#284 The Nativity

Kathleen took on the role of director for the Lady of Seven Sorrows nativity play at church on Christmas Day. Her friend Paige was a devoted partner in the organization. They gathered about 20 kids, ages three to ten, to act out the Christmas story and sing some appropriate hymns.

A key accomplishment this year was the procurement of custom-made nativity costumes from a local Suzhou tailor (recurring theme from Halloween). Kathleen was somewhat dismayed, though, when she realized the costumes were going to cost over $400 (US). They ended up posting children at the doors of the church for three or four Sundays with a basket to ask for donations for the nativity costume fund. By Christmas, they collected nearly enough to cover the cost of the costumes.

You can see the Cazzato children in starring roles with Marco as Joseph, Joseph as one of the three kings, Maria as the angel who brings the pregnancy news to Mary, and Juliana as a narrator. There is also a picture above of our bishop and pastor, Father Joseph.

We have found that Juliana is particularly good at public speaking. She seems undaunted to appear in front of a crowd and speaks clearly into a microphone with great confidence. We keep encouraging her that this is a great skill to have and continue to develop.

Hats off to Kathleen and Paige for spearheading this effort and herding these cats to deliver a very respectable production.

#283 Christmas Day

Christmas Day was a thrill for the kids and the parents alike. The Cazzato children were instructed to not go below the staircase landing until Mom and Dad were awake and were further instructed not to wake Mom and Dad until 6:30AM. Believe it or not, they followed those instructions.

The big gifts were Ugs boots for Juliana, a digital camera for Joseph, toys of mass destruction for Marco, and an American Girl doll for Maria. Everyone got their top request from Santa. Grandma sent from Kentucky two webkins for each kid. They seemed quite pleased to receive these gifts and Maria was especially happy to not get a stupid red dress from G-ma this year.

The mother-of-all Christmas gifts, however, went to Kathleen who received a Mac Book Pro laptop computer. This I bought in Miami during my trip this month to the U.S. Kathleen will now be free of the annoying malfunctions rampant in the home PC and also be free of competing with the children for computer time. She can now be expected to face-book in style and set new record scores on the bejewelled on-line game.

Christmas mass will be the subject of the next blog entry. For Christmas dinner we went to our friends Matt and Michelle's. They hosted several families from the neighborhood who were spending Christmas in Suzhou. We had a great meal and some very nice company for the holiday.

Merry Christmas and God bless you all on this most special of days.

#282 Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is a fun night for us and the children. We decorate our Christmas tree and when we are in Peoria, we typically have a meal and exchange gifts with our friends' Greg and Margaret next door. Being in China, we are sad to miss that activity. At the same time, we have some nice family traditions that we can keep up here in China and this year we have a new musical element.

According to tradition, each Cazzato child has a job they do every Christmas Eve. Joseph sets up the electric train. Unfortunately this year he plugged the 110 volt Lionel train into the 220V China outlet without a transformer and burned out the controller. Even after three years in China, we continue to forget to check appliance electrical ratings before plugging them in.

Marco always hangs the stockings. This year they are hung on the bookshelf - we miss our big fireplace in the Peoria house.

Juliana is responsible to put the angel on the top of the tree and this year was the first year she was tall enough to reach without assistance. This is good because she has gotten too big for me to give her a boost. Juliana is quite tall for her age - on average she is a head taller than her classmates at school.

Maria's job is to put the milk and cookies out for Santa. Believe it or not, Santa makes it all the way to Suzhou - in fact he comes here more than 13 hours sooner than the U.S. because of the time change.

Kathleen had the idea this year to add a Christmas concert to the Christmas Eve agenda. Juliana and Joseph have been taking Viola and Violin lessons this year and Maria, Marco, and Joseph all recently started taking piano lessons. Katheen plays a little piano and I played the trumpet for years from grade school through adulthood. Everyone played at least one Christmas song. Juliana and Joseph did a duet. It had been many years since I played the trumpet, but I belted a few tunes before my lip was reduced to jelly. Everyone played wonderfully and it was a very nice concert.

#281 Suzhou at Night

I took these nice pictures one night this week when we were out for dinner at Mario's Pizza in Li Gong Di. Li Gong Di (the Li Causeway) is a strip of land cutting through the southwest corner of Jinji Lake. It is full of restaurants and shopping and lately, some bars and nightclubs. These pictures are two pedestrian bridges that are lit up every night along with the rest of the buildings surrounding Jinji Lake in the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP).

#280 Cat Family Tour

On the last day before the Christmas holiday, I hosted Kathleen, the kids, and some family friends of ours for a tour of the factory. We saw Anisa (neighbor and fellow Suzhou blogger) at a Christmas party the week before and she asked when she could have a tour of the Caterpillar factory. Plus, all of the kids are getting hard to manage at home with their long holiday vacation and Christmas still approaching, so Kathleen appreciated the entertainment provided by the field trip.

We all met up at the end of the work day at Cat, donned our safety gear, and had a fun and informative walk through the factory. We saw the welding and machining shop, the paint booth, and the assembly lines for both Motor Graders and Wheel Loaders. At the end of the line, the kids got to sit in a motor grader and honk the horn. Not bad for free admission.

#279 Cartoony World

On the Thursday before Christmas, Kathleen needed to make a solo speed run to Shanghai to finish her shopping so I took a day off from work to stay with the kids (remember - you are not allowed to call it babysitting if the kids are your own children).

We rode our bikes to Times Square and went to an outlet called "Cartoony World". It is your basic arcade or the Chinese equivalent of Chuck-E-Cheese. It also works the same way. You hand over a fistfull of cash, get a bag of tokens with which to play games. The kids win tickets that can be used to purchase fabulous prizes.

We thought we were doing great after winning almost a thousand tickets. However, at the redemption center, we found that worthless itmes like thin plastic rulers and stickers all required over 200 tickets. Nonetheless, the kids were happy. We capped it off with a lunch at Subway, so they were delighted.

#278 Largest Skydome

We have a new shopping center near our home that opened in 2009 called Harmony Times Square which has the world's largest skydome TV. It is an overhead LED screen that is 500 meters long and 32 meters wide. Apparently one of the previous record holders was a similar Skydome on Fremont Street in Las Vegas which is only 400 meters long.

The screen plays all sorts of multicolored visual images including blue skies with clouds, a piano keyboard, even an alien spaceship invasion. In the third picture above, you can see a jungle scene being projected. For its sheer size, it is impressive Must-See-TV, but it's a shame they do not show Entourage Season 7.

#277 Fabric Mart

Here is an installment from the only-in-China series. Recently, we made a stop after church at the Suzhou Fabric Market where Kathleen had ordered two Christmas dresses to be made for the girls.

Picture a Joanne's Fabric Store and a Kmart where the building is replaced by a huge metal shed and each aisle is an independent vendor with their items crowded in the small space and stocked very haphazardly. Now add the element of cold weather and no heat and you can begin to imagine the experience of shopping in China. My father, the retired tailor, would certainly appreciate the merchandise, if not the atmosphere.

In the pictures above you can see Juliana and Joseph in the fabric section of the market. Below we have The Tape Store and the Plastic Household Items Store. We only spent about an hour here, but it would have been entertaining to spend the whole afternoon. For those who wish to check this out, it is right in the center of downtown Suzhou with access through an unmarked alley off of Renmin Lu. Just ask anyone on the street for directions !

#276 Before & After

Caterpillar Suzhou Building Site

Looking Southwest

May-2008

Caterpillar Suzhou Factory
Looking Southwest
Dec-2009

My boss' boss back in Decatur asked this week for a pair of "before and after" pictures of the Suzhou Motor Grader factory to use as part of her year-end summary of accomplishments for the department. Above are the two pictures I sent. The first shows the factory building site in May-2008. The second picuture I took last Tuesday (in the rain with my iPhone) outside the factory from approximately the same angle. We went from dirt to a mostly finished building 7 months later in January-2009 and first production 19 months later in November-2009. Also at the time of the first photo, there were less than 50 employees at Caterpillar Suzhou. Today, there are almost 500 people in Suzhou. It is an impressive accomplishment by a hardworking team.

#275 Back on the Blog

Greg, my good friend in Peoria, complained to me today that there have been no new blog entries for a month and that the last entry was still showing the disgusting food array in Beijing. It must be particularly unpleasant for him, being a vegetarian.

The month of December has been quite busy for me as I am sure it is for everyone else. Since I last wrote, we have had some major events at work and also I have taken a trip to Florida to visit my parents in Miami Beach.

In November, we started series production of Motor Graders at Caterpillar Suzhou. This is the moment we have all been working towards since 2006 when the project was first submitted for approval. Our ramp-up is slow, but we will start making one motor grader per day this months and continue to ramp-up the production rate through next year. In mid-2010, our production line in Xuzhou will close down and Suzhou will be responsible to build all MG production demand for Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The first photo above is production unit #1 and the second shows the first seven motor graders on the assembly line. It is a proud moment for Caterpillar China.

During the first week of December, I used my Caterpillar home leave benefit to take a solo trip to Miami Beach to visit my snowbird parents at their co-op apartment at the beach. You can see Mom and Dad (a.k.a Ellie & Tav) enjoying a glass of wine on my first night.

Miami Beach is a fantastic place. The weather was great, the beach is beautiful, and the town is so lively and interesting. I was there for four days and five nights and spent most of the time visiting, going to the beach, walking around town, and doing some shopping for Kathleen. Mom warned me not to expect special meals, then proceded to cook a delicious feast every night. My parents are doing well and seem happy to escape the winter in New York.

Above you can also see the scene on Ocean Drive, Tav posing at the new South Pointe Park promenade, and my bocce partners for the week - Tav, Enrico, and Francisco.