Dinner Time Fun

I love being back in Eagle, Idaho!  I always envied my friends in Portland who enjoy Sunday dinner with their kids and grandkids each week.  Now I have that same opportunity!  Monica, Johnny and Isabella come over every Sunday.

This last week we celebrated Chinese New Year.  According to Chinese mythology in our family we have 2 rats, a snake, a monkey, a ram, and a rabbit.

Rats are quick witted, resourceful, versatile and kind

Snakes are enigmatic, intelligent and wise

Monkeys are sharp, smart and curious.

Rams are calm, gentle, and sympathetic

Rabbits are quiet, elegant, kind and responsible.

Not sure how accurate these descriptions are.  John and Monica are rats.  I am a snake.  Matt is a monkey.  George is a rabbit and Isabella is a ram.  

Whatever....we did have fun celebrating the Year of the Pig.

I love my paper dragons.  I bought them from a funny little man with 3 or 4 super long chin hairs....like maybe 12 inches long...he was selling the homemade dragons just outside of the dam museum on the Yangtze River.  I later learned that they were made out of cigarette papers!  Oh well!

Orange chicken, veggies, egg rolls and rice were on the menu.  Followed by some wonderful almond cookies and fortune cookies too, because they are fun, even if not traditionally Chinese!

Monica quickly learned to use her chopsticks with ease.  Isabella used them for drum sticks and to jab into her food but she is so cute who cares???

I didn't agree with the Chinese zodiac symbols but I love Matt's fortune from his fortune cookie.  Real wisdom in this one! 

Sunday night was the Chinese dinner and then on Monday night we invited Matt's good friends Zach and Jessica and their adorable children over for dinner and to decorate Valentine cookies.  

 Two 3 year old girls meant that we had lots of pink icing and lots of sprinkles.  Some of the sprinkles even made it onto the cookies!

 Isabella and Addie had lots of fun and had to hug each other good bye.  Then Addie looked at me and said, "You are old. Will you be my grandma?" I guess having three grandmas is a good thing!

I am so blessed to be close to family and that our children have such nice friends!

Chinese Statues

I was impressed with Chinese Gardens this trip to China but I also thoroughly enjoyed these Chinese Statues.

 Behind our hotel in Xi'an we discovered a whole series of statues. I particularly liked this one depicting a family.  So much life is depicted here....Mom and Dad admiring their little baby, the grandpa with the little boy talking to him, one child up on someone's shoulders. 

And with this one I almost expected to hear the sound of the drum. 

In the visitor's center by the ancient city of Gaochang, they had a whole series of statues of famous individuals from the city.  Most of them were generals like this one.  He is Ban Yong from 123 AD, a general and a politician who secured the western region of China for the Han Dynasty. 

Most interesting to me were these statue of women.  I had always been under the impression that girls were not particularly valued by the Chinese but this woman was honored because she was 'a clever wife and a wise mother'.   She died in 688 AD.  That was long before there were any women's rights groups.  I am happy they realized and recognized the contribution of a clever wife and a wise mother. 

This is Xuanzang.  He is the monk wrote the book about his 17 year journey to the 'Western Regions'..

Didn't the sculptor do a great job capturing his long strides as he followed what he felt like was his special calling in life? 

The other woman honored with a statue is Yeliyiheimishibieji.  How's that for a name?  She was the daughter of the king of Gaochang.  The city was besieged by a Mongol group led by a man named Duwa.  The city was completely without food so Yeliyiheimishibieji asked her father to let her go to the city gate and give herself up to Duwa.  He agreed and Duwa and his army left and took Yeliyiheimishibieji with him.  Kind of a strange story but she did sacrifice herself to save the city.  This was in 1275 AD

 There is a famous story about Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk who traveled to the 'Western Regions', that is Central Asia and India, to obtain sacred Buddhist text.  He returned after many trials and much suffering and wrote an account of his journey.    He was worried that Buddhism was being corrupted as it spread by word of mouth throughout China.   Having copies of the sacred writings would prevent this.  Sounds a bit like a story in the Book of Mormon huh?  Xuanzang lived 602-664 AD and did write a book about his 17 year journey.  In the 16th century Wu Cheng'en decided to write a fictional novel based loosely on Xuanzang's book.  Our educator, Michael Wilcox, calls this book the 'Chinese Harry Potter'.  The original story is embellished with folk tales and a clever imagination.  There is the monk, a monkey king, a pig,  and a dragon prince who acts as a white horse.  The Monkey king can lift 17,550 lbs, is extremely fast, in fact he can summersault 1/2 way around the world.  And he can transform himself into 72 different beings and can control wind, part water, make protective circles against demons and freeze his enemies.   The pig, called Pigsy, often gets himself and his companions into trouble because he is lazy, a glutton, and has a liking for pretty women.  Plus he is jealous of the Monkey King and plots his downfall.  It does sound like Harry Potter a bit huh?

Here is a statue immortalizing  the book. Our guide said that every Chinese child knows this story as it has been made into movies and cartoons and children's books  and video and arcade games.  When I thoughtlessly mentioned to him that it was too bad Disney didn't make it into a movie, he looked at me like I had committed sacrilege.  I guess I had.

  Just for you info....you can read an unabridged, translation of the  Journey to the West.  It has 100 chapters and comes in several volumes totaling almost 2000 pages.

And on a different note

I hope you have few days that make you look like this 

And many days that make you look like this... 

Dunhuang - Mogao Grottos

After our fun days in Shanghai we joined the Fun For Less tour group to start our Silk Road adventure.  First stop was Dunhuang, China where we toured the Mogao Caves which is home to the world's richest collection of Buddhist manuscripts and art.  Construction began in 386 AD and continued for the next 900 years.  The caves were first places of meditation for hermit monks but developed to serve the monasteries that sprang up nearby.  I didn't know that in addition to the goods that traveled this way, Buddhism made its way from India to China along this route.  Merchants shared their religious beliefs as they traveled the Silk Road and Buddhism became the predominant religion of China.

 Using funds from donors, monks constructed these caves which were elaborately painted, the cave painting and architecture served as aids to meditation and teaching tools to inform the illiterate about Buddhist beliefs and stories. 

The major caves were sponsored by patrons such as important clergy, local rulers, foreign dignitaries and Chinese emperors. 

Other caves may have been funded by merchants, military officers or local groups. 

I particularly liked the statues. 

The paintings that depicted everyday life were interesting too. 

There are over 2000 murals and sculptures, now carefully preserved behind wooden doors. 

The 1st of many things that I'd never heard of but thoroughly enjoyed seeing. 

It is always fun to share these adventures with John and Katherine. 

Chinese Food

 I have to admit that I am a big fan of Chinese food at Panda Express...so very Americanized Chinese food.  During our day in the water village I enjoyed several tastes of 'real authentic' Chinese food and mostly enjoyed it. I didn't try the crab on a stick...

The duck on a stick was also a hard NO....why do Chinese like putting things on a stick???? 

But I really did enjoy the bean paste wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed...

The sweet and sour barbecued pork was good too...also wrapped in bamboo leaves. 

Wrapping in bamboo leaves seems to be the norm...they also had lots of yummy things with various kinds of beans that are green.  Not the traditional green beans we think of.  They were more like a green kidney bean.  They had several varieties of spices and I liked them all. 

Our cute guide named Bright didn't know an English name for these.  They were some sort of vegetable that tasted a bit like water chestnuts.  She called it 'water fruit'. 

Bright was a fun guide.  She is expecting her first baby in a couple of months.  We enjoyed our day with her even when she sang several Beijing opera songs to us.....Chinese opera is a definite unique sound and an acquired taste in music I think.  George noted that when she started singing, our driver put in earphones.  I guess he hasn't acquired the taste yet! 

Zhujiajiao- Venice of Shanghai

My friends who lived in Shanghai talked about going to one of the water villages near the city.  On our 2nd day we had a private tour of the town of Zhujiajiao, which is known as the Venice of Shanghai.  The history of the town dates back 1700 years.  

There are lovely waterways.

Curved Bridges

Narrow streets   

Old buildings dating back to the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties (1644-1911).  

The town is full of charm... 

The guide book said, "walking along the pathways you feel like you are in an elegant and fresh painting." 

One of the activities that you can do is rent authentic period clothing and have your picture taken by a pro.  We didn't do this but I did have fun taking pictures of this local in her outfit.

We walked through another lovely garden with many water features. 

Chinese gardens are just so picturesque, peaceful and photogenic!  

Our gondola ride wasn't quite like Venice but it was a fun outing and I'm so glad we had this fun experience.