Christmas and Imagining Life without a Camera

I've finally realized why we have eyelashes: so we can still somehow
cycle through the driving snow. I've also realized why we have
fingers: so we can wipe any water or condensation away from one's eyes
(that forms from breathing through a scarf) before it freezes. So it's
been a very cold December.

Since the playmates have dried up somewhat (I suppose most people are
running off for some warmth), we've bought a month membership card for
Hannah to go to a kind of gym for kids. You know the kind, full of
slides, roundabouts and ball ponds. She's the youngest kid in there by
a few months (since few other kids are walking yet) and she can't
really make the most of the equipment but still, she'll crawl up the
stairs to the slide (and fall down the slide), and she'll run around
chasing balloons that are being blown by fans, she'll sit on a swing
and hold on (whilst we push her), and she'll sit on a roundabout. It's
quite sweet, though also amusing, when she'll get to the top of the
slide and play with the little screw in the top, or get to the bottom
of the slide and turn around absorbed with the flashing light on the
side.

She's certainly looking like a toddler but not entirely acting like
one yet. She's sort of half way there. She'll open cupboards and slide
doors. Her latest trick is to get a spoon, but instead of banking it
against a pot which used to be her definition of fun, she'll put it in
a cup, pick the cup up and shake it around. How mature!! She's picking
up her own baby cup and putting it to her mouth but does not yet tip
it back far enough to get anything out of it. She'll push her little
shopping trolley until it hits a wall but then she's not worked out
how to turn it or move it to go in another direction.

She's worked out how to speak a word: ba. And says it all the time,
but she's not given it a meaning yet! So she's making progress. She's
always been a bit of a quiet one so she might not be that fast to
talking. Besides which apparently kids which grow up bilingual are a
bit slower. And at the moment she's still hearing more chinese from
the nanny than english from us. But Hannah came in handy last week
when a taxi driver took pity on us in the cold and picked us up
instead of someone else.

Christmas come-and-gone. We went to a few social events, or held our
own. Nothing major, but some lunches and dinners here and there in the
days beforehand. Not much present-wise, although we do have a tiny
wooden christmas tree, fireplace, snowman and presents that came for
free when we bought something else. Hannah enjoyed grabbing them off
the table and throwing them on the floor. Thankfully she's certainly
moved on past the stage of grabbing glasses or other things to throw
around. And she's definitely in the mood for imitating whatever she
can. She even tried to jump when we showed her how.... all she ended
up doing though was sort of shaking her legs a bit!

I've been going through photos and uploading them to flickr
(www.flickr.com/adamsphotos) but still got a few hundred more to do.
Much of the above moments are recorded in photos and videos on there,
or coming soon. We went and printed a bunch recently and were inspired
to look through some of the old ones. Apart from the passport photo
which was taken on day 6 with her eyes closed and looking like a monk,
the rest are quite adorable. I can't really recognize the baby that
existed in the first two months, but from the time she hit three
months until today she looks very similar. a bit more hair and a few
teeth, but broadly the same. Certainly the same facial expressions
which are really the wonder of babies. So, the closing thought for
this email - what was life like before cameras existed and how did
that affect memories? I pity the parents who could not take photos of
their kids. Having said that i bet Hannah will be distraught when she
is old enough to realize just how many photos of her exist... and
they're all online!

Well maybe by that time everything will be online and she'll just
think it's normal. And how weird for us not to have our entire lives
portrayed, recorded and publicly viewable online... indeed. Yes, i
suppose i do feel a bit older now than i used to. I've been told
Hannah will be able to use an iPhone should we give her one fairly
soon and by the time she's two, though she won't be talking a lot,
she'll already be beating me at computer games. That i can handle. But
despite all the training and practice we've giving her, i hope i'm
still the better footballer than her at that age. Otherwise it won't
be so easy to take!

down the market

There's been a fair bit of snow in the last few days making the roads
pretty dangerous. Since its below zero all day long even the mush
turns into ice, and even some gentle sleet is a major threat once it
hits the pavements. But at least the snow gives you a real sense that
its Christmas time (at least if you are not Australian, otherwise
you'd associate Christmas with the beach). We did have a snow a couple
of months ago, freakishly but that disappeared fast. Here the snow and
ice hang around for ages.

It does make for a more adventurous bike ride into work. It also makes
it easier to find a bike parking space! Cycling is one way to ensure
Beijing remains a liveable city. At rush hour the subway is just not
pleasant, while the traffic is awful. In fact rush hour is so bad it
makes cycling home at rush hour bad too as cars spill over into bike
lanes. I used to leave work after rush hour... around 7pm but
sometimes now i try to get off earlier and it's not an enjoyable ride.

Work is going to get pretty busy until the Chinese New Year holiday
when I'll head home for a couple of weeks. Being busy is often more
satisfying as you feel more has been accomplished but it also means
that other non-urgent things get de-prioritized and it might mean less
time with the little one. This was the first weekend for a while
without a "play date" for Hannah, instead it was playtime for the
adults, hanging out with other friends who all seem to be having some
form of party because of christmas, and hosting a little dinner of our
own. It's funny, even when we don't intent to hang out with parents
with kids, a lot of our friends are all having kids or considering it,
but the conversation thankfully does veer off in other directions
occasionally.

One of the moments of today? A walk down to a local market (or series
of markets) where our local shoe repair guy shined up my shoes,
replaced the heels and worked some miracles. I'm totally impressed and
have brought a pair of shoes back from the dead which are at least
good enough for a back-up pair. And of course we get a healthy dose of
"real China" down in the market; the China that thrives off pure
entrepreneurialism. Next to the shoe guy? A guy selling christmas
decorations. Not sure how many customers he'll get, but the next door
market is full of hotel stuff, so maybe he's pitching to the hotels to
buy his stuff! And the other side of the shoe guy? A shoe woman, next
to another shoe woman. All lovely, photographic, old ladies. Well
until some guy in a van stops in front of them and gets out leaving
the engine running and the exhaust belting into their faces. Those
cute old women can sure get angry when they need to!

Christmas fairs in cold Beijing

It's certainly deep into Winter now. Autumn came and went as fast as
ever and the heating (turned on by the government) had to be turned on
early this year as it got cold earlier in November that usual. Then we
had the marathon last week that began at 8.30am at about zero degrees;
i wrapped my legs in black sacks for the wait at the start line but
ended up keeping my gloves on for the whole race.

Today we froze our feet off at the German Embassy Christmas Fair in
order to drink some Gluhwein and eat some meat. It's always a fairly
cold yet fun occasion. We went with Ben, who became a father a few
weeks ago, so it was good to hear his stories of early fatherhood.
Then we went to a baby shower, where the father-to-be and I chatted
about impending fatherhood downstairs in Starbucks. Clearly a
recurring theme nowadays!

On that note, during a quick trip to Hong Kong, Hannah spent her first
night without her parents-- with her nanny, and all was fine
apparently. Not sure if nanny would tell us otherwise really unless
there was a serious problem. Then whilst Andrea remained in Hong Kong
for a few more days I had the baby at nights and we seem to have
managed to break the "waking up three or more times a night for a feed
from mum" routine, which is good. Now there's just some murmours for a
few minutes once or twice a night but no screaming and no need for
feeding. Let's hope it lasts!

The weather in Hong Kong was pretty miserable too; wet and foggy. The
views were awful so it was good we didn't hang around too long. It was
nice to see some colleagues and friends again. Some were off to a J-Lo
concert. I wonder how it went. We recently saw Elton John which was
somewhat disappointing. Maybe we just don't know enough of his old
music and when we heard it thought it was kind of all the same. When
he finally got going on the piano and kept his band quiet it was
better and more distinctive. Only the one Lion king song though which
was a shame. We also saw The Fray, one of my favorite bands at the
moment. They only have one album but its a corker and there was only a
few hundred of us in a small club. The only downside was that fully a
quarter of the audience seemed to want to record the whole thing on
their mobile phones so all the phones and lights around us somewhat
ruined the view and atmosphere.

A lot of major bands seem to be coming to China nowadays, though i'm
not sure they make that much money off of it. They only play a couple
of gigs, although many of the tickets are very expensive. I suppose
they often target foreigners, at least that was who had paid for the
expensive Elton John tickets and were up dancing around most of the
time. I'm not sure what they heard that we didn't but each to their
own!

Christmas fairs are a popular thing for all the foreigners in China.
All the major hotels have something with free food, tree lighting
things, carol singers and things. Then there are lots of charity fairs
selling second-hand things or other products that charities seem to
profit from to fund their activities. It's always worth going to a few
since there's not a lot else to do in the cold winter!