screamingSushi

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2007

Ni hao! Season’s greetings from across the globe! We hope this letter finds you healthy and jolly! If you didn’t know, we live in China these days. We’re here on a scholarship that grants students advanced degree study opportunities all over the world. The selection board must have been crazy to let a couple like Akiko and I run loose in south China. But we’re so grateful to be over here and having the time of our lives. We’re in the third largest city in China called Guangzhou (or you may have heard of old Canton). The weather never freezes and flowers bloom all year round. Right now is the most beautiful time of year with blue skies every day and perfect temperature for lounging in the park while typing a quick letter to family and friends. We’re a couple hours from Hong Kong and just a short flight from Akiko’s parents in Tokyo. We’ll be here till summer 2008 for the Olympics and then “real work” starts up again somewhere back in the States. I guess what we’re trying to say is, let us know if Asia is on your travel itinerary!

We moved over in August ‘05 to start language training at a local university. Akiko and I basically beat our heads against the wall for six months until this abominably difficult language started to sink in. Being so close to Japan, many people expect Chinese and Japanese to be very similar. In many ways this couldn’t be farther from the truth. But for the first few months our sole communication link with our hosts here was Akiko’s handwriting. She would scribble down fragments of thoughts in Chinese characters helping us register at school, order ice-cold water, or just turn on the A/C. It was an adventure and I tended to just stare into space like an idiot for the first few months as she saved the day over and over again.

Now with a year and half under our belt, we’re all settled in. We have a great little apartment that keeps us cool in the 110+ degree heat (with the A/C wheezing) and warm in the dead of winter (with all our little space heaters huffing). Akiko has the city mapped out for all the foreign food and fake-brand-name outlets and I have the place scoped for all the knock-off electronics. We’re fully certified in the Chinese school of hard knocks bargaining.

Despite all the excitement of living in a foreign country, we actually did come here for a purpose. I study full-time at Sun Yat-sen University MBA program. Somehow I gave my Chinese classmates the impression I understood Chinese so now our group projects are a whirlwind of babel that often leaves me quite lost. Everyday is filled with new words and even more old forgotten words that become new again. Our brains are leaky buckets that we are constantly trying to fill up with this language. Classes are great though and the material is all adopted from the M.I.T. program in the U.S. Only three more finals to go this semester!

Akiko is also keeping busy. Most people probably think she’s over here taking full advantage of the veritable shopping paradise. Don’t get me wrong, she’s doing that too, but she also took a high dive into the culture. At times she appears to be taking the “scholarship” more serious than her husband. Every week she rushes off to Chinese painting classes, wailing Chinese erhu violin lessons, and local hiking trips with her posse of Chinese friends. To top it off, every weekend she sits through 10 hours of Chinese lecture in a nationally certified program in the Art of Chinese Tea. In fact as I type this letter to you, she’s out testing in front of a panel of government tea experts for her first certification. While I’m learning how to say words like demand elasticity and bond annuity, she’s reciting poetic tea ceremony jargon.

It’s not all studying though. Last winter we took the train west to a neighboring province where we enjoyed the karst rock landscape scenery typical of Chinese paintings. The highlight of the trip was a three-wheel-drive moto-truck journey into the mountains on the Vietnamese border where we happened on a minority-culture village that had never seen foreigners before. We also tried our legs at Chinese skiing in the far northeastern province. The skiing was too cold but perfect for the ice festival where sculpture artists essentially built a small city complete with buildings and monuments out of frozen water.

Our journeys have taken us from the tropical islands of Taiwan and Hainan to the 16,000+ foot mountain-top Buddhist monasteries of Tibet to the northwestern deserts of the Muslim Kazakh and Uighur people. Our parents visited in July and the whole crew migrated up to Beijing and Yellow Mountain. We’ve been so lucky to travel with many friends and relatives when they came to visit us – thanks for the great excuse to get out and see this wonderful region.

There’s been a lot going on in our lives but in fact, the biggest news comes from our siblings. For those that don’t know, Akiko’s sister, Yoshiko, was married to Shinsaku (Shin-chan for short) in Tokyo last May at a beautiful Shinto ceremony. My sister, Tracy, is engaged to be married this summer to Demi (sorry to all eligible suitors – the window of opportunity has passed). We were fortunate that both new gentlemen in the family dropped by to visit us in China last year. Attention all ladies – the two younger brothers, Koshiro and Andy, are still single and available (although you may want to check Andy’s new “artwork” before jumping at that opportunity). Akiko and I celebrated our second anniversary on September 3^rd on Hong Kong’s beautiful Lantau island. Keeping with the Queen Mary theme, of course we took a boat to get there.

We wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year! We’ll leave off with a common Chinese New Year wish:

恭喜发财 (gong shee fah tsai)

May you be happy and prosperous！