Gogovivi

Around our Thanksgiving Table

• Eight adults and ten children under the age of 8.
• Americans, Chinese, Israelis, Dutch, British, Australian

• Turkey, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, ginger carrots, spinach salad, sweet potatoes
• Pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and homemade cheescake ice cream

• Chilled Prosecco, Cabernet and Merlot
• Milk for the kids

The worst part of expat life is being so far from home for the holidays. But the best, absolute best, part of expat life is sharing our holidays and traditions with these amazing people we have grown to know and love, people who come from such different backgrounds, cultures, and parts of the world. I am so grateful for these friends and the opportunities we have had to be part of their lives. Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Holiday Cards and Calendars: For a Purpose

This holiday season, in a new endeavor, I have designed a range of holiday cards, note cards, and calendars using my photographs and original designs.

The details are all in the flyer above, and I will be selling the entire range until December 11. Prices are as follows:

• Holiday cards: packets containing 5 cards of one style (choose either China or Qingdao): 40 RMB
• Note cards: packets containing 6 assorted cards (3 packets to choose from): 40 RMB
• Calendars: Two designs to choose from, A4 size, spiral bound, 14 pages: 100 RMB each.

All proceeds will go to A Voice is Heard, a small non-profit community development organization that operates in developing countries. This February I plan to volunteer my time and money to travel to Kenya with this group to document in photographs their current projects, which include building wells, small business development, and other community-based projects. The funds I raise will cover my travel expenses and all remaining proceeds will be given to the group as a cash donation.

These cards and calendars make a great gift for friends and family back home, to help showcase the culture and beauty of China.

Please support me and A Voice is Heard by buying my holiday cards, notecards, and calendars this holiday season. You can reach me at gogovivi@gmail.com with direct orders or visit me at the Qingdao holiday markets.

 

 

Looking at Myself: 42

I really feel for everyone who has let me photograph them in the past year. Stepping in front of the camera is a like taking a leap of faith; it is hard to do. You have to trust that the photographer is going to be kind and will be able to see something that represents your best self. Or at least your real self.

That dynamic doesn't change when the subject and the photographer are the same person. The me that is taking the photo is not really the same me as the one in front of the camera. The subject me feels anxious and vulnerable and exposed while the photographer me just wants to capture an image that says something about who my subject is and why she is there.

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party; brought to you by Pinterest

I don't know what came over me this year, but for the two weeks leading up to Vivian's birthday party, I was in a frenzy of creative productivity, thanks, in part, to my favorite new web tool, Pinterest*, and the world of inspiration I find there. It all started with this pin showing off the simple, fun brilliance of party invitations delivered inside of helium-filled balloons. The "pop me" directive was a launching point for a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and I planned much of the party around the ideas at  B.Nute's Mad Hatter party page. I ordered printable party invitations from B.Nute, and Vivian delivered them to her friends inside of colorful balloons, tied up with a Alice in Wonderland playing card tag I downloaded for free.

I thought the tea-party theme would be simpler to manage than a broader "Alice in Wonderland" theme, so I focused primarily on a tea party with fun and games thrown in. And seriously, almost every idea I came up with was inspired by Pinterest. First, I removed our dining table and replaced it with two outdoor picnic tables placed end to end. I covered the table with colorful cloth that was already in my stash, and instead of using paper, I picked up cheap and charming, mismatched kid-sized teacups and saucers for pennies at a neighborhood market stall, and then I tossed playing cards all over the table. After reading a cookie-decorating tutorial, I baked and decorated simple heart-shaped sugar cookies for the tea party and larger ones marked "Eat Me" for the take-home goody bag.

I used B.Nute's free Eat Me and Drink Me labels throughout the party, to adorn tiny bottles of juice, cookies, and treasure hunt clues. I also bought inexpensive artificial flowers and pasted each one with "googly eyes" to make them come to life.

For the kids, the highlight of the party was the treasure hunt, for which I hid Alice-themed clues around the yard to lead to the treasure box of goody bags, which was hidden on the center of the table, underneath the cake, in plain sight. Isn't my "Drink Me" bottle cute? I used free apothecary graphics for the label. I made the Mad Hatter's hat using a perfectly brilliant little tutorial and thick wool left over from a coat I made for Vivian.

By now you must have noticed the cake. Oh, that cake. It was truly a shame to destroy it (though it tasted as good as it looked!). The cake was made by my very talented and creative friend and neighbor Lawanda,** in a trade for my photography services at her daughter's recent birthday party (I think I got the better end of the deal!). The cake was inspired by this one, among others, and I gave Lawanda full artistic license to come up with a cake that fit the theme.

Needless to say, Vivian was dressed as Alice for the party, in a sweet blue dress with white pinafore that I had made for her at the tailor. She's a natural Alice: a little bit bossy, a lot clever, with an added dose of cheeky. She really looked the part, too, with her peaches-and-cream complexion and her long golden hair (which we curled in ringlets for the occasion). The photo of Alice reading the book was inspired by this Alice in Wonderland photo shoot.

I made dozens of huge tissue paper flowers, using these instructions, and hung them from the ceiling along with organza ribbon and vintage-style glass Christmas tree ornaments.

The party activities were pretty simple: a coloring activity using a pocket watch graphic, a game of Pin the Smile on the Cheshire Cat, and White Rabbit Hop races using sacks I made from leftover fabrics.

The Happy Birthday banner was downloaded here, I made vintage playing card banners using free downloads, and I made a "Vivian" banner using this free downloadable alphabet banner.

Oh my goodness, even though I had a great time and it was a delight to see Vivian so blissed out as Alice, I realize now why I was so tired. I think I deserve a nap.

*Almost all links via Pinterest.

**Lawanda's husband Jerry blogs about life in China and the mysteries of cultures at The Culture Blend. Read it; its a brilliant blog.

Vivian at 6

Here she is, the birthday girl, on the occasion of her 6th birthday.

Six years and new questions

I awake on the morning of Vivian's 6th birthday thinking of both the present moment - 6 years, how wonderful! What an occasion for celebration! - and of moments past. Vivian's birthday has always been, but hopefully will not always be, clouded with memories and regrets and thoughts of other children both loved and missed.

Seven years ago when my first adventure in parenting ended in the death of my son, I acquired a distorted view of the world of birth and death. I had few close friends with babies and had known only a handful of families through the experience of pregnancy, birth, and childhood, so I had little experience with the "normal." Then my own child died, and I entered a new world, one in which I knew more parents of dead children than I did of parents with living children. Or at least it seemed that way.

Now I live in China, where 18 million babies are born a year, and only a handful of them die in the neonatal period. The relatively low neonatal death rate (11 per 1,000, compared to 23 per 1,000 globally) surprises me a little, as the quality of medical care here in Qingdao (and other places outside the major urban areas of Shanghai and Beijing) is, to a Westerner, dismal.

Just a few days ago a baby was born to an American family here in Qingdao. In 2011 alone, I know of a half dozen such babies born to foreign families here. Let me state clearly that the availability and quality of medical care in Qingdao is my single biggest concern. Surviving a serious medical issue here is a game of chance with poor odds - careless misdiagnoses are not unusual and careful patients sometimes bring their own cleaning supplies to the hospital. Still, 18 million babies were born in China in 2009, of which "only" 11 per 1,000 died in the neonatal period.

All this to say that it has taken me seven years, the birth and survival of my own daughter, and the celebration of the births of many, many babies in Chinese hospitals with unknown ability to handle a complicated delivery or care for a newborn with serious medical issues, to realize that childbirth just isn't that dangerous. Babies don't just die. Babies are tough as are mothers, babies are born every day in dodgy hospitals, and they live.

So what happened to us? Why did our baby die? Seven years since and the ever-present, stabbing grief has largely receded, only to be replaced by a new understanding of how unusual it is for babies to die, and new questions about what happened to us, and why.

This is my new haunting question. I will ponder it for years to come, but in the meantime, I will celebrate Vivian's 6th birthday and the next, and all the ones to come.