http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/ Brandi in China Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:50:00 PDT http://www.blogdrive.com Copyright 2007. Religion & Beliefs Travel People http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/25.html Sat, 08 Jul 2006 22:55:53 GMT Yes, Baby Dixon is due to arrive in about three months!!! How did we get to this stage?? (warning: this could be a lengthy one, pull up a chair and get some coffee)..... I will start at the beginning. Well, we're in America now -- Birmingham, Alabama, to be exact. We arrived a couple months ago. We found out in early March that I am 'with child' ---when I was already in my 2nd trimester!!! We went to the first prenatal check-up in Beijing, Frank and I couldn't believe our eyes. God is awesome!--We were expecting to see maybe a little pea-sized unrecognizable dot (as I thought I was... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=25 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/24.html Sat, 03 Dec 2005 07:06:16 GMT Frank and I took a soft-seater express train due west from Beijing to Hangdan—about a 4-hour ride going exactly 137 km/h, according to our ticket, and from there were picked up by two nuns from a convent to drive another 1˝ hours to a mere village—-population 700,000--called DaMing. Don't bother with maps. I can't find it even in the smallest print on our huge wall map of China. Our group from Beijing included me, Frank, Keith–-a fellow American whom I've known since 2002 who has a whole story of his own of how he and his family came to China and what they're doing here, two... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=24 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/23.html Sun, 11 Sep 2005 16:42:33 GMT Parents in Guangdong Province, China, are said to be choosing strange names for their babies, reports the Guangzhou Daily. The English translations of some recent names include, "Meteor Shower," "Logic," "Fairy Tale," "Emperor," and "Lucky Girl". Those names are small fries when compared with "Tarquin Fin Tin Lin Bin Sim F'tang F'tang Ole Bus-stop Biscuit Barrel III," a former member of Britain's strangest political party, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. I just want to type that say that last name again, especially the last part: "Tarquin Fin Tin Lin Bin Sim F'tang F'tang... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=23 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/21.html Fri, 08 Jul 2005 11:07:17 GMT (written far too many months afterwards) Warning: This is very long, but I hope it'll be worth your time. This whole idea to go to Thailand came about one Sunday after church, a couple weeks after the tsunami had hit. One of the members of our small international church told us that he was leaving the next day with his (adopted Chinese) 14-year-old daughter to head down to Phuket island. This guy, whom we’ll call ‘Jim’ (which sounds like his name in Thai) is from the Midwest in the States. He is a former large-truck mechanic/truck driver. He and his wife of 27 years,... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=21 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/20.html Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:44:22 GMT I don't know what happened to all the intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution, but the taxi drivers in Beijing appear, to this reporter at least, to have taken over the intelligentsia. The Poli Sci department at Beijing University may disagree with that, but these icons of public opinion are one of my favorite things about living here. These rustic and charmingly simple 40-somethings (I guess that's about the average age, though some are deceptively older or younger) have an opinion on 'everything under heaven' (as it translates in Chinese) and want to talk about it with whomever is... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=20 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/19.html Thu, 16 Dec 2004 12:08:01 GMT Protect CircumStance Begin with Me (in a park, asking people not to litter) Free Servict. Politely to each other. Pay attention to treasure. Boware of Sun's dazzling. (at the top of Beijing's TV tower - posted on the telescope to look out over the city) Slip Carefully (in a store while workers were mopping) Pregnant Woman over 70 and disabled people lounge (in a railway station) Civilized Behavior of Tourists is another Bright Scenery (posted along a mountain climbing path) No Louding No Moving In (as you come in to a shopping mall) Sorry, Businessing now (hanging outside of a... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=19 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/18.html Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:53:08 GMT More hair than usual has been falling out of my head lately, so I made a trip down to the local Chinese Traditional Medicine Dispensary last week to see what the doctor's orders/recommendations were. Walking in the front door (actually thick plastic strips hanging from the top to "keep in heat") reminded me of about the same aroma as a veterinarian's office in the States. I came armed with a Chinese-English dictionary in case I heard terms like "anemia" or "zinc/iron deficiency", which I had heard before in America. Little good it did in Chinese medicine, but somehow we communicated back... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=18 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/17.html Sat, 09 Oct 2004 06:59:07 GMT As Frank and I are the former owners of EIGHT bikes (that’s the latest count) [*UPDATE as of January 11, 2005 - we're at 11 now, apparently stolen by workers wanting to return to their hometowns for Chinese New Year and haven't been paid by their bosses as they were promised*] which were stolen here in Beijing despite being locked (two even with an American Kryptonite lock), I have decided to tackle the oh-so-important-in-China subject tonight of bicycles. As you may have heard, bicycles are the pre-eminent means of transportation in China. If the car is king in America, the bicycle is... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=17 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/16.html Mon, 27 Sep 2004 07:59:40 GMT We recently joined a gym. We'd been wanting to for quite some time, but just now scrounged up enough money to get a membership. It's just a short bike ride away from our flat. It's no Downtown Gym, but it's not too bad. So I was in there two days ago (this day by myself - usually Frank and I go together), and I had just gotten on the elliptical machine (which faces the window, and all the other stuff is behind me), when I heard some yelling, even through the loud music on my headphones. I turned around for a few seconds and saw nothing that was obviously going on. So I continue... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=16 http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/archive/15.html Tue, 21 Sep 2004 06:44:28 GMT A few entries back, I mentioned that Frank has a student that lives upstairs from us in our apartment building. Her name is Ye Si Jing (we've named her Suzie, but she never uses this name--her nickname, and what she is often called, is "Beibei", pronounced "Bay-bay"). She's 13 years old, and she's from the southern part of China, near Hong Kong. She hasn't actually been playing the piano that long, comparatively. Here in China, as in most single-party political systems or dictatorships, the country's athletes and musicians (to name a couple) are primed from birth. There is no life... (more) http://brandiinchina.blogdrive.com/comments?id=15