The Operation

I check into the hospital on Sunday and hopefully go back again on Tuesday or Wednesday to have this removed from my leg.


This will put me on crutches for a month but supposedly it won't be too bad according to the fine medical professionals at the #3 Hospital. I'm hoping this will put the whole thing to rest.

A New Car!

You're the next contestant on The Price is Right. I loved seeing the people's joy when they find out the prize they are playing for was a new car.

We had much the same level of excitement here last week when we took possession of our new (well .. new to us) car! Yes it is official we are officially "keeping up with the Zhangs" so to speak. After several weeks of searching and deliberating we are now the proud owners of a 2002 Volkswagen Jetta. It's pretty exciting but those that have witnessed Chinese traffic know we have a steep learning curve ahead of us. Chinese traffic can be summed up as "a bicycle mentality behind the wheel of a car." Will keep you posted on our adventures with that.

Here are the pics




And for those that have never driven in China here is my wife's hometown in winter 2004

A Day Out

Ventured out to the new campus of our school for a day with friends. Carter tagged along and had some friends of his own to play with. He proved to be a good hitter in T-Ball but catching needs a bit of work. A friend was kind enough to snap these beautiful photos





Nathan needed his afternoon nap so he went shopping with his Mama instead of making the trek.

Ma Jiang 麻將

Last night Alice and I along with the Englesons had adults night out. Did we go to a bar? Dancing? A movie? No.. when in China do as the Chinese do .. we went to a tea house and rented a room to play Ma Jiang (麻將). In North America it is called Mahjong. I'm not talking about the solitaire type computer game .. that is not even closely related to the real game.

Ma Jiang is played by 4 players around a table. You get 13 (or sometimes 16) tiles of various values and various suits. A remaining wall (the Chinese are fascinated with their walls) of tiles stays in the middle for you to draw from. Here is a game in progress.




As I've described the basic play is very similar to most card games. The tiles make all the difference though. There is something cool about handling those tiles that a card hand can never achieve. The sound they make when "shuffling" them is pretty cool as well.



The set pictured above is very similar to the one we use. Although there are a few tiles I don't recognize.

There are many variations on the game but the basic idea is similar to each variation. In our variation to win you have to have four melds (3 of a kind, 4 of a kind or "run" of 3)in addition to 1 pair. The total is thus 14 tiles (13 in your hand plus the 14th one required to complete all the melds). There are additional requirements
1) One of them MUST be a 3 or 4 of a kind.
2) You must have a 1 OR 9 in one of your melds or pair.
There are other small intricacies about how you draw these tiles but that is the general idea.

The first to go out collects money from everyone else based on some very complicated schemes which always seem to leave me paying much more than everyone else (ie. dealer pays double if they lose, you pay double if you give the winning tile etc).

It looks remarkably complex when you first start to play and there are times when you think you might never get it. We found that after 3 or 4 games we were proficient enough to play but were very slow compared to the Chinese.

I'm hooked .. plain and simple.

To Live - Huo Zhe 活者

One of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen is a Chinese film called Huo Zhe (活者) which means "To Live" or "Lifetimes". It chronicles the story of a couple (Fu Gui and Jia Zhen) as they "live" through the various ages of China's 20th century. The story follows their lives from the 40's through to the Cultural Revolutionary times of the 1970's. The cinematography, the music, the characters and the story weave together to form a fascinating tale. Not sure if you can rent it at a store near you but it is possible to watch it in its entirety on YouTube (part by part of course). Watch the sample below.

Hi

Well ..haven't posted in awhile but life has still been going on.

We have moved to a new campus at my teaching job and moved from 50 minute to 75 minute classes. These big changes have kept me pretty busy workwise.

The kids are back in school and are now there full days. We are hoping to start swimming lessons for them this month but that awaits to be seen.

We have started "kicking the tires" in terms of looking at buying a used car. Promises to be a fun adventure and I will keep updating our progress.

All I have to offer today is a picture of Nathan and his friend Brendan showing off the latest art project they did in school.