Spring Break

The kids were on Spring Break in Utah and Alauna and Mikayla flew to Nanjing to see me. (Thanks for everyone that helped watch our kids while Alauna and Mikayla were gone).  It was a great trip.  It was so good to see them.  Alauna was pretty nervous to fly to China her first time without me but they did a great job.  While they were here they were able to see our house that we will be renting as well as the school the kids will be going to.  We also visited a couple medical clinics (I hope we don’t have to use them too often), grocery stores and went to church. 

It will be great to get Alauna’s perspective on the trip.  It was a lot of fun taking them different places and having them experience different things.  On Wednesday night we went to their first traditional Chinese dinner.  There were five of my Chinese co-workers as well as Alauna, Mikayla and myself.  Jason Chen, my friend and coworker took the lead on ordering.  He ordered many dishes that were pretty “safe” for Westerner’s taste buds.  We had Beijing roast duck, beef ribs, many different vegetable dishes, some tofu dishes (Alauna loved this), a sweet and sour fish, Nanjing Salt Duck (local specialty) and a few other small dishes.  He also ordered a couple “risky” dishes.  He ordered duck tongues, thousand year old eggs and bullfrog.  When the bull frog arrived he told me to not tell them what it was until they ate it.  The bullfrog was really spicy so Mikayla didn’t like it and it had a lot of bones so Alauna though it was too much work for a little meat.  They did eat the duck tongues and the thousand year old eggs.  Both of them they said the taste was ok, but the texture was weird.  I would tend to agree with that.  I am finding that each time I eat the duck tongue I like it more and more.  I guess when we return home I’ll have to request my friends at First Wok in Highland to add duck tongues to the menu. 

I picked them up at the Pudong Airport and we went straight to the Shanghai train station.  When we arrived at the train station we had a bit of time to wait.  Alauna and Mikayla both said they needed to go to the bathroom.  My spontaneous response was to chuckle a bit.  I didn’t mean to, it just came out.  They both ask why I was smiling.  I reached in my back pocket and handed Mikayla a small packet.  She asked what that was for.  I told her to just take it.  She would need it.  Mikayla walked in and then walked right out.  She had a pretty concerned look on her face and asked if this was the men’s bathroom.  I walked in with her and explained that in many bathrooms the sink area was both men’s and women’s and then they had separate areas for the toilets.  I then explained that I handed them a small packet of tissue because there probably was not toilet paper in the bathroom.  They both came out a few minutes later with a look like “What just happened???”  They had their first experience with using a Chinese Squat Toilet.  Alauna came out and said she had to roll up the bottoms of her pants and to make sure nothing touch the floor.  Mikayla didn’t even want to talk about it.  Alauna hates camping because there are no toilets in the wilderness.  Maybe she will enjoy camping after a year of China. 

Bathrooms in China are often one of the biggest culture shocks for Westerns.  It’s not just the squat toilets, but also they don’t put toilet paper in the stalls.  They don’t flush used toilet paper down the toilets, they put in a small garbage can next to the toilet.  Because people are squatting their aim is not always the best, so the area is not the cleanest.  And, for some reason the men cannot pee directly in the urinal.  There is always a decent amount of pee below the urinal.  I’m not sure how or why they do it, but when you go to use the urinal you need to strategically place your feet between the puddles on the floor.  When I was in a train station there was a sign in Chinese above the urinal that asked them to step forward.  It basically said “one small step for man, one giant step for becoming civilized”.  I thought that was pretty funny.  There are some western toilets and you quickly learn where they are and use them when you can. 

While here Alauna and Mikayla saw a lot of grocery stores.  One of the purposes of the trip was to get comfortable with China and understand what items they could get here and what they couldn’t get.  I think by the end of the week they realized that they couldn’t find most of what we would need here or at least a suitable substitute.  Or, we would just do without.  There are a few things like vitamins or some medicines (cold, allergy med etc.) that are very hard to find or are very expensive so we will bring some of the basics over. 

We also went to our house.  Alauna and Mikayla loved the house.  It will be a great house for us.  It is smaller than our house in Utah but very large by Chinese Standards.  It’s even pretty big by American standards, but we have six kids so of course we need a big house.  It will be nice to for the family to have some room and not be cramped for the time we are here.  It was a great feeling for Alauna and Mikayla to walk through the house and love it as much as they did.  It will even have a small garden in the back for us to grow our tomatoes and peppers.   We will just need to find some tortilla chips this fall so we can make some homemade salsa.  (That sounds so good right now.) 

We had an hour scheduled at the school and spent more than 2.5 hours there.  We had to wrap up our visit because we had a dinner appointment in the city.  It is such a great school.  The program that the kids will be in will be amazing for each one of them.  Mikayla was even impressed with the drama facilities.  They have a huge theater, a large and professional looking hair and make-up room and also a black room for rehearsal.  She had a ton of questions about the productions they do and the quality and the answers all seemed to meet her expectations. 

Every classroom in the school has projector with a smart board that makes learning more interactive.  They also have a very good visual arts program.  They have a dark room for photography (young kids ask your parents what this is), a pottery kiln, 3D graphics arts and a great space to work in.  They focus on the process of developing visual arts.  Not just the end result and you succeed if you are a good artist.  They want the students to go through the process developing a thought and a concept and then taking it all the way through to completion.  While we were there they had a student art show for the students that will be graduating.  It was really amazing to see the work they had completed.  It was a great representation of the quality of the school. 

At the end of their trip I kept thinking of one of my favorite movies.  The Princess Bride.  Buttercup and Westley travel through the fire swamp where they face many tough challenges like the quick sand, the fire holes and the ROUS’s, Rodents of Unusual Size.  They faced each challenge and come to a realization that they can make it through the swamp make it safely out the other side.  At the end of the trip I felt like Alauna and Mikayla faced the own fire holes, quick sands and ROUS’s.  They made it through the squat toilets, the food, the shopping, the school, the housing, and the medical clinics.  By the end of the week I think they felt like they could live in China and be ok.  It won’t be easy and there will be many more challenges to figure out, but they have the confidence to know they can do it.  Now we just need to get 8 people with 20+ suitcases, carry-ons and backpacks on a 24 hour journey and arrive in Nanjing. 

Have a great week and thanks for reading.

Boyd

Happy Easter

Happy Easter from China.  I woke up this morning and while laying in bed realized that it was Easter and I wasn't home with my family.  It made me miss my family even more.  I am so grateful for technology like Skype.  Even Skype, however, has it's limitations.  There is nothing like being there.  I have always been grateful for my family and can't wait to see them again in person.  I have been gone for 6 weeks now and that is the longest I have been away from Alauna and the kids.  I also thought of the military families that are apart for months and years and that put it in perspective for me a bit.  It caused me to remember flying to San Antonio many years back and driving from San Antonio to Salt Lake City with my older brother Steve.  He was at Army training for months in San Antonio and had just a few days until he had to report to a base in Washington I believe.  I kind of expected a causal trip and taking a couple of days to do it.  The trip was a great trip, but anything but casual.  We only stopped to get gas and we only ate at the place we got gas, which probably gave us both gas :).  I think we lived on hot dogs off of the hot dog roller, Salsa Verde Doritos and Mountain Dew.  We switched off driving for the first 10-15 hours, but then I was getting pretty tired.  The last place I remember seeing was Moab at about 2am.  I think we drove for 22 hours straight.  Steve just wanted to get home and see his family after not seeing them for months and nothing was going to slow him down from seeing his family.  Many years later I can somewhat relate to what he was feeling.  Alauna and Mikayla arrive this Tuesday evening and Tuesday evening can't come fast enough.

Even with being miles and miles apart from my family I had a great day.  For our Church Service we watched the General Conference talks from last Sunday.  For those not of my faith, our church has a General Conference every six months the first weekend of April and October.  In Utah and many parts of the US and world the conference talks are broadcast on the television and are available on the internet.  With the time difference we couldn't watch them last week, so we watched them this week.  It was so uplifting to hear the messages, of hope, faith, repentance, forgiveness, service and most of all of the Divinity of Jesus Christ.  My favorite talk was from President Thomas S. Monson, our Church President and Prophet.  Here is a link to his talk.  http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-race-of-life?lang=eng&format=general-conference&view=sessions&media= .  He really put things in perspective in a world that might not always seem clear.  I really look forward to conference every year and this year was no different.  After Church I took a great Sunday Afternoon nap.  It felt so good.  So overall it was a great Easter.

This week was Tomb Sweeping Festival in China.  http://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/holidays/qingming.htm
It is a holiday similar Memorial Day in the US.  The holiday was on last Wednesday, April 4th.  To give the people a three day holiday the government mandates that the Saturday and Sunday previous to the holiday are work days and then they get Monday-Wednesday off for the Holiday.  The people don't seem to mind because they get three days off in a row, even though they worked seven previously.  I spent the day with Jeremiah Linder, one of my coworkers and friend, at the Jiming Temple.  It was a really cool experience.  The Jiming temple is a working Buddhist temple.  Part of the custom of Qing Ming Jie or Tomb Sweeping day is to burn paper money (not real money) for your ancestors to have in the afterlife.  They will also place fruit and other food for their ancestors to eat as well.  One of the cultural don'ts is to not stick your chopsticks straight up in a bowl of rice.  This is because during QingMing Festival they will place bowls of rice for their ancestors with chopsticks sticking straight up.  To stick your chopsticks straight up in a bowl of rice at dinner is disrespectful to this custom.  As we went to the temple there were a lot of people there to pay respects to their Gods and their ancestors.  As we got to one section of the temple there was a large room with a large statue of a Chinese God, a monk playing a beat on a drum and about 100 Buddhist monks and other followers chanting their prayers.  It was really cool and a very powerful example of these people's faith.

As I have traveled the world, I have seen many people demonstrate a strong faith and commitment to their God.  I have always been impressed with this.  I may not always understand or believe the same way they do, but I always have a deep respect for those trying their hardest to live according to their values and their belief.  I was touched to see people so concerned for their ancestors.  In my religion, our ancestors are very important to us.  One, because of gratitude for the legacy they left us, and two because of the eternal nature of families.  This leads to another lesson I have learned traveling the world.  When it comes down to the basics people have very similar needs and desires.  People want to be loved, people want take care of their family, develop strong relationships, and enjoy life.  This might manifest itself differently in different cultures, but at the root they are similar needs.  People have a yearning to be connected with their ancestors and family.

Jiming Temple.  People burning inscense and smoke from
the burning money rising up to Heaven. 

Chinese God and food.  

Smoke rising up to Heaven.  The money is burned below and
rises up about 20 feet to this level.  

People throwing money at this iron cauldron.
There is a small ball at the top with holes in it
and people would throw coins into it.  

Jeremiah taking pictures in the garden.

Nanjing City wall.  It is over 600 years old.  

Old and New.  Jiming Temple and Greenland tower.
The Greenland tower is the tallest building in Nanjing.
89 Stories tall.  

When I was in Taiwan 20+ years ago I remember thinking when I got there that everything was new and different.  After a while things stopped becoming new and different and just became the way things are.  Then after even a longer period of time, I started embracing and enjoying the differences and they became part of life.  I think I am moving into the phase where things are not new and different but just the way things are.  I still do see some things that still cause me to double take.  I was walking home the other night and a few people were walking into a restaurant.  They stopped outside the restaurant and waited for someone from the restaurant to come meet them.  They pointed to the side of the door.  It was dark so I couldn't see what they were pointing at.  The lady from the restaurant opened up a cage and pulled out a live chicken.  She weighed it and then walked back into the restaurant holding this live chicken by the wings and I'm sure a few minutes later the group was enjoying a nice chicken meal.  This is the first time I have seen this at a restaurant with a chicken.  I have seen it many times with fish, but never a chicken.  I guess you know it has to be fresh.  

I was walking to Walmart to get a few groceries.  I guy in a bike rickshaw stopped to give me a ride.  He said it would be 10rmb, about $1.50.  I jumped in and away we went.  About half way through he turns back and says foreigner cost 50rmb.  We get to the end and start discussing the price.  He said because I'm a foreigner and a big guy that it was 50.  He said he had to work a lot harder to get me there and so he needed to make more money.  I negotiated back and forth with him a few minutes and ended up just paying him the 50rmb.  As I mentioned earlier a crowd attracts a crowd and it was late and I didn't want to attract a big crowd so I paid him off and went on my way.

I hope everyone that reads this is doing well and enjoying life.  I am doing well and am very blessed.  I am grateful for all those that have helped Alauna and kids while I have been gone.  Thank you to all who have helped.  I'm also very thankful for our family that will be watching our kids this week so Alauna and Mikayla can come to look at housing options, schools, doctors etc.  It will be a great week.  Maybe Alauna and Mikayla can post their impressions of China on the blog next week.  One more quick thing.  Many have said that they want to come visit us while we are here.  You are all welcome to come.  This time of year is beautiful.  The weather is great and there are a ton of blossoms all over the city.  We would love to have visitors anytime.  Take care and make it a great week.

Boyd

10 years

So yesterday I hit my ten year anniversary at Best Buy.  It has been ten great years.  During this time I have worked in Riverdale, Utah, White Marsh, Maryland, Murrary, Utah, China, Mexico, Turkey, UK and Minneapolis.  I really have had many opportunities at Best Buy.  We loved living in Maryland.  It was a great experience for our family and loved living an area of the country with so much American History.  I am looking forward to having my family join me here in Nanjing.  Nanjing is a beautiful city that is full of Chinese History.  On Friday afternoon Adrian Jing, the VP of Marketing and Retail Operations, invited me to dinner that night to celebrate my 10 year anniversary at Best Buy.  I had almost forgotten that it was the next day.  I think I mentioned it when I was introducing myself a few weeks early.  I was really impressed that Adrian had remembered.  We had a great dinner.  It was one of the best dinners I have had in China.  We had Beijing Duck that was delicious.  They know that we like beef so he ordered this beef that was so good.  It was beef cubes that were cooked medium rare and had a great seasoning on the outside.  It really tasted good.  We also had some traditional foods as well like pi dan, or thousand year old  quail eggs.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg .  Here is a brief description from Wikipedia "through the process, the yolk becomes a dark green to grey color, with a creamy consistency and an odor of sulphur and ammonia, while the white becomes a dark brown, translucent jelly with little flavor."  The eggs we had for dinner actually tasted pretty decent.  I have had some that are very hard to even swallow because the taste is so strong.  They are an acquired taste for sure.  So, I'm not sure if the eggs we had were just a bit more mild or if I am becoming more accustomed to them.

Cake they got for my 10 year
Best Buy anniversary

Work has been going well.  On Wednesday we presented our initial plans to the President of Five Star, Nicholas Wang.  I did my entire presentation in Chinese.  Overall it went well.  It was great to be able to do it in Chinese.  It wasn't perfect but I was able to make the points I needed to make.  I may have said this before but I really look forward to my Chinese improving while I am here.  Conversationally I am fine, but when we get into the details of business sometimes I need a little help.  It will be great to be able to dive deep into the work without help from a translator.  It will take a lot of work, but I will get there.  I am learning new words and phrases every day.  I also bought a couple of kids books to improve my Chinese Characters.  I really enjoy learning Chinese, so it is a real blessing to be here in China and have this opportunity to continue to study and learn.  

Birds in cages in the park.  You can see
a couple on the bushes as well as some
hanging in the trees with the blue
coverings over the cages.  

The weather has been amazing lately.  Spring is here.  There are so many cherry, plum and magnolia trees blooming.  There are a lot of magnolia trees with large white blossoms.  They are so beautiful and are a sharp contrast to the gray of the buildings that you so often see in China.  I went for a walk today and walked by a park.  It was filled with families and elderly gentlemen and their birds.  It is a very common hobby for retired men to have songbirds in a cage and then they take them to the park and hang the cage in a tree or bush and then they will spend a few hours with their friends reminiscing about the old days.  The birds are very beautiful and well taken care of.  You know that the owners have a lot of pride in their birds.   

Cage of pigeons to eat.  

On my walk I also saw other cages birds.  These birds, however, were not for enjoyment or a hobby, they were for eating.  It was a cage full of pigeons.  You could select the pigeon and then they would "prepare" it for you to take home and cook.  I actually enjoy eating pigeon.  It tastes pretty good.  I only struggle eating pigeon because they will roast the entire pigeon, head and all, and then cut it up to eat.  So when you are eating the pigeon there is the roasted pigeon head staring back at you.  I try not to make eye contact.  

Net stretch out just before they dropped
it in the water

In China, as in most places, there is a phenomenon I like to call a crowd attracts a crowd.  It happens all the time.  If there are two or three people doing something, pretty soon there will be 5-10 watching them.  I experienced that today.  I was walking across a bridge and saw some guys with long bamboo poles fishing in the river.  I realized that they actually had nets on the end and were trying to net the fish.  They weren't having a lot of success.  Then there was this group of teenage boys.  They were not experienced fishermen but they had an idea.  They would string a long next across the bridge and have one end connected to the long bamboo pole and the other end they would drop in the water and the fish would swim into the net and they would pull out their haul.  They were figuring it out as they went with each of the five to six boys giving their opinion as to the most effective way to get the net across the bridge and into the water.  The sage old fisherman kept yelling his frustration at them for getting in his way and also according to him making this harder than it needed to be.  We'll after a few minutes and many "this will work" ideas they got the net stretched across the bridge and dropped in it in the water.  They ended up catching a couple of fish, which was two more than the actual fisherman caught.  I asked someone else there if you could eat the fish and they said you could eat that type of fish, but not from this water.  It was dirty.  So after watching the events unfold I headed back on my walk and realized that I had been joined by about twenty other people.  Not only did they stop walking to see what was happening but people actually parked their scooters got off and came over to see what was happening.  

Row of people and scooters to watch
the boys fishing.

I look forward to another great week.  We present to the CFO of Best Buy International, Dave Deno,  tomorrow.  It should be a great day.  We are prepared and look forward to the opportunity.  I am also looking forward to Easter coming up.  One, because it celebrates the Resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and two because Alauna and Mikayla are leaving the next day to come to China.  I am so excited.  This has been the longest we have been apart and hopefully it will be the longest we will be apart in the future.  I am so excited to see them and show then Nanjing.  Take care and have a great week.

Boyd