Say "YES!" to God's call.
When He calls, He always enables.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Muslim Market Shopping

It is no secret that I like to shop. Today was shopping of the very best kind! - in an interesting foreign place with tons of deals to be had, if only you can come up with a few of the right words to negotiate/communicate. We went back to the Muslin Market without a guide ( so, no need to hurry, feeling she might want to move on) but with a driver (so, no need to worry that an hour long wait for a taxi could end in failure and we would be lost in China forever). This is how we do it - we stroll along together until I see something I am interested in, then we part ways and Jerry and the boys look at things that interest them in the vicinity. After the shopkeeper and I have come to an agreement about the price, I call for Jerry and he tries his Chinese out on the shopkeeper, makes jokes and pays the bill. This girl hit the jackpot with our Nrth Face purchases, although since she started asking me to pay 380 yuan for a jacket and I ended up paying 160, I felt pretty good about it, too. :) Jerry got a Manchester shirt for a pretty good price and the boys got yo yos and the Bee Movie (Jed is watching right now while Jerry and Simon are down playing ping pong).






There were alot of places cooking amazingly delicious looking Muslim food on the street but our guide suggested we should stick to the restaurants. I did buy some wonderful bread.


If you look carefully you can see Jerry's white head above everyone in the middle of this picture.






The boys were fascinated by a man doing magic tricks. When he asked me if my husband was Chinese, I said no, he is the white headed man over there and the whole crowd laughed like I had told the biggest joke. It is very hard not really knowing what people are saying, particularily to the boys about us and about adoption. The subject comes up frequently everywhere, but always in restaurants. Chinese are loud, pushy and inquisitive and there are no questions that are considered bad taste. So when one waitress finds out we are the boy's parents, a crowd of waiters, waitresses and any other interested parties, usually forms. And they talk to the boys. Today we went into a very small restaurant in the Muslim district. The kind where you sit down and they take your order (the menu had pictures, thankfully) and then you have to pay before they send it to the kitchen. And then they brought packets of wrapped dishes to our table and asked if we wanted to rent them to eat off or if we were planning to eat out of the serving dishes. We rented 4 sets - 50 cents. At that point about 10 people were surrounding our table talking and laughing, asking the boys questions. I usually watch the boys carefully to make sure no one is being mean, and today they seemed to be smilling back, so I guess it was all good. Occassionally, in shops, when they find out we are adopting them, people will say thank you, or give us a better deal on what we are buying, so I think , in general, people think it is a good thing and that the boys 'are very lucky'. We try to express, that we are the ones who have been blessed.


These girls were excited to see themselves in the pictures that I took.
Both boys continue to be cheerful and good natured. Jed often wakes me up with a hug, like used to, smiling and saying 'goodmorning, Mama'. Today he told me, 'I love you', in English. Wondering how Simon will feel about leaving his hometown, tomorrow. thanks for your prayers, Catherine







1 comment:

joyce said...

Praying for uneventful travel for Cathrine and all. I really do wake up and run to my computer to see new post and any e-mails from both of you, highlight of my getting up.