Why are the Chinese so skinny when they seem determined to make me fat?

Overall, a better day today. I am not completely over my bitterness about yesterday, but I will work through it. I guess it is just the life of a mother - our desires take second place - always.

Today we visted a jade factory, the Great Wall, a cloisanne factory and attended a performance by Chinese acrobats. Apparently these four things were on the list of every white person currently in Beijing. After walking around the Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven and the olympic village and feeling really, really foreign, suddenly today we were surrounded by people of European descent - French, German, Canada, Australia, German, and so forth. We even saw other children. We had realized the other day that nobody really looked at us twice, but the boys garnered attention everywhere we went. Most Chinese people rarely see white children. We spoke to some of the other parents we came across today and they have been experiencing the "my child the rock star" treatment as well. I asked Mac how he liked being a celebrity and he said, "not so much." Good boy.

I am being very good this visit. At the jade factory I got myself a simple necklace - a circle of jade suspended from a black cord. I had wanted one like this in the past and even purchased a really high quality jade circle, but have never had it made into a piece of jewelry. This one is lower quality and the cord is just fine with it. I also left the cloisonnois factory without buying anything.

Bill and I had both come to the same idea separately and then laughed to learn how alike our thinking was. In regard to Mac and his money. The one thing he has been talking about for months is getting a dragon pendent. He used to wear a jade pendant that we got for free on our last trip but the cord had broken and the piece was lost. We had each decided that the one thing we would buy for him was a new piece of jade. The rest he is out of luck due to his carelessness. (we are planning on giving them each some Hong Kong dollars to spend in Disneyland and Mac will get some spending money for there as well). Devlin and Liam each got a very small piece of jade on a string as a free gift from the store, based on the amount we spent.

Today we had both lunch and dinner in resturants where you do not order, the food just comes. In both places we left an obscene amount of food on the table when we left. We would sit down and a dish would come and some steamed rice. The children would try a few bites, Bill and I would eat some. 4 minutes later another dish would come out, followed by another and another and another... At lunch I think there were 6 platters of food, plus the rice and soup. We are two adults - hefty size adults, to be sure - and three very small children - although Devlin eats like she is three times her size. There is no way that we could eat 6 family style platters of food. Dinner was even worse. It was a Peking Duck resturant. There were 4 plates of appetizers and 7 platters of food, plus rice and soup and then they brought out the duck. Oh and a fruit plate to finish the meal. Once again, 2 large adults, 3 small children and only two of the group really like duck. We tried to get our guide to bring the left overs home and our driver. They both declined and we do not have more than a cube fridge in our rooms. I think our initial offer was a bit insulting because the guide than asked us if it was common practice in the US to bring food home from a resturant. We assured her that it was quite common and we would have the left overs for dinner the following night if there was enough food or for lunch if it was a smaller portion. She informed us that this was not really done in China. oopsie. I do think she realized that we were not trying to insult her. She also explained the huge amounts of food - it is considered a sign of respect in China to serve many dishes to a guest. Resturants therefore serve large amounts to flatter their customers. She told us we were not her first clients to say, 'charge us less, respect us less and serve us less.'

Tomorrow morning we are visiting the Summer Palace and then will take another try to going to the olympics. Wish me luck.