You know you've lived in China too long when...

1. Your instinctive exclamatory phrase is "Aiya!"
2. You can eat anything with chopsticks - including, but not limited to, single grains of rice and M&Ms.
3. You know that what Panda Express is serving isn't actually Chinese food.
4. You don't consider yourself a foreigner.
5. You'll eat pickled vegetables from a plastic bag.
6. Your bicycle is your primary mode of transportation.
7. You ride your bike at a leisurely pace instead of as fast as you can.
8. You ride your bike out of necessity, not just for exercise.
9. Your bike has a basket on it.
10. You can't stop talking about your bike. (sorry for the digression...)
11. When you go back to the States (or wherever your home country is) you crave Chinese food.
12. You think that Chinese airline food tastes better than American airline food.
13. You know how to say things in Chinese that you don't know how to say in English.
14. You haven't been to important Chinese national monuments because you think they're too touristy.
15. The air anywhere else is too clean.
16. You think snow is naturally gray.
17. You see a "Ped Xing" sign and wonder why the second word is Chinese.
18. You complain about the price of everything when you're shopping in the States and try to bargain.
19. You know more than one Chinese pop song.
20. You're willing to eat just about anything.
21. Everything you need can be found at a Chinese supermarket.
22. You own/have worn a pair of "ayi" shoes.
23. You can tell which parking monitors are for real.
24. Everything is negotiable.
25. You've learned to sleep through all the Chinese New Year fireworks.

... you can write a list about how you can tell when you've lived in China for too long.

Just in case you're wondering...

... because it seems like the whole world is. I have not been rejected by BYU just because I'm not in the student directory yet. In fact, the reason why admissions hasn't looked at my application yet (aside from me paying my application fee late) is that it's currently in the MONSON SCHOLARSHIP OFFICE where my application is being considered. So those of you that keep saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry you didn't get into BYU" can quit searching the student directory in their spare time and wait for me to tell you when I actually find out what BYU's decision is. :) It's nice to know everyone's so concerned about my future... Sorry if this post sounds way too sarcastic - it's been a long day.

Christmas :)

Here a just a few photos from my Christmas vacation!

The not-so-traditional cello, violin, and slide trombone trio playing Christmas carols.
Gaining speed on our world-renowned "luge".

My mom opened the door to our deck and took the picture. The snow goes about half way up the door thanks to our Christmas blizzard.

There are perks to having your dad work for the NBA...

The Christmas Fruit Cup - part of our traditional Christmas Brunch.

Happy 牛 Year!

Time to welcome in the Year of the Ox with a BANG!... or maybe not. The other night our family held our 13th/22nd (it depends whether you count from when my parents got married or from when we moved to Beijing) Annual Bao Jiaozi Bash (aka a party where you make and eat Chinese dumplings and lots of other really great food).
Is it just me, or have parties gotten shorter? I could have sworn that when I was eight years old our Chinese New Year (CNY) party was twice as long. The other night's lasted until about 8pm when everyone decided to go home. And there weren't nearly enough psycho kids running around breaking stuff or peeing on the carpet - true story, don't ask.

Okay, okay. So I have to admit I decided to be anti-social with my BFF Alicia - we snuck up to my room and watched three episodes of the British TV series "Doctor Who" (it's amazing!). By the time we were done there was almost nobody left at the party. What happened to stuffing your face for five hours? Making jiaozi until your fingers fall off? Playing Risk until two in the morning? Or the dragon dance that lasts two hours because every kid wants a turn being the head? Times sure have changed.

I mean, I didn't even watch fireworks! What's wrong with this picture? This is my last CNY at home and it was honestly L-A-M-E. Oh well. The night was salvaged with Nerts and the hand slapping game which my family played with our four remaining guests. What is really the stupidest thing of all is that we played games until 11:45, people left, and then we didn't even have a reason to stay up until midnight and bang pots and pans because technically speaking CNY eve was the night before.

Well, enough complaining about the failed party... I still love CNY with all the red paper cuts, red and gold laterns, Chinese food feasts, ice skating on chairs at HouHai, being part of the crush of humanity at a temple fair, the non-stop fireworks all week long, and the annoyingly cold and windy weather. What will I do next year when I have to celebrate all by myself?

Just a note... the title of this post, "Happy 牛 Year", is a pun of sorts. The Chinese character 牛 means "cow" (related to this year's animal, the ox) but is read "knee-o", as in "Happy knee-o Year". Yeah, you kind of have to speak Chinese to get it...

A Word of Warning

Just so you know, you're reading this blog at your own risk. Honestly I'm a pretty boring writer (yes Mrs. Merritt, this is my "disclaimer dance"). My attempts at creative writing kind of ended in middle school with several unfinished fiction stories (they each lasted an average of about two pages). I can however write an awesome commentary - take your pick of Hamlet, Heaney, or Suskind... What has IB English done to me?!... So, if you're disappointed at the lame-ness of my posts, feel free to not read them. I promise I won't be insulted. In fact, you're probably better off not reading my posts, which will end up being mess of frustrations, random adventures, and attempts at philosophizing about life. Like the title says, "Mari's Mayhem". By the way, "ginormous is not a word".

Fortune Cookies Are Not Chinese

I know that it is a commonly held perception that fortune cookies come from China because you can get them at authentic Chinese restaurants titled "Panda Express" or "House of Chang", not that I would know from personal experience, but in actuality fortune cookies are purely an American invention intended to lure you into the false sense that Chinese eat weirdly shaped cookies with little slips of paper inside them. I just wanted to use my very first blog post to clarify that globally consequential misconception. And to try and use as many big words as possible.