What's in a Name?

In Home is a Roof Overa Pig (which is a wonderful book—review to follow—I promise!), Aminta Arrington talks about the significance behind her children’s Chinese names--beautiful names, each invoking an image of a season (spring, winter, and fall).

This started me thinking about my own children’s Chinese names. 

I chose my daughter’s Chinese name months before she was born, lu (露) which means “dewdrop,” and xi (稀) which means “hope.”

I chose “dewdrop” because her father’s name, bo (波)--meaning “wave,” has the radical for water in it.  I wanted my daughter to have water in her name as well.  Even though “dewdrop” does not have this radical, it has the radical for “rain” (雨).

Soon after her birth, my daughter grew into the meaning of the second character of her name, “hope.” She was born with a rare congenital heart defect, and in the first ten months underwent five catheter procedures to correct it. Watching her survive, heal, and then thrive after undergoing such hardship filled me, and those around her, with amazing hope.

Then, there's my son. While we quickly picked out his English name (a family name), it took us three years to settle on a Chinese name for this boy. Prior to his birth, I drafted a potential Chinese name, but my husband, and then my in-laws, quickly shot it down. “That’s not a real Chinese name,” they said.  

Sigh...

My father-in-law then decided that he would ask his mother to choose a suitable name. More than two years later, I was told that his name was, jia (佳) li (励), which essentially means “good encouragement.”

This name sounded fine, and was family approved, but I felt slightly disappointed that my son did not have water in his name like his father and sister.  I suggested to my husband that we change the first character of his name to chao (潮), which means tide, and keep the second character li (励).  Although my husband thought it sounded unconventional, he approved of the overall meaning, “tide of encouragement.”

As I look back on the last four years of my son’s life, I see how he has grown into his name: as a one-year-old, encouraging my mother with his huge, open-mouth smiles when she was recovering from breast cancer surgery; as a two-year-old, comforting my family with his big grins and high-fives as we gathered to mourn the passing of a beloved uncle in a hospital waiting room. He has been such a “tide of encouragement” in our lives!

Now, as we await the arrival of our third child (Yes! A third is on its way!), I consider names again. Of course, my husband and I will pick a special English name, something that is linked to my family’s history. But I am giving more thought this time to the child’s Chinese name, wondering and dreaming how, in time, they will grow into this precious name chosen for them.

How did you choose your child’s Chinese name? What meaning does it hold for you?

The Gift of Food: Anhui Bing

My in-laws have always gifted us with food. Whenever we fly out to visit them in Colorado, we can be sure that a steaming bowl of noodles and an assortment of side dishes will be waiting for us, no matter how late we arrive. When they fly out to see us, we can count on enjoying a long vacation from cooking while being fed homemade spring rolls, dumplings, stir-fried dishes too numerous to mention.

My in-laws’ gift of food does not end there. When we were first married, they hand packed bags laden with tightly packaged stir-fries, sticky rice, and other treats for us to carry on the plane. After several years of dragging ten-pound bags of Chinese food through airports, we lovingly convinced them that their homemade Chinese treats were best enjoyed while in their company. 

Several years later, we again made the trip out to see them, this time with two little ones in tow. My father-in-law discovered that the kids’ car seat bag was an excellent place to store his specialty, Anhui bing.

My father-in-law describes bing as “Chinese pizza,” though the only similarity they share with this favorite food of Americans (in my opinion) is their round shape.  

Anhui bing are more like meat pies, about eight inches in diameter, with finely diced bits of stir-fried pork and pickled vegetables spread between very thin layers of dough (think Croissant pastry layers). 




The meat and dough layers alternate and the whole pie is then wrapped in a final layer of dough, which turns a lovely crispy brown when pan-fried with a dash of oil. 

Bing are addicting and vanish remarkably fast, which is too bad, because from what I've understood from my father-in-law, they are very time consuming to make.

Back to our trip from our in-laws: Imagine our surprise when we opened the car seat bag and found bing plastered to our daughter’s car seat! (Disclosure: we travelled domestically; we know better than to bring food back from our international trips!)

My in-laws spent Christmas with us this year, and as usual, my father-in-law brought stacks of freshly made bing. One night, as he watched my daughter quietly eat, licking her fingers after the last bite, he joked, “I should send Lulu (her pet name) her own private supply of bing every month.”  We laughed, but I saw a twinkle in his eye that hinted at a "Eureka!" moment.

Sure enough, one week after he and my mother-in-law flew back home, a heavy package arrived at our door. Inside were stacks of freshly made bing! My daughter was thrilled, my husband was giddy, and my dog--well, it turns out that he likes bing just as much as the rest of us. A few days ago, he swiped a lone bing off the counter and delicately nibbled his way through half of it.

I don’t know how to make Anhui bing--yet. This recipe was handed down from my husband’s paternal grandmother (who grew up in Anhui province) to my father-in-law. I hope that one day soon, my father-in-law will share his recipe with the next generation so this family treat may live on!

What gifts of food does your family share with you?  

Coping...when a parent is abroad

"How do you help young children cope when a parent is abroad?"

This is what I found myself googling two weeks ago when my husband was away on a ten-day trip to China (see my previous post on his trip).  This was a trip to visit family: his mom and dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, and to also do some genealogy research with some distant relations whom he met for the first time.

This was the first time since we were married ten years ago that he made this trip by himself.  The last time we went to China, all four of us travelled together. Our daughter was four, our son was one, and the trip was more difficult than we had imagined (with the twelve-hour time difference, unexpected illnesses, traveling hardships, etc...). This time, my husband would go by himself so he could cover more ground and see more relatives in a shorter period of time. It would be easier...

...or so we thought.

The day my husband left, I witnessed a huge change in my three-year-old son's behavior.  My normally happy, goofy boy became defiant and angry, ready to throw a major temper tantrum at the mere suggestion of a purely normal activity (such as getting into the car). 

This behavior continued non-stop for four days, when during his longest, angriest tantrum he began screaming, "I want to go to China with Daddy" and "Why didn't Daddy take me to China too?" 

Gulp. I suddenly realized that this wasn't a normal tantrum phase as previously thought. My son was experiencing real anger and sadness because his daddy was in China and he was not. 

How could I help him? My mind frantically searched for something that might bring him comfort. After drying our tears (seeing my son cry for his daddy broke my heart), I suggested that we go home and that he draw a picture of how he felt. 






To my surprise, he willingly got in the car, and after we got home, spent about 20 minutes drawing his picture (right).

Later that evening he was able to share his picture with his daddy on Skype. He explained how he was sad but all of the people in China were happy.  
My poor little guy!



The next day he told me that he was going to write a letter to his daddy explaining how he felt sad and angry.  After finishing his "writing," I had him "read" his letter to me and I wrote down what he said (he's just learning to write the alphabet so his letter required adult interpretation).  Again, we turned to Skype as a means to share these words "face-to-face."

From this point on,  I began to see gradual improvements in my son's mood. He still  felt angry or sad at times, but instead of immediately throwing a tantrum, he was able to tell me that he was angry and sad that Daddy was in China. By the time my husband returned on the tenth day, my son had returned to his happy, silly self, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Both my husband and I had thought that this trip would be easier than those in the past because he would be making the trip alone. We had never anticipated that this actually might be harder for our kids and could lead to complex feelings of sadness and anger because they were left behind. 

This trip was an eye-opener for me, and will certainly give us something to think about when we plan our next trip. It wouldn't surprise me if we make the next trip together!

"So, when are you going to China (again)?"

A few weeks ago, I overheard my father-in-law ask my husband (over the phone) when we were going to China next.  I gave my husband a knowing look. We've travelled to China twice since we've been married, once when our daughter was fourteen months old, and then three years later, when our daughter was four and our son was fourteen months.

(2006 trip to China)                                                                          (2010 trip to China; stopover in Japan)

Both trips were exhausting, stressful, and required months of planning, largely because we travelled with babies. Both my husband and I had travelled to China by ourselves a number of times before that, and even those trips were tiring and required lots of planning. Keeping a Cheng baby happy on the 14+ hour flight  required backpacks full of extra diapers, clothes, medications, and toys.

Once we were in China, we then faced new stresses and challenges:  how were we going to get around the city with our kids?  What were the kids going to eat when we met family and their friends at restaurants?  Where were the kid-friendly places in Shanghai and how could we get to them?

By the end of our second trip to China, we had tried and true "tricks" for traveling around the city (avoid rush hour), restaurant dining (ask the host to order soup noodles), and keeping the kids entertained (short trips to parks in the neighborhood). But we also made a pact to never again make this long trip with young kids (i.e. under 2 yrs)--it was just too difficult.

So when are we going to China again?

We aren't--at least for now, but we are sending a family representative next fall--my husband.  He'll be going on a short genealogy trip--to collect stories, photos, and information about his ancestors (more on this later!).  He heard many stories when he was young, but in the last few years, several of his family's key story-holders (grandparents and great grandparents) have passed away.  He feels the urgency to record his family history before the stories are lost or forgotten.  By travelling alone, he'll be able to focus on collecting this info and move quickly around the city.

How do you approach family trips to China? Do you travel together or make the trip alone?

Has family history ever been a focus of one of your trips?

Keeping in Touch: Sharing Milestones through Facebook

This week we celebrated two milestones in our family:  my son turned three and my daughter donated 12 inches of her shiny, brown hair to Wigs4Kids (a small non-profit in Michigan that provides wigs for kids with hair loss).  

            

We celebrated both events in our family of four (cake and presents for my son, hugs and pictures for my daughter), but longed to share the milestones with our extended family spread across the United States and China.

Thanks to iChat, we were able to connect with one grandparent (aka “Momish”) and one aunt and uncle.  In December, I posted about how iChat connected us with our family in China on Christmas Day.  Since then, we’ve discovered that this mode of communication is wonderful, when my mother-in-law has access to a good network connection in China (which isn’t often) and when we find the magic hour of the day when we are both awake (there is a thirteen-hour time difference).

This week, we summoned the power of Facebook to share highlights of my kids’ big days with several of our English-speaking extended family in Europe and Asia.  Although Facebook irks me (and others, I’m sure) on a regular basis due it’s frequent format changes, we are discovering it is a wonderful tool for keeping in touch with my husband’s English-speaking cousins. Prior to becoming Facebook “friends,” we kept in touch with my husband’s cousins pretty infrequently, whenever we made trips to China or through an occasional phone call. All of this changed minutes after I accepted their “friend” requests.

Now, they keep up-to-date with the latest goings-on in our household. They “like” my daughter’s new haircut and comment on my postings of my son’s latest antics. Cynics (or at least the cynical voice in my head) may say that this is only shallow communication, and that we're not connecting on a deep, meaningful level. Perhaps.  But we are communicating! And in a multi-lingual, multi-cultural family like ours (German, Japanese, Chinese, and American), communication on any level is remarkable and a step in the right direction.

How do you use Facebook to keep in touch with family who live in other countries? 

Keeping in Touch: Thank you Steve Jobs!

Yesterday we witnessed our own small Christmas miracle when we video chatted (through FaceTime) with my husband's family in China.  Small potatoes?  Not to us.

We've tried to video chat with my mother-in-law and her family since before my son was born--three years--with no success. We've tried AOL, Skype, and AIM, Chinese computers and computers purchased in the United States, but each time faced a breakdown of technology, insurmountable user error, or just plain bad luck:  no internet connection.

Enter the iPad.  When my mother-in-law visited this year we gave her a refurbished iPad. To my surprise, she was sending email and chatting with her relatives in Germany via FaceTime within two hours of receiving the gift.  Soon after, she returned to China, and we tried to video chat, but could not connect due to a poor internet connection.  Sigh.

I thought all was lost until yesterday morning when we were able to connect for the first time with my mother-in-law, her sister, and her sister's family.  Yeah!  We had not seen many of these people for more than two years. Children had grown, and elders had aged.  We spoke Chinese and English, and laughed with each other.

I have big hopes for this little piece of technology in 2012. I hope that it will help my kids stay connected with their Nainai for as long as she stays in China, and that it will help them build relationships with their other Chinese family members who we only see every three years.  Little piece of technology...big hopes!

Merry Christmas!

(This is not a shameless promo for Apple or any of their products, but an honest-to-goodness story of how the iPad helped a family in the United States connect with their relatives in China on Christmas Day.)