OK, I hear you!

Apparently the fact that I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon for the two weeks is a problem because I'm getting emails asking for more blog posts! This is a good thing in my mind, because it means more than my mom is reading my blog. :)
So, it's been a crazy two weeks. It's hard to explain the way time just flies by here in China. You can't figure out how getting your kids to school and going to the grocery store can take up an entire day, but it does.
I think the last time I posted a blog was right before typhoon WIPHA, or maybe right after, but I can't be sure because I can't read my own blog. Anyway, the happy ending to the "I missed my opportunity to see the US Women's soccer team play because I'm a wimp" saga is that Joe got us tickets to the final matches of the US women's world cup last Sunday and it was awesome. We watched the US team soundly beat Norway (in the #3, #4 game) and the first half of the final match between Germany and Brazil. We left at halftime due to babysitting constraints, but managed to sell our tickets on the way out for 100RMB, which was enough to pay for the babysitter. All in all an excellent date night!
Ironically, as I'm writing this blog another typhoon is forecasted to hit Shanghai tonight and it is blowing and raining to beat the band.

This last week was the National Holiday in China. This is roughly equivalent to our 4th of July, it celebrates the founding of the People's Republic of China (by Mao in 1949), and it seems the way people celebrate in China is the same as the States: lots of people off work, fireworks and celebrations, and sales in all the stores. (Why do stores do that, by the way? What does Independence Day or National Holiday have to do with buying a t-shirt for 40% off?)

So here is an interesting thing about the holiday and time off. The holiday is officially 3 days (Mon-Tu-Wed), but in order to give people a full week off, businesses tell their employees to work the weekend before. And this extends to all businesses, and the government and the public schools. I was so surprised to get a notice saying that Gigi's school would be open on Sat & Sun before National Holiday week, but it makes sense if the parents are required to work they need the normal place to take their kids. Anyway, I can't imagine any company in the US saying "in order to get a full week off you need to work this weekend". We just take the 2 days of vacation to make it a complete week. It's just a different system.

Joe and I didn't feel up to traveling for the holiday (we just got here 8 weeks ago!), so we planned a week of events around Shanghai that would allow us to see the city and still keep the kids happy. And boy did we experience Shanghai, right along with the 18 million other people that live here. Holy cow. Many Chinese travel domestically during this holiday, so that meant that many non-Shanghainese were in town. No big deal, except people outside of Shanghai have seen even less foreigners than people in town and so our family with two curly-headed blond & red-hair kids becomes a moving exhibit wherever we go. People are stopping us and asking to take pictures of the girls, or with the girls, or with their kid. I swear every Chinese person knows the phrase "excuse me, may I take your picture?" in English.

I've finally hit upon a solution to this that seems to work for everyone, which to ask each of the girls if they want to have their picture taken. Typically Olivia says no and hides behind me and Gigi shrugs and says OK and then mugs for the camera. And if they both say no then I tell the Chinese people politely "not today", and it seems to work. I talk to the girls about making new Chinese friends and practicing their Chinese, but I think most times all they are thinking is "why can't we just sit here and have a snack without people lining up to take pictures and touch us?" Or wait, maybe I'm just projecting onto them because half the time that's what I'm thinking! It's not even close to the same scale, but I have a profound new respect for celebrities who can't go anywhere without people staring and following.

Monday we went to the Wild Animal Park, which is really a zoo and a wild animal park. As with most things in China, there were things that were great and things that disturbed. In the great category, the animals are really close and they don't have nearly the same amount of plexiglass and bars between people and animals. On the disturbing side, without a barricade some people seem compelled to throw food and trash in at the animals. (the apes think this is a game and throw the stuff back at the crowd and clap!) On both the great AND disturbing side, you could ride an elephant, camel, pony or zebra at the zoo. On the funny side, in the animal kindergarten (baby animals) there was a whole section with dogs: golden retrievers, beagles, pugs, and an alaskan husky. Olivia's comment: "Why are there dogs in the zoo? That's silly!" Dogs are a rarity here, unless you live in an ex-pat compound, where they abound.
Tuesday we headed out to the Science & Technology Museum without Joe, who got really really sick on Monday night. I was mentally geared up for tracking two kids in a crowd for the morning, but even I had second thoughts when I saw the 25 tour buses outside the back entrance to the museum. It took us 25 minutes, multiple elbows and a lot of stink-eye to stand in line and get our tickets. (Lining up is not preferred by Chinese, they would rather just pretend to be oblivious and walk to the front of the line, or worse yet be belligerent and cut right in front of you.) But we finally got tickets and the museum was great! The kids enjoyed the exhibits and I spent the entire time marveling at the sheer number of people that fit into the museum. Another good/bad thing about China is that you can bring your own food into anyplace and eat it anyplace. The bad thing is that lots of people leave their trash wherever they ate their food, but overall it's so nice not to have to go outside to eat your own food or buy overpriced bad food.
Wednesday we took it easy and went to some friends' house, luckily they have a great pool because the temp soared to 90 degrees. That night we went to a fireworks and music display at Century Park. Fabulous! Chinese really know how to do fireworks, which they should since they invented them. The entire show (1 hour) looked like the grand finale looks in the US! And it was coordinated with music. We really had fun, and ate our first bucket of KFC since we arrived, it's very popular here, there are KFCs here like there are Starbucks at home. Well, not quite that many, but close. We all enjoyed the picnic we had around the lake with fireworks exploding above our heads.
Thursday we headed out of Shanghai for 1.5 hours to a water town called Tongli. Ironically, when we pulled into the tourist parking lot our friends' driver says casually "there are better water towns, you should go to yadda yadda yadda." Thanks dude, could have used that advice 1.5 hours ago! There are dozens of watertowns on the outskirts of Shanghai, very picturesque villages built on canals. This one was very busy with tourists but not too commercialized. A ride on a gondola-type boat revealed that many people still wash their dishes and clothes in the canal. I swear, these people must have stomachs of iron, because this water is REALLY not clean.

Friday we found a furniture store that has great stuff, and also makes custom pieces. We designed a 25-cubby bookcase, which should be here in a couple weeks and cost us $300. A little research on the web tells us a similar piece in the States would set us back about $800, so we're feeling good about our first piece of Chinese furniture!

Saturday and Sunday our friend Jean was in town, she's here on a business trip. Yeah! It's so exciting to have visitors. I don't know why it's so monumental, but it is. I guess maybe because it means we haven't been forgotten. We used her arrival as an excuse to do a bunch of tourist stuff that we hadn't managed to get to yet. Which was good because I finally feel like I'm seeing some of the city, but bad because 18 million other people were doing the same thing.
This brings me to to an interesting aspect of my ex-pat experience. Since the week after we arrived, I have felt this incredible pressure to go out and explore and experience and really "live" in China. And I'm sure it's all in my head, and nothing intentional from friends and family, but questions like "what's the most interesting thing you've seen, what will you miss the most when you come home, and have you eaten anything you can't identify?" make me feel like I have to do everything immediately. And so I started planning things for every Sat and Sun. But Joe is working really hard and is stressed and he wants to spend the weekend relaxing and rejuvenating, and there is nothing relaxing about the Yu Garden with 25 thousand other people in it with you. :P So I feel pressure to get out and see the city, he wants to relax, and the kids just want to watch movies and eat snacks (gotta love being 2 and 4). We seriously have to figure out the right balance so we can enjoy the incredible, crazy city we live in, but come away from the experience sane and still married. It's a challenge of ex-pat life that I never even considered before we arrived.

One final note, I am trying to post some pictures to the blog, but I find it very hard to do without a preview feature or the ability to see the blog. I'll keep trying...stay tuned.