Quarter-Century Mark

Well, a late Happy Valentines Day to most of you. I hope it was a special time for you! If by chance you're reading this and you work at a flower shop I send my deepest sympathies and hope your recovery is quick an smooth - I've been there, my friend. Nothing drives away romantic feelings faster than cutting up your hand on rose thorns while dealing with men who not only waited till the last minute to buy flowers but actually have the gall to feel cheated by last-minute prices! Anyway, that was the past. I'm sorry you had to hear that rant. The custom here for Valentines is to just buy chocolates and a couple flowers - the idea of romance is something that was lost in the Cultural Revolution and is very, very slowly making its return. For our part we had a nice meal and a movie, very enjoyable and hopefully somewhat romantic. The best part about Valentines Day (besides romancing the wife, of course) is knowing that my birthday is very soon.

You know, birthdays just aren't the same in China. For one thing, they last longer here. Because of the time difference - the fact that we celebrate according to China time but everybody else celebrates on American time - birthdays last an entire 38 hours. The extra 14 hours brings little added joy, only a bit of extra confusion when trying to find out in which part of the world I'm actually 25. Which brings me to another point of difference between birthdays in China and America...important years don't carry as much weight. Now 25 isn't that important, I admit, but there is one thing that a 24 year old male can look forward to on his birthday - lowered car insurance rates! Apparently once we hit this age we're supposed to have matured beyond the statistical category of "reckless". Ha! We'll see about that. Of course since we don't drive here I guess this birthday 'perk' just doesn't quite matter.

The difference with my birthday this year was who it was spent with. The middle of February is normally a very bad time for a birthday, pretty much equivalent to having a birthday around Christmas in America (sorry, Nathan). Usually nobody is around to party because they're off celebrating the holiday with family somewhere. Two things were different this year: 1) my parents came to China and we had our own little celebration while they were here and 2) the Chinese New Year was a week and a half earlier this year (it follows the lunar calendar, hence the yearly difference). This means that we were able to celebrate with a few more people here in Karamay, which was very nice.

With my parents we had a small birthday celebration at Outback Steakhouse where Tiff and I both indulged ourselves in probably more beef in one sitting than we usually have in a month back in Karamay. Needless to say we were ecstatic over the idea of not just eating a good piece of beef (which is hard to find here) but also beef which has been grilled - a concept lost on the oil-loving Chinese. Upon returning to our small hostel we opened a few gifts, played some games, and slept hard with stomachs full. It was very nice.

Back in Karamay we had a nice celebration which included lunch and dinner out and three cakes. Thankfully the third cake was custom-baked by our new professional baker - Tiff! There is no such thing as a chocolate cake here in China - actually they have nothing more than pound cake - so Tiff spent three hours baking the most moist, chocolaty, home-made birthday cake with home-made icing. It was absolutely delicious. Tiff's cake is the one whose candles I am blowing out in the picture at the right. I can't even imagine what this woman is gonna be able to bake when she actually has a full-sized oven and a Wal-Mart nearby! Mmmm.

So that pretty much wraps up another birthday - my second here in China. Not much else has been happening, unfortunately. School starts in a week and we hope to get some more pictures from our trip to show you. We're also hoping to go skiing this week, and if we do we'll post something quick for you to enjoy. Take care!