School Daze

School started this week for the boys - Michael's first day of middle school (6th grade) and Jake's first day of 3rd grade was Saturday. I can't pretend that there wasn't a healthy dose of apprehension on both of their parts, but by the end of the day, by lunchtime really, they were all smiles.

My classes started on August 23rd, so I've actually been back at the grind for over a week now. I'm setting a goal of writing one blog posting each week - we'll see how that goes. I think it's reasonable and attainable. It's actually part of a larger goal called "school/life balance." I'll keep you "posted" on how it's going...

Here's the traditional first day of school pictures. I had to take them inside because it was so insanely humid that I couldn't keep the camera from fogging up.

The Great Wall - China Part 4

There are some places in this world you can visit over and over, and still want to go back again. The Great Wall of China is one of those places for the Green Family. I think I have been there five times and Steve six, and given the choice we'd go again. It's just THAT cool.

That being said, we are very particular about where we go to see the Great Wall. Keep in mind that the wall is about 5,500 miles long (though not all connected), so there are many, many places one could go to visit. The first couple times we went, we didn't know any better and just went where *they* wanted to take us. *They* being our handlers. The handlers like to take you to the restored, polished part of the wall. I don't know if it's because they get kick-backs there, or if they are proud of the "upgrades," or if we are just easier to *handle* there. When we first went to this part in 1990, they had camels there to have your picture taken with, hand railings on the steep parts, and souvenir shops outside the ticket gates. Today, in addition to all that there's a dress-up photo op every 100 feet, cable cars to take you up and McDonald's outside the gates. It's pretty hard to imagine what the wall was like 2,000 years ago at this tourist trap.

The wall was built 2,000 years ago? This sounds like the perfect place to give you a small bite of history. Construction of the Wall began during the reign of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, who took the throne in the 3rd century BC. It's intention was to keep out the people from the north, the Xiongnu. It's estimated that over 1,000,000 workers died while building the wall, and rumored that many are buried within the wall. Originally made of rammed earth, stones and wood, later dynasties continued the construction using bricks.

And just to clear the air...can it really been seen from the moon? I haven't tried it myself (it's on my bucket list though), but experts say that it is virtually impossible to see by the naked eye, the equivalent of seeing a human hair from two miles away. Additionally, no astronaut has ever claimed seeing it from orbit, much less from the moon. Believe what you want...

Back to our hike...after we had lived in China a while and no longer needed *handlers*, we discovered a much better place to see the wall. This portion is still to this day mostly unrestored, un-commercialized, and best of all, not overrun with tourists. After a three and a half hour drive, you are dropped off at a point on the wall and you hike on the wall about 12 km to the pickup point.

Now that we no longer live in China and can't go to the wall whenever we please, we were hoping for a bit of luck that day. We really wanted good weather: not only were we NOT in the mood to hike 12 km in the rain, but we really wanted the good views. We were hoping that the kids, after getting off a 10 hour flight the day before, would be able to make the hike. And the biggest roll of the dice was that it would be as spectacular and fun as we hyped it up to be. At the end of the day, we couldn't have been more delighted at the way it all turned out.

But as the day began we were a bit worried...

We were picked up from our hotel in a tiny Chinese mini-van. It won't work to picture a regular mini-van: I think this was made for people shorter than Jake. There was about 6 inches between the uncomfortable bench seat and the back of the next seat. None of us could sit facing forward - we had to turn sideways to be able to put our legs down. "No worry," said the driver. "We transfer to big tour bus." We made 3-4 more stops, picking up hikers until the little sardine can was full. Then we waited for the big bus to come. And we waited. Waited some more...

Finally we were told that the bus was broken and we would have to drive the 3 hours to the wall in the sardine can. Through my tears I couldn't help but smile: you can't get a more Chinese experience than this.

Once we arrived at the drop-off point, Jin Shan Ling, we pried ourselves from the can and stepped out with a bit of shock. There was a paved road, signs welcoming us and a couple tables of vendors to welcome our USD (I mean welcome us). Clearly the area was profiting from increased tourism since we were there in 1999. Still no cable car, camels or McDonalds though, so we were good.

Crisp, cold air greeted us as we began the hike, and we had clear blue skies for most of the day. The kids were pretty chilly starting out, until we started the serious up and down between the watch towers. The amazement of actually being on the wall was written all over the boys' faces. For Michael, it was a fulfillment of a dream to return to a place that his parent fondly told him about but he couldn't remember visiting. For Jacob, it was simply the fact that he was standing on GREAT WALL OF CHINA, built over 2000 years ago - something he had read about in Magic Tree House books but never dreamed he would get to do (unless he could get to Frog Creek, Pennsylvania).

After we had been hiking for about half an hour, we began to notice a couple of friendly faces sticking close by us. Then they began to assist the kids when going up the stairs. Eventually they were holding the kids' hands while they were going over treacherous places. Before we knew it, they were stuck to us like kittens to bowls of milk. Friendly locals, looking to practice their English? No. Helpful fellow tourists? No. We figured it out pretty quickly during our first break. The packs over their shoulders were not filled with lunches, water bottles or other necessities. They were bulging with post cards and cheaply printed t-shirts that said, "I climbed the Great Wall." And whenever we stopped, they turned their sights on the guy with the wallet. After helping the kids for an hour, how could Steve brush them off? Let's just say that we have a couple of really expensive t-shirts in our drawers.

Four hours later, we got to the

end of the hike (not the end of the wall, mind you) and found a very cool new addition: a zip line! Thankfully it was NOT 2,000 years old! To their unspeakable dismay boys weren't allowed to go alone, so we had to team up. It was the perfect end to one of the most memorable days we've ever spent as a family. In the picture to the right you can't see the smile on Jake's face but trust me, it was HUGE.

On the bus ride back into Beijing (and it should be noted that the "big" bus was working beautifully by then) the three boys slept. Even though I was completely exhausted, I couldn't stop reflecting on the day we had. The weather was perfect. The views were amazing. The kids were troopers and loved nearly every minute of it.

Yep. I'd go back again. It's just THAT cool.

VERY Miscellaneous Thoughts on Water

Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people. Since the very birth of human civilization, people have moved to settle close to it. People move when there is too little of it. People move when there is too much of it. People journey down it. People write, sing and dance about it.

People fight over it. And all people, everywhere and every day, need it. --Mikhail Gorbachev

I've never taken the time to stop and contemplate water - aside from those who probably contemplate their hands too, who has? Growing up in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, it was something I have always taken for granted as being potable, endless and relatively cheap. But in most parts of the world none of these adjectives could be used to describe water, and living in the Middle East this last year has made me keenly aware of this fact.

Water has an impact on countless aspects of my life here and I've been forced to think about it more than ever before. When reaching for a cup of water to make ramen noodles, I have to stop and think about which water I'm reaching for. Depending on the time of the year, it's impossible to wash clothes in cold water. I need to think about where I'm parking the car, because if the sprinklers come on and spray it, it will rust the car. I don't want to leave a metal pan that has scratches in it soaking in tap water because it will rust as well. I have to remind the boys to keep the toilet lid up so that I don't get a wet bum when I sit down. I could go on...

Within the house we basically have three types: raw water, sweet water, and bottled water. In addition to that, the outdoor faucets have untreated raw water. The indoor raw water is what you will find in my kitchen, the bathrooms, the washing machine. In addition to being very hard, it also has a very high salt content. It makes our hair dull, our clothes wear out faster and rusts anything metal, including the razor in the shower, at a rapid rate. We use this water for washing, but NEVER drink it. I don't think it will hurt us, but it tastes NASTY!

Sweet water is only plumbed to the kitchen sink and the dishwasher (it does the final rinse in sweet water). It's further treated than the raw water. We mostly use it for rinsing hand-washed dishes that are going to air-dry, washing vegetables, washing the car and watering the plants. Though it's not as bad as raw water, it still doesn't taste good and none of us drink it.

We buy a couple of different kinds of bottled water for cooking and drinking: we have a large water cooler, similar to what you find in offices, with hot and cold tap. We also buy liter bottles of water to take upstairs for brushing our teeth.

The outside water is the worst of all. It's untreated and leaves weird salt-like patterns on our bricks. I don't know exactly what is in it and quite honestly, I don't want to know (ignorance is bliss, right?). I tell the kids not touch it if possible. It's only used for watering the lawn, washing our cement, and filling water balloons. They say that it's recycled waste water (whatever that means ), which is just another reason not to let it touch your skin!

In the past I've always washed most of our clothes on cold water. And I never questioned the availability of cold water - isn't all water cold, unless it's heated by the water heater? I now live in a climate that is hot enough to heat the ground water to fairly warm in the summer. Only in Dec/Jan/Feb am I able to get cold water in my washing machine. A friend of mine had something in October that absolutely need to be washed in cold, so she got a couple bags of ice from the store and dumped them into the water of the washing machine tub. Doesn't living here inspire creativity?

In the fall when it still blistering hot and then the humidity starts rolling in, we often wake up unable to see out due to the condensation on the windows. The severity reminds me of the bathroom mirror when the boys shower without turning on the fan. It's a sure indication that it's going to be a miserable weather day.

Speaking of condensation, the ultra warm ground water is the cause of the wet toilet seat problem that I've mentioned before. If we leave the lid down, something I finally trained everyone to do, the water condensates onto the seat. And if you sit there long enough (as some newspaper/comic book toting members of our family routinely do), it condensates on your bottom. Yuck!

I'm very much aware that despite all the above mentioned gripes about the inconveniences of water here, I have it better than most people in the world. I could drink my tap water (if I chose to) and bathe in it every day without getting sick . I don't have to walk anywhere to get it - it's just plumbed into my house. I don't pay for it (though Aramco does). I am among the fortunate minority in this world, and for that I am grateful.

Clean, drinkable water is scarce and expensive in many parts of the world, including this one. We live in a desert with very little rain, so the water supply comes from very deep reservoirs. This water has incredibly high amounts of salt and needs to be desalinated to be usable, quite an expensive process. There are land disputes over water and countries have gone to war because of it. In fact water seems to be more scarce than gasoline here, or at least one would assume by the price - we pay more for bottled water than we do for gas.

Enough of my ramblings...here are some of my favorite quotes about water:

I got this powdered water - now I don't know what to add.
Steven Wright


My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.
Mitch Hedberg


Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water!
Eleanor Roosevelt

"If we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from saltwater, ..(this) would be in the long-range interests of humanity which could really dwarf any other scientific accomplishments."
-- John F. Kennedy

I Can't Count

I just noticed that my posts went from China part 1 straight to China part 3. If you noticed as well, don't worry - you didn't miss part 2. I just can't count.

Beijing Family United Hospital - China part 3

Beijing, China - May 17, 1999.

The evening started out like any other night. Steve and I lazily watched a bit of CNN and went to bed early. The rioting in Beijing, the Chinese response to the “accidental” bombing of their embassy in Yugoslavia by the US military, had settled down by then. Though our first child was due in twelve days, we knew that more than likely he/she would probably be late and hadn't packed our hospital bag yet. Steve’s mom was scheduled to arrive in less than a week for the birth.

Around 2:30 am I made a routine trip to the bathroom only to find that my water had broke. Sixteen long hours later, Michael Thomas Green robustly entered the world.

Michael has always had difficulty convincing his friends that he was born in China. Kids used to think he was making it up because he didn't look Chinese. Now they just think he's trying to get attention. More than once I've written and signed a note, attesting to the fact that indeed, he was born in China.

When we planned the trip to China this spring, we asked the kids where they really wanted to go. Beijing United Family Hospital was on Michael's list of destinations. It was almost as if he needed convincing himself.

Finding the hospital in a city that has grown out, up and increased by three million people since we left in 2000 was no easy task. As we remembered the hospital building, it stood alone on the outskirts of town. Today, it’s dwarfed and shrouded by skyscrapers on all sides, nearly undetectable from the street. It took two trips to finally find it.

You can’t just walk into a hospital, stand in the middle of the lobby for 10 minutes being hugged repeatedly by your eleven year old and NOT arouse suspicion. It certainly didn’t take long for a hospital worker to ask if we “needed any help.” To Michael’s extreme embarrassment, we explained that he had been born in Beijing and always wanted to see the hospital.

Judging by the reaction of the hospital representative this was not a common occurrence. She warmly welcomed Michael, which he took as an invitation to hug HER repeatedly too. And as it always does, no matter what country we are in, Michael's hugs melted away walls and opened doors for him. She offered to give him a tour of the hospital, including a private viewing of a labor/delivery/recovery room identical to the one we were originally in.

More hugs. You would have thought he won the lottery. Seriously.

And that wasn’t all. As we were saying goodbye the representative disappeared for a moment, returning with a stuffed bear. It was a Build-a-Bear style bear: soft, squishy and dressed in white scrubs which bore the Beijing United Family Hospital logo. She gave the bear to Michael, which resulted in…you guessed it: more hugs!

The bear now has a place of honor on his bed, right next to the little stuffed BUFH elephant that the hospital gave us eleven years ago. The other sites we went to…the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Panda Preserve, etc…were exciting and interesting but nowhere near as memorable for Michael as seeing the place where it all began for him.