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!