The Kramer Family: McDonalds & Starbucks!

McDonalds and Starbucks - ha ha - talk about needing some Western influences to brighten my spirits - I've been seeking just that the past 24 hours. First, last night, we walked down to the McDonalds for dinner. What an experience that turned out to be!

I was purchasing our meals, when Gabe started to shift his weight as if he were going to walk away. Since I had my hands in my wallet fishing for money, I slightly shifted/lifted my leg to corral him and ensure he knew not to go anywhere. And then it happened, this man in a uniform saw me and came up to tell the cashier what I had done, thinking it was humorous that I was using my leg to ensure Gabe didn't get away. Anyway, not only does he decided to share my "funny" story, but he swoops down and picks Gabe up! In my head I was thinking "oh, seriously, no, let's not have this" and I'm wondering who he is, if he works there, hoping he won't walk away, etc. I say "thank you" in Chinese and immediately put my hands out to receive Gabe back. The man obliges, then grabs my food and walks me to a table. Come to find out he was the table clearer/cleaner for McDonalds and he had nothing better to do for the next hour than to come by every 2 - 3 minutes to try to talk to Gabe (I ended up pointing to my ear to explain that he's deaf), pretending to eat his food, drink his drink, etc. OH MY! People all around us were watching - I think they felt badly for me, as this man, who had somehow lost many of his teeth since his younger days, was seemingly obsessed with our family. He was very kind, I will give him that, but when he would pick up fries and try to feed them to Gabe, or when he would pick up his drink and hold the straw to allow Gabe to drink, I just kept thinking "oh please let this stop!" It was funny too (ok, not really funny, but...), because Gabe clearly didn't care too much for this man - it was very appropriate how Gabe would look to me for guidance (should I eat the fry he's trying to feed me - and I'd get my eyes big and round and shake my head no really short and quick!) and he would push the man away when he got too close. All in all I just keep praying that Gabe would eat faster, that the man would become very busy in his work, and that dinner would be OVER! :-) We survived, but it was quite an experience to say the least...

Early this morning I had a dream that today was Thursday, but it was next Thursday and I was getting ready to head home to my family. You can imagine my extreme disappointment to wake and realize I still had a week in China before I get to head home. This dream made me so home sick! So, this morning to combat my home sickness, as any decent American woman would (ha ha!!), I decided to head to the shopping mall, where I'd heard there was a Starbucks. Sure enough, two plus hours of retail therapy and a tall mocha later not only had I worn Gabe down enough that he wanted a nap (hallelujah) but I also felt a bit better about the day and more connected with the Western world (which seems so unbelievable far away right now). There were so many Western stores in this mall - Zara, Express, Sophora, etc., and everything was SO expensive! I walked into a kids toy store (so fun for Gabe!!) and couldn't believe the prices - $25 for a shape sorter, really!? A pair of crocs in another store were over $50 - for KIDS CROCS! I just couldn't get over it...and no, I didn't purchase any of it. I bought packages of Chinese cartoon character stickers for $1 each! :-)

The dichotomy between the "riches" in this mall and the unbelievable poor just outside the walls was almost more than I could wrap my head around. To know that I was literally a football field distance away from a woman sitting outside a small, dirty store making food to sell in an outdoor wok a few inches off the ground, held up by a few bent pieces of plywood, in a side alley while I was looking at $45 crocs - it's mind blowing, really. I suppose this is where the people driving the BMW's and Mercedes are shopping, not those carrying 12 bags of rice on the back of a bicycle that looks 40 years old. So very sad...

Anyway, later in the day we met up with Min, our guide, who took us to the Brocade Museum. Now, nothing "tops" history in my books except perhaps museums! I know, I know, I am really a brat of a tourist, I remember whizzing through the Louve in about 15 minutes when I was in my 20's, so I really only went today because it was a reason to leave the hotel. However, I am so glad we did go, because it was amazing! This was no museum, it was a guided tour of a factory where they make amazingly gorgeous silks - hand made, and we got to stand right next to the people creating the silk and watch from the start when they pull the silk from the cocoon all the way to the final stage of weaving it into amazing fabrics. The really neat part is that a Brocade silk print was our gift from the orphanage when we adopted Gabe, so we are blessed to be going home with a framed silk piece to display in our home and to remind us of this trip.

So weird that words keep leaving my post each time I save it...I just re-read it and it skips a whole paragraph now! What I wrote was that Gabe is doing amazing! He is using signs correctly, loves to sign "store" every time we walk by a store, he's responding to more and more sign from me each day, and is behaving very well overall.

Don't get me wrong, he's been a bit spoiled over the past few years, and is having to learn what "no" means and that throwing yourself down on the floor in a fit of rage will do very little for you in the Kramer family, but he's doing great and really learning fast that "this ain't my first rodeo" as Dr. Phil would say!!