It’s a surprise that I found I took one thing made in USA from China. I thought that all I would do was taking things made in China from USA.
It’s strange that we came from China, across the Pacific Ocean, to a nation teeming with goods labeled ‘Made in China’. Even more strangely, we all go shopping here like crazy, since some of the things labeled ‘Made in China’, we didn’t see them in China.
all made in China
but this one I took from China, was made in USA!
Americans lead a relaxing life and have frequent touches with nature. This is so different form Chinese. Although Chinese cherish the beauty of nature and prefer the fresh air, they just don’t take the nature as part of their life as Americans (except for people living in the countryside). After we started our program here, our interns just kept leading us to hiking on mountain, swimming in lake, or going for a canal walking. But this time is the coolest one—canoeing!
Although the process was practicing my muscle more than having an adventure as I thought, I still felt something about this experience, which I could not tell, was exciting .The James River today was so calm that the only waves were caused by the motorboats passing by. I didn’t even get any part wet! Maybe the feet, but only because I put them into the water… Most of what we were doing was keeping pedaling, pedaling and more pedaling. At first we thought the pedaling was funny because we were all excited. But no long after, our brains became blank. No one talked any more. The only sounds I could hear were the pedal tapping the water and the sound of breathing. The only thing I could see was the destination. Everything seemed like a trial to our endurance. When we finally made it to the destination, exhausted, thirsty, aching everywhere, we still had a harsh mission—to pull the canoes up to the land. As we climbed into the van and threw ourselves to the seats, nothing could be more attractive than having a shower and a great meal.
On the evening, I met on the internet one of my old friends who used to do canoeing. When I told her about our trip today, she turned more excited than I at first. ‘It’s too exhausting!’ I complained to her. To my surprise, she said ‘That’s why I like it! It feels like I have really accomplished something.’ I suddenly realized that’s the point that made me feel great regardless of fatigue of the body. It’s the feeling of really accomplishing something substantial—using my own power to conquer part of the nature, though the river is not a challenge at all.
completely armed
Today, I met a new friend when I revisited the museum. Her body is covered with snowwhite fleece and there is always a smile on her heart-shaped face.Her arms, each on one side of her plump body, are too short that maybe she can not use them for any purpose except as decoration. On the back of her body, there is a little flocky tail that looks like a white bun. She walks in the way a sparrow hops, with the sound of 'click, click'.She is simply so funny that only in half a day she has aroused so much laughter among my freinds and I. You want to know her? Move your cursor on the black zone below and you will see her.
As for Dave, he is a good father as well as a good dad. He cooked meal and made bed for Lily while Lisa had to take care of both Lily and us. The spaghetti with Italian sausages he make was terrific. I enjoyed it and stuffed my stomach to an extreme. He supports his wife, and kind of combines the family tightly as a whole.
Lisa and Dave adopted Lily in Lianjiang, a city in Guangdong Province. Everything related to this adoption has been carefully preserved, even the package of milk powder that Lily used in the orphanage. To help Lily grow up smoothly, the couple decide to tell her all the adoption thing in an appropriate time. Instead of breeding her in an totally American way, they want her to learn about and to love her heritage and Chinese culture, which makes me believe it more firmly that they deeply love Lily, the girl per se, including all her heritage from China, all her differences from themselves, but not only as a substitution of their own biological child. That moved me a lot.
Still a lot of things to write: Lily, the two dogs and the nice museum etc. Maybe the pictures tell better.
a statue I like in the museum
nice supper( all made by Dave)
Lily climbed up to my lap, then we had this picture
Lisa loves LIly so much
ideal father and ideal husband
the black dog is called Lumy
Besides being a loving mother, she was provided the gifts to be a successful and smart woman by the education and upbringing she gained. Undoubtedly, she is proud of her work now and also her ability to write beautiful English sentences. She brought us to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and talked with us a lot about histories and cultures of both America and China. She was a quick learner, Every time she received interesting information from us, she would respond with confidence ‘Get ya!’ When the assistant in the cosmetic shop kept mistaking us for Japanese, she almost lost her temper. ‘ I don’t understand why people always mix up Chinese, Japanese and Korean! I can tell clearly!’ She complained to us.
One thing that learned from Lisa is that one should try to communicate with others, even strangers, as more as possible to make things favorable, which she called ‘doing some public relations’. In the museum, she talked with the ticket checker; she talked with the guard; she talked with the receptionist; she talked with almost everyone she met, friendly and politely. According to Lisa, she used to be very shy but for her job was closely associated with public relations, she consciously tried to be more talkative in front of everyone, even somebody who she would meet only for couple of seconds and perhaps would never meet again! I realized that was how to set a ‘net work’ in our life, which may be more helpful than we expect.
Lisa and me
the exhibit in the museum
I didn’t expect the home visit of the weekend would be so happy. Coming back from the visit, it was already 11 o’clock, but Chai, Fu and I just kept talking about how nice the family was and how many interesting things happened.
The hostess of the family, Lisa, is a well-educated and generous woman, with natural red hair. She came from a wealthy family (for God’s sake, she told us her mother owned racing horses!) in New York. She studied English literature in university, and became the assistant vice president of a firm, doing public affair and store marketing. Her husband Dave is a photographer, who came from Italy and speaks quick English. They adopted a little girl from Guangdong, China, and for this reason, they pay a lot of attention to China. Also for this reason, they are more than willing to contact Chinese students like us.
Lisa is so well-educated and nice that she won’t say anything is bad. We all gained much assurance from her kind approvals on our English, our appearances and also our personalities. To her beloved daughter Lily, who will turn to 2 years old soon, one can not imagine how patient and considerate a mother she is. During our visit to her home, when Lily began to throw her toy violently (she has two roomfuls of toys, assorted. ‘She is spoiled.’ quoted from Lisa, and I totally agree.), Lisa just patiently repeated ‘be gentle, Lily, be gentle’ , and tried to hold her flapping little arms. In the middle of supper, when Dave was teasing that Lily was a ‘wild’ girl, she yelled at him ‘Dave’, and earnestly corrected the word ‘wild’ to ‘energetic’, ‘funny’ and ‘busy’. All of us could tell how much she loved the kid.
She is also a kind-hearted and sentimental woman. Every time she talked about how they found Lily in an announcement of searching parents for abandoned infants on a Chinese newspaper, she would close her eyes once in a while in sorrow, not only for the abandoned infants, but also for the mothers who had to do such a decision. ‘I want to leave something like posters at the place Lily was left. Just try to let her biological mother to know that Lily is fine.’ She said, hand pushing on her chest.
the family