手寫板 Chinese Language Palm Pilot

My wife has just started using her new toy, a Chinese type of palm pilot 手寫板 she bought in China. It allows her to write Chinese characters on to the screen which are transformed into code in the PC (that actually looks a lot nicer than the one on the left...with rainbow color characters.) We bought it in the 海印 Electronics District in Guangzhou for a good price, around $7 US.

My handwriting is not very legible in either English or Chinese, so I prefer entering Chinese characters using the keyboard. (a doctor's handwriting!) Software allows me to enter the characters using either pin yin or the radicals 部首.

Birthing traditions Chinese and American 寶寶來了!

The newest member of our home group at church has arrived! And he is very well-behaved. He doesn't cry much or even seem to frown. After waiting the appropriate month for 作月子 (there is really no appropriate word for this in English), the mother brought the baby out for a first viewing.

His cousins, daughters of the mother's little sister were giving this foolish photographer snapping photo after photo the "look," so I wisely stopped after I got a couple of good ones.

The Chinese have a tradition of mothers waiting at home for one month after birth to restore their health and give time for the baby to strengthen. The mother's mother will make all sorts of special soups and foods for the new mother. When families are separated by an ocean, there are月子 中心 that are set up to care for the new mothers and their children. Some of them are quite elaborate and customize their care depending on where in the Chinese world the mothers come from. Mostly, they give the mother a chance to rest up in a peaceful setting during that 1st month. So, the date after that month, 滿月, is actually quite an important milestone.

Having said all this, our friend relied on family and friends mostly. I know my wife brought a Cantonese-style vinegared pig foot 醋豬腳, which tastes quite good and is something she ate after the births.

By contrast, most of my American friends seem to focus on getting back to work quickly, whether to a job or household work. The emphasis seems to be on a quick return to self sufficiency. Many jobs require going back to work 3 weeks after a birth and I can remember mothers bringing their babies out for us to see as soon as a week after birth. I can still remember a joke by a friend that he had to reserve a slot for his daughter in a local day care center 托兒所 before she was born. It is similar to the differences in worldview noted by earlier commentators between Japan and the West. The West views babies as dependent, a bad thing, and have to be trained to be independent as early as possible.

Chocolate Cake 巧克力蛋糕

Our youngest one loves chocolate, so for his birthday we got him a chocolate cake. He went through 3 steps to get a messy face. Blow out the candles 蠟燭吹掉, go face down into the cake. Then pull up the face and pose for the camera. Next year we should prepare a birthday party for him sometime and invite all of his many little friends over, but this year we just invited my parents and had a seafood dinner.



Good chocolate is something found in many cultures. Chinese in general do not like baked goods ,such as chocolate cake, as sweet as Americans do and on this I agree with them. I loved the chocolate cake in a bakery on Shi Da Lu 師大路 near the apartment we lived in Taipei. It was rich and just a little bit bitter tasting 半苦半甜的巧克力. I also like dark 60-70% chocolate that can be found in some places in the world.

Fishing 釣魚

My apologies for the lapse in posting. I know that several of you have emailed asking when we are starting again. We've been away for pretty much all summer and I've been finishing some projects. But we are back!!

I'll gradually fill you in on some of the things we did over the summer but first things first. We caught our first fish! Two trout 兩條鱒魚which we pan fried that very evening.

I know some of you out there are thinking, no problem! Fishing is easy. "I've done it with my (usually fathers) since I was 6 years old." Well, I didn't. Not that we didn't do many things together when I was little, but it just wasn't in the history of our family.

We learned 2 things about fishing. It takes patience, whether fishing for prawns蝦 in the night markets 夜市 of Taiwan or large ocean fish out on the deep sea. We also learned that we need to go where the fish are. I had to put that pole right in the middle of a school of fish before they would bite, but they did bite.