Zack's birthday
Dec. 9th, 2006 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizzybennetWe had Jay and Eli, our church buddies, over on last Saturday for Zack's birthday. We celebrated on his actual birthday, which was the previous Tuesday. Chris invited his students over and we made hamburgers and chicken kabobs. Zack had a great birthday. Between the money sent by Chris' parents, and the package full of books from my parents, he was very happy. Also, Mariannette gave him an encyclopedia about dinosaurs. Cat and Sailing gave him a new winter coat and some fleece lined snow pants. Those have come in very handy lately! After dinner and cake, we played charades. This was a game that most of our Chinese friends had never played before. They just couldn't grasp the concept of no talking, no sounds whatsoever. It was hilarious. For example, Cat had to act out "panda bear". She held her arms out big and said "black and white". When we objected, she proclaimed that there was no possible way for her to act it out with speaking. After most everyone left, 4 of us played MahJong and Chris played video games with a couple of his students. I lost every game of Mah Jong that I played. I just couldn't get it. Later that week, we played again and I won twice! It's a complicated game and we are playing "old people" rules. Still, I'm starting to get it. Very exciting.
On to the Saturday event: we had heard that there is a zoo close to campus and that it had a tiger show. We decided to take Jay and Eli there for Zack's birthday celebration. I didn't take many pics. of the kids. I had the video camera with me and got a lot of footage. Honestly, it wasn't a very good day. First, the place wasn't actually a zoo. It was a zoo/amusement part/public park. It was a huge place that even has a replica of the Great Wall which you can ride cable cars up to. It's so odd that we can live right down the road from these things and not even know it. We took the boys on bumper cars and the merry go round. Wait a minute...I'm having lj dejavue...I think I may have already written about this...Hmmm. let me check...Ok, no I don't think I did.
Anyway, back to the story. I knew we were going to be even more of a spectacle than usual because we had 5 boys instead of just (lol) three. Despite that awareness, I was just not prepared by how assaulted we were. It was insanity. This was the first time I've ever gotten angry by the amount of attention we attract. People were being just plain rude. And, for the first time, we had to get rude back. For example, Chris had to tell people to go away and leave us alone while we were eating lunch. There people just standing there watching us, talking and laughing about what we were doing. Another time, during the tiger show, a girl got in Zack's face to take his picture DURING THE SHOW! Hello, we paid money to watch tigers jump through hoops, not to have our pictures taken. I told (in English) "leave him alone, we're trying to watch the show!" and I shooed her away with my hand. She left. Initially, Petey was sitting in front of us with Eli. I was watching the show and I suddenly heard Petey say "Leave me alone!" He was talking to the girls who had surrounded him on every side. I told him to come sit beside me. It was clearly the girls were embarressed, but I say good! Can't people understand that we aren't circus freaks, aliens or zoo animals? We are humans who came to the zoo to enjoy time with our family, just the way they did. I did get a lot of this mobbing on tape, which I'll try to YouTube later. I'm not really sure how to do it, but maybe Chris can help me.
Petey and I road the mountain skateboard/sled thing together. Off to the left side of the picture you can see the contraption that took us up the hill. I think the ride up was scarier than the ride home. The ride down was really fun, but we couldn't go as fast as we wanted to because the girl in front of us kept putting on her brakes. There were signs posted all over that said "If you hit the person in front of you it is your fault (legally)".
Here are some random pics, not of the kids, just of
mops
a girl in pink
whirly twirly
On to the Saturday event: we had heard that there is a zoo close to campus and that it had a tiger show. We decided to take Jay and Eli there for Zack's birthday celebration. I didn't take many pics. of the kids. I had the video camera with me and got a lot of footage. Honestly, it wasn't a very good day. First, the place wasn't actually a zoo. It was a zoo/amusement part/public park. It was a huge place that even has a replica of the Great Wall which you can ride cable cars up to. It's so odd that we can live right down the road from these things and not even know it. We took the boys on bumper cars and the merry go round. Wait a minute...I'm having lj dejavue...I think I may have already written about this...Hmmm. let me check...Ok, no I don't think I did.
Anyway, back to the story. I knew we were going to be even more of a spectacle than usual because we had 5 boys instead of just (lol) three. Despite that awareness, I was just not prepared by how assaulted we were. It was insanity. This was the first time I've ever gotten angry by the amount of attention we attract. People were being just plain rude. And, for the first time, we had to get rude back. For example, Chris had to tell people to go away and leave us alone while we were eating lunch. There people just standing there watching us, talking and laughing about what we were doing. Another time, during the tiger show, a girl got in Zack's face to take his picture DURING THE SHOW! Hello, we paid money to watch tigers jump through hoops, not to have our pictures taken. I told (in English) "leave him alone, we're trying to watch the show!" and I shooed her away with my hand. She left. Initially, Petey was sitting in front of us with Eli. I was watching the show and I suddenly heard Petey say "Leave me alone!" He was talking to the girls who had surrounded him on every side. I told him to come sit beside me. It was clearly the girls were embarressed, but I say good! Can't people understand that we aren't circus freaks, aliens or zoo animals? We are humans who came to the zoo to enjoy time with our family, just the way they did. I did get a lot of this mobbing on tape, which I'll try to YouTube later. I'm not really sure how to do it, but maybe Chris can help me.
Petey and I road the mountain skateboard/sled thing together. Off to the left side of the picture you can see the contraption that took us up the hill. I think the ride up was scarier than the ride home. The ride down was really fun, but we couldn't go as fast as we wanted to because the girl in front of us kept putting on her brakes. There were signs posted all over that said "If you hit the person in front of you it is your fault (legally)".
Here are some random pics, not of the kids, just of
mops
a girl in pink
whirly twirly
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
youtube
Date: 2006-12-09 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 05:25 pm (UTC)Being back in the states is going to be a welcome change of anonymity for you, methinks. It would be hard to live constantly in scrutiny.
I met a girl this weekend who worked with the peace corps. She said she and her husband were quite the rock stars in Guniea. She had to learn how to hide herself and not bring attention to herself. But then they would do it on purpose too *lol*. She's a terribly cheeky girl but it was funny to hear her stories of living in Africa.