Madness In The Middle Kingdom

Gotcha huh?

Well now that I gotcha .. let’s explain why I haven’t been updating this blog so often in the last week. It seems there was this earthquake this week off the coast of Taiwan which has effectively severed 6 of the 7 communications cables linking Asia with North America. In essence Asia’s internet and telephone capacity has undergone a giant vasectomy which is diagrammed something like this (my apologies but this was the least graphic image I could find)

Normally the internet is slow in good ol’ ZhongGuo (China) but since the earthquake we have noticed (can’t believe I am going to stoop to this) a vas deferens in the speed and reliability of the net. So until we get a reversal on the big V things will be slow for awhile.

Better cut this one short.

Finally got around to splicing out the less memorable and more embarassing moments (like when I thought the new Thomas the Train pillowcases were bags to put toys in) of our Christmas morning. Some notable things to watch out for … Alice doing her best OJ impression trying to get on a pair of gloves Carter and Nathan bought her … Nathan attacking this opening biz with fervor .. Carter being his old observant subdued self … my stupid comments in the background.

Well .. the magic of Christmas has once again come and gone with wads of discarded wrapping paper and expanded waistlines. The beauty of living in the internet age is that you can relive this magic at any time just by posting pictures and text on your blog. Why it seems like only 2 days ago we were at the Colorado’s feasting on one of the best potluck spreads in recent memory. I guess that is because it was only 2 days ago.

Thanks again to Bill and Susan (and Ava, Nadia, and Mischa) for hosting a fantastic Christmas Eve/Christmas dinner (we had to come back to work on Boxing Day so we pushed the celebrations up a day). Some photos of the event

Susan with Mischa

Billy C feasting

Da Food!

Carter enjoyin’ Da Food!

Mama and Carter enjoying Da Love!

Nathan and Darren enjoying Da Drink!

Another from the “Sexy Beijing” series of videos (see earlier post below). For the holiday season I bring you “Sexy Beijing Christmas”.

Sheng dan kuai le (Merry Christmas in Chinese).

Found this series of videos produced by DanWei TV that have been posted on YouTube. The obvious ripoff of “Sex in the City” notwithstanding as a “resident” of China I found the videos to be pretty cool and sometimes amusing. Here is a sample.

Lost In Translation - Chinese selecting English names. This video is especially related to my life as a teacher at a school where the students must select an English name. In my time I have taught a male student named Penguin (no idea why he chose it), a female student named Onion (one of the smartest people I have ever met and she chose it because she felt she had many layers which she did), a male named Bush (way way way too many jokes), and an assorted collection of students named Fire, River, and Sky. (not to be confused with Earth, Wind and Fire). The oddest name I have this year is Shekkr (she hates to be called Shrek by the way). I can tell you from experience that the students who have chosen the name Genius are in fact NOT and the many Edisons that we have had really do not have working lightbulbs. The name that I have found the most peculiar, including Onion and Penguin, was a student named Stuff. Comedy like this writes itself. Without further adieu I give you Sexy Beijing - Lost in Translation

Last Saturday we woke up to a frosting of snow that looked so picturesque that we simply had to get the whole family out and snap some photos of the winter wonderland. Excitedly Alice called Sandy and we hatched a plan to get the kids outside lickety split. For those who are parents of 2.5 year old and infants you know full well that we weren’t out the door in a flash as we had hoped. By the time we got outside the snow had mostly melted and our winter scene photos were not to be. I still think we got a few gems though. Take a looka (as they say in the markets in Beijing)

One of my favourite photos ever

Nathan playing “don’t get Daddy’s nose”

It’s not a pick …. it’s a scratch!

Hailey and Carter line dancing

No .. it’s not the famous Chinese actress Li Gong .. it’s Sandy

Am I half Chinese or all Inuit?

If you have ever seen the movie CARS then you know the loveable hick tow truck named TowMater or just ‘Mater for short with his big goofy 2 front teeth like this.

Well Carter said because Nathan only has two teeth (although bottoms not tops) that his new name is Mater. He has been calling him that for 2 days now. When Nathan gets old enough Carter is gonna get a beating.

Here is a picture of little Mater and his 2 teeth

What an original title ….

Yesterday a newly arrived teacher named Euan had a kids Christmas party at his place where they kids decked a small tree and got a visit from Santa.
It went something like this.

Twas the week before Christmas and in Euan’s place
Were a dozen crazy kids with joy on their face.

The kids waited anxiously, nervously and tensely
For Santa to arrive in the form of one Jim Spensely.

To his Dad Carter had just finishing saying No No No
When from outside the apartment we heard Ho Ho Ho!

It was Santa, it was Santa - I’m telling the truth
He had a sack full of toys and one elf named Ruth.

Each child on Santa’s knee asking for toys one by one
Was it Santa or the kids who were having more fun?

Carter wasn’t sure about the right jolly old elf
But he got on Santa’s knee in spite of himself.

Blake had the camera and was taking some shots
While I encouraged Carter to ask Santa for lots.

True to his form Carter spoke barely a word
He’s a great little kid if he could only be heard.

Both he and Magnus got exactly the same gift
“It’s the same” said Santa, “so there shall be no rift.”

After the presents were given to all the kids with such care
It was time for Old St. Nick to get out of there.

As each child was grinning from ear to ear
We heard Santa say “We’ll see you next year”

Some photos of the event

Santa and a reluctant Carter

Carter and Magnus’ “Charlie Brown” tree

The host of the party - Euan

If you didn’t think SpongeBob SquarePants was strange enough or annoying enough in English then check out this little blip of it in Chinese. I apologize for the bad recording but it was the camera pointed at the TV set while Carter watched.

This posting on YouTube is a recording of a conversation between a (very patient) consumer and Verizon Wireless and it shows the sad sad state of mathematics education in North America. The Verizon customer reps, supervisors and managers have absolutely NO CLUE about basic calculation and unit conversion. I tell ya it almost makes me sick to listen to it.

Ok so here is the crux of the problem. Verizon believes that 0.002 cents is in fact 0.002 dollars or in math terms they believe that $0.002 = $0.00002 which is an error of 100 fold in magnitude. A more relevant example -> I am 1.80 m tall but Verizon would quote my height as 1.8 cm tall which is about the length of Carter’s big toe.

Take a listen and see what you think.

Ok so here is the crux of the problem. Verizon believes that 0.002 cents is in fact 0.002 dollars or in math terms they believe that $0.002 = $0.00002 which is an error of 100 fold in magnitude. In better terms I am 1.80 m tall but Verizon would quote my height as 1.8 cm tall which is about the length of Carter’s big toe.

While you are thinking about your favourite comic book character I will also ask you for submissions regarding your favourite Christmas Toys from your youth. I am looking for vintage here so PSP is not on the list. I know it is too difficult to name your absolute favourite so any of your top entries will do. I will start the ball rolling with these loveable action figure

One of the top action figures of all time .. despite the banana hammock briefs.

When I was a kid I spent a fair amount of time with my nose buried in a comic book. I became so engrossed with the tales of good vs. evil that I was oblivious to the world around me. I recall being about 10 years old or so and my Granny was trying to get my attention but I was reading a Superman comic and didn’t hear her. She promptly leaned over and with her lighter lit the edge of my comic book on fire. She laughed herself to tears at the sight of me trying to douse the flame. The sad thing is I have no idea how long the comic was burning before I noticed it.

The reason behind this trip down comic book memory lane is because of the following headline from Yahoo News today

“Green Lantern creator Nodell dies at 91″

The Green Lantern was one of my favourites as a kid. I spent more than a few hours in Caryall Books pouring over the issues before getting kicked out my old man Romanchuk for reading rather than buying. With a limited allowance one has to be careful. Some of my other favourites were Superman (of course), the Green Arrow (oddly enough though I am not a big fan of the colour green), and Captain Canuck (a lesser known Canadian hero).

As you pay homage to Mr. Nodell I ask the readers of this blog - What were your favourite comic book characters?

Here is our Christmas tree entry - Part II. The long awaited video .. take a listen for Carter and Mama speaking full on Chinese but decorating a Christmas tree .. very surreal.

I hate to be a copycat blogger but I have no choice except to plagiarize Craig over at the Engleson Files. We too at the Ma-Brown household are getting into the spirit of things and put up our Christmas Tree last night. Nathan is completely freaked out about it and when we bring him near the tree he gets a panicked look on his face and hangs on for dear life. He doesn’t cry but I have never seen a 6 month old get so nervous. Cute and alarming at the same time. Sadly though no photos of him and the Christmas tree exist at this time. As for Carter he absolutely loves the whole thing. He and his mom got right into decking the tree and it was hard to make him stop once it was fully decorated. I have some work to do educating him about Christmas because he only refers to Santa Claus by his Chinese name - Sheng Dan Lao Ren (literally means Christmas Old Man). He also calls a Christmas tree by its Chinese name except he adds Lao (old) so he says Sheng Dan Lao Shu (Christmas old tree). Below are some photos of the event. Video is to follow as I am currently having trouble getting them uploaded to YouTube.

What the heck are these?

Mama … what are you doing?

I have no idea what I am doing!

The Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

My how the first 6 months of having that little cutie in our lives has flown by. We love him dearly and now the little tank has turned 6 months old. We commemorate his time on this Earth with what Carter calls “The Nathan Song” done by none other than Dean Martin (my favourite) and Frank Sinatra (NOT my favourite). It’s a great duet though. Happy Birthday “Good Old Reliable” Nathan

Christmas came early here at MIMK. My lovely wife Alice went camera shopping yesterday and had it narrowed down to two models that we just couldn’t make the decision about. Thanks to a sales pitch by Susan over at Colorado Daze we went with the Panasonic Lumix FZ50. The early results are promising. The very first photo taken with the camera was one of the aforementioned Susan.

“I will no longer suffer from lens envy” - Susan C