Meili's school graduation

Kindergarten graduation is the end of July in Taiwan and the whole school participates and it was about 3 hours long! Wow! Since I don't understand very much Chinese, I feel like my attention span is about the same as Sophie's and that was hard to get through, even though there were a lot of interesting performances. This is my first attempt at a video. We'll see how it goes...
It is taking forever! Our uploading is always so slow. Sad, it's not working. The video was of a sing-a-long during the program and it was just so nice to see Meili having fun (she had hated school so bad that we took her out for a two month summer break).

In one of the numbers, Meili played the symbol while some of the other kids played the sweet Chinese drums in the back. We were trying to get Meili interested in the drums, but she hated them. I think it was because she couldn't understand the directions for how to play them. And the Chinese are serious about their drumming. Sadly, it's the same situation with this little piano/organ thing that she is supposed to be learning to play. I think, from what Meili says, that the teacher has her just color her music book during the whole class because Meili isn't understanding the directions for how to play (Meili says that the teacher won't LET her play). That is the Taiwan school system in a nutshell. Where America goes at the speed of the slowest learners, Taiwan goes at the speed of the quickest learners. But, we are buying a keyboard for both her and I to practice on (I am the primary pianist for the upcoming primary program so I need to learn to play 10 songs in a couple of weeks and I haven't played for 15 years! And I only had one summer of lessons since I was about 9!).

This is what I call Meili's French Maid costume. She and the other girl are supposed to be the mirrors in Snow White, but...

Meili danced the hula to one of the song's from the movie "Lilo and Stitch". She and Sophie were so excited because they love that movie.


It was a fun experience, even though it was so long. The Taiwanese study so hard, so they really make graduation an event, even if it is "just" kindergarten.

Randoms

My friend Emily who is originally from Shanghai, but spent her teenage years in Australia, took me to her favorite hairstylist in the city. The haircut was just ok (I'm picky), but I loved that the salon was full of rockin' guy stylists. They follow Japanese style here, so I had to get a pic with my stylist. One of my friends once told me that she always tried to find guy stylists because they do the best job, but this one didn't work out for me.
During mid-July, the World Games came to our city. It's a cool multi-sport competition for random sports that nearly everyone but the U.S. follows. We could really only afford one event (and we were afraid our kids would only last through one), so we picked trampoline and acrobatics:

This was men's team acrobatics. Very strange for an American. But they could do some cool stuff.

Doubles women's trampoline. Pretty cool.

Here are the girls after the games. It is SO hot here! The Asians really have something with their umbrella use on sunny days. We are really close to the Tropic of Cancer, so our fair skin burns in minutes, literally. I've adopted some of their other methods of hiding from the sun because it's much easier than reapplying sunscreen a ton, which is really expensive here anyway. I'll have to get some pics of those techniques to post later.

Here was one of Euan's favorite hiding spots which we have since gotten rid of. It was a nasty old desk that we were using to hold our TV in our front room. It was too low and unstable for a curious 1+ year-old.

Fishing with the Chens

A couple (the Chens)in our ward took us and some other members up to their family's mountain house (cabin) and we went fishing in a nearby fishing pond. It was one of the best times I've had in Taiwan so far. It was so peaceful and relaxing. Here are some highlites:

The girls had fun on some swings at the cabin-a common toy in America, but not in Taiwan.


Scott is going to kill me for putting up this picture, but such cheese! I couldn't help it...

What a good daddy! Scott in our friend's Chinese hat fishing with his boy (it was HOT and mid-day, so those big hats really are useful to shade you). The pond was kind of like a fishery because it was concrete. I was a little disappointed at first, but it does no good to have expectations when you are in a foreign country. Those expectations are almost always wrong. Sometimes the reality is worse, but sometimes it is better!

The girls were ready for a catch with their net.

The first catch of the day! Me! I was so pumped. Too bad it was tiny and I had to put it back. I have always wanted to go fishing, but this was really only my first time! (Other than holding the fishing pole once for my uncle when I was about 7 or 8 years-old).

Next, and a real catch, was Scott! We put it in a holding net in the pond that some kids had used right before us, so we assumed it was ok. But when we went to check on the fish a little while later, we moved it and the movement helped the fish swim through a tiny hole in the net and escape! Bummer! We kept catching small ones after that, probably because it was mid-day. Then, right as we were leaving, I got a whopper! It was so huge that I broke the line. It was pulling and pulling and Scott jumped down the concrete bank of the pond to catch the line and reel it in. And here it is...

A CHAIR! It was floating as I pulled it in, so it even fooled Scott who was helping this novice. A CHAIR! Darn polluters! The girls thought it was pretty funny, though. They told that story over and over for the rest of the night.

Next it was down to the real creek to look for crawdads. No luck, but it was fun and the girls LOVED playing in the water! The Taiwanese were a little tentative about letting their children get soaked, (they think they'll get sick), but once they saw how much fun the girls were having, they let their children join in!

And then what is an outdoor Taiwan party without Taiwanese BBQ and fireworks?

Familiar Faces

One of the highlights of the summer for us was spending the Fourth of July with some familiar American faces! Janette and DJ Gao recently moved back to Kaohsiung, where DJ is from. They are Nate Priddis's-our neighbor for the past couple of years in Provo-sister and family, and the couple that helped us get our current job. They and their 2 boys, Cougar and Hyrum, spent the day with us at the beach and Dream Mall (one of Asia's largest malls). It is amazing to have a normal chat in English with Americans (yes I consider you American, DJ) after having a drought for a while. Happy day!

Euan enjoying our soft black sandy beach!

The girls loved hanging out with the boys, too. They still talk about them and fight over who is going to marry whom (I hope they grow out of this kind of talk!). This is them riding a big panda in the kids center at Dream Mall.

The panda would never fly in America. You put money in it and it actually walks around! There are no safety devices to help the kids stay on and I have to say that our little kids had a hard time controlling it at first and more than one Taiwanese had to jump out of the way as a giant panda with little kids on it literally started attacking them.

Euan loved the potential destruction.

You deserve a post

After receiving so many requests for invites, I was a little overwhelmed! I didn't know so many people were interested in our blog! So I feel like you all deserve some more frequent postings...
After a short 2 months of summer vacay (at least it felt short), we are back in school. But, here is the start of some pics to catch you up on our summer:

We started out the summer with Chinese tutoring (ILP, for those in the know) in the morning at our house for the girls, and English "tutoring" (more like babysitting with a little of ILP thrown in) in the afternoon for these twin girls, Eenie and Gigi (7 years-old).
The story of how I ended up watching the girls is interesting because a lady who was visiting our church heard that a foreigner was teaching one of the children's classes and, by American terms, she "barged" in on my already chaotic 3 and 4 year-olds class and asked me if her children could live with me for the summer so that they could learn English. I tried to explain to her that I couldn't talk right then (though it was obvious to me) and so I quickly gave her my phone number and asked her to call me about it. I soon started referring to her as "the crazy lady" because I had never met this woman before and she wanted her children to live with me? To learn English? Even by Taiwanese standards, that is a big extreme.
Well, to make a long story short that is full of mis-communications, negotiations, and frustrations, I ended up agreeing to watch them for a trial period of a couple of weeks in the afternoons only. She asked me to name my price, which was awkward for me because I am in her country and didn't want to seem like a greedy foreigner by asking too much, nor did I want to get taken advantage of (which seemed likely the more I knew about this woman), but what do I know about a fair price here? I ended up naming a price which I later found I could have asked about ten times as much and she would have been happy to pay, and she of course jumped on the bargain. The two weeks were enough for me, though, because it made my life a little too hectic, and I canceled after the trial period. They were cute girls, though. Sad that it just wasn't the right time (nor the right price).

Blog replacer

I know it's been a while. We are back from our sweet summer vaca to the normal grind of life. To check out what has been taking up my free time where I might normally blog, it's my new article at Examiner here about Meili's first day of Kindergarten. Also something I didn't mention in the article is that Sophie is actually going, too, because Kindergarten here is 3 years and so you start when you are 3 and go until 1st grade.
I am also thinking about going private with our blog, so please comment on this posting if you want an invite.

Ok, ok, we're here

We have received some gentle promptings from several people to update our blog. So here goes.
I sometimes feel like I am living in two worlds. It is taking some adjustment to combine being an American with living in a new culture and country. I am always overly cautious and overly sensitive about being an "Ugly American" and so I have tried to assimilate to the new culture and ideas as much as possible. Sometimes it is hard, though. I'll give you an example by showing you what my day is like here:
I wake up about 6:00 am. The normal sounds are in my apartment: kids crying, going to the bathroom, asking for breakfast. I also hear the sounds of the 10,000 students coming to the school that we live next to where my husband works. The crossing guards are blowing their whistles, the hundreds of scooters are zooming up and down my small street, the large tour buses that get their money during the week by being contracted to bring in the numerous out-of-town students all are playing in the background. My husband is getting ready to go to work. I whip up some oatmeal (luckily I remembered to get bananas and soy milk from market yesterday-more on that later). My husband goes down the elevator from our 12th floor apartment, out of our building and walks about 20 feet to the security gate to the school where he works.

(A view from our apartment of some of the school campus where Scott works)
I get Meili ready for Chinese Kindergarten, cute school uniform and all. We forgot to do her homework last night so we spend 5 minutes that we don't have finishing it up. I get the kids fed, ready, break up fights, comfort Euan who is crying in the chaos, and out the door. (So far this mostly sounds like any normal Mom's morning in America with only a couple of strange things, right? Homework for a Kindergartner, 10,000 students, hundreds of whizzing scooters).
Now, out into the new world. I greet our Guan li yuan (security guard) in my broken Chinese. Out we go, past the breakfast cafe that is attached to our building and I ask the owner in Chinese to please purchase me some bread with her regular orders(she has the hook-ups to some soft and cheap bread). I take a deep breath and venture out onto the street since there are no sidewalks (nor shoulders) while buses and scooters drive within feet of us. Asian living is not for the claustrophobic. As I walk, I greet my neighbors whose bottom floors of their houses are their businesses: the other breakfast cafe two doors down from the first, the salon lady who just woke up and is opening her gate, the lunch cafe preparing their dishes, another breakfast cafe, the old man who guards the taps to the well water (which we buy). I also greet my other neighbors who are opening their gate of the bottom floor of their houses (much like a smaller version of our garages): the 85 year-old woman who looks not a day past 70 who I also see at the track early in the morning, our electronics family who recently upgraded their bottom-floor of their house business to a larger 2 floor rented space downtown, and sometimes I even see the Bishop of our church's family. Three blocks later I arrive at Meili's school and greet the teacher who is manning the school gate. I help Meili go to her classroom and unpack her homework, lunch container, and water bottle (full of the purchased well water). I let Sophie and Euan play on the playground for a minute while the other students arrive and surround the foreigners, showing off their new toys, asking strange questions, and all the other things that small children do. It's too bad that I only understand a fraction of it.


Around 8:00 am we leave the school and continue down the road to the Farmer's Morning Market.
To be continued...