"Out of Asia" or… my year in China

I have a group of friends that coined the phrase – ‘birth month’…cause you can never celebrate enough of “you”…well one friend in particular – who I miss terribly. I’d like to say that my lack of posting in May was due to whooping it up for May, my birth month – and I did – there were 2 trips to Beijing and then one long one in late April when we had a week off school…but it was more because of all the big and small decisions to be made about where, how, when and what I would be doing with my life…with our lives. We are definitely closer to an answer with that one – it is ever changing and always coloured by the latest gossip, mood, goals, opportunities, re-determinations and/or really long phone calls with friends and family, but… it looks like I may have to change the byline of my blog…to “my years in China”.

Here are some zippy titles I came up with for stories I wanted to write in the last month but never did:

• A Mother in the Motherland – all about my mother’s 10 day trip to China. My small Portuguese-Canadian retired mother traveling across the Pacific Ocean to see what her daughter was up to on this side of the world…I am so happy that she came…to experience somewhere she thought she would never see – Peking! I think I wrote a few lines – here they are:

My mom just left back to Vancouver after a 10-day trip to China. To see me, our home here, to see Beijing and do something she never in her entire life saw herself doing – going to an exotic locale by herself and in her words, (even though we were all tired tourists for 4 days straight in Beijing) having – ” the most consecutive days of relaxation time in my life! “.

Pretty much what I just said –and then I thought I would show some cute photos, like these ones:

Me and Ma at the Summer Palace on the final days of China's cold season

The Maria's and Mao

The Wall

Tian'anmen with my man

Ma and the crazy street eats!

Mom on our verandah...the warming of Spring and constant construction zone

• Another post I thought about writing was about the genesis of my blog title  – “Out of Asia”…I was going to call that one Blog Title Inspiration = Lifetime Aspirations…i.e. I named my blog after watching Out of Africa again with Meryl Streep on an pirated Oscar DVD collection that cost less than $20 during my first month in China (of course randomly your Oscar winning actors can slip into Mandarin all of a sudden but other than that it was a steal!)

Should I photoshop my head on Meryl's?

The film opens with the line -  “I once had a farm in AahhhFRICA”…in that pristine accent of hers accompanied by such a flawless performance that makes me ache for my first love – Acting. So the blog is definitely a nod to that – my lifetime aspiration…if not an Oscar then to do Oscar worthy films…to be in them with people who win them…or really when it comes down to it who am I kidding? It would be great just to be able to earn a steady living doing what I love – really love. Sighhhhhh…Of course I love other things: …travel, art, writing – even some aspects of teaching. :-0