Christmas Is Coming Early This Year...

Literally since we are six* seven hours ahead of France (home of Celine's parents), twelve (always!) hours of Saint Barth' (home of Celine's sister), thirteen* fourteen hours of Omaha, Nebraska (home of Jeff’s mom) fourteen* fifteen hours of Denver, Colorado (home of Jeff’s dad) and even a whopping fifteen* sixteen hours of San Diego, California (home of Jeff’s brother!)

Well in fact this is all hypothetical since we will be in the States so we will celebrate X-mas later there that we would have if we had stayed where we were!!!! On a bright side it will still be 2006 and China will already be in 2007 (in fact it doesn’t really change anything for them since their big New Year (aka Chinese New Year for you!!!) will be February 19^th

Seasons Greetings
to you all!!!

*that all DST is not quite integrated yet since here it’s still GMT+8!!!!!!!

It's Only -2°C (30°F), Let's Go To The Market..

As we were doing some late Christmas shopping last night (Thank you Ayi for taking care of the kids!!) we were strolling down Wangfujing (a popular pedestrian shopping area in downtown Beijing, not far from the Forbidden City) when we stumbled upon the Night Market we’ve heard so much about.

So many delicacies, we couldn’t decide which one to try first….




So we decide NOT to try any!!!

Note: I just found out about this website for the slide show... I promise to stop using it, well at least until next year!!

Chinese: Check...

…Let's Do Russian

So we’ve been here 3 ½ months now and bargaining in Chinese it’s pretty much down to perfection. It goes somewhere like this:

• Me: 这个要多少钱 - zhe ge yao duo shao qian ? (this/need/how much/money)
• Lady: Very good price for you, 300
• Me: 我不露有我住在北京 - wo bu luyou, wo zhu zai Beijing (me/not/tourist/me/live/beijing)
• Lady: Special price for you because you speak good Chinese, 100
• Me: 我给你十 - Wo gei ni 10 (me/give/you/10)
• Lady: You are killing me, 80
• Me: OK 15
• Lady: 50
• Me: Here’s 20, do you want my 20 or not?
• Lady: Ok Ok 20. I swear I don’t make any money on this one.
• Me: Yeah right… So don’t sell it to me!
• Lady: Here’s my card… come back. Always good price for you.

So I've decided to challenge myself a little and go to the Russian market.

How thoughtful of them, they translated the Chinese Characters!!!

The only problem I had in this market was that they kept on speaking to me in Russian. I know I’m not the Asian type but... Russian ?!!

Labor IS Cheap

Today with my Chinese class we went to a market to practice what we’ve been preaching learning: Bargaining

Well it turned out that this particular store hand makes their silk comforters and it was really interesting to see. You can see more or less the process on the slide show below. It takes between 80 layers (for a summer quilt) to 160 for a winter one.

Cindy: I need to find a few more addresses before you come but at least I’ve finally found one!!!

You Call That Skiing?

Knowing that I:

• ­ Come from the French Alps (and learned to ski at not even 3 years old)
• ­ Lived in Colorado (where the Mountains are almost as good as Europe)
• ­ Even skied in the Andes (That would be in August)

Don’t you think it’s sad that Chloe as to learn to ski here:

Well she’s enjoying herself and that’s all it counts

Today It's...

... Beaujolais Nouveau Thanksgiving

We don’t want to favor one country over the other as far as traditions are concerned so since we didn’t drink, we are not eating turkey either!!!

This is NOT a turkey
(It would be pretty pathetic!!)

Note from the writer: Jeff happened to be touring China for the Beaujolais and in Paris for Thanksgiving. That’s all there is to it, don’t worry it’s not the War of the Roses at Casa S.

It Can Be Beautiful Too

Sunrise from our apartment

Jeremy Is Hard At Work

Jeremy decided to help clean the city from pollution…..

A square inch of sidewalk at a time!!!!

Pollution??!!

You Mean It's Not Fog??

Really Bad

Not As Bad

Better

Beijing air quality tops pollution index

Beijing(Reuters) - Air pollution in Beijing, under pressure to provide clear skies before the 2008 Olympics, reached the worst level on a government air quality index on Tuesday.

Beijing's air pollution was rated "hazardous" --the highest category in the China Environmental Monitoring Center's index-- for the 24-hour period ending at noon on Tuesday, Xinhua said.

Since the fog started late on Sunday, police have shut down parts of six highways near Beijing and a ring road on the outskirts of the city, Xinhua news agency said.

For a second consecutive day, Beijing was blanketed in heavy fog, which reduced visibility to a few hundred metres, and had delayed at least 80 flights, the official Xinhua news agency reported. [...]

[...] Beijing has pledged to cut air pollution in the lead-up to the Olympics but faces an uphill battle as its increasingly wealthy population rushes to buy exhaust-emitting cars. one out of every three days were classified as polluted in Beijing and 15 other major cities and had affected the "physical" and "psychological health" of some 15 million people, the State Environmental Protection Agency said on its Web site.

Today It's...

…Beaujolais Nouveau

I couldn't even tell you if it's a good year... 'cause I didn't drink any

(What a shame coming from a Frenchie!)

The Heating Is On

You might be surprised by the title of this post thinking she’s pretty desperate to post anything on her Blog if she has to tell us that she put the heat on. Well, au contraire, this is BIG news in China. Let me explain:

Officially speaking, Beijing's winter usually starts on November 15 every year.
Mother Nature is not behind this miracle of scheduling. Rather, this is the date that the municipal utility authority is scheduled to start providing heat to all residential quarters. […]
On the morning of November 13, the Beijing-based Legal Evening News reported that roughly 1 million households in the city were connected to the heating system. The temperature in 80 per cent of those homes was no lower than 16 C. Every residences pay a fee to receive heat in the winter. The fee is based on the household's size in square metres. […]
A community coal-fired boiler used to supply the heat in residential buildings and caused some problems.
Industrial and household coal burning, car emissions and flying dust are Beijing's three top causes of pollution, but coal has always been the most serious offender. When autumn arrived, coal was piled in front of the boiler next to the apartments building, while strong winter winds would carry the soot everywhere.[…] Next year will witness a landmark achievement, as every coal boiler and furnace in the city proper of Beijing will be powered by gas or electrical systems by the end of 2007. (Source: China Daily)

That’s not helping with pollution!!!

After The One Child Policy...

…The One Dog Policy

It's the year of the dog in China (which is by the way my 本命年 ‘‘Ben Ming Nian’’ meaning roughly my year because I was born on the year of the dog which make this year supposedly really special for me… too bad it will all end on February 18^th), so as I was saying this is the year of the dog but it's not a good year for man's best friend: an effort to stamp out rabies has prompted authorities to limit families in Beijing to only one dog.
Xinhua News Agency said Beijing was instituting a "one dog" policy for each household in nine areas: Dongcheng (That’s us!), Xicheng, Chongwen, Xuanwu, Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai, Shijingshan and Yizhuang Economic Development Zone.
"Only one pet dog is allowed per household in the zones, and dangerous and large (apparently bigger than 35 cm??!!) dogs will be banned. Anyone keeping an unlicensed dog will face prosecution (5000 yuans, 500 euros and I let you figure out the Dollars!!)," Xinhua said.
Rabies is on the rise in China, where only 3 percent of dogs are vaccinated against the disease, […]Rabies killed 318 people nationwide in September, according to Xinhua. There were 2,651 reported deaths from the disease in 2004, the last year for which data were available, compared with 159 reported fatalities in 1996. In the first three quarters of this year, the country recorded 2,254 rabies cases, an increase of 29.69 percent over the same period last year.
Dog owners also were forbidden from taking their dogs to public places like markets, shops, parks, exhibition halls, community gym zones, amusement parks, railway waiting rooms and sightseeing areas, Xinhua said. (Source AP)

WARNING: This post has nothing to do with the previous one!!!!!

If That's Not A Good Life...

..Then I Don't Know What Is

Playing games on the internet seems to be my latest passion. Well it’s not that difficult, let me tell you how to do it

1. you need to turn the computer on (It’s the big button)
   
2. wait until the mountains come on (windows background screen)
   
3. then you need to push on the orange and blue button (we use firefox!!)
   
4. and nickjr is bookmarked on the toolbar…
   
5. After that it’s a piece of cake to go from one game to another.

And when it’s time for lunch, Ayi just feeds me lunch in the room... but I’m not suppose to do that so don’t tell maman!

Surfing the Internet while being fed by Ayi!

Reporting from Beijing (China), Jeremy Q.

Note by Maman: I think it’s time to go to school (in January) before he’s totally spoiled.

Can It Be True...

...Billboards In French!!!

After 希拉克 Xi1La1Ke4 (aka Chirac) visit less than 2 weeks ago…. French seems to be the “Langue du Jour”!!

Billboard in French (Ok in English and Chinese too) seemed to pop out from everywhere due to the China-Africa Summit that took place in Beijing in the last couple of days.

It is so nice to be able to read without even thinking about it. In fact my brain is so not used to seeing French and/or proper English for that matter that I didn’t quite realize it was written in 2 languages I could actually read without thinking too much about it. I decoded the first four characters (Friendship: Youyi 友谊- there are a few stores called youyi around town, in fact they were the first stores opened to foreigners. And Peace: heping 和平, don’t ask how I know that one when I cannot say really simple things to the ayi!!!) so as I was turning around to ask my driver what it meant I realized that there was 2 other languages on the billboard that I was pretty confident reading. Why make your life simple when you can make it hard.

On a side note this big meeting was also a preview for the traffic plans for the Olympic (Source: AP)
Beijing ordered the government officials not to drive and asked motorists to do the same during a summit with African leaders, keeping normally jammed traffic flowing and previewing measures the Chinese capital is considering for the 2008 Olympics, officials said Monday.

In one of its most expansive traffic campaigns ever, the city flooded state-controlled media with appeals not to drive, sent text messages on mobile phones, banned construction and ordered government agencies to halve car use, the officials from three city offices said.

The combination of control and persuasion proved remarkably effective, taking off the city's streets about 30 percent, or 800,000, of the capital's 2.8 million vehicles during six days of meetings between Chinese and African leaders that ended Monday, the officials said.

The China-Africa summit served as a tryout for one of the thorniest logistical problems the city is facing for 2008, its often gridlocked traffic.

The arrangements were not trouble-free. The Africa summit was the largest high-level diplomatic gathering Beijing has hosted, with presidents, dignitaries and entrepreneurs from 48 African countries shuttling around the capital. Police shut down roads to make way for the motorcades, forcing traffic on to smaller streets that then easily clogged.

For the Africa summit, Liu, the transportation official, said no compulsory restrictions were issued to private car owners. Only government fleets were given orders, with city offices told to keep 80 percent of their cars off the streets and central government agencies 50 percent.

That explain… why we could drive so easily and why the sky was so blue!!!

I'm Thinking of Importing Rice!!!

Yet I’m still thinking of importing some rice…

I miss my Uncle Ben’s, Fluffy and Non Sticky
just the way I like it!!!

OMG… There is nobody at Carrefour, what’s going on!!!

The Promotions look… promising

We Are A Day Late...

...Or Is It Too Early!!!

Yesterday was the 9^th day of the 9^th lunar month (not to be mistakenly confused with the 15^thday of the 8^th lunar month ) so it’s Double Ninth Festival or 重九 (chong2jiu3) which means it’s autumn outing and mountain climbing!! But being westerners and not understanding a whole lot about these lunar months we went today instead (the only thing I got is that they have 2 birthdays which I’ll have to investigate… but not now, I have a few more months before my birthday!!!). So back to this post subject: Mountain Climbing.

Let's see what Wikipedia (when it’s not banned over here!) has to say: according to the I Ching*, nine is a yang number; the ninth day of the ninth lunar month (or double nine) has too much yang (a traditional Chinese spiritual concept) and is thus a potentially dangerous date. Hence, the day is also called "Double Yang Festival" or重阳节 (Chong2 Yang2 Jie2). To protect against the danger, it is customary to climb a high mountain, drink chrysanthemum wine […]

Why am I telling you all this (if I haven’t lost you already!) besides for your own culture and cocktail knowledge, well it’s because I wanted to let you know that I went to the Fragrant Hills or 香山红叶 (Xiang Shan Hong Ye) to see the change of the leaves color (a little bit like Vermont but on a different scale and much closer –at least for us!-). Since we went today we were a day too late for the protection against danger, but still there was a lot of people (no surprise here…we are in China!). However, as far as the color of the leaves go I think we were too early but hey that was a good outing and great exercise (those Chinese old guides do climb the mountains fast!!)

Photoshop can enhance anything!!

We even paid a visit to the Chairman !!!

(It said on the sign that he lived and worked here in 1949)

*also called "Book of Changes" or "Classic of Changes", it’s the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. In Western cultures, the I Ching is regarded by some as simply a system of divination; many believe it expresses the wisdom and philosophy of ancient China. (Whoa that’s a lot of information for 1 post!!)

It’s GMT+8 and It Stays That Way!!!

It was very simple: we were 6 hours ahead of Celine’s parents in France. Basically we were having lunch when they were having breakfast and when they were finally catching up with us and having lunch we were already on dinner!!

We were 13 hours ahead of Jeff’s parents in Omaha, Nebraska (USA!) which is kind of tricky because it not a “round” number like 12 hours. So for them it was more like: you sleep, I don’t. I sleep, you don’t!!

But now all this has been thrown out of the window, because of that DST, which stands for Daylight Savings Time. So now France is 7 hours behind us and Omaha is 14 hours behind. Which is NOT easy to remember and I’m sure by the time I have it all figured out DST will be back.

The only constant point of reference in my mini-jet lag is St Barth (where lil’ sis lives) which does not do the DST so it’s still a good and easy 12 hours time difference. I get up when they go to sleep (I’m a late riser and they are early to bed) and when I go to sleep they are at the beginning of their day (the day that I just lived!!!).

PS: Does it mean that I will get a year older a full 6 hours before I was supposed to?

At least we are sure of one thing, Beijing Olympic Games are in exactly:

Look Who Paid Us A Visit...

French President Jacques Chirac (or 希拉克 - Xi La Ke as he is known here!) was in town on his 4th official visit to China. During his stay in Beijing, Chirac held talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and met with Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Zu Bangguo and Premier Zen Jiabao. Hu and Chirac signed a joint statement and 14 cooperation agreements ranging from aviation (Airbus SAS, the world biggest plane maker, landed deals worth more than US$10 billion, selling 170 jets to Chinese airlines and building a factory in Tianjin), nuclear power utilization to prevention of infectious diseases. Chirac also visited Wuhan, capital city of central China’s Hubei Province and attended a ceremony there to mark the start of construction of a second PSA Peugeot-Citroen factory. On the last leg of his 4-day visit, Chirac visited local history museums in Xi'an. (Source and Photo: China Daily)

Guess Who is Who?!!

While Chirac is working…

... Bernadette is taking a tricycle tour around HouHai
to get a taste of the life in Beijing’s hutongs

And for the little anecdote as reported by China Daily:
Amiability is certainly not a universal trait among politicians, but French President Jacque Chirac is an exception at least in the eyes of many Chinese, as a recent street talk by China Daily showed.
"When I was in France, I saw Chirac wave to people kindly, and even stoop down to shake hands with bystanders," said Zhang Qiao, a 26-year-old office lady in Beijing who studied in France for three years. "To me, he is just like a lovely neighbourhood grandpa."
For soccer fan Zhao Kui in Shanghai, the scene of President Chirac yelling and waving at the final match of the 1998 World Cup was so impressive that he personally considers Chirac the most genial leader of all.

On another side note and you know how much I like Jialefu (?!) well 2 post in less in 2 months if that’s not love…Well I really want to make sure you get all the facts (!!!):
Today, Carrefour was opening its 1000th hypermarket in Tong Zhou; a Beijing suburb. It’s the 7th store in the capital and the 84th in China. The opening took place while the French president Jacques Chirac was on his official visit to China (but he didn’t attend, what a shame!).Apparently 2 fire trucks were on site since there were a few collapse incidents!!!

Paris, Here I Come

After this, Jeff is now in Paris... Hope he didn't take the sign at the entrance of one of his project sites too seriously.

JinTian GongZuo Bu NuLi
MingTian NuLi Zhao GongZuo

If you don’t work hard today,
you’ll work hard tomorrow to look for a job
(Today/work/not/try hard – tomorrow/try hard/look for/work)

I Have To Know Them ALL!!

Searching for an easy way to learn Chinese without too much effort on my part* (dream on!) I found this nice little list:

This is a list of 400 Characters that was described as
"Minimum Level of Characters Knowledge"

And this is the Characters I know very well
(meaning without thinking too hard about it)
That’s 40 Characters

After a simple calculation I realize that after 2 months here and knowing 40 characters (i.e. 10%) I will know the 400 characters by the time I’ll be on my way out of China. And since everybody is telling me that it’s amazing how fast you forget Chinese, two months back home over the summer and you don’t remember anything, why don’t I just quit right now…. Oh yeah I need some more vocabulary for the driver, the ayi, the waiter at the restaurant, the guy at the local shop, etc… and for BARGAINING.

In my defense I’m the only one I know who is even considering learning the Characters. Call me a masochist but I need to know some of them, cannot stand looking at all of those signs and thinking it’s just hieroglyphic. Besides the 4 tons in oral Chinese are not easy on my deaf ear and I found out that writing in Chinese characters (no pinyin here) to my ayi gets my point across a lot faster and clearer. Once again why make life easy when you can make it more difficult!!!!

* it doesn’t exit and I will have to write future posts on some interesting facts I came across (later, later… when I have time!!!)

Around China in 6 Days...

...by Philleas Fog Jeffrey

Jeffrey decided to visit the sites of his project… not an easy task as you can see. Let’s hope all the planes are on time and not delayed (yeah right!!)

Click on the picture to enlarge (if you want to know all the details)

Too bad there are no Frequent Flyer Miles!!!

What Happened To Colonel Sanders?

This is 永和大王
(Yong3 He2 Da4 Wnag2)

Don’t worry we have the real thing too!!

Oh it's肯德基(Ken3 De2 Ji1)

This Little French Girl...

...Goes To Market

Today I'm taking you to the open market. You can find open markets in every neighborhood but this one is the “wholesale” open market.

Let me introduce you to the Butcher:

Well sometimes you don’t want meat you want fish:

You can never have enough eggs:

This one only sells Noodles:

That’s where you find the mushrooms (if you dare):

We cannot forget the Vegetables:

…and the Fruits:

Let’s spice it up a bit:

They even deliver!!!

And all the cooking essential are here too
(just need to dig up a little)

Another Typical Day for C.

Typical conversation between me and my driver (I know, I know I’m spoiled…. What can I say that’s what you get when you work as hard as I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

• Mr Wang: I go downstairs. (really meaning I am downstairs)
• Me: I’m coming down in 5 minutes.
• Mr Wang: I go downstairs. (not expecting this answer)
• Me: I’m coming (going to the essential)
• Mr Wang: I go downstairs (making sure I understood)
• Me (shouting down the phone): I come, I come* (forgetting that conjugated verb should NOT be used)
• Mr Wang: My pleasure

And that’s how most of my days start. Another satisfied customer!!!

* It might not sound funny for non English speakers readers (all 3 of them?) but trust me it is... because of the double sense!!

Another Day for the Rich and Famous

There must be some celebrities at the Zoo. Could it be 大熊猫 (Da4 Xiong2 Mao1) aka Mr Panda.

How Cute (behind a glass)!!

Well it must be somebody very famous judging by the number of paparazzi.

Oh wait a minute it’s just another day at the park and yet another photo op' for Mr Jeremy and Miss Chloe.

I do feel for (put any celebrity’s name here!!. We stopped counting how many times we were asked to pose for pictures and that’s not counting the pictures taken as we were walking. By the end of the day each time somebody was trying to touch or even approach Jeremy, he would hold his finger up and scream NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

What Am I Supposed To Do?

So you decide to do some laundry (No, it’s not my first load, we’ve been here a few weeks, come on!! I just decided to post this now, that’s all). So as I was saying, you separate your Whites from your Colors, you load the washing machine, put the soap in (or at least you hope it’s the washing powder) and then:

Which one would you push?

For the Skeptic:

• No the User Guide is NOT in English (why would it be?)
  
• An English/Chinese dictionary is not much of an help in this situation because to look up a "word" in a Chinese dictionary you have to A) know how it is pronounced (Pinyin) or B) Know the radical/stroke order...

The Business of Business Cards...

...or The Importance of 名片(Ming2 Pian4)

Once again we are complying with the local customs: after buying our bike, we had Business Cards made. Well actually I made them but I did it the proper way: Chinese on one side and English (in fact pinyin, which is “the Romanization or phonetic notation and transcription to Roman script of the Chinese characters”*) on the other side. Since everybody is handing out their business cards to everybody, we just HAD to have some too. It's even better if you can add a little map of how to get to your place. Finding an address in Beijing is not an easy task!!

Yes I know it is not technically a BUSINESS card…'cause who am I kidding, going around having tea with friends does not qualify as business....or does it? In fact, this is where I meet with potential clients (read: friends), exchange business plans (read: clues to the best bargain places, how to live here, etc) and I sometimes even have business lunches when we discuss potential outsourcing (read: finding the best ayi -babysitter/maid- in town) or where international expansions (read: the next must-do vacation) are debated. Maybe I should rethink my business plan and introduce myself as CEO™ (Chief Everything Officer) for a multinational company (French, American, Argentinean and Scottish) searching for new ventures (expat’ lifestyle) worldwide (North America, South America, Europe and Asia already accomplished so far). What do you think, should I have them remade with my new title?

So anyway from now on we are known as the 苏特, with daddy 杰夫瑞 "jiefurui", maman 西琳 "xilin", big sister 克洛伊 "keluoyi" and last but not least, little brother杰瑞米 "jieruimi"

On a funny note my nickname could be "Sushi"…. Let me explain myself. Chinese last names (always listed first rather than last) are only one character and Chinese first names are either one or sometimes two characters. Therefore my Chinese name (not the full translation of my western name) is 苏su (pronounced 'soo') 西xi (pronounced 'she')

* To give you an idea of what we have to go through to read pinyin go check it out here

Moon Festival

This is our first official holiday since we arrived and apparently 1.3 billion people are on holiday too!!!

Well to be exact this week is the Chinese Moon Festival which is as everybody knows on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month…. Don’t go get your calendar I can reveal to you that this year it’s on October 6th. At this time the moon is at its fullest and brightest, marking an ideal time to celebrate the abundance of the summer harvest.

It is also know as the Mid-Autumn Festival or中秋节(zhong1 qiu1 jie2). Just like Christmas or Thanksgiving, it is one of the most important events for the Chinese since it is often an occasion for family reunions. The other important event being the Lunar New Year and this is one of their 3 weeks of vacation they are entitled to.

Since the traditional food of this festival is the Moon Cake, the exchange of boxes full of 月饼 (yue bing) have started. Jeffrey brings home a full box almost every other night and we are waiting with great anticipation the opening of the new moon cakes to discover the next exotic flavor (savory or sweet you can either get ham, sausage or nut, almonds etc... the choices are endless)

That reminds me I’d better go buy some to give to our driver and our ayi.

We can save you some if you want!!!

This is Home Now

We've got all the gear… So how long till we feel at home in our new home? This is hard to tell but we will keep you posted.