For Hendrix and I, it's an extreme example, because it's so obvious that we're from different cultures and he doesn't have any Christmas traditions at all- but really every couple needs to communicate about this kind of thing, right? Even if they come from the same background, there will be slight differences in their families' traditions. Wouldn't it be a shock to discover you had married someone who- GASP!- opens all their gifts on Christmas Eve? You have to communicate about what's important to each of you, and figure out how to put all those important elements together to make your own set of holiday traditions.

Anyway, my point is, being married means I have to communicate about what I want. If I weren't willing to say the words "you should wrap Christmas presents for me" directly, then I'd be unhappy on Christmas, and Hendrix, who is really trying his best even though it's not part of his culture, would have no idea why.

Christmas Music Round-Up

Hi everyone! I love Christmas music. I'm that person playing Christmas songs the day after Thanksgiving. ^_^

So here's my annual post of my favorite Christmas songs. Leave a comment with your favorite Christmas/holiday songs too~

"Let There Be Light" Point of Grace



"Joy to the World" Whitney Houston



"Gloria" Michael W. Smith



"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" Casting Crowns



"Happy Xmas [War is Over]" John Lennon



"All I Want For Christmas Is You" Mariah Carey



"Emmanuel" Michael W. Smith



"O Holy Night" Celtic Woman



And my new favorite version of "Mary Did You Know":

🎼 🎤 Mary freaking knew, that her baby boy would one day rule the nations
Mary freaking knew, that her baby boy was Lord of all creation.
Yes she knew! Read Luke 1, you fool, she sang about it then
It helps, if when you're reading, you listen to
the
WOMENNNNNNNN!

— Megan Westra (@mwestramke) 2017年11月27日

I Didn't Count the Cost Before I Moved To China

A group of tourists at the Great Wall of China. Image source.

Previous post: On Zebedee's Sons and Counting the Cost

I've been living in China for over 4 years now. And I'm starting to feel, more and more, the cost. How much I gave up when I chose to come live here.

It's hard, harder than I expected, and I'm realizing I didn't count the cost. Sure, I knew I was going to the other side of the world, long-term, where I'll have to learn how to live in a different culture and do everything in a different language, but I didn't know the full ramifications of what that would look like, in a practical sense.

Every year on my birthday, my family doesn't send gifts because we have our doubts about how reliable the mail system is. Instead, they say, "We'll do your birthday next time you're back in the US." And I don't make a cake for myself- because Hendrix doesn't want any, so there's no one to eat it with. (A lot of Chinese people say completely average desserts [from an American perspective] are "too sweet" and won't eat them.) Usually I go and buy one fancy piece of cake for myself. This year I asked Hendrix to buy me two pieces of cake- because a birthday cake is supposed to be something that you're still eating for the next couple days, not just one piece on your birthday. And he did, because he's great, but I feel so tired of explaining traditions that I used to just take for granted.

And when my family members in the US have a birthday, I get on Amazon and get something sent to them. Every time. And I text them to say happy birthday, because if I'm going to call there would first have to be a whole text conversation where we figure out what time we're both available to skype. With a 12-hour time difference.

No turkey for Thanksgiving here. Well, there are international grocery stores selling turkey, but it's super-expensive, and really the point of Thanksgiving is to be with family- it's not like I could put in a lot of effort finding all the correct ingredients for a Thanksgiving dinner and then it would be real Thanksgiving. It would be me worrying about getting everything right, and Hendrix trying to go along with it and be supportive but not really getting it.

For Christmas, most years I've been able to be back in the US for Christmas. But not always. And only for 1 or 2 weeks, not the whole Christmas season. I can't be there for the gradual buildup of Christmas spirit, starting with hyped-up Black Friday sales. (Which, when I lived in the US, I never went shopping on Black Friday anyway, but I still miss the whole culture surrounding it.) Yeah, Starbucks in China has their holiday-themed cups, but that just makes me miss it more. Christmas here is mostly about malls putting up decorations and having sales, using it as an opportunity to make money, rather than something the average person cares about.

I forgot Labor Day was a thing. Totally forgot. Until I saw people talking about it on twitter, the day of. I forgot Columbus Day was a thing, until I saw people talking about it on twitter. I forgot Memorial Day was a thing. I forgot Martin Luther King Day was a thing.

And missing out on these American holidays is fine if we're just talking about one time, but it's not one time, it's every single one, for years on end. I've missed four Thanksgivings in a row, and I'll keep missing Thanksgivings for the foreseeable future.

Football season. I used to watch football almost every weekend during football season, back when I lived in the US. But here, I don't have anyone to watch it with. And get this- people here think soccer is called football. It's just total linguistic chaos (and I blame the British). It's so nice when I'm back in the US and someone says the word "football" and I can be confident they're talking about football, not soccer. That's such a good feeling. And since I moved to China in 2013, I've typically only been able to watch 1 regular season game per year when I'm home for Christmas, and then when it's Superbowl Sunday I get up early (because in China it's Monday) and find a website I can stream it from. Except this year. This year I couldn't watch it at all, and that made me more homesick than ever.

I've missed weddings. Over the past few years, two different American friends have contacted me to ask if I'm still in China and if I can come to their weddings. And I have to tell them no there's just no way I can be on that continent that day. And surely there have been other friends getting married who wanted to invite me but didn't because they knew I wouldn't be able to come. If I had attended their wedding, I would have seen a bunch of friends that I haven't seen in years. But I can't.

Also missed a high school reunion. And there have been conferences and other events in the US that I would have liked to go to, but I can't. And new books that I want to read but they're not available to buy here- I have to wait til I'm in the US.

One of my grandparents died and I couldn't go to the funeral. It just wasn't possible to get enough time off work to fly all the way there and all the way back.

And in 2013 when I moved here, my parents' dog was already old, and every time I was back in the US I thought "I won't be back here for another 6 months or a year, this might be the last time I see our dog." I had to accept that. And then last year the dog died.

It's hard being so far away from my family, only seeing them twice a year. Hard to keep up with what's going on in their lives, because there's a 12-hour time difference so it takes a bunch of effort to even agree on a time we can skype. Sometimes I'm talking to my parents, and then I'm happily surprised to see my sister is there with them, because she had a day off work for some US holiday I completely forgot about. Completely forgot.

Food here is also different. The milk in China is more creamy and a little bit weird. In the US I used to drink milk so much- it was my favorite food, except it wouldn't even have occurred to me to call it my favorite food because drinking a ton of milk every day is so normal and obvious it's not even worth mentioning, right? (Yeah not in every culture.) But here in China I don't drink milk very much. It's quite sad.

Also, do you know how hard I've tried to find decent sliced bread in China? Like, sandwiches aren't part of the normal Chinese diet, so bread isn't seen as a staple food (rice and noodles are). You can't buy just a "regular" loaf of bread here. First of all, the loaves of bread will only have like 6 slices- like what is that? And a lot of times they have odd flavors, like they're sweet, or egg flavored, or have raisins. I have found bread that I deemed good enough for sandwiches, but I had to search a long time for it- and I don't even buy it any more, it's not worth the trouble, and it gets moldy fast in the Shanghai heat.

I bring my own pop-tarts from the US, because I can't buy them here. I order Cheerios online. There aren't any bagels here. And do you know how expensive cheese is?

And you know what may be even harder than the fact that I can't get all the food I like is the fact that Chinese people don't understand. Sometimes somebody asks me about what's hard about living in China, and I start talking about bread, and they're like "but just go to a bakery, we have a lot of bakeries." Yeah, none of that bread is "normal" from my American perspective (though some of it is very tasty and good for snacks). And when they continue to be confused, Hendrix tries to explain "she has a lot of requirements for bread."

Things have been happening in the US in the past few years, and all I can do is read about them on the internet. The politics and culture of the US has changed. The Black Lives Matter movement gained national attention after Mike Brown was killed in 2014. And the whole 2016 election- the Republican party nominated a clown who spent the whole campaign making increasingly shocking and hateful statements that showed he was in no way fit to be president, and somehow a ton of people voted for him. After the election, I didn't see another American until several days later- finally there was someone who understood my pain, our American pain, and we could be sad together. What's going on over there? What's happened to my country? All I can do is check the news from the other side of the world. I wish I could do more.

Also, y'all had an eclipse over there and I totally missed it.

And there's no Pokemon GO in China. I missed that whole fad.

(And maybe I would have married a white American boy if I had stayed in the US. Should I add that to the list of things I gave up when I moved to China? It's just speculation though- who knows if it actually would have happened? And I love my husband and wouldn't want to trade him for anyone else, but there are some aspects of life that would be easier if we came from the same cultural background.)

I didn't know how hard it would be to be so far from my family and my people and my culture. Sure, I knew that I was moving to the other side of the world and would only be able to go back once or twice a year, but I didn't know how it would actually feel to go to work on Thanksgiving and have no one who understands what we're "supposed" to do on that holiday.

Back then, before I came to China, I was immersed in radical Christian missions ideology. I didn't really see myself as "giving up" something, because I believed God loves everybody in the world and it's just by chance that I was born as an American with money. I didn't see my heritage and my American life as really belonging to me or as something I deserved. It all belongs to God, right? And of all the places in the world I could live, why do people expect that I would live in the US among people who share my culture? How narrow and arbitrary- right?

It all seemed so exciting and I didn't count the cost.

Really, there was no way I could have counted the cost. You can't know how it feels to miss four Thanksgivings until you've actually experienced it. I'm not saying it was a bad idea or I shouldn't have done it. I'm glad I have the experience of speaking a second language and living as a minority, and I'm really proud of myself for what I've accomplished. I'm working as an engineer and I have to speak Chinese every day at work, and it's so cool that I'm able to do that. (Also I now have a much better understanding about things like language, translation, and cultural differences, which I couldn't have gotten any other way.)

But wow, the cost. I'm on track to spend most of my 20's in China. 4 years so far- that's about 15% of my life.

Back then it seemed so easy- go, give up everything, be a missionary. And even though I didn't come to China as a missionary, my decision was heavily influenced by that ideology.

Well, sort of. More than anything else, though, it was my overwhelming desire to learn and experience a different culture and language, and take on the challenge and see if I could do it. It was the only way I could make sense of what I'd seen on my first trip to China- a several-week mission trip where I discovered that other worlds exist which are totally unlike anything I could ever imagine. Where people drink hot water and hot milk and think I'm the weird one for wanting them cold. I couldn't experience that and then just go back to my normal life.

And yeah, it was a good decision, and it was what I needed to do. But wow, the cost. I didn't count the cost. I didn't know it would be this hard. I didn't know how much I would miss the US.

Happy Year of the Chicken!

The number 2017 styled to look like a chicken. Image text: "Chinese New Year, The Year of Chicken." Image source.

Last night was the big Chinese New Year celebration, and today is the first day of the new year. This is the biggest holiday in China. 2017 is 鸡年 (jī nián), the Year of the Chicken. For some reason, in all the English news stories I've seen about it, they translate it as "Year of the Rooster," which is SEXIST AS HELL. That translation erases half the 鸡 (jī) population. #YesAllHens and all that.

Back in 2014 I wrote a post that gave an overview of Chinese New Year traditions, so in this post I'll just talk about a few things unique to this year. First of all, Chinese culture loves puns, so obviously we need to talk about what chicken-related puns are being made during this year's celebration. 鸡 (jī), which means "chicken", sounds like 吉 (jí) which means "lucky", so that's pretty much the basis of this year's puns. So if you happen to meet someone who speaks Mandarin, you can tell them "鸡年大吉  [jī nián dà jí]" ("Wishing you a very lucky Year of the Chicken"). (Hendrix told me another one, "鸡年大吉吧 [jī nián dà jí ba]" which, again, means "wishing you a very lucky Year of the Chicken", but also sort of sounds like "wishing you a big cock in the Year of the Chicken." This is more of a joke that people are sharing on social media, not something you would actually say to someone...)

Last night, we all watched "春晚 [chūnwǎn]" which is the Chinese equivalent of "New Year's Rockin' Eve." (If you're interested, you can go watch the whole thing on the 春晚 youtube channel. It's an amazing showcase of so many diverse cultures within China.) I've picked out a few of the performances I really liked, to show to you all:

I like this one, because have you ever seen so many people dressed as dancing chickens?



Here's a bunch of dancers playing with fire:



Here's more fire:



This one is a good example of just the sheer amount of stuff going on in so many of these performances. There's dancers- several different groups of dancers, with incredibly colorful costumes, dancers hanging from the ceiling, dancers raising a red sheet up and down like water. So much stuff going on.



Here's one from 哈尔滨 Harbin, a city which is famous for building a bunch of buildings entirely out of ice annually:



A second one from Harbin. All the ice dancers seem to  be straight out of a Tron movie? And there is a MIND-BLOWING part where some of them are skating with skates that are on stilts maybe 1-2 feet tall.



This one shows a whole bunch of Chinese New Year traditions, but mostly it's worth watching for the BABY PANDAS:



Here's Jackie Chan singing, along with a bunch of ... extras from an 80's workout video?



Here's two gymnasts competing to see who can bend over completely backwards and pick up the most roses in one minute:



Happy Year of the Chicken, everyone!

Christmas Music Round-Up

Merry Christmas everyone! Here are my 5 favorite Christmas songs this year:

"Let There Be Light" (Point of Grace)



"Emmanuel" (Michael W. Smith)



"Mary Did You Know?" (Pentatonix)



"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (Casting Crowns)



"Joy to the World" (Whitney Houston)



What are your favorite Christmas songs?

On "Being Thankful"

A hand turkey. Image source.

A strange thing happens whenever I teach about Thanksgiving in China.

I ask the students to discuss this question: "What are you thankful for?" After letting them talk among themselves (in English, this is in the context of an ESL class), I do a little bit of error correction. Because most of them didn't catch that being thankful for something has a different meaning than being thankful to someone.

"I am thankful for..." and then you list the good things in your life. Your job, family, home, etc. "I am thankful to..." means you want to say "thank you" to someone. Your parents, your friends, God, etc. (Somewhat confusingly, these can also go on the "thankful for" list.)

Anyway, in the end, the students come away with this message: the meaning of Thanksgiving Day is to go thank people for everything they've done for us. And indeed, this week on wechat (Chinese social media app) I saw a post in Chinese which said basically "Today is Thanksgiving in western countries. Thank you to our parents, for giving us life. Thank you to our teachers, for giving us knowledge. Thank you to our friends, for giving us friendship." and on and on and on, all the people we should thank. It was really beautiful and poetic, in my opinion.

The problem is, that's not the meaning of Thanksgiving at all. Or, at least, it's so completely different from the way I've always understood Thanksgiving.

I remember in school, we used to have to write an answer to the question "What are you thankful for?" (Sometimes this answer was in the form of a hand turkey, obviously.) And my family has a tradition where we go around the dinner table and each person says what they're thankful for. But you can't repeat what someone else said. (And then sometimes it became a game, and we just kept going and going and you're out if you can't think of anything when it's your turn. Until someone says "I'm thankful for quantum tunneling" and that prompts everyone else to quit the game because it's been completely overrun by nerdiness. Yeah that's how we roll.)

Yeah, we always talked about what we were thankful for. But did we ever think about the "thankful to" part? Did we ever think about who we were thanking?

Aha! Yes, we did! The correct answer is God.

Except, not really. The whole "it's about being thankful to God" thing is more about a culture war than about actually thanking someone. It's about Christians getting all upset about how Thanksgiving is a Christian holiday, and isn't it terrible how our culture has lost sight of that, and kids in public school are writing "I am thankful for" but the lesson never mentions the name of God and isn't that the most horrible thing, it robs Thanksgiving of all its meaning, etc etc etc.

Thanksgiving, as I learned it, was about me having a vague feeling of thankfulness. Vaguely in the general direction of God. It's about me being happy about the things in my life. It's about "being thankful." It's NOT about actually thanking anyone. Yeah, they say it's about thanking God, but does anyone actually talk about what that means? Do we believe these good things were given to us personally by God? Or just because God made a world full of good things and the potential for happiness? Did God cause those good things only in a general sense, or actually with you personally in mind? And what about the bad things in our lives, or in the world- did God cause those too?

No, the average Christian (in US evangelical culture, at least) doesn't think about those questions. "Thanking God" is just a vague label that gets applied to positive things in one's life. Does it actually mean anything?

So I'm always a little bit shocked when I teach Chinese students about Thanksgiving, and they decide they're going to actually go out and thank someone. But I never tell them "no that's not what Thanksgiving is about" because, geez, that SHOULD BE what Thanksgiving is about.

(And if you're wondering about whether I totally omit the part where "Thanksgiving is a Christian holiday" in my lessons: I tell them the story about the pilgrims, and how the pilgrims were Christians and they thanked God. I tell them that Thanksgiving is about being thankful, and so for people who are religious, they would thank God. But most Chinese people aren't that religious, so I don't present it like "this is the entire point of Thanksgiving and if you're not a Christian then this holiday has no meaning for you." That would be ridiculous. And mean. And also not an accurate representation of the place that Thanksgiving holds in American culture- which is what I'm supposed to be teaching.)

It just shows how selfish and individualistic American culture (or American Christian culture) is, that we've created a holiday all about thanks, and yet it never occurs to us to actually thank someone. It's all about you and thinking about your own life. It's about "being thankful"- just a warm feeling, but not related to relationships between people or anything like that.

My Chinese students got it right though. Go actually thank someone this Thanksgiving.

Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

Dragon boat racing. Image source.

Hi everyone, today is Dragon Boat Festival (端午节 duān wǔ jié) in China! This year it falls on June 20, but it's based on the lunar calendar so it's on different days (around the summer solstice) every year.

On this day, we eat 粽子 (zòng zi) and have dragon boat races. Now, what is a 粽子 (zòng zi), you ask? Behold, some pictures:

Image source.

In the above picture, you can see how the 粽子 (zòng zi) have a tetrahedral shape, and they are wrapped in leaves to be steamed or boiled.

Image source.

This picture shows what's inside the 粽子 (zòng zi). Mostly rice, with some meat or maybe red beans or other flavors added.

The legend behind Dragon Boat Festival is as follows (source: wikipedia):

The story best known in modern China holds that the festival commemorates the death of the poet and minister Qu Yuan [屈原 qū yuán](c. 340–278 BC) of the ancient state of Chu during the Warring States period of the Zhou Dynasty. A cadet member of the Chu royal house, Qu served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was banished for opposing the alliance and even accused of treason. During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry. Twenty-eight years later, Qin captured Ying, the Chu capital. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River.

It is said that the local people, who admired him, raced out in their boats to save him or at least retrieve his body. This is said to have been the origin of dragon boat races. When his body could not be found, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of Qu Yuan's body. This is said to be the origin of zongzi.

I didn't race dragon boats or anything today- instead I went to see the new Jurassic World movie (侏罗纪世界 zhū luó jì shì jiè). Because, dragons. I guess?

Here's the cardboard movie ad they had at the theatre.

The movie was in English with Chinese subtitles. It still blows my mind how willing Chinese people are to go see movies in English and then read the subtitles. For Americans, if you have to read a movie, it's not really entertainment, it's more like "let's behold this cultural/historical work of art," right? But American movies are super-popular in China, so, that's the way it is.

My opinion about Jurassic World: Well I wasn't even sure if I wanted to see it or not, because I don't like movies that have violence- and you know this movie is going to have dinosaurs breaking out of their cages and eating people. But I really love dinosaurs, so I figured I should see the movie- if people in mainstream culture are going to be talking about this movie and dinosaurs, I don't want to miss out.

It was an exciting movie, but too violent for me. I liked the parts with the science and genetic research though. And my FAVORITE scene was the part of the theme park where children could ride little triceratops. So cute!!! If they could have just made a movie all about that, I would be totally on board.

And one more photo I took at the movie theatre:

Yeah... 小心地滑 (xiǎo xīn dì huá) should be translated "caution, wet floor" instead of "carefully slide." But whatever.

Anyway, hope you all have a great Dragon Boat Festival! 端午节快乐！

The Best Pi Day of All

Guys guys guys! At the time of posting, it is 3/14/15 9:26 (according to Beijing time). That's 7 decimal places of precision for pi, one of the most freakin' awesome numbers out there.

For those of us who are huge math nerds, this is a very exciting day! March 14 is cool enough, but for 2015, Pi Day is extra special. Not just 3/14, it's 3/14/15.

I made a bunch of small pies to celebrate:

I used this recipe.

Happy Pi Day everyone! If you see any math nerds today, make sure to tell them 3.141592... etc etc etc.

Image source.

Happy Year of the Sheep/Goat!

Image souce.

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! It is now officially the year of the sheep. (Or goat. More on this later.) Last night (February 18) was the big night. China only has one timezone, even though it’s the size of like four timezones- so the whole country rang in the new year at the same moment.

This year, 2015, is the year of the 羊[yáng]. Now, what kind of animal is a 羊[yáng]? Sometimes you’ll see it translated as “year of the sheep”, sometimes it’s “year of the goat”, and sometimes, perhaps even less accurately, “year of the ram.”

Basically 羊[yáng] is a type of animal which includes sheep and goats. All of them are 羊[yáng]. 

See the little horns on top? Like a sheep or goat, right? (Though in this image, they're way curlier than the way we normally write it.) Image source.

Wait, so Chinese doesn’t have different words for “sheep” and “goat”?

No no no no, that’s not what I said. “Sheep” is 绵羊 [mián yáng], “goat” is 山羊 [shān yáng]. See, they are different types of 羊[yáng]. If you really want to specify if you’re talking about sheep or goats, you can use those words. But seriously, when you tell a story about something a sheep did, is it really that important that it was specifically a sheep, rather than a goat? Yeah, usually not very important. So just say 羊[yáng].

For more clarification on what a 羊[yáng] is, we can try an image search. Here are the results:

Baidu image search for 羊.

Yeah, some are sheep, some are goats.

However, in my opinion, most of the Chinese New Year decorations this year look more like goats than sheep. Like this stuffed animal hanging up in the mall:

(But I also saw some toy llamas in a display. Apparently they are also a kind of羊[yáng], or at least they have 羊[yáng] in their name. I don’t know what to tell you.)

Anyway, for more information about Chinese New Year, read my post from last year, the year of the horse. Right now, however, the most pressing question is: what kind of puns can we make about 羊[yáng]? Chinese culture loves puns.

This year the big pun is 三羊开泰 [sān yáng kāi tài]. It comes from an old saying 三阳开泰 [sān yáng kāi tài], whose pronunciation is the same, but look, we replaced the 阳[yáng] (sun) with 羊[yáng]. So clever. Seems that no one is able to give me a straight answer on what 三羊开泰 [sān yáng kāi tài] actually means, all we know is it’s about 羊[yáng] and it’s something about being prosperous. Think of it this way:

1. Get 3 sheep.

2. ????

3. Profit!

This painting helpfully illustrates the concept of 三羊开泰 [sān yáng kāi tài]. Image source.

And finally, I’ll leave you guys with some links to videos of the performances from last night’s 春晚[chūn wǎn] (the Chinese “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve”). There were songs, dances, skits, lots of fun stuff. Here are a few that don’t require you to understand any Chinese. (I'm including links to both youtube and iqiyi, a Chinese site. The Chinese site has way better video quality, but I don't know how well it will load outside of China.)

Crazy-skilled acrobats. iqiyi link. Youtube link.

Belly dancing, Russian dancing, and other styles from around the world. iqiyi link. Youtube link.

Kung fu routine which involved a lot of dancing with chairs. iqiyi link. Youtube link.

Happy new year, everyone! 新年快乐 [xīn nián kuài lè]! Best wishes for success and health in the new year! Now go eat some dumplings.

My Chinese Thanksgiving Dinner

China doesn't have Thanksgiving, but I cooked a special Thanksgiving dinner with my boyfriend anyway. Behold!

For the turkey: Actually, China doesn't have turkey. Well, I heard a rumor that there's some kind of foreign grocery store that will sell you a fully-cooked Thanksgiving turkey with a side of gravy for 800 kuai (about $130) but, yeah I'm not doing that.

So I got a chicken.

This is China, so when I opened up the packaging, I discovered the chicken still had a head and feet. (The feet were actually tucked inside the body of the chicken.)

So, content note on the next 4 images. If you don't want to see a dead chicken head, then skip them.

Yeah Chinese culture is a lot less shy about the fact that meat comes from dead animals.

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Here's a dead chicken:

My boyfriend decided to boil the chicken head and feet and give them to his cats. (But people in China totally eat chicken feet. Probably the head too.)

We followed this recipe, put a ton of butter, salt, pepper, and onion/garlic/ginger powder on it, and put in the oven.

Someday I will tell you more about ovens in China. For now, I'll just say they are SO not part of Chinese cooking, so you won't find one already installed in your apartment. You have to buy one. And it's really just a giant toaster oven. Here is mine, with a cat for scale:

Next were the sweet potatoes. I followed this recipe, and they turned out fantastic. However, the only marshmallows they had at the imported grocery store were these:

With pastel colors and slight hints of fruity flavors. Excellent. Didn't affect the taste of the sweet potato dish though.

Anyway, here are the finished sweet potatoes:

And the mashed potatoes (using this recipe):

I bought dinner rolls from the bakery section of the grocery store. They were just normal [to an American] dinner rolls, which is incredibly lucky; usually when you buy something in China that just looks like regular bread, it has an odd sweet flavor, or a secret hotdog inside, or red bean paste... it's always something.

And a pumpkin roll for dessert (this recipe):

So, to sum up*:

*your mileage may vary based on luck and what part of China you're in

Things that are used in Chinese cooking and therefore very easy to buy:

whole chicken
salt
pepper
potatoes
sweet potatoes (China has both orange and purple sweet potatoes. Purple, huh? Who knew?)
celery
milk
flour
eggs
pots/pans
oil
sugar

Things that aren't part of Chinese culture but still reasonably easy to find at a big store like Walmart or Carrefour (a chain that's similar to Walmart and comes from France):

oven
butter (couldn't find margarine though)
cream cheese
dinner rolls
cinnamon
nutmeg
baking powder
baking soda
fork

Things that I really had to look for:

measuring cups
measuring spoons
vanilla extract (paid over $10 for a little bottle, ai ya)
brown sugar
powdered sugar
marshmallows
canned pumpkin (bought it from Taobao, which is the Chinese equivalent to ebay or amazon)
electric mixer

Things that I could not find:

turkey
meat thermometer
cloves
wax paper (is this not a thing in China? I used aluminum foil instead, for baking the pumpkin roll, which was fine)

Hope you have a happy Thanksgiving! ^_^

NASA Wishes Us a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Image source.

From 腾讯新闻 (Tencent News): 美国航天局发月球照庆中国中秋节 [NASA posts a photo of the moon to wish China a happy Mid-Autumn Festival].

Today (September 8) is Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节 zhōng qiū jié). It's a Chinese holiday to celebrate the harvest and full moon. People get a day off, and get together with their families. And eat moon cakes. Which are pretty good, as long as you don't go into it thinking you're gonna be eating chocolate, because you will be highly disappointed.

Image source.

Anyway, NASA posted a photo of the moon on 微博 (Weibo, Chinese equivalent to Twitter) to wish us a happy mid-autumn festival. Thank you NASA!

And have a good Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone! There's a beautiful full moon tonight here in China.

Easter in Chinese

Image source.

Happy Easter! 复活节快乐!

This morning I got up super-early because if church is totally packed every week, well, you can imagine Easter Sunday. I put on a nice skirt with flowers because, you guys, it's Easter! (Yeah but Chinese people don't really dress up for church. Everyone else was just wearing pants and a coat. The church doesn't have decent heating so you keep your coat on.)

So I took the bus and arrived at the church an hour before the service. Wow, perfect, there's still a lot of space! Or so I thought. In reality, I had stumbled across the secret kingdom of seat-savers. Every pew had 1 person and 2 bibles and 3 purses. I guess everyone sent their friend to church an hour early to save seats.

Ridiculous.

The back half of the church had a lot of non-saved (unsaved?) seats, so I sat down. The other people in my pew had found a mysterious umbrella and hypothesized that someone may be using it to save a seat, so every time another person came by and asked, they were like "Maybe there's someone in this seat, we found this umbrella, we don't know whose it is." (in Chinese of course)

I have to say, I'm totally not a fan of giving such respect to seat-savers, especially those who may not even exist! My opinion is, if you're not here, TOO BAD. (Readers, what do you think?)

SO ANYWAY. A lot of people pray before church starts, and I looked up the hymns for today and started reading over them. (While listening to speculation over the umbrella.)

Half an hour before the service, a huge influx of people came in- including all the seat-savers. Also, one of the church staff went up front and led us in singing the songs for the day, plus some extra ones also related to Easter. We sang the Chinese versions of "Up from the grave he arose" and "Christ the Lord is risen today." Sweet!

"Up from the grave he arose"

Finally church started. A pastor announced from the front, "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life.'" That's different- usually they start church with "Brothers and sisters, peace to you."

We all stood up and sang a song about Jesus and how he's alive, and then the pastor prayed. Then we sat down and did another song. And then it was time for the Scripture reading.

The passages for today were all from Luke and John- you know, the end part where [spoiler warning] Jesus comes back to life. The reader in the front announced the references and then we all read them out loud together. Good stuff.

Then the choir sang a few songs to us. And then the pastor came to give the sermon.

First she told us to say to the person next to us, "Jesus has risen" so we did.

She said the theme of her sermon would be this question: Do people find God or does God find people? First, she talked about people looking for God- specifically, Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John.

So, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb when it was still dark, and Jesus wasn't there! She was so sad, and what did she do? What do you do when you need help? What do you do? Hmm, I heard some of you say pray. Anyway, Mary didn't know Jesus had risen. She went to get Peter and John.

Then when Peter and John came, they looked in the tomb and saw just the cloths. The bible says that John "saw and believed." What did he believe? Did he believe Jesus had risen? (Some of the congregation says yes, some say no.) No! Or why would the next verse say they didn't understand that Jesus would rise from the dead? (Uh, but actually I didn't catch the pastor's interpretation of "he saw and believed" so, I don't know.)

Peter and John left, but Mary stayed there, doing what? Crying. And why did she stay there when the others had left? (This sermon had a lot of rhetorical questions. Some Chinese sermons are like that.) Because of love! Now, is a tomb a good place or not? No. We don't like death. We don't even like the word "death"- we use other words instead. What do we say when the emperor dies? [some Chinese euphemism for death] What do we say when an old person dies? [she rattles off a bunch more Chinese euphemisms that I don't know- but English has the exact same concept.]

Okay so the point of this part of the sermon is that Mary Magdalene was looking for Jesus, but she couldn't have found him if he wasn't also looking for her. She didn't even recognize him at first. Using her eyes, what did she see? Just the surroundings. But when Jesus said, "Mary," then she knew it was him. Not using her eyes, but using her heart. 

And remember the 2 disciples walking on the road to Emmaus? They didn't recognize Jesus at first either. And when Jesus showed up again in John 21 while the disciples were fishing, and they didn't know it was him until he said to put their nets on the other side, and how many fish did they catch? 153.

And I think at this point in the sermon there was also some mentioning of people who just know a lot about Jesus- history and information and stuff- but we really need to know him with our hearts. I didn't quite catch all of that.

So anyway, we need God to find us.

And no matter if you know it or not, no matter if you feel it or not, God is with you. He is Immanuel- it means "the God who is with you."

Now let's look in Luke 24. The angel asked Mary, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?" If you look among the dead, will you ever find life? NO! [At this point the pastor gets really excited and animated.] You will NEVER find the living among the dead! And there is a path of death, and it only leads to death. And there is the path of Jesus.

We need God to find us. Remember when Lazarus died and was put in the tomb, and what did Jesus say? "Lazarus, come out!" And he came out! And God is calling your name and calling my name, saying, "Come out of there! COME OUT!" Out of death and hopelessness and some other Chinese words.

All right, so that was the sermon. There are probably some parts I'm missing but I think I've got enough to give you an idea of what Chinese Christianity is like. Like I said last week, it's not "watered-down," even though this church is okayed by the government. (But I bet there are some things the church is not free to do.)

Happy Easter! He is risen!

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See also: Palm Sunday in Chinese