Dragon Boat Festival

Today is the Dragon Boat festival in Taipei. Long, long ago an ancient poet threw himself into the river to protest the corrupt Chinese government of the day. The local people were so upset that they threw rice in the river to keep the fish from eating his body.

This festival is celebrated with much enthusiasm in Hong Kong and Taiwan. On the Mainland, however, it was one of the traditional celebrations which was encouraged to "fall away." Perhaps because the whole point of the festivities was celebrating people who stood up against the government. Not good. But this year, China decided to bring it back as an official holiday.Maybe they are feeling more secure in their one party rule. Who knows?

The Dragon Boat festival is marked by two main things: serious boat races and steamed rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves (zongzi). We went to the river front yesterday to watch the semi-finals of the boat races. I forgot to bring the telephoto lens, so I didn't get any great boat shots. But it was cool to see the racers, all paddling in unison to the drumbeat of the leader in the front.


We had a great time at the riverfront. Frankie panted, Gioia walked around (with help from Daddy), and I got sunburned. All in all a good day.


More pictures here.

Easter in Taipei

This was our first holiday as a family. It was such a lovely day. Gioia had a great time digging through her Easter basket. When you can't give someone candy, putting an Easter basket together is quite challenging. Two items were really for when she is bigger: a jade cross and a bunny charm. We had to watch her like a hawk when she opened those. We we sure she would put the jade bunny straight into her mouth and choke and die. The tiny bunny was a hit, actually. Chris had to wrestle it away from her in the end.


I really liked the recycled fabric bunny from Muji, but she really wasn't that into it. Perhaps she liked the one her Grandma sent better. And see the basket - which isn't really an "Easter basket"? Yeah, that's what happens when you remember at 11:30 the night before that you actually need something to hold all of the goodies. But, really, who needs a long handled basket cluttering up the apartment?


After the basket was opened and breakfast eaten, we headed off to mass with our friends. But we decided to take the subway instead of a cab, and...well...we got a bit lost. Did you know there are at least TWO 51 Zhongshan North Road places in Taipei? Yeah. We made it, though, just in time to light some candles and sing some songs. An usher gave Gioia a real hard boiled egg, which kept her busy and quiet for at least 20 minutes. After church we had fajitas and margaritas. It was excellent. Perhaps Mexican food can be a new Easter brunch tradition?

Sooooo let me tell you about Gioia's dress. I finished it last night at 11:44. Yes, nothing like last minute sewing. The truth is that I started it late. We just got back to Taiwan a month ago, and the materials I ordered took a couple of weeks to arrive from Australia. And wasn't Easter so crazy early this year!? As a result of all of that, I only started the dress a week and a half ago. I told myself that if I didn't finish for Easter, then it could be her birthday dress. But I finished, and it was really cute today.


I used Cherry Williams' Baby Bishops pattern as the base for the dress. The smocking plate and scalloped edge technique came from an article in an old Sew Beautiful magazine.* I made some silly mistakes,** but it came together quite nicely in the end. Here is a closeup of the embroidered chickies with french knot eyes. Precious.



More Easter pictures are here.

*I think this was the Spring 2007 issue. Hard to say, though, because I have been subscribing for so long that I have to sort through every magazine and save the articles I like in binders. The issue date is not printed on each page, so the articles and patterns can get mixed up in my files. The article was called "Chicken Scratch," and the designer was Linda Richards. Oh wait, good old google tells me it was issue #111 after all.

**Like forgetting that it is important to remove the smocking gathering threads AFTER finishing the neck binding, not before. Yargh.

Happy New Year!

The Chinese New Year (aka Spring Festival) is fully upon us. Yesterday baby got her first hong bao. Not quite understanding what to do, she tried to eat it. Following another tradition, Gioia put on a brand new outfit. New clothes for the new year.



Thanks everyone for the formula advice! We will be eating solid food before the bottle from now on (except for the first one). From what I read, it seems she will be getting enough formula even if we cut back on one or two bottles a day. Phew.

Long Road Home

Chris and I, seasoned travelers that we are, made a huge mistake last week. We decided to arrive at LAX at 5:30 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. flight on the busiest travel day of the Christmas season. Hah. Of course we missed our flight last Friday (what were we thinking?) and our subsequent connection. We then spent 28 hours in Denver, trying desperately to get to Nashville. In a word - it sucked.

We managed to grab two of the last seats on a Frontier airlines flight on Saturday afternoon and arrived just in time to change clothes in the airport bathroom and race to see a performance of Handel's Messiah. After all of that, the two hour performance was really, really nice. We then made our way to Chris' parents' house, where we saw Mr. Frankie again.


Little Miss Gioia was very much with us this Christmas, even though she is still far away. Soon, very soon little one.


I hope all of your holidays are merry and bright.

And the Stockings...

We have had a lovely Christmas this year. My mom and dad have come all the way from Atlanta to visit. They made their flight arrangements before we knew we were moving to Beijing, so Chris and I flew to meet them down south on Friday. We spent two full days in Shanghai, mostly eating. We went to the City Diner for breakfast, had drinks on top of the Peace Hotel on the Bund, then appetizers at La Luna in XinTianDi, finishing up with a little sushi at Shintori. It was delish. Yeah, we did some sightseeing too... but it mostly was all 'bout the food.

We flew back to Beijing on Christmas Eve, and it has been a non-stop stocking opening, present giving, chocolate eating, elf movie watching smorgasbord since we arrived. Speaking of stockings, there are some new ones this year. Here is the amazing cross stitch stocking that Linda, my mother-in-law made for me as a present last year. This thing took her an entire year to complete (can you imagine!?) It has a fabulous crafty theme going on, complete with a Singer sewing machine and a knitting basket. The embroidery was so incredible that I was almost afraid to stitch it up into the stocking shape.



Hope you all have had an equally lovely holiday. Merry Merry!

Holiday Madness

Believe it or not, this is not a Christmas post; it is about Holidays in China. You see, there are three "Golden" weeks in China in which the entire country gets 7 days off of work. One is in May for the international labor day holiday, one is in October for National Day celebrations and the best one of all is in January or February - the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year to us lao wai. To get the 7 days off, though, China's powers that be announce some work day rearrangements. You see, people do not get 7 real holiday days. They get 3 holiday days with 4 weekend days lined up nearby. In practice, this means that we are officially supposed to work either the weekend before or the weekend after the 7 day holiday period.

Chinese people do not bat an eye at this work day rearranging, but it would surely cause near riots in the United States. I mean, you cannot mess with a God-given right to a weekend! This week, the announcement came from HR that China has decreed December 30 and 31 as official workdays, with January 1-3 as holidays. So essentially, they moved the weekend to after New Year's Day. Jut because. And again, not a SINGLE person at work thought it unusual.

Now really, there must be a better way to boost your annual GDP estimate, isn't there?