Friday, June 6, 2014

70 years

Two anniversary posts in two days.  Hmm, this was never intended to become a history blog. 

Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, which marked the landing of Allied forces in western Europe, aka Hitler's Europe. 

It's an occasion I feel I can't let pass without putting something out there in my little corner of the worldwide web. 

A year of planning went into Operation Overlord and D-Day's manoeuvres, originally set for more than a month earlier than today (-70 years).  On that fateful day, June 6, 1944, more than 150,000 Allied forces landed along 50 miles of coastline at Utah, Omaha, Juno, Gold and Sword Beaches.  Over one million troops, a total of 39 Allied divisions, were committed to the Battle of Normandy, including 22 American divisions.  Coastal bombing and minesweeping got underway early on June 6, 1944, and as the over 4,000 landing craft boats approached, Allied troops were under heavy fire, and as the ramps dropped for men to storm ashore, casualties skyrocketed.  Soldiers, many not even 20 years old, jumped from the ramps of the boats and then swam and ran 50-100 yards to shore and then crawled on the beaches toward the cliffs, many while carrying 80 pounds of equipment.  When troops made it to shore, they faced over 200 yards of exposed beach, where, in addition to gunfire, there were obstacles at the high-tide mark:  mines, barbed wire, booby-traps, metal tripods, wooden stakes and anti-tank obstacles.  As landing troops will readily tell you, they were in hell.  Absolute hell.  The experiences of the thousands of scattered paratroopers dropped that morning weren't much better.  More than 4,000 Allied forces died in the fighting, and another 6,000 were wounded, but it's nearly certain that had the landing been postponed 2 more weeks, to the next dates with appropriate tides, given the storms that occurred then, the numbers would have been far worse for the Allies, if they'd been able to land at all.  But the foothold in Europe gained 70 years ago today when Allied troops overcame the German defenses in Normandy changed the face of history.  It was when the scales tipped and the at times long and painful Allied drive into Germany began, inch by inch, sometimes house by house, unending until May 7, 1945. 

Eisenhower's message to the troops just before the invasion: 

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. 
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened, he will fight savagely. 
But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory! 
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory! 
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.


There aren't many chances these days to talk to someone who was there, but if there is any way you can make that happen, even if you've done it before, this is a wonderful time to do it again.  I can guarantee your eyes will not stay dry.  Hearing someone talk about seeing their brothers in arms fall next to them, the reality of front-line combat in that time, how the fighting progressed for those who made it off the beaches, what the fighting meant to them and their families at home, irreplaceable information that will touch your heart and stay with you forever. 

If you don't have a chance to talk to someone who was there and you can find 5-10 minutes of time, read a bit about it.  Here are some online suggestions (if you want books, let me know, I have about a half-dozen very good recommendations!):


If you want to read accounts of the landings by men who were there, some options:


If you just want to look at pictures, some good options:


If nothing else, just give a moment of your time to let the sacrifices and horrors endured sink in, and image where we could be without those brave souls.  4,000 of them gone 70 years ago today working to fight evil.  FOUR THOUSAND.  Wow. 


(photo credit)
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Thursday, June 5, 2014

25 years

Wow, can you believe the Tian'anmen Square standoff was 25 years ago yesterday?  I heard that on the news and it was surprising.  I wasn't exactly politically aware at the time, but it was maybe the start?  It's definitely one of the first events on the news that I remember. 

Other memories of significant news events before I really started paying attention:  Oliver North's testimony (my parents watched a lot of it), the Challenger explosion (I watched live in elementary school), the Berlin Wall coming down (I was babysitting and it was on the front page of the paper sitting on their coffee table, and it was on the news when I turned on their TV), and obviously OJ. 

I paid some attention to the news in junior high since my history teacher gave us quizzes about current events, but not much of it stuck with me.  Regardless, I remember that on June 4, 1989, I was slowly starting to understand more about the broader world. 

This is what the Today Show said about it on Wednesday morning to mark the anniversary:
"Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Tian'anmen Square massacre and there is heavy security in central Beijing.  As tanks rolled in on June 4, 1989, Chinese troops opened fire on student protesters.  More than a million demonstrators had gathered in central Beijing in the lead-up to the incident.  Video of a lone protestor standing in front of a line of moving tanks became one of the 20th century's most powerful symbols.  The exact death toll is unknown but is widely believed to be in the hundreds."


Per The Atlantic:
Twenty-five years ago today, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) violently cleared Beijing's Tiananmen Square of protesters, ending a six-week demonstration that had called for democracy and widespread political reform. The protests began in April of 1989, gaining support as initial government reactions included concessions. Martial law was declared on May 20, troops were mobilized, and from the night of June 3 through the early morning of June 4, the PLA pushed into Tiananmen Square, crushing some protesters and firing on many others. The exact number killed may never be known, but estimates range from several hundred to several thousand. China's censors are blocking Internet access to the terms "six four," "candle," and "never forget," broadening extensive efforts to silence talk about the 25th anniversary of China's bloody June 4 crackdown.

And that Atlantic article I linked actually has some really amazing photos if you have a moment to check them out.

Two sides to every story?  I don't know.  I have very complicated feelings about China now, more complicated actually since we visited.  Things seemed much more straight-forward sitting in the US and thinking about theories. 

But one thing that remains crystal clear to me is that the remarkability of the fact that apparently most people in China today do not know what the image of the man standing before the tank signifies when shown photos.   Students in the universities today and young adults particularly have no knowledge of these events.  It's amazing how much a free press and free speech can do in terms of preserving a national recollection of significant events.  The concept of having those search terms blocked really boggles my mind in ways.  Given the new EU laws about "erasing" parts of the internet for individuals, coupled with our reliance on the internet, makes me wonder how easily we could go down this path of altered history ourselves, particularly as Holocaust survivors and now their children pass away.  That's another tangent completely. 

Any memories of June 4, 1989?  Other big news events memorable from your youth?  (I'm usually not one to pose questions directly as those who comment generally have something interesting to say without a prompt, but I'm particularly interested in this!)

In honor of the anniversary, some of our photos of Tian'anmen Square from our trip there in 2012, to date, one of the most interesting trips of my life, fully recapped on the blog in the fall of 2013 I think. 



The entire square is surrounded by massive buildings like these two below.  The square was build in the 1600s, but enlarged to its current size in the 1950s. The "Ten Great Buildings" along the square were also built then.  It reminded very much of the National Mall in DC, with the massive Smithsonian museums set off along the boundary roads.  It also reminded me a lot of Red Square, but bigger.  I believe Tiananmen Square is designed to accommodate more than 500,000 people at once.  Can't remember what the first building I photographed around the square is, but the second is the National Museum of China: 


 
There was a heavy uniformed police presence standing guard, marching about, and mingling with the visitors.  And I got the sense there were plenty of official personnel not in uniform as well.  Of course I took pictures of the guards, which are perfect to show today (well, technically the anniversary was yesterday, but it's my recap post):  
 
 
 
There were also these huge floral displays in the square.  Huge.  You can kind of see a little head down in the corner (if we'd walked directly into a cutout of the display, I'm guessing my head would have been somewhere in the red swirl of flowers on the base), and I'm bad at guessing size, but I'd guess this one was at least two stories tall: 
 
  
 
I didn't get to take any pictures inside Mao's tomb, which is also there at the square.  Here is a shot of Mao's mausoleum.  Hard to see among the crowds and from this distance, but there is an hours-long line all the way around the perimeter (some scamster who wanted (and got) money from us after helping us get to bag drop and through security, snuck us in toward the front of the line, so we only had to wait about half an hour to see Mao's preserved body, but we bypassed at least 75% of the line): 


Plenty of pictures/busts of Mao in the immediate area however: 

 



And a couple pictures just to show the scale of the flowers, buildings, length, towering floral columns: 


 
Apparently (according to Wiki), only 5 photographers were able to have their photos smuggled out of China and published in the aftermath of the protests and the standoff with the tanks.  One photographer had a French student smuggle the film in a cannister of tea.  One hid his in the toilet and sacrificed two rolls of film showing wounded protesters when the police searched his hotel room.  Crazy stuff I tell you.  
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Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Blueberry Plans

I had a big first this morning -- first time I've met someone in person that I previously knew only virtually!  Megan came with me and my husband to boot camp today!  It was fun, though she definitely got to hear a big rant when the instructor got frustrated that people weren't following directions.  Sigh.  And she got more leg exercises than expected.  But Megan, hope you had fun and hope you'll try a few more!  One of my favorite things about working out in general, boot camp, running, whatever, is liking the people doing it with me.  Even during something like a track workout where you're not really talking, feeling like there's someone there who feels your pain, or to give you a little boost of encouragement, makes it all somehow seem easier, less painful, and more fun.  I once answered a very challenging question on this blog about the number one reason that I run.  I struggled a lot to choose one reason, but I ended up picking the social aspect.  And it's not just running, I prefer doing any kind of workout with a friend. 

Anyway, I've been meaning to post about our big Friday plans for this weekend, so here goes. 

Several years ago, my local bestie invited us to join in her family's tradition of going to a nearby city's blueberry festival for the weekend.  This is rare for lazy me, and probably pointless since I doubt I'd click on a link to read about it myself, so why would you, but here's a post about it.  Basically, we end up having a ton of fun.  My bestie's brother-in-law has a craft project at his house -- usually making t-shirts or bags featuring blueberries or something similar.  Dinner in this town (most restaurants have a special blueberry-focused menu), and then out for blueberry cocktails.  A blueberry 5k race (that we've skipped).  Blueberry pancakes served in the town square.  And then attending the blueberry festival -- free popsicles, free water, tons of crafts, groups performing, shopping, etc. 

Then last year, it didn't look like we'd be able to go out of town that weekend, so we decided to plan our own "uptown blueberry festival."  And now it's become this thing that we do with my bestie, her husband, and her sister (and her sister's boyfriend last year), and maybe this year, her niece. 

The main events:
A dinner Friday night featuring blueberries.
A run or race Saturday morning.  If it's not an organized race, my bestie maps a route that looks a little like a blueberry.  This year it will be an organized 4 mile race. 
Breakfast post-run featuring blueberries. 
A craft project.
Hanging out to eat popsicles. 

Last year was pretty awesome.  So it's a high bar this year.  Plus of course, Friday is a very special anniversary.  Trying to see if I can come up with some way to integrate that into the party -- printing out little bios of some soldiers' stories?  Doing little menu cards and naming foods after the beaches?  Take a crack at drawing out a map on our chalkboard tablecloth?  I was actually thinking about playing hooky from work for the first time ever since I figured the History Channel would be doing nonstop features, but it looks like a few hours in the morning, then some non-war stuff, then some non-D-Day stuff, then one show I really want to see in the evening that I'll record.  Hard to believe it's been 70 years! 

The blueberry dinner Friday night is at our house again, so I spent a bunch of time this weekend on Pinterest and elsewhere trying to come up with a great blueberry themed menu.  This is what I came up with:

Blueberry-brie bites (the recipe is for black raspberry-brie bites, but I figure I can modify it)
Hot blueberry cheddar dip with toasts
Blueberry goat cheese salad
Blueberry mushroom risotto
Grilled chicken/tofu with blueberry guacamole
Lemon blueberry layer cake
Yogurt blueberries as a little side dessert snack

I'm still torn on the signature cocktail.  Either a "blueberry basil" cocktail (vodka, seltzer, basil, lemon, blueberries), or a "cranberry blue" (blueberry vodka, cranberry juice, lime juice), or a "blueberry muffin" (which my bestie and I would love, and my husband would probably hate) (blueberry vodka and Irish cream).  Decisions, decisions! 
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Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Dumpling Fest

In addition to all the trip planning we did this past weekend, I spent Sunday in a bit of Chinese immersion.

First, I had lunch at a neighbor's house.  She and her husband were performers with us at our other neighbor's church's Chinese New Year's celebration.  She travels to China very frequently for work.  Her husband is ... eccentric.  He's really nice and he plays bongos, but he's just so unlike many of my other friends.  Let's just say I could never imagine him going to law school.  I think that's a good thing.  Well, she decided to host us all in honor of the Dragon Boat Festival.  Our neighbor who is actually Taiwanese had her cousin visiting, so the cousin and our China-traveler neighbor went shopping at a Chinese market, and bought the fixings for dumplings.  They also bought these little packages of stuffing (red bean paste in some, seaweed in others, mushrooms in others) wrapped in sticky rice, wrapped in bamboo.  The dumplings were homemade and delicious.  They made a bunch of vegetarian ones just for me. 

Fruit skewers that I made to contribute (and the crystal bowl I left at my neighbor's, ugh, it was my grandma's and I hope she's careful with it):



I learned a little about the Dragon Boat Festival, which is actually celebrated today.  Our neighbor said it's one of three main festivals (New Year's, Dragon Boat, and Mid-Autumn or Half-Moon in October).  端午节 is how it's called in Chinese.  Next year it will be on June 20.  The holiday's backstory is that a cadet was banished for opposing a new alliance.  While banished, Qu Yuan wrote lots of poetry, and many years later, he was captured and committed suicide by drowning in a river.  The local people admired him for his poetry so they raced their dragon boats into the river to try to save him or to save his body.  They couldn't find him or his body, so they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so the fish would eat them instead of the body.  I must say, if the drops of sticky rice were filled with red bean paste and tasted like the one I had for dessert on Sunday, lucky fish.
 


You can see the bamboo rice packages of sticky rice as the top dish in this picture: 

 
From the dumpling lunch, I went straight to Chinese class. My second class.

Chinese class was different -- I was the only student to show up, so I got a private lesson! When I showed up for the first class, it turned out they were on lesson 10. Ugh. Fortunately, I remembered a fair amount from my studies before our trip there in 2012, so I was able to limp along. But this past weekend, since it was just me, we did lesson 1. Basic introductions, etc., which was great.

The instructor spends part of class going over a lesson in the book, which is usually about 10 lines of dialogue on a given subject. We spend time doing pronounciation, vocabulary, and a bit of the roots in some of the written characters. That seems to take 60-90 minutes. And then for the rest of class, another 60 or so minutes, we learn about something more conversational -- sometimes with writing. For example, we learned how to say i-phone. Since it is a loan word, it sounds pretty much like i-phone (a bit more like i-fung). But we got to learn about the written characters, which I loved. I-phone is comprised of two characters, one for each sound. I, or ai, which means love. I knew that one since I often say that to my husband as "I love you" (wo ai ni) was one of my first Chinese phrases, though it did not prove useful in China country. Anyway, the second part of i-phone is fung, which means crazy or insane. And when we learned about the written character for fung, it has two parts -- one that means disease or illness, and inside of that, wind (the blowing weather kind, not like winding a watch). And then the lightbulb went off for me (about a millisecond before he espressly explained it) -- a crazy or insane person is like someone with a disease of having wind in their heads. Oh I love it!

Among the words I was happy to learn:
husband (3 forms: my mister, my old man, and my husband)
younger brother
i-phone
left, right (and how to march, left, left, left, right, left, which I loved and practiced with my old man!)
to want
to like
help/rescue in urgent life-threatening sense
help in a non-urgent, I dropped a box or this is heavy sense
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