With Em’s arrival the place just got more crowded by half.  Brian and Emily are just two people but the five Chinese students only occupy the same space as three gwailo Canadians and they all largely move and act in unison when in the house so it seems even less.  When one has a shower, they all follow suit and ‘badda bing, badda boom’ all the showers are handled.  Five of them can even do the dishes!  Em, Brian, Sally and I are more like those robot vacuum cleaners that go about bumping off walls and things unpredictably.  I have to say that five Chinese students occupy half the space that do four gwailos.  Throw in (out?) the two dogs and getting from one part of the house to the next is like moving to the back of a city bus during rush hour.  Oh well, it is fun but a bit intense at times.

They all hiked yesterday but I stayed back to get some chores handled.  When they got back it was dinner time and so we BBQ’d burgers.  As you know, home made burgers are not at all like fast-food chain burgers.  They are much taller for one thing.  Our burgers always look like they are going to tip over.  And they ooze goo like a triple O.  They are ‘glop burgers’.  The kids have had burgers in Hong Kong but nothing like the build-your-own that we presented.  They would stop half way through and take pictures and then finish their 6 inch high creation and take more photos.  I think there were a minimum of four photos per burger counting Em’s, Brian’s and mine.  32 burger pics were recorded for posterity.

Everything followed by a fancy dessert and tea.  Sheesh!

It is good having Brian and Em here.  The kids all get along well.  Brian is 30 and Queenie is only 20 but everyone else is mid twenties and their conversations get more and more animated and louder as the evening wears on until I retreat around 9:00 to the relative peace of my room.  They continue at it until about 10 – 10:30 and then everyone heads off to bed.  The logistics of peeing, alone, can alter the schedule considerably. But, usually by 11:00 the house and all the sleeping areas (decks, John’s cabin, boat shed, upstairs) are quiet.  By 8:00 am it starts up again.

Earl and Alva arrived yesterday.  They are camping on the other side of the peninsula with their daughter, Karen.  It is nice to see them there.  They have a beautiful site and so far, camping is working for them.  But we’ll check on them now and then – as much as we can what with all the cooking and cleaning and hiking and talking and playing with young people and dogs.

Yesterday we learned a bit more about the Chinese language and how it is written.  I would propose a word like ‘computer’ and they would write that word in pictograms (the Chinese written characters).  Typically there would be two or three distinct ‘pictograms’ making up the word.  Then I’d circle one of them and ask what it meant all by itself.  Electronic and calculator were the two pictograms for computer but the two for husband made them howl with laughter.  When I inquired why, they seemed just as surprised as I did since they only saw the combination of the two making the whole of the word as a rule.  But breaking it down into each pictogram made them laugh.  “This one means ‘man’.” They said.  “But this one means ‘a measured length’ like a ‘foot’ or an ‘ínch’.  Much laughter.  “So, we depict the word husband as an inch or foot man?” I asked.  “Yes!  Ha, hah.  I guess it depends on the man!!  Ha, ha, ha, ha……..some are ‘inch men’, some are ‘foot men’!!!” Much laughter ensued.

Which, of course, led naturally into queries about their respective boyfriends and other discreet matters.  Much laughter.  All the girls had boyfriends and Kin had a girlfriend but most of them had never told their parents about their ‘friends’ even tho most of them had been going steady for two or three years.  Winnie and her steady had been dating for five years without officially ever mentioning it.  “It is not the Chinese way.” They said.