Contract Renewal

Our time in the states is quickly coming to its end.  After 6 weeks in America, we will return to our home in Shanghai on Saturday.  It feels as if the stress of moving around frequently and staying in other peoples' homes coupled with the emotion of saying good-bye to people for another year or more is catching up with me.

Although I have never dreaded our return to Shanghai, I have never felt that I miss my life there as a whole.  

I miss my weekly walks with Erin, and I miss evenings out with Becca, Claire and Anna.  I do miss my friends.

L-- misses her school, her teachers and her routine.  She and S-- know Shanghai as their home, and although they love their family with an amazing intensity, they are eager to return to what is their only home.

I enjoy my life in Shanghai, with all of its individuality and choices.  Everyone I know dresses in their own unique style, cooks in a different form, and chooses to spend their money on entirely different things.  We parent in different ways.  We stock up on different things when we return home.  And I have the opportunity to make so many interesting choices, including taking photography classes and having clothes tailored.  Shanghai has always been a very international city, where nearly anything is available if you are willing to look and pay for it.  Its an exciting place to live, and our life there is good.  We have good friends, a good school, a good home and good help.  Yes, life is good in Shanghai.

And still, this morning I woke up not ready to leave.

Life is so simple in America.  We spend time with family and friends - people I have know for years, and feel entirely comfortable around.  The drain in the bathtub works efficiently and the furnace heats the entire house comfortably.  A large load of laundry can go from start to finish in under 2 hours, and I can feed my family on comfort food for under $20.  I can find any ingredient I need at the grocery store, and any medication I need at the pharmacy.

And because life is so simple, so full of choices, I feel that I can tailor the life I want for myself and my children in the states.  In Shanghai, I need the support of people in my same position.  Of course I do - raising children in a foreign country is difficult for anyone.  But I come in direct contact with more diversity just spending an afternoon in Chicago than I do spending a week in Shanghai.  Living abroad, I seek out people like myself.  Living at home, I seek out people different from myself.

And the comparisons don't stop there.  Living at home, I live beneath my means and give my time and my money to organizations in need.  Living abroad, I spend my money to make myself comfortable and am entirely unfamiliar with organizations that could use my time.  I live an elite life abroad, hidden from the problems and many of the people in Shangai, clustered together with people like me in many ways.

I could carry this internal debate on for many more paragraphs.  My mind has no resolution.  I fully enjoy my life in Shanghai, and part of what I enjoy is living outside of my comfort zone.  But living near family, friends and the familiar allows me to tailor my life more specifically to the type of individual and parent I want to be.

And this all comes to my mind at this point because of impending change.  Not just the immediate change of our return to Shanghai on Saturday.  Also, the more long-term change which lies on the horizon.  Uncle H-- moved Dave to Shanghai on a 2-year contract.  That contract expires on October 1st.  He has already begun conversations with this grand uncle about what we would like to happen next.  Discussions of Dave's career take us in one direction, and preferences for how to raise our children take us in another.

It seems that Dave has Uncle H--'s support to stay abroad for at least another few years.  At this point, we would like to stay in Shanghai for both girls to attend their school next year and to provide that level of stability for them.  But what from there?  As individuals, Dave and I enjoy the expatriate life.  But as a parent, I can't shake the idea that tearing our children from their families for most of the year simply can not be the best choice for them.

In the short term, I know that although I hate to leave right now, I will be happy to arrive back at home and to step back into my life.

In the long term, I have no idea whether or not our life abroad is the right choice for our family.

I have no idea.

Leaving Comments

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Guest Blog - The Holiday Party

In my former office in St. Louis, the annual holiday party (held a week or two before Christmas) consisted of the following:
- A special lunch catered in
- There was often a glass of wine or two.
- We did a “white elephant” gift exchange through some sort of game.
- At this point the office party was completed and we were free to go home early.
Most used the afternoon off to finish their Christmas shopping. Some of us occasionally would get together at someone’s house for a bit.

That’s about the extent of it.

The annual holiday party in my new office in Shanghai (held a week or two before the Chinese New Year holiday) is very similar, in that it involved food, drinks, gifts, and leaving the office early. After that, it was mostly different.

We left the office at about 5 pm to get on buses (there are about 100 of us) which took us to the hotel hosting the event (actually, I elected to ride my bike instead – leaving later, I arrived first due to the easier ability for a bicyclist to get through Shanghai traffic). The event was held in a typical hotel ballroom (these are indistinguishable in every hotel in every country that I have seen so far).

It began with dinner, which was typical Chinese hotel ballroom fare (as in America, adequate but not terribly great). Food was served throughout the night. In addition, glasses were rarely allowed to stay empty long – mostly juice, but a number of the men (maybe an occasional woman, but not too many) drinking beer.

After a bit, the shows began. I have only a vague idea what was going on in most of this, but there were several introductory “routines” done by our hosts (several of my more gregarious colleagues). Then each of about 12 groups put on a mini-show. Each had a theme wrapped around a famous Chinese movie (from Kung Fu Panda and the Sound of Music to the Chinese versions of Sex and the City and Quantum Leap to purely Chinese fare). Mine was this final category (a TerraCotta warrior comes to life in modern times – think Encino Man). I got to play the modern beau (ku nan in Chinese, although ku is just used because it sounds like “cool” in English) fighting the warrior for the lady. I mercifully lost quickly and exited the stage. Most of these plays/songs/dances (written, directed, and performed by each group) included frequent references and allusions to our work (I think…).

In the middle of all the shows, there was a break in which we had a picture slide show of all the weddings and births during the year (lots of babies, since it was a lucky year – everyone wants to have a Pig baby apparently, but we are shortly entering the year of the Cow – not so lucky). We had a toast, and then some games. These games all involved “guess the song”. First, someone had to sing using only the word Niu (sounds like new, means Cow) and his teammates had to guess. Second was classic charades. Finally, to determine the overall winner, two groups came up front to guess the songs being sung by … me.

Many of you know that I can’t carry a tune. At all. I also am not so good at Chinese. These gaps in my skill set were quite apparent, as I put on headphones, listened to a Chinese song, and had to try to sing/hum/anything else enough for the guessers to figure it out. Not sure, but I think they called this particular game “Laugh at the American.” Hope it was funny for them, cause it was agony for me. For most songs I couldn’t get across enough to be understood at all. Luckily there were a few with fairly clear words at the beginning that were enough. One song had a bunch of HEY!s interspersed; yelling those was enough for one of the contestants (amazingly). The final one was Chinese opera, and just trying to do the weird very nasal singing got it across, and I was finally done.

The evening ended with the last show at about 11:30 and everyone ran for the taxi stand (except, of course, for me, the ku nan riding my bike home.

The “shows” went on way too long and even those that could understand them lost interest fairly quickly. But I very much appreciate the lack of cynicism, the willingness to just do stuff that’s kind of embarrassing. If I had to choose between the two, I’d probably choose the Chinese version. It showed the company was willing to spend a little bit of money to try to give everyone a good time, it was an overt holiday celebration (there’s no political correctness needed regarding Chinese New Year, a fully secular holiday), and everyone was willing to actually have a good time. I may have enjoyed the completely forgettable little office holiday parties in St. Louis more, but I somehow appreciated this one more.

Anyway, Xin Nian Kuai Le (happy new year) to all of you.

American Beauty

In looking forward to our time in the states, I expected to experience some culture shock upon arrival. My only shock has been in its complete absence. We have spent time in family homes, friends' homes and our home neighborhood and been pleasantly surprised and how little has changed. Most of our world is just as we remember it, and we find ourselves able to fit right back into our former social and physical setting with ease.

Then, earlier this week I made a quick roadtrip up to Iowa City to visit a friend who just moved there. Her new home was a new destination for me, although I grew up spending weekends on my grandparents Iowa farm until I was 8 years old. This may have been a new city, but the culture was thoroughly familiar.

So I was pleasantly surprised to experience the culture shock I had so looked forward to.

I found myself looking at water fountains with pleased surprise - Fantastic! They're offering free water, and its entirely safe to drink!

I was constantly astonished at the cold outside (temps topped out at 2 degrees Fahrenheit) - Wow, its so cold my face hurts!

I was just as surprised at how quickly I recovered from the cold - I've been inside for under 2 minutes and already I'm warm enough to shed my coat!

I loved the prices and the simplicity of the food - Large spinach salad and bread for $2.62! Two pancakes, eggs cooked sunny-side-up, 4 strips of bacon, and home fries - $7.49!

I was constantly struck by how everyone looked like me - I'm guessing he's a graduate student, and I'm guessing he's a low-wage worker, but its impossible to judge by their race or the way they dress!

And I most enjoyed the beauty of the drive. I love having grown up on the American plains, as I believe I will always find beauty in this simple landscape. The intense cold made everything dry, and the snapping wind pulled the last bits of moisture out of both my cheeks and the snow. A dry, sparkling snow piled in curved patterns over the fields and blew in straight lines across the road until a truck plowed through at 70 mph throwing the snow into the air likes tiny granules of dust. Simply lovely houses nestled near their barns keeping warm amid piles of snow. The simple beauty of the American Midwest. And feeling this, I knew I was home.

Inevitably Apart

Poor Dave is miserable.

He's spent the last week away from his wife and children, and stands to spend another week on his own before he returns to the states on January 21st.

Most of our friends have a comparable set-up. The mother and the children spend about 6 weeks in the states at some point during the year. The husband spends about 2 weeks in the states, flies back to Shanghai to work and live alone for a few weeks, and then rushes back the states to accompany the family back home.

The ironic part about the establishment is that both of us envy the other.

Our family social life circles around my friends, so Dave's connections are primarily the husbands of my friends... rather than simply his friends. Dave has assignments and keeps busy, but spends most of his time eating cheap Chinese food and running the treadmill before heading off to work and home again. He's lonely.

Myself, on the other hand, I'm craving a few simple moments to myself. The girls sleep in the same room as me. Our room is in my parents' house. I am rarely in a room by myself, even when I am sleeping. And although I enjoy the company of each and every person living with me right now, two weeks alone sounds like heaven to me.

Unfortunately, neither of us is able to console the other. We've no sympathy for our spouse's troubles.

Things Noticed

I've been in America for 3 weeks now. The holidays are over, Dave has returned to Shanghai, and the girls and I have settled into a lovely routine which includes sending them downstairs to play with Nana and Poppa when they wake up early and allowing Mommy to go right back to sleep for another hour or so. We're doing playdates with old friends, running errands and meeting with physicians. Although the girls are spending a lot of these cold winter days playing happily in Nana and Poppa's house, enjoying their company, their books, their cat and their toys.

As I've been back, there are a few things I've noticed. I haven't come up with a more interesting way to write about them, so please allow me to simply list and describe.

The Simple Things
As I drove myself to an appointment, I quizzed myself on whether I miss having a driver this month or particularly enjoy driving myself. I thought this through in great detail, as the appointment was a fair distance from home. Having a driver has some amazing benefits, including leaving kids in the car while I run in to shops, sleeping in the backseat on the way home from school, and never worrying about a parking spot. Driving myself has selling points as well, including making quick decisions and changes of plans, choosing and randomly changing my music, and having my feet warmed by the floor heater. I vascillated on the subject, and decided to expand its scope. There are many things I miss about life in Shanghai, and many things I miss about life in St. Louis. As I drove, the life in Shanghai gained momentum and I felt ready to return to our home when a song came on the radio. The song spoke from a country music perspective about simple living in a hard economy and sang specifically about the simple things - country fried chicken, embraces from family, sitting on the front porch and watching the stars. And it occured to me that although my life abroad is certainly a good life with all of my needs well met, I am actually a person of simple pleasures who really enjoys a cheap Mexican dinner and a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's; spending time with the people I love, the people who love my children; and being in God's creation, with opportunities to see the magnitude of stars filling a country sky. The simple pleasures are what can not be replaced in Shanghai.

Language-ism
It seems that I have created a new -ism for my children. Our life in Shanghai is not particularly multicultural. We seem to interact primarily with Americans and other Westerners like us - Australians, Kiwis and such. We also interact quite a bit with English-speaking Chinese, and have enjoyed building these relationships tremendously. I have a wonderful respect and enjoyment of Dave's co-workers, our landlord, our ayi and some of the women I have met through Bible study. But I'll readily admit that I don't enjoy interactions with people who speak no English. I have no expectation that people around me will speak English, and I do often find people willing to work with my limited Mandarin - ability to communicate my needs is not the problem, and I often find myself quite patient in that regard. No, ability to be friendly seems to be my problem.
Case in point: On one of our first days in Chicago, L-- and I ran to Dunkin Donuts to bring home breakfast for the family. On a cold Chicago morning, the staff were quite friendly, saying hello to me and to L--. My daughter shrunk close to me and wouldn't speak, so I prodded her to respond with a simple hello. The staff appreciated her effort and offered her a donut hole. I encouraged her to take it, and to ask for one for her sister at home. She said a quiet thank-you and left with a smile on her face.
Contrast this with frequent episodes in China, where people stop to talk to our little girls. L-- will often shrink away as people talk to her, and my response has become You don't have to speak to people if you don't want to. In America, I find it important to teach my daughter to be friendly to strangers. In China, I find my privacy immensely important and try to shield my children from prying strangers. Like in Dunkin Donuts, people in China are likely to offer my children food. This food often comes as wrapped sweets, but also sometimes as a handful of whatever the person may be eating - sunflower seeds, shrimp chips and the like. But different from the experience in Dunkin Donuts, where I encouraged her to say thank-you and accept generosity in kind, in China I tend to smile in a mildly annoyed fashion and almost immediately remove the given object.
I do not react this way toward everyone, I have noticed. The distinction seems to be people who I can not understand - and please note that this has been an unconscious distinction until just recently. Certainly no -ism teaching was intended; only guarding my children from what often feels like improper assaults on their privacy.
I am coming to realize that in friendliness, Chinese and Americans have a lot in common. And that my attitude toward strangers in America ought to translate to my attitude toward strangers in China. So far, I have mistaught. I often catch L-- talking about what language her imaginary playmates speak. It is never Chinese.

Bi-Homal
I do feel fully bi-homal. Although life in St. Louis has continued - favorite restaurants have closed, friends have become pregnant and given birth while we've been away - life in St. Louis has also remained primarily the same. Were we to move back into our home today, we could step back into our old life, friends, church and neighborhood and feel entirely at home. And although that offers a wonderful amount of comfort and a fantastic place to spend 1 month every year, it also confirms our desire to live outside of St. Louis.

Community
The life I lead in Shanghai is one I would disdain were I leading it in America.
In America, I choose to live in a racially and economically mixed neighborhood and attend a racially, ethnically and economically mixed community
In Shanghai, I choose to live and participate in an expatriate community made up primarily of extremely wealthy people from America, Australia, New Zealand or Europe (i.e.: 1 race and very few ethnic groups).
In America, I belong to communities where my participation is valued and important. Where gatherings are often social, but often circle around a purpose and a need.
In Shanghai, I have no set responsibilites outside of my family and belong to no real communities. Although my daughter's school has an enjoyable community, I am no integral member and offer nothing beyond my and my daughter's sparkling personalities.
In America, I eat and live simply. My expenses are low, my budget is low, and my food is simple.
In Shanghai, I eat and live expensively. My food and clothes are imported, and purchased at whatever price the store may choose to name.

Although many of these differences simply come with the choice of living as an expatriate, rather than ingratiating myself in the local culture, I still feel uncomfortable with the weatlhy and rather decadent lifestyle I am leading. I haven't come up with the right way to fix this problem, as my schedule is already full with my children's schedules.

Ridiculous

I'm not sure if I should be angry with our adoption agency for losing our fingerprints, or if I should be pleased with them for helping us to fix the problem. Either way, this week has been a bit more interesting than it should have been. Here's the rundown:

- After express mailing our entire package to our adoption agency a few weeks ago, I brushed my hands of the submittal process and relaxed in the thought that I had no more power over my adoption application.

- A few days later, I learned that the agency had lost our fingerprints. These fingerprints had been taken in Shanghai, carried back by hand, and definitely included in my submittal. Arggh!

- On that same day, I learned that Dave and I forgot to sign our application form. Arggh!

- By a bad stroke of luck, we learned this information on December 31st - the first in a string of national holidays, affecting both FedEx (who expressed the form back to us for Dave to sign) and the Shanghai Consulate (who emailed the receipt for our fingerprints, so we could be re-printed in the states). This was Wednesday.

- On Friday, we knew that we would not receive any of our documentation before Dave left America. We ran down to the USCIS office in St. Louis, naively hoping to be re-printed at extra cost and have the whole affair taken care of.
Apparently, the fingerprinting process for people living in America differs dramatically from the process for Americans abroad. At first, we could not be fingerprinted without a letter of invitation. After lots of conversations, we could not be fingerprinted without proof of payment in Shanghai. This would not arrive from the Shanghai Consulate until the following week. After lots more conversations, and plenty of patient and helpful people, they took both of our fingerprints on ink cards and agreed to hold them until I could prove payment. Phew!

- On Sunday, Dave left the country.

- On Monday, we received the form from FedEx and the receipt for our fingerprints.

- This morning, with my receipts in hand, I went back to the local USCIS office and picked up our fingerprints. We won't publically discuss how Dave signed his forms, but they now sit snug and warm alongside those fingerprints, inside an envelope destined for USCIS in Chicago.

Which I entirely forgot to mail on the way home. I can't imagine a reason why the whole thing won't be in the mail tomorrow and out of my hands entirely... but then, I couldn't have imagined the trouble detailed above!

Happy New Year!

We just rung in the New Year in St. Louis, straining to see the city's fireworks out the windows of the closet and listening to the neighbors shoot their guns into the air.

In many ways, similar to the Chinese New Year celebration at our home in a few weeks.

And this is where the time change feels strange. 2009 began in Shanghai at 10am this morning, St. Louis time. My friends back in China are well into their morning.

Happy New Year, either way!