First Day of School

Though the ramp up was the worst yet, the actual first day of school went well.  So did the afterschool homework helper.  Whew.  The past two weeks have been so so so hard.  Seriously, hard enough for me to actually question my decision to stay on longer.  Lots of meltdowns (hers and mine) and anxiety about getting all the ducks in a row (mine).

We only just interviewed the afterschool person on Saturday!  She came from a friend who recently took her three boys back to America.  The boys' mom must have spent hours and hours teaching this young woman how to turn memorizing characters into games and wow, is she great.  Of course, on Saturday she said "boys play games but girls like to sit and be quiet."  Hahahaha.  LiLi was doing backbend-flipovers all over the livingroom at the time.  So...this young Lao Shi (teacher) used her games tonight with our pool ball and all I heard was laughter coming from the other room so she was a huge hit with LiLi.  And me.  Whew again.

The school remains very very imperfect and I toy with the idea of just taking LiLi out of it.  The English half seems good but the Chinese half remains very challenging.  The opposite of nurturing, for sure.  Is it just the Chinese way?  I don't know.  We hired a new attorney at the office and she was telling me today that when she was LiLi's age all she did was study.  Go to school, come home, study for hours and hours, then do it all again the next day. She said she didn't play, didn't have activities, didn't have fun.  But, she said, it was worth it.  She's been doing international law, was abroad for a few years, seems very bright.  Is it worth it?  I'm not sure.  I think the French have it right.  35 hour weeks.  A couple of months vacation.  Great wine.  (We had a French intern who was aghast at the idea of going in to the office on a weekend one time.  She shared this with us.)

But yes:  fourth grade has begun.

Another new phase

It often happens that post-vacation-blues set in after returning from a beach.  This time, it is following not only the Hainan Island trip but also four weeks away from work studying Chinese and hanging out with LiLi.  Many of the schools in BJ have already gone back but LiLi has another two weeks off so she'll spend it on playdates and with Ayi.  Since Ayi does not speak English, it'll be good for LiLi's language too.

On our way up to Lido for tutoring on Friday, LiLi started counting the weeks until we go back to our home country:  18.   Though my plan had been to go back last week, I never actually booked a flight for us so on some level I knew that we'd extend our stay.  I wasn't ready to go back last week, and home wasn't ready for us either.  This time we have air tickets on an actual date.  We also have my (very global) sister coming to China in December and my (also a globetrotter) mother meeting us in SF in January.  So we have some things to look forward to in addition to seeing our friends and neighbors.

Speaking of neighbors, there was a NYT piece about my San Francisco neighborhood that generated many many comments from my neighbors and others and made me miss my hood more than ever.  I still can't imagine myself sleeping in my own bed but there are other things I long for there.  Including: my books.

I've started reading for pleasure again after a long break.   We didn't have tv at home for most of LiLi's toddlerhood so after she went down and after I took care of all those life tasks like putting away toys and washing dishes, I'd read.  I have a book lined library at home, along with three book cases in my bedroom which are filled with the as-yet-unread.  But once LiLi began school and once we got tv and once I started doing work that demanded evening hours, I stopped reading for pleasure.  I was simply too tired.  I continued to buy used books, though, like hundreds per year, driving my ex crazy.  So I bought those bedroom bookcases to house the books I would read "later."  That went on for several years.

And now I'm reading again.  Since this work break and since LiLi's own interest in reading has taken off we've begun to borrow books (English ones, we buy the Chinese ones to keep) from a cafe/bookstore in BJ called the Bookworm.  I think of all those books I have at home and wish I could somehow transport them here at least for 18 weeks.

Sometimes I have to intentionally stop, breathe, and notice, so I can remember certain moments.  Moments of life and moments of parenting.  One recent one was this:  I was lying in my bed with my head propped on several pillows with some novel (some fast-paced Swedish mystery maybe, no E.M. Forster right now) and LiLi was lying perpendicular to me with her head propped on my stomach engrossed in a kid mystery.  Reading together.  I recall a friend whose kid is five or six years older than LiLi saying, "Just wait until you can read together.  It will change your life."

So the next 18 weeks are what I'm calling a new phase.  Fall semester for LiLi and wrapping up work projects and continuing to study Chinese for me.  It will be a busy time--I know that already--but a sweet, poignant one.  I know that already too.  Maybe we will be consciously letting go of China, feeling lucky to have lived this part of our lives here.  Or maybe I will be plotting our return.  That, I don't already know.

Hainan: island paradise

We spent last week on Hainan China's version of America's Hawaii.  Hainan is an island and China's southernmost province.   Loads of tourists visit Hainan since it is a tropical paradise built up as a tourist resort destination.  It is apparently popular with Chinese as well as Russian tourists.  In fact, the signs where we were on Yanlong Bay (above) were in Chinese, then Russian, then English.

Last summer when we traveled around China with our group of four I had wanted to come to Hainan at the end of the trip.  But we weren't able to manage it and see everything else we had wanted to see.  We had heard too that summer is monsoon season and the rain could ruin the vacation vacation.  Indeed, last week our visit was sandwiched between several typhoons and we were lucky to have lovely weather during our week, with a bit of cloudiness and rain toward the end of the week.

We visited Nanwan Monkey island off Hainan, an island habitat for some 2000 monkeys accessible by chair lift.  Some monkeys were made to perform but most seemed free to roam.

Mostly we lazed on the beach, built sand castles, swam in the warm sea or in the many swimming pools of the resorts.  The air was clean and the fish was fresh.  I daydreamed about spending a month there next summer depending upon...well, depending upon where we are living by then.

The Heart 心 Words

I used the better part of my Chinese lesson today completely off the rails over these words:   The Heart 心 Words

Our Chinese afterschool homework helper in San Francisco is an amazing woman from Dalian.  She didn’t need the gig but wound up helping us out for several years because I couldn’t manage the MI homework and her real job--as a pastry chef--was baking in the mornings.   She’s one of the most charismatic people I’ve met in my life and we all—two families with three kids total—fell in love with her.   One of her usual phrases to the kids was “xiao xin, xiao xin.”  It means “be careful” and something to be said often to three squirrely kids coming home from school every day. 

I realized that the two characters that make that word are the characters for small (xiao): 小;   and heart (xin): 心

So here is be careful: 

小心

心 Xin (heart) is a radical that appears in many words and is well studied.   A quick google search for “Chinese words with xin” garners 11 million hits, for example. 

I was talking with friends about how I love the heart words and they started saying more of them including the one for “don’t worry”.  I asked my tutor about that word and it’s this: 

别担心

bei dan xin

or:  set your burden of a heart down.  Don’t worry. 

Love is “ai”  so  “ai xin” 

爱心

love heart

means having a social conscious or doing public-good work, like say, looking after the poor or elderly.  It could be just propaganda or it could be so deeply rooted in the culture it is imprinted upon their (our)  souls.  I get that worries about survival, about putting food on the table, about keeping our kids alive, might leave no room for ai xin.  But maybe it is so well engraved that this contemporary one-generation-distance-from-subsistence's greed isn't enough to erase it.   Ai xin.  

Safe is “an” so “an xin” 

安心

safe heart 

means to feel relieved or at peace.  Maybe once we have an xin, then we have the ability to express ai xin.  

And then there’s this: Kai Xin.   “Kai” means “open.”  So while there are about a jillion ways to say happy in Chinese, there is this one.   Here it is, the universe, the meaning of life, the point of it all:

开心

Open heart = happy.

The deluge

We survived the heaviest flooding in BJ in over 60 years.  On Saturday it rained 460 mms (over 18 inches).   We were supposed to have some friends over for dinner but in the middle of the day the sky got so dark it looked like late evening and the rain started.  It poured and poured.  Our friends called mid-afternoon reporting that they had taken cover and thought maybe coming across town wasn't a good idea.  We agreed and were happy to snuggle in bed with our books, later even turning on the t.v.  The rain continued and our street was flooded.  It looked like a river flowing.  I read later that the sewerhole covers washed away and folks fell down into them, or maybe were sucked inside.  A whole chunk of sidewalk caved in, too, according to a friend.  The sole surviving courtyard house now housing migrants working on nearby apartment projects was a lake.  Literally.  The lightening strikes illuminated the courtyard full of water.   Our friends emailed today saying they're glad they decided against coming over that night and sent an article.  Here are some pictures.

We were supposed to go to the beach yesterday but the bullet trains were booked so we bailed.  Now I'm glad we did because though today was super clear, more rain is expected.  I know it's the rainy season but even the natives say this is unusual.   Extreme weather.  Weather?  Or climate?

Riding English in China

Last Summer we met the friend of a friend's colleague who owns a club just East of BJ called Sheerwood Equestrian Country Club.  We'd been trying to connect and visit and it happened yesterday.  We went out with our friend, a visiting MI family from SF, and our weekend driver.  It was about 45 minutes East of BJ in holiday weekend traffic.   We got there and stepped into another world

On tens of thousands of acres there are several outdoor rings, a jumping ring, indoor ring and paddocks.  We heard they have nearly 90 horses there now.  The buildings are Spanish style set in clusters around a central courtyard.  There are separate compounds owned by club members including our friend's which itself contained grand rooms, six gorgeous guest rooms, a kitchen, theater and game rooms.  Our friend had organized private lessons for the girls who are all horse lovers.

A club staff person took the girls to get outfitted in boots and hat-helmets.  LiLi's was exactly the hat I had as a kid with the big button top that looks like a little anthill.  LiLi's coach obviously thought she has had more experience than she's had and gave a real lesson, trotting and posting her very patient mount.  The lead trainer was working on jumping a drop dead gorgeous stallion and the rider himself was some sort of world wide champion.  We also met the head coach who is also apparently an Olympic equestrian judge.  After the girls' ride we got to walk around the barn and peek in and pat the horses in their stalls.  Gorgeous animals, all.

We'll probably pursue lessons for LiLi which is what I had planned to do in SF if we were there.  I figured age 10 or so is a good time to start learning to ride.   She's 9 so it seems close enough.

Who would have thought horsebackriding in China.  English style, too.

Commitmentphobia

When I first decided to quit my two jobs and come to China I committed to a contract gig with an outfit based in Geneva, and a BJ private school for LiLi, each for six months.  I wasn't sure how we would both do here, whether we'd want to stay for less time, more time, a lifetime.

I put our personal stuff in storage in San Francisco but left furniture, rugs, art, books, for our neighbor's parents who were staying in the house.  I figured I'd rent the house later if I needed to, and just risk the damage that might happen to my rugs or antiques.  I wasn't feeling very attached to all of that accumulated stuff at the time.  I even let go of a white sofa that had been emblematic of my marriage and our tiny Hollywood Hills cottage lo those many years ago, watching it being crushed in the jaws of the recycling truck and sobbing at the loss.  My poor (more-recent) ex kept saying, "I told you not to look, I told you not to look."  But I had the idea that after Freecycle resulted in no takers, that the recycling guys would cart it away for another life, intact.  Despite the momentary meltdown, I was still feeling happy to be starting a(nother) new life.  Once in BJ, I didn't miss the stuff at all.

Time has marched on as it does, and now if we were to go home as planned we'd be leaving here in about six weeks.  China would almost be over.

So.  Last week I renegotiated my work gig, extending it and school to the end of 2012.  I'll have tax complications, getting back into SF school complications, figuring out SF work complications, but I'd have some version of those no matter what.  I carved out a month of summer camp for LiLi and simultaneous intensive Chinese study for me.   Several of our nearest and dearest are visiting now, are enroute, or are talking about coming to visit.  Even my sister and her husband are thinking about coming in December.  So the world feels, or rather we feel, sufficiently accessible right at this moment.

And we are not done here.  Beijing still seems like the center of the universe, like change is happening every minute of every day, and like anything is possible.  It's exciting to be here now, in the midst of change I don't think we've ever seen or will see again in our lifetimes.  When we first got here I'd meet ex-pats and ask how long they'd each been in BJ.  I kept hearing the same story:  I came for a year and it has been three; I came for six months five years ago; I came for three years and stayed for 8 so far.

I was reading the requirements for a grant application this week and considered writing myself in as "key personnel."  I'm not ready for the four year commitment that would require, but I am signed on, now, until the end of 2012.