I bought two books this week. The first one is titled "The Nature of the Chinese Character" and the second one is "Chinese Proverbs". I bought the first one because I thought it would be fun to learn a few common Chinese characters so I could recognize them on street signs....and...I might want to work some of these characters into one of my quilts. Hold that thought...

We hosted one of Tim's work groups at our house last night. This is our second "hosting" event since we moved to Shanghai. Our apartment is very "minimalist" in the fact that we do not have a lot of "stuff". Some days I miss my "stuff" but I have to say that it has been very few days. With the minimalistic approach we have very few plates, glasses, utensils etc... So...last night I discovered that we do not have a single "cheese spreader". Do you know the kind I am talking about? The ones that are about 5 inches long with the cute handles that have bagels or flowers or pineapples on them. There is really no substitute for the "cheese spreader". I searched through all of our kitchen utensils looking for a substitute and could not find one. We have forks, spoons, knives,and spatulas all of which looked huge next to the pesto cheese ball. So as I was placing the large table knife on the cheese plate I wondered if it is even possible to find a "cheese spreader" in Shanghai. I don't think that pesto cheese balls are commonly on the menu in China. This has peeked my curiosity and now I will be watching for the allusive "cheese spreader".

Now back to the Chinese characters. I showed the book to some of or guests last night to see if they were "authentic" Chinese characters. They said that they are "traditional" characters and now they use "Simplified" characters. I am all for simplified!!! They might be easier to applique on a quilt. I guess I will be going back to the book store.

The second book is full of Chinese proverbs and the illustrations in the book captured my attention. The artist name is Hu Yong Yi. Here is a Chinese proverb for the day.... "Better to do without books than to believe everything they say".