One of the Risks of Living Overseas 2

"Anna, eat your squash or there will be no chicken head for dessert."

Why Easter is So Important

Listen, I tell you a mystery:

We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed --

In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable,
and we will be changed.

For the perishable must clothes itself with the imperishable,
and the mortal with immortality.
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable,
and the mortal with immortality,
then the saying that is written will come true:

"Death has been swallowed up in victory."

"Where , O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"

The sting of death is sin,
And the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I Corinthians 15:51-57

Happy Easter!

Our Garden in Spring

This is the view from our back pingtai (enclosed balcony) window.

Good Friday

How can we call good

This innocent man
Torn to pieces
Broken, bloodied
Stabbed
Suffocating?

What can possibly be good
About God's only Son
Spit on, slandered
Lied about, whipped
Denied
Humiliated?

It's
God
Keeping His Promise
Rending His Sacrifice
Confirming His Blood Covenant
With
Us.

What He didn't require of Abraham,
He required of Himself.
The breathless final words --
It is Finished.
The veil torn in two,
So we could enter
The Most Holy Place,
So we could be called
Children of God.

Praise Him,
That is Good!

She's Got the Beat

Poor child. She takes after her mother.

WIP Wednesday: Introducing....

I said I would do this, so here it goes. Part of releasing myself from the confines of closet writing, I guess. This is my first Work-In-Progress Wednesday, where I tell you what I've been working on this week. For this first edition, I thought I'd give you a peek into the novels I have in progress.

Working Title: Beaker Becker or Up Lantau Running (still debating)
Audience: Young YA (11-14 year olds)
Status: Complete; submitting to agents

Brief: Marcy just moved to Hong Kong seven months ago, but she can't seem to find her niche. It's only when her mom and brother return to America to care for her ailing grandmother and Marcy is forced to live on Lantau Island for the summer with a flamboyant distant cousin, that she finally starts to find herself.

I just finished rewriting this book's first chapter again. (I think I've rewritten it about sixteen times; I'm not exaggerating.) The little common feedback I've received from agents or other knowledgeable people was they didn't like my main character. YIKES! I think this was mostly because my book used to start with a big fight between my fifteen-year-old main character, Marcy, and her mom. This made Marcy seem snotty, mean, and whiny. But she's not really. She's just that way with her mom because they have a difficult relationship. Obviously, I wasn't getting this across, so I started with a new approach this time and pushed the fight to the second chapter. Part of this whole journey is that you really don't know if you've improved anything until you send it out to agents and see if you hear anything back. It's kind of like fishing -- figuring out the right bait.

Another biggie in editing was that I changed my main character's name. HA - the power! She's not Marcy anymore, she's Lila. It's strange how just a name change can give such a different feeling to a character. So, consider that when naming your children.

I'm planning to enter Miss Snark's First Victim's Secret Agent contest this month with my new, hopefully improved, completely-different, the-name's-even-changed chapter. So, we'll see what people think -- and most importantly, perhaps, what the Secret Agent has to say.

Working Title: Mine, Valentine
Audience: Young YA (11-14 year olds)
Status: Middle of first draft

This is my new baby, and I'm in a newborn baby stage of maternal pride. We'll see if I still like her as much when she grows up. She has a lot of potential, but there's also a lot of room for disaster, thanks to some tough themes I'm wondering if I can pull off. She's been a lot easier to write than Beaker because I know some of the pitfalls to avoid.

Brief: Thia has a lot of issues. Her dad left their family four years ago on Valentine's Day. Her mom's a chain-smoking, wanton woman, and her brother's a tattooed and pierced goth recluse. It's Valentine's Day again and Thia has a yearly tradition: to make something good happen for herself, to counterbalance the terrible thing that happened four years ago. Last year she pulled strings so that six guys gave her flowers. This year, she's determined to land a boyfriend. But when rumors start circulating at school that Thia's mom was seen kissing her potential boyfriend's dad, Thia needs to set the rumors straight or risk losing the boy of her dreams on this all-important day. Something keeps tugging on the back of her mind, though: what if the rumors are true?

This book is set in a small town in Western Washington along the Columbia. I don't call it Camas, but that's pretty much what I have in my mind as I'm describing her about town.

I'm going to try to finish this first draft by writing a minimum of 1,000 words a day. I don't think it'll be too much of a challenge since I type quickly and already have my plot and subplots laid out.

Working Title: Mr. Maddigan's Junk Yard
Audience: Unsure
Status: Middle of second draft

This one is slightly different because it's a novel based on a novella I wrote for a creative writing class in college. It's a time-travel book, very light fantasy. I dug it out of a pile last summer and thought it had a lot of promise, so I decided to rewrite it, adding some subplots to lengthen and strengthen it.

Brief: Sarina and her mom just moved back into her deceased grandfather's house after three years on the run from an abusive father/husband. Their next-door neighbor, her grandfather's life-long friend, has a junk yard filled with old treasures: her grandfather's first car, a pair of carousel horses saved from a fire, a windmill from a miniature golf course, to name a few. What Sarina doesn't realize is that the junk yard is also a place where two alternate universes collide, a place where she can meet her grandmother and grandfather when they were young. Sarina is now faced with a decision: should she warn her grandparents about certain future events and risk changing the present? If she does, she might speak herself out of existence.

This one has been on the shelf for a couple of months as I made room for the other two. That's the nice thing about books: they're not like children in that they don't mind being neglected for awhile.

That's about it! I think I may possibly feel brave enough to go ahead and post this now. It still feels a bit like laying my neck on the chopping block. But go ahead, hack away!

Thanks to Kate (for the amazingl WIP Wednesday artwork and the original idea) and Dr. Carolyn Kaufman at Archetype (where I first heard about doing this).

One of the Risks Of Living Overseas

"Drop it, Sophie! Drop it!"

The People in Our Neighborhood

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood,
in your neighborhood,
in your neighborhood?
Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood?
They're the people that you meet each day.

Remember that old Sesame Street song? Are you singing yet?

We have about 11 more weeks in China. Not long. And don't think just because I'm saying this that I'm counting the days. On the contrary, I'm trying to savor the days, make them count.

I thought in these final weeks it would be a good idea to do a weekly posting to introduce you to some of the good people of our neighborhood. For one, they have interesting jobs, interesting ways of life. They're not just the people in the Sesame Street song: firemen, mailmen, policemen, and librarians. They're recycling people, vegetable sellers, and knife sharpeners. I want to remember them after we move. They're wonderful people, hard working, ingenious. I don't want to get back to America, settle into a new comfort zone and forget about them.

Today's "Neighbor" is probably the person we'll miss most when we move away from China, for many reasons. She's our beloved household helper, He Ayi. I know I mentioned her before in a previous post about Tuesday morning cleaning binges, but today I want to introduce her formally. Here she is with our three older kids:



Now, don't get me wrong. He Ayi and I have had our ups and downs. She scolds me a lot, tells me I spent too much money on whatever it is I've just bought. She made me cry one time because she yelled at me about the fact that I hadn't bought enough material to make curtains for my bedroom. She tells my husband he's fat on a regular basis. She "puts things away" in strange places, and often I find dried food on the forks that have just been washed. But overall, I have to say I couldn't ask for a kinder, heart-of-gold helper. She loves my kids. She makes great food. And I know she loves me. I tried to give her a pay raise recently and she refused. I don't know a lot of helpers who would do that. When I asked her why she wouldn't take the extra money she said, "Because you and I are friends." I know that all her scolding is actually because she loves me. She's treating me like mothers-in-law treat their daughters-in-law. I know it's all motivated by love.

He Ayi grew up in a large family with seven siblings, in a one-room, tin-roofed home with no fans or air-conditioning in the summer and no heat in the winter. When I think about her living conditions growing up I stop complaining about pretty much anything (for a few days, at least). He Ayi's tough. She's one of the older sisters, so she is responsible and a hard worker. I think the only time she missed work was when her brother-in-law died and she had to help with the funeral.

He Ayi is married and she has one son who's in his twenties. I've never met them. He Ayi says her husband doesn't want to meet us, he's too shy.

Fill in the Gaps 100 Project

I'm super excited about this.

I found out through Editorial Ass (a blog I follow; it stands for Editorial Assistant, so don't freak out, Mom) that there is a fun, fun project going on called Fill-in-the-Gaps. You make a list of 100 books you haven't read yet, and set yourself a goal of reading at least 75% of them over the next five years.

This seemed a great chance to get organized with my reading, so (in my spare time) I compiled my own list. Most of these books are Young Adult (YA), because that's what I write. I badly need to fill in the gaps of my reading list with more YA novels and "tween" books. I didn't include too many classics since that's what I have mostly been read up to this point. The gap there isn't as startling as the YA gap, though of course I left some space for some of my all-time favorite classic authors: Charles Dickens, Eudora Welty, and Katherine Mansfield. There are also some adult books that sounded fun on the list, including a couple of Annie Dillard's, just because she's always amazing and inspiring.

So, here's my list: (in no particular order)

1. Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
2. Laura Amy Schlitz, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village
3. Lynn Rae Perkins, Criss Cross
4. Cynthia Kadohata, Kira-Kira
5. Kate Dicamillo, The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, A Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread
6. Avi Crispin, The Cross of Lead
7. Linda Sue Park, A Single Shard
8. Richard Peck, A Year Down Yonder
9. Christopher Paul Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy
10. Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak
11. Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why abandoned
12. Elizabeth C. Bunce, A Curse as Dark as Gold
13. Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
14. Alexandre Dumas, The Man in the Iron Mask  abandoned
    
15. Leslie Conner, Waiting For Normal
16. Siobhan Dowd, Bog Child
17. Christine Fletcher, Ten Cents a Dance
18. Matt de la Pena, Mexican White Boy
19. Joseph Monninger, Baby
20. Terry Pratchett, Nation
21. Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamakim, Skim abandoned
    
22. Coert Voorhees, The Brothers Torres
23. Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
24. Melina Marchetta, Jellicoe Road
25. Margo Lanagan, Tender Morsels
26. Stephanie Meyer, Twilight
27. Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Whimpy Kid
28. Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy
29. Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing
30. Scott Westerfeld, Extras
31. Jenny Downham, Before I Die
32. Laurie Halse Anderson, Twisted
33. Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
34. Eudora Welty, The Robber Bridegroom
35. Eudora Welty, The Ponder Heart
36. Eudora Welty, Losing Battles
37. Annie Dillard, The Maytrees
38. Annie Dillard, Living By Fiction
39. Annie Dillard, For the Time Being
40. Katherine Mansfield, The Aloe
41. Charles Dickens, Oliver
42. C.J. Sansom, Dark Fire
43. C.J. Sansom, Sovereign
44. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
45. Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
46. Ayelet Waldman, Daughter’s Keeper
47. J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
48. S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders
49. Robert Lipsyte, The Contender
50. Chaim Potok, The Chosen
51. Paul Zindel, The Pigman
52. Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice
53. Robb White, Deathwatch
54. Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War
55. Pamela Todd, The Blind Faith Hotel
56. Lois Duncan, Killing Mr. Griffin
57. Robert Cormier, I Am the Cheese
58. Harry Mazer, The Last Mission
59. Cynthia Voigt, Homecoming  abandoned
60. Bruce Brooks, The Moves Make the Man
61. Richard Peck, Remembering the Good Times
62. Brock Cole, The Goats
63. Gary Paulsen, Hatchet
64. Walter Dean Myers, Fallen Angels
65. Francesca Lia Block, Weetzie Bat
66. Jerry Spinelli, Maniac Magee
67. Michael Cadnum, Calling Home
68. Virginia Wolff, Make Lemonade
69. Karen Cushman, Catherine Called Birdy
70. Cynthia Voigt, When She Hollers
71. Rita Williams-Garcia, Like Sisters on the Home Front
72. John Marsden, Tomorrow When the War Began
73. Christopher Paul Curtis, The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963
74. Victor Martinez, Parrot in the Oven, Mi Vida
75. Edward Bloor, Tangerine
76. Robert Cormier, Tenderness
77. Virginia Wolff, Bat 6
78. Joan Bauer, Rules of the Road
79. Gary Paulsen, Soldier’s Heart
80. Paul Fleischman, Whirligig
81. Sarah Dessen, Dreamland
82. Richard Peck, A Long Way from Chicago
83. Chris Lynch, Gold Dust
84. Gary Paulsen, The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer
85. Judith Guest, Ordinary People
86. Joseph Bedier, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
87. David Klass, You Don’t Know Me
88. Carol Plum-Ucci, What Happened to Lani Garver
89. Jerry Spinelli, Star Girl
90. Sonya Sones, One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies
91. Ann Brashares, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
92. Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust
93. Lois Lowry, The Giver
94. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
95. Michael Chabon, Summerland
96. Sarah Dessen, Just Listen
97. Marsha Qualey, Just Like That
98. Newbery Winner
99. Newbery Winner
100. Newbery Winner

Phew! Anyone else want to join me and compile their own list?

Special thanks to Ren Feathers for the cool artwork, and to Emily Cross who started a blog for those participating in Fill-in-the-Gaps.

Shiny

My toenails. They're shiny.

Not just regular, fresh-from-a-pedicure shiny.

Twinkling shiny.

The lady at the pedicure place put rows of tiny diamonds along the edge of my freshly painted toenails today. For free.

This is how it happened:

Olivia came in to visit Christina and me while we were getting our toenails done. She had been playing at the indoor playground down the hall with her siblings, but she came in for a few minutes and was pretty jealous that we were getting pedicures and she wasn't.

She looked awfully cute today, wearing a flowery dress and her hair in two braids. The pedicurist commented on how beautiful she was.

"Thanks," I said.

A little while later the lady commented again, "She's so cute. American children are so cute."

I smiled. "She's Tianjin ren." Meaning, she was born in Tianjin.

"Shi ma?" cried the lady, her eyes getting big. Really?

I swear, half the time -- no, more than half the time -- when people here talk about Olivia, they don't realize she's Chinese. They just make comments like, "Her hair is darker than yours," or "She doesn't look like you." Then they're absolutely amazed when I tell them she's adopted. Flabbergasted, in fact.

"Yes," I replied. "She was in the Tianjin Orphanage."

The lady promptly gave me the thumbs up. "You're wonderful. You're wonderful." Her eyes were wide as she looked at me; I thought she might start crying. "You're wonderful."

I don't know how to respond when people say this to me. Usually I just try to defer the praise to Olivia. "She's wonderful. We love her." I want people to know she is a blessing, a gift, a fulfillment of a dream to us, more than we could ever be to her. After all, we chose her, not the other way round. Getting her adoption finished after all those years of waiting was nothing short of a miracle. We are thankful, brimming-over thankful, that she's our lawful child.

But my Chinese isn't good enough to say all that.

The pedicurist continued looking at me with round eyes, looking at Olivia, teasing her, spoiling her. Olivia even got a free nail painting.

And before I knew quite what was happening, the pedicurist was edging my toes with diamonds. When I asked why, she looked at me and said, "You're wonderful."

All I could do was shake my head, severely humbled, wishing I could give praise where praise was due.

After all, Olivia's adoption was so much more than simply bringing a child into our home. It was a journey, one that started for me long before Olivia was born.

As a senior in high school I visited an orphanage in Fujian province. Wandering the halls, I heard a sound coming from a room that at first appeared dark and empty. When I peeked in through the cracked door I saw there was a baby with a cleft lip and palate left there to die because it "couldn't eat." I left that orphanage sobbing, praying, wishing I were old enough, rich enough, powerful enough to scoop that baby up and smuggle it back to Hong Kong with me. I wasn't and I couldn't.

Seven years later I moved to China and met Olivia in the baby room of the Tianjin orphanage. I looked at her lying there in the crib, six weeks old, with her bright black eyes and fell heart-stop-beating in love. Her cleft lip and palate just cemented it for me. This is the baby I want.

Seven years later Aaron and I finally finished Olivia's adoption. That was a year ago this month.

Phew. It gives me goosebumps. This has nothing to do with me. I couldn't have come up with a story like that, not to mention timing like that.

I feel touched when I look at my twinkling toes. Maybe that was this woman's way of saying thank you to me -- xie xie. For what? For cherishing one of our children....

All I can say is, "Bu yong xie." There's no need to thank. Believe me.

Great Family, Great Wall

We have visitors. Aaron's brother, Benji, and his lovely wife, Christina, are here visiting us for one week.

We spent Monday and Tuesday in Beijing, showing them the sights -- the Forbidden City, the Great Wall -- and saying goodbye to those places ourselves.

We rode up to the Great Wall on a ski lift-type contraption. I was impressed by the silence and the smell of pine trees. Snowflakes fluttered down.

The Great Wall is always breathtaking, but especially so behind a soft-falling curtain of snow. We stood mesmerized, gazing at this man-made thing snaking over the jagged range, away into the distance. Just when you thought you were seeing the end of it, there stood another half-crumbled guard tower on a distant peak.

We walked up and down a thousand stairs, some shallow and gradual, some high and steep. The Chinese people we met seemed proud. Laughing. Confident. They deserve to be proud. Their heritage is amazing. I looked at Olivia and thought, "Your people accomplished this!" I wonder if any of her ancestors worked to carve out this wall, if any of their bones are buried under the foundations.

When it was time to leave, time to board our toboggans for our slide back down the mountain (yes, I took Sophie down the mountain on my lap in a toboggan!), I told our children to touch the wall, to say goodbye. They did it, reverently. We don't know when we'll be here again, breathing in the sweet smell of pines in this swirl of snow on this seemingly eternal wall. Maybe never.

"If you haven't been to the Great Wall, you aren't a real man."

- Chairman Mao

Sophie is now, officially, a real baby.