CNY 2010, CELEBRATING THE TIGER

Last Sunday we drove (a long way) to Warminster to celebrate CNY with other adoptive families, including several of our closest friends and other Yunnan families.

Alice wasn't looking forward to the lion dance, we went to see it beforehand and met the dancers, it didn't help much. In previous years she's been OK, even up close, but not this year, this year she had a death grip on me, went rigid and shook. After the dance she was quite happy to get up close to the empty head and she's also quite happy to talk about everything that went on!

We watched several Chinese styled dances and I think that we might be driving over the bridge to England for Chinese dance lessons when Alice is a little older! She was VERY keen on the dances she watched. She was very happy to make a Tiger mask with stickers and crayons - she painted another at school yesterday.

She was very proud to wear her qipao and is delighted to tell anyone about it or share this photo. She will definitely be wearing one more often. This is yet another that I bought on her adoption trip in Guangzhou, there are still a few more in the cupboard but she's getting through the sizes more quickly than I'd anticipated!

It's the first time we've been to this sort of gathering where Alice has obviously identified that other children there are Chinese and also adopted, she was happy to make this link and has referred to it several times in the past week. So even though it was a very long way (nearly 2 hours in each direction) we had lots of fun but even more crucially it was important to Alice's sense of identity and she's already looking forward to the Annual (national) Reunion next month (me too)!!

MID AUTUMN FESTIVALS

Alice told me last night that it was time for bed, as I put her to bed she told me she needed a lie-in in the morning - even without that I knew she was tired. She slept til 8:30 this morning and we then had a gentle start to the day and Alice was delighted to have a very leisurely bath! Despite our gentle start she was tearful before we even made it downstairs and grumpy for the rest of the morning.

By lunchtime I had a humdinger of a headache and so all our plans were shelved. I was intending to stew this year's apple crop (which was very poor) and then make some mini apple pies - to eat for Mid Autumn Festival, family fruit in a round shape, I thought it appropriate, but it didn't happen. Instead Alice watched a film as I sort of snoozed. She had a cupcake after supper (which we've done every year), she stayed up late to look for the moon, but it was cloudy. We read 'We See the Moon' and talked about her birth family in China and Granny and Grandpa on the stars, we sent them all kisses to the sky. Then at bedtime I sang her 'I See the Moon' and explained that I used to sing it while I was waiting for her, she listened and then told me I was silly - one day she might understand!

We don't celebrate many Chinese festivals, but this is the one that always makes me very emotional - thinking of a birth family far away, wondering if they remember their beautiful baby and wonder what happened to her, wishing they knew she was loved and happy, my treasure.

(And the photos - each MAF from 2007 onwards, huge changes every year, she surely can't go on changing this much?)

CHINESE TRADITIONS WHEN MILK TEETH FALL OUT

When children lose their teeth, bottom ones are thrown up to the roof to encourage new ones to grow up and top ones are buried so that new ones grow down.

Different to British thoughts but logical, I think Alice will try this, I'm sure if we leaver the TF a note she'll understand!

SLOW FRY!

We had stir-fry for lunch on Wednesday.

I'm trying to include more Chinese elements into our routine. Recently there's been some discussion about small children using chopsticks and so I decided that I'd give Alice the option to use them, she got the grip wrong but she was very proud to use them! She loves stir-fry, especially noodles, but it's a very slow meal for her to eat, luckily she doesn't mind eating it cold!

CACH WEEKEND 2009

For the second year we attended the annual CACH (Children Adopted from China - UK's equivalent of FCC).

It felt different from the moment we got there and I can't believe that's just down to knowing what to expect. This year it really was a reunion with a group of friends enjoying spending time together and we even managed to sit together at the gala dinner.

My travel buddy M (L's father) very kindly looked after Alice for long enough for me to attend a seminar (I didn't go to any last year), brave man, thanks M! I got to a seminar presented by Jane Liedtke from OCDF, it was very informative and thought provoking, as well as adding another element to the 'Reunion Experience'. Jane has a lot of contact with families adopting from China - both at the time of adoption and on return visits. She was very friendly and helpful and offered me some hope in relation to return visits to Alice's CWI.

Alice ran and screeched her way through the weekend and seemed to enjoy it all - particularly seeing her friends. As soon as she was awake on Saturday morning she stood up in her cot and said, 'See L*L* now?'

The other benefit of this weekend was a photographic session - I need to send up to date photos of Alice and I together. It's difficult to get photos of us together so this was a great opportunity, whilst the photos aren't fantastic they are far better than any others I've got recently with a handbag camera and not bad for 5 minutes work!

Overall the weekend was great. The one disappointment was the hotel:

• it was really hot in all the public areas,
• the food wasn't great and the menu prices were high (otherwise we would probably have stayed for lunch today)
• there was a lot of noise in the corridors each evening
  
• but most of all, despite all efforts by several families the hotel couldn't put our friends together as we had different room types - that meant that once the girls were in bed we couldn't chat in the hallways.
  

DISAPPOINTING AFTERNOON

Having searched the house for Alice's jacket, I took a couple of photos quickly before we left the house to go to a Chinese New Year party.

About 8 miles later we hit a traffic jam, complete gridlock and nearly 3 miles from the next junction, it took us nearly 60 minutes to get to the junction - by which time we'd missed so much of the party that it wasn't worth completing our journey, so I drove right around the roundabout and drove home. Luckily it was nap time so Alice missed the whole journey (apart from the first 2 miles or so) and equally luckily I hadn't said too much about the party so she wasn't too disappointed but she was very grumpy from waking when the engine stopped (she's always grumpy if she's woken before she's ready).

I love this jacket and I think Alice looks lovely in it, she agrees but only because I said that it's a Chinese Princess' jacket!!

Meanwhile having missed the party I'm left with loads of sausages. Sausage anyone?

OUR MID AUTUMN MOON FESTIVAL

Yesterday we baked fairy cakes.

Today we shared lunch with friends. This afternoon (once we were alone) I talked to Alice about China, her birth family and today's festival. Then I read the story of Hou Yi and Chang E from the Moonbeams book. After supper this evening Alice had a fairy cake and I reminded her about the moon and the people in China who would be looking at it tonight and thinking of their family and Alice too.

Yes, we ate fairy cakes not moon cakes - I may try to bake them in years to come even though I've heard mixed reactions to them. But the thoughts and emotions were genuine - this is THE festival of the year that really resonates with me. I truly believe that her birth family will be thinking of Alice on this day.

MID AUTUMN MOON FESTIVAL

I aspire to be Ellen - she writes so eloquently, captures my feelings and has such good ideas!

Mid-Autumn Festival - details from here.

The joyous Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, around the time of the autumn equinox（秋分）. Many referred to it simply as the "Fifteenth of the Eighth Moon".

This day was also considered as a harvest festival since fruits, vegetables and grain had been harvested by this time and food was abundant. Food offerings were placed on an altar set up in the courtyard. Apples, pears, peaches, grapes, pomegranates（石榴）, melons, oranges and pomelos（柚子） might be seen. Special foods for the festival included moon cakes, cooked taro（芋头）and water caltrope（菱角）, a type of water chestnut resembling black buffalo horns. Some people insisted that cooked taro be included because at the time of creation, taro was the first food discovered at night in the moonlight. Of all these foods, it could not be omitted from the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The round moon cakes, measuring about three inches in diameter and one and a half inches in thickness, resembled Western fruitcakes in taste and consistency. These cakes were made with melon seeds（西瓜子）, lotus seeds（莲籽）, almonds（杏仁）, minced meats, bean paste, orange peels and lard（猪油）. A golden yolk（蛋黄） from a salted duck egg was placed at the center of each cake, and the golden brown crust was decorated with symbols of the festival. Traditionally, thirteen moon cakes were piled in a pyramid to symbolize the thirteen moons of a "complete year," that is, twelve moons plus one intercalary（闰月的） moon.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festivity for both the Han and minority nationalities. The custom of worshipping the moon can be traced back as far as the ancient Xia and Shang Dynasties (2000 B.C.-1066 B.C.). In the Zhou Dynasty(1066 B.C.-221 B.C.), people hold ceremonies to greet winter and worship the moon whenever the Mid-Autumn Festival sets in. It becomes very prevalent in the Tang Dynasty(618-907 A.D.) that people enjoy and worship the full moon. In the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279 A.D.), however, people send round moon cakes to their relatives as gifts in expression of their best wishes of family reunion. When it becomes dark, they look up at the full silver moon or go sightseeing on lakes to celebrate the festival. Since the Ming (1368-1644 A.D. ) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911A.D.), the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival celebration becomes unprecedented popular. Together with the celebration there appear some special customs in different parts of the country, such as burning incense（熏香）, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting lanterns on towers and fire dragon dances. However, the custom of playing under the moon is not so popular as it used to be nowadays, but it is not less popular to enjoy the bright silver moon. Whenever the festival sets in, people will look up at the full silver moon, drinking wine to celebrate their happy life or thinking of their relatives and friends far from home, and extending all of their best wishes to them.


There is this story about the moon-cake. during the Yuan dynasty (A.D. 1280-1368) China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1280) were unhappy at submitting to the foreign rule, and set how to coordinate the rebellion without being discovered. The leaders of the rebellion, knowing that the Moon Festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. Backed into each moon cake was a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attached and overthrew the government. Today, moon cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend and was called the Moon Cake.

For generations, moon cakes have been made with sweet fillings of nuts, mashed red beans, lotus-seed paste or Chinese dates（枣子）, wrapped in a pastry. Sometimes a cooked egg yolk can be found in the middle of the rich tasting dessert. People compare moon cakes to the plum pudding and fruit cakes which are served in the English holiday seasons.

Nowadays, there are hundreds varieties of moon cakes on sale a month before the arrival of Moon Festival.

WO AI NI

(Apologies for what is probably atrocious pinyin / Mandarin spelling)

'Wo ai ni, Alice Ming, wo ai ni!' is the last thing I say to Alice as I leave her to go to sleep in the evening.

This evening, as I left her, I heard the dogs prancing and tailing wagging from beyond the baby-gate - I'm sure they think that 'Wo ai ni!' means it's suppertime - as I feed them as soon as I get downstairs!!

LINKS WITH THE CHINESE COMMUNITY

I know that there's a group in Cardiff that meets on the first Saturday of each month, but I don't know where or exactly when - please let me know the details if you know!

Also I'd love to know of other events in the South Wales, Bristol or Hereford areas that are linked to Chinese communities or culture.

Comments please!

CACH REUNION

. . . I'm so excited, now that Alice's home we get to be full members of CACH and so we are eligible to go to the reunion in March. I've booked, now I'm waiting for comments from Carrie, Caron, Ellen, Rosie, Julia, Laura, Siobhan and many others, to know that they'll be there too! Shawn - not sure you can book yet, but do hope that you'll be there.

CHINESE 1ST BIRTHDAY TRADITION

Traditionally the Chinese have some fun predicting a child's future on their 1st birthday, they place items in a semi-circle in front of their child. Each item symbolizes a particular career
brush or paints/artist,
cooking item/chef,
comb/hairdresser,
calculator/accountant,
book/librarian
pen/writer

The child is in the centre facing the semi-circle of items. According to Chinese culture, the item that the child is drawn to gives a clue as to the career/vocation the child might pursue (or is destined to pursue?)

So now I'd like some help and comments please - what other items (with what symbolism) would you include?

PLEASE VOTE, NOW!

Jenny Bowen of Half the Sky has been nominated as one of the foreigners, resident in China, to carry the Olympic Torch in next year's torch relay. The voting ends on Sunday night at midnight (China time) - If you can, then please vote for her and encourage friends and family to do the same.

Just click here. Thank you.

AUTUMN MOON FESTIVAL

A significant time in China, the brightest full moon of the year. A time to eat mooncakes, tell the story and remember family.

Mooncakes are tricky to find and I'm not sure that Alice would like the taste, so we had fairycakes - it's the round (like the moon) shape that's important. During teatime and during her bedtime bottle I talked about the festival, we remember Grandma and Grandpa sitting on the stars and Alice's birthfamily in China. Sometimes I find it difficult to talk about or remember Grandma and Grandpa without tears, today I managed to hold it together, I told Alice how wonderful they would think she was just because and then extra wonderful as she makes me so happy.

The tears flowed though - when we remembered her birth family in China, I can't help but feel great sadness that they're missing out on this incredible child and that their sadness has brought me great joy. I've understood for years that this would be the case, but this year it's different as I hold my child and marvel in the matching process that brought us together.

I will have to wake her later for the final antibiotic dose of the day, we will look for the moon while I tell her that her birth family will have looked at that same moon to remember their family.

My friend sums it up really well here.

Next year I'll have a story to share with her and no doubt several books too. COMMENTS PLEASE if you have done anything today to celebrate.