Now, FOUR Years in China

I just finished packing for our trip to Bali tomorrow. We are very excited about this because we will have 5 nights in Bali and 5 nights in Singapore. Bali is apparently great. We plan on taking a boat trip to an island, snorkeling, visiting the elephant park, and generally chilling out.

We’re hoping Singapore will offer something different. When you live in China, Singapore is apparently *the* place to go to recharge and restock. I even hear they have a Taco Bell…not quite the mexican food I’m looking for but the familiarity would be nice. Singapore also has good movie theaters with with real movies. But the best part about Singapore is the availability of western products, books, and electronics and a generally sanitized environment.

Unfortunately, I will not be blogging much until we return on Oct. 9. But hopefully I will be able to post a photo album of shots and tell you if it lives up to the hype.

Tonight we experienced an incredible act of kindness from our driver Mr. Lu. He called and said that he was one minute away from our house and coming over. With the language barrier, I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying but I kept saying that we didn’t need to go anywhere except the airport tomorrow morning. A minute later, the doorbell rang and it was Mr. Lu with a bag containing 2 grapefruits, a bottle of California red wine, and a huge Dove chocolate bar for Madeline. He explained that this is part of celebrating the national holiday. We were speechless because the bottle of wine alone costs 2-3 round trips to the school. Sometimes the people here really surprise me.

I hope you are well! JP, I loved your e-mail from a couple of weeks ago. You had written on a quiet Sunday afternoon, which I confess made me a little homesick. In three months I’d love to join you for brunch and a bloody mary.

Sorry it has been a while since I’ve written! We haven’t done anything too exotic, but there are a few things to report:

Our ayi (housekeeper) started last week. She is very young (23), but seems capable and has a kind disposition. The language barrier is difficult to work around, so we do a lot of pantomime. (I challenge anyone to a game of charades when we get back to the US!) Jenny, the ayi, works for us 20 hours a week and for the French family across the hall in our building for 20 hours. The whole situation will take a little getting used to, but I think it will be good.

Two weekends ago I went on a shopping tour with some teachers from WAB (Western Academy of Beijing - Madeline’s school) who live in our compound. Wow! What a crazy experience! Everything here is negotiable. I got a crash course at the clothing/shoe/handbag market. There is a whole exchange that you have to go through which can be very entertaining if the vendor is fun, but not if they are too aggressive. I was too intimidated to really buy much, but I bought a cute pair of shoes for 100 yuan ($12.00). The next day, David, Madeline and I took the shuttle in to the shopping area so that I could show David what I had learned. We got some DVDs for about $2.00 each and a cool weather wind jacket for $10.00. I found a “Burberry” coat with the asking price of 450 yuan. I ended up paying 200. I also found some “Gucci” shoes for 80 yuan down from 250. Not bad for a gringo.

The crummy news is that we found out that the owner of the town house we were hoping to rent is going to sell rather than rent it. I can’t say that I blame him. His wife is pregnant with twins and he is starting a new job. I wouldn’t want the headache of being a landlord to foreigners with all that going on. We are pretty disappointed, but I’m confident that we’ll find something else. We are meeting with a new broker and the hunt goes on…

Madeline has joined a Brownie troop which I have agreed to co-lead. The existing troop at WAB is full, so we are starting from scratch. Thankfully one of the other co-leaders speaks fluent Chinese and I think it will prove to be extremely helpful in setting up activities. Madeline is looking forward to “getting some really cool patches”. Little does she know that she’ll have to work very hard to earn them!

David and I have been taking Chinese language “lessons” from Mr. Lu, our driver. He has agreed to help us with a few phrases in exchange for us helping him with his English. No disrespect to Mr Lu, but I hope this is not like taking elocution lessons from someone from the sticks of Georgia!

We have been very fortunate to have net some nice people here. We’ve had dinner at someone’s house or gone out every weekend since ore arrival. It is truly fascinating listening to other people’s storied of how they came to be in Beijing. One friend is with US Homeland Security (good to know!), others have been teachers in many places all over the world and some, like us, just want their kids to have different experiences and see the world.

To the point of seeing the world, we can hardly wait for the October break, or as the Chinese call it, National Day. (9/29 - 10/9) We are heading to Bali where we will spend a few days at the beach, climb a volcano and possibly ride an elephant. Next we will go to Singapore for a few days. From what I understand, most people speak english there which will be a welcomed break! They have a Barnes & Noble bookstore, which I am very excited about because I am nearly finished with my current book. There are many western stores in Singapore, so we are looking forward to stocking up on some basic items.

Last weekend was the beginning of the Mid Autumn Festival, which is similar in feeling to our Thanksgiving. There is a great feast with mooncakes for dessert. The exchange of mooncakes with friends symbolizes gratitude, admiration and respect. After dinner, everyone shares the mooncakes, leaving one piece uneaten for friends and family who are not present. Needless to say, we had many pieces uneaten. We enjoyed a Tex-Mex feast, complete with chips & guacamole, tortilla soup and enchiladas. All things considered, it turned out pretty well!

Every day there is some crazy thing that I see, smell, or hear and I just think “How freaky is that?” The main thing I can’t get used to is the fact that men & boys will drop their pants anywhere and take a pee. When I say anywhere, I am not exaggerating. A kid took a pee in the middle of a shopping area and his parents only laughed. David saw a guy take a crap on the side of the road. The “how freaky is that” winner for last week is the dead guy we saw on the side of a road. People were riding their bikes by him without a second thought. It was later explained to me that the Chinese see the body as temporary. Once you die, you are no longer there, so what does it matter? I suppose I can agree with that. I would rather see more kindness and respect given toward the living. That being said, I still don’t want to end up on the side of a road.

I guess that’s all for now. Keep in touch!

Kisskiss!
Lisa
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This is a country of extreme dichotomies. Lisa and I were walking down the road in front of the school the other day. The sidewalk was filthy with a thick layer of dusty, grey dirt. There was litter sprinkled about the sidewalk (note…the city is much cleaner than our part of town). But every 10 meters was a tree planter. In each planter, poking there heads up through a layer of dirt were a variety of colorful pansies. The personalities we see are similar…at one moment, you see drivers dangerously competing to gain a couple feet in front of others…at other times, the people go out of there way help you. You simply cannot make a generalization about the people here. Are they jerks? Yes. Are they good and kindhearted? Yes. It’s much easier to overlook the things you aren’t familiar with…it makes the bad tolerable because you have no point of reference for the human condition here. Oddly, it’s with people we are most similar to who we wish to punish for not being more like ourselves.

We’ve been looking for a better place to live. According to school, I should be able to have a “nice, clean, furnished townhome with club fees and utilities included”. It’s looking like we are going to have to top-up our housing allowance by $300-400 to get something that isn’t nasty. There’s also a layer of complexity in the school’s contract where the owner isn’t paid a damage deposit but is rather promised to be compensated by the school (note that it is a common practice for a Beijing landlord to pocket the deposit and find a minute cosmetic issue as a reason for keeping it…they pay the realtor commission with it). This has caused many deals to collapse and has been the cause of heartache amongst teachers and staff here.

Finding a good realtor is really tough. They usually receive the equivalent of 1 months rent as compensation from the landlord so there is never any motivation to negotiate for a good price. We’ve been through 4 realtors so far. The first one, I fired before we met her due to some bad press and a neighbor who recommended someone else named Maria. Well, Maria was great and genuinely seemed to work on our behalf but decided to go back to school. Our second person was Sally who Maria passed our information to. She showed us a few townhouses and we even found one to bid on. Well, after the negotiations started, Sally ended up in the hospital and passed us off to Betty. The landlord didn’t want to work the same way most landlords work - collect 1 check, and pay the club, cable, internet, utilities, taxes etc. This landlord was “too busy” and wanted us to go to the tax office each month (it’s not like going to the store…this is a Chinese government office). So despite the fact that the townhouse was great (including widescreen home theater), I told Betty that there are 2 ways to make this work…”1. he accepts the standard contract. or 2. you can provide a management service for him and manage this like our contract stipulates”.

So tomorrow we have a meeting with 2 new realtors from 2 different companies at 2 different times. This isn’t unethical because these realtors only show their own inventory…not others. Until then, we are pretty comfortable in our serviced apartment. We just have no storage.

I have purposely not dwelled on the nitpicky issues we’ve dealt with here in China. I won’t lie…it’s not an easy place to live. By western standards, these issues could seem huge…but the beauty of this whole experience is that we’ve learned roll along with adversity. We’ve developed a better appreciation for the things that really matter.

An overzealous back-hoe operator burst the water main for all of Shunyi (our district) which has disabled our water supply since we awoke this morning. Supposedly it will be back on soon but I’m not hanging my hat on it. It reminded me not to take something as simple as a public water supply for granted…even if you can’t drink it when it does work. It also shows me how screwed New Orleans is.

Missing a shower isn’t the end of the world. I can even shower at the school. But to not be able to flush is a whole other issue. Luckily, our building ran a .5 km hose from the swimming pool to pump water into the hot water tanks in our apartment. We could then use the detachable shower head to fill our stylish, French toilet tank with a nasty yellow water and flush like a civilized westerner.
smime.p7s

I’m so buzzing right now. I just finished riding some sweet, technical, steep singletrack within a 30 minute drive from my house. I hooked up with a teacher, Andy from school and a couple of his riding buddies, Nick and Rob. It was a beautiful day…slightly hazy unlike the perfect, cool, blue sky day we had yesterday, but that’s very rare here…it’s usually polluted smoggy muck.

View All Photos Here

The trail climbs from a middle-class, suburban part of Beijing called Fragrant Hills which is on the northwest side of town, nestled at the foot of the mountains. The long climb starts from the valley floor and crawls up technical, craggy rock outcroppings, with a brief mix of paved trail followed by an additional climb topping out at close 2000′…over a very short span of about 5 miles…that’s very steep.

The total ride-time was about 2.5 hours including a number of breaks.
About 30 minutes into the climb, I quietly panicked because I took one last sip from my Camelback it was bone dry. Luckily, when we reached the top, there was a small snack stand with a guy selling coke, beer, and water. Excellent! I had a Coke and refilled my Camelback with a half liter of water and we departed down the back side of the mountain. This part was more grassy and sandy with lots of erosion. It proved to be pretty tricky but fun. We reached a small reservoir and dam where locals were fishing. We rode up dirt road back to the ridge and dropped back into some extremely technical singletrack with large, twisted rock drops followed by a tunnel of low-hanging tree branches. We soon re-connected with the main trail and after a quick climb and descent, we were home.

While the trail wasn’t designed for cycling, it was really quite amazing because it had elements of every trail I’ve ever been on in terms of tread, steepness, and ecosystem. The only thing it lacked was a creek crossing which is not a desirable thought here in China considering the water quality.

Our part-time driver, Mr. Lu has been working very hard to learn english and has done a pretty good job so far. He and Lisa negotiated a deal to trade language lessons and for the past 2 nights, he spent 2 hours a night learning the difference between skirt and shirt and a dozen other things he was confused about. In exchange, we have learned a lot about speaking Chinese. He’s given a good start on how to pronounce the 4 tones because they repurpose words with different tones to derive completely different meanings. Here’s an example that we worked on…I’m representing this phonetically so I don’t have to explain Pinyin (the western representation of Chinese words).

shoo (high pitch no change in tone) - book
shoo (low to high) - food
shoooo (high to low to high) - rat
shu (sharp drop from high to low) - tree

Lot’s of people say it’s a hard language, but it’s actually pretty fun because of these tones and sounds that westerners can’t make. I practiced saying “re” (means hot) with a driver today. It’s sounds more like “yloo-er” with the third tone (high low high) but only one syllable. At any rate, it’s hard not to be in a good mood after spending some time around Mr. Lu.