Market and Temple

Hi Everyone,

This post is all Wim-- with just a little help from me. My big adventure today happened in the Swan room with Josie. She had a major blow-out from her butt. I'm talking ALL OVER! We got it all cleaned up really quick and Daddy had to run up to our room to get her another outfit. When we went shopping at the French Walmart a few days back, an elderly Chinese couple handed us some kind of bottled grape juice and indicated we should feed it to Josie Dong Dong. Today that is what she had to drink. I think in the future I will watch more closely how much of it she gets. She really does love it though. She kept digging it out of the baby bag when I wasn't looking and crawling off with it.

There are pictures posted after Wim's Commentary.

Wim:

Yesterday, 3/29/08, we went to a big market where we really went to see a slice of Cantonese life. Our guide Veronica says that the Cantonese people are known for being interested in eating anything. She is from Beijing and she admits being pretty mystified by what she sees in the market. Recently, after the SARS problem, the government began banning some of the consumption of certain animals in this province.

They had a pet market where kittens were for sale, as well as dogs and fish. We even saw a golden retriever puppy! We miss Phoebe!

Many of the products for sale, be they animal or vegetable, are thought to have medicinal powers. We saw some seahorses for sale. Reena says they are a threatened species. We asked the lady how much and they were about $US200 per pound.

I used my Mandarin to buy a few little bone carvings so that was a little thrill for me. They speak Cantonese here but everyone learns Mandarin in school. Also, the written language is the same for all of China. So one Chinese character always means the same thing, but a speaker of Mandarin will use a different sounding word than a speaker of Cantonese or Shanghainese. I want to try my Mandarin more often but so many people at the hotel and island speak English that they are resistant to my efforts and try to compensate for my stumbling in Mandarin by speaking more and more English. In contrast, when I was in the market I was able to speak and understand Mandarin pretty well.

Later in the day while walking around we were approached by some very young school children with their teachers. They were doing a little project where they had to approach English speakers and say, "Hi, How are you? My name is -------? What is your name? Will you sign my book?" So Reena and I signed their little books and felt very impressed. Can you imagine such a thing happening in America in a Spanish speaking neighborhood? Rather than feel threatened by a foreign language and people, these educators see the presence of English speakers as an opportunity for their children to learn not just another language but courage and open-mindedness.

We spend a lot of time in the "Swan Room" which is a big play room with lots of space and some toys from Mattel. Josie loves it there and aside from paying with Mommy, she will interact a lot with other children. She becomes much less shy. She is quite coy with me and she does reach out and touch me ever so briefly and then moves back toward Mommy. She sees Reena kiss me and has taken to offering me a little kiss, which we make a huge fuss over.

Today, 3/30/08, we went to the Six Banyan Trees, which is a Han Buddhist temple. About 10 % of Chinese are Buddhists making it the largest practiced religion. Many more Chinese have no religion and members of the Communist party, about 20-30 %, are not supposed to practice a religion. Communism guides their philosophy of life, though it is an 'open secret’ that some Communist party members privately practice a religion. The second largest religion is Islam, practiced mostly in the northwest of the country, and 3rd are Christians including Catholics. There is a Catholic church on the island where we are staying. Taoism is also practiced and it is China’s only homegrown religion. Lao Tsu is the founder of Taoism.

So I am interested in comparative religions so this was great for me. We all received a blessing from a monk at the temple. He hit a little drum, and then chanted and splashed little drops of water on us, and finished with the little drum. . We were kneeling in front of three huge golden Buddhas. Josie watched him closely the whole time. I also noticed there were female Buddhas in the temple.

It was ok for us to take photos in the temple, which surprised me, a little. It is a holy place but the focus is on tolerance in Buddhism. I was told not to take photos in McDonalds by a staff person. I asked why. She didn’t know. I mean, what is more important, Josie’s first McNugget or

her blessing by a holy man.

Wim and school Kids.

Parents and babies (from our group)

Empress Josie of the Dong Dong dynasty.
Josie and JulieAnne

(after the blow-out)

Random Shots from the Six Banyan Temple

The babies and families were blessed by a monk in the room with the three big Budhas.

Reena and Josie with incense to burn in respect for Josie's birth family and ancestors, her

adoptive family and ancestors, and hopes for a very happy future.

Reena placing the incense in a special area for burning.

Wim and Josie playing in the Swan Room

Homeless man

Random Shots from the local Market and Shopping Plaza
Check out the Yellow Shirt

Ducks Ants









Many people have dogs for pets. We were amazed to see how many pets. It is definitely a sign of increasing economic times to see so many folks with dogs for pets. We even saw one man with a St. Bernard!

That is it for the last few days. The spell checker will not come on and the formatting has gone whacky for some of the post. We hope that it is all readable.

Love,

Reena and Wim