Our First Year in China

A while ago I was asked to present at our public library on our life in China.

I tried to think of a way to condense five years into 30 minutes. And I couldn't. It just doesn't work. So I thought first about our first year in China, and what it took to get there. I pulled together a video documenting our first months in the Middle Kingdom. If I'm emotional about getting to go back to China, creating this video might have been part of the reason.

It all came back when I looked at those pictures ... the fear, exahustion, and unknowns ... but also the thrilling wonderfulness of arriving and knowing things would probably be okay. It would work out. We would make it.

Here's a portion of the video I shared with 15 "Friends of the Library" tonight, while they munched on Chinese rice crackers along with Midwestern snacks:

Two Weeks @ the Express

We've just logged two weeks at the Holiday Inn Express, where we share two adjoining rooms and our "view" is of the Menard's lumberyard next door. We vacillate between being 'so-over-it' and 'okay-with-it'.

I am tired of looking at the laminate furniture and Styrofoam plates. The pancake machine in the "hot breakfast area", where you hit a button and moments later a hot cake rolls out the end conveyor belt style, has lost it's novelty. Yesterday morning I sneaked pop tarts down for the girls, and I don't even believe a.) poptarts should be considered a breakfast food or b.) that they should be consumed on weekdays.

But upstairs in our adjoining rooms, where we've converted our bedroom into the dining area, and the girls bedroom into the laundry/play/children and dog area, there is a small semblance of home. I bought a Chinese style drying rack, which has perhaps already paid for itself with the money I've saved by not feeding five quarters into the dubious looking dryer at the end of the hall for each load of wash I've completed. I bought an orchid, a plant I learned to love and care for in Asia. We pulled out the coffee press and our IKEA children's ware sets from our packed boxes, and in a wise, impulsive moment, splurged on stemware and ceramic mugs for exclusive use in the hotel. (I cannot bear disposable items, both for their lack of environmental friendliness and the sterile feeling they evoke.) I am loving the simple order of owning six plates and four wine glasses, five mugs and a cache of children's silverware. I love the tidiness of washing up these items with grease fighting Dawn dish soap, that was available, but out of reach in China with a price tag of nearly $10. When Mr Johnson went to collect a small number of necessary items on one of our first days here, he came home and regaled me the story of his selection process.... so many choices. In Qingdao, we simply gravitated to the bottle that had a picture of ginger (our favorite 'scent' for Chinese dish soap) prominently displayed on the label.

So we gather around a desk/table with two roller office chairs and a pull-out couch pulled up to create a dining suite. The girls pour over their American homework there with cups of hot chocolate, and later we clear it and reset it with brightly coloured plastic plates and eat regrettable microwave meals, but also sample some fun choices... fresh greens with feta and marinated olives. And, even though Bei Bei pesters us all with her constant swiveling on her non-stationary chair, and Mr Johnson and I squish, though not uncomfortably, with MGJ betwixt us on the sofa, those are perhaps our sweetest moments so far.

The events of the day are hashed out, and details shared, those intimate ones that perhaps only the five of us will appreciate or understand ....

• How EHJ's teacher detects an accent (we hadn't noticed),
• or How MGJ's teachers consider her well read for books she devours simply for pleasure
• Bei Bei, ever the humour provider, in all sincerity (on her second day of American Kindergarten) shared how she already had a BFF, although when pressed, she couldn't come up with her name, simply, "my friend".