The Year of the Dragon

We are now in the Year of the Dragon.   Many people are having babies during this year.  They hope their babies will take on the traits associated with dragons - ambitious, powerful, and successful.

In the year 2000 - the last year of the dragon - 36 million babies were born.   This is double the amount of babies born in 1999 and 2001.

I read a fascinating article in China Daily about the consequences of a surge in births.

In the article The Guangdong Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission's director Zhang Feng says the boom of recent years will produce 4.6 million bachelors by 2020 and result in a severe sex-ratio imbalance. 

This year it will be hard to get a bed in a hospital for the birth because there are more women giving birth than beds available.

Prices will go up on everything from diapers to food to nannies and childcare.

All of these children will start going to school at the same time which means classes could have more than 130 children per class.

Eventually when these children are older there will be a shortage of jobs because everyone will be entering the work place at the same time.

It's going to take children who are ambitious and powerful to succeed with all these challenges and competition - seems like their parents are stacking the odds against them.

This is the link to the article if you want to read more:  http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2012-02/01/content_14518351.htm

The Lantern Festival in 西安 (Xi'an)

On New Years Eve I visited the city wall around Xi'an to check out the lanterns. They were really beautiful. It had just snowed and there were lots of fireworks going off. It was the perfect time to be up there - even though it wasn't actually the day of the lantern festival.

Day 15 of Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is finally over.  It ends with the Lantern Festival where they eat sweet dumplings, fly lanterns, and of course shoot off more fireworks.  The Chinese really know how to celebrate the New Year.  It starts with an amazing amount of fireworks, continues for 15 days with lots of eating and drinking, more fireworks, no working or school, time with family, and it ends with the beautiful Lantern Festival. I went down to 汉中 to visit my friend Andrew who is going back to America soon.  They have their lantern festival at the river. It was beautiful - lanterns everywhere.

My lantern had a bride and groom on it.  Maybe that means good luck in love during the new year?  

Hopefully it doesn't mean good luck because it went up in flames. 

As foreigners lighting lanterns we drew a crowd.

Sury bought me a new one that flew perfectly!

**Just checked on the translation of my first lantern.  It's what a bride and groom would send up.  No bad luck for me.

The journey of life....

A year ago today I left on my 'journey'.  While getting my TESOL certificate we played a name game where we had to think of a word to associate with our name to make it easier to remember.  Mine was JOURNEY. 

I read back in my journal from the days leading up to leaving and I didn't have anything to write (my journals are quite full now).   I had no idea what to expect but I knew (err hoped) it was going to be an amazing adventure. 

I didn't realize China would be so different from Western countries.  I didn't know what to think - it was impossible to imagine - but this wasn't exactly it.  Adapting to China has been a huge challenge and not always an enjoyable one.  I'm glad I stuck with it because I think the harder the challenge the better the payoff.

There are habits I've broken and habits I've picked up.  I've learned a lot about myself.  I've surprised myself.  I think in general I go with the flow much better than I ever have.  The language barrier alone is a patience builder.  The cultural differences are endless and aren't for people that can't learn to go with the flow - I learned that pretty quickly and was luckily able to push the thoughts of giving up out of my mind.

The world is much smaller to me now.  I've become friends with people from all over and was surprised to learn that even though we speak the same language we're very different.  I thought I would just learn about China but I've ended up learning so much about England, Africa, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, the Philippines. 

I'm amazed by how much teaching has grown on me.  I don't like everything about it and I'm not sure it's something that could fulfill me enough for years.  But I enjoy the heck out of the kids on most days.  At first I thought the kids were coming to class because their parents made them.  Actually that's mostly true but I've realized it doesn't matter.  I did things as a child because my parents said I had to but that doesn't mean I hated it and didn't get anything from it.  So I have fun with my kids and hope it's contagious- maybe they'll even learn some English. 

Before I left I was looking for a life changing challenge - something more fulfilling.  Work used to be enough but eventually I grew tired of it BEING my life.   I'm sure I got the passion pursuit from my dad.  He was blessed to find his passion on the first try and hasn't looked back for 38 years.  I am still looking.  I don't know what to do with my life.  I thought it would magically become clear while living in China.  It's been a struggle realizing it's even less clear now.  I could do ANYTHING and endless possibilities are overwhelming.  However, instead of dwelling on my lack of direction I've accepted the fact that I might never find one thing that is fulfilling enough for me.  I need to just live life and not worry so much about the future. 

I am still searching for something and someone (when I accomplish the finding someone goal in China it will truly be a miracle) - but in the mean time life is a lot more interesting in a world where I'm amazed by things on a daily basis.  I'm not ready to part with the challenges and surprises of my Chinese life so I've decided to stay.  I am going to continue on this journey that is actually LIFE.  I will continue to teach and learn until I don't want to anymore and then I'll find the next chapter of my life!

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." -Ralph Waldo Emerson