arcticfawx

Meat is super pricey in China right now, it's becoming a luxury that only the middle class/upper middle class can afford on a regular basis.

My parents were from that province! I have lived there briefly as a child, and visited more recently. I remember it being very very cold in the winter, and there was a lot of Russian influence in the buildings and products. My mother is from Harbin, and my father in a small farming village I don't remember the name of.

Learning to speak and understand mandarin wouldn't be very difficult for children, just speak it at home from infancy, they will pick up English from day care and TV. The hard part is teaching them written mandarin. Good luck with that, most kids I knew back then resisted with all their might (including myself, I hated chinese classes and the fact that they were on Friday nights didn't make it any better).

I eventually learned it out of necessity when my parents moved me back to China after grade 6 :/ Talk about culture shock.

Re physical activity, I'd add that it's better to find an activity that you enjoy in it's own right, and happens to involve moving your body. Rather than force yourself to slog through exercise that you hate. So things like a beer league for a team sport, swimming, dance, climbing, biking (mountain or road) would be good to try. It's much easier to motivate yourself to do a fun thing than to do something that's good for you but not enjoyable.

Do you think you could come back a few weeks post op and tell us about your recovery process and prosthetic fittings?