Our tree arrived this afternoon. Yippee!!!! The delivery men had helmets on when they brought the tree in so I am pretty sure it was transported on some sort of bike.

Tree delivery

It looks pretty good except for the curvy trunk....we turned
that toward the wall so we can't see it....magic!!

Tah Dah!! We have a tree with lights and ornaments!!!

Oh Christmas tree...Oh Christmas tree...how lovely are your branches!!!

I have been searching for an old Chinese bench to put in our entry area. I have looked in many antique shops and on the street but have not been able to find one in the condition and at the price that I am willing to pay. Well....on Monday I went to one of our favorite tailors at the fabric market to have a jacket made. AND.....in their little "sitting" area there was a bench....exactly what I was looking for!!! As I think back on this....my mom sat on this bench while she waited for my Dad to try on his suits. I have been to this tailor many times and never noticed "the bench". To make a long story short....I bought the bench from the tailor. I think this is really fun because I know exactly where it came from and how it was used. Ahhhh....I am soooooo easily entertained!!!The bench...."tailor made"

and now the quilt has a friend....
Abi says that the bench needs something on it....Oh darn...I guess I will have
to do some more shopping.
BTW....the twigs are now standing where the water cooler used to reside.

A couple of weeks ago I was browsing at a flower market in HongQiao and found some Christmas dishes. So...as soon as Thanksgiving was over we got the dishes out and are using them at dinner. Tim is giving Abi and I a very hard time because it is "not even December 1st" yet. We think he might be a little bit of a Scrooge but he stopped and got Christmas lights for our tree tonight so I think he is just bluffing.

We have snowman dishes for fun.......

and poinsettia dishes for those fancier meals....

and a few extras just in case we need....well.....more dishes...

Abi went to school yesterday but stayed home again today. Her throat is still very sore and she has a low grade fever. She only had a half day of school today because it is "career day" so if she was going to miss another day of school....today was a good day.

When Abi was at school yesterday she saw our Christmas tree. It is still hanging around the school along with six other trees. They said the tree men was overwhelmed with deliveries. I am assuming the trees are all being delivered on the back of a bicycle. Imagine a 2 meter tall potted Christmas tree on the back of a bike. We see things like this every day.....I am amazed what they can carry on a bike. Several times we have seen a man with 10 or more wicker chairs tied to his bike.

I am just hanging around the house today with Abi and working on a quilt. I went to the little bakery by our apartments this morning and it was pretty cold outside. Maybe winter is going to stay this time.

Abi is still not feeling great this morning but she went to school anyway. Tim had a conference call that started at 5:30am and he is still on that call. We really enjoyed last week because he did not have early or late calls because of the holiday in the States. Later this afternoon he is going "business" golfing. He showed me the course on the computer last night and it looks really hard....mostly islands. Yikes!!!

I am going to the fabric market this morning to pick up a jacket and some shirts and then a group of women from our apartment building are going to lunch in Puxi. They described the restaurant as southeast Asian. I am not sure what to expect...but I bet it will be an adventure!!!

We can see two bridges this morning but it is still very smoggy and nasty looking outside. On days like these I feel that we should all be wearing respirators...when you can see the air, it just can not be good for your health.

I have several quilt projects going. I machine quilted two last week and then decided that I did not like one of them.....so....I have been "unquilting" it for the past several days. 'Unquilting" is not nearly as much fun as quilting.

Over the weekend Tim moved our water cooler out of our entry area and into the kitchen. The kitchen is a logical place for a water cooler but there were no available plug ins. This is true throughout our apartment....there are very few electric plugs. Tim is very handy and was able to get power to the water cooler but it only had power if we left the kitchen lights on. He found some wires behind the microwave that could be "hard wired" for the cooler but the electric system is a little different here so he did not want to mess with it. So....yesterday Xiao Zhang called our "handyman". He arrived shortly after she called (I still find this amazing....in the US we would have to wait for days) and after looking at the situation...said it would be 50 kuai (about 7 dollars). He knew exactly what he was doing and got the job done quickly. He is starting to be a "regular" around our house. He hangs pictures, does electrical, and yesterday he told me he can also do dry wall. Hmmmmm....I wonder if he paints?

It is Monday night and we are still waiting for our Christmas tree to be delivered. I made some calls today and I am hoping they will figure it out by tomorrow.

Abi stayed home from school today with a sore throat and a sinus ache. She is doing better this evening and spent most of the day in bed doing all the school work that she missed by not being at school today. We took a break this afternoon and watched a Christmas movie to get us in the holiday spirit and made some more Christmas ornaments while we watched the movie.

Christmas ornaments for the missing tree

The weather was really ugly today...we could not even see one bridge. The fog/smog was very thick all day.

This evening Abi was getting a little cabin fever and pushed Tim and I out the door to go swimming. She took her reading book with us and read while we swam.

Not a very exciting day in China....

We are still waiting for our Christmas tree to arrive.....it was supposed to be delivered last night...then we expected it today...and still no tree. We are starting to wonder what happened to it.....I guess we will figure that out tomorrow. In the mean time....we bought a ton of red, clear, and pearl beads at the market today. We also bought some silver wire and red ribbon and we have begun production of our Christmas ornaments. So...tree or no tree we will have ornaments.

It is Sunday evening....Tim went across the street to get a massage...Abi and I are procrastinating doing our homework because playing with the beads is way more fun than Chinese lessons and History lessons.

We enjoyed our mini version of a turkey dinner tonight and are looking forward to a Turkey sandwich for lunch tomorrow. BTW....a frozen turkey....about the size for one family was between Y550 - Y750....that is $75 - $100. YIKES!!! I bought a small turkey breast and it was also $75. Needless to say....we will not be having turkey very often while we are in China and we are REALLY going to enjoy our turkey sandwiches.

FYI...has anyone noticed what is happening to the yuan? When we moved here the exchange rate was about 8-1 US dollar....now it is about 7.3 - 1 US dollar.

This afternoon as we were driving back to our apartment and our driver pointed to the hole in the knee of Abi's jeans and said......"How do you say this?...Broken?" We all laughed and said .... ...well.... you can say torn or ripped. Then she said....."My son (20 year old university student) has this in his pants....he does not like it. So I tell him...My bosses daughter has this in her pants and she likes it. So...I tell him....don't worry....it is .....how do you say?" And I said "trendy?" She said..."yes....I understand....I tell him not to worry about his jeans." Then she said....how do you spell trendy?" We all cracked up....

Artwork from the Christmas Bazaar

This is the block print we found today....it is called "the red door".
It reminded us of a picture we took in Tibet.....

This is the photo we took in Tibet....the little girl was sooooooooo cute.....

These are the tribal masks we found...they look a little scary here but they
are really friendlier in person.

Good news.....three of our rugs arrived from Tibet last week...this is one of them.....

Today we got up early and went to JinQiao. Abi's school was having a Christmas Bazaar....much like the bazaars in the US. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. They had some very interesting vendors. One of my favorite purchases....a pair of tribal masks to go with a picture that Abi bought in Africa. We also bought a live Christmas tree.....this was not really planned but Abi really wanted to have a tree in our Apartment and the price was right. We bought a 2 meter tall potted tree for Y125. The delivery fee was Y45 because we live 20 minutes away from the school. So....our total investment...$22.67. They are supposed to deliver the tree tonight. Now that is service!!!

After the bazaar we raced back home and picked up our food, drinks, and neighbors and then went back out to JinQiao for another Thanksgiving dinner. It was a join effort between eight families and we all had a very nice time. Our contribution....desserts, wine, and an appetizer.

The feast

Tim carving the turkey

Tim serving the turkey to Angie

The cast of characters

Dessert anyone???

We came home and took down all of our fall decorations and got out our Christmas decorations....that took about 15 minutes. There is something to be said about minimalism!!! Abi made a tree topper angel out of a paper doilie, a toilet paper roll, and a tennis ball.

PS....we just can't help ourselves...Abi and I are going to Yu garden tomorrow to buy beads and wire to make ornaments for our tree.

PS #2.....we listened to the radio broadcast of the first half of the BSU/Hawaii football game on our way home from Abi's school. You just have to love technology.....we were driving in the car in China....listening to the radio broadcast from our home town through Tim's computer and the internet. How cool is that?

Feeling a little home sick we got up on Friday and created our own Black Friday shopping. We did not have "super sale" newspaper ads to entertain us but we made the best of our day. We started off at City Diner (our second favorite breakfast place) in downtown Puxi and then made our way around the city looking for a few Christmas gifts. One of our big finds....CRANBERRY JELLY. Although this was not a Christmas present it felt like one!!! A turkey sandwich is just not right without cranberry jelly.....well....actually I really don't like cranberry jelly but Tim does.

Notice anything strange about the sign on the back of the bus? Abi...the alert sign watcher... noticed this as we were driving through Puxi.

Tim and Deb....sitting in the back seat of our "hot mini van". We miss driving ourselves but on days like "black Friday" it is nice to be driven.

The blimp has been flying around the city lately......and on Friday it flew right over the river in front of our apartment.

Abi and Deb at City Diner Cafe

It does not feel like Thanksgiving week. In our "normal" life we would be driving to Idaho today to celebrate the holiday with our extended family. This year Abi and Tim have school and work on Thursday.....that is so weird!!! Tucker also has to work around the holiday and chose to work this week and request time off at Christmas when we will all be home together. This will be our first Thanksgiving without Tucker and his without us. If I think about it too much I will start to "bubble".

We are taking Abi out of school a few hours early tomorrow (our Thursday) so we can go to dinner with some US expat families. The other HP group made arrangements to rent a restaurant in Pudong and they are preparing a traditional turkey dinner. So....about 45 of our closest friends (that we will meet for the first time tomorrow) will enjoy dinner together. It is good to have a community of people to celebrate our crazy traditions with.

No school for Abi on Friday and Tim is going to take the day off work. So.....we are going to create our own "Black Friday" and do a bit of Christmas shopping.

On Saturday we will have another Thanksgiving celebration with my coffee connection friends. I have been trying to introduce Tim to this group for a while but something always comes up and we miss the opportunity. The dinner is a joint effort with each family bringing a few dishes to share.

We are thankful for our family and our many friends all over the country and world. We send you happy thoughts and blessings this Thanksgiving!!!

Tim is home from Prague!!! He is happy to back to the "warmer" weather....he said Prague is beautiful....pictures to follow.

Tennis Masters Cup Shanghai

Abi and I with Andy Roddick...it was so nice of him to come out in the rain!!!
Outside of Qi Zhong Tennis Center there were many terracotta soldiers....amazingly enough...all of them had faces of the tennis players....

Yesterday Abi and I sent most of the day with my friend Brenda at the Tennis Masters Cup. The stadium is located about one hour drive from our house in a part of Shanghai I had very seen before. The location for the stadium is a little bit remote....it is accessible by the subway and it is a long taxi drive.

We watched two doubles matches and then the two singles matches. The first singles match was Roddick vs Ferrer....Andy did not do very well...they only went two sets. The second singles match was Federer vs Nadal.....Federer won.....also in two sets

Doubles match....the orange team won.

Stadium lights between matches....

A. Rod vs Ferrer...Andy is on the left.

Federer serving....

Nadal receiving the serve..

Federer wins.... 6-1, 6-3

Another week has flown by....It is Thursday evening...Tim is still in Prague (it is snowing there) and Abi is on her way home from basketball practice. I spent the day working on a couple of quilt projects and went to a Thanksgiving lunch held by the American Woman's Club of Shanghai. We had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. In true China style the turkeys were very fresh...two of them greeted us at the door (still living) and two were....well...lets just say they did not make it to the "greeting". I heard they arrived yesterday from the US. I thought they tasted a little jet lagged. Ha Ha

The big Turkey!!! and the paper centerpiece. I was the lucky winner of the table decoration.

Lunch with the gang....

Sherie (on the left...she is from Portland, OR) and Ceyda....

I had two more Chinese lessons this week....I am so happy with my new teacher (not that I am retaining much of what she teaches me) because she is pushing me out of my comfort zone. I have to do an oral report every class period about what is happening in the real world...AND I have to say it in Chinese...of all the nerve!!!

Wednesday I got to see my Chinese students again....they were just as cute as always. I am getting to know the teachers better so that is fun as well as helping the kids. I was again humbled by my conversation with one of the teachers. He asked what I did the past two weeks...I told him about my tour of the Shikumen houses. He said he had never been there. I get in the car and cross the river into Puxi several times a week(some times a couple of times a day) and think nothing of it. For some local people it might as well be a different country.

Our 4th grade English lesson this week went like this... A) "Excuse me. Where's the store? (restaurant or movie theater) B)"Over there". A) "Thank you". B) "You're welcome". Our new vocabulary words were... hats, T-shirts, stickers, store, restaurant, and movie theater. I did not make up the lesson...it was in the book. I would guess that none of these kids have ever been close to a movie theater. The 6th grade lesson was about describing people. Their vocabulary words were straight, curly, short, long, black and blond. Our conversation was this...A) Who's that girl over there? B) Which girl? A)That girl. Oh that's Sally. She has long straight black hair. I try to roll play with the kids but they are very shy. A few are warming up to the idea so I think I am making some progress.

No school for Abi tomorrow. It is parent, student, teacher conference day. We will be at the school at 8:00am (Abi is grumbling about this and wanted to know why we had to go at 8:00 instead of 12:00.) and then probably go out for breakfast. Then...maybe make a visit to the fabric market.

I am very excited about Saturday. Our friend Xiao Wu gave us tickets to the Tennis Masters Cup Semi- finals. We will be watching 2 doubles matches and 2 singles matches. Yippee!!!

We are still counting the days until we are back in the states....

Congratulations Dawn!!!

Ahhhh....she is sooooo Cute!!!

Today my sister passed the final step to become a doctor. She will graduate next month in Arizona. From this day forward she will be known as Doctor Sister. I love the sound of that.

Way to go!!!!

I have been working on a blog entry from last week....it is taking me a while to write it because...it has some history about Shanghai. I went on a tour and learned so much about the redevelopment of the city.....so....stay tuned...more to come on that...with lots of pictures. ( I know you are riveted!!!)

This week flew buy....Abi is playing basketball on the JV team and has practice about three times a week. Tim had several evening meetings plus his normal late evening and early morning conference calls. I had two Chinese lessons....Wednesday I met with my newest (teacher #5) and I really like this one (not that I did not like all my other teachers....they just did not stay lone). She gave me some hope so I am sticking it out a while longer. She is really going to challenge me but that is what I need...I have lots of homework. AND she is making me speak in Chinese...can you imagine??

Tim's work group just finished a cultural training program that was facilitated by the director of the Community Center. This was training for Chinese nationals to learn about Western culture. It sounds like it was very well done and received.

I hosted the quilt group at our house on Thursday....served taco soup for lunch (Julie Wiesners recipe...thanks Julie) and enjoyed visiting with everyone. We finished a quilt that will be raffled on Monday at the Shanghai Expat Association coffee. The proceeds from the quilt will be given to local charities. Everyone in our quilt group contributed a block. Each block was a house and each house was embellished with buttons, embroidery, applique etc...

Friday I spent most of the day at a Focus on the Family conference. The speaker, Glenn Williams, is from Australia but currently lives in the US. I can't say that I was blown away by the information but it made me more mindful of ways I can improve our family life.

Abi participated in the World Hunger Awareness program and spent 30 hours fasting. They started at midnight on Thursday night...spent Friday night at school....slept (although I heard there was not much sleeping) outside in the field at school....and then finished at 6:00am this morning. She came home took a shower and headed back out the door for a paintball acitivity with the youth group. They were scheduled to be back at 5:00 and they are running 3 hours late. She is babysitting tonight starting at 9:30 and ending at 2:00am. Yikes!!! This has been a much better week than last week. I think I would have pulled the covers over my head and stayed in bed this week....but she is an amazing kid and got right back on the horse and kept going.

Tim is packing his bags for Prauge. (probably only one bag....I can never figure out how men can be gone for a whole week and take such a small suitcase) He will be there for about 10 days. This is his first time to visit Prauge....wish I was going with him!!!

Last night Tim had "work visitors" in Shanghai so we were asked to take them to dinner. One was a US expat living in France and the other was from Nebraska. We had a nice dinner on the river and then took them to City Shop (import grocery store). The women from France was so excited to buy familiar foods. She bought corn chips and Paul Newman's salad dressing for her husband. We looked for Hersey's chocolate syrup but they were out. She said they do not have import grocery stores where she lives....suddenly living in Shanghai seemed really easy. Well.....maybe not really easy.

I took Tim on a walking tour today of the art warehouse district and to the area down town where I went earlier in the week. We are really enjoying our Saturday morning walks....it is about the only time Tim gets to see Shanghai. And....I love being the tour guide!!!

I can hear and see fireworks outside tonight. We hardly notice this any more because it is a fairly normal occurrence. I wonder if that means we are adapting to our environment? Weird!!!

From Yesterday
I went on a tour today with the photographer known as Gang of One. I have talked about him before....in fact when Tucker was here this summer we visited Gang of One studio and talked with Gang Feng about his work. Gang Feng led us on a photo tour of the neighborhood where he grew up. This was a bitter sweet tour because they are tearing down the whole city block because the property was purchased by a developer. (Note: the word "purchased" really means "paid for a 50 year lease"). The neighborhood will be completely gone by the end of December. I learned some interesting things about Shanghai on this tour and was humbled by some of my preconceived Western ideas.

First a little history….Shanghai has a very long history and I am not an expert so I will just recap what I heard today.

*China lost the opium war
*China gave a large portion of the city to England as a concession
*Other countries wanted a piece of the action
*China gave concessions (property) to many more countries
*Foreigners flooded into Shanghai because of financial opportunities and freedoms

*The city of Shanghai was divided into many “concessions” each governed by its own laws
*Chinese were “kicked” out of their city and were not allowed in certain places
*The communist party won the war in 1949 and all the wealthy and powerful people were kicked out of the country, put in jail, or killed. This included Chinese nationals
*The cultural revolution began…lots of interesting and strange things happened during this time….too many to list here

Back to the tour….we went to an area in the English Concession call Shikumen. Shikumen means "stone above the door”. You will see why they are called this in the photos.

Our tour started across the street from the Four Seasons hotel. We walked past some buildings that were about 15 floors tall (mini high rise) and then walked through a gate that lead to this school. The school sits in the middle of the block but you can not see it from the street. This is often the case in Shanghai.....you walk down a little alley and discover a whole new world.

Back to the tour....this is how the story goes.....this block was purchased (leased for 50 years) by a company in Hong Kong. They paid 30 million US dollars for the block. They plan to bulldoze everything and build a very high end office and apartment building. The deal was done....then one night it was "discovered" that this school had been tagged as a historic preservation site. Our guide believes the "tag" was placed on the school after the deal was made. Needless to say.....the Hong Kong company was not happy about this....because the law states (this is a very new law) anything with this tag can not be bulldozed. After much "discussion" it was determined that the law did not say it could not be moved. So....they are now going to move the school to the corner and build around it. Until it is moved....it is the office of the development company.

Demolition has begun

These are roof tiles.....I thought it was interesting that these are being saved when everything else is bulldozed...

This is a good example of the Shikumen. See the stone frames around the doors.

More Shikumen

This was a little house next to the school.

Going...going...gone

The old and the new

Inside one of the Shikumen homes....many families shared this space

This is were things get interesting.....and this is typical all over Shanghai......the developer makes a financial offer to the families that live in the Shikumen. They are offered a certain dollar amount for each person living in the home. In this case they were also offered a bonus if they moved out before the end of September. I believe the offer was 125,oooyuan per family member plus an extra 100,000 bonus. The definition of family member can be a little fuzzy but in most cases it would include four generations. Now lets step back a little...since the cultural revolution in 1949 the government owns all property....this means the ground and the buildings. During the revolution families were given "living spaces". They can not sell their "living space" because they do not own it.....this is an important concept that I did not really understand. They have no equity...they can not afford to move without a deposit for a different home....and there are no homes like this for sale because there is no ownership. They really have nothing except a place to sleep and a shared kitchen. This is how it has been for 58 years. Generations are added and lost but they continue to live in the same space.

The next few pictures were taken inside some of the Shikumen homes. This is a kitchen that serves three families.
Another kitchen.....this one serves four families. I can tell because there are four gas meters. Our guide said that this space is very busy during dinner time and it is the center of the "rumor" and "gossip" mill.

Another kitchen..... I will never complain about my kitchen again!!!

I bet you are wondering the same thing I wondered....
What happens if a family does not want to take the offer from the developer?

They are called "nail families". This means they are nailed to the ground...i.e. they are holding out for a better offer. You may have heard about the most famous "nail family" earlier this year. They made international news as the last hold outs. The photos showed a shack of a home on top of a hill in the middle of a gigantic hole in the ground. Because of the international publicity this nail family received, new laws were passed that protected families in these situations. These same laws had been sitting on the "back burner" for 10 years. The picture above is what remains of a nail family home in the Shikumen. A senior widow lived in this very small space. She cleaned chamber pots for several families in the neighborhood to earn money. Each family paid her 25 yuan ($4.50) a week. She was given the offer I mentioned above. She held out for a better deal....in the end she got a new "expo home" that is 8 times the size of this place. She was paid a "per person" fee for herself, son, daughter, son-in-law, and grand daughter. In total cash she received 900,000 yuan. She and her son now live in the "expo home" (see note below) and she gave the cash to her daughter who purchased a home in a different part of the city. The son told our guide that he does not get much sleep at his new home because there is so much laughing. I think this is a good place for the phrase "laughing all the way to the bank". These people literally had nothing until the developer purchased the property under their "living space". Many many many people in Shanghai are dreaming about the knock on the door telling them that their homes will be condemned.

Note: In order to host the World Expo in 2010, Shanghai had to make several promises about improving the standard of living in the city. "Expo home" is now a term for homes built for displaced citizens because of development.

This is an outdoor kitchen in the Shikumen

Outdoor kitchen sink....this photo was taken outside a "nail family" home. This family has turned their kitchen into a restaurant for all the construction workers.

We visited another neighborhood in the Shikumen area. Our guide said that the residents in this neighborhood are very depressed. One morning they woke up and discovered that their neighborhood had been "tagged" a historic site. They have lost all hope of improving their living standards. They will live in these homes until they die. Their neighbors across the street became "wealthy" (in Chinese standards) over night and they will be left behind. But......don't worry.....as part of the "Expo promise" they will all get a flushing toilet. I wonder where you put a toilet when there is not enough room for beds?

This is the third neighborhood that we visited. The residents of these homes are in limbo. They have not been tagged as "historic" and the property has not been sold to a developer. These people still have hope but so far all they will receive is a toilet. This house was a mansion owned by a wealthy English family until 1949. The English family fled the country and the home was given to 11 judges families. Each family has one bedroom and they share all the common space. This house recently received 11 flushing toilets. Our guide said it took a long time to find places for 11 toilets.

This house has a beautiful curved staircase that come to the second floor. This photo was taken at the top of the staircase. The bamboo poles in the foreground are for laundry. They are placed on the hand rail of the staircase and then layed across to a kitchen cabinet. The kitchen is on the other side of the cabinet....all 11 families share this kitchen.

Each family has their own water faucet.......
Each family has their own gas meter.....

Each family has their own light fixture.....

Our guide said that you do not want to make your house neighbor mad.....i.e....do not use their water, or gas, or lights when they are not home. If you get into an argument it could last for 10 years......and you will see this person and their family members every single day for the rest of your life.

Every day is laundry day in Shanghai

This was a very difficult blog to write.....there are so many dynamics that play into the lives of these people....I went on this tour thinking it was a terrible thing for them to be pushed out of their homes......I came away humbled and feeling very bad for the people who have lost hope and will never have the opportunity to be "displaced".