My Cosmo Life

My Cosmo Life

My last week featured a fabulous blend of cosmopolitan living that reminded me again of how much I appreciate life in our present international environment. (And by cosmopolitan I mean worldly in an excitingly international and global way, and not a skanky Cosmo mag kind of way.)

It was an eventful week socially.

MONDAY
It started off with a bang with the celebration of another CAT wife’s 40th birthday. We pulled out all the stops (or at least as many as can be pulled out on a Monday morning working around our husbands' travel plans and kids school schedules.) Pedicures, waxed eyebrows, paraffin feet and champagne to lessen the blow of the big 4-0. We followed it with lunch at another friend’s apartment where we shared a big pot of chili—an American fall favorite. We chatted in American accented English and covered the gamut from holiday plans to the new scene in American politics. It was largely an American affair, but in China, not the heartland where most of us hail from.

TUESDAY found Bea and I off to playgroup in the morning hosted by my Turkish friend and with representation at the international playgroup of families from Denmark, Germany, China, the UK, France, the US, and Holland. While most families in our playgroup operate in English fluently, it’s also often a place of language potpourri where mamas scold and console their offspring in their mother tongue. Tuesday afternoon I volunteered in Eliza’s classroom, and listened as children from all corners of the globe honed their oral English and reading skills by reading aloud.
With all my flitting about between playgroup and school I didn’t prepare dinner, which meant at our usual dinner hour, the Johnson’s in China were dining on fabulous satay, steaming bowls of noodles with delicate strips of beef, spring rolls and spicy minced chicken wraps at a new Vietnamese place just 10 minutes from where we live.

Most WEDNESDAY mornings find me seeking to increase my global mindedness by studying Mandarin: a process that both excites and overwhelms me. Wednesday night I joined several other playgroup moms (or is it mums?) for our monthly dinner. We have found that often the conversations our Tuesday meetings are lacking. We created our Wednesday dinners to facilitate conversations that include complete sentences and exclude wiping sticky fingers and diaper changes. Of course our conversations inevitably turn to our kids, life in China and it seems the parenting challenges we face in the United States are no different in other parts of the planet. When to start kindies, how to successfully potty train, and more specific to our China experience how to live in a world different from the one we know.

Wednesday we dined at the interestingly named Boiling Fish Township, a restaurant in QD’s Central Business District specializing in Sichuan cuisine. When it was time to select our fish, I bravely joined my Chinese friend (who fluently speaks Mandarin, German and English and picked me up in her cool Jeep Cherokee which she daringly drives herself) for the selection process. Live tank… fresh flailing fish… the place isn’t called Boiling Fish for nothing.

“Too big,” my friend complained, prompting the fish guy to scoop up the flailing scales and tail and lob it back into the tank. With his net he deftly trawled for a slightly smaller one. He threw the slippery, thrashing fish on the scale where it flipped off only to be caught by the tail and whacked hard against a crate. Literally minutes later it arrived at our table in a big vat of spicy oil and laden with the lip numbing pepper corns Sichuan food is famous for. And for the record, the fish at Boiling Fish Township was delicious. (My Chinese/German friend ate the venerable fish head!)

THURSDAY afternoon found me rug shopping with an American friend seeking to spruce up her living room space. Like Monday, it was American event, but took place in China. Because it was in China, the selections where more varied, vibrant, and not within the more muted color scheme she sought. We went to Haibo the huge furniture mart, which features, what I call rug pits where every possible floor covering can be found (except possibly something tasteful and demur.) We searched Home Depot (yes… we actually have a Home Depot) and B & Q (its British twin) but to no avail. (Although she did find a couple of fabulous rugs for her kids' rooms.)

FRIDAY morning found me off to Starbucks to share a coffee and a chat with a new friend from Australia, with whom we shared notes on life in China and raising kids here. Friday afternoon I had a late lunch with my sweet and soft-spoken Korean friend who introduced me to a new restaurant in the leafy old section of Qingdao. We dined Korean style: seated on a heated floor, on comfy silk pillows around a tiny table and later sipped cappuccinos together while continuing to sit “like pretzels” as my kids would say.

SATURDAY afternoon we joined other CAT families for an early Thanksgiving feast. Our newest CAT family, a Lebanese American couple and their three children who just arrived this autumn after spending years working and living in France, hosted. Their French neighbors joined us. 50+ people dined on a traditional American meal complemented by the unique additions of jiao zi (Chinese dumplings), Asian noodles, and “international wines”, as our French friend Olivier (as in Sir Laurence Olivier not Oliver as in Oliver Twist) calls non-French wines. He considers all the “international” ones to all taste the same. His father, who was visiting from the south of France, also joined us. Even though he didn’t speak any English, except for “I don’t speak English,” Obama still came through pretty clearly! Despite differences in language, culture and cuisine, the time we shared together proved particularly poignant.

On SUNDAY morning we attended our International Christian Fellowship where again we were a less than homogenous mix.

Seven days of international, global living. This is my Cosmo Life. This is our cosmopolitan experience in CHINA.