paradoxes & adjustments

We're quickly learning that China is a culture of paradoxes. Some phrases our culture teacher taught us to live by while here:

"Nothing is as it seems."
"Plans cannot keep up with change."
"If your confused, that means you're paying attention."

These phrases scare me a little. I'm type A. I like plans. And I don't like them to change. I don't like to be confused. I like control. Guess I get to do some growing!! :)

Here is an example:

These are our dishes at a restaurant wrapped in plastic. Your first thought would be: wow, this must mean they are completely sanitized! Nothing is as it seems. No one--not even locals--drink the water here. If it's "sanitized" in tap water, is it really clean?

We're learning flexibility in a variety of ways. Some are harder to adjust to than others.

Josiah is afraid of the shower head. Most people only have showers here (and most of those don't even have an enclosed one..more explanation in a later post). So we improvised, and he's happy.

Doing laundry by hand is hard work that we're not used to. Michael is better than I am at scrubbing. Almost no one has a dryer here. Everyone has porches to hang their clothes to dry. No shame in their game; you'll see underwear hanging out everywhere! Unfortunately, we put too many on this rack, and by day 3 some started to smell a bit moldy. The purchase of a dryer is being strongly considered. :)

food, smog, new home

The first week here, everyone was together every day learning more and more about culture.

This week, the teachers are taking TEFL classes and the moms (4 of us) are learning more practical skills, i.e. cooking, going to the market, pharmacy, etc. Here are some pics of some dishes we watched be prepared by a Chinese woman (minus the drumsticks..):

Left: potatoes, peppers, and carrots cooked in a wok
Center: Tofu (they eat a LOT of that here..in different forms), pork, and peppers cooked in a skillet
Right: Boiled tomatoes and eggs
There was more, but I didn't get pics. It was all pretty good!

Yesterday, we got to see our apartment we'll be living in until December. Right now, we're living off campus. In December, the teacher housing should be complete so we can move onto campus. The apartment we'll live in until then is great! It's very spacious (way more than expected) and has all basic furniture. I'll try to post pics once we get there and get settled a bit, which isn't for another week and a half.

Last night, we were able to go to a friend's house for a home-cooked meal. And it was all fresh foods! Salad (haven't seen that since we got here!), fruit, chicken salad sandwiches, pasta salad, etc. I couldn't believe how much I missed fresh foods. Most Chinese food is cooked in a lot of oil. I'll be glad to finally get to our apartment so I can make some of our meals! It's tough eating out twice a day! Plus--another perk about China--almost every restaurant delivers. You with kiddos know what a hassle it is to go out to eat...yet you don't want to cook every night. Delivery is a great compromise here. :) Even McDonald's delivers..haha!

Here are a few more pics from our hotel window...on two very different days:

smoggy day

clear day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pic update

As promised...a few pics:

our lives all packed up!

ready to fly!

josiah and gracie have become buds.

both kiddos tend to attract a lot of attention. :)

wu mart: where we shop on a daily basis. that's how they do it here! no room to stock up and store!

Busses & Feet

2 quick stories:

Went with 5 other girls to a market today. Took the bus for the first time. (Have been taking taxis...easier with josiah.) All was well until the return home. We didn't know where to get back on! We walked around for 30 minutes, asking people...no one knew. We finally spotted it driving down the street and started chasing it! Haha..thankfully it wasn't going too far until it's next stop. I'm sure NO Chinese were watching us 6 foreigners chase a bus. :) Then at the stop before ours, it broke down and we had to walk the rest of the way home. Typical.

Just got a foot massage. For $7. This will go on my "why I love China" list. Ahh yeah.

long update

Well, we're here. It's been a long few weeks. I never know the day nor date anymore. Here's what we've been up to:

Before we left, we stayed with a lovely family that let us take over their basement. They are so sweet to us. And we were happy to still have some space of our "own."

Then we headed to Colorado for 1 week of intense training. We were basically in class 8-5, cramming lots o' stuff in our brains. It was exhausting. We stayed at the CSU dorms. That was weird to be back in the college atmosphere--especially with a husband and child! Josiah was a little thrown off, but did ok. By the 4th day, he was back on schedule..sleeping in his mini tent.

Then we hopped on a plane, headed eventually for China. We had a layover in Chicago that seemed to last forever. Little did I know the plane ride we were about to endure would seem to last eons. It was 14 hours long..some of the longest hours I've lived. We put J in his pj's since we left at 10pm our time. He was tired, but I had a feeling he wasn't going to sleep well. He's never been the greatest at sleeping in random locations. But, he had his own seat, so we were hopeful. He did sleep quite a bit..but only 45mins-1 hour at at time. He'd then wake up and cry for 10 mins..uncontrollably. Poor kid...and poor people around us who were trying to snooze! He threw up once and by the end of the ride had a fever. Great. But, we made it. His attitude and demeanor totally changed as soon as we got off the plane.

We got to Beijing around 1am local time and finally got to bed around 3am. We had to get up at 8am to start the day with class/meetings, etc. Wow. That was 4 days ago. We're all doing much better sleep-wise now. We tend to go to bed around 9 and get up at 5 or 6. The sun rises at 4.30am because they don't do daylight savings. Awesome. :)

We've had many adventures so far, but I'll save some of those stories for later. Of course, ordering food is always hilarious because we're usually pointing and attempting some sort of international sign language. Haha. I will share one story, though..just to give you a nice glimpse of a foreigner's life in China:

We've been on the hunt for a stroller for a few days now. We opted not to bring one from home since it would be just another thing to carry, and we thought we'd be able to find a nice one here. Wrong-o. We went to a mall (biggest one I've ever laid eyes on) and saw some ranging from $150-$1,000. Yep, that's right. So we went to a baby store. They were cheaper, but they also looked cheaper. We saw one that was a possibility for $70, but weren't convinced. We went to another store today, but still nothing great. So we went back to the baby store to get the stroller we sort of liked. While we were picking up a few other things, the lady who was helping us came and said that actually the price was $90. Uh, what? We asked why, but couldn't understand her. Remember, our Chinese is very limited. :) We did call a Chinese friend, and all we could get was that this was a "new model"....aka....they knew we were foreigners and would probably pay the higher price. And we did..because we're tired of carrying around the little man. Let's just hope it stays together for a while!

Sorry it's so long. I'll try to update more often so you don't have to read novels. And I'll attempt putting pics up, too. So far, not many have been taken. I'll work on that, too!