fashion

The class went well on Saturday. Love the kids! Love their families as well. We all went to a beautiful park this Sunday and the children fished for fry sized fish with a net. No  one was able to catch one, but we fed these guys a lot of crackers. It looked like it was raining in the pond because so many fish were rising to surface to eat the cracker crumbs.

feeding the fish

catching fish at the park, Lucy is learning how to do it

We walked a little ways through the park and the children played frisbee for awhile. It was really fun. They are great kids. They shared their food and toys with us and tried to teach us a little Chinese (it didn't work on me though I already forgot it all.) All of the children had a great time together with very little common language to use. It is awesome to me.

Annie and me at the park

Lucy and "Shrimpy" Notice the smile!

Lucy has gone from completely miserable here, so far away from her American home, to having many daily triumphs. First we noticed she would let us put her down to walk in the busy streets while we held her hand, instead of being held constantly. Then we noticed she would run ahead of us when we reached our apartment complex and go inside without us. Then she was singing in public! Yesterday we went to the fireworks and she actually looked at the kind people that talked to her instead of hiding her face. She even let a young student take her picture. Today she came the rest of the way out of her shell. She let my friend Lily take her to the pond without me so she could try to catch a fish. She had a great time with her for about an hour. Of course it helped that she was dying to catch a fish. She would try to get one then "Ohh!" in disappointment over and over again. Then on the way home we had to split up and go in the different families' cars in small Stein groups. Lucy went in a car with Annie and a very kind Chinese family. She was upset at first and the father said "I bet she is hungry," and offered her a chocolate bar. She grabbed it and apparently enjoyed every bite, loudly and messily, even reclining like a cough potato for emphasis. She then began to act like the little nut she is for us at home. She said random things like "apricot chin" and laughed loudly. She sang and teased, and was way too loud. This kind family also gave her a pet prawn or shrimp, I don't know the difference exactly. She is now as happy as ever, and completely herself. She named the shrimp "shrimpy" and told me all about how it wishes it was home with its family. (She doesn't wish that though.) She decorated it's container with stickers and took it on a picnic on her special blankie. She has played with it all evening. Her brothers and sister keep referencing "Darla" from Finding Nemo. It is such a relief to see our baby girl happy.

Crossing the pond with our friend "Happy"

I know the photo is blurry, but this park had 15 to 20 bride and groom couples at any given time around the pond. Most had these traditional Christian white gowns. Three had pink gowns, which is not usual in China. One couple was wearing revolutionary military fatigues, both of them. Our friend explained that couples wore the military dress clothes to their wedding during the 60's and this couple was taking pictures in this old style. See the pink dress?

Evelynn loves these jeans with ruffles and buttons. It has a large bow in the back too. Her t-shirt says "sweet babe, make your life tasty"

Lucy's new clothes. The word below the bear is something like "Darbng" Maybe it is suppose to say "Darling"

Getting our favorite treat and attracting a lot of attention :)

Chinese Ronald McDonald on his way to the McDonalds All Stars demonstration. I missed his face, which was the interesting part!

Another thing we have noticed is Chinese fashion. We will try to gather a few examples to post another time, but here are Evelynn and Lucy trying out some chinese-style clothes. There are a lot of t-shirts with English words on them. A small few of them were really cool shirts. Most of them are complete nonsense. We have seen these statements: "a little bit sweet and a small amount tasty" "corn-trast iphone coordination" and some uses of grammar that make us cringe. We are going to start writing them down and sharing them with you. Also best-friends often are seen in exactly matching dresses. They are really cute. Couples will wear the same exact t-shirt. I saw a couple with t-shirts that each had two pandas on them. Another couple had an English shirt that said 2 friends + 2 gether = 4ever. Another couple had t-shirts that said "love" (in English) several times on them. There is a lot of interesting fashion, but it is hard to take pictures of it because it is rude to take people's picture without asking them (even though they often take ours on the sly.) We like to read the shirts as we are walking around town, because the poor English is amusing.