Ni hao

Chinese is the most rewarding language to learn. Say “Ni hao” to a local and they will complement you on how good you speak their language!

I am very surprised and proud of the fact that despite the fact that I haven’t studied or spoken the language in 15 (fifteen!) years I still remember lots. And it keeps coming back! Two babies (and after having kids every mom knows the brain turns to mush) and countless parties and my brain is still storing this information. Amazing.

Nevertheless, I felt the need to brush up on my language skills and hopefully learn some more. So, after two months of procrastination…I finally called ISA’s language school to set up an appointment. 30 minutes by bike and I finally find her school, located in her home on the ground floor of an apartment building in the town of Hou Sha Yu, with an entrance through her zen-like garden, lovely in the spring I’m sure.

After greeting me, she hands me a paper, all written in hanzi (Chinese characters), to see where I’m at. Auummmmm…Dawai he Mali…ok, not much have changed when it comes to the fake foreigners taking Mandarin lessons in Chinese languagelearning books. After a lot of coaching, we made it to the end and I left her with an eagerness to study that I haven’t felt in years.

Going home I took the wrong exit of a roundabout and almost ended up on the express way.

So, while I might be good at languages, I’m still logistically impaired….but at least I can ask for directions..

Fall break part 2

Ok, Fall Break was like 100 years ago, and I can hardly remember what we did the last few days of it. We went to Tiantan Park to see Temple of Heaven together with 10.000 other people, we tried desperately to make our children to eat Chinese food, we saw a woman staring at a tree in a park, we were approached over and over again by people inquiring how old are children are, we saw old men practice Kung Fu in the park, we visited a children’s playground with a tank merry-go-round (with shooting guns sound effects), we saw groups of people exercising with Tai Chi Balls (two rackets, one heavy ball – slow motion -tai chi- like movements) and feather balls (kicking the ball to each other) and one area of the park where I believe they tried to find suitable partners for their children and grandchildren. People were sitting around with pieces of paper and photographs showing the age, height and weight and I’m guessing more information as well. Very crowded area, I guess the match making business is still going strong in China. We even managed to squeeze in a few play dates for the kids and overall, it was a very nice, relaxing fall break. Even kitty felt more relaxed afterwards.

This week has been field trip week. On Monday all first graders went to two farms; an apple and pear orchard in the morning and a vegetable farm in the afternoon. All kids came armed with baskets and bags to the fruit orchard and since no instructions and directions were given, they picked away.

Then it was time to check out…..and oops, the farm forgot to tell us that they were only allowed to pick four apples each and what was left after the kids had gotten their pick the school and parents had to pay for. It was the most expensive fruit shopping ever. Such a rip-off but what to do?

The afternoon trip was much more organized and Amanda came home with a zucchini like pumpkin on steroids, a whole bag of carrots and so much ginger it will last us all winter. The pumpkin, some ginger and tangerines have been made into a soup that will be enjoyed at todays’ harvest feast.

The second graders went to the Great Wall on Tuesday. It was one of those rare perfect fall days when the sun is shining, the air is fresh, the leaves are every color of the rainbow almost and everyone is happy. We found a new way up to the wall through a garden with a waterfall and a cave. Heaven for the boys who pretended they were in a star wars game and ran all the way up to the wall. The energy! And stamina! I don’t get it; my boy hardly eats, doesn’t exercise much and still has the energy of an Olympic athlete. After some poem writing and lunch in one of the watch towers we headed down again and back to school.

Halloween weekend is coming up and hopefully moving day tomorrow! Can’t wait to move into our new, though almost empty, house. Finally some kind of normality.

A ball gown and a box of cat litter

Fall is ball season in Beijing and even if we are not going to any, others are and as the good friend that I am, I followed Deb to Jenny’s dress shop to help her find a gown. Think dress shop and you think fancy location, a spacious store with thick carpets and large dressing rooms. Perhaps dresses color coordinated on the racks or sorted by event suitability and maybe they offer tea of even champagne!

We discovered that Jenny’s dress shop is not exactly like that… when we eventually found the place after having circled around the same block three or four times. The instructions were: Give Jenny a call and she will meet you at the gate and let you in. Well, we skipped that part after having been let into the garage and in through the locked doors to the lift. Three floors up we enter a court yard where various tiny shops, all locked, were surrounded by apartments in the high rises above.

A quick phone call to Jenny and she appears and unlocks the door to her shop; a teeny, tiny space with dresses from floor (many on the floor) to ceiling. Long gowns, short dresses, casual dresses and what could easily be worn to an Indian wedding and all hanging haphazardly on too crowded racks. It’s clean enough and we begin to rumble through her selection, picking out what is available in “American size”, i.e. very big for the tiny Chinese people. It’s impossible to fathom how she does her inventory, how does she know what she has in stock but somehow she does and she can even produce “new” dresses in different sizes.

Now, I wasn’t in the market for a gown, as mentioned I haven’t got anywhere to use it, but what to do when you find the perfect navy blue silk gown, strapless and cut like a glove that makes you look and feel like a princess – even on a Tuesday morning. Well, you’ve got to buy it and find a reason to wear it. Our house warming might be a very fancy affair….

Deb walked away with four dresses and we headed to Auchan, French hypermarket extraordinaire.

After a quick noodle lunch, two gigantic bowls of spicy noodle soup heaven and a plate of sesame infused greens – all for 26 RMB (US$4!) for the two of us, we continued with our shopping.

An hour or so later I walk out and head home with not only a ball gown that I don’t really need, but also cat litter and Angry Bird stickers. A productive day indeed.

See through kitty

We arrived in Annecy, France, in the late spring of 2004 after having spent eight years in Asia. Shakespeare had so far lived in our Singaporean condo on the mountain where he was born, our picturesque house in Den-en-chofu, Tokyo, our apartment with the magnificent view over Lamma Island and our vast government-owned apartment – both in Hong Kong. We went from 300 m2 to a 100m2 loft apartment on Avenue de Genève.

All went well, initially; he only escaped down the elevator that went straight up to our apartment once, and he only jumped down to our neighbor’s balcony once as well. Winter arrived and his strolls around our 50m2 large patio came to an end. He has never been much of a winter guy; instead he curled up like a cinnamon roll under a blanket or under the duvet in our bed, surrounded by pillows.

All of a sudden he started coughing, not like a normal cat-cold kind of cough but more wheezing and dry cough, as if he couldn’t exhale properly – like asthma. And sure enough, the vet soon confirmed that asthma it was and that he needed regular cortisone injections throughout winter. Needless to say; cortisone plus inactivity made him put on a lot of weight and by summer we had one fat kitty.

When Shakespeare arrived after more than two months of boarding in Scottsdale, a three day journey across the globe and six days of quarantine he resembled Garfield, only grey and black instead of orange. Never before has he been so….solid…. (I’m way to nice here…I don’t want to hurt the poor deaf cats’ feelings…).

After a very short stroll around the service apartment he settled in quickly and has since escaped only once when housekeeping by accident let him out. He prefers to spend his days sleeping or looking out the window.

Beijing is extremely dry and of course the cough came back, with a vengeance. I took him to the vet the other day to make sure his lungs and heart where working well and confirm, yet again, what I know is wrong with him. Before I knew it, four people were involved and he was whisked off to the x-ray room where they proceeded to hold him down during the procedure (thank god they were wearing protective vests!). Afterwards, the sanitized instruments went back in to their plastic bags (without being sanitized again…) and the doctor began to rinse the negatives in the examination room.

The result? Sure enough, he is overweight but he also has a mysterious syndrome which causes his airways to tighten and contract, something related to old age presumably.

There’s always an excuse, isn’t there? Will look into a cat treadmill for sure…

Fall break part 1

Fall break fell upon us last week and while the majority of the expat population fled the city and headed for beaches in Thailand, Vietnam or Malaysia, or exciting city breaks in Tokyo, Hong Kong or Singapore, what seemed like the entire Chinese population headed for Beijing. As did we. We figured we couldn’t really leave Shakespeare at a cattery so soon after having checked out of one and besides, it gave us a chance to explore our new city.

We started off the week with a visit to Tiananmen Square, rumored to fit 1.000.000 visitors at once. I believe there were 999.996 Chinese visitors and four (4) Swedes around that Monday morning, at least if felt like it. But boy, were we popular. We of course remember the fascination of our pale skin, blue eyes and golden hair but for the kids this was new. But after a few minutes of shyness, they quickly warmed up and posed with whom ever wanted a picture with a REAL laowai. We squeezed ourselves through the underpass in an effort to enter the Forbidden City but to no avail. It was simply too crowded and by now, the kids had really had enough. Not even hot dog on a stick and ice cream helped and we made our way out, trying to find lunch. 

And there they were, lovely little street restaurants offering all sorts of local delicacies but what did our kids do? They frowned with their little faces and scrunched their noses complaining about weird smells and sounds. I guess we will take it in baby steps but it will be my mission to have them eat, and enjoy (!), Chinese food before next summer.

Having Mr. Li around to take us home after our exhausting city visit was a godsend; to escape into his clean Buick with crocheted seat covers (and seatbelts!) and listen to Lady Gaga made the trip home so much more comfortable than trying to find a taxi and convince the driver to drive all the way out to Shunyi all the while listening to Chinese theater on the radio and worry about the kids crashing through the window in case of an accident.

Tuesday we headed for Mutianyu. In 1997 this part of the Great Chinese Wall was pretty peaceful and calm; a few vendors selling water and souvenirs, a tiny bar and a very stinky bathroom of the simplest kind. Toilet seats - are you kidding? Doors for privacy -why bother?!

There had been an upgrade in both restrooms (still stinky though) and vendors of food/drink/souvenirs; there was even a Subway! We had packed lunch and headed straight for the gondola taking us all the way up to the wall, with a half-promise that we would look at the nanchucks and Chinese army hats later…as well as the traditional Chinese empress hat…

Even the kids were impressed by the wall, actually awestruck and speechless would be a better word for their reaction. It is so impressive and magnificent and incomprehensible to understand that it is man-made. The kids had a blast and ran off energy climbing up and down the steps, not tiring of the view or the attention they got from the other visitors, again – mainly Chinese. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and as we were sitting down next to a watch tower eating our sandwiches we were having a near perfect moment. If it hadn’t been for the people gawking at us, stopping to take our picture (they eat!) and ask us questions about where we were from, why we were there, were the kids twins and when the answer was no; oh you are so lucky.

We managed to steer the attention away from the nanchucks (I could just imagine the strangling accident) with two samurai swords and traded the army hat for a revolutionary cap (couldn’t get her off the empress hat though) and picked up a few souvenirs for our American friends and later headed home, in Mr. Li’s air conditioned sedan listening to Lady Gaga.

Slumpin' away

It’s official; I’m in a slump. Been here before, know the signs and the feel of it all and it really suck.

The pollution index is at a steady 200 – 300ish meaning grey skies and dusty feeling skin. Make-up is worn as a protectant against the elements; thank God I’m a woman. Even though the weather is still warm enough for shorts and t-shirts during the day, the government has decided that all air-con units should no longer produce cold air. For now, nothing comes out until they decide it’s time for warm air. I knew this was the case for apartments and official buildings but a hotel? Hello?!

To add insult to misery, I am officially too fat to buy clothes in China. “Ohhhh, mei you….ni tai da le!” (Oh, there is nothing, you are too big!) Yay, thanks midget. I know I’ve got a big ass but it can be clothed in the rest of the world and these boobs that you are looking at, longing for; well, too bad you’re never gonna get any unless you pay for them. Hah!

So what to do when you’ve been living in the same clothes since June in AZ summer desert climate, Scandinavian summer and Beijing fall which is getting colder by the day? You suck it up and go shopping! That’s all. You’d think that is an easy task in China since EVERYTHING is made in China. Not so much so. I decided to skip the humiliation and struggle at the markets and headed straight for Solana; a shopping center that looks (key word here!) like it could be placed anywhere in America; familiar stores, a food court, a western type supermarket, a pharmacy and a few restaurants.

I was quite optimistic at this point; I was only looking for a couple of pairs of pants or jeans and a sweater, not a ball gown! Beijing country life isn’t exactly glamorous; god knows what I’m going to do with my 40 or so pair of heels that will arrive any year now. So, optimistically, I enter the first shop; a well-known brand; a chain store that has everything! I browse through the store, picking up an item here, and item there, all in my usual size (and no, I have not gained weight over summer!) and head for the changing rooms. No, no, no and noooooo! I can’t even pull the pants over my knees and I did pick the right size (this isn’t Italy or France when they have weird sizes and you have to go two sizes up in everything) but somehow, these pants must be made exclusively for the Asian market and maybe you don’t know this but Asian ladies are ass—less. All flat. A round booty like mine does not belong here.

By the third store I am tired, sweaty (no air-conditioning, remember) and hungry and there I meet an angel. She sees me, she greets me and she doesn’t give up. She gets every single pair of pants and jeans in the store and finally – success! I almost kissed the woman.

Exhausted from trying on clothes I head for the food court. Yum! Not a Mc Donald’s or KFC in sight. All local food made on the spot; every kind of noodle and dumpling you can imagine…if I only could figure out how to pay…and to get some ones, any ones, attention. There seemed to be a system of pre-paying whatever you wanted at a cashier at the very entrance. People were walking around waving credit card like cards, while shouting the orders to the vendors. Nobody was interested in me, nobody even offered to help and tries to explain, nobody cared that I was starving and very willing to be charged laowai overprices. I left hungry and confused…and went around the corner to…Restaurant Street! There they were, all lined up! Food for every taste and wallet and they were very willing to serve me a delicious bowl of miso ramen with a spicy tempura roll on the side.

Next, I hit IKEA…but that’s a whole different story…