Report from China

We've been in China a little over two weeks now and we're having a great trip. We're now in Xichang, which is the community where I lived for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. I could go on and on about the changes here (good and sad), but I want to write about Skip's experience in China.

Skip is loved and adored by the Chinese people. When I think back on it, I don't recall ever seeing a foreign baby during all my time in China, so I guess I can understand why he creates such a stir (hopefully that doesn't mean we're the only parents stupid enough to bring their baby to China!).

Everywhere we go people stop us and want to play with him. We hear "hao guai!" all around us -- that means "how cute." People are also always commenting on what beautiful eyes he has. And people often come up to him and give him candy, fruit, and sometimes other food items that he can't really eat (like a duck bone someone wanted him to chew on).

The best part is going out to restaurants with him. Taking our kids to restaurants in the States is the worst because you can't really enjoy your meal since you're trying to manage the kids and of course you don't want to horrify the other customers with your children's behavior. But here in China we let Skip loose and soon there are two or three waitresses taking care of him. They tell us to enjoy our meal and they take him around, introduce him to other children, and love playing with him. I would pay top dollar to have this kind of service in America!! It also helps that most Chinese restaurants are terribly overstaffed and so the waitresses don't have more important things to do anyway. And we don't have to worry about his safety since they are completely overprotective of him and basically won't let him walk around without holding on to his arm.

The only time that I think the Chinese people didn't love Skip so much was on the overnight train to Xichang. Skip woke up every time the train stopped, which was pretty often and he cried pretty loudly. I'm the worst about worrying about bothering people (it causes me great stress, just like my sister), but since all the people around us we're snoring so loudly hopefully people weren't too upset. But the result of that experience is that I bought a plane ticket for Tori and Skip to fly back to Chengdu, which I've never done before. But the train trip was so exhausting with Skip that Tori actually got strep throat from lack of sleep.

That's the update from China!