Golden Week in the Philippines
[As usual, massive tech problems, mostly related to blogging from China, slowed the delivery of this edition. That, and the fact that I can't stop watching the GIANTS!!! But here it is, and may the good Lord Bless Marco Scutaro!!!]

The beginning of October is one of the two annual “Golden Weeks” in China; everything shuts down to celebrate the glory of the Chinese Communist Party and the founding of the People’s Republic. For us, it’s semi-annual “Get the Heck Out of China Week.”  This year we chose to go to the beautiful and not-so-far-away Philippines, to a little island off of a little island off of a little island (Pamilacan, off Bohol, off Cebu, if you’re scoring at home). Pamilican is barely a dot on the map -- roughly 800 people live there, about the number that fit into a medium-sized Broadway theater. Somehow, while researching Bohol, Allison found out about a place called Pamilacan Island Paradise, not really a hotel per se, since only one group can stay there at a time. For a week or so, that group was me, Allison, Kai and Keegan. The staff outnumbered us, and the traditional thatch-roofed cottage was bigger than our house in Shanghai; the price was considerably less than your average airport Marriott. Have I mentioned that we love The Philippines? We do. They’re physically diverse and often stunningly beautiful, the people are extremely friendly and they usually speak English (thanks, American Colonialism!); the food is generally great, travel is inexpensive, and the country has the highest biodiversity of species on the planet Earth (pretty much the only planet we ever visit), making diving and snorkeling fantastic. The only real drawback is the infrastructure, which is like a post-apocalyptic Gilligan’s Island but with the traffic of Mumbai. The best thing to do is to go to a lovely place and just stay there, and that’s what we did with Pamilican.

Of course, you have to get there. We flew to Manila and transferred via Cebu Pacific puddle-jumper (the flight attendants sing a Capella pop tunes for an in-flight “name that tune” contest that we were crushed not to win) to Tagbilaran City on Bohol, where a car was to meet us at the airport and whisk us to the “ferry pier” for Pamilacan. As the van stopped along the coast I saw what appeared to be an abandoned jetty, but on closer examination we noticed an old guy and another man who might be his son sitting on some rocks. When we got out, they nodded to our driver, who started carrying our bags down a precipitous set of stairs. At the edge of the water we then spotted a tiny catamaran, long enough at about 16 feet, but only three feet wide at its widest point. It could hold maybe two boatmen, two adults, two toddlers, and some luggage, if you weren’t too fussy about your toddlers or your luggage staying dry. We put life vests on the boys, prayed for the laptops, and jumped into the “ferry”. Well, the boatman actually jumped into the water and started pushing, at least 100 meters through shallow water, before climbing aboard. His son then started the “motor”, which I’m pretty sure was the same 3.5 horsepower engine I had on my lawnmower as a kid – and I mean the same engine, not the same kind of engine.  Keegan didn’t take his hands off his ears for the entire trip (alleged to be 45 minutes, actually an hour and 40 or so) – even after he mercifully fell asleep. The sea was a bit rough, so on the little catamaran we chopped like mad even at our crawling pace. Once, a fairly long piece of bamboo stanchion tore loose from the catamaran’s outrigging and flew into the sea; I gave the boatman a curious glance, and he just laughed and laughed. Allison and I each had a boy clutched to our lap; Kai, who was with me, at one point announced he was going to be “ocean sick.” I told him no problem, just lean over and be sick into the sea if he had to (the water was maybe a foot from his mouth).  Without a second’s pause he said worriedly, “But Daddy, what if it lands on a fish?”  “The fish will wash it off,” I told him. He did not throw up, and the fish were spared that indignity.

OK, so we got there. And yes, it was paradise. Rustic, a bit rusty, a bit random and a bit run-down, but really a paradise nonetheless. Here's the view of the porch, and from the porch:

Every day we spent the morning playing in the sand and splashing in the waves with the boys, usually next to the ruins of an old Spanish fort, along a sea wall that made a little toddler pool.

 Allison and I would take turns snorkeling out to the coral reef to see the extraordinary profusion of sea life, and bring back sea stars and shell treasures to thrill Kai and Keegan. After a lunch of fish, fish and fish, two or three or all four of us would take an afternoon nap, then we’d go for a long walk down the beach to collect more treasures and wade in the shallow, bathwater-warm waves. Kai told me he was the best shell finder in the whole world, and the best crab-hole finder too. The boys had little scopes they could use to see better underwater without having to submerge, which they loved and used to good effect. They made friends with some of the local island boys and girls, and were especially smitten with an older woman of about 10 who helped them find shells (Her name was Giselle, but the boys kept calling he "Gazelle."I think she might have been a mermaid, but I can’t prove that).

 We’d get home for a fish dinner, accompanied by fish, with fish soup, and served with fish (we brought along a stash of peanut butter and honey for the boys, or they might not have made it -- and there were mangoes for dessert, thank God). Then we’d shower ourselves and the boys and get them ready for bed.  The AC and hot water only ran from 6 pm to midnight, but when the moonlight shines on the ocean just outside your remote island hut, it doesn’t matter so much. Allison had to deal with some work via Blackberry, and I had to study for a big test in Chinese class, but we somehow bore up under the stress.  The boys could have stayed on Pamilacan for another few years, but we were running out of peanut butter, so we had to go back. Of course that meant the catamaran again. Again, Keegan covered his ears without intermission, and again Kai was sore afraid that he would strafe the fish with his throw-up, but did not. Again, we survived, although this time the boat couldn’t get to the jetty through the shallows, even when the old boatman Tony and his son both got out to push it.  I jumped in to help; they tossed me an ill-fitting pair of flip-flops and we heaved that little sucker over the seaweed and the rocks to dry land, or close enough to jump to it anyway. We were back on Bohol.

Bohol, home to 1.1 million people, is pretty rustic and low-key itself, but it’s Swinging London compared to Pamilacan. Our first stop was Dunkin’ Donuts – mmmmmmmm, donuts. We then checked into a hotel so sophisticated that they had hot water at any time. Allison and I splurged on mid-day showers and treated the boys to a round of fresh underpants and diapers, then we set off to visit the exactly two attractions we were interested in on Bohol – the Chocolate Hills, and the tarsiers. The Chocolate Hills are big round limestone karsts, geological formations that turn brown in the summer and supposedly look like chocolate. (Of course Kai and Keegan expected to be able to actually eat them, like they were the Philppino version of the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We reminded them about the donuts – that helped, but only a little.) We climbed up the one hill you can go up and looked out at some of the 1200 or so other bumps in the ground.

 They’re not bad, as far as bumps in the ground go, but not quite unmissable on your life-long bucket list. We took a few snaps, and lots of strangers took a few snaps of Kai and Keegan. I talked to an old Italian guy in a Ferrari jacket who couldn’t seem to grasp that I don’t speak Italian, but he was a nice guy. We got him to take our picture. Then we got back in the car.

The boys were much more impressed by the butterfly garden and farm that we stumbled on, not far down the road – and so were we, actually. It was very nicely laid out, and the boys got to hold caterpillars, see larvae, and have butterflies land on them, which they thought was extra cool.

 After that pit stop, we went to the Tarsier Conservation Center, the best place on earth to see tarsiers. Tarsiers are the world’s smallest primates, only four to six inches tall when fully grown, and they live only on a few islands in Southeast Asia. They have great big eyes, odd suction-cup fingers, and a long tail – word is they were the model on which E.T. was based, but they’re a lot smaller, and a lot more closely related to you and me, than Spielberg’s version was. They’re very slow-moving, almost like sloths, and very shy of humans, so you have to be very quiet around them, but we were able to get very close to several of them in the preserve.

 The boys liked them a lot, but to be honest they are even fonder of their new stuffed tarsier toys, bought for a couple hundred pesos each (a few US dollars equivalent), because they can take those little guys to bed with them and squeeze them. The ones in the trees were a little too standoffish. If you only have one day to visit Bohol in your lifetime, well, that should just about do it. But be sure to see the tarsiers while you’re there.

We flew out the next day through Manila, but with the slight hitch of a 10-hour layover in Manila. Manila is the Cleveland of Asia, but without the charm, the glamour, or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and with ten times the population and ten times the traffic. However, even Manila is preferable to a 10-hour layover at Manila Airport. Our battle plan to deal with this bonus vacation was to go to Manila Ocean World, a good aquarium with its own mall, including a Pancake House.

 We ate there, taxied back to the airport, and flew home. We’re now back into the swing of things in Shanghai – Kai, Keegan and I all have school, and Allison has work. She's back from a week-long business trip to India, and all of us are pooped, but thrilled to have her home. Halloween is right around the corner...

We'll close with a couple more glamour shots of the boys ... but before I head out the door, let me just say, GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!!!! OH, MY DEAR SWEET HEAVEN, THE WORLD SERIES BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

America, brought to you by Canada

[Explanatory note to this edition of Shanghai Daddy:  I had planned to put up 25 or 30 photos, along with the links to more. Unfortunately I'm having major tech problems, and just can't load links and photos right now; there are inherent problems in using Blogger, a site that's blocked in China, from China. That VPN is killin' me.  I will keep trying to get around this, in my free time. Yeah. Thankfully a couple random photos snuck through the firewall. You should have seen the beach pics! I look buff. Maybe next time. For now, enjoy the cracklin' prose . . .]

My family took two Canadian vacations this past month. We flew from Shanghai to San Francisco with an eight-hour layover in Vancouver, far too long to crouch in an airport lounge with two toddlers. So after twelve hours in the air, we left most of our 37 oversized carry-on bags at a none-too-thrifty airport storage room and took the train to downtown Vancouver. Even coming from the US, the preternatural politeness of Canadians would have been a shock; arriving from China, it was positively jarring. People were offering us their seats, making friendly suggestions about what to see and do, conferring with one another about the best directions -- it was eerie. I mean, what did they want from us? Anyone could see this was a nation of hustlers, working the angles. Come on.

After a beautiful walk along the Sea Wall to Stanley Park, during which time Kai and Keegan succumbed to comas in their strollers,

we gave up on my brilliant plan to see the manatees at the aquarium. When the boys woke up, we had just enough time to ride the Sasquatch Train,

which according to our extremely limited poll turned out to be Vancouver’s top (not to mention only) tourist attraction. You actually get to see Sasquatch. That's him, on the left:

If you find yourself in Vancouver with two toddlers in a coma, do NOT miss it. But watch out for those Canadians. They’re crafty.

We got to SF late late that night, after a door-to door trip of 28 hours. For some reason even I don’t understand, 7 hours later I was taking off from the starting line of the San Francisco Half Marathon. I think I was trying to beat jet lag all in one fell swoop or something. HA hahahahahahahaha, haha, ha. But anyway, the race went just fine (1:56:30, thanks for asking), and the city looked great as usual. I almost overslept, but Allison woke for a minute and shooed me out. Our plan was for her to get up in a few hours and come see me cross the finish line with the boys. When I got home five hours later at about noon, she was still in bed. She fluttered her eyelids open and said, “Good luck honey! Have a great race!”  She literally thought that only a minute had passed.

Maybe it should go without saying, but we had a fantastically great time in San Francisco. Even freezing German tourists who mistakenly thought they’d be visiting sun-drenched California and have to wear souvenir shop San Francisco sweatshirts pulled down over their shorts have a fantastically great time in San Francisco. For people who lived in the city for ten years like Allison or twenty years like me, well, we enjoy it maybe even more than the Germans do. From La Taqueria in the Mission to Trattoria Contadina in North Beach,

 from AT&T Park in SF

 to the Mount Davis Colosseum in Oakland, from Ocean Beach to sunny Sausalito,

from the the Tennessee Valley in Marin to the hills of Moraga on the far side of the Caldecott, the Bay rocked. It was impossible to see everyone, and  go every place, and eat in every restaurant we wanted to, but hey, we gave it our best shot.  A thousand thanks to all (no names, only because the list is too long, but you know who you are! Except, I can’t help it, thanks Marija!).

  That’s not enough thanks, but it will have to do for now. If we didn’t get to see you, just google “Shanghai flights,” and start clicking.

We had three weeks in the US -- nearly half in SF, and the balance in a little nook I like to call Delawhere? Allison’s parents, Turk and Barbara, live near the beach in Lewes (you know, just up the coast from Rehoboth, right there on Cape Henlopen), and they hosted the four of us, graciously fitting us in to their (thankfully) sprawling home. Kai and Keegan absolutely adore their Grammy and Poppy, as well as their Aunt Liz and Uncle Peter and their cousins, Lindsey and Natalie, and it was a huge treat to have some time to connect with the whole family. When we weren’t shopping at the outlets to stock up on American products, we ate American ice cream at Dairy Queen and rode Poppy’s American jeep to the beach. Allison and I had a quick side trip to nearby Baltimore to see the Orioles play at Camden Yards (Go Owsh! That’s a little Bal’mer humor for you). We also loaded up our rented Chevy Suburban, merely the size of a modest aircraft carrier, drove onto the Lewes-Cape May Ferry, and headed to the Jersey shore with nine human beings and more stuff than Admiral Perry brought with him on the last Polar expedition. No, we did not see Snooki. We had more important things to do, like attending the third annual Cousinpalooza in Sea Isle City. The first Cousinpalooza in 2010 spilled out over a week or more; Cousinpalooza II was famously critiqued (by me) as “11 hours door to door, 29 minutes on the beach.” This year’s model, two days/one night, was a more manageable portion, but I vote for three days next time. We need more time to dig giant holes, body surf, collect shells, whack pinatas, and goof off with the cousins -- and their are a lot of them.  Kai and Keegan give CP3 two big thumbs up, and so do Allison and I.

All good things must come to an end, so we packed our seven giant suitcases, most now laden with our family-sized American expat survival supplies, and drove to DC. After a last hurrah at the Air and Space Museum to see the space shuttle, we overnighted at the airport Marriott and flew out early from Dulles, bound for Toronto on Air Canada. “Why?” is a long story that involves using frequent flyer miles on United, a partner of AC. Also, Canada is located at the North Pole (as all Americans know), so it’s on the way to Asia anyway. Sort of. But, here’s the catch, we found out that Air Canada recently decided to start charging $221 dollars per bag for luggage after the first bag. Our check of the United website had led us to believe that extra bags would be 75 bucks each, a rip-off we were prepared to deal with to get all those illicit Cheerios and Cliff Bars into China. But it turns out that Air Canada, and even Canada itself, has its own set of laws, completely separate from those of civilized nations like the US of A. The pro-price-gauging party is in power up there. Remember all those super-friendly Canadians in Vancouver? Yep, just a front. I knew it. Life lesson learned. That’ll be $663 dollars, sucka. Enjoy your Cheerios!

That brings us to our second Canadian vacation, four fabulous hours at the Toronto Airport. We resisted buying the souvenir maple syrup, no matter how good it would have tasted on those Cheerios. We weren’t going to give those Canucks the satisfaction. And then, it was just short 15-hour jaunt with two exhausted toddlers, and we were home in a jiffy.

And that’s where we are now. Home. Shanghai. Yeah, I said it. This is home, and as we approach the two-year mark, I continue to make my peace with that.

The boys are back in school -- Keegan is now at Rainbow Bridge, just in the mornings, and Kai is going to Yew Cheung International School, where the instructional language is split between English and Chinese, so his Mandarin should get a lot better this year. Keegan is riding a school bus for the first time, and so far he’s not loving it. When the bus pulls away, he cries as if wolverines are eating his pancreas. When the other parents are all trying to comfort you, you know it’s bad. We do realize that five minutes later he’s his usual chirpy self, and when he comes home at noon he’s full of tales of his adventures, but it’s still hard to watch him cry. We’re suckers. Just ask the Canadians.

Kai and Keegan aren’t the only ones going back to school -- next week, I’ll be starting the Chinese Language program at Donghua University, committing to roughly twenty hours a week of study, basically a part-time-job-sized chunk of work. After more than a year and a half of piecemeal, sporadic efforts with books, computer apps, audio, and tutors, I think I need to dig in and get more serious if I’m ever going to make real progress. In case I haven’t mentioned it, Chinese is hard. I can actually speak a fair bit of it; the problem is, I can’t understand it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spoken to someone on the street and they seem to think, “Oh, this waiguoren speaks Chinese!”, and then they’re off to the races. I’m left standing there with my little clutch of phrases -- “I’m sorry, my Chinese is not good, please say that again, please speak more slowly...” The reaction is invariably, “Oh don’t be modest, white guy! I heard you! You get me!” and they’re off again. Yeah, that’s not workin’ for me. I need to really learn, and yes, that means learning the characters too. People who actually reach a decent level with Chinese all tell me, you can’t get past a certain point without those squiggly lines. So, in the tradition of Rodney Dangerfield and Billy Madison, I’m goin’ back to school. I’ll let you know how it goes... until then, as the jet lag finally fades, this is your Shanghai correspondent, signing off.

Once Were Mustangs . . .

This entry is a month overdue; if it were a pregnancy, the fetus would be ordering cable by now.  I’m sorry. I’ve been busy raisin’ my younguns. They’re still not growed yet neither, and the whole thing is turning out to be a rather involved project, not extremely conducive to writing blog entries, or watching entire Giants games online, or eating bonbons off my stomach or giving myself pedicures or any of the things I’d be doing if I had the time. That’s just life in the slow lane, I guess.

I had a few days' worth of life in the fast lane last month in San Francisco, a whirlwind of power-visiting my former life.  Some months back I got a packet of very sweet notes and photos from my former students at Capuchino High (sure, go ahead, take your best shot with the coffee jokes. "Are you gonna play Latte in the big game? I hope you foam 'em this year!" But I warn you, I've heard them.) Anyway, the students were all asking if I remembered that when I left for China nearly two years ago, I said I’d come back for the graduation of the class of 2012. Who knew they’d remember such a thing? But after talking it over with my incredibly supportive wife and checking for cheap airfare, I decided to actually do it. It was a great chance to visit friends, connect with a big part of my life that I’ve been missing, and buy massive amounts of American products – important things like Junior Mints and blackboard paint that you just can’t get in China. Allison also took the opportunity to order a couple of items online, so I could bring them back:

So yeah, I was basically working as a mule for the cartel. But back to our story.

It’s hard to describe just how touching and poignant it was to see these kids after two years, not really kids anymore, on the verge of spreading their wings and flying away to places even they know not of... I felt incredibly lucky to see them before their great diaspora. It was a moment that will never come again – and of course every moment is like that, though they sail past us unrecognized – but this was one of the moments when you could actually feel time as it courses on its unceasing way.  My whole goal as a teacher was always just to be a part of moving people incrementally forward toward were they want to be. Seeing this group set off for their next steps made me feel a little bit like I’d done something like that.  It was almost unfair, too, to get two years’ worth of appreciation, distilled into two days, with none of the stacks of essays, the planning, the meetings, conferences and paperwork that come with the job. 

I went to the campus for graduation rehearsal, walked to the football field where the senior class was filling the bleachers, and the minute I looked at them I knew I did the right thing in coming. There was a core group of about 75 of these students I’d taught for two years, from 2008 to 2010, and this was my last group moving through Cap; it was a special feeling to see them all again after that long two-year break. These were the little Freshies I had taught to sit upright and hold a pencil just ten minutes ago, it seemed, and now they would be taking off for Berkeley, UCLA, the University of the College of San Mateo, Starbucks, you name it. Also, in case I needed any more proof that God loves me and wants me to be happy, here it is:  my old colleagues plugged me into the graduation rehearsal, having me play the role of the board member who, during the actual ceremony the next day, would hand them their diplomas and shake their hands, what we called the “shake and take.”  So, I got to have a moment to say hello to every single graduate, hug them, tell them it was good to see them – and because of the nature of graduation practice, as each one approached me, I got to hear his or her name read aloud, as if from heaven itself.  Now, I’m confident that I would know the names of nearly all of them readily anyway, even after two years away, despite the fact that it’s possible for me to mix up the names of my own children. And, given more than an instant, I am sure my batting average would be 1.000. And yet, if you only have an instant, and you’re jet-lagged, and have a mild case of obliviousness anyway, well, wow, batting 1.000 is a pretty high standard, and I would hate to unintentionally hurt anyone’s feelings by groping for a name and saying “Yes! It’s great to see . . . yooouu, too!” There would be exactly one moment in the course of an entire school year when I could have every student’s name read for me as they approached me, and I walked right into it. Thank you, universe! I love you, too.

After rehearsal I was able to visit with some of the students, sign yearbooks and get sunburned to a crackling red shade in the blazing sun of San Bruno – which is why I’m wearing that oh-so-stylish visor in the graduation pictures from the next day. I don’t care. It was well worth it. Thank you, thank you to my former students and erstwhile colleagues at Capuchino. No matter where I wander, I will always be a Mustang in my heart.

Here's a small, representative sampling of pics from day:

I'll put up some more pics on another site that I won't mention by name, but it rhymes with shmacebook.

San Francisco looked just unspeakably lovely to me – with my jet-lag I was up and running crazy early, just me and a few homeless people hanging out together on the streets before sunrise, and I could feel every curve and ripple of the hills in Bernal Heights and Dolores Street and the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park. I set a brisk visiting pace, stayed with different friends each night for four nights, pumped a small fortune into the local economy, hit a Giants game,

had dinner at my old stomping grounds of Trattoria Contadina in North Beach, and generally had a blast. Special thanks to Marija, Jim G., Erik and Anastasia, Sally, Patty, and Ian, Justine and Lance, Alice and Jamie, Jane L., Russ and Jim, Gina and Kevin and everyone at TC, Mayor Ed Lee, and the population at large! For everyone I didn’t get to see this time . . . I’ll be back. We’ll be back. Soon . . .

We had a great, short visit to Hong Kong, another blast-from-the-past visit that deserves its own blog post, but regrettably won’t get one. If one picture is really worth a thousand words, though, here are three thousand words on the subject:

 Now, back in Shanghai, we’re well into the thick of the hot and humid summer. Kai’s school ended the year with a rockin’ concert where he and his classmates performed “The Captain Planet Theme Song,” and “Oats, Peas, Bean and Barley Grow.” Here he is as the element Water (Yes, Kai is the little guy. I was the smallest person in my class every year until high school, too):

And, with his Mommy and his teacher Miss Maris at the after-party:

We're almost out of time for today's episode, but we here at Shanghai Daddy would certainly be remiss if we did not mention that we now have a 4-YEAR-OLD! Here's the evidence:

 And now, gratuitous pictures of cute people to take us out. Check out the boys as superheroes, and in their (monogrammed -- oh yes, monogrammed) shark towels.  Hit the link to Youtube if you want to see 50 seconds' worth of them singing their shark song and doing their shark impressions.

I hope this finds you well, and happy – let me know.