Adoption Road Block

Although we mailed our documentation and our fingerprints to our adoption agency last week,
it seems that our adoption agency only received our documentation.

No fingerprints.

This is a real problem, for many reasons.
1: We paid nearly $100 for the fingerprints, plus taking advantage of friends for child care and burning about 3 hours of vacation time.
2: Dave returns to Shanghai on Sunday, leaving us only a very few days to get them ready to mail within the month.
3: Our agency will not acknowledge their loss of our fingerprints, meaning that any extra cost will be ours.

It seems that this may end up putting off our application to USCIS by as much as 4 weeks.

Needless to say, Dave and I are a bit grumpy this morning.

The Reunion

When people ask where we're from, we generally say St. Louis. Although neither of us feels a real affinity toward what was our home city for 7 years, it was our most recent address and so it feels like the right thing to say.

We arrived in St. Louis last night, after spending a week in Chicago. And I'll admit that it felt good to be "home." Our house sits on the market, and so we're sleeping down the street. But walking the same streets, visiting our favorite restaurants and shopping at the same stores feels lusciously comfortable. We visited a grocery store yesterday, and it felt like a reunion with old friends. We used to hang out with Wheat Thins. Remember when we ate Pizza Rolls? Ah, we loved that barbeque sauce!

St. Louis feels comfortable, and in a way that Shanghai may never feel comfortable. But comfort is the end of our feelings toward St. Louis. Beyond our family and friends (and the horrible housing market), precious few things act as a magnet trying to pull us back to St. Louis. The exception to the rule is New City Fellowship, our church.

New City is a transient church, pulling many members from the denomination's seminary in town. Its the type of church with very few people in attendance in Christmas, and so we knew very few other attendees in the pew this morning. But even though our friends were missing, I still felt at home. The pastors were the same, and the music was the same. The style of the worship had not strayed, and the type of community had lasted through a cycle of people. Young families with loads of kids filled the pews, and little noisemakers buzzed throughout the first portion of the service. A crew of instrumentalists lined up behind the worship team, and voiced their instruments whenever they seemed appropriate. Refugee families filled the pews, gathered by nationality. In many ways it felt like our church in Shanghai, with different colored faces and different styles of clothes. But in this crowd, many of the faces were refugee families and others were people intent on serving God's people. In our crowd in Shanghai, we're all expatriates on corporate packages and although we mix with other nationalities, we don't meet economic diversity in our daily lives (although we pass it on the street, and employ it in our homes).

The girls went to Sunday School, and sang along with the worship songs. Dave and I enjoyed the company and the sermon. It felt good to be home, and sad to miss such a wonderful community.

Bi-Homal

I have not reached bi-lingual status during my year on China, but I do believe that I have reached Bi-Homal status. Shanghai is certainly my home - my friends are there, my bed and my children's toys, my grocery store and my routines are in Shanghai. It is certainly my home. But since arriving on Friday in Chicago, I feel completely at home in an entirely different way. I fall into comfortable old habits, talk to people I've known for years, and everything I do feels easy and natural. I realize I am fully a friendly American as I hold conversations with the Hispanic woman at the post office and the Indian woman at Dunkin Donuts. I don't think twice about driving, but rather get behind the wheel and go as if I've been driving all year. America is my home, and maybe always will be. The interesting question is how true that will be for my children - already, S-- has spent over half of her life abroad. By September, L-- will reach the same milestone. Where will their home be?

Adoption Update

I overnighted a serious package yesterday.

Sent from the states, overnighting by USPS was a simple option compared to mailing quickly from China. We sent a serious package into our adoption agency:

• Fingerprints, with a very intimidating seal from the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai
• 4 copies of our Homestudy, each requiring certain signatures and stamps
• I-800A, our application to the U.S. government to allow Mei Mei to enter our family as an American
• A check for over $8,000 - that one really hurt

For such a small package, sending it felt pretty big.

And now, we wait.

We wait for the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to approve our application. We've been told that we'll have a 60 day wait from them, although friends told us they've been waiting for closer to 90 days.

Once we receive approval from USCIS, we submit our dossier to CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs). We're being told to expect 12 to 18 months for word from CCAA, although friends tell us they've been waiting for closer to 2 years with the wait time climbing every month. Word is that the wait time should stabilize soon, but may have climbed to an average of 18 to 24 months for expatriate families living in China.

Following this schedule, Mei Mei should arrive in our home by summer of 2012. Two and a half years from now seems a long time away - we'll have a 4 and 5 year old, and who knows where we'll be living. Oh, the changes life can bring!

Up and At 'Em!

Listing by Chicago time:

3:00pm Thursday - The family began to wake for the day
10:30pm Thursday - We headed off for the airport
3:30am Friday - The flight took off, right on time
8:30am - The girls fell asleep
1:00pm - Everyone's awake
4:20pm - The flight landed, an hour early
10:00pm - To bed, and to sleep quickly
3:00am Saturday - I can not stay in bed another minute

L--, Dave and I are up and putzing around Grammy and Grampa's house, while S-- continues to sleep upstairs. We hoped for crazy Christmas hours at Target so we could use our time usefully and then pick up donuts on the way home. Apparently, opening at 4am would be a bit too crazy for Target.

A good 4 hours of sleep on the plane, and another 6 hours overnight puts us at a pretty good place for facing the week ahead. The flight went well, 2 hours shorter than we had expected. The girls did great; eating, playing and sleeping quite well. I'm not dreading the next flight, although I'm happy its a good 6 weeks away.

And So It Begins

We fly to America at the end of the day today. Fourteen hours later, we land in Chicago in the middle of the day there. Today.

5:30am Friday, Shanghai - Dave and I are both awake

Start the no sleep clock at 3:30pm Thursday, Chicago time.

And so the day begins.

Confrontation

As in most cultures, the ugliest side of Chinese people comes out when they're behind a wheel. But while Americans will curse and shake their fists at people who cut them off, Chinese people will regularly step out of the car and run yelling toward the person offending them. This style of confrontation is quite likely in such a selfish driving culture as Shanghai displays. People don't think twice about driving into oncoming traffic or stopping in a manner which brings traffic to a halt.

This evening, the girls and I walked to the ATM. I walked, that is. The girls rode their new bikes. As these are new bikes, and a bit outsized for the little tikes, they rode quite slowly and with my assistance. But as we stuck to large sidewalks, it caused no problem.

No problem, that is, until we reached the sidewalk where a man behind the wheel of a large van wanted to drive. The sidewalk was large enough for a van, and possibly could have fit an individual walking next to the van. But with two youngsters on bikes, this van passing us was simply not an option. As he honked his horn behind us, I stayed firmly in the middle of the sidewalk, a few steps behind the girls to ensure their safety. The man revved his engine and attempted to pull around - coming dangerously close to S--. I quickly turned, slamming my fist onto his hood, and glared at him for a good 10 seconds. He seemed to shrink back, and so I returned to my shepherding.

As soon as I turned around, he lay on his horn and again jerked forward. I pulled the same move - quickly turning and slamming my fist on his hood. This time I added a point at his face and some harsh words in English.

After yet one more round of this, the man got out of his car and stormed toward me. My insides felt amazed - he really thought that the van on the sidwalk had the right-of-way over two young children? My outsides felt wildly angry, and looked around for support. The best way to win a public argument in China is to pull a crowd that sides with you. Quickly people began to gather, and confident that I was in the right, I stood my ground. More than stood my ground, in fact. As suits a person in a Chinese confrontation, I began yelling at the man in Mandarin.

He yelled something back at me and then stepped back into his car, quickly backing down from the growing crowd. We walked at our toddler pace to the bank, only a few steps away. He inched close behind us, and lay on the horn the entire way. But I felt like I fit right into my surroundings for having stood my ground.

Wendy's Cooking

In China, the middle class and above have a staff working in their home. The least paid people in Dave's office have someone who comes to clean their house and do their shopping at least a few days a week. The expatriates have wisely followed suit, and we employ a wonderful woman 40 hours per week as our ayi.

Wendy began working for us in September. She had worked for Americans in the past, but had spent the last two years at home, first as an expecting mother and then caring for her daughter. After a few months, her in-laws moved into their home and Wendy went back to work. I asked her why she was choosing to return to work. And she asked if I've ever spent the entire day, every day with a 14 month old. She and I understand each other.

Wendy is a smart woman, who taught herself amazing English over the last few years. She comes from Nanjing, but her husband in from Shanghai and this is now her home. Her husband drives a bus and her in-laws care for her baby while she's working. She was not looking to be a nanny, and so she focuses her time on housekeeping. But she enjoys S-- and she thinks L-- is quite clever. She keeps a keen eye on both of my kids, rarely spoiling them, and S-- is entirely comfortable with her.

We asked all of the appropriate questions when I hired her, but I didn't think to ask about her cooking. After a few weeks of her working for our family, I asked her to make lunch for S-- and I a few days a week. For 3 weeks she made simple vegetables and rice, but somehow every meal tasted different and each meal tasted wonderful. As I increased the amount of money she could spend at the store, the meals became increasingly better. More meat, bigger variety of vegetables. Wendy clearly enjoys cooking, and her knowledge is tremendous. As we are leaving on Friday, I've asked her only to cook with what's in the house this week. I showed her the pantry - please use up the meat in the freezer, go through as many eggs as you can, and use up the carrots and cucumbers in the fridge. Based on that criteria, today's lunch was amazing. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

I've asked her to teach me to cook Chinese food, and today I had my first lesson. She taught me to make ma na dofou. When I searched for it online, I was referred to mapo doufu. This sounds like exactly the same dish, and I have to assume that she has taught me the Shanghainese pronunciation. Its quite simple and relatively healthy - tofu, minced pork, Sichuanese chilis, and all of the standard Chinese seasonings, all served over rice. Although I just watched her cook today, I took copious notes (a point she thought was quite amusing) and I'm confident in my ability to recreate the dish.

I may return from my time in China with a shamefully small amount of language skills to my name, but I will be one of the best Chinese chefs around after Wendy is finished with me.

Common Themes

One of the fun things about living in an expatriate community is how many of my friends have entirely different backgrounds from myself. Friends grew up in different countries, in rural areas, with different educational backgrounds and different career backgrounds. Friends have different reasons for living abroad and different goals for their children. And still, they're my friends.

Another interesting thing is how much we have in common. In many ways, the expatriate community in Shanghai resembles America circa 1950. Many women have sacrificed themselves for their husband's career. We've given up our careers and moved far away from our family and friends. We've sacrificed roots and a sense of place - but our husbands have as well. Many women work, but it seems that most of us do not. We run our households, managing to keep our family traditions intact and our food recognizable. Many of us have learned how to cook and how to bake - because you're not going to get Grandma's sugar cookies unless you make them yourself! We don't drive. We don't have any income. Our lives revolve around keeping our children well and happy, and managing our husband's schedules. The children in the schools talk about where their families live, and where they'll travel for Christmas. They share holiday traditions, and no one stands out when Daddy travels for a week at a time.

Incredibly, I'm learning that I like the 1950s housewife lifestyle. I'm enjoying cooking everything from scratch. I like spending most of my time with my kids, and making family time a priority. I love helping out at L--'s school. And although I do miss working, I have adjusted to life as a full-time mom and am not planning to change that anytime soon. Most of my friends say the same.

Sadly, another commonality amongst expatriate families is marital hardship. The men travel a lot. They're expected to work long hours, and often late into the night. Many Chinese people seek a way out of their country, and a rich expatriate man is the easiest ticket for a young woman who speaks English. Too many women - including friends of mine - have found themselves in this horrendous situation. Having given up their lives entirely, their husband leaves them for another woman. One friend has been abroad for quite some time - such that she has no home to return to. She has no credit history, and no property. She has no income, and since her husband still works for the company, no one will ship her and her belongings back to her homeland. Her children now face living without their father, as he will stay in China. What is frightening in the United States becomes terrifying in a foreign land.

Divorce rates are high in the U.S., and have been for some time. My understanding is that the rates are much higher for families living abroad. I heard at one point that an international move is one of the most difficult adjustments for a person to make. No doubt it is one of the most difficult adjustments for a couple to make as well.

The American Foreign Service

By and large, our acquaintances in Shanghai are in the corporate sector. Their company has invested in China through joint venture or acquisition, and they have been sent as an expert on the company business to help things run smoothly. This was certainly the case when Dave arrived in Shanghai. Uncle H-- acquired an office here a few years ago, and business grew so quickly that the small local shops were having much trouble keeping up. Dave worked for Uncle H-- on big projects in the states for years, and although he was not a high-ranking manager, he was familiar with managing large clients with seemingly unreasonable expectations on tight time frames. The idea, as we knew it, was to have Dave help the Shanghai team to run on that same level. Over the year that we've lived in Shanghai, his job description has changed at least twice. This is par for the course with expatriates working in corporate Shanghai.

We know a family working for the U.S. armed services, and we know a few families who came to serve the Lord (although they were brought by corporations, work full-time jobs, and live the same corporate lifestyle as the rest of us.) The people we do not know are those working for foreign governments. I wonder whether this is by happenstance, or if those working for consulates and embassies tend to keep to themselves.

Doug, a close friend of ours in Shanghai, plans to apply to the American Foreign Service, and I find the process extremely interesting. Allow me to explain what he is facing.

Step 1: FSOT
The Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) is offered to Americans a few times a year, and is the first step in the application process. The American Consulate in Shanghai will offer the test in February, and so Doug is submitting his application this week and will bone up on his American history and international politics over the next 8 weeks.

Step 2: Pass the FSOT
Doug faces a low pass rate on the test, and so he will face a few weeks of uncertainty before finding out his score. Having taken the exam in February, Doug would expect to learn his status in March.

Step 3: Write an essay
With notification that he passes the exam, Doug will be asked to quickly turn around three writing samples. These will be in the form of essays on personal motivation, interests, experiences and so forth.

Step 4: Oral Examination
After several months, enough people will read those essays and decide whether or not our friend is a satisfactory writer with acceptable personal motivation. If he passes the written portion, he will face an oral examination. Doug's info is a little fuzzy at this point - it seems that he will be looking at a day of interviews, and although an interview is essentially a list of questions, he still can not explain whether these questions are more in interview form or examination form. Suffice it to say that at the end of this day, Doug must have convinced the good people of the U.S. State Department that he can effectively communicate what a brilliant person he is. Facing a several month wait time, Doug estimates that he would take his Oral Examination in June.

Step 5: Acceptance
After another few months of discussions behind locked doors, Doug will presumably be notified that the U.S. government would love him to be their envoy in a foreign nation. This is where Doug's information becomes quite fuzzy. His impression is that once they inform him of his acceptance, things will move quickly. Because Doug currently lives in Shanghai, the process could potentially work differently for him than for the average American Joe. But presumably, within a few weeks he would pack his things and move out of China. His estimate is that this notification could come in the fall - around September or October.

Step 6: Training
Doug will move to Washington, D.C. and begin training to be a Foreign Service Officer. At the end of his training, Doug and the State Department will decide where he will face his first posting. He then enters into the second faze of training, where he learns the language of his next home. This whole training process will take about a year - a year of living in Washington, D.C.

Assignment #1
After learning the language, Doug will be sent to his first posting. As a new officer, this posting will almost certainly be processing visas. The U.S. goverment will not pay Doug a whole lot of money to process these visas - he faces a dramatic drop in salary. But the State Department does promise to house all of their employees, and to provide for their children's education. Because they want him to maintain his ties with America, Doug will spend at least 30 days in the United States every year on vacation. Most assignments last 2-4 years.

Assignment #2
Having finished his first posting, Doug will face dejavu. He will return to Washington, D.C. to learn another language. Once he's well-trained, he will be sent to his second assignment where he will process more visa applications. If he is accepted into this career choice, Doug faces a simple and monotonous job for the next 4-6 years. But once he finishes this second assignment, he'll be dropped into the main employee pool in the foreign service and then things could get really interesting.

As I find the entire process quite interesting, I'll keep posting on Doug's process as long as we're in touch.

Reading Instructions

I may have earned a Motherhood Medal this evening. S--'s birthday is tomorrow, and so I spent the evening assembling and wrapping presents. The wrapping part was easy. The assembly began as this:

The thick shag rug did not make assembly any easier, as many tiny little pieces got lost in those long, brown hairs. But here's where the medal comes in. I totally would have followed the instructions, if they didn't read like this:

You may have made a joke at one point in your life about the instructions being written in Chinese. Believe me - it is a lot harder when they really are written in Chinese.

But after 4 hours, an entire season of Weeds, a bruised thumb and half a bag of tortilla chips, the finished product seems to be a sturdy trike that any little girl would be proud to ride. Well, except for the 1984 emblem on the front - T.I.C.

T.I.C.

We, as expats in Shanghai, have a saying that explains any otherwise inexplicable happenings.

T.I.C.

Translation: This Is China

The mere reminder that This Is China tends to explain away any ridiculous problem, and although it doesn't make you feel any better about your situation, it does allow you to let it go with the knowledge that you can't do anything to change it.

For example, I called the doctor this afternoon. S-- needs a routine blood test, so I made an appointment. I asked to pick up our medical records at that time, as we'll be visiting our reliable pediatrician while we're in the states. After making the appointment, I requested our family's medical records. The woman on the phone clarified how many people I needed records for. Just the two girls - so that's two people. She informed me that I will be charged for each set of medical records, coming to a total of 300 RMB. That's about $50 in U.S. currency to receive a photocopy of two young children's medical records. I would otherwise call it unnecessary, pledging to commit their medical history to memory. Except that S-- has received immunizations while in Shanghai, and will need a positive record of those shots. It is absurd to pay nearly $50 simply to receive the immunization records of my own two children. How is this possible? How is this acceptable? Simple - T.I.C.

Later in the day, the girls and I took the Metro to visit Daddy for dinner. In his new role, Dave works on projects which cumulate in a few intense weeks. In the midst of these times, he struggles to make it home for dinner and bedtime. So tonight, we brought dinner to him and will do bedtime on our own. This means I brought two short little people onto the Shanghai Metro during rush hour. We only had to make it 4 stops, with no line changes - no problem. I stood my ground, using muscles I didn't know I had to resist being pushed into L-- as she stood in front of me. S-- sat in a backpack behind me, and sadly received the brunt of the pushing. With her face in most people's line of vision, she was mainly spared. As we exited the train, I set L-- directly in front of me and used my elbows to push my way out. We made it out without L-- noticing what a crowded place she had exited, but I felt wildly frustrated at a mass of people's inability to watch out for the needs of others. Especially others who are shorter than 3 feet tall. T.I.C.

We reached the restaurant. Situated inside a department store crowded with sale seeking shoppers, this is hardly fine dining. The seats are long benches in an uneven shade of brown which is almost certainly darkened by time and filthy bodies. Still, the staff balked at the girls walking down the benches and made them sit down and take off their shoes. T.I.C.

As I was losing my patience with my surroundings, L-- exclaimed that she had to pee. We sought out a bathroom, and found it with little trouble. Very sweet staff ladies led us straight to it - T.I.C. certainly also refers to the sweet people will go out of their way to help, and who make life in China more than bearable. But these sweet ladies were not the bathroom attendants. In China, bathroom stalls are not individually stocked with toilet paper. Fancy department stores hang their roll of toilet paper outside the bathroom door, where people are expected to think ahead and measure appropriately. Apparently, too many pee-ers overestimated and the roll was empty. But no problem, I thought. A bathroom worker is standing right here - he must not realize the problem. The conversation which ensued made no sense to me, as the man spoke no English.

Lynne (pointing to the empty paper roll): Mei you. There is none.

Worker (leaning on his mop): Something in Mandarin about how he agrees that there is no paper.

Lynne: Mei you. Bu hao. There is none. This is a problem.

Worker (smiling): Something in Mandarin about who knows what, which began to really piss me off, because can there be a good reason for a department store to offer no toilet paper to any of their toilet goers?

At this point, I began yelling at the poor man in English. Maybe not yelling - I don't think I raised my voice. But my tone was certainly not one of the four in Mandarin. He stood smiling, that ever-present Chinese smile which can mean one of many things, but here probably meant one of two things. A: This woman is making me really uncomfortable; or B: I can't wait to tell the guys about this crazy white lady going off about the lack of toilet paper! I mean, what does she expect? This Is China!

Discussing Mei Mei

I picked up L-- on my own this afternoon. I spent the morning running errands sans children, and although I usually bring S-- to L--'s school in the afternoon, today I was alone. L-- and I enjoyed the chance to chat in the backseat of the van on the 20 minute ride home.

We discussed children, and who has children, and how many they have. She explained that her teachers all have children. Even Miss Yuko, her Chinese teacher. Really? I asked. I didn't know Miss Yuko had children. How many children does she have?

Daughter: She has one, two, three, four, five, six, seven children.

Mommy: Wow! Seven children is a lot! You know, Miss Yuko is Chinese and so she can only have 1 child. Chinese families are only allowed to have one kid in the family.

Daughter: You and Daddy have 2 kids in the famiy.

Mommy (sensing the right moment): That's right. Would it be fun to have more than 2 kids in our family?

Daughter: Um, sure. Yeah.

Mommy: Maybe when you're 4 years old we'll get another kid in our family. Maybe we'll call her Mei Mei and she can be your little sister.

Daughter: S-- and me could be her big sisters!

Mommy: Yeah! Would you like that?

Daughter: Yeah! But I want her to speak English, and not Chinese, okay?

We went on to discuss that Mei Mei will come to our family as a baby, and that we can teach her what language to speak. We will teach her English, but L-- could help teach her Chinese, too. L-- broke into one of the Mandarin songs she sings at school, which our driver got a real kick out of. The poor man must be bored stiff, listening to us speak English all day long - we deprive him of the ability to eavesdrop on our conversations. So whenever he hears Mandarin, he's pleased. And particularly pleased when he hears children's songs from the backseat!

I'm struck by her aversion to Mandarin - although I believe she understands more than she lets on, L-- is still quite uncomfortable being around people speaking Chinese. Neither L-- nor S-- has picked up more than a few words of the language. So much for soaking it up like a sponge! But at least she's keen to have Mei Mei join our family!

Cold Feet

With the onset of December, temperatures have dropped dramatically in Shanghai. Ice formed on the fountains in the complexes over the weekend, making it the coldest Saturday I can remember in Shanghai. With the fall of external temperatures comes a distinct loss of warmth in our apartment. I know I've blogged about this recently, but I can't keep my mind focused on anything beyond the warmth of my feet.

When outside, my jogging shoes allow cold breezes to shoot icily through my toes. When inside, two pairs of fuzzy socks are not enough to keep my feet from being chilled.

I attended a training for Music Together this weekend. I am not a certified teacher. For three days, I spent 10 hours in a classroom with heating no better than ours. In the morning, we'd stoke the flames and the room would be too hot within 2 hours. For the rest of the day, we left the heater off. No one else complained, but my feet were frozen within 30 minutes. I could not warm up all weekend, after spending my long days with such cold feet.

Last night, I took a hot bath. The bathroom has no heater, and so I left the heat lamp running for nearly twenty minutes before stepping into the steaming water. My toes burned with the abrupt change in temperature, such that I could hardly bear it. But I persevered, and after a long bath my feet felt the same temperature as the rest of my body.

But when I stepped out of the bathroom - warmed by heat lamps, remember - the ice immediately began seeping into my toes. As I walked across the room, I noted that my feet stayed warm while I stood on the carpet but chilled immensely when I stepped off. After wrapping myself in a warm robe and coating my feet with fuzzy socks, I leaned down to investigate. The floors in our apartment may be actively chilled. I believe water would set into cubes merely by being placed on our floor. That sucker is really cold.

After this discovery came the desire for slippers. They've been placed on my Christmas list, and I'm hopeful in Santa's abilities to provide. But until then, I've found a stock of slippers that the landlord had left for us in the bathroom. Apparently these cold floors are no surprise to anyone around here. Our ayi has slippers that she leaves at our home - she's no fool.

Now I just need to figure out how to keep my fingers warm.

The Work Week Begins

I've just been offered the opportunity to be trained as a Music Together teacher, which I'm very excited about. This seems like a wonderful skill to carry with us through other expatriate positions with preschoolers. The catch is that the training goes from 9am until 7pm Wednesday through Friday this week. My previously enrolled photography class has a field trip scheduled from 9am until 6pm today, and so my poor children are spending the week parentless.

I'm feeling a bit stressed about the whole situation, but very excited about both opportunities. But with the business that this week entails - along with preparing for S--'s birthday party on Saturday morning - you may not hear much from us this week.

A Quick Walk

S-- and I walked to a neighbor's home recently. I happened to have the camera in my bag that day, and caught a few uniquely Chinese shots.

As a resident of Shanghai and a purveyor of a mobile phone herein, I am able to ascertain most of the "English" on this sign. But can you?

After posting the piece about the many street workers in Shanghai, I thought I should document one of our own. This cobbler works on this same corner almost every day. I asked him to repair my brown boots, but he correctly told me that they are low quality and beyond repair. He is always busy.

A mobile fruit market. These oranges (possibly Mandarin oranges) have been everywhere for the past month or two, and will continue until just after Chinese New Year. Oranges are a symbol of wealth because there are always plenty of them. And these oranges are easy to peel, generally seedless and super tasty. A real hit in our house!

Thanksgiving

Today was our official Thanksgiving.

Morgan's family, Becca's family and Erin's family arrived between 4 and 5:00, heavy laden with food. City Shop delivered a roast turkey with a side of gravy in the same time frame. I'd spent the past few days making pies. I bought a few extra plates and wine glasses, we used an odd mix of forks with no spoons, and everyone shared a lovely Thanksgiving.

And I'll admit, it felt like Thanksgiving. The homemade food, the kids running around, the babies screaming, and the warmth of a home made a much more enjoyable Thanksgiving than last year's foray at Moon River Diner. The restaurant Thanksgiving is not worth it - on Thursday this year, we ordered Indian food in ironic unobservance.

The friends Thanksgiving is a close second to family. Sharing each other's traditions and each other's conversations is sweet. Erin's family arrived only a few months ago, and Becca's family will leave in a few weeks. Sharing of those experiences and plans makes for interesting conversation, but sharing a traditional meal with new friends has a sweet potency. The pieces are the same - right down to the green bean casserole - even though our histories vary tremendously. And the conversation around the table as we ate pie directly out of the pie plates could not be created amongst people you've known your whole life.

No doubt this Thanksgiving was better than last. This Thanksgiving, we have much to be thankful for. The friends we have made, and continue to make here in Shanghai are an amazing blessing. We are surrounded by wonderful, interesting and open people and I've formed some wonderfully close friendships. At the end of our Thanksgiving day, I feel happy and content.

But all things considered, I would still choose Thanksgiving on a chilly midwestern day in the family house, smell of turkey cooking all morning, an oven brimming with stuffing and plenty of rolls, and the same people at the table who've been there every year for as long as I can remember. The steady presence of family and those unchanging traditions are certainly worth being thankful for - even when we can't all share the same turkey.

Living the High Life

We live on the tenth floor of our building. Only a guest bedroom wall is shared with another apartment - all other walls have windows and receive the wind's strong lashings. So when I sat in the red chair in the girls' room yesterday, I thought I must be losing my mind as I clearly heard a man singing. A simple tune from a clear voice, although a bit muffled - as if in the next room. I turned nervously, afraid that the singing existed only in my head.

When I turned, I saw feet hanging over the top sill of the window.

A man tied to a building-long rope hung along our window, washing the walls of the building. The girls climbed onto their window seat to watch this action and wave at this amazing man. They remained transfixed until he had dropped out of their range of vision.

The Face of the Working Poor

Shanghai has a sizable expatriate population, with a number of free magazines serving that population. Because I'm a bit of a magazine junkie, I pick up a handful every week and peruse the restaurant reviews and editorials. Most magazines lack the level of journalism to make their stories interesting, but one week I was pleasantly surprised.

That's Shanghai ran a feature story on the man on the street - the local Chinese people who literally work on the street, earn very little money, and keep Shanghai running smoothly. We use quite a few of these vendors ourselves. Everyone does.

I'd love to copy the story here, but I don't think it would be ethical. So follow the link below to a fun piece on "the unsung heroes of the city." And keep in mind the exchange rate - $1 = 6.8 RMB.

Meet Your Man on the Street

Cold Tootsies

We shared Thanksgiving dinner with about 35 other Americans yesterday. The food was fantastic and the company was quite interesting. I had met a few of the women in the group, but Dave went in blind. The girls played with toys and other children all afternoon, and so Dave and I ended up sitting around the table with a man who works for Cooper Tire, a man who works for Dell Computers, and a man who works for Best Buy. Their experiences varied quite a bit. The Cooper Tire man spends a lot of time at the factory, and had some pretty interesting knowledge about the working and living conditions therein. The Best Buy man has been helping to open new stores in Shanghai, and has faced some interesting opposition to surprising things. Each of these men, Dave included, are one of the only expatriates in their office. Most of them agreed that their offices are too cold, the heat never working properly. The Dell man, a funny man, said Oh, you've got heat in your office? and everyone laughed.

No, seriously. You've got heat in your office? he repeated.

Dave, Best Buy and Cooper Tire all said yes.

Our heat won't go on until January 9th. By government decree, explained Dell. The weather for the last few weeks has been a very damp cold, the type that seeps into your bones and keeps you chilled for hours. They told us we should wear our coats to work.

The forecast for today is damp, dreary and with a high in the upper fifties and a low in the mid-thirties. The temperature in our apartment may not have fallen down into the thirties, but it will certainly not rise into the upper fifties, either. Homes and apartments in Shanghai do not have central heat. Most rooms have a blower on the ceiling - this serves as the air conditioner and the heater, and acts more like a space heater. Each room in our apartment has one. We set it by temperature Celsius, but that seems less related to the actual temperature in the room and more just a fancy way of setting low, medium and high. I turn the Dining Room heater on when I first wake up. At that point, the apartment is quite cold. Within 10 minutes, the Dining Room is comfortably warm and the chill has disappeared from the rest of our space. Within 20 more minutes, the Dining Room will be uncomfortably warm and arterial rooms will be inching toward warm. Two hours of heat is all our apartment needs for the day.

But that heat never reaches the floor.

Warm air certainly rises in China, and slippers are a necessity in our house. I explained in a previous post that my sneakers were stolen, and I bought the one pair that fit me in all of Shanghai. The Asic shoes I bought are quite comfortable, pricier than I would like, and light and airy running shoes. Unfortunately, light and airy running shoes are quite ill-fitted to a damp, cold winter in Shanghai. My feet have not felt warm for days. In our apartment, the floor never feels warm. I'm taking a class at the local university, and the room never even feels warm there. The building feels as if it is meant to be open air - the entire front panel of doors always stand open; the windows at the end of each hallway always stand open; we shut the windows in our classroom upon arrival every morning; we leave the windows in the bathrooms wide open because of the smell. I spend my class wrapped up in my coat.

And my feet freeze.

Fade to Black

My vanity insists that I address the quality of the photo. Were it anyone else blinking and grimacing in the photo, I would not have posted it. But the story is worth sharing, and the friends are worth remembering. So overlook the shiny face on the left, and read for content.

I met them in January. We lived in the same neighborhood, with children the same ages. We enrolled our girls in the same music class. One day after class, we went to the playground. The next week, we shared a picnic on the grass. The picnics became more regular.

We are friends.

I often compare expat life to summer camp. You arrive at camp knowing that you will only be there for 1 week. You need to make friends quickly, and they may as well be close friends. By the end of the week, you're crying as you hug your friends good-bye. How can you go back to life without them?

A more apt comparison might be college. We arrived our freshmen year, and no one in my building knew anyone else. We all felt lost and far from home. We needed friends, and we needed them quickly. We needed them to replace our close friends from home. We needed them to replace our families. We needed them to help us deal with these new and strange surroundings. And we knew that we would only live with them for 4 years before moving on.

Becca, Claire, Anna and I arrived in Shanghai very near the same time. We needed each other, and quickly became a support group. What began as mothers building a safe place for our children turned into three of my closest friends. We carried Claire through her second pregnancy and have enjoyed her little boy. We talked Anna through getting pregnant and just bought presents for her upcoming delivery. We dealt with family crises at home - a grandfather passed away; a marriage broke up; all far, far away. We helped each other through prolonged guests. We barbequed together, celebrated birthdays together, observed holidays together. Most recently, we traveled together. These women are some of my closest friends.

Since I have moved from the neighborhood, we get together every few weeks for a Mums' Night Out, sharing low-quality Mexican food and free margaritas at a sleazy expat bar. This evening was no different. We swapped stories on our husbands' job searches, our plans for Thanksgiving, upcoming birthday parties, our adoption and pregnancy updates. We ate off of each others' plates and shared one large desert. And at the end of the night, we said quick good-byes as I dashed off to grab a passing taxi.

On Sunday, Anna leaves for California. She will deliver her second child in February and they hope to return to Shanghai in late March.

Two weeks later, Claire leaves for Australia. She will be home for Christmas, and will return to Shanghai in January.

One week later, Becca leaves for New Zealand. Her husband's contract ends the day they leave China. He is still seeking the next contract, and so the odds are that they will not return from their holiday.

I fly to Chicago that same day. We will return to Shanghai in early February.

The odds are that this group of women will never be together again - although Becca invited us to her parents' bed and breakfast on a farm in New Zealand for her 40th birthday. The reunion has been set for 3 years from last week.

This is the nature of expatriate life. My closest friends will leave, and so will I. A good-bye is not heartbreaking. We didn't spend the evening reminiscing. We spent it planning S--'s birthday party in December.

I may have cried at the end of summer camp, but I graduated college so full of the future that I have no memory of sadness. And I will miss my friends very much, especially the foursome we have enjoyed this past year. But such is life. At least, such is life in Shanghai.

Building a Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. I think that the Canadians copy it in spirit, but most people don't bother. So within an international community, Thanksgiving is a nothing holiday. Chinese people don't roast whole turkeys - even if they wanted to, the birds won't fit in the small ovens. The vegetables used in the Thanksgiving were those coming to harvest in the northeastern United States in the fall. Few of those same vegetables grow in China, and so the entire meal comes at a premium.

Certain hotels and restaurants will serve a Thanksgiving meal next Thursday. For about $50USD per person, we could go to a restaurant and enjoy a chef cooked Thanksgiving meal. We took this approach last year, and left feeling deeply dispirited. Thanksgiving is not about eating the correct food. Thanksgiving is about the people who share that food with you, and the more homecooking the better.

So this year, we have invited some of our closest American friends in Shanghai to our home for a Thanksgiving potluck. We have since been invited to a neighbor's home for another Thanksgiving potluck. Here's the rundown:

Turkey:
This one is make or break. Import groceries do sell frozen turkeys this month and next. These will be full-sized Butterball turkeys, imported from the United States. Many people do not have ovens in their homes at all, and most ovens are too small to fit a large bird. The latter is true of our home, so we'll take the easy route. We're purchasing a pre-cooked turkey. He'll be delivered to our hot to our home, with his juices cooked up into gravy on the side.

Stuffing:
Since we're not making the bird, we can't make traditional stuffing, either. The import stores sell Stove Top, but are not carrying it in large portions. Erin is making the stuffing, and she's been buying a box of Stove Top every time she goes to the store.

Green Bean Casserole:
Erin's on the Green Bean Casserole, too. She's been watching for French's Fried Onions every time she picks up a box of Stove Top. No luck. She did a quick internet search to find a replacement, and learned that Green Bean Casserole comes in more than one variety. Who knew that you could prepare Green Beans with anything besides Campbell's Cream of Mushroom and French's Fried Onions?

Cranberries:
I volunteered the cranberries for our neighbor's potluck. It seems that Chinese people don't eat cranberries. Beyond that, it seems that expats don't really eat cranberries either. I was getting nervous, having scanned the frozen, fresh and canned fruit shelves of every import grocer in town. As luck would have it, I scanned those shelves too soon. Yesterday, row upon row of jellied cranberries showed up at the import grocer. And 3 boxes of frozen cranberries. I bought them all.

Sweet Potatoes:
Those have been nixed from our menu. Becca signed up for those, but can't find the traditional orange potatoes we like to candy in the states. The only sweet potatoes around are small - the size of fingerling potatoes. They're yellow on the inside and quite starchy. They're no candied yams, and so will be absent from our table this year.

Rolls:
We've learned that good bread only comes from a friend's oven. Morgan has taught her ayi to bake a loaf of bread for their family once a week. Morgan signed up for the rolls, and I imagine that her ayi will spend next week hard at work kneading and raising those little balls of dough.

Corn:
This one should be simple. They sell it frozen and canned. Can't go wrong.

Pie:
In my family home growing up, Thanksgiving wasn't about the turkey. It was about the pie. My mom made all of the traditional fixings, and she prepared them fine. But she's always fix at least 3 pies - and this for a family of 5. She rolled out her own crusts, made from the big vat of lard she brought from her family farm until I was half grown. Served with real whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, the end of the meal was always the highlight. Taking on the family tradition, I'm making pies for both meals. On the menu - apple pie, pumpkin pie and chocolate creme pie. But I readily admit that I am not my mother. I have never learned to make that perfect, flaky pie crust. After asking around, I discovered a French brand of refrigerated pie crust which passed muster in a trial chocolate creme pie last night. So we've got refrigerated pie crust. We've got chocolate pie filling, made entirely from scratch. We've got plenty of apples, so that one will be simple. All I thought we needed for the pumpkin pie was a can of pie filling. Grabbed one at the store, flipped to the back, and noticed that the recipe calls for pie filling, 2 eggs, and 1 can of evaporated milk.

Nuts.

The man at the import store spoke no English, so I showed him the back of the can. They display quite clearly a neat little picture of a can of Nestle Evaporated Milk.

Mei you, he said. I don't have it.

How can you not have it? I replied. You must have it.

Mei you, he said.

No, this is silly. I retorted. How can you sell the pumpkin pie filling without the evaporated milk? One doesn't work without the other. I may not have been as calm as I sound here.

This young man of amazing patience walked me to the other side of the store, where, in fact, a label reading EVAPORATED MILK sat humbly below an empty shelf. Mei you, he said.

Hmm, I replied. What to do, I thought.

No problem, the man seemed to say. We have loads of milk. He brought me to the UHT milk section - that is, the milk prepared for a long shelf life. You niunai. We have milk.

Oh, no. This is milk. I need evaporated milk. I had certainly regained my composure by this time, as he was so helpful. He made an effort to convince me that the two were the same, but I would not fall for this little trick.

When will you have evaporated milk? I asked. And yes, I did ask in Chinese. He made an extremely long phone call, and returned with a sheet of paper where he had written 11/25. Two days before Thanksgiving, the only import store in town expects a shipment of evaporated milk.

I left shaking my head.

But have no fear. Morgan's (of the homemade rolls) husband is in Japan with the armed forces this week. He will visit the US military commissary tomorrow, and will return to Shanghai this Saturday with 4 cans of evaporated milk.

Pregnancy in China

As we prepared to move to China, I remember having a conversation with someone about living conditions. We had no real knowledge about China, and I remember voicing that I thought that China had abolished its One Child Policy.

I quickly learned that the One Child Policy is not only still on the books, but quite firmly enforced. My facts come from the rumor mill, which is often the best source of information in China. Here's my understanding:

• An urban family may have one child.
• An ultrasound may not tell the family the sex of the child, to discourage gender selection.
• A rural family may have two children, but not within 3 years of each other.
• If a woman becomes pregnant again, the family must pay a fine.
• Reports vary on the cost of the fine, from 1 year or your household income, to 3 years salary, or just 60,000 RMB (about 10,000 USD).
• For those who can not afford the fines, a woman can be forced to have an abortion. This even if she is due the next day.
• Anyone can report a pregnant family. A snitch earns 100RMB (about 14USD) for each credible report.
• If a family pays the fine, they have no more trouble. Wealthy families in China do choose to bear two children.
• If a family manages to carry a child to term without paying the fine, they are faced with a few options. Two of these options I have discussed before: either killing to child, or giving her up for adoption. The last option is to raise the child hukou. This child will have no identity. He or she will be ineligible for a passport, medical assistance or public schools. When they grow up, they will be unable to find legal work or housing. This same consequence occurs when a family moves illegaly to another province - our driver's family lives in his home village because it is the only place his daughter can receive schooling and medical care.
• Mixed couples are not removed from this law. A Chinese person married to a foreigner may legally have a second child, but a third child can not be born inside China.

The conversation arose because a pregnant German woman married to a Chinese man visited a local hospital for her first child. She did not mention her pregnancy, or discuss it with anyone. But the next day, someone knocked on her door asking that her family consider re-registering because of their recent growth.

Every person in China is required to register with their local housing authority. We have registered. If you stay at our home, we will register you. When we stay at a hotel, they register us. When a baby is born, it is registered with the housing authority. This woman became concerned that they may try to enforce China's One Child Policy on her.

She and her baby are quite safe, but many women and their babies are not. The policy is difficult, because although it is clearly inhumane, it also addresses the very serious problem of overpopulation in China.

I would not run for office in China. This country faces tremendous growth and potential, but also tremendous problems.

Moganshan

I returned from our weekend away feeling refreshed, and able to face another 6 weeks of life in crowded and filthy Shanghai.

Both of my girls returned feeling exhausted, but a bit rosier around the cheeks, having tested their balance on old, rocky staircases and pushed their lungs running around a hilly yard in a higher altitude.

Dave returned feeling dread that he had to go back to the office. He has begun putting out resumes and fielding phone calls, especially for jobs in international development. He's looking primarily in Africa and Asia at this point, although open to other positions. If you have any connections, please email us privately and we'll share more details.

Even through a thicky, rainy haze, Moganshan was beautiful this weekend. The girls and I piled into the car with plenty of gear on Thursday afternoon, expecting to arrive around 6pm. Our friends would beat us to the cabin, and they would have hot pasta on the table and a warm fire in the wood stove. Our driver took a wrong turn and went an hour out of our way, so after a long 5 and a half hours of driving we arrived in the wet, dark night at the bottom of 250 stone stairs. The rain continued, blotting out the light from the moon or the stars, so the girls and I plodded up the wet stairs with no idea of the beauty that surrounded us. The staff at Naked Retreats, where we stayed, were fantastic. An old man from the village carried our luggage on a pole over his shoulders. My phone contact spoke perfect English and Chinese, and directed our driver at multiple different crosses in the road. Finally, one of their staff drove a van down the hill to lead our way back up. I told them that our gas tank was dangerously low after our 2 hour detour, and they promised to rescue us with reserves if the need arose.

We reached the top of the stairs, and saw a warm cottage with a small yard in front. The windows blazed with warm yellow light, evidencing a fire had been started long ago. We walked in, and the air warmed us immediately. The girls and I sat by the fire while our friends piled our plates with warm pasta, fresh fruit and glasses of milk. We filled our bellies and the girls went straight to sleep in a perfectly dark room upstairs.

We all woke Friday morning to a slow rain and a chill in the air. The warmth of the fire hadn't made its way upstairs, so the girls and I dressed quickly and raced down into the common room. The two ayis on staff to serve our house had started a fire in the woodstove hours before, and the room was cozy. Our friends were already down with their little ones - two 2 year olds, and 1 4 month old. We feasted on fresh eggs and local bacon, milk, juice and toast, and piles of fruit, all provided with our payment. The fridge was stocked, and the kitchen was so pleasant. An island in the middle of a common room, so the chef could talk to the other grown-ups and interact with running and playing children. The American concept that the kitchen is the heart of the home applied well to this cottage, and not at all to our home. I was the Friday chef, and enjoyed my time at the stove.

A break in the rain came around 11, so we quickly bundled our little ones and brought them outside to explore. As the Daddies had stayed in Shanghai to finish the work week, we were 3 Mamas to 4 toddlers and an infant. For playing in a warm cabin, our odds were good. For climbing stone stairs in the rain, our toddlers lacked confidence and our numbers were low. The rain began in earnest as we were a few steps away from the house, but we still followed the stone staircase to a very Chinese chicken yard at a barn up the hill. The girls loved running in the rain and chasing the hens, while the moms fretted over muddy fingers and wet hair. Our outting was quick, but gave us a taste of the fun that the outdoors held for our families. We feasted on a warm pot of chili and piping hot corn bread that night, the men meeting us around 9pm, and then everyone slept well in the dark, moonless night.

With families complete, Saturday took on a different flavor. We all shared a large breakfast, and then each family took off in a different direction. We climbed up and down stone stairways through the bamboo forest in search of great panoramas. We found quite a few, and once we had climbed too low, we dug bag into the forest and wandered along a stream until our bellies began growling. Along the stream we worked to keep our shoes dry, watched people harvesting bamboo, and avoided amazingly large spiders with bright yellow bodies hanging right in our path.

After a walk with the girls, we wanted a walk without them. All of the children went down to nap around 2:30, and our friend Jim joined Dave and I on a search for old hotel ruins. Moganshan is an interesting area - perched on a mountaintop, this little village was once a hedonistic getaway for Shanghai's elite. In the early part of the century, expatriates would escape the heat of Shanghai by taking the train to Moganshan, where the temperatures average 7 degrees lower than the city. The small mountain is dotted with European country homes and hotels. But with the turmoil of China in the middle of the century, expatriates expatriated China and the area did not become Chinese. Rather, it stood vacant for decades, only now slowly receiving reinvestment.

Jim, Dave and I headed up the hill to explore the ruins of an old hotel. The small building sat hidden off of a small path, with no road nearby. It perched the top of the hill, and had amazing panoramic views. We only caught glimpses of these views, because although the rain had stopped, Saturday maintained the thick haze of the days before. Having been an easier hike than we imagined, we next headed off to find the old convent. It seems that missionaries as well as wealthy expatriates enjoyed relaxing in old Moganshan. We climbed hundreds of steps, up and down. We passed construction workers with their bamboo scaffolding, their walls full of old rocks, and their concrete laid clumsily and quickly. Jim is an engineer from the Bay Area of California, and knew that these buildings would fall immediately in an earthquake.

We passed old hotels with all of the shutters drawn, old yards now homes to ducks and chickens. We walked through fields of tea, where lean-tos had been created with a stick and an old tarp, straw hats still hanging neatly inside. We walked an amazing number of stairs, got ourselves fairly lost, and became worried as the sun fell in the sky. Without daylight savings time, the falls falls by 5:00 in eastern China. On a dark mountain, we would have been in trouble without flashlights or a good sense of direction. Feeling a bit hurried and nervous, we pushed on through the bamboo forest. We took a left turn, feeling confident that we headed toward our cabin. As the path became less obvious, we became worried again. Jim hurried ahead, and Dave and I sloshed through as mountain springs poured over the stone steps and right through my running shoes.

Suddenly, we reached a clearing. The bamboo forest had been clear-cut for this small field growing low bushes of tea. A shack sat neatly in the middle of the field, and the hill fell away steeply so that we could see for miles. Even though the sun was quickly falling, even though we could not decipher our direction, even though our shoes were wet, we stood and gazed at the view. It was amazing, and made the entire adventure worthwhile.

We soon regained our direction and found our familiar path as the sun began to fall in earnest. It was dark as we climbed the steps to our cabin, and our ayis began grilling an amazing dinner of chicken and pork, burgers and sausage, potatos and corn, and vegetables marinated in simple Chinese sauces. We ate for hours, poured bottles of wine, and enjoyed another warm evening in. Before we sent the girls to bed, we pulled out a special treat. Three marshmallows were placed on skewers and pushed into the flames of the woodstove. The girls watched wide-eyed. Once removed, each marshmallow was squeezed onto a graham cracker with one piece of chocolate. The girls sat and ate their snacks quite seriously, and in complete silence. The s'mores were a hit on the young crowd. After they were all asleep, the adults took our bottles of wine outside and roasted our marshmallows over an open fire under a sky full of stars and a bright moon. This was the camping trip we had all envisioned.

The morning came quickly and with a bright sun that allowed little girls to run around in the yard of the cabin while the adults packed their bags and prepared lunch. The same tottering old man carried our luggage back down the few hundred steps, where our drivers were waiting. We all climbed in and headed down the mountain. We drove in autumn's golden light through an agricultural scene which could have been anywhere, uniquely Chinese by the people hand-scything their fields and the pavilions dotting the landscape with the frequency of gas stations in rural America. I kept my camera in its bag, as I didn't want to lengthen the journey any for our girls. But the orange tinted images of fall in rural China are seared into my mind - the autumn sun shining its late afternoon gold over a large reservoir surrounded by bamboo forest and with a simple pagoda sitting serenly in the center; the men and women working their fields with no machinery, wearing warm sweaters and basking in the sunlight.

For camping, the price was steep (about $1,500USD for a 3-bedroom cabin for 3 nights). For S'mores, the price was outrageous (about $25USD for 1 box of graham crackers, 1 bag of large marshmallows, and a few bars of chocolate). But for a weekend out of the city with our close friends, Naked Retreats and Moganshan were perfect and we are already talking about returning next spring.

Out Again

We're headed out again - this time with the whole family, and some friends in tow.

Our family is caravaning to Moganshan with 2 other families - good friends with kids the same age as ours. We're looking forward to a wonderful weekend staying at a lodge in a bamboo forest. In my mind, we're doing some crazy upscale camping and all of the people involved are really looking forward to some time far away from the city.

We return on Sunday night, well rested and full of fresh air.

Midnight Photoshoot

Our hotel room was hot, and we both sleep cold. But more importantly, the baby sleeps cold. Her mom had brought along a warm blanket, and the child sleeps swaddled. In the warm room, the baby couldn't sleep. I called the front desk and asked for help - they blew me off. The baby's mother called the front desk, and spoke sternly in Chinese. A cute little maid knocked on the door 5 minutes later, and she carried a fan.

She set the fan up over the baby bed. She plugged it in, she made sure it worked, and she arranged it in the corner. And then she came over to talk to the baby.

It was 11:30 at night. The baby was nursing - literally, attached to her mother's breast. And the maid came over to talk to her. She leaned right in, and the mother quickly removed her baby from her breast. Once mom made that move, the maid dived right in. She tickled her chin and brushed her face. And then she pulled out her camera.

A photo? she asked sweetly. We figured we owed her so much - she had brought the fan that would allow the baby to sleep through the night. The baby posed, and the maid snapped a picture.

Nope, not so good. She snapped a few more.

Well, the problem is the poor lighting. This young maid moved the baby to the other side of the bed, where she would have more light. She snapped more photos.

Hmm, that light is still poor. She turned on every light in the room. She snapped more photos. Apparently, the light had improved sufficiently. We thought she was done, until she picked up the child and began posing with her.

After 15 minutes of the photo shoot, she left with a cute little bye-bye.

We tucked that baby away to bed, and began to wind down ourselves.

Ten minutes later, and a knock at the door.

Our maid had returned, with an English language newspaper and a handful of chocolate bars as bribery to allow her into the room again. We showed her the sleeping child, half afraid that she would lift her right out of her bed. She just gazed happily at this cute little baby, and then left contentedly.

The Weekend Away

Where we went didn't so much matter. That we went was the point. This past weekend, my friend Morgan and I headed out of town with much less luggage than usual. Everything I needed fit into a small backpack and a camera case. She carried a suitcase and a baby... so she also carried a diaper bag and a baby bed. But between us we left behind 4 children ages 4 and under, and 2 husbands happily consigned to Daddy Duty for the weekend.

Dave and I have met the cliche of our generation, having backpacked through Europe. We lived in Hungary for 5 months and we jumped rickety trains and casino-style ferries all through Eastern Europe. We learned a bit of Hungarian and managed to pick up words and phrases in each town, enough to get by. We relied on our guidebooks and maps to point us in the right direction, and they generally did.

But this style of unplanned travel seemed out of reach for our family in China. First, we travel with two young children, and so our needs have grown immensely. We bring along luggage than we can comfortably carry on our backs. We walk less and taxi more. And we require afternoon naps and slow mornings. Besides these advances in our traveling style, we've found China much more difficult to explore. Our Mandarin - although enough to "get by" in Shanghai - is embarrasingly limited. And we recognize very few characters. Studying a map posted on a street corner in China will not help us at all, and comparing my Lonely Planet map to my surroundings rarely works because I can not read many street signs. For too many reasons, our old style of simple exploring would not work in China.

But this weekend, I left the children and their luggage and their schedules behind. I partnered with a friend who has studied Mandarin diligently for nearly 2 years. I speak enough Mandarin to get by in Shanghai. She speaks and understands enough Mandarin to get by in Ningbo, which made her a wonderful traveling companion.

I left home on Saturday morning at 10:30, headed to Shanghai South Railway Station where we had arranged to meet. The train station is enormous, with multiple floors and most signs written in Chinese characters. We arrived with our tickets in hand, so although the signage was confusing at best, we simply showed our tickets to various official looking folks and were eventually pointed in the right direction. We learned that departures approach the train from the top floor and arrivals enter the train station from a lower floor. We also learned that Chinese train begin re-numbering by class. We rode 1st class in car 1. We walked all the way to the front of the train, and tried to board car 1. We were turned away in Mandarin that neither of us could understand. We walked the length of the train, with each conductor telling us the same information - keep walking. Eventually we found a second car 1 at the end of the train, and this car had fewer seats. This may have been the only difference. Inside, the train felt much like travel through Eastern Europe. The seats were relatively comfortable and the overhead racks held our luggage. But the seat covers looked ancient and rather grimey, and I would not have chosen to sit on the floor. We also learned how to squat on a moving train, as this one had no Western toilets.

Our intention in traveling to Ningbo was to visit Putoshan, a mountain and island covered in Buddhist statues, temples and caves and purportedly beautiful. This guy's webpage is a bit silly, but it shows where we had intended to visit.

We arrived in Ningbo on a rainy afternoon, and after checking into the hotel we only had a few hours of murky daylight left. Our hotel was wonderfully located, an easy 10 minute walk from the sights of town and so we headed out to explore. But our daylight disappeared too quickly and our hunger appeared in full force, so we quickly ditched our touristing efforts and sought out dinner. We rejected a few places because they looked filthy. We rejected a few places because they were empty. We rejected a few places because someone cooked up stinky tofu on the street outside. And we finally settled on our restaurant because they had English on the menu. We're not sure what we ate, but had it not been swimming in grease we would have had no complaints. As it was, the flavor was great. We headed back to the hotel, planning for an early night so that we could head out early to Putuoshan.

Hours of talking and a late morning later, we jumped into a taxi at nearly noon on Sunday. In our faltering Mandarin, we told the drive we wanted to go to Putuoshan. This left the poor man quite confused - taxis can not drive to Putuoshan, as it is a few hours and a river away. We expected this, and asked him to take us to the ferry. What we did not expect is that to reach the ferry, you must first take a bus. We called in a hotel manager to help us translate. He leaned in the window and advised us not to go to Putuoshan. A taxi ride to the bus station, waiting for the next bus, an hour bus ride to the ferry station, waiting for the next ferry, and another hour plus ferry ride to the island would have been a wasted day. He told us to go to Xicou instead.

Reveling in our ability to fly by the seat of our pants, we directed the taxi driver to Xicou and embarked on a really interesting day. The drive out of Ningbo went through factories and warehouses, and eventually into hills and villages. The scenery never became American rural, but quickly became China rural - fields and gardens adjacent to dense piles of grimy tiled housing blocks.

Xikou was a lovely restored village, much akin to Colonial Williamsburg. We could enter a few restored houses and temples, and in 1 hall we walked by various army implements - appropriate, as Xikou is famed as the birthplace of Chiang Kai-Shek, the president of China under the Kuomintang. We breezed through the buildings, watched a trickster balance a bike on his forehead, and tried stinky tofu (not good - but not as bad as Dave described it!)

After an hour or two of exploring this town in the drippy rain, we found a driver to bring us to Xuedou Mountain and Xian Zhang Yan waterfall, which made an astounding drop off of a sheer cliffside into thick haze. We walked a stone path through a canopy of draping trees and bamboo, passing stone Buddhas and hidden pagodas. As the rain slowed and the haze gathered, our walk became more pleasant while the crowds diminished. We reveled in the smells of trees and water, the air empty of the scent of diesel fumes or pee. The hours spent away from crowds fumes, away from the city, made the entire weekend worthwhile.

Luckily, we had asked our driver to wait for us. Because once we exited the forest, the haze was so thick that we could barely see our car. And it took us a moment to notice that his was the only car in the large lot. As we rode back down the mortgage, our eyes avoided the windows as we could rarely see more than a few feet in front of the car. We asked the driver to help us return to Ningbo, and he brought us to a taxi stand in Xikou. A row of old pick-up trucks sat on the side of the road, each with a TAXI sign lit on top of the cab, and we feared that we would be sharing one of those seats for the 45 minute ride back to the hotel. I sought out a bathroom first and found not only one of the cleanest public bathrooms I've used in China, but also that we were in fact dropped at a bus station and that the bus to Ningbo would leave in about 5 minutes.

I emptied my bladder and took one of the last seats on the bus. Quite a few people rode without seats, and many folded out seats in the aisle. Even as a full bus, we still stopped to pick up men standing on the side of the road. We bounced off our seats many times, but rode cheaply and rather comfortably in our seats to Ningbo.

After a fully Chinese day, we headed to Pizza Hut for an unexciting dinner and the slept soundly.

Monday we met the return train at 2:30 in the afternoon, and spent our morning exploring Moon Lake in dry morning weather. The gardens surrounding this lovely, small lake were beautiful and the lack of crowds left of enchanted.

Overall, we enjoyed Ningbo and Xikou, and we loved the quiet of the mountain and waterfalls outside Ningbo. But I reveled in the backpacking attitude we were able to take as we explored China - an adventure well worth doing.

Tickets In Hand

Family Travel Plans:

Friday, December 19th
Leaving Shanghai at 6:00pm
Arriving in Chicago on the same day at 5:10pm

Saturday, December 27th
Drive from Chicago to St. Louis

Sunday, January 4th
Dave leaves St. Louis at 6:00am
Arriving in Shanghai via Chicago on Monday at 3:05pm

Wednesday, January 21st
Dave leaves Shanghai at 6:00pm
Arriving in St. Louis via Chicago on the same day at 10:10pm

Sunday, January 25th
Drive from St. Louis to Chicago

Saturday, January 31st
Leaving Chicago at 10:35am
Arriving in Shanghai on Sunday at 3:05pm

The drive dates are still rough guides, but the flights have all been purchased. While Dave is in Shanghai, I'm planning to road trip to Kansas City for a few days as well. We hope to see as many of you as possible during our short time in the states!

Guest Post: Culinary Delights

Since Lynne is without internet access this weekend, I will fill in today and make a guest post regarding one of my favorite topics: food. Since we arrived in Asia, we have had the opportunity to sample many new dishes - most of which we are glad we tried, some of which we love, and a small minority, well, end up exiting our bodies much quicker than they entered...

Today I will give a few highlights of "interesting" foods I have tried (3 of them in the last 2 days). The octupus-looking squid with black gunk squirting out at the hot-pot place in Qingdao would have been on this list, but Lynne covered it already. And I'll leave out a bunch of things I'm pretty well used to by now (cow stomach, pig knuckle, chicken/duck feet, tongue, eel, etc. etc.).

As one more piece of background: I am a "try anything once" type. My coworkers tend to take this as a challenge... "anything?"

1. Stinky Tofu: This is tofu that is marinated to make it smell as bad as humanly possible. There are a number of times in China where we have been walking along the street and were suddenly overcome by a strong odor and assumed we were near an outdoor latrine used by construction workers with a fondness for Mexican food and placed on top of a sulfurous geyser. Nope, just a stinky tofu stand.

The good news: it doesn't taste as bad as it smells.

The bad news: that's about as much as I can say for it. Use lots and lots of chili sauce.

2. Silkworms: Apparently, after a silkworm's "useful life" is done, they get retired to restaurants, where they are dried out and fried. I've got photographic evidence of this one. Again, it wasn't as bad as it sounds (it wasn't slimy or anything) but it sure wasn't good either.

3. Drunken shrimp: In the US, when a dish is called "drunken", it generally refers to a dish that was prepared using beer or other alcoholic beverages. In China, when you are served drunken fish, you take it a bit more literally. The shrimp are, in fact, drunk.

Basic preparation, as far as I can tell, involves mixing bai jiu (Chinese rice wine, worth a separate post of its own) with various sweeteners and other flavors, and then dropping some live shrimp in. Wait until the shrimp get nice and drunk (stop thrashing about so much), and then fish 'em out and munch away.

Luckily for me, my coworker who took me out for this provided a tamer version: they had "marinated" long enough to be pretty well dead (alcohol poisoning?) so they didn't fight too much on the way down. And, to be honest, they tasted fantastic. I'd have these again, but I'm still not sure I'd do it if they were more "loud drunks" than "quiet drunks".

4. Frog: Sichuanese food (sometimes "Szechuan" in the US) is some of my favorite Chinese food. It tends to be spicy, but a different kind of spicy - sort of numbing, due to the special pepper they use. A coworker took me to our favorite nearby Sichuan restaurant, and she said one of their best dishes was the frog. Sure, I thought, no problem. The dish arrived: a fairly typical looking Sichuan dish, with pieces of meat and vegetable floating in a broth covered in Sichuan peppers and other spices. "Try it." I gamely poke in with my chopsticks and grab a piece of meat. Pulling it out, I quickly realize that the butcher did not spend much time on this. It's a full frog, although the head was (mostly) gone.

Many meats in China are served "bone-in" and without much meat on said bone. Chinese people believe the meat right on the bone is the best (on a side note, this makes chicken breast super cheap). Usually you have to really gnaw at the bone to get much of anything, and it's not worth the effort. The frog was an exception. Although these weren't real well-fed frogs, there was enough meat to taste, and it was super tender, falling right off the bone. And with the Sichuan spices - fantastic! Another winner, as long as you're prepared for the "full frog" visuals.

5. Ikizukuri: One of my favorite restaurants in town is a Japanese dive where you can pay RMB 150 (about $22) for all the food, beer, and sake you want. It's worth spending a long time there and filling up on sushi, sashimi, teppanyaki, tempura, okonomi yaki, and other great stuff. Last night I went with my coworkers, and they told me to try the fish that was already on the table. Fish is often served whole in China, so I no longer bat an eyelash at having the fish staring at me. This particular one had it's head and tail held up, and a covering of radish over the middle; on top of the radish were some leaves, with sashimi on the leaves. Sure, I'll try it. Grab a piece, dip it in my wasabi... not too bad.

"Take a closer look. Watch his fins."

The fish was still alive. I decided I had enough of that one. I won't be doing this one again, for both culinary and ethical reasons.

But I did want to get a peek at the chef's handiwork, to see how he managed to keep the fish alive and (sort of) breathing while I ate his innards. After the females at the table excused themselves, Yan tried to move the radishes/leaves to give us a view. But just as he did it, the fish made a lunge for his hand. We quickly passed the plate back to the wait staff without seeing the surgeon's work.

Tomorrow, I'm taking the girls to O'Malley's for a burger and fries. I need a break.

On My Own

The train leaves at 11:20 this morning for Ningbo. I don't really know what's in Ningbo, and I'm pretty suspicious about train travel in China. But I'm still excited about stepping onto that train. Because I am stepping on that train without any children.

Most mothers, probably most parents can identify with this. I love my children, and I truly enjoy spending most of my waking and sleeping hours in close proximity with them. But it has been ages since I've spent longer than 3 hours away from them. This weekend, a friend and I are leaving our children behind from 11:20 on Saturday morning until Monday afternoon. And I could care less what Ningbo holds - I know it doesn't hold any kids, and so I'm excited!

**In the interest of full disclosure, I will reveal that my friend is bringing along her 7 month old, who is still nursing. Still, if this kid isn't running around or getting bored, I figure she hardly counts. Besides which, she's not my kid!

Messy Independents

Wendy has been our ayi for 6 weeks now, and we enjoy her. She works hard, she listens to our needs, and she offers back suggestions and voices her own needs as a good and confident employee would. She speaks wonderful English and gets along well with both L-- and S--.

She tells me that she enjoys them both, thinking them quite clever. She told her family that both of my children can feed themselves, wash their hands on their own, and even clean up their own messes. They're all impressed that L-- helps her sister, and that S-- uses a fork and spoon all by herself.

How do they teach their children these skills? her family asks her.

Well, she responds, you should see the mess those children make.

Her family responded quickly. Oh, I could never live like that!

** It is worth reminding the reader that Chinese families eat with chopsticks, a skill hard to pick up even as an adult. Most children do not learn chopsticks until around 3 years old, making it quite difficult to feed yourself at a younger age.

Looked Like We Made It

We thought we were ready.

We had gathered all of our paperwork. We had gone to all of the appropriate offices in Shanghai, and asked all of the appropriate people for help with translation and to please do these unexpected favors for us. We had gone to the American consulate at odd hours for rather expensive notarization. We had taken pictures and asked people to write letters. We had gone back and gathered extra paperwork, once we learned that we had to work with an agency rather than simply through our social worker (as per Hague requirements).

We sat down this evening to put all of our adoption paperwork together.

We thought we could submit to the agency tomorrow, and essentially be done with it for months.

We sat with the checklist in front of us. We really only used the checklist to make the whole thing feel dramatic; to mark a large X on each line with great flourish.

And then we reached this line:

"Birth Certificate (Husband) w/parents' names listed (extended version) - ORIGINAL"

...and Dave says, wait.

It seems that the state of Illinois isn't too concerned with who Dave's parents are, or what they are named. They are not listed anywhere on his birth certificate.

Apparently, we have NOT made it. It seems that we must request another birth certificate from the state of Illinois, immediately turn that document back to the state to have them verify it, and then send it on to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago for authentication. If it goes as smoothly as it did this summer, this process will only take about 8 weeks.

Eight weeks!

Cooking in Shanghai

First they revealed that the baby formula was tainted with melamine. Certainly this is the most appaling - as every producer on the supply chain knew that their choices would have a dangerous and possibly fatal effect on their intended customers.

Next they revealed that any powdered milk may be tainted my melamine.

Soon after, they revealed that liquid fresh milk had significant traces of melamine. This is where the milk crisis hit our home - milk from Shanghai's Bright Dairy was poisoned. Our original pediatrician recommended Bright Dairy over any imported UHT milk (UHT = unpasteurized, and prepared for a long shelf life = stripped of some of the good things milk holds), so that's what our babies have drunk since our arrival over 1 year ago. Don't worry for us, though - no kidney stones have appeared in any guts in our household.

So, we cut out local dairy. We switched to an organic dairy out of Beijing which produces milk and yogurt. We stopped going out for ice-cream.

Now we learn that Chinese eggs have unhealthy levels of melamine as well.

We have now begun purchasing eggs from this same organic supplier, although we had been consuming the cheapest local eggs on our grocery shelf until just weeks ago.

But the whole mess raises a strong suspicion that I should not purchase local products, unless they have been internationally certified as organic. Melamine is suspected to have entered the eggs through chicken feed. Could this be the same feed they give to chickens bred for their juicy breasts meat? Could this problem extend to pork and beef? Of course it could. I had made a similar choice in the states, but once I moved to China I found organic produce and meat too difficult and pricey - we've got no branch of Whole Foods here. Apparently I need to step up my game.

Of course, the other challenge in putting healthy food on the table is being able to afford even basic ingredients. Forget whether they are organic or not, some foods are only available as imports and therefore come at a premium. A bag of flour costs about 60 RMB - that's about $8.75. A block of cheese costs about 50 RMB - that's about $7.30; and a bag of shredded cheese comes at closer to 88 RMB - that's about $12.85. Fixing a Western meal without basic baking ingredients or dairy limits your choices dramatically. So most of us limit to just 1 or 2 expensive items per recipe. And with that limit, I've found a few Western foods which comes at an acceptable cost.

Apple Chicken Chili
1/4 Cup cooking oil
2 pounds chicken breasts, in bite-sized chunks
4 teaspoons chili powder*
2 teaspoons ground cumin*
salt and pepper
2 green apples, in bite-sized chunks
1 diced onion
4 Tablespoons butter
1/4 Cup flour
2 Cups chicken broth
3/4 Cup milk
2 15 ounce cans pinto or white beans, rinsed
1/2 Cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 bunch chopped scallions

*The affordability of this recipe relies on a person having imported their own spices.

Heat 2 Tablespoons of oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add chicken, chili powder and cumin. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

In the same pot, heat 2 Tablespoons of oil. Add apples and onion. Cook, stirring, for 6 minutes. Add to the chicken.

In the same pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour for 1 minute. Whisk in the broth and milk for 3 minutes. Stir in the chicken, apples and beans. Add the cheese.

Serve with scallions, chili powder and hot sauce.


Cauliflower Soup
Salt
Lemon juice
1 cauliflower, in florets
3 leeks, the whites thinly sliced
1 quart chicken stock
1/4 Cup sliced almonds

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add 2 Tablespoons salt and the juice of 1 lemon. Add cauliflower and cook uncovered for 15 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, in a skillet over medium heat, melt 2 Tablespoons butter. Add leeks and salt to taste. Cook until tender, 8-10 minutes. Do not brown.

Put leeks and cauliflower in food processor with some stock. Blend until smooth.

In small saucepan, melt 4 Tablespoons butter. Add almonds. Stir occasionally. Cook until butter turns brown - 5 minutes.

Drain butter into soup pot. Reserve almonds.

Stir cauliflower into the brown butter. Add remaining stock and simmer 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Garnish with almonds.


Oatmeal Apple Scones
1/2 Cup whole milk
1 Tablespoon whole milk
1 egg
1 1/2 Cup flour
3 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoons salt
4 ounces butter (1 stick, in the US) chilled and in small chunks
1 1/2 Cup rolled oats
1 red apple cut into small chunks
optional: 1/2 Cup cooked bacon, to add into the batter

Preheat oven to 450. (this recipe will be out for some in China, as it requires an oven)

In a small bowl, whisk together the milk and egg.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Blend in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the oats and apples. Stir in liquid until dough forms a ball.

Turn dough onto a floured surface. Pat into a 7 inch round and coat with flour. Cut into 8 wedges. Brush with milk. Bake on a nonstick-sprayed cookie sheet for 20 minutes.