Voice of Will: Holidays

2006-12-31 - 1:00 p.m.
I love this time of year, and I also loathe it at the same time. I remember how important christmas was to me as a kid. Seeing family, visiting with friends, and of course getting presents.

As an adult, it has changed some, and having kids it has changed a lot. And yet, it hasn't changed too much. I look forward to hearing from family members, being with the kids, and now giving presents. In fact, I gain more pleasure from seeing the kids faces light up, and having crissy smile when I have given a good present.
This year it was a christmas tree that brought the smile.

You see in our family we have a tradition of having a "little tree" that we get, and it magically transforms into a full sized tree on christmas eve. Now the tradition started when the kids were all really little. In fact it started when Will Jr. was 3. (so zeb was 18 months, and rae was newborn). We had a little fake tree in the house. We were living in family housing at NAU and absolutely broke. (college, three kids you do the math). On christmas eve I went to walmart to pick up some kids cold medicine, and they were giving away their last few quasi charilie brown christmas trees that they couldn't sell. I picked one up, and brought it home. That night Criss and I set it up. It wasn't a big deal. That morning brought Will jr running into our room yelling that "Santa made the tree grow!" It was precious, and adorable.

And since that time we have made our tree grow ever christmas eve. The kids all still get up early and have wonder in their eyes and voices. I don't expect this tradition will remain much longer though. Will Jr is actively questioning the idea of Santa (good boy to question it, but it does kind of remove some of the fun). Zeb is on the border of whether he believes in santa, and Rae still does and argues with Will jr about it.

So we were trying to make the tree grow here. Finding a christmas tree was an adventure. And it isn't a real tree. But we did find really nice fake trees that come fully decorated. The japanese do know how to do it. They sell the tree, with all of the decorations in the box. So after the kids were asleep, criss and I opened the box and built the tree. It is about 2 meters high (6 feet). It came with plastic glossy balls, 2 beaded strings, a sting of colored lights, a large ribbon. When we were out we picked up some decorations for our little tree, and they got put on the new one, and it was topped with our christmas star. It is beautiful. In fact it is the prettiest tree we have ever had. It made criss cry, and smile, and cuddle me. So I guess it was a success.

Tomorrow is Zeb's birthday, so last night we let him choose where we would go for dinner. he could choose Coco's, Denny's, or sushi. He chose sushi. Our kids are amazing. They have adapted so well to Japan, it is scary at times. Sushi was a fun blast.

What I thought was fascinating was the shinto priests were out last night. They were walking through the neighborhoods, beating wooden sticks that make a tremendous CLACK noise. this is apparently in advance of new years. The shinto priests go through the neighborhoods, clacking and chanting to drive away evil spirits. Well as we walked to sushi, the priests turned a corner behind us, and their route followed our exactly. IN fact they were about 10 meters behind us, chanting and clacking all the way to sushi almost from our house. So for a nice 10 minute walk we were being driven out! It was too funny, the idea that the shinto priests were driving us out, cuz we are evil spirits. well they drove us to sushi anyways.

Voice of Will: Tokyo vs China

2006-12-17 - 2:41 a.m.

on some levels tokyo is better than china, and on some it is worse..
the quality of life is so much higher here than where we werein henan china (pronounced like you are hacking up a lung HHHgggguuuu nan) we lived in the poorest most populated province of china.so the quality of life in china was extremely low. many people had broken windows, holes in walls etc.. and the temperature would bet to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in winter.

Simple things like weather stripping was non existent, insulation was a joke.most people would have to travel about 1/2 mile to get "safe" water (or they would drink it from the tap (you think the US has lax standards under republican for water safety, us water by comparison is the fountain of youth)yet in china we lived like kings. Criss made a US professors salary (low for professor, but 10x more a month that the chinese made) and I was making chinese professors wages and that was 4x higher than the average chinese citizen.In china we lived like kings (lots of money, lots of personal items, really easy job that I loved). but it was soul draining seeing people literally scratching their way from nothing to get nothing. watching them work and work and knowing they were going to die early. Looking at the pollution and knowing lung cancer, skin cancer, and all kinds of other things awaited them. It made me very glad to be an american with opportunities around the world.

I miss the freedom that i had with having excess money in china.

I would give 1/4 to 1/3 of my salary to different causes.

There were several ways. our school was exceedingly expensive. we had 2 kinds of students, the super rich and arrogant, and the kids from poor villages where the whole village would put them into school. but they wouldn't' have enough money to eat. i supported 4 students from orphanages, or who had parents who died.
One of the worst things about china was the corruption.
if you give money to organizations, the money disappears, unless you get signed receipts and a paper trail to different places. and that is almost impossible to get.

i also helped set up things to make the students who wanted to make it out to america easier. GRE, TOEFL, GMAT, LSAT test prep. writing centers.

I got copies of all the study books, and made copies for the students and ran weekly study groupsmost want america, but the visa is a major issue. america and china keep it very stringent.chinese need a promisary letter (ie if they bail, this person is responsible) and the hard part is they have to hold 400,000 RMB in a bank escrow for 6 months untouched at all to prove they ahve the money to come. that is $50,000.exactly. so only the richest can afford the visa on their own. if you are a good student (not great) an dno one offers you a scholarship, you are stuck in china. to get into the graduate school is damn near impossible in china.
and to top it all off, it is also based on relationships. so for example you might get into graduate school because your parents have money, own a big potatoe chip factory (I literally ment you) because the school would want theri moeny, but a student from a village would hav eno such pull. think nepotism but 100x worse.in japan it is so clean. so nice. so rigid. I kwow the people clean up after themselves. the quality of life is fantastic. but it is at a price of $, and in a way freedom.

there are so many expectations, so many unspoken rules and conventions it jsut can weigh on you.
how does that statement go... death is light as a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain.

just organizing my thoughts on china vs japan. where is my home. my home is with my criss and the kids. still looking for home.