Two weeks ago the devastating earthquake stuck Japan and CNN reported that it could be felt as far away as Beijing. Not that we felt anything or know anyone who did. At least directly. Elisa’s best friend is a Japanese girl of the same age named Weili. Every morning and afternoon for the past year they play together. When I used to come home from work Elisa would come running up to me happily yelling “baba, baba”. Weili started to run up to be saying “aisha baba, aisha baba” for “aisha” is how you would say Elisa’s Chinese name. Then Weili just dropped the “aisha” part. ...

Back around valentine’s day I saw an advertisement for the Eagles concert in Beijing and decided it would be a great valentines present for Yang. I thought it was a great idea because after all these years of valentines days with Yang I’ve flat run out of ideas and truth be told I never had a ton to begin with. Then I noticed the ticket prices – 2580 RMB ($400 USD) for floor seats and 2080 ($320) for the other decent seats. I figured for those prices Yang should get to have sex with one of the Eagles, the only question being which one. So I talked with Yang a bit and ended up getting her some face supplies at Sophia instead. ...

I got an email from my old company’s payroll person which said We were just informed by the bank that the deposit for your last month’s payroll was rejected. The reason is the bank account name is not correct. Can you please double check with your opening bank and confirm your account information as below? Thanks. Given that communicating with the bank is a bit difficult (see my previous posts) I responded that nothing had changed with my bank account except I updated my US passport number. They said that wasn’t it, so I checked my bank book and it had my name as “VINCENTALLIO” without the space and payroll was trying to deposit as “VINCENT ALLIO”. I figured that has to be it, as the confusion about whether this is space in name and name order has caused many problems in the past. (If you don’t know, the Chinese is written with0ut spaces which has side effects when Chinese people write English). ...

Unless you are delusional your kids intelligence is almost always more advanced than your perception of their intelligence. You keep having these little epiphanies. A few recent ones, one for each kid. Elisa watching the snake show in Phuket and listening to the snake shaman tell a long and winding store about another snake shaman. The story was told in a thai english accent and went on for a bit. That night at dinner Elisa told Yang about the snake shaman who died because he drank alcohol before riding his motorcycle home (strongly this was a joke, as in the shaman didn’t die from the snake byte). I had no idea that Elisa could follow or understand such a long story in English. For Lydia, the epiphanies for me most often come up when seeing how she builds her crafts, mostly drawings. For some time now, she has clear ideas about what she wants to draw our build and recently has been able to do more of this herself including a book of cat drawings she made last week. With Aidan, in the past month I’ve noticed he’s making some new cognitive leaps and is using more analogies which I hadn’t noticed before. ...

It was Asia night as the Patong Holiday Inn buffet which was clever marketing because considering the part of the world we were in they might as well have called it Thursday. Elisa decided she wanted no part of Asia night and puked all over the table leaving Aidan, Lydia, and me to glance up, check our plates, and continue eating. Elisa had been pooping and puking her way past the past few days after all. Yang took Elisa back to the room and after quite some time returned with the both of them washed up. Aidan asked for the room key so he could go “poo-poo” himself and I gave it to him. A short time later Lydia asked to return to the room and I stayed behind a few minutes to keep Yang company and provide some kind of sympathetic presence. After 10 minutes or so I returned to the room since the kids are a bit too young to be left alone for very long. I knocked on the door. “Who is it?” called out Lydia and I replied before she let me in. ...

We most recently rented our ChaowaiMen apartment to a Turkish man who has since disappeared. He seemed like a nice enough man, nice enough that Yang invited him to join us for a few of our Friday night outs. Apparently he was quite handsome, on the first such night out a Chinese woman friend of ours immediately told Yang he was very handsome and pried for information about him. She then completely forgot the American man that had come along in part to flirt with her (as an aside, Chinese woman have an advantage when out with our with foreign men for they do not need to make a bathroom trip to share information, rather they can just speak their native tongue). Later at a club called Xiu our American friend was going to show the Turkish man the ropes, after all the American had been in China for five years and the Turkish man one week. The American would point out the good girls from the not yet so good girls and break the ice with a little flirting in Chinese. After an hour at the club, a young, well to do, stunning Chinese woman picked up our new Turkish friend and drove him home in her Porsche Cyane while dropping off our American friend at the corner to call a taxi home. ...

I am eating chicken enchiladas which I had delivered from the tex mex restaurant downstairs. Soft, pretty big corn tortilla with tender shredded chicken inside, cheese on top, and red sauce. Lydia asks for a bite and I give her one. She likes it a lot and I offer the rest of my remaining enchilada to her but she declines in favor of me taking her to the tex mex restaurant for lunch tomorrow. She makes sure I know she wants her own full portion. ...

Elisa is watching her favorite English language educational DVD which is kind of like Sesame Street minus the cookie monster. She is excited and saying some of the English back to the TV. Her best friend Wei Li is standing a few feet away. Wei Li says the woman on TV leading the child is the “Lao Shi (teacher)”. Elisa says “bu shi lao shi, mama”. Wei Li repeats “Lao Shi”. Elisa repeats “bu shi lao shi, mama”. Wei Li repeats “Lao Shi”. Elisa walks the few feet over to Wei Li and with two arms shoves her to the ground. ...

When you come to China and meet an expat who has been in China for some time refrain from asking the generic “so what’s life like here? any surprises?” Be more specific and slice right through the heart by asking “what’s a trip to the bank like?” All foreigners here not living out of a suitcase will have a story or two. Or ten. Here is my most recent one. I bank at ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) because it was the only bank that my company had automatic payroll deposits for and whose credit card I had to use to book my flights. Pretty much all banks here have a bad reputation for customer service and ICBC is the well deserved leader in the bad reputation race. I had things pretty much set up so that I never, ever had to visit a branch because of stories previously told. But my luck ran out and I needed to visit a branch not for one transaction but three. The first transaction was to get my ATM card replaced because I lost it, the second transaction was to transfer money to my bank account in the US, and the third was to get my renewed credit card. So kind of like three stories in one; bear with me. ...

I guess part of being a nearly eight year old boy is learning how to use your body in some kind of coordinated way. It must be doubly difficult when you can sit still for a single moment. I was sitting down to play Monopoly – China version – with Aidan on Thursday afternoon. We needed to do a lot of work to set the get the game set up because Elisa has “played” monopoly earlier in the weeks. Under Elisa’s rules the object of the game is to shuffle all the money into one big mess, crimpling as needed. Aidan was excited to be playing and moving around in his chair. Lean forward. Lean back. Arms out with lean. Now arms sideways on lean back. You get the picture. On one of his rocks forward he pushed the monopoly board and it in turned pushed an empty water glass (actual) glass off the table and onto our faux marble floor. Crash, glass into hundreds of pieces. As the ayis cleaned up the glass and we kept Elisa from running around on top of it in her bare feet I “lectured” Aidan on being more aware of his movements. I say “lectured” in quotes because I wasn’t upset at all about the glass breaking it was just one of those things. (My level of upset-ness in general seems to be in direct proportion with the stress I’ve been feeling and I haven’t been feeling much stress these days.) The glass finally cleaned up and then it was time to pick our pieces and start the game. ...