Daily Picture Grade 4 - Day 154

My new table, chairs, and benches arrived yesterday. And that is the "orange" buffet in the background. No one is allowed to eat or touch anything in the dining room for now. I am overall pleased though the fabric on the chairs seems bluer than I was expecting. Especially in this picture today. More pictures later when I get a chance to get organized. Though I fear that is not going to happen until the movers come to take everything away!

"Breaking in the NEW TABLE"

In Nothing We Trust

Tom made it back ok yesterday! We unloaded his suitcases, which contained a few treats for all of us. American girl gifts for Natalie (thanks Gammaw), new Nine West boots for me (thanks, errr, well, thanks Visa), some Halloween candy including candy corn, and cycling shoes for Tom. Plus bounce, Neosporin, 12 boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and other daily necessities. Of course if you have seen Tom's Facebook comment, his mega size bottle of Shout was confiscated at the Dayton airport. Apparently it can be used as an explosive device. Basically they are saying that Shout is like carrying gasoline in your luggage.

Unpacking made me reflect a bit on life as an expat. Specifically our way of accumulating "stock" items which we deem critical to survival! In the US, I used to get excited about receiving a gift of Argentinian wine occasionally (thanks Jorge!) or French wine (thanks David!). If we travelled to St. Martin, we'd bring back a bottle of flavored rum. When visiting Florida, we always returned with shells. Oh, and the wine I had shipped from Napa? When we travelled, we bought tokens of our trip, not commodities. None of which were deemed critical to my survival. But somehow our survival skills kicked in when it came to the idea of a partially empty suitcase traveling through the myriad of security checks on it's way back to China. Doesn't seem to matter where we are traveling from, as long as it isn't China. Now when traveling to Thailand we load up on Tiger Balm and Skeetolene mosquito repellent. In Singapore, there's a store where I can buy WD40, a Gap, and an organic Grocery store. In Hong Kong, we spend hours looking in the bookstores at children books (bookstores are 90% English. thank you British Empire...). The funny thing is, a lot of what we buy, bring back, and hoard, can be found in China. But we have all learned to assume there is a bit of "fakeness" in everything. At least we assume there is a potential for cheating. So, we source from other locations.

Why is this interesting? This concept of ensuring that your family has everything it needs to survive did not manifest due to some health issue or lack of food to eat. It arose from the concept of an empty suitcase and the knowledge that you CAN bring back 7 boxes of Apple Jacks and 2 jars of Peanut butter. I believe it is rooted in the real need to retain some sort of connection back to the culture that most of us feel we have abandoned. Heck, most Americans can't verbally define our cultural when pressed for it. It has always been hard to describe our American culture to someone who is not American. Connecting to this elusive set of American values and sophisticated society through the ability to locate, procure, and obtain breakfast cereal is a uniquely American cultural identity. That identity is wrapped up in the idea of "trust". The concept that Americans are not very trusting. This value seems to be even more obvious here in China where we are living in a society that is built on a strong net if implicit trust. The whole concept of Guanxi requires a high level of trust. The Chinese friends we have trust us for who we are and what we might be able to bring to the the relationship. I believe that those of us who have been here a while, learned to accept this behavior and some people even thrive in it. I feel our family has adapted in in many cases are in fact thriving. I rarely feel the need to immediately pay back debts. Though this may be more rooted in my "frugality" values ( think this sounds nicer than calling me a cheapskate"), I'd like to believe is due in part to my adaptation to another culture. However, this transformation goes out the window when we are putting together our U.S. Shopping list.

So while our experience here has afforded us some Level of cultural adoption, it is clear that commodity hoarding is not something that most American expatriates will be giving up soon.It's just a matter of time before one of us shows up on A&E's Hoarders. The up side to this is that most trailing spouses are fully equipped to land a great job in Supply Chain Management upon return to the land of Cheap Cereal!

Hong Kong Trip, or Was it???

This past weekend was the last weekend before Tom came home. So I had planned to take a little vacation to Hong Kong with my friend here. Sort of a Shanghai Girl's trip. Kathy M, Angie, Deb, Raquel, Rebecca, Karen, and I all were looking forward to shopping, eating, and maybe more shopping. But, we forgot to plan on the unplanned. Tropical Storm Nuri. It blew through on Friday afternoon. Three of us (Raquel, Rebecca, Karen) took an early flight Friday morning. They successfully left at 8:40. Unfortunately that was the last flight out that. Boo Hoo. And in fact it took most of the afternoon to figure out if we could even get there on Saturday. But we were able to rebook for Saturday morning at 9:45. We four got on our flight and headed out. All was looking good until the pilot came on and said that Hong Kong was currently overwhelmed with flights and that our flight would have to wait a bit until we could receive clearance to land. After 45 minutes, he came back on and said there might be a chance that we would be diverted to Xiamen (an hour and half away). And another 45 minutes later he said we would in fact land in Xiamen for fuel. It was supposed to be about a two and half hour flight. At this point, it had already been 4 hours. We did land in Xiamen, fueled, and then the pilot again informed us that we had not received clearance from Xiamen Customs. I guess they thought we had smuggled a bunch of HK migrant on or something. We were almost 3 hours delayed on the ground in Xiamen. Then we took off and landed in HK about 3 hours later. We basically were on the plane for the same amount of time as it would take to fly from Tokyo to Minneapolis, US. And none of were prepared for that long of a flight. But we did entertained ourselves with hangman and drawing pictures.

After we finally got to Hong Kong, it was 8:30. And there were huge lines at immigration. We had originally made plans to join up with the other girls at the Felix at the Paramount hotel, but we were all wiped out and decided to just head to the restaurant in the hotel. We stayed at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, on the island, near Happy Valley Race Course. After eating, a few of us headed to Lan Kwai Fong, which is on the island as well. I felt pretty old. It was sort of like going to Mardi-gras. There were several blocks of restaurants and bars. Open containers and people walking around with drinks. And the girls all seemed so young and vastly under dressed. We didn't get back to the hotel until after 1 a.m. What a long day...

Sunday, some of us headed to the Peak. The weather, believe it or not, was great. Hong Kong is so much cleaner the other big cities we have been to in Asia. It is nice to be able to breathe. The Peak is at the top of a mountain and has a tram that goes up and down. The views were great. Then to shopping at Times Square. That was nice as there was a huge English bookstore. Nice to shop with such a nice selection. Finally to lunch at the big IFC Mall where the Central station is. You can check in to your flight there, check your bags, and then go back to shopping.

All in all, a nice getaway. If we had not had the logistics issues, it might have been perfect.

Summer Update

Natalie had summer camp this past week and I am a little embarrassed to report that the break was sorely needed! I think you have to know your limits and while I love being at home with my daughter, it leaves me little time to focus on my own adjustment here in Shanghai. To make it even better, Tom was in India this week, so I cooked what I wanted or ate out if we didn't feel like it. The picture here of Natalie is from the porch at Slice, Natalie and I's favorite resteraunt. So, what did I do with all of that "me" time? Shopped of course! My forays into having custom clothes made at the fabric market left me desiring a simple trip to a store to buy what I wanted. So I headed to the Super Brand Mall (next to to the Pearl Tower) and went to H&M. It is a store, originally established in Sweden, which truly carries western sizes. Sort of like a European Gap. So, I spent $100 US dollars! But I did get two pairs of Capri's, two skirts, and a tank top. Not too bad. I should explain about the bottoms I bought. I know it will be hard for anyone who knows me to believe, but I now own 4 casual skirts and, more surprisingly, I wear them! Outside. Where people can see me. I have found that when I wear my usual shorts here, I attract more attention than I desire. Not because I look so good, but because I look so different. So, I have taken to wearing more "acceptable" clothing such as Capri's and skirts. One thing that has been a benefit of this new style is that I learned how much cooler skirts can be hear during the rainy season. Ya get a nice breeze! Besides the shopping, I did spend some time cooking this week. I blog some recipes separately, but you can check out the new You Tube videos of our Ayi making us Zongzi! How fun!!!

So, enough of me. You are probably wondering how Natalie's camp went. It went a lot better than I thought it would. She was a little "iffy" on the first day, but another girl who knew her from swimming, took her under her wing and she adapted quickly! Of course I am not there during the day, but the teachers assure me she has done well. There are not a lot of younger children at camp, maybe 4-5 her age in the morning, but only 2-3 in the afternoon. Surprisingly, the new friend she talks about the most is Linda, who is 12. She is Asian, but speaks perfect English. She adores Natalie! Linda has a younger sister, but the sister is older than Natalie by a few years. Regardless of what drew them together, the two seem to be pretty inseparable except with they split the older and younger kids for certain activities. They do arts & crafts and a lot of outside sports. One day, Natalie told me her favorite activity was soccer. SURPRISE! She did caveat the statement by telling me that "they only practiced, no game". Natalie last year refused to play in her soccer team's games, though she was perfectly willing to do the drills in practice. For some reason, she doesn't like activities where there is a clear winner and loser. Oh well, I would rather have her that way then the other I guess. She has camp again next week and she is already talking about what they are going to do. So, that has been a success.

For those of you who might be interested, we have booked our flights home for Christmas break. You can check out the calendar here. Natalie and I will be home a month, but Tom can't take as much time. We all fly home December 17 and then Tom heads back on January 4th. Natalie and I are going to be in the States until January 17. Natalie will miss the Christmas parties at school, but we thought that would be no bid deal this year. We already know we will head home for the summer in 2008.

Lookin' for Help Here in Shanghai

Almost 11 days have gone by since our last post! It has either been really busy or really boring. First things first, as you can see in the title, we (OK, really I) have decided that we have to hire some help to keep this house clean. Plus, we really need to find someone who can watch Natalie for an hour or two here and there. So late last week I started the search for an Ayi, which literally translated means "auntie" but is used to refer to domestic help here. This search has introduced the first amount of stress I have had since I got here. We had a cleaning service that came every two weeks, but never anything close to someone coming every day and doing all of our cleaning, laundry, etc. That loss of privacy is the most concerning aspect of this engagement. Many people here hire live-in Ayi's who live in the "Ayi-room" usually in the basement. THAT is definitely not in our future! There are generally Filipino and Chinese Ayi's available. those from the Philippines are typically looking for a live-in situation since it save them money. Chinese on the other hand will typically still live at their own home and have more flexible hours. Of course being the anal person I am, I wrote out a two page document on our expectations on how to clean. Tom was laughing at me, but I believe that some people feel they have trouble with the Chinese cleaning well, but I firmly believe that you just have to take the time to show them what our expectation is. In reality, our western view of how and what to clean is far different from the Chinese. Why would they have the same view of how to go about it when they don't have the same energy as a nation put into the cleaning of our homes, clothes, etc. I said in an earlier blog that I believed that our cleaning products are far superior to the Chinese brands. maybe that is because millions of women spent their youth watching "soap operas" and generally learning that CLEAN IS GOOD. Think about how many different brands of floor cleaners you have to chose from when you go to the grocery. Cleaning your home definitely falls higher in Maslow's Need Hierarchy as opposed to home and food! Anyway, I guess that is how I am justifying hiring help to meet one of my needs that is clearly a higher level than they normally prioritize their needs at. This level of philosophical self justification would make Nietzsche proud. Anyway, more to come on this topic!

Tom had a NCAA game pool this year, but the only participants were Tom, me, and Natalie! Natalie picked all of hers by color of the team. The crazy thing was that she was in first place until Purdue got beat in their 2nd game against Kansas! She picked Purdue to go all the way, which was better than Tom or I picked them. We are able to hear the games on the NCAA March Madness site. Not quite as nice as seeing the game on TV, but it works out OK. We also were able to hear the Women on Yahoo Sports. So being able to hear the games has softened the mileage between China and the U.S. though there is just nothing you can do about the 12 hour time difference. Tom was up this morning (Monday) at 3:45 a.m. listening to the Purdue game. Too bad on that one, at least Purdue gave them a good fight.

We had to buy a new vacuum this weekend. The one that was here when we moved in was not working correctly. So, we went to a Friendship department store in Hong Qiao to find a more 'western' option than was available at Carrefour. By 'western' that usually means Philips. Occasionally you see other home appliance brands such as T-Fal and KitchenAid but not that often and usually just one style. We ended up spending $350 on a vacuum! Geesh. And it doesn't even really have a rolling head on the front, just a brush that you have to push. I am not sure we should have spent as much, but oh well. It works! The store was running a special where they gave you back coupons depending on how much you spent. It took the sales girl, whose English was limited, 5 minutes to find somehow to explain how much the vacuum was really going to cost once we got our coupons back. She gave us a receipt for the vacuum which we took to the central cashier (one on each floor). We made our payment there and then she gave us a receipt to take to the coupon counter, which was one floor down. At this point, we did not have our vacuum in our possession. But, we figured there was some process we needed to go through to pick it up, so we were not too worried yet. I went down to the coupon table and they wrote down numbers into a ledger and counted out coupons worth 400 RMB (about $50). Then I had to sign my name next to the amount in the ledger. They gave me a receipt for the coupons which I took back to the cashier. She then gave us the receipt for the vacuum. But, we still didn't have the vacuum. We quickly asked her where to go, and she looked puzzled and pointed us back to the sales area where we picked out the vacuum. So, I took the receipt back and another girl took the receipt and placed it in a box. She pointed down the hall and went back to her station. I was starting to walk where she pointed when I finally saw the original sales girl coming down the aisle lugging a box. Our vacuum. She gave us a receipt and that was that. Except that now we had 400 RMB in coupons that needed to be used up. Natalie got a toy, Tom bought some power converters. We still have a 100 RMB Coupon, and we are not sure if it was only good that day or what. So I guess really the vacuum was only $300, that doesn't make me feel better. Besides, if I get my way, I won't be using it anyway! Weird....

First Full Week: Cleaning, Sleeping and Cooking

It is hard to believe that a week has gone by already. I was sitting this morning and thinking about how much our lives have changed in the past two months. This last week, for me at least, was the first time our new life really hit home. Up until I got here in Shanghai, I was so busy with the relocation details, it just felt like work! Everyone has asked me how I feel now that I am here, and until this morning, it was hard to define anything as very different. But now I know why Tom and I felt this was such a good opportunity for us. I feel like a totally different person in a lot of ways. Most of my daily life is now spent doing things I have never really had to have as a priority. And that feels very refreshing to me. Most of you know that a part of what drove us to this opportunity decision was to help keep me from burning out on my own career. Both Tom and I are driven by our careers, but I sometimes have a harder time separating the job from family. And with Natalie now, that seemed even harder to balance. So for everyone who is interested, after the first week at least, I truly feel this change is going to meet, and possibly exceed my expectations for what we wanted to accomplish as a family.

OK, enough about feelings! What I have really been spending my time doing is CLEANING and SLEEPING. Neither one is a past favorite of mine, but it does seem to be all I do. I also realized that this house is huge. I have only been to the top floor three times in the week I have been here. I noticed on the first day that Natalie's white socks were totally black by the end of the evening. Tom said you have to wear slippers or that is what happens. So, I started by scrubbing (with a brush, on my hands and knees, thank you very much) the kitchen and entry tiles. When you wake up at 2:00 am you have lots of extra time! Natalie was up too, so I figured what the hell, and I gave her a scrub brush too! So together we scrubbed dirt that seemed to have been here since the place was built. On a side note, this place was vacant quite a while, so that explains some of the accumulated dust. Observation #1: Cleaning supplies are not the same quality in China! I found this out pretty quickly trying to clean the floors with the bottle of Mr. Muscle Floor Cleaner. I wish I had a packed a bottle of Mr. Clean (hmmmm... think that Mr. Muscle was an imitation????). As I was on my knees scrubbing around the hand-made island that I love, I realized that they had built and stained the island in the kitchen and there was stain from that effort left all around the tile! Instead of wiping it up, they left it and it permanently colored the floor. That is so typical of some of the workmanship. I believe a lot has to with how fast some of this housing for expatriates (foreigners living and working in Shanghai) is having to go up. I saw in the local paper yesterday that Shanghai is planning on attracting another 20,000 expats over the next five years. Over the next few days, I ended up scrubbing the tile floors of the main rooms we use. But, I still have two bathrooms and the patios to get to. Besides the tile, we have lots of beautiful wooden floors. But let me explain about the dust here, it is everywhere and you cannot keep up! I swear, I can dust and by the end of the day, I see dust. So to be honest, I have been having Natalie use the big duster! She thinks she is helping (well, she is a little) and it keeps her busy. After the floors I have to move on to the baths, counters, drawers, etc. Whew. I know it sounds crazy, but I have always enjoyed that kind of cleaning. the deep cleaning I mean. What I hate is the dusting and toilet cleaning! Guess I better learn to like it or hire an Ayi - that is someone to help! I can see why people hire someone to help them with this stuff.

Besides cleaning, I have been sleeping. At the beginning of the week, I was waking up at 1am, then 2am, now 5am. Hopefully I will get to 7am soon! But, this past Tuesday I took a nap and it was one of those wonderful naps that you wake up and feel totally refreshed! That is when I started to sleeping to 5. Natalie was also waking up at 1 and 2! But now she is taking 4 hour naps and sleeping till 7am. So, I will say she has adjusted!

I went to the grocery story by myself on Wednesday night. So far, our trips to the grocery have resulted in interesting finds! I cannot find any tofu, but found cheddar cheese (that cost $4.50 for half a pound). There are hundreds of soy sauces. I tried to buy some vinegar, and I realized there are as many styles of that as there are soy sauces. China has many different regional cooking styles, just like the US. In Shanghai, the style usually includes lots of fresh seafood. You see a lot of pork but not a lot of chicken. Well, you do see a lot of chicken feet and pickled eggs. I was able to buy chicken breast, but haven't cooked it yet. A part of my goal here is to learn how to cook real Chinese. My plan is to take a class, but in the interim, I am really excited about experimenting with what I find at the market and can cook so that Natalie will at least try it. I plan on writing down some of the recipes and maybe will share with other intrepid expatriates who are hesitant to try to cook. I made my first "meal" on Monday. The pork I bought to prepare, which I think was pork loin, was delicious. I don't have much of a pantry, but that is what is makes it fun. I simply cut into strips and marinated in soy, garlic, and sesame oil. Then quickly stir-fried in a little olive oil. Oh, I forgot to add that the oil situation is interesting. Mostly corn oil is used in the cooking here, and it is sold in huge gallon containers. I opted to go the more healthy olive oil route and had to pay $10 for 16 oz. of a run-of-the-mill brand. And that was all I did. I had cilantro, but wasn't sure how to clean it, so I left it out. I served with plain "sticky rice" (it was actually pearl rice). Both Tom and Natalie liked so I take that as a win. You certainly can eat a lot healthier here. Last night I ventured into the soup realm with pork dumplings in a chicken soup. I added frozen mixed veggies. Again, simple, but pretty filling. Natalie wouldn't eat the dumplings, she said they tasted like spinach! Right. She eats rice and I usually make her a side of half a peanut butter sandwich which she can have AFTER she tries the new stuff. We stick to bananas and oranges for fruit right now. The bananas are imported, but cheap, and the oranges which are Chinese, are actually sweeter than home. They are much riper and juicier. You cannot find berries though. Well, you can buy some sad looking strawberries, but that's it. No frozen fruit either.

Well, I guess that pretty much sums up the first week. Today we are going to get our paperwork for our residence permits. Then we are going to go buy a bike with a child seat on it. Walking the 1/2 mile to the stores is healthy, but Nat's little legs get pretty tired by the time we head back. I have posted a picture of her this morning. I will post more about our other aspects of life later!