It's Begining to Look a Bit Like Christmas...

two days after the fact. It never really does look much like Christmas outside the apartments of those of us who celebrate it, anyway. The Chinese decorate a bit and play Christmas songs in stores and such, but they don't get any days off. Actually, that's pretty nice for us because we do get time off fro school and work, so we can go to all the gardens and tourist destinations when everyone else is at work, so it's empty. The weather's been really nice, too. It's great.

My mom bought a guitar for herself, and I want to learn how to play it, too. Right now I only know a few chords, though. I also want to start playing piano again, if I could find music I liked which was at my level. Then I'd be able to play three instruments, including my violin.

Christmas was great. We had pain au chocolat for breakfast of course, and our traditional pork roast. It was delicious. (My dad is an amazing cook.) We went Christmas shopping in this little underground shopping center in Shanghai, and we found some good stuff there, like Axis & Allies (a WWII board game) for John. My dad also ordered books, clothing, and things from the U.S., so I got this shirt. It's awesome.

We'll be going up to Beijing and Harbin for a few days. Harbin is where they have an ice festival with buildings and sculptures made of ice. I think the festival itself doesn't start until after school starts again for us, but we can still go before when they're finishing up everything.

It's going to be cold.

It did snow today in Suzhou, but not that much. It melted as soon as it hit the ground. My mom and I went to the Lions Grove garden to see it in the snow and take pictures, but the snow wasn't heavy enough to get a good shot of it. Oh well.

HALLOWEEN

So, yesterday was Halloween. Last year we didn't have the time or energy to work 0n getting fancy costumes like we wanted, so we made up for that this year by getting really nice costumes from a tailor. We just printed out pictures, handed them to the tailor, and told them to make it. My costume is a historical dress from the American Civil War era. I'm not any particular person, just someone. I don't think it should really matter what person I am, but obviously other people though so. One person thought I was dressed as Little Bo Peep. (If I were her I would have a shepherd's crook, but I wasn't and I didn't.) Or when I told them I was wearing a historical dress, they'd think I was Scarlett O'Hara, or a "southern belle," or something similar. I guess the closest thing would be the March girls, because they were my inspiration, but I still wasn't one of the March girls, just someone from that time period.

Anyway, here's a picture of me in my costume, complete with hoop skirt. Just for fun, I posed properly and altered the image to make it look old.



The collar isn't quite right (it was supposed to be pointed and stiff, not round and floppy), but it's okay for now and that's something I know how to fix. (I can just cut off the old collar and make a new one.) The thing is that the manikin wasn't wearing the collar in the picture, so we had to tell them ourselves by pointing at things that we wanted a collar, and they didn't know that it was supposed to look a certain way.

Gardening

I've been meaning to start my garden for a while now, ever since I received the seeds my grandpa mailed to me, but I haven't gotten to it until today. It doesn't affect the plants too much, though, because they're not really being planted outdoors; they're going into our glass-enclosed balcony, which is pretty much like a greenhouse. Anyway, I'll be posting some updates on the garden anytime I feel the need to. It probably won't be on any regular basis.


Here is where the garden is going. Normally the table is closer to the end near the planters, but we moved it towards the middle temporarily. (Our laundry has to hang on this balcony to dry, and we don't really want the table to be right under the balcony.) So basically what I'm saying is the stuff on the balcony will be rearranged a bit at some point soon. The planter on the right has slightly different soil than the other one, because I had two different kinds of soil and I mixed them together in that one, rather than keeping them separate but having two bags of soil which were each only about a third full.
This picture shows which seeds I'm planting, and where they are going. I have some tomatoes, chives, and flowers, but I'm not planting them yet.

English Class - "Five Ways" Poem

My English teacher is great. Some students disagree with me and say that he talks too much, but I like it because we can discuss things aloud as we read them, and not just writing journals at the end of each chapter, where the only person who ever reads them is the teacher, and you can't learn from what your classmates have to say. Besides, I feel like I can express my thoughts better orally than in writing sometimes, and while reading a book is one of those times.

The other thing is that instead of writing our assignments and book responses on paper and handing them in to the teacher, we post them on a blog. The advantages to this fall along the same line as the in-class discussions: other students can read your work and critique it, and you can learn from other students' writing.

Anyway, I'm going to show you a poem I wrote for English class. The assignment was to choose a poem from a book he gave us and write a pastiche, a copy of another artist's style, based on the poem. Here is the original poem, followed by my own pastiche:

Five Ways to Kill a Man EDWIN BROCK

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.

You can make him carry a plank of wood

to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this

properly you require a crowd of people

wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak

to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one

man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,

shaped and chased in a traditional way,

and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.

But for this you need white horses,

English trees, men with bows and arrows,

at least two flags, a prince, and a

castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind

allows, blow gas at him. But then you need

a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,

not to mention black boots, bomb craters,

more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs,

and some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly

miles above your victim and dispose of him by

pressing one small switch. All you then

require is an ocean to separate you, two

systems of government, a nation’s scientists,

several factories, a psychopath, and

land that no-one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways

to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat

is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle

of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

Five Ways to Fail in Life EMMA

There are many cumbersome ways to fail in life.

You could claim inheritance to the throne

of an empire, and wreck the whole place.

You would require numerous mistresses, a case of

megalomania, a controlling mother, a way to kill

said mother, and an utter lack of talent in the

arts, which you would deny.

With no claim to a throne by birthright, you

could declare dictatorship anyway. You would

be self-conscious about your lack of height, not to mention

being at war with everyone at once, invading

Russia in the dead of winter, and refusing to

quit while you are ahead.

When destroying a nation is out of your reach, you can

lead a large army to their deaths instead. For this

you should have big and fluffy sideburns, a

vital battle, a gigantic crater, 3793 troops to

sacrifice, and a reputation to shatter.

Another way to fail is by becoming a famous

mobster. This would require one giant crime

organization, Thompson sub-machine guns, lots of

money with nothing to show for it, a prison

sentence to Alcatraz, and a case of syphilis.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways

to fail in life. Simpler, direct, and much more neat

is to sit in the middle of a sea of

opportunities, yet do nothing.

I actually had to do a bit of research for this poem, but I enjoyed it. The people I referred to in my poem are real historical figures, and as an added bonus I'll let you guess who they are. (Preferably specify which stanza applies to them.) The only people who aren't allowed to answer are my dad and my brother, because they helped me to choose historical figures and therefore already know who all the people are.

School

I know I haven't posted anything in forever. I would post more, but China just so happens to have blocked Blogger and so far only my mom and dad have proxies on their computers. I could steal their computers more often, but I always forget, and I like my laptop's keyboard better, anyway.

So, SCHOOL

School is good. I have the greatest homeroom ever. It's awesome. We have plans to make a homeroom band. (I am the lead violinist.) This year we're doing a lot more competitions between homerooms, and I like that.

We went to a two-night school camp last week. It was fun, especially compared to last year. It's not that last year was particularly bad or anything, but it could have been better. Basically they divided us up into groups and we cycled through activities like archery and horseback riding, which maybe I would have thought was fun if I hadn't done them before and under better circumstances. The archery equipment wasn't too great of quality (most of the arrows were losing their fletching) and we only got to ride the horses for one short lap. We weren't even allowed to trot; we had to walk. I can understand not cantering or galloping, but not even being allowed to trot was a bit frustrating. I did manage to convince the workers that I could ride a horse and didn't need them to walk next to me, at least.

The food wasn't that great, either. Oh, well.

Anyway, this year we did competitions like boat races, games, raft-building, group talent show, and fashion show. My homeroom got first or second place in everything except for the talent show, where we got third, so we won overall. My boat got the best time in the boat races when we had six people, one less than everyone else, although when the scores for all the boats were averaged out we got second. My group built absolutely the worst raft, but we managed to float the entire ten minutes and win the competition through careful balancing. What I'm most proud of, though, is the fashion show. Our theme was Latin America, which was perfect because we have a Costa Rican in our class, so she immediately knew what to do. Then we had to make two outfits - one male and one female - out of blue and white poster board, and hold a fashion show. Our girl's dress was the best. Multiple people commented that they couldn't believe it was made out of paper and not cloth. (If I had a picture of it I'd show you, but I don't. Maybe I can get it from one of my classmates.) We didn't win, but I think that's because our homeroom was first so the other models had more time to discuss how present themselves and learn from the models who went ahead of them.

And the food was pretty good.

The only problem was that we were in tents, which wouldn't have been too big a deal except that the mattress pads weren't too great and the ground was a bit uneven, and it rained all night the second night and the low-quality tents leaked.

Since my dad is a ninth-grade homeroom teacher (although not my homeroom teacher) he was at the same camp. Some troublemakers tied his tent shut one night, but since he always has his pocketknife with him he easily cut the string. We don't know who did it, although it doesn't really matter. One of my classmates says he's pretty sure ho knows who did it, but he won't tell me who.

I'm planning on posting more from now on, so expect another post within the next few days, maybe tomorrow.

Arizona

Back in Arizona for the month. It's great, but as a result of the traveling, Sunday lasted over 36 hours, and we didn't get back to Tempe until midnight. That's partly because we had an 11-hour layover in San Francisco, so we left the airport to see the city for a few hours. That was great, except for two things: (a) we were unbelievably tired, and (b) none of us remembered that San Francisco is cold, so none of us had any sweaters to wear over our short-sleeve shirts. Also, we flew into Tucson, so we had to drive back up to Tempe. It might of been nicer to fly into Phoenix, but we weren't sure of our schedules yet when we bought our tickets, and then we could easily get a car to borrow from my grandparents who live closer to Tucson, since rental cars are expensive.

I wish we could be spending more time in Tempe, but there are so many things we want to do and people we want to see that it's hard to stuff it all into one month. We also have a friend of ours from church/school from Korea (yes, she's Korean, not Chinese), so we want to take her to some nice places in Arizona and Utah. We're driving up to Salt Lake City... someday. Next Monday or Tuesday, I think. Anyway, John and I are going to fly back early after about four days because we want to spend a bit more time in Arizona. The rest of them are staying for about a week.

It's so weird to us how now whenever we're in public, people say "excuse me" and "sorry" to us. I think the Chinese are just used to shoving past crowds of people. One woman on a public bus just walked right over the top of my feet without saying a word, when I had plenty of room to step backwards. For contrast, when my mom accidentally bumped into a man in a store here, he said sorry to her.

We've basically been going on a shopping spree here. I can't believe how much I missed Target. We try to reassure ourselves that all our purchases are basically a year's worth of supplies condensed into a few weeks. The thing is, there's all this stuff that's made in China, but only for export, so we have to go to the US to buy it just so we can bring it back to China. Strange. But I'm just glad that I don't have to look through three different stores to find shoes my size, when it's only 8 1/2! I wonder what people who actually do have big feet do.

We've also been eating from all of our favorite restaurants. In-N-Out Burger = heaven on earth. Quite literally. There's also real Mexican food, not the weird stuff they serve at the "Mexican" restaurants in Suzhou. For example, their version of enchiladas is a small chicken wrap with a bit of lettuce and a spoonful of refried beans on the side. It's actually not bad food, so long as you don't think of it as Mexican food.

I just go to see the little Chinese waitresses wearing "Viva Mexico" t-shirts.

I'm sure we're all gaining a ton of weight from all the heavy food we're eating here. Don't worry, we'll shed it all off once we get back to China, either from walking a lot or the excruciating humidity. Sad thing is we'll be missing Phoenix weather when we go back to China, because at least that's not humid.

(Next stop on the food list: Mt. Pleasant, Utah for patty melts and milkshakes.)

We've been working as hard as we can to see all of the people we want to see, try as we might. There's just so many of them. Some of our friends, particularly the boys, look significantly older, while others seem like they haven't aged a day. The same thing is happening with my perception of time; sometimes it feels like I haven't been here in forever, and other times it feels like I never left. China is screwing with my brain, I swear.

We saw our cats and dog again. The dog ran right up to us, but the cats acted as if they didn't know who we were. I think that the dog remembers us better because they care more than the cats do. So inconsiderate of them.

Not much else to say. I think I had more, but I've forgotten. If I remember, I'll write it down in another post.

Beijing

We went to Beijing for a few days, because we had a week vacation (because China recognizes May 1st as a national holiday, and I think the school also wanted an excuse to have a longer break.)

So, my parents arranged to rent camping equipment for one night, from a company that helps organize camping trips on the Great Wall, in the less touristy areas. So we slept on the Great Wall for one night, also as a birthday celebration for John. (He's now twelve.) It was really fun, and we pretended that we were defending against the Mongols. The only problem was that night, when we realized that we only had a little bit of water left and there wasn't time to hike down and get more. So we didn't have any water to drink that morning, which was fine, because we were leaving relatively early anyway, but still annoying.

The driver we had to take us to the wall and back the next morning really liked John. It was cute.

After that we spent two nights in a small hotel in the middle of the city, amid the traditional hutong villages. There was a lot we planned to do but didn't get to, partly because some of them were closed when we went there and also because it's really hard to navigate, between the long line interchanges at the subway stations and the taxis that wouldn't stop for us. But, all in all, it was great. We went to the Forbidden City - which is, surprisingly, called simply the Palace Museum by the Chinese, who usually give places very poetic names. I think we would have been more amazed by it if we hadn't already been living in China for the past eight-and-a-half months. It was still amazing, it's just... we've already seen a ton of traditional Chinese buildings. While that doesn't make any of them less unique or amazing, it does mean that they don't have the same charm to them as they do to someone who has never seen one before except in photographs.

We also tried to go to the Beijing Underground City, which is a large expanse of underground tunnels built under Chairman Mao's regime, designed to support most of the citizens of Beijing in case nuclear war with Russia broke out. Unfortunately, the tunnels are have been closed for renovation since February last year. We're hoping this means that they'll open again soon, and that they are going to open up more tunnels to the public (instead of just making it more commercialized.)

The other thing we didn't get to see was Mao's Mausoleum, where you can see the embalmed remains of the great Chairman himself. The thing is, it's only open for a few hours and on certain days, so, although we tried to take this into account, it still wasn't open when we tried to go there.

All in all, we like Shanghai better (and better yet is Hong Kong), but we still are glad we went there.

We also had dinner one night in a restaurant that advertises itself as "American Home Cooking" with the "best burgers in town," but I'd say that's not quite true. These were the first real burgers I've had since we were in Hong Kong over Christmas. (The western restaurants in China frequently serve "burgers" with minuscule patties so you have to take two bites of nothing but bread and vegetables before reaching the small morsel of over-cooked beef.)

I got my braces Wednesday the week before last. They didn't hurt at all when they put them in. (I slept through the whole process.) However, my mouth felt really sore for a few days afterward. I'm also need to get used to the fact that my front teeth are almost un-useable, so when I was eating corn-on-the-cob I had to cut the corn off before I could even get it into my mouth.

The Great Pasta Confusion

I have noticed that the Chinese are very good at getting Western foods, particularly pastas, mixed up. When my mom came back from her teacher-exchange to China, she said that at one point her Chinese host took her to a Western restaurant. In the menu, there was a dish called Steak and Lasagna, except when they ordered it, there wasn't any lasagna; there was spaghetti. Her Chinese host kept calling it lasagna, and my mom tried to tell her, "That's not lasagna, it's spaghetti." (Of course, we wouldn't serve steak and spaghetti together, anyway.)

Now I've noticed a lot of pasta-confusions of my own: in the school cafeteria, which is run by a Chinese restaurant company. I've seen penne called macaroni, macaroni called penne, spaghetti called penne, macaroni called lasagna, etc. Luckily, the Chinese only know about those four types of pasta, because they'd be even more confused if you mixed in some of the more complicated pastas. For example, I'm doubtful that they could find out the difference between ravioli and tortellini, or spaghetti, linguini, and fettuccini.

You want Hello Kitty on the hood of your car?

It's cold right now. Really cold. The weather here fluctuates a ton; just a few weeks ago it was warm out, and then it was cold and wet again, then a bit warmer, and then today it was raining. Chinese weather is crazy. I guess it fits in with the rest of the country!

My bed has been bugging the heck out of me lately, because the mattress itself is rock-solid (no figurative language here, it literally is rock-solid), and the only way to deal with it is to use a mattress pad, except that obviously the mattress-makers and the mattress pad-makers obviously didn't exactly collaborate, because the pad is ever-so-slightly bigger than the bed and is constantly sliding down. Plus, my dad insists that I have my bed pushed completely against the wall, except that if it's against the wall, my blanket can't go over the edge of my bed and that really bothers me. I hate sharing a room, especially when I'm in a tiny apartment and it means that I literally never get any personal space except for when I'm in the bathroom. And when my little brother doesn't bother to knock enough, so he frequently walks in on me while I'm in my underwear, I've got problems, especially when he (or my mom or dad or whoever) fully realizes that I'm getting dressed, but walks off and leaves the door wide open, anyway.

I don't really have too much else to say, because I've been thinking about my drawing and everything recently. John says that I need more pictures on my blog, but that's because this is a word blog, not a picture blog. Anyway, that said, I haven't had much luck thinking of things to write recently. But there have been increased sightings of Hello Kitty-themed cars in the vicinity; three, to be exact. The first one was green with white Hello Kitties on the hood and doors (we have seen this one multiple times, because obviously whoever owns it lives in the apartment complex next to ours), the second one was white with a pink Hello Kitty on the hood, and the third, and most horrifying, was white with pink Hello Kitties on the hood and sides, plus about fifty Hello Kitty bobble-heads and such lining the dashboard. This one was stopped at an intersection, and John and I took note of the fact that there was a man driving. Unfortunately, I haven't ever had my camera with me. The Hello Kitty cars remind me of how I've seen the red Beijing Olympics logo on a couple of items it should never go on, namely another car and a grand piano.

Computers, Food, and Art, What Else?

We got our computers for school finally. I'm a little bit frustrated with them because they're Macbooks, which are great for some things, but they still have their own frustrations. I like Windows for having a task bar on the bottom of the screen , where I can see all of the applications that I have running, and actually having a RIGHT-CLICK BUTTON!!! On the Macbooks, you have to either put two fingers on the trackpad and then click the button, which often accidentally turns into a left-click anyway, or press control and click. When I used Macbooks in the computer lab at my old school, (and, by the way, what's the point of having a computer lab if there's laptops in it?), I never noticed, but that was before I really started using right-click. Augh...

Anyways, I'm going through a SERIOUS Mexican food craving right now. They have Mexican restaurants here, but they aren't nearly good enough. However, as my dad has said already, there are some really good Muslim restaurants around here with Western-Chinese Muslim food, which we have discovered is really good. It's nice and spicy, which satisfies some of my Mexican-food cravings, and there is this really good flat bread called "nang," and one of the restaurants we go to serves this "pizza," which is nang bread with this tasty ground-lamb-with-spices stuff on top. We sometimes call it "taco pizza" because it tastes almost exactly like a good beef taco.

I've decided to take up drawing again. I've tried drawing two or three times before, but then I get impatient and stop. Now, though, one of my friends (an artist) convinced me to start drawing again. I don't mean realistic drawing, I definitely don't have enough patience for that, I'm more doing manga- and anime-based artwork. Before you start imagining little girls with green hair, gigantic shiny eyes, and pointy chins, you need to know that there are many different kinds of manga styles, and some are better than others. I don't like the little green-hair-big-eye-pointy-chin girl, either. I've also joined a website called deviantART, which is kind of like a Facebook for artists, so if you want to see my art, I suggest you email me and ask for the web address to my profile, because I don't really want everyone I don't know who comes across this blog to find my dA page, at least not yet.

I've also been doing some painting, charcoal drawing, and things like that. I think it's a lot of fun! I think that my two favorite media have to be charcoal and thick acrylic paint. Thick paint is so much fun, because you can put in lots of texture and it's really easy to fix mistakes. I've also started designing a character of my own, so if I ever happen to get a story written about her, I'll put parts of it here, too.

Backtracking and Violins

There are some things that I wanted to say about Christmas Break but never got around to, so I'm finally going to do that.

Mom's friend Chris was visiting for the second half of the break, so I wanted to go to all of the gardens with them, but, as I said earlier, I was sick, so I didn't get to go. I did go to one of the gardens with them. (This was the Humble Administrator's Garden, which we jokingly call the Oh-So-Humble or Not So Humble Administrator's Garden, since it's the biggest and fanciest garden in the city. And Suzhou is known throughout China for its beautiful gardens, which were actually the private residences of rich merchants and businessmen.) I also went with them to the Suzhou Museum, which has some interesting Chinese historical artifacts, but we mostly go there for the architecture. It was designed by I. M. Pei, one of my idols, to combine traditional Chinese and modern architectural styles. It's really amazing. But by then I felt too sick to walk around the museum (even though it's very small,) so I sat on a bench and waited for them, because Dad was taking me home early after that. It was a little bit depressing, because next they were going to the Lion's Grove Garden, which is my favorite because it has a big rock maze of stairs, tunnels, and narrow walkways that is fun to explore (and get lost in, because it takes forever to find your way out.) Later I went to Shanghai with them for the day (we just take the train in), and we went to the Pearl Tower, which is the big landmark of Shanghai. It was fun, especially since Allyne and John didn't want to go to Shanghai (the crazies) and were still at home, so it was just the four of us. We also went to the French Concession, which is the part of Shanghai that used to be under the control of France. It has French-style architecture and French food, including really good crepes and (real) croissants, not American "croissants," which are really just rolls shaped like croissants, with not nearly enough butter layers, if any. Real croissants are made with dough that has butter folded into it. It's folded so there are at least seventy-two layers. When the perfect croissant is done, it is browned and flaky on the outside, then soft (but still flaky) on the inside, then just slightly chewier closer to the middle, and warm throughout. If it's pain au chocolat, which is just like a croissant except that it has chocolate in the middle, then it's absolute heaven. French food is so good, especially if it's a pastry. Mmm...

This Saturday we're going back to a shop that we found there with high-quality violins, and we're going to buy one!!! I'm so excited! We really want two, one for me and one for my mom, but we're settling with just one for now. We also want to eventually get an electric violin and maybe even a five-stringed violin, which is like a violin and a viola combined, because it has the G, D, and A strings, which both instruments have, along with the C string, which a viola has but a violin doesn't, and the E string, which a violin has but a viola doesn't. But that will have to wait a while.

I'm going to play Pachelbel's Canon, because that song is so much fun on violin, especially when you get to the parts where there are about four notes on one bow. I can't wait... I am not a very patient person.

More on the New Year

According to Chinese legend, the God of Prosperity was born on the fifth day of the year. Anyone who lights fireworks on this day will be blessed with prosperity, and the earlier in the day the fireworks are lit, the better.

Today (Friday) is the fifth day of the New Year's celebrations, hence the fireworks at midnight last night. I had read something about this not to long ago, but I'd forgotten about it until someone mentioned it today.

The Lunar New Year isn't only celebrated in China; I know that Koreans celebrate it, too, and some of the southeast Asian countries. Also, in traditional Asian culture, you do not grow a year older on you're birthday; you grow older on New Year's. As soon as someone is born, they are considered one year old (because they are in their first year if life.) They become two years old at their first New Year. Then they remain two years old until the next New Year, when they become three, and so on. So if you were born just before New Year's, you would be considered two years old even if you were born only two months before.

New Year's Insanity

It's Chinese New Year. So much for a parade and a big group of people dressed up as a long red dragon; this is the real deal. You aren't just watching the show; you are literally in the show. It is crazy. It's exactly like the fireworks at the Fourth of July, just a whole lot bigger and much, much closer to the ground. Fireworks are very legal and very plentiful in China, and these aren't just the little noisemakers-and-sparklers kind of fireworks, these are real fireworks. China is the land of fireworks, always has been and forever will be. There are absolutely no words to describe the whole atmosphere of it. Literally everyone is setting off some. In the courtyards, on the sidewalk, off of the roofs of buildings, etc. Our apartment is on the fifth floor, right next to the street that runs through the complex (the perfect place to light fireworks), so we get front-row seats when they explode right outside of our window (sometimes ricocheting off of the sides of the buildings.)

The official celebrations started on Sunday, New Year's Eve. We get two whole weeks off for the New Year, so we had full license to stay up until two in the morning. At around 10 in the evening, they started setting off lots of fireworks. Then it died down, and at about 11:30 it started up again at full force. I could hardly hear my own voice in all of the noise. It lasted for a few more hours. My grandma, who is visiting, is staying in my brother's bedroom, which is on the side next to the street. She said that she was woken a few times by people lighting fireworks in the street.

The last few days, there haven't been too many exciting firework shows, but today (Thursday night) they were doing a big show again. I was already in my pajamas and am too lazy to change back into by clothes to go outside, so I stuck my head outside the window to watch. They were lighting rockets in the middle courtyard of our complex, and, behind those, I saw ones being lit in the complex across the street. I also saw them being reflected off of the building to my right from where more were being launched on the other side of our building. I closed my eyes and pretended that there was a big thunderstorm, just for fun. The big fireworks were the thunder and the little crackling ones were the rain. It also helped that it had been raining hard earlier in the day, so rain still was dripping off of the side of the building and onto my head.

In short: Chinese New Year is absolute insanity. There's no way to describe it with justice; just come here and see for yourself

Poetry

I enjoy writing poetry. I don't know why, but I've always disliked writing stories, however, poems are just a lot of fun. I used to think that absolutely all poems had to rhyme, but now I emphasize more on the rhythm, as you can see by the short poem I've put in the margin of my page. (All I can write about right now is China.) The poem below has some rhyming, though. Some parts of it I find are better than others, and some parts of it you wouldn't completely understand unless you'd been here yourself.



I step into another place,
It’s almost like another time,
So many people staring at me
Like I’m some sort
Of celebrity
Otherwise simple parts of life
Have no rhyme
Or reason

I search for things
I used to have
And used to take
For granted;
Now I see
How much I loved them
Once they are taken from me,
Like Scout when she was told
That she was no longer allowed
To read*

I think I’m going crazy,
I must be getting mad,
Just thinking of all the things
That yesterday
I had

I see the “modern” buildings made
With no rhyme,
No reason,
And nothing in between
I feel like, any second now,
They’ll fall
To smithereens

I’m walking down the sidewalk
And forget to watch my feet,
I trip on something jutting out
And my face now meets
The street.

We’re living in this crazy place
Trapped one hundred years in the past;
Always building,
Then tearing down,
Since nothing new
Will last


–Emma— Jan 12, 2009



(*This refers to a part of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Upon first starting school, the main character, Scout Finch, is dismayed when her teacher informs her that she must "forget" how to read and write, which she has been doing as long as she can remember, so she can learn it again from scratch. Scout then proceeds to tell the audience that she never truly loved to read until the right to do so was taken away from her. For some reason, this thought has always stuck with me.)

Hong Kong and Macau

I would have written sooner, but I was sick with a fever and slept in bed all week. I have been reading Little Women because we found a copy in a bookstore in Hong Kong, and I would have been reading it, too, except that I was at the part where Beth is ill with scarlet fever and has a sore throat and a headache and stays in bed for days, which, needless to say, I did not feel like reading in that context.

Hong Kong was really fun. It felt much more Western, while still feeling Chinese enough. We also could find some good old Western things that you can't find in the rest of China, like American-style shopping malls, electronics, bookstores, and movie theaters. And salt-and-vinegar chips. We got the iPods that we'd been wanting for Christmas. Mine is purple! And I can put exactly whatever songs I want on it! Yay!

We also went to Macau, which was a Portuguese colony for 400 years until 1999. It literally feels like Mediterranean Europe, except that everyone is Asian. The street food is just great!!! There is the front of an old Portuguese church, with all of the sides gone, and nearby is a big park and a stone fort that you can walk around on top. Now Macau has become a kind of Las Vegas of the East, so there is a big, ugly casino-hotel that dominates the horizon, and a number of the cannons on the top of the fort were pointed straight at the building, so John and I had fun pretending to shoot it down.