Gogovivi

From my kitchen: 很快 hěn kuài

 

I hear him outside the gates when he comes to offer his services: He yells in a practiced, resonant, piercing voice, "剪刀 Jiǎndāo 刀 Dāo 磨快 Mó kuài." Scissors. Knife. Make sharp.

I open my kitchen window and lean out and he trolls for business on his bicycle. "我有 Wǒ yǒu," I say, as he slows, turns, and recognizes me. He parks his bike in the shade of the flowering cherry tree as I bring him my kitchen knives.

"今天没有剪刀 Jīntiān méiyǒu jiǎndāo?" he asks. No scissors today?

"有 yǒu," I reply as I return to the house to get my scissors, leaving my knives in his hands.

Knife sharpening is a family business. Three years ago when I moved to JinHai GuangChang I met his father, an leathered man of indeterminate age, his fingernails mangled from years of minor sharpening accidents, his hands scarred. The father smiled deeply, like an inhalation, and I noted that the scars seemed to be relics of inexperience. There are no fresh scars, scars were from his youth.

Now the son has taken over the business and I inquire about his father's health. "不错 Bùcuò," he replies, beaming over this polite chatter from the foreigner. "他很累 Tā hěn lèi." He is very tired.

I linger outside, enjoying the warm spring day and the scent of the blossoms. He wonders why I am taking his photograph, but he does not protest. He doesn't know that these are our last days in China, that perhaps this is the last time he will sharpen my blades. He cranks the sharpening wheel with one hand while holding the blade steady with the other. He whets the blade to a fine edge on a stone, lubricating it with spit from time to time. He tests the blades, then returns them to me for inspection.

"很快 Hěn kuài," he says, and I agree. The blades are very sharp.

Finished, he re-packs his kit onto his bike. Bench, grinding wheel, and stones all back in their place on the back of his bicycle. As he rides away, he begins his chant again.

"剪刀 Jiǎndāo 刀 Dāo 磨快 Mó kuài." Scissors. Knife. Make sharp.

***On this eve of making final plans for our family for this summer, I have realized that despite the challenges, I do love many things about living in China. Much of what I love is what lies immediately outside my windows. "From my kitchen" is a tribute to the special parts of my life that lie immediately outside my home.**

 

A Cold Day in Jimo

Jet lagged and cold, and against all the instincts that told me, begged me, to stay home, be warm, and rest, I boarded the 8:30 am bus to Jimo City. Jimo is one of those ubiquitous, faceless towns that form the suburbs of Qingdao: without any obvious reason for being, sans any apparent charm or character, but housing millions of Chinese in apartment blocks notable only for their sprawl and anonymity. Or so it seems to me, through my critical, tired, myopic expat eyes.

When finally we arrived at the primary school, in the village beyond the reach of the urban sprawl, our bus was met by two long columns of children, clapping excitedly and proudly greeting us while waving tall red flags symbolic of the pride and heritage of China. The anonymity of the suburbs vanishes amidst this sea of young faces, so excited and optimistic, but also nervous and shy. The foreigners are here. 

I came on a bus full of foerign students on their annual school charity project. Throughout the month of December, students and families from Vivian's international school collected bags full of basic necessities to share with needy families: cooking oil, rice, warm blankets and clothing, even coal for their coal-burning heaters. Today we would distribute the bags at a rural school, and my purpose on the trip was documentation.

It was the worst kind of day for photography; the skies were thick with coal smoke and the sun was so deeply shrouded that shadows were absent. Gray, gray, more gray. Plus cold, frigid cold...but still I managed to find scenes of surprising beauty in the grayness, in the faces, and in the moment.

This wasn't just a school event; it was a community event. The students from both schools were excited, and the excitement spread beyond the walls of the school. Look carefully at the photo below and behind the lone girl watching from a distance you see the crowd of families and friends waiting in anticipation behind the locked gate.

As always, my camera loves faces more than anything else; as always, my camera is not disappointed.

Back to Beefcake Beach

Way back in June I posted this little teaser about a photo essay I shot at an outdoor community fitness center on one of Qingdao's many beaches. I love these fitness-obsessed old timers, and I love that my essay was published in Redstar Magazine this month. One of the shots from the essay even made the cover!

Sharing a bit of my community with my friends over at Communal Global!

 

Red rains and love reigns

I grabbed my camera and ran outside the other day when I heard the drums start pounding the telltale rhythm of a Chinese wedding celebration. I will admit that these little wedding events in China are not on the scale of, say, Kate and William's nuptials, but catching a peek at a Chinese wedding from time to time is one of my favorite things about living in China. This one was pretty typical with the bonus that it was right outside my door.

The sky rained red with confetti. The drains and manhole covers were plastered over with fuschia colored paper to prevent the loss of fortune and luck down the drains. The cars were big and black and festooned with flowers, the bride was radiant in white (rarely do we see the traditional red wedding garb in our affluent neighborhood). The entire community looked on as a band of drummers beat the dischordant notes and jarring rhythms, while the lion dancers leaped, gyrated, and spun.

And then, in only ten minutes, it was over. The onlookers popped the last balloon, the dancers took off their costumes, the drummers packed up, to make it to the next wedding on time. Later, as I walked by an hour later, the double happiness pasted to the door fell to the ground.

Beefcake Beach

I was at Muscle Beach at 5:45 am on Sunday morning to do a photo essay for a Qingdao magazine. I have been fascinated by these guys ever since my days of marathon training last year, when on my weekly long runs I would pass their beach club, and I have been dying to get in there and photograph them.

The beach club is an outdoor gym where retirement-age men work out seven days a week, rain or shine. In summer they wear Speedos, pump iron, and play volleyball. In winter, they wear slightly more clothing and do polar bear swimming in the ocean.

My interpreter (coincidentally, named Vivian) shot this photo at the request of my beefy friends. Maybe you can tell from my body language that I wasn't all that comfortable snuggling up to these guys: their bathing suits were awfully small, and their bodies awfully sweaty. Nonetheless, I had a fantastic day and made some interesting new friends. Hopefully this series of photos (but not this particular photo!) will be published soon (I'll let you know!).

I'm still (barely) hanging in at 4th place in the Circle of Moms Top 25 Expat Blogs contest. Please take a minute to vote for me. The contest ends on June 6th and it would be great to stay in the top 5. Thanks for your support!

How 'bout them apples?

I know, I know: enough about the Chinese New Year already. But just give me this last post, and I promise I will stop.

For the person who has everything, consider fruit with an auspicious New Year's wish sun-printed right onto the very skin for a unique and special New Year's gift! These apples had a stencil of sorts affixed while they were growing, and the stencil prevented the reddening of the skin under the stencil...et voila!

Or, in a perhaps more realistic scenario, given that we are in China, these apples had a bleaching agent of unknown safety applied to the skin to bleach away the pigment.

Either way, printed apples are one thing I love about living in China.

Linking up to Macro Friday and Days of Gray.

 

Wednesdays with Vivian: Zhao Cai Jin Bao! 招財進寶!

I just got back from Hong Kong, where I spent a few days on a little getaway. My official purpose was to go to a (routine) doctor's appointment, but my real purpose was to spend some time with a couple of my expat chums. Chinese New Year is fast approaching, and I couldn't resist getting Vivian a little souvenir.

I thought it was a dragon. As it turns out, its not a dragon, its a lion. A mini lion puppet, hung on strings like a marionette. At the Chinese New Year, lion dances are performed to help usher in good luck and prosperity for the coming year. In these dances, two people share one lion costume, with one person animating the head, and the other occupying the nether regions. I have never seen a lion puppet before, but its just a mini version of the lion dancer costume. This one has the added feature of battery-operated flashing red eyes.

Our Lion is saying Zhao Cai Jin Bao (招財進寶), which translates into "we wish you wealth and success!"

Vivian is wearing her New Year's clothes. She has a festival at school in which all the children wear traditional Chinese New Year clothing. She chose pink, although red is more traditional. It is winter-weight and insulated, and fur trimmed.
 

Its not a high-quality garment, by any means. The material is low-quality, the stitching weak and loose, and the cloth buttons are glued on. It is a pretty typical garment, though. It looks pretty and gets the job done (keeps her warm AND prepares her to get all the good luck she can), but by the end of the 40-day New Year season, it will be worn out. Just like the New Year.

Getting the Yang out

One of the indulgent benefits of living in China is massage. I go almost every week for a 2-hour session that starts with a foot massage and ends with a body massage. Yes, I do have more time on my hands than I did when I was a career woman back in the states, but even if I was working here, I would still make time for my weekly treat because the cost is so low that it would be a shame not to. At only $18 for two hours, it is an affordable indulgence. Besides, I know for sure that I won't be able to afford a weekly 2-hour massage when I get back to the states!

My friend Rebecca is my massage partner. We go to a massage place that is about a 10-minute walk from my house, and I have never seen another foreigner there. Its very Chinese, and we are known as regulars. We have our favorite masseurs, known only to us as "#100" or "#57". Our favorite tend to cycle in and out quickly, though, as there seems to be a lot of job turnover in the massage industry.

For reasons unknown to us, this week our massage guys offered us some special services we don't usually get. For an additional 28RMB, or $4.50, we got a "pedicure" which consisted of the callouses being shaved off our feet with sharp instruments that looks like implements of surgery.

Me (in Mandarin): EEK! What is that? Afraid! Afraid!

Him: Don't worry. No problem.

Me: Afraid! (Quickly using iPhone mandarin dictionary) Is that sterile?

Him: Don't worry. No problem.

And I have to say, he did a good job cutting my feet without drawing blood.

I have been having a lot of sore back muscles lately, so yesterday I told my guy to pay extra attention to my back. Which he did, to the extent that he offered a special treatment to help ease my back pain. Strangely, this same treatment was offered to Rebecca to help ease her cold symptoms. You may have heard of cupping before? Its a traditional Chinese therapy consisting of heating the interior of a glass bulb to create a vacuum, then quickly placing the cup on the skin to draw out the bad juju and equalize the Yin and the Yang elements in the body.

At least that's what they say.

Be warned, this looks pretty graphic and, frankly, yucky.

But that's me, with glass bulbs all over my back.

Getting the Yang sucked right out.

Here's my back this morning. Apparently, the more you bruise, the more your elements are out of balance. I would say that I was WAY out of balance.

Needless to say, I won't be going in for a massage next week until these bruises heal.

Anyway, Vivian and I are off today for an overnight trip to an ancient Chinese village not far from here in Shandong province. Will be back on Wednesday night for Wednesdays with Vivian!

Beijing smog

I know I've been gushing lately about the spectacular blue skies and lovely October weather in Qingdao. The reason I gush is because its just not the norm in these parts. This isn't exactly newsworthy at this point, but to get an idea of what things can be like around here, read on. Twelve days ago I was in Beijing with my friend Kylie. We were showing her 80-year old Auntie the famous sights on her last day visiting China before returning to the UK. Unfortunately for Auntie, our sightseeing day was on the worst air quality day I have ever seen in China.

We're talking air pollution so toxic that locals were warned to take measures to protect themselves from the pollution. So dense that highways were closed due to poor visibility. Air quality so poor that 32 deaths by accident are blamed on the "fog" and resulting poor visibility.

And there we were, out for a nice stroll that day with dear Auntie. Obviously, we hadn't heard the news.

What does that kind of air pollution look like? It looks like this. Here is Tiananmen Square at 3:00.

It was so dark it felt like evening. It was downright creepy. And smoggy. On the upside, after it started raining around 4:00, things got a little better. Almost scenic, even. Below, Houhai Lake at 4:00.

Qingdao skies can sometimes be pretty grim, especially in the winter when coal is burned for heating and to make electricity, but its rarely as bad as that day in Beijing. Thankfully.

On life and death: Yibai Guoguo, or, one hundred day crickets

Those Chinese singing crickets, yibai guoguo , heartbreakers, they come around in the dog days of summer, when the weather is hot and it seems that summer will drag on endlessly. They come around for one hundred days, living in their little bamboo cages and singing their little hearts out. Then when the weather turns to cold, when you think your heart is going to break from the beauty of the autumn and the bitterness of the end of summer, that's when they really get you. That's when they die, taking with them any hopes of lingering warmth, and the cold winds of winter set in for real.

In the summer, they live outdoors. Honestly, in the quiet of the stifling summer heat, they are just too loud, and their monotone chirp too monotonous, to live indoors. Lest I go crazy.

Now its October, and the weather has suddenly changed to cool, to fleece and socks weather. I have moved them into our sun porch, where it is warmer. Understand this, I am tolerating having these loud, very very loud, crickets chirping in my house because I want them to keep living. I am afraid that if they get too cold, they will die. And I don't want them to die, not yet, because when they do, so too will summer die.

 
How old are our crickets now, how close to their allottment of 100 days? By my estimate, 70 days. But it could be closer to 80, 90, even 95. By now, every remaining day is a gift, as every chirp may be their last.

What will our poor, petless Vivian do when her guoguo finally die? When Reddy and Blacky (who she has recently renamed to Cookie and Cake) chirp their final note? Will her menagerie of imaginary pets increase by two? Will two secret pet crickets live on in her imagination, joining her secret brother and her secret family in the imaghinary barnyard of her mind?

I wrote this post for the Perceptive Perspective photo challenge. Check out other views of Life and Death by clicking over.

I am also sharing this post with two other photo challenges. Its "animals" theme week over at You Capture.

And its "Fall" at Happy Monday.