life and times of the covners family in suzhou, china

Transformers: Entertaining, yet really crappy

2009-06-29T21:14:00.003+08:00

Yet again we line up to see the Summer event: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (TROF)

We made the 11:00 movie, even after waiting on line for 20 minutes. Apparently, most Chinese people didn't want to see the English version.

You see this picture? Its a bad photograph. Shot with an Apple iPhone. Which is an expensive phone not suitable for taking good pictures. However, the talent behind this photograph - Haga - was far greater than the talent behind TROF. You see, like this photo of people standing on line to see TROF, the movie was mostly a big, loud, expensive blur. There were two good scenes in the whole movie. The first good scene was when we got to see Megan Fox's butt presented for us while she straddled a motorcycle. The second good scene was when Optimus Prime fights a group of Deceptecons in a forest. The latter scene was basically ripped from The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (LOTR:FOTR), when Borimar fights off the orcs to protect the Hobbit ring-bearers, then dies. Why was this scene good? Because it was THE ONLY fight scene in the movie in which one could tell what is going on, who is where, etc.

OK. One other good scene at the beginning of the movie when a shard of the AllSpark animates a bunch of home appliances, which go on a rampage. I was sort of wishing we could see a movie wherein people fight animated home-appliances threw the entire movie. That would be sort of cool.

Michael Bay (who is a dumb-ass tool ... DAT) was given a lot of money to throw at this project. And he decided that the people who must like this movie must like robots who curse (use the M-F combination), people who like to see a chihuahua hump toy-bulldog (two scenes of this, not connected to anything), little robots hump Megan Fox's leg (um...why?) , and a shapeshifting transformer who can imitate a sexy girl (brings to mind a certain movie in which the governor of California fights a shape-shifting android from the future...that movie had 10X more plot than TROF). Basically, Bay assumed he was making a movie for the stupidest of audiences.

I got to say this though...I'm a fan of military porn. I like pictures of Israeli women carrying M16s. And I like how in TROF, there are a lot of money shots, in slow-motion, of brave metrosexual-looking US armed forces guys lovingly climb into their fighting vehicles. I'm not saying I'm gay and get turned on by seeing men and their fighting equipment. Not that there is anything wrong with being gay...cause there isn't... but I'm not gay.

There were fewer unnecessary human characters in this movie. In the last Transformers movie, there was about 30 throw-away characters, including: the Australian blond analyst, the black fat computer hacker guy, most of the soldiers, the black soldier who has the line "Left cheek!", the main soldier's wife, the analyst from Sector 7, the John Turturo character, the sheriff who arrests Sam, Bernie Mac, and about 10 others. OK. There are still alot of throw-away characters in TROF. For instance, the Sam's college room-mate. The room-mate's hippy friends. The bureaucrat from NAS. The black soldier who now does not get to yell "Left cheek!". And about 5 more. However, now we get throw-away robot characters. Such as: the Blackbird Scottish transformer. The two ghetto-black-guy-coded Mini-Cooper transformers who use profanity. The motorcycle autobots. The autobot named "side-swipe" or something like that. The little robot which humps Megan Fox's leg. And even the shape-shifting sexy Deceptecon is basically a throw-away character.

Anyway, spending time seeing this movie was more enjoyable than say...standing outside waiting for a bus on a really hot day. The popcorn was cheap. The kids didn't have to go pee. No one in the theater seemed to concerned about kids running around and climbing on seats because they couldn't focus on images on the screen...the movie was just so loud that we could not hear them anyway. There was a few scenes that were cool. And that's all I have to say.

Stay tuned for next post, wherein I review a noodle restaurant!

Opening Night of Transformers (to be continued)

2009-06-25T08:50:00.007+08:00

Suzhou Science and Cultural Arts Centre

We went an opening night of Transformers 2 at SSCAC on Wednesday 24th June, which is a brand new movie and opera theaters.

Previously Jesse took Akiva to watch a Star Trek movie on his birthday. Akiva was able to sit through during the movie. Next weekend we all went together. Akiva and Kenaz talked and rolled around on the seat. However I had really good time. I haven’t gone to movies since the last Star Wars came out in 2006 (that was also Jesse’s birthday).

A SSCAC movie theater has a big red cushy seat with good space between seats. It was very comfortable to watch movie. It was also very relaxed atmosphere. Most locals keep their cell phones on and talk on the phone during movie. I felt OK when Akiva started asking questions about the story loudly.

That day was also the last day of final test for all local schools. I thought fewer kids would appear after their final. We left home 7:30 to catch 8:00 English language show. The line wasn’t long. I was sure we can see the movie. Akiva was so excited and could not hold his jet and asked me to buy popcorns. In this movie theater a food stand is out side of a ticket office. I bought a large bucket of popcorns and sodas. Kenaz actually told me not want to go to a Star Trek place because it was dark and scary. I told him cheerfullywe are going to see a Transformers!!!
Jesse came to us sadly and said all tickets were sold out that night. We went home with big popcorns and watched a Transformers 1 on TV.

Review of pirated iPhone Chinese English Dictionaries

2009-06-20T11:42:00.006+08:00

My iPhone Homescreen. You can see the icons for the software I'm reviewing here.

This is a review of iPhone Chinese-English / English Chinese dictionaries for the Apple iPhone. I’m writing this review for all those interested in using the iPhone as a Chinese language study aid.

I imagine some people will see this review because they are regular viewers of my site. Some viewers are regular visitors – in China and elsewhere. But because of the keyword “iPhone” and “Chinese dictionary”, many people will come to this who have never been at the Hard-Boilded-in-Suzhou site. So…an introduction. This is the Covner-family-in-China blog. I, Jesse Covner, am a management consultant. My beautiful wife Haga is currently working for a Japanese recruitment services company. For the last 4 years, the site has focused more on the development and antics of our sons Akiva and Kenaz. There is also a healthy mix of restaurant reviews mixed in. If you want to know about what noodle restaurants in China are the best, you have found the right blog.

Now, back to the topic of this post. I should add some disclaimers / background information that may or may not be relevant to this post.

1.CRITERIA:

i.Two bottom line pass/fail criteria. First, as this is written for students of Chinese language, the dictionary needs to have pinyin romanticization display. Second it needs to be able to translate both to and from English without needing an online connection. No skimpy widget interfaces to a web service for me.

ii. Top three things I look for are: a) depth of the dictionary database, b) stability, and c) speed

iii. Another important criteria is the look-up algorithm. Does the software look for all works / translations containing a text-string, or does the software bring up only the exact matching word. Also, does the software return partial results as a word is inputted, or does the software wait for a manual “enter” key-press.

iv. Extras are good, but not important to me personally. Extras include customer word lists, flash-cards, character-within-word search, and custom dictionary databases.

2. All software mentioned on this post was downloaded using 91助手 (91Helper AKA IPCsuite, AKA LazyPanda...not sure about how these guys want to market it... Look here). As I am using my first generation iPhone in China, so of course it is jailbroken. Software downloaded from 91helper only works with jailbroken iPhones. And much of it may be pirated. If you don’t mind this, no matter where you are, I recommend download 91helper.

3. A lot of software on my phone has stability issues. I assume that is because my phone is jailbroken. I do not know if other jailbroken iphone have the same issues. Soon I will upgrade the software to version 3.0 (Chinese version jailbreak software should be out by the first week of July) and that may fix some stability issues. Anyway, if the dictionary software is unstable on my phone, it may not be unstable on a non-jailbroken iPhone.

4. I feel like iPhone is a little too trendy…a little to metrosexual for my taste. I’m a masculine guy… in fact, when they were shooting the new Star Trek movie, the producers originally were going to cast me in the role of Captain James T. Kirk.

Then, someone idiot pointed out that my ears were too big so maybe Spock would be a better casting fit.

However, I’m obviously someone who is ruled by my emotions, so playing Spock may not work. What do you think?

Anyway, I would like to trade up to a new Android phone, but one which has a 3.5mm audio jack and 5 Mp camera (the Samsung i7500…due to hit markets in September…comes to mind). Some of the new Nokia S60v5 touchscreen Symbian phones are nice to, but software availability is limited and the UI is a little clunky; I don’t think they have much selection in dictionary software.

5. My Test. Sao1 – 骚 . All Chinese agree that one of the meanings of this word is “trouble”. Some Chinese say this also means “flirtatious, in a very sexy way”. Some Chinese say this means “slutty…basically only whores are Sao1”. So this makes a good test because its one of those Chinese words which Chinese people do not agree on the meaning.

Anyway, to the reviews.

KTdict C-E
Developer site: www.klausthul.com
This is a bare-bones interface to the open-source CC-CEDICT dictionary data. It has a huge database of words. On my iPhone, it is not always stable, but that’s maybe just my phone. It was very stable until recently. KTdict starts to look up words as you enter them. It has a longer load time than other programs, but once it runs, it seems to look up words quicker than some others. It also looks up all words which contain a given Chinese character.

Users are able to enter in real pinyin as well as “number pinyin” ie. shuo1 zhong1 wen2. The only reason I can see for doing this is if you don’t have a Chinese input system on your iPhone. And if you have not installed this, then your phone is a sub-optimal learning tool. But you can also enter in the non-tone pinyin (ie. shuo zhong wen) and it will give back a close-match pinyin results. The software displays characters in both traditional and simplified character sets.

Because this software uses the CC-CEDICT, the dictionary file is huge. However, because CC-CEDICT is open source, it sometimes feels that there are too many definitions listed for each character. If you are new to Chinese language study, it will sometimes be impossible to understand which definition is most relevant (because word meaning changes in different contexts).

Test: Sao1 – 骚 Trouble, Disturbance, Rumpus

I would recommend this dictionary if for no other reason that the dataset is large and contains many medical and industry specific words which is sometimes useful.

QingWen (请问)
Developer Site:
Not sure who develops this; I downloaded from 91helper. Qingwen loads fast and so-far seems very stable. It takes longer to look up individual words. It does not start to look up words until you hit the search button. It also does not look for partial English strings…or at least it does not look for as many partial strings as the KTdict software does. Qingwen looks for an exact match to English words. So you need to know how to spell an English word before you look it up...a problem for me because my spelling is bad.

It seems to me that the version of Qingwen has a smaller dictionary than cc-dict, but it is possible that Qingwen matches more exact definitions. My friend Gareth told me that Qingwen’s website says it uses CC-Cdict.

QingWen displays characters and English letters in a larger font than the KTdict program, so its easier for people who should wear glasses to read.

QingWen has some very good extra features. With Qingwen, after a single character is found, you can push a button to look-up: words containing the character, words starting with the character, other characters with the pronunciation of the character, and other characters with similar pronunciation of the character, but including other tones,.

Words and characters can also be added to one of multiple, editable word-lists. This is great for study. However, it does not make these wordlists into custom dictionaries. You cannot add your own industry specific words into the dictionary in this way.

Test: Sao1 – 骚: To have sex appeal.

The extra features and general stability and speed of Qingwen make it into an excellent tool for people who study Chinese.

CEDict Simplified
Interface just like QingWen, however it looks up words as it they are entered. Only one wordlist, in which every entry needs separate editing. Probably based on the CC-Cdict dictionary as well. I would say that this is the fastest loading of the programs I have used.

But it does not work well. I typed in “May”, and the first entry I got back was “May I ask?” This program’s algorithms don’t work well.

English Chinese Dictionary
Developer: PPCLink www.ppclink.com
This is easily the most feature rich dictionary I have tried so far. Has links to online look-ups so that you can get more information (online content displays within program). Grammar book for people who want to study English Grammar. Adjustable fonts. Word of the day feature (which picks words at random and is pretty useless…today I learned the word of Spotted Seal), history look up. The software looks up words as the word is entered.

Sao1 – 骚 Trouble, Disturbance, Rumpus. From this test, it would seem that the software also uses the CC-Cdict source.

I would recommend this software. However, it’s a little too much for me. I think Qingwen is a little better for me because it allows for multiple word lists and also character-within-word lookup. But this dictionary is pretty good for its extra features.

Kenaz Swimming

2009-06-10T19:04:00.003+08:00

Akiva's Updates

2009-05-28T15:23:00.003+08:00

Akiva has some changes after coming back from San Diego.

We came back on Thursday night and that weekend Akiva took off his support wheels from his bike. He practiced with Jesse until Jesse didn’t want to bend over to hold Akiva’s bike on Sunday. That Sunday was very hot. I got very tired and impatient when I was helping Akiva. Jesse and I thought he wasn’t ready.

During weekday our babysitter who is short and good squatting skill helped Akiva. By Wednesday, Akiva was able to ride a bike by himself. All our neighbors wowed at him. Now he is so comfortable he can ride with one hand and the other hand waved at me. Now at least two grand moms are convinced to take off support wheels and practicing with their grandchildren.

Jesse has been encouraging Akiva to ride the elevator by himself. Before we left for vacation, he never would do this. Then just recently, after Jesse and Kenaz went downstairs first, Akiva followed in the next elevator by himself. Later that day he brought his girl-friend up to the apartment to play (her mom was annoyed because it was her dinnertime and she didn't go home). Now he also can use the key to lock and unlock the front door, which is difficult because the lock and door-handle are heavy. All of a sudden, he has a lot more independence. But he still likes to sit in front of the TV with his fingers in his mouth. So we are not worried about him running away. Yet.

We're back!

2009-05-23T10:34:00.006+08:00

When we returned from San Diego, we were a little too busy to put the last post up right-away. Then the Great Firewall of China started blocking access to Blogger. Now I'm using a free, not-very-good VPN service called Hotspot Shield. Its add supported and so very annoying, but atleast now I can post. Anyway...

The kids made new friends with Sammy and Lilly.

I had an operation on my sinuses. I'm not going to get into the details of how and why. But anyway I am now a little healthier.

We went to SeaWorld twice. Actually, Haga and the boys went four times... Haga LOVES Shamoo.

We had more family dinners. Great-Grandma was a little bit surprised by how wild my children are.

Dinner was always great. One night, Rachel made Guacamole. We had that as a topping for BBQ steak and salmon and salad, with that rice-shaped pasta dish on the side. (the following pictures were taken by Akiva...he is following in his father's footsteps into being a professional food photographer).

Our flight home was relatively easy. The kids slept a while and when they woke up, generally speaking, the didn't fight.

When we arrived, the "silver people" (yes...obscure Jefferson Airplane reference there) boarded the plane to take our temperature, make sure we don't have Swine Flu. At the time, I was still coughing a lot. So everyone around me was nervous...not because they thought I had the flu, but because they didn't want to get quarantined with me.

San Diego vacation #4 Midway

2009-04-24T13:53:00.007+08:00

We went to see the USS Midway, an American aircraft carrier which was in service between 1945 - 1992. Now, its a floating museum.

The kids were very happy. We all had a good time.

One of dad's patients is a former fighter pilot who served on the Midway during the Korean war and was shot down during that conflict. He gave us a little bit of special tour experience.

Fighter pilots.

I am the Ice Man.

This is the bow (front) of the ship.

My sister Rachel...aka Maverick.

Later we went to Toys R'Us, where we attempted to sell our kids. Only $4.99

Then we dropped the price. Still no buyers.

San Diego vacation update #3: Earthday and Sushi

2009-04-22T02:07:00.003+08:00

Went out with Tony and ate delicious Sushi.

Earth day celebration in Balboa Park. They played with the snake and the snake girl. Lots of other hippy-types there. Also the weather got very hot. It was 90 F.

My brother Micah and Akiva. We saw beautiful flower children and Reggae music. There were right-side wackos too, like a big anti-Abortion section, complete with 6-foot tall posters of mangled fetuses. The Earth day organizers put up a sign warning: "Protect your children from the images ahead: Earth Day organizers could not force the extremists in the following area to abide by the Earth Day event standards charter." Micah got into debates with some of them. I couldn't be bothered though...not going to pick fights with extremists while on vacation. I will save up my fighting energy for when I get back to Suzhou and take a taxi.

San Diego vacation update #2

2009-04-19T11:32:00.004+08:00

The kids are having a good time playing in the pool, playing with family & friends, playing with new toys, and playing with the dogs.

We had a good Passover Seder on Thursday. Not too big. 22 people or so. We did the whole thing: prayers, 4 cups of wine, matzo, moror (bitter herbs), dinner w/ beef brisket, veggies, matzo-ball soup, gefilte fish, chopped liver. The Afikomen. More prayers. It was good.

We didn't take pictures. We were too tired. I'm writing this post on Monday and I'm still not over the jet-lag.

Tony came on Friday. For all Female viewers of this site (hmmm...and male viewers), Tony is single and he says he is heterosexual. OK. As long as I have known him, he has always exhibited heterosexual dating patterns, combined with homosexual shopping and grooming habits.

With Tony, we went to eat Vietnamese food at a little place located on Convoy St.

Dipping sauces

Pho (with rare beef and tendon) is great.

BBQ Beef rolls (wrapped around spring onions). Great

Shrimp-and-pickled-veggie salad. Very Thai. Great.

San Diego vacation #1

2009-04-16T05:43:00.003+08:00

Travel to San Diego: 2 hours car ride to Pudong airport; 2 hours wait in airport; 11 hours in plane; 1 hour US customs; 2 hours car ride from LA to San Diego. 18 hours total. Both children threw up on the plane and Kenaz peed in his pants. Haga and I didn't really sleep. In-flight movies included Toy Story; some Chinese film; Speed Racer (which looked really stupid). China Eastern food service included mainly fish noodles and pork-rice.

The sky is not completely blue. Its windy here. Cold in the shade. Less moisture in the air so it feels cooler. When we arrived in San Diego we went in the Jaquizy. Then played with Legos. Then went to bed at 7. Kids woke up at 1 AM and wnated to play. I got them back in bed at 2:30 AM. We woke up at 9:30. My father made delicious Matzoh brie for us.

We walked through the canyon to the neiborhood park. The kids enjoyed picking up sticks, seeds, and pine-cones. This is something I really miss in China...natural parks.

mini-Passover (BTW we are going to San Diego)

2009-04-11T18:53:00.002+08:00

We had a small Passover Seder. We didn't invite people are make a big deal because I have been sick (and coughing). So we did the basics. "My First Passover" board-book served as our Haggadah. Chinese cilantro for our greens. Celery tops as the bitters. Charoset. Matzoh. Wine. Egg. We ate matzoh-ball soup, matzoh and mashed-egg (with salt-water added). Matzoh and smoked salmon w/ cream cheese. Overall, a nice Seder.

For desert, we ate chocolate covered Matzoh.

BTW, we are going on vacation to the United States, leaving on April 14th and comming back to China on May 6th. We intend to have a last-day-of-Passover seder with my parents in San Diego when we arrive. We are really excited about our up-comming trip.

In other news, its Spring. We are going to miss Spring in Suzhou...all three weeks of it. By the time we get back, its going to be hot. Today, Haga took the kids (with friend Shiholi-chan) to ShiziLin. There were too many people there, so they went to the Humble Administrator's Garden. And then they rode a boat down Pingjiang Rd.

Their Recent Favorite

2009-03-15T08:22:00.003+08:00

Akiva and Kenaz like to put an Ultraman mask and jump off from sofa.
Jesse is afraid of them breaking bones so he is trying to not look at them.

China Learning: Study Tools

2009-02-18T22:04:00.002+08:00

I bought an iPhone. Actually, I traded a phone a friend of mine got for me (because I helped him find a job) for the iPhone. Yes...I'm a little embarrassed by this. I feel a little "floofy". And normally, I would never be seen with such an over-priced status symbol. I would prefer to be seen with an over-priced, yet manly, computation enhanced extension of my cerebral cortex. This being said, the iPhone's capacitive-technology touch-screen is the best touch screen on the market. I need this feature so that I can draw Chinese characters onto the phone's dictionary. I use a iPhone dictionary to translate characters which I don't know...that's how I study Chinese reading.

I need to read things that will keep me interested and make me want to study. So I'm reading two Japanese "Manga" comics (which were translated into Chinese). One comic is called "Full Metal Alchemist". Its about a boy in an alternative world wherein Alchemy is a real science. In the first chapter, the boy - who is (so far) the best alchemist/wizard around, defeats evil government bureaucrats and religious tyrants. Another book I'm reading is called something I don't know how to translate. Its about a group of people who are inhabited by the souls of famous "Three Kingdoms" era (200AD) warriors. The inhabited people just so happen to be mostly Japanese school girls with unrealistically healthy anatomical features, but clothes which tend to get ripped up when these possessed warriors fight. From these two books, I learn very important vocabulary which I use on a day-to-day basis.

FYI, of course my iPhone is jail broken. Apple really does suck... I just can't believe they have the chutzpa to lock down and cripple their phones in order to promote their sales of music and cheap applications. All iPhone's in China are jail broken of course - they are not locked to a carrier because Apple and China Mobile cannot agree on revenue sharing terms (idiots). Luckily, there is "91助手". I free application that basically has the same functionality as iTunes software and it is made for Jail broken iPhones. For anyone interested in this software, you can get it here.

China Learning: Banquets and One-Month Birthdays

2009-02-15T20:57:00.005+08:00

The Rabbi Gimlel definitely would not advice eating this.

Today we went to our (previous) Aiyi's daughter's son's 1 month birthday party. Not sure why Chinese celebrate birthday party after one month. I know that Chinese traditionally start counting a persons age as "1 year old" when they are first born (so Akiva is considered 5 years old). I think they celebrate the birth a month after birth so as to give the mother time to recuperate. Anyway, we went to the party. Which was, as far as I can tell, exactly like the daughter's wedding party (see here)

This party, like the wedding party, started at lunch time. So a lot of people there had gone through this banquet twice. We sat with about 100 other people, on flimsy plastic stools, in a mobile wood canopy-like structure between two apartment buildings. Below is a description of the dinner.

1. The food starts off with a few dishes. I think this included beef jerky, some tripe looking stuff. Assorted nuts. Chicken strips. More tripe looking stuff. Lotus stuffed with sweet rice. A shrimp dish.

2. Fish and turtle and some mushroom dish is brought out. I did not eat it; don't like fish with bones, don't like turtle, don't like pork in the mushrooms.

3. Bananas and tangerines are brought out. Aiyi's husband brought out the rice wine, which I drank. He also brought out packs of expensive prestige-brand cigarettes for the men. As I don't smoke anymore, I gave the cigarettes to Akiva to use. The women were given boxes of fermented eggs. Hmmm.

4. Lastly, the main pork fat ball thing, pork-and-radish soup, another shrimp dish, something which I suspect is pork knee-caps, crab-in-a-lot-of-sauce dish, "Birthday noodles", stir-fried Chinese bean sprouts, stir-fried spinach, and rice.

5. After dinner, we all walk up five flights of stairs to say hello to the new mother, who didn't come down for the party. Just like at our Passover Sedar, the young boys gather around to watch older boys play video games. After this, Aiyi's older-sister's son, a taxi driver, took us home. We had a great time. Even though we are bloated from pork grease and rice wine, and we smell like food and cigarettes.

Kenaz’s Favorite Words

2009-02-11T17:01:00.001+08:00

Kenaz’s favorite word is now “You flush down on the toilet!!” He points his finger and shakes his arm and says these words many times a day. Every time cracks me up.

Another his favorite is “I jump on daddy”. Whenever Jesse sits down, Kenaz goes “I jump on daddy”. Most the time Jesse just finish his dinner and wants to sit down and rest. Kenaz won’t miss the opportunity and say “I jump on daddy!”

Akiva and Kenaz Updates

2009-01-31T14:33:00.002+08:00

Whenever Jesse and I want to say something we don’t want kids to hear, we spell out the word like “Do you want to watch ‘m. o. v. i. e’ after kids sleep? ”. We learned that from our friends Heidi and Eric. It works great to keep a little secret from Akiva and Kenaz.

Yesterday I took Akiva and Kenaz to to an indoor play ground while Jesse was at home working on his project. They had a great time playing a ball pool and trampoline. Two hours passed very quickly and Kenaz needed to take a nap. When we came out the play ground, a next door ice cream shop had a promotion for get two scoops and give one scoop free (we cannot miss it). While we were indulging ice cream, Akiva said to me we cannot tell daddy we had ice cream because he would be jealous. I agreed with him.

When we got home, Akiva told Jesse, “After the play ground, we went to a ‘o. p. p .p. e’ store”. Of cores Jesse didn’t understand what Akiva was talking about because his spelling was complete out of no where. However I was laughing because Akiva did understood a little secret should spelling out.

Akiva now can write his name on the board. We have been teaching him writing ABCs over this vacation.

Kenaz started asking “why?” whenever we ask him to do things.

Since the Times Square Shopping Mall has opened, we go to a Burger King and Toysrus often. Last night Kenaz had a little bit of stomach issue. He didn’t want to walk. He kept asking me to pick up. He ate a bit of French fries at a Burger King and we went to a Toysrus. When Kenaz squatted and rode a display police wagon, he called me and said “poop came out”. Because Kenaz’s toilet training was easy and perfect, he never wet his pants. I didn’t understand what he said. I thought he wanted to go to a bath room. The closest bathroom is very far we have to go down stairs from 3rd floor to 1st floor and go out of building and go in another building. I asked him if he can hold it or if I should carry him and run to the bath room. Kenaz said “no, I already pooped so do not pick me up”. It was his first time said not pick up.

New Years Hardships (and restaurant review included)

2009-01-28T18:04:00.010+08:00

This is actually the first Chinese New Years we have spend in China (except for when we were here in 1992). I realize that we always travel at this time, as we have 10 days of vacation. This year we did not go travelling because of several reasons:

a) we thought we may need this time to search for a new nanny because our old nanny's daughter had a baby.
b) we want to save money
c) we want to go back to USA for Passover this year.

Well...hopefully I will never spend another Chinese New Years in China. On the day of Akiva's birthday, from around 5PM to 4AM, non-stop fireworks. In the courtyard in-front and behind our apartment. We are not talking about little bottle-rockets. We are talking about sky-rockets that shoot up higher than our 16 story building and them go BOOM! with a plume of red phosphorous fire. Not just around our apartment too. Every apartment building, in the whole city. Did I mention that Haga is sick and had a headache?

The next day we went out to eat. But of course all the restaurants are closed. So we found this Koren place in Shi Hui Fang (师惠方）that specializes in ox meat soup.

Broiled Beef tendon

In the back they have this big pot that supposedly cooks beef 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We ordered beef tendon hot-plate, beef meet soup, seafood pancake, and Binbin-bop (uh...clay pot sizzling rice). The tendon was very soft, but not much flavor in itself. The food was altogether very good, although pretty expensive... we paid 230RMB (around $30USD). The owner looks like he is 22 years old and his wife looks pretty young too...they are 36. Haga says that tendon is pure collagen and its great for the skin. So if are around Suzhou and you need hot soup and you think that eating collagen is good for your skin, check out that place.

Practicing ABCs

On Monday we stayed inside most of the day. In the morning we practiced ABCs. I took the kids to an in-door pool in the afternoon at the Chateau Regency hotel. The water was pretty warm. Not much to do but the kids had a good time. We were the only ones there.

The weather has been very good lately. It was about 12C today, and sunny in the morning. It may rain tomorrow. We walked out to the park and the kids played in an inflatable playground.

When we returned we received presents from Grandma and Grandpa in America. Powerrangers Mystic Force Jungle Fury All Terrain Vehicle set. Awsome! Also checkers (which I found out is a little too advanced for Akiva) and Hungry Hungry Hippo. The first several times we played HHH I won. I am a HHH god. But Akiva cried.

I beat Akiva at Hungry Hungry Hippo

After Akiva won a couple of times he started to like it. Kenaz likes it too and is a natural.

Happy 4 Years Old

2009-01-24T15:11:00.009+08:00

Akiva is imitating a facial expression from transformer robots.

Akiva had his 4th Birthday Party at Gymboree on Friday. Actually his birthday is on 1/25, but Chinese New Years is starting and many friends would be out of town or having dinner with family on Chinese New Years, so we had his Birthday party early.

Everyone had a fun time. We ate chocolate moose cake and had a lot of sugary snacks. Akiva is a great party host. He tends to share his time equally amoung his friends in order to create harmony (gets that from his mother). We had Japanese friends, Chinese friends, and 2 Americans (although one of those spoke Chinese and the other spoke Japanese).

We got him a 250RMB Transformer toy, and a 80RMB Transformer toy. At Toys R'Us, they have Transformers in Very Large, Large, Medium (the 250RMB), and small. They also have new "Animated series" Large, Medium, and small (80RMB). They also have non-transforming Transformer "figures". We got Kenaz the small Animated series Transformer called "Bumblebee". But its a little too difficult for him. And the medium size "Optimus Prime" Transformer was too difficult for Akiva. So the next day I returned it to the store and bought a six pack of small transformers (they did not havre the small Animated Series Optimus Prime in stock ... Akiva can probably play with that one). But of the six-pack of small Transformers - which costs around 250RMB... the toy quality is that of a Cracker-Jack toy. Already one of the six - "Megatron" has broken. But anyway Akiva is happy with his toys.

Catching bubbles.

Jumping off from a neck of diplodocus.
The other bumber is that somehow all the pictures we took of the party got corrupted. I think that maybe there was a bad USB connection on the camera when Haga transfered them to my computer. So we had to borrow other people's pictures to post here. It does not matter though. The party was good. Kids had a lot of fun. The Gymboree staff played games like "jump from the head of the dinosaur" (pictured above). The staff cut out early when they brought out the Gym-Bo Clown to dance with...Akiva and his friends went into Ultraman mode and kept attacking it without mercy.

Its now -1C - -6C outside. Chinese New Years started and the country is shutting down. My office assistants are both riding hard-seat 25 hour-plus train rides so that they can get back to their families for the New Years. We are going to just have fun staying inside and playing with toys for a few days.

Visit from Japan

2009-01-14T08:44:00.012+08:00

My mom came with two of her grand daughters, Shiholi (8 years) and Nahoko (5 years) to see us in Suzhou.

Akiva and Kenaz were very excited to meet their cousins. So was Naho-chan. She wanted to sleep, take a shower with her cousins.

First day, we had a brunch at dim sum restaurant near the lake. We had excellent shrimp dim sum which Akiva always loves. Later we went to a silk factory to see the process of silk making. It was Sunday. We had a really hard time to find a taxi to go anywhere from there. Jesse took one for Kenaz to go home first so Kenaz (and Jesse) could take a nap. The rest of us couldn’t find a taxi for a while. Kids still had a good time running around out side. My mom and I were freezing cold. Finally we found a taxi. We didn’t want to go anywhere. We decided to go back to close to our apartment and grab some Cold Stone ice creams (it is great to eat ice cream in cold day which makes me feel warm!).

Next day we went to a Stone Forest Garden. All kids loved there. It was like a big mystery stone mountain with caves and tunnels.

Kids went up and down to find a way out. Kenaz was a little bit frustrated keeping up with older kids. Three hours after Kenaz was tired and slipped off from slippery stone stars. It was time to go get lunch. We went to our favorite gyoza dumpling restaurant.
Monday, we went to a Shanghai zoo to see pandas. Shi-chan and Naho-chan were really looking forward. We left Suzhou early to catch up a zoo feeding time. We got the zoo on perfect time. The pandas were eating bamboo trees. Tigers were having fiesta. My high light was a baby gorilla and fight between daddy gorilla and silver boss gorilla. I had goose bumps to look at their small nature. We were at zoo too long. We almost missed our train.

Tuesday early morning, my mom, Shi-chan and Naho-chan took off. It was a very short visit. However, we all had a great time.
Shi-chan and Naho-chan are wonderful kids. They are very mature for their age. I was very surprised how Shi-chan was able to re-direct attention when my boys got too wild or started attacking her (as if she was a monster and they the super heros). Naho-chan fit into Akiva and Kenaz as if she was always their sister. She was able to teach Akiva how to pose in front of camera like a cutie. Later, when Akiva went back to his preschool it was a picture taking day. His teachers were amazed how well Akiva posed to camera. Naho She often guided Kenaz when he didn’t want to walk. In fact, Shi-chan and Naho-chan took care of my boys at home. Jesse and I could relax and sit on the sofa (normally Akiva and Kenaz jumping on us if we sit).

Hanukkah, New Years, and Toys'R'Us

2009-01-02T15:17:00.011+08:00

First of all...Happy New Years and belated Happy Hanukkah!

[This post is late...was having Great Firewall of China related connection problems...sorry.]

My New Years Resolutions:
1. The usual stuff (be a better father, get in shape, be a better husband, etc)
2. Make at least 10K USD more money this year than last year...even if it means taking a night job teaching English to dumb kids.
3. Lose 1 pound a month over the next year in weight.
4. Start a new business stories blog to compliment this blog, so that I can sell myself as a business expert.
5. Take Akiva to at least one service at a Jewish temple this year.

In other news...

We didn't buy the kids any toys (except some cheap $2 plastic lightsabers to fight with). We want to save money, but the real reason is that we have too many toys around the house and right now the kids are very happy to play with lego blocks and other block variants. Also, anytime we get a new toy, we need to get the same toy for both boys, even if it is not age-appropriate for Kenaz. Anyway, Akiva's birthday is comming up on January 25th. We already got some new Ultraman spaceship-planes. And recently, Toys R'Us openned up.

We walked around today and bought Twister and 4 more cheap swords. But anyway, this means that things are going to be tougher for the Grandparents...not good to ship toys from the US, which are made in China, when we can now buy the same toys here in China. That being said...[this comment for Grandparents]... they did not have an American checkers set.

Good noodles!

2008-12-27T19:17:00.004+08:00

Went to a very cool noodle shop in ShiHuiFang today. Its called DongWu Noodles (东吴面官). Its a chain so you can find it in other places in Suzhou. Trivia fact: Dongwu used to be the name of Suzhou during the Three Kingdoms era. Anyway, its clean with sort of traditional Chinese decor. About 5 shops down from Bullfighter, which is on the XingDu Rd. (星都街) side of the shopping street.

Basically, you order either red soup or white soup. Then you order toppings. The red soup is a little sweet, but I thought it was OK. The white soup is salty. The soups are lighter than, say, LanZhou lamian. The noodles were fresh. The toppings were pretty good...but made for Suzhouren, so sort of bland.

We ate 2 bowls of soup (although most foreigners who are not on diets would have one bowl to themselves), 2 orders of wheat glutton balls, 1 fried greens, and Hongxiao beef. Total cost was 39RMB. Next time I go, I think I will try the fried noodles or the fried niangao (rice-noodle-thing). The staff was relatively good. On the plus side, the greeter pro-actively took our stroller and made us feel good. On the bad side, they only gave us two spoons...at a soup restaurant.

Company Christmas Party

2008-12-26T20:54:00.004+08:00

Super Jewish Japanese Powerrangers have come to kick butt at the Professional Way Ltd. Christmas Party!

In this picture you can see many of the hot, very very intelligent, very very under-paid women I work with. We did secret Santa. Spending limit was 20RMB (about $3...hey...did I mention we are all under-paid?). I bought three pirated French DVDs (the Red, White, and Blue movies from that French Polish director Whatshisface) for my French speaking co-worker. I received a little toy car which I'm sure only cost like 5 RMB.

See the blondie? He's taller than me. Looks dorky IMO but Chinese girls go crazy for the blond hair. Guy sitting at the back is my boss of 4.5 mostly happy (yet underpaid) years, Dr. Gene Dorris, Phd. in spurrious Mao ZeDong quotes.

Akiva started teaching Kenaz and Issac (Gene's son...same age as Kenaz) break-dancing moves.

Christmas party break-dancing dance-off was pretty fun to watch.

Hanukkah - Day 1 Food

2008-12-22T20:27:00.003+08:00

Potato Latkes, made with two eggs, two potatoes (strained to reduce water), cilantro and one onion.
Turnip and Beef soup, made with turnip, beef, and cabbage.
Home-made apple sauce, made with apples.

Other things happening lately:
I'm working on a cool consulting project
We need to find a new Aiyi in January :-(
First day present was lightsabers. One broke already, but I fixed it. Now my children have new weapons to fight with.

Christmas Party at School

2008-12-07T16:12:00.003+08:00

Thanksgiving Day

2008-11-28T20:09:00.008+08:00

We were planning to go to a restaurant to eat Beijing duck for celebration of Thanksgiving.We heard a famous Beijing duck chain “Quanzheda” Suzhou branch was closed.We had no other plan. It was cold and windy outside. We ordered in very much so so Mexican food.

Akiva, Kenaz and I picked colorful fall leaves and made a ornament for Thanksgiving decoration. When I asked Akiva whom or what you would like to thank for? I was very happy to hear Akiva said “Mommy and Daddy”.
We celebrated the second night of Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. I came home a hour earlier than usual and prepared the dinner. I was very proud of my "Thanksgiving inspired" dishes, although my allrecipets.com stuffing and dressing was too watery. My non-oil tofu brownie was excellent (Akiva and Kenaz helped me to make the desert).
"I am very thankful for Jesse who is always very supportive of me."