Perhaps the simplest
culinary adventure in any foreign place is sampling the unfamiliar local
fruits. Some may remember that I
chronicled my discovery of dragon fruit in Bangladesh on our previous blog. Well, the fruit explorations have begun
again.
This time, we began with a
fruit we’re familiar with by name and juice, but never as a whole piece of
fruit. The passionfruit is an odd little guy. Its exterior looks like a wrinkly plum, and feels like a
half-deflated stressball.
Once cut open, however, it
reveals its mushy, super-juicy guts.
After I cut into the first one, upon looking at the opened fruit I
announced to Matt that this one had spoiled. But apparently, this is what to expect.
We scooped out the seeds,
and quickly realized that one passionfruit is too tiny to be worthwhile. So we cut and scooped through our
little collection.
Sadly, the rind is simply
discarded. We were left with the
passionfruit guts, which taste – shockingly...
– like passionfruit juice, something akin to a mix of orange and pineapple
juice. The difference from the
plain juice, though, is that the whole fruit has textures: the seeds have crunch like a
pomegranate, and there’s also a pulpiness reminiscent of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Yum!
Friday! Yes, even stay-at-home-parents
experience the "TGIF feeling," because for most of us, this provides the hope that we'll convince our partners to enjoy some child-bonding time
while we do laundryshave our legsread a booksleep! In anticipation of a relaxing two-parent weekend, we begin a Friday of celebration.
This past Friday, Tyler and
I attended a massive playgroup.
The weather in Shanghai has recently taken a turn towards the bearable,
so the usual small indoors playgroup moved outside to a
local park and became a massive swarm of babies, blankets, toys, and over-eager moms with cameras.
Want to create chaos in China? Gather 20 babies in a public park.
I wish this photo captured
the uniquely “Chinese” element of old men standing right at the edge of our
group, pointing and gawking as they chain-smoke cigarettes. Because obviously, the best place to puff clouds of
carcinogens is right over the innocent crowd of babies with developing
lungs. Several of the mommies
either were Chinese or fluent in Mandarin, and yet nothing they said could convince
these men that they were not welcome to join us. But I digress…
After the babies' playgroup, we
attended mamas’ playgroup in a friend’s apartment courtyard. It was similar to our previous
engagement, with one distinct addition: wine!
Cheers to a bottle that's meant for adults!
Above you see yours truly;
Jade, the New Yorker who owns a spa back in San Fran; Victoria, the English woman
married to a Portuguese man who has spent the past eight years in Egypt; and Nishtha, who had been a professional in Shanghai
for six years until she gave birth to her one-year-old son. It’s intriguing to me how we’ve all arrived at this place –
parenting in Shanghai – with such different reasons, backgrounds, experiences, and
emotions. So we toast to a world
that somehow becomes both bigger and smaller with each new friend we meet. And, of course, we toast to Friday.
I joined an online community
of expatriate mothers living in Shanghai, and through their myriad articles,
forums, and events, I have found the cheapest diapers, healthcare options,
parks for tiny tots, and lots of playgroups. Not to mention friendships with women who share many of my
“adventures” as we raise young children in an unfamiliar city in a foreign
country.
Amidst the message board
chats dominated by debates regarding the best schools, pediatricians, and ayis
(hired help for cooking/cleaning/childcare – definitely the most contentious
topic in these circles), one posting in particular stood out for me in the
digest email this week:
Mamas, any NFL fans?
And it
was the most frequented forum of the day!
So this morning, a group of
American mothers in China hastily shuttled their kids off to school and their
husbands off to work, and headed for the one sports bar in town, where they are
drinking beers and watching the Saints/Packers game live at 8:30am.
Just one reason why
I love these tenacious ladies.
And what an adventure this
kid has had in her first three months of life.
In her short time here with
us, Tyler has already met all six of her grandparents, plus her
Great-GrandPapa. She has also met
all of her aunts (2), uncles (3), and cousins (4 + the one who’s arriving any
day now!), as well as two great aunts, two great uncles, and two second cousins. She has met too many friends – adult
and baby alike – to even begin to count.
Tyler is already a
well-traveled baby. She has
visited 4 states in the US, in addition to calling two countries “home”. Tyler has slept in nine different beds,
ranging from her Grammy’s own antique baby cradle to the plastic bin where we
stored extra linens. She has
traveled by taxi – both NY and Shanghai – bus, subway, car, van, plane, and
even gondola.
Our pint-sized party animal has attended two
parades: Gay Pride in NYC, and the rehearsal for the Moon Festival parade here
in Shanghai. She's been golfing, shopping, and picnicing, and has behaved herself at over ten restaurants. Tyler has a global
wardrobe, with outfits from the Netherlands, England, New York, Boston, New Mexico,
Arizona, DC, California, Colorado, and now here (and not just MADE in China,
but BOUGHT in China). She’s had
people speak to her in English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Mandarin, and
Shanghainese.
Tyler's eyes have shifted from deep sapphire to royal to almost sky-blue. Her hair has slowly transitioned from a brunette monk-like hairline to patchy peach fuzz to a very thin layer of strawberry-blonde locks. She has figured out how to suck her thumb and grab her toes. She has at least one hundred
different facial expressions that characterize her every mood, and
she’s recently acquired a whole vocabulary of noises that she uses to delight us
with stories or voice her complaints.
TJ continues to amaze us
constantly. I feel very blessed to
watch this precious, gentle, easygoing, curious, strong, funny, cheerful child
as she learns and grows and becomes more of her own person with each passing
day.
For a laowai (foreigner), choosing a Chinese
name is an important task. Names are extremely delicate creations in
Chinese culture, as they must combine harmonious sounds (including syllable and
tone), beautiful characters, and a rich meaning behind both the stand-alone
characters and their combined story.
Apparently,
either the same care is not taken by Chinese choosing their English names, or
perhaps something is just lost in translation. I'm seeing a lot of
nametags of fruits (Kiwi, Cherry), astrologically-minded folks (Stellar,
Moonbeam), and old-fashioned men (Herman, Howard). But when Kiki tells me
I need to take my choice of Chinese name seriously, I comply.
Wei, our last name
With the
help of his tutor back in the States, Matt selected Wei Lian [way lee-ON]. It has
the often-sought benefit of sounding similar to his Anglo "Williams",
which is convenient when both names appear on his business cards. There
were many Wei characters to choose from; this particular one means "mighty/power" and is a common
and well-regarded surname in China. The character for Lian
has many layered meanings, generating a connotation of integrity. His
tutor told him it means he is "clean-handed
and clear-headed". I like that, but when tested on some NYU
classmates who grew up in mainland China, they thought it was a bit too
Taiwanese, so Matt is still tinkering with his exact moniker before he commits
it to his business cards.
Lian
My name, Wei
Ruilin [way ray-LING], is a work in progress. The tutor and I were never really
satisfied with it, because while it sounds pretty, it's not as rich in meaning
as it should be. It also sounds nothing like my Anglo name. I'm
hoping to start Mandarin classes soon, and will brainstorm suitable names with
my teacher.
Rui Lin
We seem to
have hit the naming jackpot when it comes to our little Wei Wei [way way]. TJ is
quite the celebrity here, with her being such a young baby out and about;
generally, Chinese people keep their babies indoors at this age to protect
their "most precious angels". Her big blue eyes and tendency to
flirt with anyone who smiles at her certainly contribute to the magnetic
attraction she possesses. Forget directions to the bathroom or counting
money, the first words of Mandarin I've mastered here are to explain that TJ is
2 months old and what her name is. I started out telling people her birth
name, and was met by expressions ranging from confusion to disgust. Once
I switched to telling people her Chinese name, Wei Wei's admirers began
squealing in delight and instantly engaging her in lengthy conversations
involving lots of repeating of the words for small and baby (at least
that's all I can recognize).
Wei (TJ's name)
Wei Wei is a
great kid's name, as it serves the dual function of proper name and nickname
wrapped up in one. When said aloud, the exact tones could suggest a very
feminine character loosely translated as "precious/rare
jade", but it also sounds the same as a popular boy's name (which
obviously I love!). So the star of the show -- and the one in our family
who will wind up being most Chinese culturally and linguistically due to her
upbringing here -- has her perfect Chinese name, delighting the instant
audience we have everywhere we go. Shine on, Wei Wei, shine on.
My first
blog post from China . . . and it isn’t going to be about China at all. Instead, to introduce this blog, I
thought I’d tell the story that answers the question we’ve been asked by our
family, by peers, by strangers in New York, and even by new friends we’re
meeting here in Shanghai:
Why move
to China?
I feel like this question can be broken into why move at all? and why someplace so foreign? And these questions begin with a simple premise, why travel? So I'll begin at the beginning...
Neither
Matt nor I grew up as travelers. I think Matt would agree with my childhood
idea of a "vacation" as either camping in the Rockies or visiting the
grandparents. This meant that we
truly appreciated the few special trips we did get to take. I can still recall every experience
from the week my parents took me to Boston, and Matt will never forget his
first hotel stay. Our only foreign
experiences before meeting each other took me to Canada and Matt to a resort in
Mexico. We were travel novices
when we met.
Matt and I
first traveled together for my 21st birthday. He surprised me with a weekend trip to
Napa Valley, including a plane flight, bed & breakfast, and wine
tours. It was by far the most
extravagant and adventurous thing I had ever done. While it wasn’t a long flight or extended stay, that trip
still taught us that we were compatible travel partners, and it gave us a brief
glimpse of life spent exploring new places.
oh so young in Napa
Then Matt
graduated from college, and when his mother asked what he might want for a
graduation gift, he somehow came up with the idea that he wanted to travel to
Europe. Next thing I knew, I was
being roped into this adventure as well. My parents bought us backpacks,
we stuffed them with snickers, film (yes, film!), a month-long train pass, and
a rotation of 4 outfits, and we were off! We spent a month trekking
through England, France, Spain, and Italy, and we had an absolute blast. Every day brought a brand new assault
on our senses. Even getting lost
provided hours of entertainment and discovery. We naturally fell into a rhythm of life on the foreign road;
Matt mastered the currency conversions and map-reading while I thumbed through
our guidebooks and translated the languages. The travel bug had bit in a big way.
on the steps of Sacre Coeur Basilica in Paris
Luckily,
Matt was about to embark on a year of study in Amsterdam. Not wanting to be left out, I graduated
early and headed over to the Netherlands to join him at the midpoint. We got our first taste of living
abroad, and it was delicious (like mussels, cheese, and good beer – mmm). Even though we were in a studio
apartment with a hallway that doubled as a kitchen and a shower that took up
the whole bathroom, we loved how simple daily acts are made so much more
interesting when done in a foreign way.
Riding the bus, buying groceries, even bicycling our laundry half a mile
through the snow . . . somehow it was all so romantic in Amsterdam. Due to the surprisingly small size of
Europe, our flexible schedules as student & nanny, and an austere budget,
we got to explore all over the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, as well as
head back to Paris for a second tour.
Unfortunately, we were beginning to discover that the more places we visited,
the more we added to the list of places we wanted to go.
Rotterdam (Netherlands) dock tour; it was freezing!
We began
brainstorming foreign adventures that we’d love to take if only given the time
and money. Then we actually
started saving for trips, and planning out how to take advantage of the time
off granted to teachers and Matt’s precious vacation days. An extra-long spring break became a
tour of Scandinavia. A business
trip to London became an opportunity to spend a long weekend in Dublin. A friend’s wedding in St. John turned
into a weeklong shared villa and snorkeling with sea turtles.
Guinness mustache in rainy Dublin
King Matt of Denmark
enjoying a catamaran tour in the Virgin Islands
As much as we enjoyed these
short vacations, we lamented that they were just that – vacations. We looked back fondly at our time spent
living in Amsterdam, and agreed that we would love to live abroad again if the
opportunity presented itself.
Then Matt got a call from a
colleague who told him about an assignment his company was posting in Dhaka,
and was it okay if she recommended him for it? And somehow the next thing we knew, Matt was on his way
around the world to spend 6 wild months traversing rural Bangladesh. I got to join him for a week early on,
and then his final two months there.
If Amsterdam was our friendly introduction to the living abroad
experience, Dhaka was our merciless initiation. Yet despite the daily power outages, harassment from
strangers, and constant stench of human waste, we still walked away from that
experience with the attitude that we couldn’t wait to live abroad again.
[On the right of this blog,
you
can find a link to our adventures in Bangladesh.]
Two big Americans, one small rickshaw in Dhaka
Visiting a Royal Palace in Bangkok
While living in Bangladesh,
we traveled to Thailand and Malaysia as well. Upon his return to New York, Matt got a job that sent him
all over the world, including Milan, Prague, Peru, Turkey, Israel, Singapore,
and Beijing. But the more global
his job became, the more he noticed a distinct focus on China as the major
emerging market. And so he began
regaling me with news articles and random statistics and work projects that
somehow all led to one conclusion: we should move to China. With my blessing, he called an old
contact, applied for a job, and with a huge leap of faith (including quitting
our jobs, having a baby, and planning this move all at the same time), here we
are!
If you’re still reading,
BRAVO, thanks for humoring me as I ventured down memory lane, and welcome to
our blog.
