The Great Wall

I was hoping that my time in Asia would present some really neat opportunities and I think this one is going to be hard to beat! This was definitely one of those where, halfway through you're saying to yourself "Who is the idiot that thought this was a good idea???" and then you actually do it, you cross the finish line, and it's like giving birth: all the pain and agony that led up to that moment is completely washed away by the euphoria and the flood of endorphins! I did it! It was an amazing challenge, impossible to prepare for and possibly the coolest thing I have ever done. (Although the Race through the Jungle at the EFRC in Indiana does come close....roaring lions 20 feet away: very cool!)

I was really worried going into Race Day for a couple of reasons: my legs were still sore from walking the 2 miles of wall on inspection day 2 days prior; the 3:30 bus departure from the hotel on Race Morning meant at least a 3am wake-up call; and knowing that, since this is not a race one does for time, I had let my training slip and was not as fit on race day as I might have wanted to be. But Race Day dawns, regardless, doesn't it?

The bus leaves at way-too-early:30 but a breakfast box provided by the hotel puts a smile on my Sherpa's face! Love you honey!

Pre Race activity in Yin and Yang Square, the heart of the Fortress, where the 1/2 and full both begin and end.

Number's on; if I wasn't so freakin' cold (it was about 50 degrees) I might be ready to go! Thank God the sun came out and it turned out to be a perfect day for running, about 70 degrees.

And at 7:40, we're off! Out through the Fortress main gate

on the road to the wall, to what I affectionately refer to as...

The Hill of Attrition! 5 kilometers straight UP....

...and UP....

...and up. I was really freaked out on inspection day when I realized this part of the course. I learned a lot about reading a course topography map that day!

I was so relieved when we finally hit the 5 km. mark (you can see it propped against the road sign) because that meant we were around the corner from

Just a few more steps up...

And there it is

Now the fun starts!
 

You can see: it was a beautiful day! It was the biggest field ever, 2000 participants (over 500 in the full, over 800 in the half, 350 or so in the 10k and and about 225 in the 5k) so unfortunately there were a lot of bottle necks

But that was alright because it left some time for taking pictures

My motto for the day: "The journey is the reward"

Along the wall the steps vary in height and depth but in many cases it was little more than a stone ledge or ramp with a sheer vertical drop to one side. You couldn't see the bottom here without hanging out over the edge a bit. I chose not to do so.

The last portion of Wall was "The Goat Track": mostly dirt trail, straight down, with the occasional steps thrown in. But it afforded a beautiful aerial view of the Fort and the Square, including the beginning of the 10 k race, starting out under the bridge (see below). The course for the half wound around the fort once (which basically surrounded all of the buildings that you can see in these pictures; about 1 km), went down into and through the square, and back out onto the road for another 7+ miles. The next 1 1/2 miles was on the road, the middle 4 was in the nearby "village" circling back to the road to retrace the 1 1/2 miles back into the square. That middle 4 miles was a real trail run: all dirt, in some cases rocky path, and also full of hills.

 Some views through the village:

Almost there!

And finally, over 3 and a half hours later back in the Square!

It felt so good to be finished! And it really is true, once the endorphins kick in, you forget how miserable you were at mile 9! Am serious about doing it again next year so those of you who want to join me, let's start making some plans! All in all, it was a great race. I'll go into more detail about some of the fun anecdotes from the morning on the course in a next installment. At the moment I am surprised that blogspot has let me put this many pictures in one post so I won't push my luck. I'll wrap this up for now and write a little more soon. Happy running everyone! 

Who's Hungry?

Just a quick note to share some of the more entertaining sights we have come across lately. Naturally we expected to find some really outrageous foods while here...
(This was spotted last fall during our recon mission, but it gave me such a laugh that I have to share it again here:

)

In Malaysia I was entertained to find Cheesecake Slurpees at the 7-11. I thought Black Fungus Juice was the strangest, most unappetizing thing I would come across here, until I found this:

I didn't think it would be possible but I've gotten so used to seeing the cured, whole chicken, cuttlefish, whatever, laid out in heaps in the grocery store for everyone to simply paw through that I don't even notice them anymore but the great cleaver next to the pile in this case did give me pause.

I guess you are supposed to use the big stone chopping block as you hack off your own piece of cured ham. Everyone around me thought nothing of it but they were freaked out by me taking a picture of it. Something else that cracked me up the other day, although I was unable to get a picture of it: I was visiting a school to apply for Conrad to join their Kindergarten. As I dropped the application off at the admin's desk, I noticed that she had her afternoon snack ready to go, sitting next to her stack of paperwork: 2 enormous chicken feet, each individually wrapped in it's own shrink-wrap package, like a Slim Jim. Yum. I didn't think to ask if they provided those to the students. That might be a good detail to know.

But perhaps you'd like something a little lighter. Here, as in Malaysia, we have Soft Shell Crab and Seaweed flavored Pringle's. Lay's has taken a different route: 

If, like me, you are not a tea drinker, there is another choice:

These I have tried. If you're having a sweet craving, they might do the trick. The blueberry is strong, the first flavor to come through, along the lines of a blueberry Poptart. But then the salt and potato catch up, and it just doesn't work.

This sign was seen in the Shanghai Ikea. Perhaps if you take this English phrase and turn it into Chinese, and then back into the Original Swedish, it will make sense to someone. I am not that someone. Are you?

This one falls under the heading "Doesn't work when translated literally":

And this was on a vending machine in the metro station, selling key chains.

I thought it was funny and it made me happy.

Hope they gave you a chuckle. Let me know if you've seen anything you like and I can bring some to you when we come home for a visit this summer. Blueberry Lay's, you know you want 'em!





There IS life on this Planet! (Also titled "Has Spring Sprung?")

Last week we had some truly beautiful weather. I think it is too early for spring to be here but for a few blessed hours it truly felt as though it had already arrived. I was out with the kids because we have finally, drum roll please...gotten Conrad a big boy bike! He made use of the training wheels for about a week because it is quite a bit heavier than the run bike he is used to, but within a week he wanted me to take them off and away he went! He's been doing so well. So we were out in the afternoon and it was as if our neighborhood exploded with people! It was great! I met about 8 neighbors within the space of about 30 minutes! Really neat, interesting, friendly people. Some with kids, some without. Some with kids Conrad's age. Some with kids Conrad's age that actually even speak English! It has been so interesting watching him throughout this process. He is so social; I don't remember being anywhere near that level of social when I was a kid, I remember feeling painfully shy but he will play with anyone, wants to play with everyone! And he now has 2 friends in particular, one that speaks English and one that does not (she understands a little but speaks French and German). And watching them interact has been so fun because they truly can play without the language barrier interfering. It is so neat. But the best part for me is that the Moms are women that I have really connected with and whose company I really enjoy! There is life on this planet and it is becoming a good friend!

At the end of last week, our Ayi started working. I think I am going to really like her. She speaks some English, reads and understand more (as I have always found to be the way when one is learning a language). She has a great smile, seems very hard working and eager to please and is very sweet with the kids, eager also to interact with them. They are warming up to her slowly, Viv is the hard sell, but I think it will not be much longer before they are comfortable with her. I got a good laugh the first day though because in showing her the mountain of laundry that has piled up while I have been trying to unpack the house, she pointed to the washing machine and asked "you teach me how to use?" Are you kidding me? Teach me Chinese and I will teach you how to use that silly machine! But as she has tamed the monster of laundry in 2 days, without anything looking any worse for wear and against the challenge of a seemingly hamstrung dryer, I suspect what she meant was more along the lines of "please tell me how you want the laundry done". Or at least that's what I'm going with. I can be honest, I have a laundry system. And it is framed by too many years spent using coin-op machines during the lean years when quarters were scarce: the load that continues on to the dryer, and the load that does not. Colors? Temperatures? Hah! That was a luxury! Isn't it more ecologically friendly to do all your wash in cold anyway? I can also admit that as time went on and I got my own washer and dryer (at the age of 28 I finally felt like an adult!!!) that system had worked well enough for me that I largely stayed with it. It helps that having been out of the professional realm for so many years my wardrobe has simplified itself immensely (not like I had that much stuff to be dry cleaned even when I was working in an office...) but I'm inclined to think that whatever damage can be done to my clothes has long since been done by me. And as hard as our water was in Indiana, I suspect my clothes feel like they are on vacation here. And Heinz's shirts....hah! I can see me trying to tell her how to wash and iron a man's shirt; I would feel like such a poseur! In Kuala Lumpur we hired a wonderful Filipino woman to do some housework and babysit (Miss Mabel, oh how I have missed you!!!) and, other than a few glorious months of Merry Maids after Conrad was born, it was the only time I have ever been lucky enough to have someone come clean my house. And she was so professional end efficient, she would arrive and just get down to business and it occurred to me that these cleaning people often know the business of cleaning WAY better than I do. I felt downright silly telling her what to do and how to do it. Now I know, you tai-tais out there are going to tell me "Watch out, don't get too trusting." And I know, I have heard the horror stories of the maid who vacuumed all the wood floors with a screw loose on the head of the vacuum, scratched them all mercilessly and didn't seem to notice the noise it was making as she did; or the one who mopped the oriental carpet; or even the one who was stealing toys from the 5 year old boy for her son at home. But for all the horror stories, there are many happy endings, many families that would not trade their ayi for anyone! For the moment we are figuring it all out, and I believe we will all be happy in the end. I'll revisit the laundry situation when I start buying silk shirts again.

Our love to you all, wherever you are in the world: whether you are covered in 20 inches of snow, or headed out to Lembah Kiara park for Mom's group in the 80 degree sunshine. We miss you all and wish we could be with you. Yes, even in the 20 inches of snow. Hugs~

‘Barney Houdini’ does it again~

So Barney “found” a new opening in the fence. Ah Barney, he’s like an octopus: if the hole is the size of his eye, he can get through. It was late on a Saturday, close to 9pm when I realized he was gone. And had no idea how long he had been gone. A dog can get pretty far in an hour, really far in 3. It was 3 days into Chinese New Year, the firecrackers had been going non-stop. If he was trying to run away from them, who knows how far he could go. I was sick to my stomach. How would we get him back? I couldn’t let myself think what might befall him if we did not. We have had to rely too many times in the past on his tag pointing the way home for his rescuers. And his nametag with our Indy address and numbers came off while he was being groomed at the kennel when he last stayed (while we were visiting in KL but more on that in a minute). I was kicking myself: “why hadn’t I had the foresight and organizational skills to get him a tag with our new address before we left the States???” I don’t have the brainpower to find decently priced dog food with trustworthy quality here, let alone find him a new tag locally. As I said, I was sick, that stomach dropping, oh my God, feeling. I have failed him. My “first” child. Heinz, my knight on his white steed, said “Ideally he has not left the compound. There are lots of dogs in the neighborhood; maybe he has just gone visiting.” And he got on a bike and went to canvas the neighborhood. It was cold and late, but luckily a few people were out and they directed him to one house, which directed him to another and although the people had left to have dinner, Heinz could see Barney in their garage, where they apparently had put him for safe keeping until they could figure out what to do with, or for, him. So Heinz left his card on their door and came home. They came home fairly late and called and said “Since it’s so late, rather than you walking over here or us walking over there, why doesn’t he just stay the night? Besides….our kids really like him.” So Barney had the family’s first Chinese sleep over! I got such a laugh out of that. And such a relief: not only was he safe, but well-cared for. It’s a small world. The family who took him in has lived most recently in Michigan for a few years but come originally from Westfield, Indiana, about 40 minutes north of our house downtown. They saw Barney’s Indiana rabies tag and laughed. They were pretty sure he hadn’t swum to Shanghai on his own, so somewhere nearby was another family from Indiana. They are dog-less at the moment because, after having had 2 dogs for years, the older one died a year ago and then the second died a week before they were leaving for Shanghai, in July. So they said having Barney for a night was a treat for them. Spoiled beast, he slept on the daughter’s bed! They brought him back on Sunday morning and stayed for a bit to chat. Since then the daughter has stopped by periodically to walk him. She enjoys it as much as Barney does. And I am as grateful for it as he is. My poor “first” child, he is low-man on our current totem pole, and his walks are quite infrequent. They are a very nice family, I made some biscotti for them to say thank you and stopped by to chat with the Mom. She told me how she had managed, in the short time he was with them, to contact a local rescue group for advice on what to do. I was amazed, and so grateful. “Basically”, she said, “we did what we would want anyone to do if he was our dog and had gotten lost.” What more could we ask for? So he found a new opening in more ways than one: he found us all some new friends. We are working on getting the fence fixed. When I told my sister Vickie the story she said “well, he can’t dig to China, he’s already there!” Ah, my real Chinese Dog.

So here we are, nearly 6 weeks since my last post. I cannot believe how much time has passed. And how quickly. Last time I wrote, it was about the plight of the freezing house. The condition lasted for 10 days. In the meantime, my husband was planning nearly 2 weeks of business travel and I was getting increasingly more annoyed that I would be left in the freezing house with no one but the kids for company. And Conrad, who NEVER gets sick, was sick for 5 whole days; but I guess that was kind of a blessing in disguise because he was more amenable to the lizard-solution: lying for extended periods, inactive, on the warm living room floor. That had certainly become my preferred position. But my knight in shining armor came through for me again. He surprised us with tickets to join him on his business trip to Kuala Lumpur. We stayed with him in his hotel for 4 days and then when he left to continue his journey to Switzerland, to the home office, the kids and I remained in KL for an additional week. Warm weather, friends we love, places we know; it was exactly what my psyche needed. He had arranged for the kids to stay with our friend Valentine and her family, one of my KL guardian angels, (you may remember my mentioning them helping me with my car accident last spring) and for me to stay with my friend Amanda, my other KL guardian angel who did so much to help me feel comfortable getting around on my own while we were living there. So additionally, after weeks of spending too much time on top of each other with no other social outlets, the kids and I had a much needed break from each other as well. I love my children dearly, but it was heaven. And I know I have not thanked my wonderful husband enough for that, so, Honey, here is a very public, probably long over due “Thank You, again!” I love you!

We returned home to a warm, heat-system repaired house late on a Wednesday, picked Barney up from the kennel (separated from his name tag but looking oh so shiny, fluffy and pretty!) and learned that the movers were coming with our stuff on Friday. Heinz would still be away until Monday. I was so excited to be getting my stuff, nothing like your own bed and favorite coffee cups, but this would be fun to manage the kids and the movers all by myself! But the kids were actually really good the first day. They each have an Ikea tent and had missed them while we were away, so they were quite content to spend much of their time in them while the movers unloaded the truck. Since then, I feel like all I have done is unpack, and unpack, and unpack some more. Where did we get all of this stuff? And, outnumbered as I am, it feels as though for every one thing that I get put away, the kids pull out two things. Keeping up with the mess of toddlers is hard enough on a good day…it’s like my old friend the sand hill: running, and running, feeling as though you are getting nowhere. But I think we have finally tamed the monster. I would say we are 90% done. And the organizational system might even make sense to someone other than me! But it’s that last 10% that can be the hardest isn’t it? If it was easy to find places for these things, they would already be home. Oh well. Maybe I just need to lose my emotional attachment to some of these things and say good bye? We’ll see.

An organized, relatively clean house is within my grasp. I feel so much lighter already. And soon we will finally have an Ayi (housekeeper/babysitter). We were unable to secure one before Christmas, decided to wait until after the western new year to continue the search, and were then told that if we had not found one by then, we would not find one until after Chinese New Year, midway through, possibly the end of February. I know, “Wah, poor me! No housekeeper!” But a key description of the position is “babysitter”. As I mentioned before, the kids and I spend too much time together, with no other social outlets. I currently have no social outlets, whatsoever. And I know they need some too. Conrad, especially. We are hoping to get him into a pre-school program, but most already have waiting lists, and are very expensive to boot. All the children we have met his age are already in school, so playdate opportunities are limited to nonexistent. And while trying to get the house in order, I have not had the bandwidth to devote either to a search to remedy that situation, or to keeping him constructively occupied throughout the day. As a result I am constantly at my wits end with him, I feel. Back on that sand hill I go, with the twist of a downward spiral into depression if I am not careful. I know that is a common side effect of the culture shock of a transition such as we have made but understanding it and being able to remedy the situation can be two different things. It is such a luxury, I know but with someone to take care of the regular duties of the house, I can focus on my children without the other baggage, and enjoy their company, rather than screaming at them for trivial things, because as my world has seemingly spiraled out of my control, I need to control the stupid (Conrad would say “Don’t say stupid, Mom!” I’ve made an impression with at least one good thing) tiny things that they do. Never before has the concept of the power struggle with toddlers made so much sense to me. But I still get locked in the cycle even as I tell myself “stop, you know where this is going and why”. So today I resolve to stop screaming at my children (The kids thank you again, Aunt Vickie, for introducing their harpy mother to Love and Logic!). The most shameful thing is when you hear them using your voice and words with each other. Ugh, what have I done? But again, as I have said, I think the better days are on the horizon, finally, and the hardest parts of the transition are nearly over. Soon I will have someone to help. I think it’s a fair trade for all that we have given up. Someone to help me read labels at the grocery store so that I don’t end up with water softener salt when what I needed was dishwasher detergent. The big bag, no less. Someone to watch the kids while I attend a language lesson so I can feel less completely separate from the world around me. Someone to tell me how the washing machine actually works before I ruin something in it. Or maybe once she is here, I won’t have to worry at all about how the washing machine works! Won’t that be nice?

We miss you all. We wish you all joy, love and luck throughout the year of the Rabbit! And hope, as ever, that perhaps the fortune this New Year bestows on you will bring you to our door for a visit. Hugs and love from the Eastern hemisphere~

The politics of cold

First of all let me just say that I fear I jinxed myself with the “un-fun version of camping” comment. At the time I thought that was the worst it could get! Recently, as the weather got consistently colder, the house seemed to as well. We have a fairly typical Asian system, I think. We had a similar one in Malaysia: living, dining, bedrooms each have an air cooling/heating unit; service areas, bathrooms, hallways, kitchens, do not. And each room/unit has its own control. Unfortunately, the system will mutiny as a whole. So after 3 days of having the management company bring one person after another to look at it, shake their heads and walk away, they finally conceded that it was the Landlord’s problem to hire an independent contractor to look at it. With average highs of 44F and a low below freezing, I think you can imagine that 3 days later many regions of my house are uninhabitable. As an architect with a professional’s eye towards efficiency of layout and usage of resources, it struck me immediately as the house cooled down that each of the major living spaces has 3 exterior walls. Not the best way to foster heat retention! Thank goodness for the aforementioned heated living room floor! For the last 2 nights the kids and I have slept in the living room and Heinz joined us there last night as our bedroom is about 50 degrees. But, as we do not expect our container to arrive for at least another 2 weeks, we only have one couch and only dining room-type chairs. So last night my poor husband tried to sleep on pillows on a tile floor while Viv and I were on the couch and Conrad was on a cushion of 3 towels folded in half. And then poor husband had to get up and go to work this morning. This is a level of rustic I did not plan for when I was choosing carefully what to include in my 7-suitcase allotment for the trip over! Thank goodness I did at least include the awesome flannel blankets my dear friend Moe made for each of the kids. Auntie Moe, I was blessing you last night as I curled up with Viv under hers!

So here we are, 3 days later and late Friday afternoon, no less, the Landlord’s contractor has told us (okay, he told me through the Management Office’s translator) that the motherboard and compressor on the system are shot and need to be replaced. Well some things are simply universal and I don’t think much of anything really gets done late on a Friday no matter where you are in the world. We are considering checking into a hotel for the weekend, managed to find one in Shanghai that is pet friendly (Aunt Linda we need you!!!) but the story gets even better: they turned the power off while they were here 2 hours ago to look at the system and for whatever reason could not/would not turn it back on when they left. So the Management Office guy told me he would get one of the handymen on site to come turn it back on (I am a bit baffled that he cannot simply flip the breaker himself? He was part of the team that turned it off originally. But if he’s not willing to do it, I’m sure certainly not!) In the meantime it is nearly dark and I have no lights and now not even my beloved floor heat!! How do you entertain toddlers in the dark? Again, candles aren’t something that I felt the need to make room for in my suitcases! And to top it off, I haven’t got a phone number for the office because there is a closed circuit phone system for tenants to use to call the Office from their houses, but guess what? No power, no phone! Help!!

Thankfully my dear husband has the direct number for one of the head guys and he has called on my behalf: the cavalry is on its way! But this whole endeavor has been so enlightening for me on so many levels. It has sort of been a crash course in Chinese crisis management/customer service and I have formed a lot of impressions. It will be interesting over the course of the next 2 years to see how well this westerner's first impressions stand up. The first, and most significant to me, seems to be a derivative of the Chinese cultural aspect of saving-face. I feel like I am always told what I want to hear, or am simply given no answer at all, so that the people who cannot fix the problem or cannot answer the question are not made to look bad. And it is infuriating and fosters in me a sense of distrust of the people as a whole. It leaves me feeling that honesty is not highly valued. In my head I believe that is probably not a true statement but I cannot reconcile the 2 concepts: saving face through avoidance vs. telling the truth. If you choose not to answer my question at all, how is that not dishonesty? How is there shame in not being able to fix my heat?
The second is the issue of customer service, or lack thereof. I mean, think about it: a communist country really doesn’t need customer service, does it? Recent conversations with a number of different people about the ways in which the Chinese are creeping up in rankings against the countries of the “first world” have left me watching closely how things work here to see if the fears of China taking over the world are as valid as some fear. I truly believe though that as the world gets smaller, more industrialized, and more people have money to spend, customer service will become more important, not less. And although Capitalism IS alive and well and living in Communist China, my recent experiences have drawn me to conclude that the Chinese mindset leaves China with a long way to go before it will be a world player on that stage. Certainly not a scientific study by any means, arguably more opinion than anything else, but it will be interesting to see, as I said, how these first impressions evolve over the rest of our stay here.
At the moment, however, I am more concerned with the impression of my freezing fingers. Heinz is going to stop on his way home and pick up a space heater or two. After being a prisoner of the house for 3 days with 2 rambunctious toddlers, I couldn’t abide the idea of us all being cooped up in one room in a hotel all weekend. Hmm, on second thought maybe I jumped the gun because if I had taken door number one, I would not have had to cook all weekend! Oh well, there is always Sherpas….

Buy local

So I’ve been trying to think of grocery shopping as “An Adventure!” (caps and punctuation intended) instead of as the real beating that it seems to be too often (sometimes literally; you should see how these people elbow each other out of the way just to get their fruit and veggies weighed and priced in the produce section! I need hockey pads! Just kidding. Sort of. But let’s be honest: grocery shopping is a beating no matter where you are when you have two whiny toddlers in tow!). But today in particular I had one of those “I cannot believe how complicated this has to be” moments while shopping. I braved the frozen food section in the grocery store (a Carrefour, a French retailer that is like a SuperTarget or a Meijer; we shopped a lot at the ones in Kuala Lumpur) and I found something that I think is pork-stuffed dumplings, based on the picture on the package. The only English on the package says “Freezing for Fresh” and “Chives-Prok Vareniki”. So I’m hoping the “prok” is just a typo and not some Indian dish with which I am unfamiliar that actually means chicken feet, or pig eyeballs or something. But I was excited to find the dumplings, thinking “We like these and they will be easy enough to prepare with the limited utensils that I currently have in my kitchen. But we’ll need some soy sauce to go with them.” I was headed to the aisle where I thought I would find the oils and sauces and just had to laugh when it occurred to me that there might not be any English on the bottles. How will I know what to choose? As the default solution came to me, “When in doubt, buy the imported version”, I had to laugh out loud: I am standing in a grocery store in China and am contemplating buying the imported version of soy sauce? I think it’s time to break out of the bubble, Jack!


The good news is that there were a few brands that had enough English on the labels that I was even able to find a low sodium version! (At least I think it is…) And to boot I found a bottle of some black pepper sauce that sounds really interesting and I am looking forward to trying that out. A reward for my willingness to be intrepid! Now I just need to brave the rice cooker that came with the house… which I guess would mean braving the rice aisle at the store as well.

It’s funny though how you come to rely on certain conventions. For instance green on the coffee packaging always means decaf, right? Grab the green one. (I think the blue labels here are decaf, at least on the Nescafe, but can’t be sure so I guess if after a few days of the blue stuff I’m bouncing off the walls and up all night I will know my assumption was wrong!) Well, now that I have my purchase home I realize that there is no English on the label of the bottle of soy-sauce that I bought. But it’s green, and green means the low-sodium version in the states. Did I actually read that on the label of the larger bottle in the store, or did I subconsciously grab that one because it’s what I would have bought back home? Things that make you go “hmmm”. I guess soy-sauce is soy sauce; quit over thinking everything? Is it obvious to you all yet that I haven't got enough to occupy my mind these days?...

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. Best wishes for a happy, prosperous and peaceful 2011.

One Week in China

(Foreword: Yes, we have been here more than a week, but apparently the site I use to Blog is blocked by the "Great (Fire) Wall”. Tech savvy as I am not, it has taken me awhile to understand the proxy set up, but thanks to my wonderful husband we have finally tunneled in and can join the rest of the world on the entire world wide web! Looking forward to reporting in on a regular basis. Love to you all~) 

Hi Everyone,

When it first became clear that we would be moving longer term to China, not KL, I thought “Well, I guess I’ll have to change the name of the blog!” But actually I see this as an extension of the original adventure to Malaysia so I guess I can let the name stand (and then I can avoid the logistics and technical issues of assigning it a new address!) Hard to believe we’ve been here a whole week already, so I thought now might be a good time to send an update.

Simply getting everyone to check-in at O’Hare seemed to be the most complicated part of this journey. Having sold both cars before we left Indy, we already had 1 rental car and fearing that we would not fit all of our luggage, us, the car seats and Barney in his crate into one vehicle, we had 2 for the drive to Chicago and the airport. But then came the fun of trying to get the cars returned to Avis, but all of the luggage, car seats, kids and Barney to Check-in in time for an 8 am check-in for a 10 am flight. Couldn’t exactly see us putting Barney’s crate on the rental car shuttle. It took a bit of round-robin with cell-phone lots and shuttles and me hanging out in the terminal with the kids while Heinz returned the second car, but at least that gave me the opportunity to pack the last car seat in the warmth of the terminal; it was bitter cold, windy and rainy and I had to have poor Viv with me at the car return while I stood beside the car and packed her seat. For me, that is the worst part of modern travel, the logistics of the car seat!  But we made it in time, got Barney checked in, handed him off to the airlines and made our way to the gate.

I’m still so grateful that this trip was only one plane. Those 3-plane trips to Malaysia were a real beating. We had 1 window seat, which was a lot of fun for Conrad and he and Heinz actually saw Barney get loaded onto the plane. I sat behind them, holding Viv. Thankfully there were empty seats on the plane and the attendant was able to move the older gentleman next to us up a few rows (he spoke no Mandarin, only Cantonese so they had to find a crew member who did as well) so Viv had her own seat. I was so grateful! These days my Restless Leg really plagues me on these trips, especially because at that point I was already pretty sleep deprived and fatigue always exacerbates the condition. So anyway, the 14 hour flight was pretty uneventful; we all fell asleep right away and the kids stayed asleep for at least about 5 hours. The flight was pretty smooth, those big planes usually are but both Heinz and I could not stop thinking about poor Barney the whole time, wondering how he was doing, what he must have been thinking about the whole thing.

We arrived at about 2 in the afternoon, local time, 1 in the morning Indy time. The agent we hired to help us through the quarantine process had already collected Barney and met us with him at baggage claim. He seemed none the worse for wear, a little wide eyed, but if he could speak to me I think he would have said “What the hell was that?? I am not looking at you; I am not looking at you. I am so mad at you; I am not looking at you!” But we were able to spend a few minutes with him at the quarantine office and it really was sad when we had to say good bye to him again. He looked at us as if to say “Are you kidding me? You’re leaving me again???” 

We collected our bags and met our driver, Bian, who started driving for Heinz when he was here last month, and headed home. I had seen a similar house to ours on our recon mission last August so I pretty much knew what to expect. It’s a 3 bed, 3 ½ bath, study and once our stuff arrives, I will be able to download some pictures, as the cable to link my camera with the computer accidentally got packed with the stuff the movers took. Oh well, so far it seems as if that is the only critical thing that got put in the wrong pile. (Unless you ask Conrad about some of the toys he is missing!) And speaking of our stuff, it should arrive in 30-60 days. In the meantime we are living with a few pieces of rented furniture and only what we could fit in our suitcases, including boots, snowsuits and some Christmas things. It’s like a very un-fun version of camping. The thing I am missing the most is storage solutions. At the moment too many things are just sort of piled in corners because we haven’t got the furniture, or bins or shelves to corral them, but certainly won’t buy more as ours will be here soon enough (but not soon enough, if you know what I mean!) So we make do. (Aunt Vickie and Uncle Norm, I think of you SOOO often, and all of the travel you did over the years!)

Having a driver is definitely a luxury I can get used to! One of my biggest problems adjusting to life in Malaysia was that I-am-a-prisoner-in-my-own-home feeling I got from not having the courage right away to drive on the other side and not knowing where to go, anyway. But the kids and I have already gotten out quite a bit. We went to Ikea! Having never actually been to one of their stores, that was great fun for me, especially with my current, nagging, storage-solutions envy! And I found a music class for expat kids and made a friend already! That is the beauty of the expat community, I think: everyone is so quick to say “Come to our house and play; call me anytime.” We’re all in this together. The woman who runs the class is Swedish and her husband is Swiss, so that was an immediate bond for us. It will be a bit difficult at this time of year to find fun activities for the kids because most expat-centered activities are shutting down for a Christmas break but there are also an aquarium, a zoo and a few other places that look like interesting ways to pass a day with the kids. And with a driver, I can get to them so easily! I already feel miles ahead of where I was for the first few months in Malaysia.

I still have not yet made any progress with my Mandarin skills. Conrad already knows more words than I do: I know 2, he knows 3! Which is how many Heinz knows! But the kids have found a Chinese cartoon channel to watch. They’ll be fluent before I know it! (Yes, I’m joking.)We’ll have to find a babysitting solution before I can reasonably pursue lessons. Working on that.

We’ve checked out most of the grocery stores that stock western goods. The selections aren’t too bad but until I can start reading labels, I think we will go broke on groceries! The imported stuff is so expensive! Shortly before we left Indy, I read an article on literacy in Indiana that talked about the plight of the illiterate, citing the possibility of buying a can of Crisco, thinking it is cookies, and being shocked to get home, open it and find it full of lard! Well, that is me at this stage, really. I’m not even comfortable buying things based on the pictures on the package. It’s frustrating but it does give me a place to focus my energies when I start language lessons, I guess. I am still so overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the characters. And I guess it also gives me a good excuse to order delivery! There is a great service called Sherpas, served by about 40 restaurants; call one number and tell them which restaurant, which items and it’s delivered to your door! The leasing agent had given us their catalog when we were here in August and we’ve done it twice already and the food has been pretty good. And no dishes to wash! Especially since the dishwasher doesn’t seem to work. Or else we just don’t know how to make it work, since it’s naturally all in Chinese. Like the washing machine. Heinz asked me if I had figured out how to use it and I said “Well, I just turn it on and hope for the best.” And he said “So? That’s how I’ve been doing laundry for years!” Men. Our option for learning how to use the equipment in the house is to take a picture of the control panel, e-mail it to the agent and have her translate it for us. Too bad the camera cable is packed…

So Barney arrived home yesterday from his 7 day quarantine. He seems perfectly fine, he isn’t even smelly, and Heinz and I laughed because the agent said he had received 2 walks a day. When he saw us he probably thought “well, here we go again, the people who never walk me!” (When we were in KL our house sitters positively spoiled him with multiple walks a day, mostly to the local dog bakery. The big joke was that when we returned from KL, I thought he would be so happy to see his family again but I swear he would have said “not you people! I want to be with the people who treat me like an only child again!”) It’s going to be quite hard on him because he’s still basically under house arrest for 23 days. And we’re still not exactly sure what the requirements are for the home quarantine, simply the directions “do not meet other dogs.” There’s also a license issue that we need to be sure we understand (something about them only issuing so many a year, and not issuing any more this year?) Even when we can get out it will be a bit difficult to walk him to the degree that we did in Indy (when we were able!), our neighborhood outside the compound at first glance doesn’t exactly seem to invite a pedestrian stroll, but we’ll figure it out. I’ve seen 2 golden retrievers and one Mastiff in the neighborhood so maybe we can have playdates with some of those dogs here eventually. He definitely misses his buddies from the ‘hood back home! One thing he will definitely learn to love, I think, is the heated floor we have in the living room. Even I want to lie down there sometimes as it starts to get colder! In the meantime I am trying to teach him to relieve himself in only one part of the yard. Wish me luck with that!

Regarding the heated floor, Viv has sure gotten to like it. The other day we were up in the kids’ room and she needed her diaper changed so I was going to do it up there but she said no and pointed downstairs. Okay, so we went downstairs and I went into the dining room, where I keep the downstairs diaper stash and I turned around and she was waiting, spread-eagle on the living room floor!

Yesterday we also had our required physical exams as part of our entry into the country. Only Heinz and I had to do it, which was a relief after all the craziness with Viv’s swollen lymph node before we left and the wonder that it was going to cause problems if she had to have an entrance exam, too.  (BTW, all of her tests have come back negative and I actually think it is starting to shrink on it's own.) It’s quite an efficient set-up. There is a sign-in station, and then about 8 other stations where they check all vitals, eyesight, draw blood, do a thoracic x-ray and a thoracic sonogram. It was during the sonogram that the tech said “blah, blah, blah, gallstone, blah, blah, blah.” So apparently I have an asymptomatic gallstone. Hereditary? What d’you think, Mom? It will be interesting to see if we actually get a report back with health details or just a certificate that says we can stay in the country because we’ve been deemed healthy enough. Does one get kicked out of China for gallstones? Will keep you posted on that too. Might need a place to stay for 2 years if I do get denied!

So we’re settling in and finding our stride. We’ve had some bad days and some good. It’s a big city and has all the issues that go along with big city life: personal bubbles, also a very American concept, are not widely regarded here; queues are not widely adhered to, and the shopping carts have those funky wheels that turn every which way, making it a real challenge to push straight. Shopping is an adventure. But a woman with a stroller, 2 kids and a number of grocery bags is a universal symbol of distress, I think, and countless people have been more than willing to help us through some tight spots, finding a table in a crowded cafeteria, getting out through shopping turnstiles designed to keep the shopping carts in. I found this list on one of the expat sites and am trying to internalize it with varying degrees of success each day:

1 - Retain your sense of humour
2 - Remember that most people are basically good, and actually do want to help you. (Their idea of "help" may differ vastly from yours however, which is why (1) is so important.)
3 - It is better to be honest and open with people and be surprised if this is not returned, than to believe the worst and have your suspicions confirmed.
4 - Try everything available, within reason. Although possibly not stinky tofu.
5 - We all have 'bad China days'. The good news is they pass and there are some pretty damn good days as well. Try not to lose sight of that. 

Most of those points are applicable to anyone at anytime in any culture, but particularly relevant for me here and now.

We miss you all and think of you often, sending all of our love and best wishes to you from halfway around the world.