Shanghai Healing Home

Carlie carrying her weight in diapers

 

Claire on dinner duty

Claire and Carlie's Brownie troop recently completed their Brownie Quest Community Service Project.  The troop provided a diaper drive that provided an estimated 2000 diapers to Shanghai Healing Home.  Shanghai Healing Home is a friendly safe place where the most vulnerable, cleft-affected babies are cared for by trained nannies.  These women devote their time to the careful feeding of the children, ensuring that they gain the weight needed for their surgeries.  The Healing Home provides care during the surgery and post surgical care until each baby is fully recovered.  You are invited to join our troop in support of Shanghai Healing home.  For more information go to the web site www.shanghaihealinghome.com.
 (After our visit we don't think that 2000 diapers will last them very long. :-)  

美国 Měi guó -"Beautiful country"

When asked in China where we are from, our response is měi guó, literally translated, beautiful country, otherwise known as America.  We are měi guó rén, "beautiful country people".   On Thanksgiving we find ourselves thinking about our beautiful home country and our family at home.  We are thankful for the opportunity to be here in China and to see our home country through the eyes of others.  We are so thankful for the support from all our family members for our journey here.

Making Gamma's rolls

We have had so many people here wishing us a Happy Thanksgiving.  Many are Americans who share the unique bond of being here away from family.  What surprised us the most has been the well wishes from people from other countries.  Local chinese and other nationalities displaced here, are wishing the Americans a "Happy Thanksgiving".

Soy sauces

So in honor of the holiday, we did the traditional turkey feast.  The logistics of having the traditional feast are a little more complex than in the USA.  We have a new found understanding of the import aisle back home.    Stores here have an entire aisle for rice, another for soy sauces and another for noodles.    (Truth be told, I was so overwhelmed by the soy sauce aisle at first, I paid three times more for Kikkoman imported from Japan.) The import aisle is small, shared by many countries.  The aisle has a few American staples, european items, items from Thailand and Japan.  You cannot find everything you need at one store.  Many stops are required to locate ingredients for a pumpkin pie.  

Sweet potato

 I did not readily recognize the sweet potatoes, they are purple, and pale orange fleshed. 
I had to ask many people "Is this a sweet potato?  
"Zhè gè sweet potato ma?" 

 No confirmation... maybe it was my mandarin? 

Mr. Rockwell?

The turkey was easier.  Imported from America, and delivered to our door already cooked (fried).  Our ovens here are really small, and not equipped to cook a turkey.  


We blissfully feasted on a meal that could not be eaten with chopsticks.  Fond memories of our "America The Beautiful" shared at the table.  We were misty-eyed, until Claire wouldn't eat the required 5 bites of turkey to qualify for dessert. :-) 

Temples and Tea

Our visit to Yu Yuan Garden was our first taste of ancient China. This garden, first established in 1559, is in the middle of busy Shanghai, about 20-30 minutes from where we live.  

Just outside the garden is the Temple of Town God built in 1403. Most cities here each have their own Town God Temple.  Needless to say this was a huge conversation piece for the kids.  

Incense Burning

Buddhas

Just outside the temple, we visited one of the many tea houses here for a ceremonial tea.  We tried oolong and jasmine teas.

Touring Towers

Anyone who has spent time with our son Kyle, knows how much he loves to build.  His love of building started with Thomas the train at 18 months old, building intricate railways, to now very complicated Lego systems.  It always amazes us how fast he can put them together.  Last Christmas, he almost had built the 3 large lego systems Santa had brought by lunch time.  He inherited some sixth sense from his father about building design.   Upon entering any structure,  we usually get a run down of the pros and cons of the design and potential problems from Kyle and/or his Dad.  "Come on guys, let's place our ice cream order."

With this interest in building design in mind, much of our initial tour explorations have been some really tall towers, with some incredible views.

Our first stop: John Hancock Building, Chicago, Illinois; If you include antennae it is 1506 feet tall (5th tallest in world) completed 1968

Next stop: Oriental Pearl Tower, Shanghai, China; 1535 feet high, completed in 1994

 





The observatory was open to the outside air, so we could hear the sounds of the city below us as the ships make their way along the Huangpu River.  This river separates the city to Pudong (east of Huangpu river) and Puxi(west of Huangpu).  Puxi is the historic Shanghai, while Pudong has skyscrapers  and the financial center of Shanghai.  We live in Pudong.

The Shanghai Municipal History Museum is found inside the tower.  It was great museum.  One cultural difference we noticed, is that locals have no qualms crossing the ropes to take pictures in the exhibits

Next stop: Shanghai World Financial Center, 1614 feet tall, completed 2008, currently 4th tallest building, with highest observatory in the world.

The building that looks like a bottle opener is the Financial Center.

The top disappears on a cloudy day.

Pearl Tower seen from Financial Center

And finally the Pièce de résistance, The Shanghai Tower.  It may not look like much now, but this tower that is under construction will be 2073 feet tall, the second tallest building in the world, and China's tallest structure.  We do not know how we got so lucky but Kyle could watch the construction site from his window when we were in temporary housing.  We made several detouring stops to survey the activity while living in Lujiazui, but had to watch out for the construction traffic, as they drove like they had a deadline.

The tower on the right is the expected finished product.

Cody and Kyle have big plans to monitor the construction , and document progress as this tower is raised while we are here.  Watch for updated pictures.

Teachable Moments

Living in China provides little moments that provide a link to a memory from childhood.  China is still a developing country.  Some things have been faster than others.  My Mandarin teacher mentioned yesterday that electric lighting has only been in available in last 40 years.  As Cody and I are in the over 40 group (not singling myself out on the 40's thing), people our age here may not have grown up with electric lights?  Could that be right?  She said they mostly used candles.  The discussion came up in explaining how the ancient chinese language is trying to describe modern technology today.
for example :
电脑 (diàn năo) electric brain (the word for computer)


While the growing up as a 70's child in the US may not have provided a huge amount of hardship lessons. You know, the "Well I remember walking 40 miles in the snow to get to school." I have found living here has provided a few teachable moments.

 "What is wrong with this fry? EEW!" Our children were so excited to get to visit a McDonalds to have a taste of the USA, to find they each had some fries with imperfections.   Do you remember when you might get one or two McDonalds French Fries that were imperfect?  They might have a brown spot or two, reminding you that they actually did come from a potato.  You might have a hard time find one today in the US, but imperfect fries are here.  It is just an occasional fry, but the kids had never seen an imperfect McDonalds french fry before.  It was a little shocking for them.  We told them when we were growing up we usually had an imperfect fry. "Do not be alarmed", and "No, it won't hurt you to if you ate some of it" 


"What are these?  Carrots?  These carrots are huge!"  Our kids were born in the baby carrot generation.  The only carrots here are the regular large carrots.  They do require more preparation, but the are really good.  The kids were shocked that we did not have baby carrots growing up. 


"There are only 2 English TV channels!" and "Why can't you pause or record this show?"  Well our little lǎowài, when we were growing up we could not pause the TV shows, and the only time kids shows were available were on Saturday mornings.

"We are walking home from school!?"  When we were growing up most kids went to a neighborhood school, and could walk home from school.  (No, it is not 40 miles in the snow.)

"We are riding our bike to church?"  Riding a bike was more than for fun when we were growing up, it actually could get you to a destination.

"What is that your paying with?"  Well, it is cash, little seen by our children, as even their allowance was  a debit card in the US.  Now we carry a bag of cash, for groceries, bills, the doctor's office, you name it, cash is expected. We remember our parents paying cash for groceries, and now we are doing the same.  


In conclusion,  a country's development index along with income per capita, and life expectancy may be correlated to availability of perfect McDonalds fries, baby carrots, and credit cards.