Eli is four years old! He had a fun birthday. We had a friend party for him on the afternoon of the 31st. He had a good time, but honestly, he was more interested in his gifts than the party. I guess that's about right for a four-year old. Later that night (Halloween night) Nicole, Eli, and a friend went out for an impromptu "Trick-or-treat". We hadn't arranged anything in our compound for trick-or-treating, but I guess some of the German kids did it the year before, so I think some of the school teachers were expecting it. They went around the neighborhood, mostly sticking to the foreign crowd. They came back with a most interesting cache! There were peanuts, mandarin oranges, tomato flavored suckers(yes tomato!), and some Chinese coins. There were also some interesting flavored squash or pumpkin seeds from Korean friends. I think they also got a couple of normal-type suckers and candy. They felt it was a success, so who can argue!
On Tuesday, Eli's actual birthday, Eli and I decided to have a special lunch at McDonald's, and then head to a park to fly the new dragon kite he got from his friend for his birthday. When we went to the park, there wasn't much wind, and got no-where with the kite. So we took a walk around the park. Well, soon, some of the older men started flying their kites. We went to watch. There were several people with small children trying to get Eli to play with their children (which is not unusual)so he was, of course, showing off. We decided to try our kite one more time. We were pitiful! A woman came and tried to help. Then one of the old men came to try to help. Pretty soon we had a group of about seven people trying to make our kite fly. It was hilarious. They tried and tried. In a final blaze of glory, our kite soared for an exaggerated 20 seconds. Everyone clapped! Our kite was declared unflyable, and everyone went on their way. Apparently our kite was made for decoration, not actual flying. While it was a kite failure, I counted our afternoon as an inter-cultural success! Eli, I think, was just tired of all of the attention.
That night, we had a birthday dinner of Chinese Noodles (glorified top ramen), and a special chocolate bar cake. I unwrapped our special US imported candy bars, layed them on a plate in a fancy array, stuck in four candles...And TA DA! I've never seen the family more excited about birthday cake. We split up the candy, and ate while Eli opened his presents. I'd call that a Happy Birthday. The only sad part is that Eli somehow got into his head that he was going to go to the big-kid school (the International School) now that he is four! Well, at least he still has something to look forward to...
