Julien Made a Moon Cake!

 At school, Julien made moon cakes and brought one home to share. Here is how he described it:

"We had this egg stuff and there was this kind of blackish-brownish bread stuff and it had some seeds. We had to roll them in balls. And there was regular bread. We put them in this microwave thing during nap time. And that's it!" 

I have my doubts that the same moon cakes that were made were the ones that ended up in the bags, but I could be underestimating 5-yr-old budding chef skills :)

We have yet to eat it, but now seems like a good time. Off we go.

Moon Festival part II

 

Moon Festival feast buffet line...

...Moon Festival live music entertainment...

...Moon Festival food back-up plan: when the buffet line was emptied prematurely, they ordered in seafood pizza--yum : ) The gentleman in the far right corner talked with me in line for a bit. He spoke English quite well and had even visited Salt Lake City before. We're not on a name basis yet, however and I worry I wouldn't recognize him again if we cross paths.

Moon Festival flautist hovering over our boys, and making Ryley a bit nervous, I do believe :)

Theo takes the attention in stride and shows her how well he has been chewing up his book. She was impressed.

This is my friend! Her name is Lili. We met at the kids' play place area the first week living here and have had numerous lobby encounters sense then. She's an expat spouse from Korea who has been here for about 2 years. Her English is quite novice and is laced with Chinese words, but I think we bond in ways other than verbal. She has 2 kids who attend the English International school so our kids do most of the talking. Between the two of us, our main communication consists of smiles and nods and mutual understanding :) It was really nice to see how much our relationship had grown roots when she saw us at this party and was so eager to help us get situated, find us bowls and snag us some of the last deserts. Then when the other half of their table party finally left, she came to bring us to their table. We definitely felt the love!

Ryley and Serena are the same age...

...and Julien and Lion are the same age too!

The Moon Festival party was the first time we met her husband. He's a very social guy and Ben enjoyed talking with him. Their male bonding had a bit stronger language base. He speaks beautiful English. He may even convince Ben to go golfing again after a 10 year hiatus!

中秋節快樂

 Happy Moon Festival!

 

中秋節快樂 !

 

[Zhongqiu jie kuaile!]

Today was moon festival. I appreciate the Chinese appreciation for the moon. We need to be more on par with them. Here's a holiday we'll have to add to our future celebrations in life :)

 



It's a time for gift-giving, especially from the high hierarchy downwards. Employers typically give gifts to employees--a nice box of expensive moon cakes or even a cash bonus. Ben received this nice box of different kids of traditional desserts (not sure if all are qualified as "moon cakes")  I really liked about a third of them and really didn't like another third.

Lucky for us, we were in the kids' play place this afternoon and a child-informant told us about the party in the apartment at 6pm with lots of food.  Crazy what we manage to not know! With the help of a friend's translation, I found out we had not needed to make a reservation and that it was free :)  Yet another example of a generous offering--in this case from big apartment owner to small renter-lings So I sent Ben a message (he being at work, if you remember my previous complaint) and asked that he try to be home for this event. 

 
 Our entire lobby had been decked out in pink silk chair and table linens and there was live music. Food buffets lined a long hallway.  We were a bit late to arrive to the party so we didn't see any tables open still.  It seemed like tenants were able to bring family members...or maybe not; it's possible that they just all lived here together. We had our suspicions confirmed that no other white, non-Asian foreigners live in our apartment complex (unless they didn't stick around for the weekend). Our presence had its usual effect on people: a head-turning curiosity with smiles for the kids. Both Ben and I had brought name cards with us hoping to make some new acquaintances, but it turned out to be a bit more intimate gathering party with families/friends kind of keeping to themselves at their tables.  Too bad.  We did run into my one (and only) friend at our apartment: Lili from Korea. She took it upon herself to make sure we found a sofa to sit on and plates to use. Later in the evening we ended up sitting with them. I have more photos on my phone but it's uploading the new IOS and can't be bothered right now :)  There are some fireworks outside right now that I can see and hear, but it's time to turn in. Ben wants to ride his bike early tomorrow morning. Sighh. I just  don't know what possesses the man!

No Such Thing As a Free Day Off

Tomorrow, Saturday, the boys are going to school. Why? Because next week is Moon Festival on Thursday, September 19th, which is a national holiday and their second biggest celebration after Chinese New Year. But why the Saturday school thing, you still ask?

Well, since this year's moon calendar lands this holiday on a Thursday, the Taiwanese are taking advantage of making it into a gloriously long 4-day weekend. The French call this practice "faire le pont" or "to make a bridge." The French have mastered it quite well and they enjoy bridging holidays the fall on Thursdays or Tuesdays into lovely, long weekends. Their automatic 5 weeks of vacation days allow for individuals to do this as they please. Joie de vivre for everyone.

In Taiwan, however, it's absolutely fascinating to see how they manage the same situation. Group unity prevails and businesses and schools get on the same page for taking the Friday "bridge day" off.  Yet work-ethic, holiday time limitations, and who knows what other factors make it so that there's no such thing as a free day off. They pay for it in advance by having this Saturday be a work/school day! The joie de vivre is still in the air though.  People have been borderline giddy as they talk about having 4 days off!  I don't want to burst their bubble by pointing out that its 2, actually, seeing as how the weekend they normally get off...and really, it's only 1 day off when you consider this Saturday being a debit in their holiday ledger. But I won't be the one to dampen anyone's spirit :)

Here are a few sneak previews of moon cakes. More to come on those later.

And here, way at the bottom, I'd like to take just a moment to file a small complaint: Ben's work decided (which we found out a couple days ago) to take advantage of this nations' holiday time to have a couple of days of expat manager meetings. Where are their priorities, I ask?!  Ben responded that their priorities are solidly grounded in business success. Bah humbug, I reply. So Ben will be going to work next Thursday and Friday--but not this Saturday. In a way I guess it took the pressure off me to plan for a get-away weekend to the coast or an island or something--which only would have been stressful as we would have joined the throngs of other holiday travelers. So the boys and I will simply have moon-cake eating fun and "mid-autumn" BBQs locally. We just need to network a few invites first :)

A Pond Shaped Like China

As you can clearly see, this is Theo chasing a duck around a pond that is in the shape of Taiwan. What you do not see off to the right is a very large man-made pond that is in the shape of mainland China.

With the Taiwan pond, I totally saw the resemblance. But mainland China...I just had to take Amy's word for it.

For my tutor lesson today we had another field trip. Amy took Theo and I back to the hospital for Theo's head staples to be removed. Again we saw the same doctor, whom Theo greeted with his same cries and scowls. And again we were in and out super quickly with a total, up-front-no-insurance cost of under $30. Singing my praises to their medical system!

With time on our hands and a car to take us wherever, we decided to go to one of the university campuses that had this park that Amy really likes (with the cool, man-made China ponds).

Theo was in heaven. Seeing his glee at being released from stroller and apartment confines made me realize just how cooped up he has been these past 6 weeks. He was giddy has he made his flora and fauna discoveries--sweat drenched and dirty was how he liked it.

After our nature walk, we got lunch at this Japanese equivalent of McDonalds.

I had my first burger with "buns" made out of circle-shaped sticky rice. Amy instructed me to not take it out of its wrapper to eat it. I agreed that wouldn't be wise.

Officialness

Nothing says "I'm an official resident" like a library card!

...a close second is that other government-issued resident card in my purse that took us forms upon forms and weeks upon weeks to actually get.  And admittedly, it was a prerequisite to get this here library card. But still--public library officialness felt really good :)




Here is Theo, contained once again in his stroller, after he had gone nuts pulling books off the shelves to put in his rolling basket he had commandeered for his book-borrowing mission.

The children's section of the library is amazing. About half of the books are in English. We got a few of those, but what I was really excited about were the simple Chinese books with audio CDs. They're a bit above my level, but the pictures are nice and I can follow along if there are "beeps" :)

This whole library trip was only possible thanks to my sweet friend Ming Li (who I met at church our first week in Taiwan). She met Theo and I at our apartment and helped us take a bus to the library and fill out the forms, etc.  She's an absolute angel!

This is the card scanner that I need to tap with my bus card after I've managed to get Theo, stroller, and self up the 4 steps onto the bus. Again, this was only possible with Ming Li's assistance this first go-around. It will be a tough dance to choreograph on my own.  Timing will be key. Luckily, the bus stop right next to our apartment has an electronic indicator that says which bus is approaching next (luckily the numbers are Arabic numerals vs. characters in this case so I can recognize them amidst the other characters that I have no idea what they mean. This heads-up lets me get Theo out of his stroller and fold it up at just the right time.


This is Ming Li's finger telling me what bus stop we were at right next to my apartment. I took a photo so I could count the dots next time. 

The Guards