Here’s what it looks like outside right now.

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As far as I know, of the hundreds of kids at P’s school, there’s only one other foreign kid.  The other foreigner, Sumei, also happens to be an American, and by a great stroke of luck the two American laowai ended up in the same class.   As Sumei has been here since July, she speaks Chinese fluently, so in addition to being P’s  best friend, she’s also her translator at school.

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I had to give a talk last night and didn’t make it home until almost 9:00.  I realized on my bike ride home that it was the first time I had been outside the apartment at such a late hour (go ahead and laugh at those last five words, childless readers) since our arrival.  Pathetic, isn’t it?  It never occurred to me that there’s actually activity on campus at night.  Check out what I saw just around the corner from our apartment:

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I’ve mentioned before my love of mom blogs, and according to this article, I’m not alone.  My very favorite blogger, Alexa,  lives here, and though I’ve never met her or so much as commented on her blog, I idolize her.  When my friend Dina and I discovered by chance last summer that we’re both regular readers, it was like finding out we share the same best friend.

Since I’ll never be as brilliant or write as eloquently as Alexa, I decided I could at least rip off her style, so for Christmas, I made Chris order this for me:

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Well folks, that’s it.  We can’t take this China thing anymore.  It’s too hard.  We’re heading home in two days.

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I read a passage to my students today that used the term, “cream of the crop,” and  I asked them if they knew what the term meant.  One guy, whose English name is Bruce, raised his hand and said, “Yes, like Michael Jackson?”  “No,” I responded, “That’s the King of Pop.  Close, though.”

Sorry for the lack of posting.  To say this has been an overwhelming week would be an understatement.  Wee P’s ayi started yesterday seems to be a very nice person.  P starts her school tomorrow.  We’re all excited about that!

Right now, we are stealing someone’s wireless connection, and there are huge chunks of the day that we’re unable to get online.  We’re hoping to have our own connection by tonight or tomorrow.  At that point, we’ll be able to post more frequently.

Great news!  In the past two days, we’ve succeeded in both hiring a nanny (ayi) for Wee P and getting P into the “kindergarten” here on campus.  P went with me to check out the kindergarten today and cried when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to start today.  I reminded her that everyone at the school speaks Mandarin and that for a while, she won’t be able to understand what people are saying to her.  To this, she responded, “That’s okay.  I’m sure I’ll find someone to play with.”  If only adults could adapt to change so gracefully! (more…)

Everyone — if you intend on following along, please keep your eye out for the fact that some of the posts will be Chris’s and some will be Christie’s. We decided that it made little sense for Chris to post his reflections at his blog, since that would require some people to go back and forth between the two blogs, and it would also mean that people reading Chris’s blog would have to sift through boring posts on Confucius to find the trip-related stuff. So it’ll all be right here under “one roof.” Just look below each post for “Tags” so see who the author is. Also, since we’re both posting, you might want to scroll down a bit — there may be more than one post on any given day.

I’m way too tired from packing and remembering all the five million things I need to remember to actually put words together, so I’m scrounging some recent photos from my camera and calling this a post.

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