gender colors

in china i quickly learned that pink and blue have no special meaning for boys and girls. boys are always wearing pink, purple and pastels. girls wear everything under the sun. when samantha goes out in her pink parade of clothes, it always confuses me when people ask me if she is a girl or boy. i kinda look at them with a stupid face and say, "of course she's a girl, that's why she has all the pink." obviously it's not obvious to them that colors help tell people the gender of the child. but then i realized that the kids all wear split pants, so it kinda takes the guessing out of the picture; with the split pants it's pretty obvious if it's a girl or boy. maybe we're the stupid ones, with all our colors and stuff.

here's a picture of a pink jeep with a robot and a machine gun. now in america, i'd say this was for a girl (just based on the color), but in china, i'm not sure, it could go both ways. either way it's pretty sweet! guess what sam is getting for her birthday?

spring is here!

spring has arrived earlier than normal in siping, i'm pretty stoked about it. the only thing is that the siping peeps, aren't as excited about it as i am. students are still wearing long underwear and bundling up. old ladies in the park are concerned about our health when we are not wearing enough clothes. so i decided to write a poem and dedicate it to the old ladies in the park:


Dear old lady in the park on this super fine day.
Yes I know it’s not the first of May.
But do you know it’s 80 degrees out today?

What if I told you it was my birthday?
Would that make you stay away?

Stop harassing me.
You’re scaring me.
Great, now I have to pee!

Yes lady, I know my kid is wearing too little
I’m the one that picked out her clothes; really, she’s not very brittle.

What? You’ve never seen flip-flops before?
You can buy them from the blue store.

Yes I know I'm showing my toes.
But did you know in America, anything goes.

Yes, I own more clothes but this is my favorite T.
Besides, it’s 80 degrees, are you kidding me?

So thanks for your concerning,
But my toes are way too happy and you look like you are burning.

b-days in china

b-day's in china never get old, because it's an endless week of birthday celebrations with students. i think they feel sorry for us or just want to butter us up to get better grades. either way, i don't really mind. i kinda like all the attention.

i had a total of 3 cakes for my birthday. surprisingly the chinese ones were pretty good too. last year my freshman girls threw a party for me instead of having class. this year those same girls forgot, i guess they missed out on an opportunity to not have class.

my cakes (obviously the hot dog one was the best):




the team had a hot dog b-day party for me, it was awesome. you can't get good hot dogs here, only stinky smelly ones, that look like hot dogs, but surely don't taste a thing like it. although samantha and will really seem to enjoy them. we had to go to the big city of changchun to buy some imported dogs. who would of thought that you'd have to travel 2 hours away, just to get good hot dogs, but it was worth it!