Obama nothin', I can make the front page too!

A couple of weeks ago Obama made the the front page here in China when he won the election. Well, it turns out that it's not that hard to do! (For those of you who have kept up with us, you'll remember that I made the newspaper another time as well.)

I recently took the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi - Chinese Proficiency Test). It is nick-named the "Chinese TOEFL". Over 600 students took the test at Qingdao University. In my particular class I was the only "Western-looking" student, as everyone else was *Korean. In fact, on my way to and from the test I didn't see a single "Western-looking" person!

The HSK test is quite difficult as it is only in Chinese characters. There were quite a few questions that I just had to guess at. I have to wait 50 days before I find out the results. If you don't see me blog about the results within 2 months, that means I probably didn't do very well on the test and am ashamed to tell anyone about it :)

PHOTO CAPTION: Overseas students take the "Chinese TOEFL"

*The Korean population is Qingdao is huge!

Baby Fever

Someone in our house has baby fever and her name is . . .

Anna Mae! Recently Anna has been very into playing "babies." She actually takes care of her babies very well, feeding them, changing them, putting them to bed. Sometimes they are even potty training.

Last Monday we had study at our house. There are several new babies and Anna was was right there observing, learning how to be a mommy.

A New Rug

One of the things that we've been meaning to buy, but just haven't gotten around to buying it, was a rug. The other day at Home Depot...and, yes, we do have a Home Depot here...the perfect rug was waiting for us. We picked it up and brought it home.

Not only does the rug really tie in all the colors of the room well, but it is also good for make believe fun. In addition to acting as a boat that saves us from sharks, it is also a swimming pool that you can jump in to...

Ready.

Set

Go!

Oh, and we can't forget about the practical purposes of it...

Obama In China

Translation: OBAMA: AMERICA'S NEW HEAD
47-year-old Obama was elected the *56th American President, becomes the first black president in American history.
 奥巴马 (Obama - pronounced: "Au-ba-ma" in Chinese) made the front page of our local city's newspaper. Not only did he get the front page, but he also got a section-A, 4-page spread.

At the corner store today, I showed the fruit-seller-guy the newspaper and asked if he thought Obama would be better than Bush (**Most Mainland Chinese people don't like Bush). He said, "There's no way to tell. He's not president yet". Although people in both parties are making their predictions of Obama's future grand success or utter failure, this Chinese guy has voiced what is probably the most honest, non-partisan remark possible. In other words, "We'll have to wait and see."



Here are a few of the other headlines (These are my own translation...could be a bit off):
-Black horse puts on White house
-Obama: I have a dream
-Black man rules the roost, but the "white" in White house remains
-From "little poor baby" to big president
-Kenya takes holiday to congratulate Obama

*Notice the misprint on the front page. It says Obama is our 56th president. The last I counted, he's actually only the 44th. Hmm, not sure if the local papers can be trusted...

**One of the first things Chinese people ask you is, "Where are you from?" Of course my reply is always, "America". More often than not, the next thing out of their mouth is, "布什不好" (Bu shi Bu hao), meaning, "Bush is Bad".

Halloween Update

We're not sure if anybody still reads this blog or not, but we just wanted to let you know that we're alive and well. We had a party over at our house to celebrate the day after Halloween. We carved and painted pumpkins, ate home-made chili and hung out with our friends.