Lost in Translation...

While in China, I didn't have time to do this blog. Now that I am putting together the photos for an album to commemorate our trip, I felt the need to share one of the most difficult aspects of travel in China. Not being able to speak the language of the people around you can be one of the most helpless feelings.

While traveling, I witnessed many people employing various techniques in the hopes of overcoming the language barrier. Many people speak in a "loud voice". The most memorable technique I witnessed was Kristi's "nice voice" method. It appeared that Kristi felt that if she spoke something in a nice enough manner, then they couldn't possible ignore her and would try very hard to understand her. Personally, I figured that if I spoke in the simplest terms possible, then anyone could understand. That is why the only words that I committed to memory were "hello", "thank you", "water", and "beer". If you are in a country where survival is not dependent on these four words, then you have found a country that I do not want to visit.

I quickly abandoned any hope of trying to understand or be understood by the Chinese after I began to examine some of the translated signage around me. It is hard to describe some of what you read so I am posting some of my favorites.

The most straightforward signage I saw were written in the simplest terms, describing what you are looking at. These signs can be easily confused for ones that announce the name of the place. For instance, "Temple of Heaven" or "Forbidden City" are names of well known landmarks. The sign, "Large Stone Carving", is a bit puzzling though. Is it the name of the large slabs of stone at the Fobidden City or is it a sign just describing them? It wasn't clear but could have been if the carving had a name – like "Stairway to the Clouds" or something poetic like that. This is China, isn't it? I thought they lived for that kind of stuff.

The next type of sign is similar – but is usually used for directional or warning signs. "Don't Fall Down" seems to be oddly funny as compared to its more familiar counterpart "Watch Your Step". It beckons a response, doesn't it? – "I'll try not to." Sometimes these signs can be confusing though. While at the Temple of Heaven, we came across a sign that had me puzzled for a few minutes. I felt it should have a picture of Smokey the Bear next to it or perhaps it pertained to protesting Buddhists. But I was mistaken. "No Burning" actually means "No Smoking". The "No Burning" sign also has directions to the "Circular Mound" (a description of the big circular mound that maybe is also it's name) and to the "Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests" – a little closer to what I would expect of a name of a place in China.

Unfortunately the picture of my next fascination isn't so great but the sign to the men's room at the Lushan Hotel actual reads "Male Man". This is not to be confused with the Mail Man or Femail Man, I guess.

The Chinese should really give up translating whole directions or rules. While at the pavilion in Nanchang, there was a whole list of things that you were forbidden to do. The one item that sounded really bad, but I am still not sure what it is, was "pornographic gambling". Do the Chinese actually gamble with their porn? "I'll see you two Penthouses and raise you four Barely Legals?" Weird.

Finally, some translations are beyond explanation. I came across this mesmerizing ad in a store in Nanchang. It looks just like every ad you would see in any typical store in China – except for the slogan, "I Believe Feeling". What does this possibly mean? If you want to believe in feeling, you need these shoes? Or maybe part of the slogan is missing like, "I believe feeling good is having great shoes". O.K. that is kind of a stretch. There is something dreamlike in the ad though – like it has some mystical power. Perhaps believe and feeling were just thrown out there to sound cool. Either way, it caught my eye (though it didn't necessarily make me buy any shoes).

All of this reminiscing about the confusion and wackiness in China makes me miss it. I experience the same sort of wackiness and confusion in Chicago on a daily basis – just fallow me on the train, around town, to work, and to city hall for a day, and you'll see enough craziness to last a lifetime. Unfortunately, I can't chock up the Chicago craziness to a poor ability to translate. If only that were the problem.

-Chris

Better Late Than Never - Tuesday's Movie in the Park

One of the privileges of living in Chicago is that you can take advantage of the "bread & circuses" mentality of city hall. It is not always pleasant to live here but the city smoothes over the rough edges with enough summer festivals, landscaping, and other "extras" to keep anyone happy. This week, Sophie was treated to one of Chicago's summer events, "movies in the park". They set up this huge screen and in an intimate setting of about 40,000 people in Grant Park, you get to enjoy classic films.

This week, we went to see Star Wars with Chris, Kelley, Stacey, & Kim. It was very entertaining and except for a minor crying spat before she fell asleep, Sophie seemed to have a great time. The event came complete with live people in full Jedi-dress, light sabers, and cat-calling and laughs that followed all of that genius dialogue given to Luke Skywalker: "But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters." Totally awesome.

By far, the most entertaining part of the movie (which wasn't the movie at all) was a pair of women that proceeded to get inebriated in front of us. One of the women had wine all down the front of her shirt - classic. Not only did they stand up and dance during the final medal-awarding scene but also they had the most interesting time putting away their folding chairs. I swear that we watched these ladies for a good 20 minutes, trying to figure out how to put those chairs into the skinny bags. Unfortunately, I screwed up and lost the photo of them – Kim and Kelley are going to kill me. Luckily for me, I did manage to get a good shot of the ladies an hour or so later "lost" in the parking lot trying to find their car. I wonder who drove home.
-Chris

An Mmm Mmm Good Day at the Beach

I believe that each child has a quota of the amount of dirt and other miscellaneous items they are required to swallow before they reach the age of one. Today, Sophie tried very hard to make up for any lost ground she may have had in China and tried to fill that quota in one day.

We had a nice day at the beach with Lisa, Jordyn, and their friends, Carrie, Kevin and daughters Claire and Annalin. We walked down and enjoyed the tail end of the air and water show going on at Lake Michigan. While everyone else was either fascinated by the planes or the water, Sophie was preoccupied with sand tasting.

After the first fistful of the stuff, we thought she'd stop. We had no such luck. She seemed to be sampling sand, scraping it from her tongue with her fingers, and then showing another mouthful in as if she forgot what the last one tasted like. This lasted for a good ten minutes until Ileana decided to get Sophie to substitute yogurt for the sand. After a few mouthfuls of an interesting peach yogurt and sand mixture, she was soon eating only yogurt. We all got a kick out of her and hope that the photos here don't get us reported to DCFS.

Having Jordyn and Lisa here has been a lot of fun. Sophie is absolutely entranced by Jordyn and tries to follow her every move. Jordyn is a real cutie but still communicates to me, through her "interpreter", Lisa. Not that I don't understand Jordyn, it is just that she is a little shy and prefers having Lisa do the speaking for her. We have had a ball since they got here and we will really miss them when they are gone.

-Chris

A Guest Blog from Lisa

Hi everybody!

Jordyn and I have been having a fantastic time in Chicago with the Payne family. Sophie is absolutely adorable and Jordyn loves playing with her. It has been so much fun watching Sophie try to follow Jordyn around.

Yesterday we went to the Chicago Art Institute to see the Toulouse Lautrec exhibit. It was Jordyn and Sophie's idea. They loved it! We also went the Millennium Park. Jordyn is starting to get the feel for what it may be like when we adopt her sister this spring. We hope to come back to visit really soon!

-Lisa

Visitors from the East

After a very nice week with Crazy Nana, it is easy to prepare for more visitors. Close friends of Ileana's (and mine), Lisa and her daughter Jordyn, arrived today (Ileana is picking them up right now). We couldn't convince Crazy Nana to do it but perhaps if we got some encouragement (please post some comments!) from the visitors to the site, we can get Lisa to do a "guest blog" on paynesinchina. We have been meaning to get someone else to attest to Sophie's adorableness (is that a word) in person and this is a perfect opportunity. Also, Lisa, Dave, and Jordyn will be going to China soon for their second daughter and she needs to learn how to do this stuff.

More to come...

-Chris

PS - I just spell checked this thing - I have to do a blog and accept all of their word suggestions for what they think I mis-spelled. It would be pretty funny.

When Sophie Eats...

Warning: The following post contains images of an explicit nature. If you are offended by smiles, "bottling", giggles, "food play", and overt displays of cuteness, proceed with extreme caution.

Sophie loves to eat. She will eat just about anywhere. She has eaten at restaurants, in hotel rooms, on busses and in cars, on planes, on our back porch, at her high-chair, in the living room, you name the place, and she can turn it into a dining area.

When Sophie likes something, she can't get enough of it. She will shove and shove and shove until there is so much food in her mouth that she can not swallow. Only once have we seen this taken to the extreme and she subsequently created a Jackson Pollack on the restaurant table with an intriguing palette of pita, parsley, and feta cheese.

Sophie is right handed. We learned this because when Sophie does not like something she throws it, with her right hand, as far from her mouth as is humanly possible. Perhaps I should add baseball pitcher to the list of things that Sophie might be when she grows up but I think that would only work is she tried to eat the baseball.

Our ultimate goal is to eventually have Sophie eating the same foods that we eat. Though she looks like she would love a helping of anduille and shrimp skewers with a chimmichurri sauce, I don’t think it’s a good idea to give her stuff like that yet. In the meantime, she is eating “regular food”. Deep down, I can’t help but wonder that we are scarring her irreparably by not letting her know what the Gerber baby looks like. I guess we’ll have to deal with those consequences in the future.

In the meantime, we have been trying out all sorts of food and have learned quite a few things about Sophie that can be summed up in simple lists of what she likes and does not like to eat.

Sophie likes but is not limited to:

Frozen strawberry banana yogurt smoothies: She can finish off a 4 oz bottle with no apparent brain-freeze. The way she “one-hands” her bottles makes me think that she’ll slinging around those liters of beer at Hofbrauhaus in no time.

Frozen Peach mango yogurt smoothies: See above.

Hot Dogs: O.K. Who doesn't like hot dogs?

Ice Cream: Who doesn't like ice cream either?

Green beans: It is not a very technical means of measuring but her mouth is so large that she can fit 12 whole green beans, cooked, in her mouth at once.

Ham, tofu, green bean stir fry: She has a habit of picking out the green beans but seems to savor this odd concoction.

Smoked turkey leg: We will have to watch for a better image of this one at next years Taste of Chicago.

Turnip Greens: She enjoys them cut up and mixed with the turkey.

Carrots: Only when cooked in the broth with greens and smoked turkey leg. Do the Chinese know how to make Soul Food?

Oatmeal: When mixed with apples, peaches, or banana. Hell, I think we could even put turnip greens in this stuff and she'd eat it.

Bottled Water: We can't figure out which she likes better, the water, or the bottle. Who needs Fisher Price when Mountain Spring and Evian make such great toys?

Noodles: We had enough of those revealing noodle shots in China so I don't think I need to add any more.

Bananas: Best fed in order to amuse her as we put her hair up in that ridiculous pony tail. The funniest part of Sophie liking bananas is that Ileana HATES them. So much that she refuses to touch the banana. When feeding them to Sophie, she looks like she is handling nuclear waste and might have an easier time if she did so in a Tyvek suit.

Sophie does not like:

Zucchini in tomato sauce w/ Mediterranean spices: Note the various locations on Ileana's shirt where Sophie was practicing her pitching.

Any food served at an inappropriate temperature: This is very subjective but Sophie’s melt-downs when this occurs are too much. As if she will starve to death instead of eating food that is not “just right”. She even threw a fit when her frozen smoothie melted!

Any food that is bland: “Lake Shore Drive Seasoning” from The Spice House, here in Chicago is quickly becoming a requirement in all of Sophie’s savory foods. Plain potatoes, carrots, or pasta all end up on the floor. She despises plain rice cereal and we have not had the guts to try giving her plain oatmeal.

-Chris

Sense of Humor

As you might be able to tell from some of my blogging, I enjoy a good sense of humor. Without a sense of humor, I don’t know how you could parent a child, let alone adopt one from China. The experience is pretty insane but incredibly enjoyable.

I was recently introduced to another blog by my friend Lisa. It may not make sense to those of you that are not part of the “Chinese adoption community” but I hope that you find "The Grouchy Ladybug" as enjoyable as I do. I added the link to my list of links today.

Watch soon for “When Sophie Eats…” (I hope that teaser is good enough to keep you coming back for more of our adventures).

-Chris

Sophie seems to have settled into life in Chicago. She likes dinners on the porch with Ileana and I, she has fun playing with her toys and enjoys her room, and her sleeping schedule is working out very well. She began sleeping from 8:30pm to about 7:00am last Friday and has kept to those times pretty much all week.

This week was very busy for Sophie. We began the week with friends, the Lahsins and the Tolmans in Chinatown. It was great to get together now that we all have our girls, are at home, and settled in. Regina and Joe's niece was there as well. Our friend Kim, who will be adopting next year, also joined in to help celebrate Ileana's birthday. We enjoyed dim sum at The Phoenix, where Sophie ate up just about everything in sight. After brunch, we took in the nice weather and walked around Chinatown. The picture of Kate, Kenna, Michal, Julia, and Sophie is too much.

On Monday, Ileana took Sophie to the lake. It was incredibly hot so they did not stay long. I am sure there will be more trips to the lake to come. Today (Friday), Sophie, Ileana, Stacy and I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Unfortunately, Sophie slept through most of the trip but I think she liked it. I am sure there will be plenty of trips to the zoo in her future as well. Before our zoo visit, Sophie had her first hot dog. It wasn't Chicago style, which is probably how she managed to eat the whole thing.

Next week should be quite an experience for Sophie as her "Crazy Nana" (Grandma Pollack) will be coming for a visit. Sophie has a picture of her two grandmothers in her "Who Loves Baby" book and she loves to look at it – though they are in close running with cousin Joshua and kitty Princess! It will be exciting when she finally gets to meet them in person.

-Chris