Santa Visits Shanghai

Although this was Tyler’s second Christmas, it was really her first experience understanding and participating in the holiday: dancing to carols, watching the twinkling lights on our tree, and eagerly unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning.

our little tree with stockings filled by Santa

Santa visited us, bringing Tyler a tricycle and some blocks, and bringing Matt a remote control car (hey, if you still believe…)

Santa's gifts for TJ & Matt

Matt’s dad joined us on Christmas eve for Mexican food and a movie (introduced us to The Big Chill – excellent film with excellent soundtrack!), then he spent the night so as not to miss TJ’s early start the next day.  We spent a lovely Christmas morning opening presents and eating cinnamon rolls.   

 

 

admiring herself in her new hat from cousin

Then we headed over to some dear friends’ home for a New Zealand Christmas dinner.  It’s summer there for the holiday, so ham sandwiches and salad are typical fare, and it was delicious.  We even got to group skype with friends that had moved back to Portugal.  It’s nice having a Shanghai “family” network of friends since all of us are so far from home for the holidays.

We hope you enjoyed a wonderful holiday season wherever you are, and here’s to a fantastic 2013!

Singapore

Matt traveled almost constantly through the month of December.  As a reward for all of us for surviving the month on the road / stuck at home, Tyler and I flew down to meet him at the end of his Singapore trip.  We had a lovely little vacation: a nice break from the bone-chilling Shanghai weather, great shopping and eating, beautiful lush surroundings, and quality family time.  It was a wonderful start to our holidays!

everything was so warm & tropical and NOT GRAY SHANGHAI!

posing at the botanic gardens

suspiciously eyeing the moss statues in the orchid house

enchanted at the brand new "world's largest oceanarium"

browsing the markets in Little India

riding the double-decker bus for a tour of the city

under the Marina Bay Sands resort

we got caught in a downpour!

Christmas tree + summer clothes

at the awesome public pool / water park

How to be a Chinese Handyman

First, get an old bag with lots of pockets.  Pockets are essential, even though your bag will not be sorted into any discernible system.

Then, fill this bag with random screws, nails, nuts, bolts, and bits of wire.  Under no circumstances should you visit a hardware store to purchase these trinkets.  That would ruin the intended effect, which is to suggest you have been cultivating your collection for many years.  The more used your doodads, the better.  Bits of rust and paint add intrigue.  Broken nails are a bonus.  If you can gather lint and hair and unidentifiable grime on a little spiral of metal wire, consider yourself a master of your trade.  Display this wire on an outer loop of your bag like a badge of honor.  You will notice clients eyeing your muck-covered wire, because they too recognize the value it holds.  Their queasy expression masks their sense of wonder and jealousy.  Go ahead, flick your bag to leave a bit of this wire's treasure behind in your client's home.  They love this.

Once you have your bag ready, you should devote attention to your nail.  I mean the one on your finger, your non-dominant pinky to be exact.  Allow it to grow out.  Do not cut it ever again.  Once it is of sufficient length, you may begin filing.  Work towards a point.  Eventually this nail will be very useful to you.  No, not for your work.  For picking your nose.  But this skill (with accompanying specialized nail) is a job requirement.

Learn the art of furniture climbing.  Step-stools and ladders are for amateurs.  When a client calls you to look at their broken light fixture or install drapes above a window, they are hoping for a simultaneous balancing act worthy of the circus.  Once you enter their home, begin searching out the most precarious way to climb to their ceiling.  Counters or window ledges are too obvious, too basic.  Standing on an antique side table is a decent start.  The next level is to perch on the edge of their delicate armchair.  Maybe walk across the back of their sofa, where you've placed your old bag, muck-side down of course.  Once you've mastered one-piece climbs, try balancing a chair on top of a bookcase.  Tilt the chair for maximum sighs of wonder from your clients-cum-audience.  You must be on the lookout for the occasional tricky client who offers you their sturdy and sensible footstool.  Shrug it off and continue swaying on their rolling desk chair as you hammer away at their ceiling.

Which brings us to your final preparation: practice the art of the well-placed whack.  The western idiom about duct tape and WD-40 is too complicated; it requires remembering whether your desired result is stuck or unstuck.  Worse yet, it requires carrying supplies that you might actually use -- not the point of the bag, remember.  The Chinese handyman credo is simpler: every household quandary can be resolved with a bang.  If one thwack doesn't do the trick, try another.  Or ten.  Or 100.  Or basically just keep banging away until the problem is fixed.  Despite defying all rules of physics and logic, this strategy actually works 99% of the time.

Once you’ve delivered the golden whack, your job is done.  Leave the furniture upended, stacked, and ideally teetering dangerously.  Remember to flick your bag before you go.  As an encore, demonstrate your pinky-dagger nose-picking abilities on the way out the door.  You have mastered the art and science of the Chinese handyman.

Trick or Treat

I’m a little disappointed that since living in a dorm in college, I have never had a trick-or-treater come to my door.  In DC this was because only drunk homeless men stumbled by my alleyway entrance.  In Spanish Harlem, it wasn’t worth it for a kid to hike up 5 ½ flights of stairs for one lame piece of candy.  In the village, everyone watched or participated in the parade instead.  Which brings us to China…

Last year, I chronicled how Halloween was starting to catch on as a holiday, thanks to the proliferation of expats, especially Americans.  This year, we saw the big nightclub up our street setting up a haunted-house type gauntlet that costumed patrons had to walk through to enter the club.  We saw a row of shops offering sweets to trick-or-treaters who came by (T-o-T-ing at shops, rather than residences, was common in NYC too -- makes sense in big cities of mostly apartment dwellers, I guess).

As for our celebration, we kept it simple this year.  First we got dressed in costume (well, at least one of us did)…

not sure about this outfit, Daddy

ahoy, sailor!

got my T-o-T bag and everything!

…then we went out for a ice cream at Cold Stone (yep, they’re here in Shanghai).  Treat indeed!

no pausing for silly photos, just gimme the ice cream!

can't smile because I'm thinking about that next bite!

Beyond the Pale

Now that summertime has turned to fall, the ubiquitous umbrellas are disappearing.  This isn’t due to a decrease in rain.  Instead it’s because umbrellas here – particularly for women – aren’t used to stay dry.  Rather, they are used to stay pale.

lots of umbrellas, not a drop of rain

I guess a more appropriate term for these required summer accessories would be "parasols".  They are quite fancy here, with tons of colors and patterns, some adorned in lace and sequins, and even including undersides with some pretty serious looking UV-blocking material.  Think ball-gown on the outside, spacesuit on the inside. 

If a lunchtime stroll on a sunny day necessitates a parasol, then what about a trip to the beach?  Well, the new trend in Qingdao and other Chinese beach communities is the "face-kini".**  To me, this doesn’t look like a particularly enjoyable swim outfit, but I guess it does allow women to both enjoy the ocean and keep their skin completely protected.

the makings of a beach-themed horror movie?  (c) AFP/Getty Images 

This concern with remaining pale extends beyond outdoor protection.  When I want to buy face-wash or body lotion, I have to carefully search through the aisles to find the small shelf of products that do not contain “whitening” agents.  There are special creams designed to bleach every part of a woman’s body, from armpits to “down there”.  That particular product was a rather horrifying discovery.

Considering the culture I grew up in includes tanning salons and bronzing creams, I cannot claim any sort of superiority over these women who strive to remain fair.  And frankly, the lady under the parasol will have healthier skin as a result of her habits, assuming she goes easy on the bleaching products. 

But as someone who finds umbrellas rather cumbersome, it seems like a nuisance to have to carry one everyday, just to stay that extra shade of pale.

---

**link to related NYT article here

Babyland

Shanghai summers are very hot and very very humid.  As a consequence, the majority of foreigners return to whatever better climate they call “home” for most of July and August.  And as a consequence of that, most organized activities that we enjoy throughout the year – music class, drop-in dance, swim lessons, playgroups – are cancelled for summer.

Unbearable weather + no friends in town + lack of activities = recipe for a bummer summer.

However, these bummers didn’t seem to affect TJ’s boundless energy, yearning for adventure, and happy-go-lucky attitude.  So I witnessed a wonderful moment in parenting, when my little bundle of joyous energy taught me a powerful lesson about staying optimistic and continuing to enjoy each day regardless of the circumstances.

If the weather was below melting point, we headed to Fuxing Park, which I’ve chronicled previously as an endless source of local entertainment.  Swimming became another favorite activity, and luckily we have a terrific indoor pool with a huge tri-level baby pool.  This was a great way to stay cool, keep us entertained, and tire TJ out thoroughly.

And then there's Babyland, an awesome indoor play gym for little ones.  They have a playhouse with kitchen and plastic food, walls of puzzles to solve and gears to connect, a bouncy castle, big foam blocks to create obstacle courses, ball pits, jungle gyms, and lots of instant playmates.  Tyler’s favorite hangout spots are the big blow up running track, the ballpit, and the stairs to the slide (maybe one day she will go down the slide too!).

adventures in Babyland

that little blonde blur is TJ off to the races

slogging through waist-deep plastic balls

and onto the stairs, TJ's favorite

PS  Yes I realize all of these photos are of TJ's backside.  She's hard to keep up with once she discovers the excitement of Babyland!

One Year

One year ago today, with a sleeping infant, 13 pieces of luggage, and a mixture of trepidation and adventure, we stepped off a plane and into China. 

I wish I had something really profound to say about this milestone, but it kind of snuck up on us.  It's hard for me to believe we've already been residents of Shanghai for a year, as I still feel like a newbie in so many ways. Yet as I go about my daily routines, I am realizing how much we've normalized so many experiences that were strange and uncomfortable a year ago. I have many days that I distinctly feel like a visitor here, clearly a foreigner in a foreign land. But I do think we are slowly carving our own little niche in this city. 

The first year was mostly about hanging on for dear life as we were thrust onto the wild rides of new (foreign) city, parenthood, and crazy consulting hours. Now I feel like we can take a deep breath, collect ourselves, and begin a second year of more intentional living, deeper discovery, and greater connectedness -- with China and as a family.

With one whirlwind year under our belt, I'm really looking forward to the journey ahead.