Preparedness

Our Relief Society has a weekly newsletter, and this week I was asked to write something about emergency preparedness. Here's my contribution:

The Relief Society Newsletter has been a great reminder for me to make sure I prepare my home for whatever may come. The commandments come from the Lord, delivered to us by the prophets and other inspired leaders. The Lord wants us to be happy, and when we prepare for emergencies, it helps to ensure that hard times won't be even harder. Most of us don't have huge homes with ample pantry and cellar space, but it's still important to do what we can.

And along that vein, here are the:

Top 10 reasons why emergency preparedness is better in China

10. It's fun to explain to our Ayi in Chinese why I'm keeping all our old soda pop bottles, filling them with clean water, and decorating the laundry room with them.

9. Since I never planned on using it anyway, I could never justify buying a $400 hand-cranked wheat grinder in America. Now, thanks to taobao.com, I got one for 80 kuai.

8. I used to drive my car to Costco, throw a year's supply of everything into the trunk, and drive home. Now I balance a week's worth on the double stroller and try to push it home. I get exercise this way, and Penny usually does too, since I kick her out of the stroller to make room for stuff.

7. Since there's a profound lack of tortillas, dinner rolls, and good bread, I've gotten the chance to work on my bakery skillz.

6. We're still trying to find that fine line between preparing for possible emergencies and the inevitable return to the US. I want to be ready, but I am not shipping a bunch of extra stuff home. We buy what we will use; we use up what we buy-- except for the decade's supply of deodorant I accidentally brought.

5. Instead of potato pearls and dried apples, we have dried wood ears and tofu sticks.

4. I can store milk in the cupboard.

3. Penelope knows which cupboard to raid whenever she wants milk.

2. If the end of the world strikes while I'm out of diapers, I'll just cut a slit in Naomi's pants.

1. Thanks to the construction site next door, we now know "What would we do if the power went out?" and "What would we do if there was no water for a day or two?"

Food

I've kind of been on a cooking and sewing kick. I've blogged about some of it, put some pictures on facebook, and I'll have to agree with everyone: this is the most exciting thing in the world!

Ha ha ha. It's boring, I know. But that's what I've been doing. Maybe sometime soon I'll do something more exciting.

After many years, I've finally mastered dinner rolls. I've tried once every couple years and failed. But this time around, they were a success. And a success and a success and a success. I'm trying to take the hint now that we don't finish eating them.

So I moved on to bread. Check.

Now today I made green noodle casserole. My Grandma used to make this a lot for us when we'd go visit her, but it's been MANY years since I've had it. Last year when I asked her for the recipe, I was a bit confused. "The sauce is just cheddar cheese soup and sour cream?" I asked her. I don't think I've ever seen a can of soup in Grandma's kitchen in my life! "

Well no," she told me. "I would just make a white sauce and add some cheese."

And in a nutshell, that's how I made my casserole.

I had to make the noodles from scratch, but thankfully I'd seen our Ayi make noodles a few weeks ago. I rolled them out (they stuck to the counter) then sliced them just like she did (they stuck together just enough to be annoying). Ayi gave me some pointers for the second batch and then finally made the fourth batch for me while I snuggled Naomi.

"You're pretty new at cooking, aren't you?" Ayi asked me.

Technically no, but I'm just learning to make noodles, bread, and all my other comfort foods from scratch, so yes. I guess. :)

I've been feeling really frustrated, disappointed, and angry with myself for a while. I've never been someone who makes it a top priority to keep my house clean, and I've always felt that if it's sanitary, it's good enough. I still pretty much feel that way. We live here, and we use our house, so it's okay that it looks like it.

Still, though, we have a housekeeper who comes three times a week for the whole day.

Wheat bread

We arrived in China last year, and unbeknownst to us, so did our gazillion pounds of wheat. In another life when I'd have my own house, pantry, and cellar, I'd keep a year's worth of food on hand, including some whole grain wheat for long term theoretical use. But we're moving every two years, and it's just not very practical or economical to have the American taxpayer ship our year's supply of food around the world and back every time we move.

We do try and follow the prophet's teachings by keeping our kitchen and pantry stocked. But we plan on using everything we have before we move again. You're welcome.

So I bought myself a wheat grinder. There's no such thing as whole wheat flour in China, so I got this not only to use some of my food storage, but also to enjoy some hearty bread once in a while.

Once in a long while, it turns out.

I bought a hand-cranked wheat mill, as pictured below. There's a hopper that attaches to the top, but it's in Penny's toy bin right now, and not in the picture.

This beauty cost me about 13 dollars, and it weighs approximately 13 tons. This baby's solid cast iron. It took some doing to clamp it onto a sturdy surface, and even then, I got a blister on my hand when I used it-- not the hand doing the turning, but my left hand from trying to hold it still while I cranked. The flour came out very coarse. I made some bread with it, and it had the texture of a cracked wheat bread.... I don't wonder why.

Verdict: I'll keep it on hand for my future food storage in my future life. If I bolted it down and adjusted the grindstones, I think I could make it work in a pinch. I'd rather have this than pay $400 for one you can buy in the US, considering that I don't plan on using it often.

Yesterday I upgraded to this bad boy:

This should be called the Mixbuster 7000. It's actually called the Hao Peng Multi-Purpose Swing Disintegrator. I didn't make that one up. Most people here buy them to process Chinese Medicinal herbs and roots into powder, but they're also great for making flour. I put a cup of wheat in it, and in about 15 seconds, the thing had pulverized them into powder. This thing has an insane amount of power, and at that speed, the caddy heats up pretty quick with all the friction. But I got my wheat flour, and that's what counts.

I immediately made some whole wheat bread, using my Grandma's recipe. It's the first time I've ever made bread by hand, kneading it, shaping the loaves, and baking the bread without using a breadmaker. I'm really proud of my results.

Bread dough after rising:

Oooh, look. It's brown! It's whole wheat! I'm happy!!

The final product:

I've read on the internet how to make bread and shape loaves. They weren't kidding. It turned out great!

Kevin likes white bread, and I'm not sure he'll be as excited as I am that we now have whole wheat flour. So I'll try to curb my enthusiasm for his sake. But for today, we're enjoying our fiber!

Sweet

Penny likes to sing "You Are My Sunshine," and just today I realized she's singing it about Naomi: "You are my sunshine, my Nomi sunshine."She is very, very sweet.
I know this is a classy setting. She can't run away, so it makes for easier video-taping.

Fashion

Yesterday we went shopping at Wu Ai Market. They sell everything under the sun, all at varying prices and varying degrees of quality.

The first item we were looking for were shoes for Penny. We easily found the shoe department (an entire floor), and we began wandering around. I had to nurse Naomi, so I found a little stool to sit on, and Penny wandered around with our Ayi. Right around the corner, one lady was selling children's shoes. Hooray! Ayi picked up a pair and showed them to me, and from my little stool across the aisle, I gave her a nod and a smile, meaning, "Oh cool, I'm glad you found children's shoes!"

Ayi took that to mean, "I love that pair!" She helped Penny try them on, and then Penny refused to take them off, so Ayi bought them for her.

Penny calls them her "sparkly shoes," which sounds a lot like "broccoli shoes." I was confused for a while. She loves them, and she's been wearing them ever since we got home... yesterday.

I'm not sure what I love best about them. Is it the bright coral plastic or the gold buttons? Is it the faux leopard fur, the quilting, or the jewels? They couldn't be any more Chinese.

Penny adds her own special touch: rolled socks and shoes on the wrong feet.

At breakfast this morning, a couple of my friends (both Chinese) saw Penny and commented on her new shoes. They both thought they were so pretty and so cute! I told them what I really thought about them, but they weren't dissuaded. "They look so good on little girls! They're definitely not something you could wear as an adult, but they're so cute!"

Welcome to China. At least now we fit in.

Penny, show us how you use your chopsticks!

We never taught Penny how to use chopsticks, but when we'd use them, we'd just give her some to use. Originally, these were some kiddie chopsticks we bought in Beijing, and they had a little rubber attachment at the top holding them together-- like training wheels for chopsticks. Those were quickly lost, and Penny just likes to use her chopsticks like we do.

Not that she'd cooperate for a video, of course.

*(Translation: "No, I use a hands.")

Brasilia

This morning we found out some exciting news: we're moving to Brasilia, Brazil, (it's the capital) in 2014!

It's so weird to know so far in advance where we'll be going-- and I'm not just talking about the fact that we've not even been in Shenyang for a year before we're already thinking about leaving. I'm just realizing that for the first time in a long time, I know where I'll be four years from now: just finishing up our tour in Brasilia. Crazy! I think the last time I knew where I'd be after four years was when I was a freshman in high school. I was pretty sure I'd be graduating, and thankfully, I was right on.
Last year, Brazil really came onto our radar. I remember watching a nature documentary where some monkeys were cracking palm nuts with rocks. It was a really beautiful area, and when I found out it was in Brazil, Kevin and I talked about the possibility of serving in Brazil in the future. Ever since then, I've just noticed it more as it came up on TV, movies, in the news, or wherever. Then when we got the bid list, there were four possible Brazilian posts. I had a good feeling about Brazil. (It didn't hurt that 3 of our top 5 bids were in Brazil.) (But still, I think Providence gave us a whole array of Brazil options that worked with our schedule and everything.)
We were both pretty excited about our #1 bidding option: Sydney, Australia. We debated putting it as our #1 or #2, and we eventually put it as #1, figuring that after serving a tour in Shenyang, China, it would be the best chance we'd ever have of going there. We didn't get it. I'm sure it went to someone just finishing a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan-- and you can't begrudge them. We'll just have to travel there before we leave the eastern hemisphere.
Honestly, I'm a little sad my girls won't have cute Australian accents. But they'll learn Portuguese, which is also cool. And the more we learn about the post in Brasilia, the more we realized we SCORED! Our housing will likely have a yard-- a large yard-- with a pool. The weather reaches the low sixties in the winter and the high eighties/low nineties in the summer. I think I can handle that! The houses are BIG-- my piano might get its own room-- and accompanying bathroom or two.
We read some info from other people posted there, including things they wished they'd bought beforehand and brought with them. The common lament was that things are so expensive there. So imagine my glee: everything's cheap here! And I have over a year to buy things!
I'll need to learn Portuguese, and as long as I'm still excited about it, I'm going to start working on it. Consistency isn't my forte, so an early start might give me a bit of an advantage. Plus I studied French in high school and grew up around a lot of Spanish-- right next to the big Rio Grande River, actually. I'll do fine.

Sick

I took Naomi to the doctor yesterday. She's been sick for a week and a half now, and while there's been no major problem-- just a runny nose and once a slight fever-- she just wasn't getting better. I wanted to make sure there wasn't some latent ear infection or something.
We went throught the whole appointment, and Meimei was absolutely cheerful and pleasant. She didn't even have boogers running down her face like usual. Her ears were fine. I felt pretty dumb. I got ready to hear the "sometimes babies have runny noses" speech.
Then they did a strep test. Tadaah! She has strep throat. They gave me some antibiotics, and we were on our way.
Now here's the fun part. The antibiotics were just a powder. I'm supposed to mix the powder into a little bit of water and then have her drink it. Okay..... That's what I did. She wouldn't drink it. I added some juice, hoping she'd like it then. But she didn't. So now I'm trying to force it down her one dropperful at a time. But since I added water and now juice, there's a ton of it.
I didn't realize it, but I miss pharmacy-mixed medicines.
I'll do better with tomorrow's dose. I'll add a couple drops of water and practically give her a paste to drink.

Happy Lei Feng Day!

On the way back from the store today, the taxi radio played a children's song of some sort. Meimei started dancing to it, and our Ayi and the cab driver sang along while Meimei danced. I thought it was kind of cute, so I asked about it.
"Oh yes," the taxi driver told me, "Back in 1963 Chairman Mao set aside March 5 as the day to Learn from Lei Feng's Good Example. He was a soldier in the People's Liberation Army, and Lei Feng Day is a time when everyone goes out and does good things for others."
Ahhhh, I see. "So what good things are you going to do today?" Lei Feng was known for his abundant adoration of Mao Zedong, as well as his exhuberance in helping old ladies, visiting the ill, cleaning trash from parks, and generally being a model citizen. I wondered how Lei Feng's legacy has continued in the modern day.
There was a long pause. I didn't think they heard me. Eventually, our Ayi answered me. "I'll just not do any bad things."
So Happy Lei Feng Day, everyone!
Here is the song from the radio:

With any luck, Penny will learn a dance like this in her preschool!

PS: There's an old painting of Lei Feng a block away from our house. I guess he died here in Shenyang.

Bilingual Preschools

I've decided to send Penny to preschool. Now, despite what you're thinking, it's not just to get her out of my hair and give myself some sanity. (Well, not just for that.) I'm really hoping she can learn some Chinese while we're here in China.

People always ask me if I speak Chinese with her. "No," I tell them. "Why not?" I'm always asked. Well, thanks for asking. I once worked with a little 5-year-old girl back home in New Mexico. She was sweet and wonderful, but I couldn't understand a word she said. Ever. She had a Chinese last name, so I asked her what language they spoke at home, was it English or Chinese? "Oh, we speak English at home," she assured me. I had my doubts.

Then I met her father. He was speaking the same language as his daughter, whatever it was. I caught some words here and there, so I agree that it was supposed to be English. But he was pretty much unintelligible, as was his daughter.

What a shame! He could have taught her Chinese in the home, and then had her learn English at day-camp and in Kindergarten from native English speakers. She could have been highly functional in two languages instead of half-functional in one! Whatever... the next summer she spoke perfect English, so no long-term linguistic harm done.

But I'd rather Penny learn Chinese from native Chinese people rather than me.

I took her to the preschool her friends attend. It's a 45-minute class that kids attend with a parent, it's in a fancy department store, and it's pretty expensive. But it's clean, well supervised, and her friends attend. So I gave it a try.

Penny had fun. There were other kids around, and they sang some songs and danced. What's not to love? But I kind of hated it. The class was dual-lingual, so one teacher spoke Chinese and the other English, one after the other. Sort of. I had to concentrate on what the teacher was saying before I understood: "Rolling your hands." Oh, okay. (It helped that she was rolling her hands as she said this.) Then they introduced the animal of the day, a crow. Although, when I say crow, it doesn't have two syllables.

Penny had a nice time, and I considered sending her there, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't want to pay money for Penny to learn crappy English and maybe a smidge of Chinese. If I was going to pay for a preschool (or heck, if I was going to send my baby away to any class at all), I wanted it to be Chinese immersion. For me at this point, that's the only reason I want a preschool at all.

So I've started looking in the community, rather than in the fancy department store. These days, though, every single preschool advertises itself as bilingual or dual-lingual. I stopped by called "South Station Dual-language Preschool." I figured this would be a fancier one, since it had "Dual-language" in the name. But I still stopped by to check it out. There were 30 students at desks crammed into a room the size of Naomi's bedroom. The teachers were friendly, but I could tell they didn't speak a lick of English, beyond maybe, "Hallo, how are you?" But if you want to run a preschool these days, you have to market it as bilingual. So I'm sure everyone in the class was able to say, "Hallo, how are you?" And that technically makes it bilingual. ;)

I'm still doing some comparison shopping, but I've found a school I kind of like. It's bilingual, but as I've said, they all are. The building is old but not falling down. The kids have room to play. The principal speaks very decent English. But best of all, the teachers, while wonderful, capable, and kind, seem to speak no English beyond, "Hallo, how are you?" "Stand up," and "Want to go pee-pee?" The kids don't speak any English, and the teachers don't push the issue.

We may have found our school.