We needed a new tent for our upcoming camping trip and Steve was set on a particular sort and it turned out we needed to go to Cabella’s to get it. We took Han Fei (who’s never been camping) along for the trip.

Hunting was a fascinating topic. She was a bit appalled that so many people in Utah hunt.

The moose was a new animal for her-

But she got cozy with this one really quick.

She’d also never seen a sleeping bag before. We’re taking her camping for our ward campout next week… I hope she doesn’t hate it too much. I kept explaining camping and she kept asking if it was fun for me. (yes it is).

Fish however were a completely different story. She’s from a coastal city. Also they get their fish from the market LIVE. She has to kill them in her kitchen. Talk about fresh! This one seemed to like her.

Our other new experience this week? Horsebackriding. (another first).

I think she liked it.

In other news Han Fei is ready to become a Mormon. Mostly because she’s got the no alcohol, no smoking, no tea (for real), no coffee thing nailed. I told her there’s a bit more to it then that.

Onto the jealously….

Han Fei can cook (my dreams are coming true!)

Saturday for lunch (and dinner and then on Sunday) we had Chinese dumplings… you know them as potstickers. I just may have and authentic Chinese recipe tutorial for you coming up (including video on how to roll the dough).

I claim no responsibility for bacon and sausage- that was purely UCLA cafeteria.

Saturday we’re having BLT’s on homemade bread with tomatoes straight from the garden- I’m excited for her reaction.

We went to  see How to Train Your Dragon yesterday and once again Han Fei was wildly impressed with how nice people are here. I had a punch pass with three punches left on it and was asking about how to buy three more tickets without purchasing an entire ten punch pass since this is the last week of summer movie camp.  A woman behind me offered two of her punches that they weren’t going to be using and a woman next to me offered one.  We didn’t have to buy any additional tickets at all.  She has been repeatedly impressed with the niceness of people.  Everyone who meets her is super nice- which doesn’t surprise me- they should be.  But she is so genuinely grateful for everything.  It makes it fun to do things for her.

I’m enjoying Han Fei’s gift of seeing my country and culture through new eyes.  She’s full of questions about all sorts of things and how things are done and people’s relationships and I’m finding myself explaining things that I’ve never had to explain before.  I told her I’m willing to classify things into subcultures:  Our family culture, Mormon culture, Utah culture, United States culture.   It is making me think of things and the ‘why’ behind the things we do more deeply.  I’m thoroughly enjoying this gift of a fresh look at my mundane life.

Tuck that story in the back of your mind while I tell you about our day .

Han Fei spent a large part of the day at school getting to know the other teachers and the students.   When she came home my mom came over to meet her and to have dinner with us.  We picked some grape tomatoes out of the garden and she had one- she almost started to cry it was so good.  She’d never had a tomato straight off the vine before.  I told her it was a special Utah summer treat.  Then we had a tomato/basil/cucumber salad with olive oil, kosher salt and pepper, salmon on the grill, roasted veggies, and coconut shrimp for dinner.  When I was grilling the Salmon she said to me, ‘I want to give you a hug’ and said she’d never leave if we continued to be so nice to her.  She was choked up and got teary eyed.  I told her she was American girl already since I had her hugging and crying. 

In other news.  She doesn’t drink tea.  I even bought tea for her to have.  The caffeine makes it so she can’t sleep.   She said in her American culture class she learned that Americans all drink coffee all the time.  I told her as Mormons we’re the exception to that rule. Then I told her in the stuff I read and ‘knew’ about Chinese culture they drank tea all the time.  So we’re learning that we’re both the exceptions to the rule.

Also an interesting tidbit.  At dinner she was saying that there is a Chinese dish that they love where they take a kind of shrimp that has stripes (I think it’s Tiger Shrimp) and put it in a bowl with a lid alive.   Then they fill the bowl with white wine and put the lid on.  They wait 15 minutes and by then the shrimp are drunk and they take them out and eat them while they’re still alive.  She says it’s delicious- I’m inclined to believe her and wonder if it’s against the Word of Wisdom to eat drunk shrimp? 

I know I’m talking about food a lot- but in a lot of ways I think it’s a good way to relate to other cultures.   Food is a good way to explore differences- but also to find common ground.  Han Fei also asked if I would be upset if she took a picture of dinner to send to her family- I told her not at all and that I take pictures of dinner a lot and post it on my blog with the recipes.

We also talked more about children and she expressed the desire to have one more child but can’t because she and her husband both work for the Chinese government.  If she were to get pregnant and keep the baby then she’d be fired from her job and they wouldn’t have enough money to live on.  But she feels it’s best to raise children with a sibling so they don’t get too spoiled.  It’s interesting to hear her view on that issue.

I feel like my brain is growing just hearing more and more first hand experiences about another culture.  What a great experience for our whole family.

Do you have any questions for Han Fei?

See?  Proof-

She is from Dalian, China which is a coastal city close to Bejing (relatively speaking).

I gave her a tour of the house and she was fascinated by the concept of food storage (some of you may be also).  She has been teaching English for 13 years to junior and seniors in high school.  She has a little boy who is 3 1/2 and a husband who she left at home.

Tonight we had Family Home Evening and had her give us a ‘introduction’ to herself.  She gave us all beautiful gifts and taught the girls to say, ‘my favorite color is  ________’.  She told us about her city (fashion capital of China, tourist city) and showed us pictures of her family and told us about them.  We also learned about the Zodiac and that in China a man being four years older than a woman means they’ll have a good marriage because it’s good luck.  (woo!)  Steve is a tiger, Megan and I are horse, Ashley and Han Fei are Rabbit, Annika is Sheep and Cori is Rooster.  The kids thought that was cool.  Han Fei is very impressed with Annika’s tonality and ability to speak Chinese- so the program is working!

Food adventures- we had sandwiches for lunch.  Han Fei had never had mayo before and wanted to put ketchup on her ham sandwich- I wouldn’t let her so she tried mayo and liked it.  Woo!  We had Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner and while it was a little sweet she liked them!  Success number two.  Everything here is much sweeter than in China apparently.  Also beverages are to be warm because you can’t drink the water in her city without boiling it first- so cold beverages are a novelty.

We made a trip to Walmart- which is smaller than her Walmart apparently and we did joke that everything inside was made in China.  The food was mostly unrecognizable and she was disappointed that there was no lamb.  I told her we’d have to try Smiths and then maybe and actual butcher shop.  I’ve never had lamb.

Her English is very good- I’m very impressed and we’ve not really had a hard time communicating- which I was concerned about.  I think this is going to be great.  We’re very excited to get to know her better and the kids already adore her.  This is going to be a great experience for our family.

What I know.  She’s coming on Monday the 9th.  She’ll be teaching halftime at the elementary school (ours) and halftime at the highschool up the street.  She speaks English.  Well enough to come- we’ll see how good that is.  She speaks Chinese- really really well I’m assuming. ;)  I’m hoping to learn a lot about China and not scar her too deeply about American families.

So if you had an adult from China for three weeks what would you want to show her in Utah?  Where would you take her?  What would you cook for her? (I’m hoping that she’s an awesome Chinese cook and will teach me some cool stuff and that she’s interested in trying all sorts of new cuisine that I can cook for her- is that too much to hope for??)

I need to clean my house and get my guest room ready for a long term visitor and pretend like I’ve got something figured out….

So after a super long TWO WEEK summer break my kids are back in school.  Woo?  They’re excited (remember- they don’t know what summer is supposed to be like).

I did the mom thing and made them all line up for a picture on the way out the door.

Cori didn’t have school until 11:15 but she lined up with everyone else anyway.

Then Megan wanted a picture by herself.

Annika thought that was a great idea….

And I strong armed Ashley into one also and she humored me:

We dropped Ashley off first so she could be rid of us. Her teacher is Mrs. Stark. I can’t believe she’s in sixth grade!

Then we took Annika to Mrs. Chen’s class. She’ll spend the first part of her day with Mrs. Chen only speaking Chinese for math, science, healthy lifestyles, and art and then go to Mrs. Olgovie’s class for English and reading and stuff. When we dropped her off Mrs. Chen greeted her in Chinese and they talked completely in Chinese for about 3 minutes- Annika responding to questions in Chinese! I’m continually amazed at this program.

The we dropped Megan off with Mrs. Reukart and talked to her about our crazy ‘no dye’ policy. She was very understanding- even if she was thinking that I’m the crazy mom in her head.

Then I took Cori home to hear her ask 50 million times if it was time for kindergarten yet.

Finally it was time.

Let’s try that again

um… let’s move to the shade

Ugg. We’re late- maybe we’ll get a good one at school.

Cori and Mrs. Larsen (her English kindergarten teacher)

Hmm.. Maybe it’ll be better with Mr. Lan (the Chinese Kindergarten teacher)

Or not. (Don’t worry- he’s older than he looks)

How about if I just take one of her working hard on her first project?

Now she doesn’t go back for a week. Which I have to remind her of about a million times a day…

But once she goes back I’ll have five hours a day!!! Woo! Time for soap opera’s, bon bons and family feud on Facebook all day long!

Two weeks of jammed packed fun and my kids are headed back to school. Two weeks isn’t even long enough to get bored.

While I’m thrilled to be sending them it’s a false start.  They start tomorrow.  Cori goes for an hour tomorrow and then doesn’t go back until NEXT Wednesday.  The other girls go tomorrow and then have short days and no school on Friday. Then they go for two weeks and two days before their first ‘break’ when they get four days and three weeks off.

The good news?  Because of Chinese kindergarten I have FIVE HOURS a day with no kids home.  What to do?  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

So I was kissing Steve and had to literally ‘come up for air’.  Mostly because I can’t breath out of my nose because I’m so congested.  It shows how much he must love me to kiss me even when I’m sick. Of course by then I was laughing so hard that he didn’t get any more kisses…  so romantic.

TMI?  Sorry about that.

In other news my sister is here visiting and we’re going to live it up at IKEA today.  Crossing our fingers that the kid play place has openings since we’ve got 5 kids in tow (and 3 of mine are at school!)