Yeah, why don't we see the Onceler's face?

Well, I hope that Sara gets some time to do another catch up. I'll try to get some time too. China was great, my new job is going well. But I'm not here to talk about that now...

One of Willow's homework assignments is to read to us for at least 15 minutes each day. She is a fantastic reader. I used to wonder if she was simply reciting the words or if she really understood what she was reading. This homework assignment has help answer that. She really does usually understand what she reads and can formulate some really good questions.

Earlier this week Willow chose to read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. As she was reading, she would often stop and ask some really thoughtful questions. The question she asked that I found the most profound was:
Why don't we ever get to see the Onceler's face?

Now that isn't a question about the words on the page, but as with most Dr. Seuss books, the pictures are an important part of the story. Not only had I never given it any thought, I hadn't even noticed that we never saw the Onceler. I want Willow to be a diamond reader*, so I tried to discuss the question with her without simply telling her what I think the answer is. I think that by the end she did grok that there wasn't one right answer. Some of the ideas she put forth were:

• Because he is shy
• Because he doesn't like going outside. (This one we dismissed because in the story he does go outside.)
• Because he feels guilty

The last one impressed me. We discussed the question and her answers for a while. If it hadn't been so late I might have attempted to see what she thought about the idea of the Onceler being a "stand in for faceless corporations." I'm not sure I could have explained it in simple enough terms, though. And I definitely wasn't ready for that discussion just before bed time. I was tempted to keep her up talking, but I didn't want her to be too tired for school in the morning, though.

-JEEP
After much searching, here is the quote I was referencing above. I really like this quote and I fear that I'm not a Mogul Diamond. :(

Readers may be divided into four classes:

1.) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.

2.) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.

3.) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.

4.) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~

China

As I've tried to write down my impressions of the china trip, so many stories and details come up that it is difficult to decide how to put it all down. I don't think I can do it justice, it was such a amazing experience. What follows is just a small sample of my impressions, and even so it is very long. We have too many pictures too, you can see them at

http://picasaweb.google.com/sara.peterson/20080822ChinaTripAugust2008#

As many of you know, Joe and I have a friend who organized a trip to China this summer to coincide with the Olympics. Grandma Candy and Grandpa Bill generously agreed to watch Zane and Willow for us so Joe and I could attend. Zane is really, really into everything at this point so that was particularly brave of them. I did my best not to freak about being so far away from my kids, and generally did ok, though long car rides were particularly difficult for some reason. This was my first experience abroad and it was a real eye-opener. I've mainly lived in suburbs and small cities in the US and Beijing was huge, Shanghai was huger and Harbin (the smallest city we visited) was still gigantic! The country worked really hard to be welcoming to all the tourists, and generally people were friendly. I ended up in a lot of Chinese peoples' family pictures. I don't think I was notably tall compared with some of the other tourists, but for some reason I was popular to pose with. We did a lot of touristy stuff, seeing the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Ming emperor tombs, a jade factory, a silk factory...my favorite in Beijing was Beihai Park, It is astoundingly beautiful, cool and relaxing while the rest of the city is hectic. Shanghai has an even more worldly, busy energy. If you've seen Bladerunner, Shanghai feels like it could become that in about 20 years. Harbin was super interesting. It has a strong Russian influence due to its location so far north. When you come from the airport, it really seems like you could be in Nebraska....acres upon acres of corn! The corn grown there is more similar to US commodity corn than sweet corn. It is very starchy and stiff (they say it is good for your teeth) The produce in general was strange to me. The peaches were large and beautiful, but even when ripe had the texture of an apple and an under ripe flavor. I wonder if the Chinese are weirded out by our fruit when they visit here? Fruit, especially watermelon was served at the end of dinner almost everywhere. Joe says it is a signal that they are almost done bringing the food. We were treated to many meals by Snow's friends and the food was always amazing and delicious. It probably merits it's own blog. I have been a fan of a couple of travel network shows that feature adventurous eaters, so I had gone with the goal of trying everything offered to me. Some of the new experiences were, tripe, raw beef, congealed duck's blood, roasted bone marrow, fish heads, whole shrimp, pork liver, duck neck, watermelon seeds, beetles, silkworm larva....All of it tasted pretty good, though the beetles have a definite "buggy" flavor. If you have to eat one or the other, go with the larva.:)

We got to see a few Olympic events. We watched the opening ceremony in a private room at a spa after having dinner and foot rubs. Originally we had tickets, but they turned out to have been fraudulent. No worries, we got our money back, but I don't know if they got the guy. We saw two soccer matches, Nigeria vs Japan, and US vs The Netherlands. My favorite Olympic moment was singing the national anthem before the game, loudly and off key. When they played the Netherlands's anthem next, their countries fans tried to sing their anthem, but apparently didn't know the words:) Go USA! I felt very proud and patriotic. We also got to see some women's beach volleyball, US b team vs China, and Australia vs Brazil.

Transportation was done mainly by cab, though a few times we had a hired van and driver. You could not pay me enough to be willing to drive in china! Lane markings seem to be a suggestion at best, and it is quite a shocking free for all. The drivers have to be super aggressive to get anywhere, and while it is scary at first, you just kinda get used to it. We rode the subway in Beijing a few times and that system works really well, although it is crowded. Walking was fun, but crossing streets with the crazy drivers all around is terrifying. If you make eye contact, then they know you saw them and it is up to you to avoid them. Best to learn to look out of the corner of your eye. It was amusing to realize that we Americans were the only ones waiting for the lights to change to cross the street, everyone else just went when they saw a gap. Meals were provided on all the internal flights, even though they were pretty short. Very different from the US!

One of the people who went with us is a very experience traveler, and he said one of his favorite things about travel is how good it feels to go home. I was certainly happy to get back, even though we had such a great time. The worst part was getting to the hotel where the kids were and having Zane not come to me. I was hugging Willow and crying, and I don't know if I scared him, if he was mad at me, or God forbid had forgotten who I was, but he wanted nothing to do with me for a whole day. That was really hard, but it makes me really appreciate it when he clings to me now. Willow and Zane both had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and we are so grateful to them for the opportunity to travel.