Booty in the bags! Steven at the far left.

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Here is Yuki, who is in competition for "cutest kid in the world". Yuki is the daughter of a local (Doumen) policeman - Xiao Jo. Xiao Jo works some kind of Community Police assignment, and we first met him when Dorothy and I went to the police station to register as "aliens in residence" - Dorothy says she's not from Uranus!. Xiao Jo was not the officer who did our paperwork, but came into the room to help out with the computer. About a week later, Xiao Jo, and the other officer showed up at Bill & Stella's (owners of Seahorse Marine) apartment as part of their duties, and we had a conversation. Since then we've spent a lot of time with Xiao Jo, and Yuki.

Xiao Jo reminds me of Scott Dunn (now lieutenant, I believe; good for you Scott!) who I used to work with - smart, and talented in ways beyond the job. Xiao Jo lives in the town of Doumen - across the river from us, in a 4 story residence where his parents live on the top floor, his and his brother's family on the 2nd and 3rd floors, while the ground floor has tenants. Yuki's mother is a nurse at a big local hospital just a couple minutes walk from their home - working swing shift, so we rarely see her as she's either sleeping or working. Very much like home, where it's not uncommon for cops and nurses to marry, they have much in common.

When Yuki comes to the boat with Xiao Jo, she and Dorothy start drawing and posting the results on every vertical surface available. Lots of fun! Yuki's English is actually quite good - particularly her pronunciation, and her reading. She's 6, by the way. Xiao Jo carries the translation load between he and I - he's speaking more English than I am Chinese - but he's introduced me to a couple of tools to make things easier: Google has a translation program. (Just go online, type in "Google translation" into the Google box and tell it which languages you want to use and you're ready to go.) Also there's a Chinese instant messaging program "QQ" which one can type back and forth to each other from two computers, which also translates. It's not as easy as it sounds because it's just a program giving word-for-word, most likely meanings, rather than a person who speaks both languages fluently enough to understand and communicate context, colloquialisms, and humor; but it's a start. Some of the translations are hilarious and mystifying. But with persistence, we do manage to communicate.

PS: in regards Yuki's chances for the "cutest kid" competition, it is really important she get her nap, if she's going to win the crown

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Here's Slick - the boatyard cat who actually remembered us after being away from the boatyard for most of two years! He brought us the freshly caught rat, I mentioned a couple of blogs ago, as a welcome home present. Slick comes by early in the morning and yowls to be let in, sometimes spends the night and now that he's made the obligatory offering, has not brought any more rats.

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