China Again

The fancy Scroll Store. Those of you who have scrolls from me can see the store they came from!

Three Chinese Brothers: The Scroll Man was born pre-one-child policy. One brother paints, one brother carves, and he, the third brother, sells the scrolls and carvings.

The next picture is Will in front of our grocery store, the Lotus, decorated for Chinese New Year. (Red, is, well, lucky...and good and festive. Brides wear red on their wedding day. White means death.) Lotus sold eels and fish fresh to eat, and when you bought one, the fish clerk put it in a plastic bag and pounded the bag on the floor to kill the fish inside. A dreadful spectacle to watch. Lotus sometimes played Christmas carols sung by Chinese Children's Choirs in Mandarin, and Ave Maria sung by an American. Bizarro world.

The next picture is a very happy shot of me in front of the lovely Hong Kong Disney at Christmas, and the final one is of the kids and me in the wind-ey streets of Hong Kong. Hong Kong was a fun slice of Americana and western-ness right at the time of year we needed it. We walked into the lobby of the Victorian Disney hotel and a man was playing Greensleeves on a grand piano and a gloriously large Christmas tree was covered in sparkling white lights.