Along with the cross-cultural communication issues between two countries, she also had a few struggles with cross-cultural communication to 12-year olds!
The first day my kids moved in, they showered her with presents! Some were related to the new year- stylized Chinese lamps made like little fabric pillows on a cord, and a fish, all in lucky red colors. She feel like she was able to redecorate the whole house with my new presents. They also gave her books, chopsticks, a four sided face, and four tea holders with inscribed designs.
Cooking
We were told that the kids all came from wealthy families, and likely would not have done chores before. However, the kids all loved to cook, especially Max! We often crowded in the kitchen, asking questions, looking for supplies, and tasting the food. They seemed to have a lot of disagreements about the right way to cook things, and listening to them chat while elbowing each other in front of the stove made me laugh.
The first weekend, we divvied up cooking nights. Leo made fried rice. (Chinese fried rice seems to have a lot of egg.) Sam cooked pork ribs in a ginger-garlic sauce. He didn't know how to say either of those words in English, but kids had a phone app to translate words they didn't know to English. (Other than odd ingredients or kitchen tools, their English was excellent.) Max made an eggplant dish, and showed me how Chinese eggplant is a different shape than the kind we're used to. (Fortunately, Tacoma/Lakewood has several Asian grocery stores.)
The boys all think it is hilarious that her name is Ginger!
We generally had very Chinese breakfasts, so on our first Saturday morning, she took them out to our favorite restaurant (The Bair Bistro in Steilacoom) to try some American breakfast. They still chose mostly eggs and meat, but they did try a bite of her pancakes and said they were good too. We also had french toast - a success- at home once, and another day oatmeal- a big failure.
Our friend who works at the restaurant Dana had a wonderful time chatting with the boys over their breakfast. She modeled some good cross cultural communication (it helps that she has biracial Chinese grandchildren and is well traveled.) She asked them a lot of fun and engaging questions, and gave them more English practice than they had all trip!
The boys had four days of school at a local middle school. Cold lunches is out of the ordinary for them, and it took a little work to find something they liked. Max had the most American tastes, and enjoyed a lunch meat and cheese sandwich with mayo. Sam was okay with peanut butter, but didn't love it. Leo said he didn't like jelly until he tried a spoonful of Nancy's homemade currant jelly! So then he and Sam had bread-and-jelly sandwiches the rest of the week.
Chinese breakfast got a little more elaborate every day. We alternated between fried rice and a chow mein noodle chicken soup with bok choy. (Max said it was still missing ingredients, but Ginger never figured out what.) We fried wontons every day (bought them frozen in bulk from an Asian supermarket. These were Korean style, but everyone seemed happy with them.) Then, usually more meat like fried sausages, and fried or boiled eggs.
Surprisingly, the boys were quick to get going most days. They take showers in the evening instead of morning, and they liked to help with food prep.
Shopping
It's hard to convey how important SHOPPING was for these boys! Anytime Ginger asked them what they'd like to do, they wanted to shop. (Actually, they said "go to a supermarket" but they didn't mean groceries.)
Even if we were at a tourist destination, Max would generally like to visit gift shops than whatever the actual tourist site is.
Ginger was often reminded that in China, people have a much smaller personal space bubble, as the boys were likely to crowd other shoppers trying to check out.
On a free Saturday, the boys requested a return to Seattle Pike's Market, although they'd already been there once with their class. They said they didn't get to spend enough time there. Ginger didn't realized until we arrived, they only wanted to see one shop again- the super heroes/comic shop!
They looooooooved Starbucks. Ginger took them there about 8 times in two weeks. In Seattle, they even wanted to wait in line at the original Starbucks, even though there was another right around the corner.
New Year
Tower Bridge and the local schools put together a party for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year.) The boys watched some videos online from the official New Year the week before. Here's a sample:
Leo worked at the Chinese checkers and Chinese chess table. Sam kept forgetting the rules, so Leo is jumped in to show us how to build a "bridge" to move our pieces along faster. Ginger didn't get to play the Chinese chess game yet, but they gave her one as a gift to learn later.
Leo got center role in their middle school group's traditional dance performance. Sam was the only boy who forgot to bring his hat. Max resented having to wear makeup (including red lips) for the performance.) Their group was the opening act of a two-hour talent show that included a number of long-term exchange high school students, and local American students sharing with them.
At the end of the program, posing for photos with their school banner and chaperones. These three teachers came along with the class from Nanning.
Other Fun
Like kids everywhere, they didn't always want to do the "fun" things Ginger suggested. No, let's stay in our room and play cell phone games!! (Ginger needed a break too though; she was tired of taking them to the mall.)
Tower Bridge has a rule that the host families take away cell phones and other electronics at 10:00 pm every night. This way, the kids get enough sleep for their busy days. China (which is all on one timezone!) is waking up about that time, and the kids are likely to start chatting with family and friends unless we confiscate. This was a tough rule to enforce, and got the most resistance. They'd start trying to persuade me not to take away their phones the moment I picked them up from school/daily trips. In the last days, they settled on a new argument: "We aren't sleeping well because we miss our phones so much!"
The first week, we had the most perfect clear skies, and the mountains looked incredible. The boys are all from the same town and school in Nanning, China. There are mountains in China too.
Ginger often worried about boring the boys- the things she likes may not be exciting for 12 year olds! We stopped at the beach in Steilacoom even though they kept asking to go shopping. After a few minutes of boredom, they started trying to skip rocks. Leo was the only one who could do it, but they all got so into it they didn't want to leave!
(Ginger was told the kids might be overly polite and not share their real feelings, but that was not the case with her kids!)
We also had one mini adventure the last day at my house, when it snowed. Although the boys have seen snow before (maybe on visits to northern China), it was a rare and exciting occurrence for them! Since they didn't get to visit Rainier, Ginger was glad they had fun in our yard. Sam made a tiny snowman, carefully sculpted with a spoon.
We hope the boys made a lot of amazing memories and will want to come back for a long term visit in high school!
