Volunteering at Livi's school & first Ayi babysitting

After the high of finding Gigi a preschool, I had a rude awakening at the first “class moms” meeting I had at Olivia’s school. A note came home asking for parents who wanted to be involved in the Pre-K class. So I had two new experiences at once. The first was leaving Gigi with Ayi for the first time. Whenever I am around she refuses to let Ayi hold her or even come near her, so I didn’t imagine this was going to go well. When I told Gigi I was going to a meeting at Olivia’s school during her naptime and Ayi would stay with her, she objected, loudly, but it had to happen sometime. She went down for her nap and I took a taxi to the school, which is about 25 minutes away, or 45 minutes if it’s pouring rain like it is today. Anyway, a ~30 minute taxi ride for $6 USD. Not bad!
The second experience was the "class moms" meeting. There were 6 moms meeting with Ms. Katie, Olivia’s pre-K 4 teacher.
Ms. Katie printed up a little agenda to talk about what kind of help she wanted/needed in the classroom, which as a recovering Intel person, I totally appreciated. But then 3 of the moms just launched into what they had done in previous years and started talking about all this stuff that was totally foreign to me. For instance, what exactly is a “room mom” and what are the responsibilities? After 5 minutes of discussing if the room mom should be one person or several people, I had to give up and say “what IS a room mom?” Wow, did that get the looks from the other moms. So much so that I felt compelled to say “Well, I’ve only been here 3 weeks and this is our first year at this school, so I need a little information.” At this point the ladies attempted to explain what a room mom was, but digressed back into how fun the cultural parties were last year. Luckily Ms. Katie stepped in and explained it so I was less lost.
As the conversation progressed, two things became clear: 1) These 3 women have older kids in the school and have had Ms. Katie as their children’s teacher before, and 2) they are not the kind of ex-pats I’ve run into so far who go out of their way to explain how things work. Luckily, Jessica (aka Robert’s mom) arrived late and came in and asked a few questions, making it obvious that this was her family’s first year at the school as well. I felt instant kinship for her and think we may have inadvertently just formed our own clique. And, you might be wondering, what about the 6th mom? Well, she was also first time student at the school, and is from America but does not speak very good English. I had a really hard time understanding her, but I did finally get that her name is Tiger. She was silent during the entire meeting, so we’ll have to see where she ends up on the mom spectrum. Hmmm.
So the amount of time that the parents are expected to be in the classroom is pretty amazing. There is reading time, scribing time (for journals and artwork), cultural learning lessons, arts & crafts, and holiday parties. It seemed clear that the expectation was 3-4 hours in the classroom each week for each mom. I was blown away, but then again, I’ve never done this before! The 3 moms from the clique all live in the housing compound that the school is within, so they can obviously pop over to the school anytime. Jessica and I both live ~30 minutes away so we’ll have to strategize on when and how to get to school for all this volunteering.
One of the things that I was most looking forward to about coming to China and not working was the chance to get involved in the schools. Now I find that I am totally intimidated by these moms! Although I do have one thing going for me, and that’s how I took notes during this meeting (once a program manager, always a program manager!) Ms. Katie looked at my notes at the end of the meeting and took them off and made copies for all the other moms. Guess I did something right!

Anyway, Jessica and I volunteered for the project to have 16 pillows made for all the students for rest-time. This means we’re headed to the fabric market! I will be absolutely no help in this endeavor since I have a total of 10 Chinese words, but Jessica says she has been to the fabric market a lot and I’ve been wanting to go there, so I basically jumped on her wagon (or minivan as the case may be).
Everyone says the fabric market is quite extraordinary, and is also the place where you can get any type of clothing made. Shanghai is known for its excellent tailors. I doubt the really good ones hang out at the fabric market, but I think if I can just find some pretty good ones, that will do for the kind of clothes I want to have made at first.
It seems that I might want to have a couple dresses or skirts made. Jessica warned me that if I plan to get involved with the American Women’s Club Shanghai, I should be ready to wear my high heels and dress clothes, and be sure to wear my best jewelry. Her assessment was that it was a bunch of women socializing and comparing the kind of ex-pat deal they got and establishing how well-off they were. I am really hoping that Jessica’s assessment is a off because it looks from their website like the AWCS has a ton of activities (tours, lectures, classes, etc) that I would like to take advantage of. And I really really don’t want to get caught up in some kind of materialistic show & tell with a bunch of other women. What I want is a network of people who are like-minded and interested in learning and seeing Shanghai and China. We’ll see I guess.

When I got home, Gigi and Ayi were in the Clubhouse playroom having a great time. Clearly she is happy with Ayi when I’m not around. So my afternoon was a mixed bag, good that Gigi can happily stay with Ayi, and bad that I’m intimidated by a bunch of moms I’ve never met before today.

Oh my goodness, I almost forgot to tell you how incredible it is to have a fulltime ayi who is also a good cook!!! Xiao Chen starting working on Monday and has cooked for us the last two nights, and it’s positively yummy. Her stir fry is very good, and she can just seemingly throw stuff together from my refrigerator and have it come out tasting great. I actually enjoy vegetables when cooked this way!!! And another great thing is that she cooks normal-people portions, not the American super-size portions. If we’re still hungry at the end of the meal, we could always fill up on rice, which is typically what Chinese do. Actually, portion size is great everywhere here. There are smaller Snickers bars, and miniature bags of Skittles. It’s a blessing to buy something and not think “OK, half of this would be normal, so I’ll buy it and put half away for another time.” Because I never do that, my will-power is non-existent. I like having smaller portion sizes imposed on me! But having someone to cook for you is everything it’s cracked up to be. If I ever win the lottery in the US, I’m hiring a cook. Although, I guess I could argue that we did win the lottery when we took this deal to live in China.

One last quick story before I go tonight: Many of you know my “man-size plate” dilemma. We have plates in the US that we got at Pottery Barn, and these plates are huge (basically the size of chargers). At our first apartment they didn’t fit in the dishwasher, at our first house they didn’t fit in the cupboards, and at our second house they made it into the dishwasher but still not into the cupboards. When packing for China, I refused to bring these huge plates, reasoning that if they didn’t fit in a cupboard in the States, they certainly weren’t going to fit into a cupboard in China! So we get here and I make a trip to Ikea to buy a set of dishes. I am very excited about my new dishes and I bring them home and wouldn’t you know it, the dinner plates don’t fit in the dishwasher! I clearly pissed off the plate gods at some point and am being punished for it. Either that or there is some plate size conspiracy that I didn’t get the memo on.

Chinese pre-school & Mandarin

I did it! I found Gigi a Chinese pre-school that she can attend for a very reasonable price. I heard from Melissa, that wonderful woman who gave us her ayi, that there was a Chinese pre-school a few blocks away. I got our driver to take us to the pre-school, and it was definitely more than a 'few blocks' but I went in to visit anyway. I was very impressed with the spaciousness, the cleanliness, and the number of the students vs. number of teachers. And the most amazing of all (for me), the admissions officer I talked to spoke English!!! I was not expecting that at all and was geared up for a really complex game of charades and had my English/Mandarin dictionary with me. But she spoke beautiful English and we are going to put Gigi into the preschool 3 days/week for 3 hours. It should be just the right amount of socialization and language exposure for her. And the right amount of exercise for me! I will have to take her to school on my bike, which I estimate will take me about 30 minutes to get there and 30 minutes back. It'll be fine until it starts raining and gets cold. We'll see how many taxis I end up taking then! Gigi is so excited to start school that she asks me every time we get in the car if we are going to her school. :) This is definitely a good move for us.

So two really exciting things for me in the last few days. I'm biking every day. When Olivia started school last Wednesday I decided that after getting her on the bus, Gigi and I would go for a bike ride for some exercise. The first day I headed out (memorizing every street name as I went by because I'm still totally disoriented here) and got on a very quiet road for about 20 minutes. Then it dead-ended into another road, so I took a right (again memorizing the street name!). Oh My Goodness! This road was a very busy road and I suddenly realized that I was riding on it at rush-hour. Rush-hour applies to cars and bikes alike. All roads in Pudong have a bike lane that is the same width as a regular lane of traffic, and it is totally packed with bikes at that time of the morning. I'm getting better on the bike, but I'm still a bit wobbly if there's anything tricky to navigate. And being in a pack of people and trying not to hit anyone makes me really wobbly! Add to the pack of bikers the electric bikes and the mopeds beep-beeping their way through the pack and you had me totally nervous. (And did I forget to mention that Gigi likes to randomly pull my shirt up from the back?) But I got the hang of it after a few blocks and started to kind of enjoy riding along with the masses. When I realized I needed to turn around, I actually successfully crossed the street at an intersection. But when I got back to the road that I originally turned from, I needed to cross the street twice to get to the opposite corner. Well....in China, there is no sense in going across the street one way, waiting for the light to change and then crossing the other street to get to the opposite corner. Nope! The efficient thing to do is to ride across the intersection at a diagonal, with traffic from two streets having a turn signal at the same time. Riding a bike in China might be one of the few places I would say "just do what everyone else does" is the right thing to do. And my philosophy for getting across this huge intersection diagonally was to get in the middle of the pack and stay with everybody. If you are out in front or lagging behind, you have to fight one-on-one with the cars who are trying to turn. And you do NOT have the right of way as a biker. The only people with less of a right-of-way are pedestrians! I made it across the intersection in the pack without falling down or crying and got back on my quiet street to head home. That was my first day, and every day Gigi and I have taken a ride in a different direction. I'm getting much more savvy at it, but I still look all around me all the time, which shows what a novice I am because you never catch a Chinese person craning their neck around to see if they are about to get hit from behind by someone turning into them!
Here's an odd thing about cars in Shanghai. You never see old clunkers, it seems that all the cars are fairly new (oldest is maybe 8-10 years old). People getting cars in China is really on the rise. We saw a guy pulling out of a station and the seats still had the wrap on them and our driver just shook his head. When I said "new car?", he said "many new drivers in Shanghai now" and gave this big gusty sigh. He has been a driver for 5 years, so I imagine he's seen the good, bad & ugly.
Speaking of our driver, I had my very first real conversation with Daniel. It's a very odd thing sitting in a back seat and having someone drive you around. What kind of relationship are you supposed to have with a driver? Should we try to get to know him or should we keep our distance? We have a mini-van and the kids are in the very back seat, so I sit directly in front of them, which leaves Daniel in front by himself. And his English is pretty limited to things having to do with driving (where we're going, time, fast, slow, etc.) And I don't know how much he really understands, because I think often people can understand more than they can speak. Yet it seems a shame not to try to get to know someone who we end up spending a fair amount of time with. Anyway, I found myself in the car with Daniel without the kids a few days ago. I hopped into the front seat for a change and as we're riding along he asks me where we are from in US. I say "Portland, Oregon" but then have to explain how it's just north of California, which quickly establishes where we are from. California does have its uses for us Oregonians. :) But after that, Daniel and I were able to have a real conversation about various things, even though there were long long pauses and lots of hand gesturing to complete the conversation. I felt somehow that it was a break-through. Maybe we could end up being friends with our driver, maybe he could grow to enjoy our family? Who knows, but I'm hopeful.
As you know, I have been very frustrated with my inability to speak Mandarin and therefore communicate with people around me. Smiling and gesturing only gets you so far. Well, today begins the remedy for this, I hope! I had my very first Mandarin lesson. Sheesh. I can't remember when my brain and mouth worked so hard, and not in the way you think! Seriously, when's the last time I had to really concentrate and try to learn something new? It's been a while. (Not as long as riding a bike, but still a while!). And the sounds that I am expected to make with my mouth are just not possible in some cases! I have no idea how my tutor, Jessie, could sit through this lesson without cracking up. She would pronounce a letter for me, I would hear her, and then I would imitate it. HA! The crazy sounds that came out of my mouth while I tried to imitate!!! Even I was surprised by what came out. I just could not make my mouth make the same sounds that hers did. She went over and over it with me and I eventually started to get some of them. But there are 57 different sounds that I have to figure out. About 75% of them are sounds that we have in English, but the sound does not correlate with the letter like we would think. For example: i in Mandarin sounds like ee in English, and u sounds like oo, and ai sounds like "I" in English. It's maddening to try to remember what the English letters sound like in Mandarin! And that doesn't even touch the other 25% that are sounds that we English speakers can't pronounce. BUT! I learned some new useful phrases and my tutor called me "clever". :) I am totally intimidated about trying to learn this language, but on the other hand, this is pretty much the hobby I've been looking for! I have to stop shopping at some point. :)
Cheers!

Shopping amateur

Well, Gigi and I survived our first day together! Of course, the problem is that I might have created a shopping monster in the meantime. Gigi and I met our friends (Donna and her college-age daughter and roommate who are visiting from the States) and went to the "fake market" this morning. OK, wow. This was not just 20 stalls, this was more like hundreds of stalls of clothes, purses, sunglasses, toys, shoes, and watches. I'm sure there were other things as well, but I quit seeing after a while. I mean, this place was jam-packed with stuff, and all the shopkeepers sitting outside their shops talking/yelling at you as you walk by trying to get your attention. It's a lot to handle! But fortunately, if you are me and you have no ethics you just use your very cute baby and say things like "don't yell, you're scaring her" and they immediately become very nice. They still try to get you to come into their shop, but they do it in a nicer way. They love the babies over here!
But let me tell you, for anyone who knows their purses and sunglasses (which I do not) they would be in heaven here. Even I could tell that some of these knock-offs are really great quality. Some are really cheap, but others are actually real leather. If my friend Shelly is reading this blog, you are going to love this when you come visit. It's better than the designer shoe outlets in Italy a few years ago!
When you go into these shops you look at the bags on the shelves. But if you know what to ask for, they either take you to the row of "good bags" in the back, or they open up the suitcases they have for sale and take out the higher quality bags. And all the good wallets are in the drawers, not on display in the case. It's quite a system and I'm glad that I went with Donna and Tracie, who had spent the entire day there yesterday and figured a bunch of this stuff out!
But, of course, the real "deals" to be had here are by bargaining. And I suck at bargaining. After a few negotiations I just want to tell them what I'm willing to pay and be done with it. But they want to give me their "new friend's price", their "first customer of the day price", or their "pretty lady price". And they keep asking me what's my "maximum" price. Ugh, luckily I am not so attached to any of these bags that I can't walk away. But I did learn the valuable lesson that if I'm interested in more than one thing in the shop, they are willing to bargain a lot more. I never could tell which item they were making the money on though.
Tracie & her friend Stephanie studied magazines on the way over here and knew exactly what they were looking for and what the cool bags and wallets were. And they were super bargainers, I was impressed. In fact Stephanie bargained a woman down on a bag that she decided she didn't want, so I bought! That was clearly my easiest best purchase of the day.
But the reason I say that I might have created a monster with Gigi is that every time we went by a shop with any shoes, she would point to exactly the pair in her size and say "Gigi's shoes". It got so bad that I had to buy her a little Dora purse and let her empty my purse into hers to distract her from the "Gigi shoes". Although I have to admit that the girl has taste, she kept picking out these totally cute pink and white Puma shoes. In the end, she settled for me buying her a pair of Crocs for a whopping $5!
By the way, today was also significant because Ms. Olivia made it to and from school on the bus all by herself today. She arrived home at the appointed time, on the right bus, looking very happy and sweaty. She said her day was great and she talked up a storm about her new teacher.

A dilemma with chicken

So, I 've tried about 6 different grocery stores now and have a fairly good handle on the import section, the meat section and the produce sections at each of these stores. And I definitely have favorite sections, unfortunately they are all at different stores! But yesterday I finally found a grocery store that has the big bins of raw chicken (see previous post re: bins o' chicken) in a refrigerated case. This to me is a huge improvement. And since my family would like to eat chicken again sometime and I can't put it off forever, I put a plastic bag on my hand and braved it, pulling 3 chicken legs out of the bin. Note - I said chicken legs, not chicken FEET - that's a whole different bin! I may never be brave enough for that, and I KNOW I'll never know how to cook them. (On a side note, while I was pulling chicken out of the bin my kids finally noticed the tanks with live fish swimming in them. Olivia asked why the fish were there and I totally wimped out and said it was kind of like a mini-aquarium for people to look at while they shop. How lame am I???)
Back to my chicken dilemma. I got the chicken out of the bin, and even though it was refrigerated I clearly need to wash this chicken because who knows how many bare hands have been in that bin. And the tap-water is not potable, but you can use it with a drop of dishwashing liquid to wash vegetables and fruit, so should I use the tap-water to wash the chicken? Seems like the tap-water by itself isn't a good idea, but if I put the normal drop of dishwashing liquid in the water and wash the chicken, is my chicken going to taste soapy? Ugh, that sounds really gross. Or do I use the bottled water to wash it and forget about the fact that we're going through this bottled water at an alarming rate and the guys who deliver it to the apartment know me by name now?
At least for today I was saved by my own short-sightedness. Once again, I planned a meal for which I did not have the right equipment - no broiler pan for the one and only chicken recipe I have memorized. Yes, you guessed it, both the broiler pan and the rest of my recipes and cookbooks are in the famed shipment from the US. Which, by the way, is IN the country. It's so close I can almost feel my towels and sheets! Now if we could just get the moving company copies of our passports, residence permits, work permit and probably Olivia's right hand, we would only be one more week away from getting all our stuff.

Tomorrow is a big day for us. Olivia starts pre-school at an international school. That in itself is not such a big deal because she's been in preschool for the last 1.5 years. But this time she's putting on a school uniform and riding a schoolbus all by herself to school. She's excited about the bus ride, I'm traumatized. But every parent and teacher I've talked to said they all get used to it really fast and there is an ayi on the bus to look after the little kids. Like I said, Olivia is excited. But I tell you what, I could really get behind this whole uniform thing. They are basic, inexpensive and totally solve any morning hassles about what to wear.

The other reason tomorrow is a big day is that I'm finally going to the Fake Market. The famed fake market recently moved and is now located in the #2 subway station. :) Before we left for China I really needed a new purse and a new watch. But knowing I was coming to China, I refused to buy either of these items full-price in the States. And tomorrow I finally get to see what kind of bargains I can find. Maybe this doesn't sound all that exciting to you, but to me it's the first time I'm going shopping for something that's not going to be used in my kitchen, bathroom, or office. I'm also looking forward to only having one child with grabby hands in tow instead of two.

Speaking of the one child that I will have left at home, Gigi and I are going to go visit a Chinese preschool tomorrow or the next day. I am not adjusting very well to being a stay-at-home Mom (read that to say I have been short-tempered, unimaginative, snappy and downright crabby). And today at the school orientation for Olivia, the way that Gigi jumped right in and starting playing with the toys and interacting with the kids told me that she is yearning for more stimulation than I'm giving her right now. Rumor has it that there is a good Chinese preschool a few blocks away that does a 2 hour program every day and is fairly inexpensive. Plus it would be a fast-track for her language exposure. I know we've only been here for 2.5 weeks, but I am seriously struggling with being a full-time mom, I just don't think I'm cut out for it. I'm not capable of being consistent, and pleasant, all day long! So we'll see what the Chinese preschool looks like and maybe Gigi and I will both win with this solution.

On a very happy note, we have met another family who lives one floor above us who has a little girl, Shuen, who is 4 years old. The mom, Ai Chen, seems as eager as I am for playdates for the girls and adult conversation. Her older kids are in school already but her 4 year old daughter doesn't start school for another 2 weeks. She is in a Chinese pre-school as well, so we may take a look at that school too. I am looking forward to getting to know Ai Chen and Shuen, and hopefully making friends. They are from Singapore originally, but lived in Vancouver Canada for the last 8 years. They have been here a year and she has volunteered to help me in any way I need, which will probably be soon since it turns out she speaks and reads and writes Mandarin!

One of the things that struck me tonight, as I was buying some fresh flowers, is why being an ex-pat in China is considered such a sweet gig. It's not that living in China is cheap, it's really not that cheap for us. We don't buy food at the street stalls or the wet markets, so it's not dirt cheap. And the furniture and goods they have for sale are about equivalent in price and sometimes much worse on quality. (The quality control on goods in China is horrible.) And the apartment we live in is outrageously expensive by American standards. Our mortgage in the US is about 30% of the rent for this place.
But it's the fact that you can indulge in luxuries here that we can't get in the US. Or, it's not that we can't get them in the US, it's that only the really rich have them. For instance, having an Ayi, someone who comes to my house every weekday and cleans and cooks and nannies, for about $300USD/month. And having a driver. And buying fresh flowers every week. And getting massages. These are not things that we could ever afford in the US, but here they are inexpensive, and it seems to be part of the expectation of the ex-pat community to hire ayis and drivers. I think that's what people mean when they talk about what a sweet deal this is. I hope that when we finally return to the States, we think it was a sweet deal for that, but also for all that we were exposed to and all that we learned.

Seems like tonight I did a lot of rambling in my blog (blambling?), but it's just been that kind of day, with my mind wandering from subject to subject with no clear destination!

I miss tap-water

I really miss tap-water that I can use. I can't tell you how many times I have filled up a pot, or a glass of water, and then remembered that I can't use the water that comes out of the tap. Fresh, smell-free, clear, potable water is something I definitely took for granted in Oregon!

We are having great weather here, although it's the result of horrible weather for Taiwan and southern China. It turns out that typhoons in the southern part of China and Taiwan cause heavy winds up the coast of China. Here in Shanghai, we are seeing blue skies for the first time since we've been here. These high winds clear out some of the smog and I hear from other expats that typhoon season is the only time of year that the skies clear up like this. Unfortunately, it does nothing for the heat and humidity, we're still in the 90s every day with insane humidity.

I seriously need a hobby to occupy my evenings. Without decent TV or anything besides a Shanghai tourist book to read, I need help! On our TV we get 10 channels in English, but half of them are news, 2 of them are sports (cricket, soccer, rugby, anyone?), and then we have HBO, Cinemax, and StarWorld (which is on season 2 of Sex in the City), but they are all the Asia version, which means the movies are really really old.
Joe, who has been investigating ways to get ESPN since the day we arrived, got us a satellite dish last week. It gets ESPN, but the intermittent service is bound to cause him a serious meltdown the first time he really really wants to see a game. :)

Did I mention that we have run out of band-aids in 2.5 weeks? I have two little girls who would generally (OK, definitely) be classified as prissy and I have probably only used a band-aid on either one of them twice in 4 years. But since we have been here I have used an entire box of band-aids on Gigi! She has fallen down and cracked her chin open, tripped over her sister at a party and split open her bottom lip, and fallen down while running down a driveway to greet Daniel (our driver) and split open both her top and bottom lips and got a bloody nose! It's nerve-racking every time she walks on concrete! I'm hoping this is a phase and part of this adjustment and we'll soon quit bleeding!

Washing hands and other delights

OK, when we came to China I read enough ahead of time to know that hygiene is at a totally different standard than the US. And for the most part I can just say to myself "it's just different here". But I am still surprised at how freely people (not kids) use the streets as their personal bathroom. Yesterday I'm riding my bike down the street and there's a guy peeing in the median of the street! And it's not some side street, it's a busy one!
And there are a large percentage of men here with long fingernails. I don't know why that one gets me, but it does.

But one of the worst situations we have is with our very own Gigi. Twice now when I've been in the shower, she's come into the bathroom and washed her hands in the bidet!!! Yanking open the door and screaming at her merely causes her to turn her head and say "I washing my hands in the Gigi sink!". What are we going to do with this kid???

Although I have to confess that I know we haven't traveled anywhere outside of our comfort zone and cushy westernized corner of Shanghai because I have only encountered one squat toilet. Not that I'm relishing using squat toilets, but I guess it's a barometer for me of how far we're venturing out of this little corner of Shanghai.

Yesterday (Friday) I went to a Coffee Conversation, which is basically a networking event, for ex-pats at the Community Center Shanghai. I was surprised that there were about 100-150 women there. About 50% were new to Shanghai (less than 2 months) and the other 50% were old-timers. Here was a group of people that seemed very familiar to me! I went to this event with two purposes: meet someone with kids my age, and find out if the Community Center Shanghai offered stuff that I could use. I was successful on both counts, and thankful for it!!! I saw Barbara, an acquaintance from Dana's party. I told her I was looking to meet someone with little kids and she introduced me to Ginny, who lives three buildings away from me and has a 3 year old daughter. Wahoo! I told her of my desperation to find playmates for the kids because I am really disappointing the kids in the entertainment category. She promptly invited me to a playdate the same afternoon. I am consistently impressed and reassured by how nice everyone (Chinese & otherwise) we meet is, and how the ex-pat community takes care of its members. When we went to the playdate, Ginny had invited over two other moms and there were kids everywhere! It was so great, despite the fact that Olivia wouldn't talk to anyone and Gigi ate a mouthful of raisins and then deposited the whole clumpy mess back into the bowl of raisins.

An Irish pub and a sobering conversation

Last night was great, Joe's group of co-workers hosted a "Welcome to Shanghai BBQ". That's what it was called, but it was actually an all-you-can-eat buffet at O'Malley's Irish Pub. :) We found it funny that they didn't take us to traditional Chinese, but it turned out great. The food was actually pretty good, and there was a bounce house, a sandbox and a playstructure, and no one cared if the kids ran wild.
Unfortunately for Joe, it was a traditional Chinese banquet in one way. One of Joe's co-workers gave the traditional "bottoms up" toast which means that the guest of honor needs to empty their glass. Joe had a full glass of Guinness, and was in his third day of a severe case of the "Shanghai Express"! There was no way that his stomach could tolerate throwing back the whole Guinness, but he wasn't going to admit to the runs, so he took a drink and pretended not to understand what he was supposed to do. Luckily he was saved by some other folks in the group who said that not ALL Chinese view that as the traditional toast for the guest of honor. Phew! They did do some more traditional toasting for success in their programs and projects at work, and Joe survived those adequately.

It was a fun dinner and we got lots of advice from everybody on where we should go in China. Everyone said "Shanghai is not really China!" and proceeded to suggest trips to everywhere from local water towns to Mongolia to Tibet. While I want to see lots of China, I think even I'm not adventurous enough to take 2 small children to Tibet. And they also unanimously said that on the Chinese holidays, get out of China because there are so many Chinese people everywhere. :) Our first Chinese holiday is the first week of October. Someone told us you need to plan 3 months in advance because everything books up, but we'll give it a shot anyway. Now, how do I find a travel agent???

On the way home from the pub we told Daniel (our driver) what a good driver he was. He told us that he trained to be a driver by driving a taxi around the city and we said "you are much better than the crazy taxi drivers!" and he laughed and said "Americans always say that about the taxis." Then Joe asked if being a driver was a good job in Shanghai. Daniel said he didn't know, that 3-4 years ago it was, but not now. He told us 4 years ago he made 30-40 RMB/hour, which equates to $4-5 USD/hour. Today he makes 10 RMB/hour, which equates to about $1.30 USD. And he only gets overtime if he works before 6AM or after 8PM, or on the weekends. This is apparently an economic story playing out all over China where one business/industry is successful and in the blink of an eye there are 10 other businesses, all working longer hours for cheaper rates and stealing each other's employees. Before last night I was worried about how much Daniel was driving for us, even though all the other ex-pats assured me the drivers want as much work as possible. But given the economic reality of his job, I now believe it when Daniel says he likes to work the weekends. But it just feels so weird to have this person drive you places and sit there waiting for you, sometimes for hours on end. And I wonder what thoughts go through his head as he waits for me to come out of yet another store loaded down with all the stuff I "need" to set up our household in China.

Even in Shanghai, even within the expat community, I think it's possible to start to see some of the "real" China if we look and ask and listen.

It's the smells

Above all, I think it's the smells that make this feel so different than "home". I've always noticed it when I traveled outside the US, but it really hit me today somehow that all the different smells will be with me for the next two years! First of course are the "big city" smells. What is it about big cities that you'll be standing on a street corner and all of the sudden there will be the smell of rotten food & sewer? ick.
But then there are the smells in the stores. The grocery store, especially the produce section and the "prepared food" sections, have all sorts of smells that I've never encountered before and not many of them are appealing (at least not at this point!). And somehow this translates into the inside of my refrigerator smelling gross, even though what I've put in there is essentially the same as in the US. I breathe through my nose every time I open it up. :)
And the foam that we finally had to buy to put on top of our rock-hard Chinese bed smells like, well, I don't know how to explain it other than to say, it smells weird. But in a suffocating kind of way when you're laying on it trying to go to sleep. It's hard to say if softening up the bed is worth the weird smell. Joe says "yes", but my nose is a lot more sensative than his. The only thing so far that I can definitively say smells exactly the same is Tide laundry detergent!

One thing that has been really hard for us is throwing everything away. There is no recycling in China, so everything goes in the trash. It's so hard for us to do after being so conscious of it in Portland. But there is a little bit of paper recycling. There are guys who ride around on bicycle with a cart, ringing a cow bell. And they buy paper for pennies. They do some kind of recycling with it but it's unclear what. Our ayi asked if it would be OK for her to collect our paper and paper products to sell for recycling for a little extra money. Of course!

Speaking of our ayi, I forgot to mention that on her first day of work last Saturday she brought both the girls and me a gift! It's amazing to me that the culture of gift-giving when you go to a person's house is so strong that it extends to employers. Can you imagine in the United States bringing a gift to your new employer on the day you start? Especially when you can ill afford it? She brought both girls dolls and me a plant in a very nice pot. And in the process of receiving these gifts Xiao Chen officially started calling me Tai Tai, which literally means "boss's wife". (I still don't quite know what to do with that, but everyone assures me it's what all the ayis do and it's totally normal.) Ah, what exactly is "normal" for me these days anyway?

How long for kids to adjust?

OK, this post is confessions of an ex-pat mom going slightly nuts. I don't know what I expected of my kids, I knew there would be an adjustment but I didn't know what form it would take. But right now, I want the kids that I had in the US back! Olivia has always been a whiner, but it has reached new heights in the last week. And her ability to burst into tears at the slightest problem is incredible. She has a future in acting. Actually, Olivia seems to be doing better today since we visited her school to pick up her uniform and she was less emotional. But Gigi! Oh my, she's making us crazy. She is defiant, stubborn, hilarious, and testing every parenting resolution I've ever made.
Yesterday morning she went up to the TV and stuck her hand (palm down) right on the screen. Joe told her not to and she did it again (we have the same no touching the TV rule at home in the US). She refused to say she wasn't allowed to touch the tv and subsequently spent the next half hour in the bathroom (our new time-out spot) before she finally acknowledged that she wasn't allowed to touch the TV. And this is the 4th time in 3 days that she's had a 1/2 hour time-out based purely on stubbornness. Then this afternoon we are in the grocery store and we're walking down the aisle to the check-out and it happens to be the candy aisle. Gigi is touching everything she can, I ask her to stop 3-4 times and then finally I swat her hand away from the candy. She looks at me, grins, then turns around and LICKS a lollipop on the shelf!
She has colored on every conceivable surface in the house - thank goodness I brought washable markers with me. I swear she has markers stashed somewhere because I have put all the markers up on a top shelf in a closet, and still every time I turn my back to do something, she produces a marker and colors on anything but paper! What to do with this kid?
Oh, here's the answer - plop them in front of the TV. Most of you know that I've always kept the kids away from TV because I felt that in the 3 hours/day I got to spend with them, I didn't want to share it with TV. WELL, let me tell you how stupid that feels right now! TV seems to be the only thing that keeps them in place for long enough for me to get a shower or get dinner prepared. But it actually only works for Olivia, Gigi will give it 15 minutes and then she's up and about, finding markers, pulling medicine out of cabinets (b/c we can't find safety latches), or falling off slippery stools.
Is all this defiance and disobediance part of the transition? Or is this just my kid? If it's part of the transition, how long does it last???
Today was a day of small frustrations. I put a step-stool from IKEA together twice, wrong both times and finally left it for Joe to do. I ordered a new bottle of water from the apartment complex and the guy who delivered it insisted I pay and I couldn't talk to him in Chinese to convince him otherwise (even though it's part of our rent), the elevator door closed on me 4 times before I was able to get two kids and two bikes in, and I made spaghetti for dinner and ran out of burners because we only have two...
Some days just feel like you do nothing, even though you attempt 100 different things. I've gone from being queen of lists to being thrilled if I accomplish one thing in a day. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Oh, and did I mention that this evening the guy from Deloit who is handling all our Chinese government paperwork showed up to pick up our passports and told us that he'll have all of our passports back to us by next Friday? It's scary to be in China without any of our passports for 2 weeks. They've had Joe's passport for a week already, and now they have everybody's in the family. Because in order to stay here for two years, and get our stuff we have to: get a travel Visa when you're in the US, get a health check once you get here, that enables Joe to get a work permit, once Joe has a work permit we can all have a residence permit, and THEN they will ship all our stuff to us and we have to go down to the port and sign for it in person. I will be so happy to get our stuff, I can't even remember what was packed to be shipped at this point. You'd think with all the lists and planning I would be able to remember, but honestly I have no idea.
I wonder what the process for ex-patting to the US is like? I bet it's easily this convoluted to get your stuff. Crap, it's practically more complicated to go through the security checkpoints in US airports than to claim your shipment in China!

Best bargains so far

I haven't done any "serious" shopping yet, but even on our block there are pretty great deals to be had:
DVDs for less than $1, hours of entertainment - which is a good thing because we get about 10 channels in English and 4 of them are News channels. Now if we could just stop being so tired at the end of the day and keep our eyes open to watch them!

1 hour foot massage for $10-15. Michelle and I indulged while she was visiting today and I have to say, it was wonderful. I think I will make it my mission to find the best $10 foot massage in the city. :)

Flowers - 6 stargazer lilies and 12 button mums for $4! I've never indulged in fresh flowers before, but now might be the time.

The great firewall & Mexican food does exist!

OK, so among the many things we learn everyday, here's one about this blog. Blogspot.com is blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Amazingly, I can post and edit blogs, but I cannot go to www.swelsh73.blogspot.com and see anything! So I can see that people have posted comments, but I cannot get to them and see them. Sorry! :( One of those weird things about being in China is that the government blocks reading most blogsites but not posting to them.

The week has been full of noticing quirky and clever things here in China, and about a few totally ordinary things as well. On Wednesday night Dana invited me out for Ladies Night with a few of her friends. They were all celebrating being back in town after the summer expat exodus. Dana, knowing of my love of Mexican food, picked a Mexican restaurant with free margaritas all night long for the ladies. And despite what all the books said, the food was not half bad! The flour tortillas were weirdly sweet, but the corn tortillas were great as was the enchilada sauce. Awesome, and the margaritas flowed all night long. As we were leaving the restaurant to go to a club, I got my first taste of seeing all the "working girls" who literally all arrived at the restaurant en masse at 11:00.

Quirky & clever things:
Magnets on the back of doors and magnetic doorstops that pop up from the floor. So much cooler than those metal and rubber doorstops we have sticking out of walls in the US.
Umbrellas being used for rain and sun shade - no matter what weather an umbrella is the right tool for the job!
Sleeves for riding bikes. The Chinese have sleeves (not the rest of the shirt) but just sleeves with elastic on the top and bottom that they wear when bicycling. It's a very clever way to keep arms out of the sun and it's cooler than putting on a jacket. :)
Grocery carts that go between floors. All the grocery stores I've been to here are at least two stories. And they have these grocery carts with the craziest, wonky wheels. You can't get these darn carts to go straight and you totally have to lean into it to go around a corner. We must have traded the first 3 carts back before we realized that all the carts were this way. But we discovered the genius behind these carts when we left the store. The stores all have these people movers that are on an incline and go between the floors, instead of an escalator or elevators. We got on these people movers with the cart, fully prepared to hang onto the weight of the cart as we went down. As soon as we stepped onto the people-mover the wonky wheels lock into the tread of the people mover and are unmoveable! Brilliant!
Getting my bearings. No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to get my sense of direction in tact. I took my bicycle out for a little ride yesterday and even though I swear I just went around two blocks, I ended up somewhere that looked unfamiliar and almost panicked. But I turned around and back-tracked and managed to find my wrong turn. But seriously, how have I lost the ability to "go around the block"?

Ordinary things:
Fritos, cheetos, Papa John's pizza, Americans. We went to a party on Saturday night at Dana & Dwayne's house and they pulled out all the stops with the American food. We're not really deprived of any American food if we look hard enough here in Shanghai, but just seeing a whole table covered with Amercian food, at a party with everyone speaking English, felt so NORMAL that it was great. That is, of course, until we kept getting introduced as the FOBs (Fresh Off the Boat). :)
Michelle Johnston, a good friend of ours from college, who also works at Intel with Joe, is in town for work. She spent the day with us and we realized how relaxing it is to be with people who you've known for a long time, who you don't have to explain your history and views to. And then we had to admit that it's hard work making new friends. It's exciting and interesting to meet new people, but it's also exhausting to try to figure out what you have in common, if you're going to click, etc. It would be so great to be Olivia's age. She has asked us so many times what the names of her friends are, because in her mind everybody in her new preschool class is automatically her friend. What a great way to look at life.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention that I've had my first taste of heaven. Xiao Chen, our ayi, came on Saturday. She cleaned the whole house, did the laundry and the ironing, and organized a few of my drawers. She's wonderful! Of course, every time I tried to talk to her I had to whip out the English/Chinese dictionary, and even then I am pronouncing everything so badly she has to look at the Chinese character before she can get what I'm saying!
And one last thing, that American tendency to speed louder and slower when someone doesn't understand you is apparently an American genetic thing. We discovered this because Olivia was in the laundry room chattering away to Xiao Chen. Then I start to hear the volume of the words rise, and she slows down all her words. I go in to explain that we have to learn the Chinese words if we want to talk to Xiao Chen, we can't just yell at her. :) So Olivia says to me, "OK, can you tell me the Chinese words for "Swan Lake"?" She wanted to tell Xiao Chen that she had read the story of Swan Lake. :P I've seriously got to sign up for Mandarin classes THIS week.

My aunt's universe rocks

I have to start this post with a little story. My Aunt Nancy has this theory that if you put stuff "out in the universe" it will eventually happen, but if you don't even put it out there it can't happen. Case in point: her car broke down several months ago and while having a conversation with some of her friends, she said "you know, I just want the universe to give me a free car" . After saying that out loud, her friend said "we have an extra car while we're waiting for our daughter to turn 16, you can drive that if you want." And BAM, she had a free car. Then a couple months later I offer that she can drive my car while we're in China, giving her another 2 years of a free car. Pretty cool.
So, here we are in China. On Sunday night, Joe says he thinks we should just put it out there in the universe that we need a really good Ayi. Now, the Ayi concept is why so many people think that being an ex-pat in a country like China is wonderful. "Ayi" is the Chinese word for aunt and refers to someone you hire to come into your home to clean, do laundry, cook, childcare, etc. This kind of domestic help is extremely inexpensive in China, $200-300/month to have someone working for you 5 days/week, 9 hrs/day. Part of me was a little reluctant about getting an Ayi because I'm g oing to be staying home with the girls. Shouldn't I be able to handle the housework as well? But I had plenty of friends who were like "are you crazy? that would be so awesome. you HAVE to get one of those people!" Now that we're here and the reality of the tiny washer and dryer has hit home, I'm very clear that I will need some help or I will never leave the house. So we had it in our minds that we would hire an Ayi after we had been here a little while. Since we don't speak any Chinese yet, I was very nervous about attempting to hire someone...and there are some stories out there about really bad Ayis.

OK, sorry for the big aside, but the whole Ayi thing had to be explained. So back to the universe. Sunday night Joe and I say out loud (to the universe) "we need a really good Ayi". We wondered if we should burn incense or make an offering or something, but we were tired so we just said it out loud and called it good!
Monday morning I am taking the girls to the playground in our apartment complex and our friend Dana calls. She excitedly tells me that her friend Melissa has to leave China and go back to the US, her husband is being transferred back. That's not the exciting part, the exciting part is that she is trying to find an American family to place her Ayi with. And her Ayi has 6 years of experience, 2 years with Melissa, and cleans a house 50% bigger than ours and helps take care of their 4 kids. AND she trained Dana's Ayi, whom Dana loves, so Dana can vouch for Melissa's Ayi being great. But she's had a few interviews with other families, so if I'm interested, I have to interview her right then. My first thought is "HOLY COW! This universe thing is amazing and it really works!" My second thought is "how the heck do I interview her?" And my third thought is "Olivia, stop whining, we're all hot and sweaty and Gigi stop hitting your sister!" Luckily Dana has a copy of the 'Ayi Survival Guide' that she can let me borrow (yet another amazing book written by ex-pats for ex-pats, and it has Chinese and English translations in it). I pick up the book from Dana, and go to the playground with the girls.

It's 11:15 and Melissa and the Ayi will be at our apartment at 12:15. While the kids are playing, I'm frantically flipping through the book to find the interview questions. And of course, while I am reading this book and ignoring my children (another accomplishment for my Parent-of-the-Year application), Gigi falls and splits her chin open on the stairs. EEEEEEE! Now we're all running back to the apartment with blood streaming out of Gigi's chin, but she won't let me get a look at it. Olivia is crying because she can't run this fast and she's scared of the cars in the road ("because they don't look out for people here like they do in Oregon"). We make it back to the apartment all sweaty and shaky, I clean up all the blood and discover that the cut isn't as long as I thought and not that deep, but in true head-wound fashion it bled a lot. Now it's 11:45, my cell phone rings. It's Rebecca, our friend from the shopping excursion, telling me that the chair we ordered is here and they tried to call the apartment but I didn't answer. Ah, so that's the weird musical sound I heard while trying to clean Gigi up. So I sit the kids in front of the TV (exciting CNN) and run downstairs to let the delivery guys in. Back upstairs, making the kids a quick lunch and realize that Gigi is nodding off on the couch. I freak out thinking about head wounds and concussions and why oh why didn't I pay more attention in that first aid class I took before Olivia was born??? Gigi perks up with a little lunch and Melissa and the Ayi arrive at 12:15. I am so frazzled I can't get the stupid door unlocked.
But the moment Melissa and Xiao Chen (pronounced Shou Chen) walked in, I knew the universe had been very kind to me. Xiao Chen went straight over to the kids and even though they've been very shy with all Chinese people up to this point, they had no reluctance whatsoever with her, and that's the best barometer of all. Xiao Chen was down on the floor playing tea party with them within 3 minutes. Play is an international language.

I sat and talked to Melissa about everything Xiao Chen does for them, and just the fact that she was trying so hard to find her a good family to work for told me a lot. When I put the kids down for their naps, Olivia complained "I have a new friend and you're not letting me play with her. It's not fair." I whispered to her that I would try to get Xiao Chen to come back lots more and that satisfied her. Back out in the living room, Xiao Chen has folded the load of laundry on the couch while waiting for me. Melissa explains that she's a very good Ayi and just does whatever needs to be done and has a lot of initiative. After a few more questions and some discussion about start date and salary, I hired her on the spot! I can't believe it happened so quickly. I hope it's as good as it seems. In two weeks I will have someone working in my home doing the cleaning and the laundry, and she is also willing to cook some for us, and help me learn to cook a few Chinese dishes. I'm in heaven. If this works out like I hope it will, I may not want to go home to Oregon. :)

Despite the craziness of Monday morning, by the time Joe got home from work I was feeling like things were falling into place. Until he asked what we were having for dinner. Oh crap, that's my job to figure out now, isn't it? :) I'm still getting used to the new division of labor in our marriage. First we went shopping for a few things at the B&Q, which is China's version of Home Depot. And it literally is Home Depot, without the orange color splashed around. Big warehouse with concrete floors and aisles of hardware, paint, toilets, sinks, plants, etc. We found our stuff and then headed over to Simply Thai, a Thai food restaurant that has 50% off your bill on Monday nights. BIG mistake. The place was packed and it took an hour and a half to get our food. Soooo, now we've learned not to go to Carrefour on Sundays, or Simply Thai on Mondays. Luckily my sense of humor is still in tact about all these "lessons learned". Oh, and Melissa also warned me not to go to Carrefour on "Fresh egg Tuesday". She said the Chinese go crazy for fresh eggs and that it's impossible to shop there the day they deliver fresh eggs. With my luck, I'll be smack in the middle of Carrefour when they deliver the eggs. :P

But to my Aunt Nancy, I would like to say a big "thank you" for giving us the idea to "put stuff out in the universe". You rock. And to our friend Dana, who has been looking out for us since before we arrived in Shanghai, thank you for the Ayi, and for a hundred other pieces of valuable information!!!

Haven't ridden a bike in 20+ years

Today was the day for everybody in the family to go get bikes. Our friend Dwayne took us over to Giant Bike. We had no idea how far it was, but Dwayne took off walking so we assumed it wasn't too far. About 4 blocks later, Joe and I are sweating profusely, Gigi is crying and Olivia is whining. The heat is killing us...it's obviously going to take longer to acclimate to the heat and humidity than it is the new sleeping cycle!
Olivia was the first to pick out her shiny new bike, purple with a basket on the front and training wheels on the back. She tested it out and the hand breaks are going to take getting used too, but I imagine after she stops by running into a few things she'll get the hang of it.

I was next in line for a shiny new bike. Dwayne pointed out the "cruiser" bike that seems to be the signature bike for all the ex-pat wives. We pulled it out and as I was getting on the bike to take a test ride, I tried to recollect the last time I had ridden a bike. All I could picture was my ten-speed and the cul-de-sac we lived on in St.Louis, which means that I was 12 years old the last time. I swung into the saddle and sighed with relief that the saying is true, you never forget how to ride a bike. But no one ever says that if you have a 20+ year hiatus between riding bikes, you will wobble all around and let out little shrieks that cause Chinese people to look at you like you're an idiot. I had to get off the bike to turn it around on the sidewalk and come back to the shop, and then Joe asked "how did it feel?" I was truly stumped. Did the bike not feel right because it wasn't a good fit or because I hadn't ridden in so long? We decided it was both and I tried out a bike with an aluminum frame that is lighter and a little bigger. That seemed a better fit and I was in business. I asked them to install the basket on the front and the baby seat on the back and felt like I'd truly stepped into being a stay-at-home mom.

Joe was the last to pick out his shiny new bike, but he's a lot more stable on the bike and had no trouble with the test drive. His issue, when he got back from the test ride, was that the shocks were giving too much. This caused a conversation with the shop owner about how big Joe is and what a bike could handle. Always a fun conversation with a 90 pound Chinese woman. Eventually they switched out the shocks for him and he ordered the bigger baby seat for Olivia to be installed on the back.
We are now officially a family of bikers. The whole ordeal took about 2 hours, and this, we are learning, is standard for China. Nothing happens quickly when you are making a purchase. As a result, our kids touched or knocked over every darn little thing in the bike shop and made me want to literally pull out my hair. B y the time we were done arranging payment and delivery of the bikes, we were so hot, sweaty and short-tempered that we decided to head straight for lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant. But when we got to the corner we realized we had no idea which streets we had walked to get to the bike shop. We hopped in a passing taxi and gave him our address. He drove one block, turned left and drove one more block and dropped us off. Oh. Guess we could have managed that ourselves, but we swore it was more streets and turns when we were following Dwayne.

Because the purchase of bikes wasn't enough fun for us in one day, after the kids napped we headed over to Carrefour (a french grocery store chain that is like a Fred Meyer on steriods) to stock the house. Our list was long, including food items and household items. We had been to Carrefour on Friday, but got overwhelmed and cut the trip short with about 1/2 th stuff on our list. This time I was determined to get everything on the list. That was before we got into the store. Shopping on Sunday afternoon is officially going on my list of things to avoid. The store was so crammed full of people that we could hardly move in the aisles. On top of that, people were openly stopping and staring at Olivia and Gigi. We were only in the store for about 3 minutes when a Chinese family with a daughter of their own came right up to us and put their daughter next to Gigi. The father spoke a little English and asked how old she was, and then took out his camera to get a picture of his daughter next to Gigi. That was the point at which Olivia reached out and took her sister's hand. For me, it was actually a very proud moment because it's one of the few times that I've seen Olivia act in a very protective, sisterly fashion and I was proud of her. We made it down about 10 more aisles of mildly curious staring before an older gentleman stopped in the aisle and just stood right in front of Gigi staring. When we moved down the aisle he came right along with us, and stalked us for two more aisles. Gigi seemed oblivious, but this clearly unnerves Olivia. Between the stares and the noise and heat in Carrefour, she just puts her head down on her arms and endures the ride in the shopping cart. I know exactly how she feels, I wanted to do the same thing.
Despite the staring, this trip to Carrefour was better, we were more dogged about finding and getting what we wanted. And we played more charades than last time to ask our questions. At one point, we were looking for stain remover and Joe and I are trying to figure out how to pantomine that when he says "here, just let me take Gigi with me, she's got stains all over her". Obviously there is no prop we won't use to get our point across. It worked, by the way.

We made it through the household goods and the food aisles, all the way over to the fruits and vegetables and meat section. I was doing pretty well until we came upon the big open bins of chicken parts (drumsticks, wings, etc). People just reaching their hands into the bins and grabbing raw chicken out. I'm no germ-a-phone, but even that made me cringe...and I know there are some people reading this blog right now who are actually gagging at the thought and screaming "what about salmonella?" at their computer. The sight and smell of those bins were my undoing. We grabbed two packaged chicken breasts and 2 packages of hamburger and got out of there.

We were in Carrefour for 2 1/2 hours for one shopping cart full of stuff! No wonder we were all exhausted. And as we stepped outside we saw that we were having another thunder-storm. The original plan to walk back to the apartment with the (metal) shopping cart was scrapped and we hailed a taxi. Even though the rain felt heavenly with all this heat, we decided that we will be using our driver on Saturdays AND Sundays until we are a bit more settled in.

We did, however, manage to accomplish cooking our first meal in our new home. For those of you who wondered what we would do without 2 years of mexican food, never fear, our first home-cooked meal in China was burritos. But without any $3 refried beans. Not because we didn't buy the beans, but because we failed to also buy a can-opener... Can't win 'em all.

What we learned, and pondered, on day 3

We went furniture shopping today at a furniture mall. It was 7 stories, and every floor had at least 20 furniture stores on it, everything from couches to beds to faucets to hardwood floors. It was an amazing selection, and we feared we might not have time to find a store with furniture for the kids room. Eventually we hit the right store, and while talking about what we liked/didn't like about the bunk bed we discovered that when you are IN China, having something custom made is only a 10 day process. Wahoo, we got exactly what we wanted for the same amount of money, just have to wait a few more days for it.

You might wonder how it is that we got to this mall and learned all this when we speak no Chinese. Once again we were blessed with the kindness of the people we have met here. Rebecca, who works in the leasing office of our apartment complex and who is a friend of our apartment owner, volunteered to accompany us on the shopping trip. Unbelievably, she sacrificed her entire Saturday to translate for us while we shopped for furniture and exchanged most of the bedding we bought on Thursday. :)
So, here's what we learned:
The Chinese do not believe in pillow-top, or even soft, mattresses. They believe that hard mattresses are better for the back. And a hard mattress consists of springs, a board, and a thin piece of cotton over the top. We will be hunting for foam to soften up our bed!
Washing machines in China are only plumbed for cold water! So basically there is only one temperature that everything gets washed.
It is normal for a young working couple in the expensive city of Shanghai to leave their baby/young children with mother-in-law full-time while they work. And mother-in-law could be in a different city, meaning the parents only see their children once a month.
We get serious thunderstorms in Shanghai, with wicked lightning and thunder. Our kids aren't sure what to make of it after their mild rain experience in Oregon.

And here's what we pondered:
What does the button on the outside of the refrigerator labeled "fuzzy" mean or do? The other buttons control the temperature of the fridge and freezer, but "fuzzy" remains a mystery to us.
How can people eat gelatinous food for breakfast?
Our driver seems to work for us whenever we want, does he really want/like the overtime or does he sit in the car thinking what spoiled Americans we are and resent the time he drives us around on the weekend?

Last but not least, here's Gigi's quote of the day as we sped along in a taxi: "That boy crazy driver!" She's was totally accurate as he sped in and out of traffic, switching lanes and stomping on the brakes.

We've officially moved into our apartment today and are sleeping in our "own" beds tonight, so I'm signing off to go test out the Chinese theory that hard beds are better for your back.

We Made It! The first 2 days...

The Welsh family: Joe, Stephanie, Olivia, and Gigi, have all finally arrived in Shanghai. Tuesday, July 31st we left Portland for our 2 year adventure in Shanghai. When we found out in late April that we'd be coming to Shanghai, 3 months seemed like a reasonable amount of time to get ready. It flew by! And for the last 3 weeks we've been creating and checking off lists like crazy and racing towards the July 31st deadline. There is nothing like an "I'm moving to China" deadline to get stuff done! Including stuff that should have been done long ago and wasn't (will, safe deposit box, yardwork, removing hydrangea wallpaper!)

With all the tying up loose ends and purchasing and packing for China, we also took a lot of time to see friends and family. It was unexpectedly bittersweet to see everyone, it made us appreciate how incredibly lucky we are to have the amazing set of friends and family that we do, and it made us question why we would ever want to go so far away from it. But we go forward with the thought that we will make good friends here too, and that our kids are getting a once in a lifetime experience.

Getting here went surprisingly well, if you don't count the embarrassing amount of luggage we brought with us. 8 suitcases, 2 carseats, one pack-and-play, and 6 carry-ons. (I'll post the embarrassing pictures later when I find the cord for the camera.) Seriously, we looked like a tour group with all our luggage instead of a family of four. What, you may ask, could we possible put in 8 huge suitcases? We weren't allowed to ship any liquids, gels, creams, lotions or food in the air shipment. So there were a couple suitcases full of bathroom-type stuff and foods that we knew it would be hard or expensive to get here. And we have been warned by many that we will never find shoes for our big American feet here in Shanghai, so a number of new shoes made it into the luggage as well. And then there was the suitcase of art supplies and toys to keep the kids happy until the rest of our shipment arrives in 6 weeks.

We got incredibly lucky with the driver who met us at the airport, he speaks a little English. This is a major coup, and total luck of the draw. But it's so huge for us that we will be able to call him and tell him where to come get us!

Aug 1 First night:
Flight gets in at 5:30pm. Kids and parents, everybody in bed at 8:00 pm. Kids slept until 2:30, were up for 1.5 hours eating snacks and playing, and then were coerced into going back to sleep. We all slept until 6:30am, not bad for a jet-lagged family!

Aug 2 First day: Breakfast at the hotel, lots of western style food so not too drastic of an adjustment for us. Although the very soupy yogurt got a thumbs down from Olivia, and a slurp-it-up from Gigi. :)
We headed over to the apartment to get our keys. The rep from the relocation company was there and so was the landlord and her son. Nancy, our landlord, is awesome. I don't know how we got so lucky. Not only did she print up instructions for all the appliances in Chinese and English, but she took us room by room explaining stuff. She also talked one of the women from the apartment leasing office into going shopping with us on Saturday to get the additional furniture we need. What an angel! Then she and her son George took us out for lunch and on a quick tour around the area. Unfortunately the girls were melting down at this point so we had to cut it short, but all-in-all, an incredible way to be welcomed to our new home.
Girls took naps at the hotel while we strategized about what needed to be done for the apartment. Sheets and pillow were first priority for beds...and as we're having this conversation we also ended up taking naps!
At dinnertime we headed over to the SuperBrand mall (7 floors of shops and restaurants) to find sheets. I read in some book that a store in Superbrand was one of the few with fitted sheets. With some charades at the information desk we found the bedding store. As luck would have it, they had sheet sets with 1,2,1 listed, meaning 1 fitted sheet, 2 pillowcases, and 1 flat sheet. Mission accomplished, kids melting down, let's find dinner. It's 7:00 and everyone is seriously dragging. We gave in and ate at Pizza Hut. :( We felt like lame Americans, but what are you gonna do? Other than seriously different appetizers, the pizza tastes exactly like it does in the US. The girls were very happy, yet sleepy and had to be carried all the way out of the mall to the taxi.

Aug 3 Second day:
Girls slept through the night, hallelujah, but are up at 4:00 ready to go. Ugh, but Joe somehow talks them into going back to sleep until 5:30. We'll take it!
It's health-check day. We meet Steven from Deloit in the lobby and taxi it 45 minutes to the health clinic. This is my first experience with kids in a taxi for a long distance with no carseats. It's freaky after years of safety-conscious US and I kept thinking about how to be a human seatbelt if something happened, but at the same time it's incredibly freeing to just jump in a car with kids on your lap and go. And of course they think this is soooo fun. Except for Olivia, in her serious moment, when she realizes no one is wearing a seatbelt ("is that safe Mama?" well, not really, but there are no seatbelts in the taxi, so we just have to hold on") On a side note, I've always wondered what they do in NYC when people hail a cab with kids...do they just put them in their lap as well?
Anyway, off to the health check. A totally surreal experience. The guy from Deloit pays our way through this process and photocopies all our stuff. We go into a locker room and strip down leaving our pants on. They give you a robe to wear and ask you to get on the scale. When you're on the scale the woman instructs you to "look over here" and points to a blank spot on the wall. What? Does she not think I know how much I weigh? She tells us to go to room 112 where we sit in line to have blood taken. No one's talking, including the nurse. Gigi's comment "I no like this place Mama". I'm thinking the same thing kid. Having blood taken without any verbal communication is very weird. Then it's off to room 108, room 109, room 107, etc. Every room is strange because you don't know what to expect, they just take your paper, point to a stool or bed, do some kind of exam, give you a stamp, hand you back your paper and send you to the next room. I had an eye exam, an ultrasound (just below the ribs, what were they looking for?), chest X-rays (where I was instructed to wrap my arms around the Xray machine), an ECG (where they put clamps covered in foil on my leg, wrist and chest!),
and a breast exam. All with two little girls in tow. Thank goodness the Chinese love children. Nonetheless, it was bewildering for them when I couldn't answer their questions about what they were doing to me. The whole process took about an hour, which was half the time we were told to expect, so we felt lucky.
Then it's off to the apartment. We pull the sheets out of the package, ready to make beds and truly start settling in. First package open: 1 flat sheet, 2 pillow shams, 1 duvet cover. Hmmm, not exactly what we were expecting. It sucks not being able to read Chinese characters and being dumb enough to super-impose American standards/packaging onto Chinese goods. Wondering how hard it would be to take back these sheet sets, we set out for lunch around the corner.
Walking in the 100+ degrees/90% humidity is pretty much like walking around in a shower all day long. We land at the East West cafe which serves a little of everything and have a good lunch. Joe gets the bill and learns that they don't take credit cards, oops. And then he realizes he's 200 RMB short on cash. He calls our newfound friend Dwayne and asks to borrow 200 RMB, luckily Dwayne is home and has some cash. Joe runs to get it and we get out of the restaurant without doing dishes. It's true what they say, ex-pats are a great bunch who definitely take care of each other and have your back. Dwayne laughingly told us that we managed to find just about the only restaurant in Jinqiao that doesn't take plastic. Since our afternoon plans include a shopping trip to Carrefour (the french grocery store that is like a Fred Meyer), we ask him if they take plastic. Luckily they do.
After naps we head to Carrefour to start outfitting our house with the basics. On the way in, I see a family with a baby (8-9 months old) in those split pants. I wonder out loud to Joe what happens if a baby wearing those pants has to go in the store. My question is answered when we see the same family in the store later and the grandma is soaked all down her front and still holding the baby. Ugh, gross, yuck. Diapers are a concept I am not giving up, no matter what.

Shopping at Carrefour is the opposite of shopping at a grocery or Target at home. Usually in the US you have to hunt around for someone to help you. Here, there are about 6 people in every aisle and if you pause to look at something they immediately start trying to get you to purchase whatever is on special sale. Imagine going to Costco during sample time, but there being 5 sample ladies in every aisle, and some of them have microphones. It's overwhelming!
On the other hand, it's actually kind of fun, everything goes in this store. Some people get around on roller-blades, other people try out bikes by riding them up and down the aisles. It's a circus. We only got about half of what we needed, but we were all overwhelmed and decided dinner was more important.

For dinner, we gave in to our desire for comfort and ate at Blue Frog. Blue Frog is a restaurant started by an ex-pat and it has all your typical American fare, plus some good Chinese dishes as well. Since we eat early with the kids, we got there during their buy-one-get-one-free drink happy hour, and discovered one of the joys of having a driver! Mom & Dad relax and have two drinks instead of the usual one. Everyone had a great meal and it's back to the hotel for us.

Tomorrow we officially move out of the hotel into the apartment and real living begins.

It's hard to wrap up the first impressions. It's a huge city, it's oppressively hot and humid, and there is constant activity. Since we are coming from clean-and-green Portland, Oregon it's hard to comprehend the air pollution being so bad you can't see more than 1/2 mile and the bath water being suspiciously yellow. But it's still a great adventure and we are having fun.

Stay tuned for more postcards...