Perspective

Lately, I have been feeling a little less than enthusiastic about being here in China. It is tough saying good-bye each year to friends who leave Shanghai in pursuit of other adventures. I am getting fed up with the lack of order and general chaos that seems to surround every insignificant endeavour. Although I am getting a slight grasp of the language, it is still frustrating to only identify minute chunks when being talked at. Being photographed every time we set foot out the door is getting really old. I am always wary of being taken advantage of because I am a foreigner. And I am tired of subsisting in this dirty city without escape.

Amidst all these negatives, I do find silver linings which give me renewed interest and show me that my attitude has a lot to do with how much I will enjoy the rest of my time here. I have been challenging myself to build into current relationships, pursue new hobbies and take more risks all in effort of self-enrichment (if that is a real word). Part of this new phase of life includes driving Autumn to school every morning on my scooter. This is mostly an enjoyable time, it proves to be quite entertaining, somewhat dangerous and adds another notch to my level of bravery. Driving in Shanghai is definitely not for the faint of heart. Besides these morning ventures, Lachlan and I will sometimes go off exploring to see if we can find a destination I have previously located on the map. This is very rewarding when successful!! Plus I can always find something I've never seen before: the lady with hair down to her ankles, the dog balancing on the back seat of his owner's motorbike, babies carted in bicycle baskets, the black lamborghini, the old man wearing jewel-encrusted round sunglasses, a massive street market that sets up every morning selling fruits, veg, meat, plants, clothes - you name it - then after a few hours disappears without a trace. I have encouraged myself to try new foods, to say "yes" more than "no", and to slow down and appreciate the present, even if that means not worrying because I am lost (physically or linguistically).

All in all, I have to remind myself to stop and smell the roses throughout the journey here. I really do have a lot going for me. Perspective is what makes all the difference. So, I have decided to include in this post photos that show the better side of my life here in Shanghai.

Downtown

Ornate rooftops 

Fresh sugar cane juice

Ancient buildings

Empty street - unheard of!!

Red jewelry at the market

Quiet water town

"Sunshine" watermelon

Mmmm... cappuccino 

Peaceful Qibao

Candy makers

Amusement park outing

Exploring a new park

Wild flowers

Written by Brenda

Family Visits

When we decided to come to Shanghai we also found out that by pure coincidence, my cousins, Charlene and Guedy and their family also were packing up and moving to China!! This being a unique situation there was no way we could pass up a couple "family visits". Since they settled in Wuhan - a city nearly 1000km inland from us in Shanghai, the kids and I took the opportunity to take the 6 hour train ride to go for trip over the American Thanksgiving holiday. It was such a lovely trip and having familiar faces greet us at the train station was such a treat!!

The kiddos L-R: Brianna, Lachlan, Autumn, Mikayla, Jaida

Yes, we made them pose for us a lot ;)

Our kids got to know each other, and even though their girls, Brianna, Mikayla, and Jaida are a little older than Autumn and Lachlan, in no time they got over their shyness and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We got a taste of life in Wuhan which is a very different atmosphere than Shanghai. For one thing, they have a large network of friends connected with their school and church, it felt good to socialize with other families again. We took in some sights such as the Hubei (provincial) Museum and famous East Lake. But the highlight by far was just being together those few days.

My beautiful cousin and me :)

Taking the easy way to see the sights of East Lake.

East Lake

Helping set up their Christmas tree.

Shortly after Christmas, we got word from Charlene and Guedy that they were going to make a spontaneous trip into Shanghai for a few days over the New Year to visit us!! It was very exciting to host family, even though our place was not big enough to house them. We went on a few outings around town together, but once again mostly enjoyed just hanging out. Charlene and I shared some childhood memories and wanted to introduce our children to some of our heritage by means of Dutch Blitz and whipping up a batch of portzelky - a traditional Mennonite New Year's cookie (YUM!!) to complete our New Year's Party. Once again the children had tons of fun together and Joe and Guedy had a blast playing and singing the blues. It did my heart so good to be surrounded with family and we consider it to be the best part of the year so far.

Joe and Guedy providing the entertainment :)

Touring around Shangahi

Party time - Happy New Year!!

Our successful and very delicious portselky.

Written by Brenda

It's all Chinese to me

Thinking back to the first weeks and even months of living in China, anytime someone would speak to me I would have a mini panic attack. Coming with the notion that "Chinese" is the hardest language in the world to learn meant I was in quite a daunting situation. Being a tonal language, the sounds were just so foreign and with having some knowledge of French and Spanish (so easy, right?), Mandarin just seemed impossible. I quickly learned the basics: greetings, "thanks", "yes" and "no", "this" and "that", and numbers. Actually, one of my first phrases was ting bu dong -  a very helpful "I don't understand". Unfortunately, this hasn't been the easy "one answer fits all" solution I was hoping for. Unbeknownst to me, ting bu dong roughly translates to "I don't understand what I'm hearing." China is made up of many cultures and peoples all with their own spoken language. They have been united, however, under a shared written language. That's right. They can speak and not understand each other but write out some characters and they're all on the same page. So, they have found that if someone claims to "not know what they are hearing" a handy solution is to write the characters. Except this didn't work on me. I was still lost. And even more confused that they wouldn't leave me alone after I already said "I don't understand!!" They will kindly speak more slowly and enunciated but it really doesn't help when I still have no clue what they are saying to me. It's rather humorous and usually ends in us sharing a laugh, me apologizing and them walking away shaking their head. Pretty scary situations for this new expat. ;)

After a couple of months I felt Chinese (ok, technically it's Mandarin, but everyone here just says "Chinese") was starting to sound familiar. I could catch some words and tones and felt encouraged by the few phrases I was learning to recognize - the common ones we are asked such as, where are you from and how old are you (to the kids only - ha!!) - and how to answer them appropriately. This made simple exchanges a fun challenge.

With not having taken any official Chinese lessons, I now feel quite confident to go shopping in the markets (and haggle!!) and tell a taxi driver how to get to where I want to go. I can get by for the most part. Knowing the numbers has been probably the biggest benefit as I do about 50% of my shopping in markets or little "hole in the wall" shops where it's cash only. I still have encounters where I don't understand but I have found that faking it and speaking in English even if they are speaking in Chinese will do the trick about half the time. I feel my understanding is far above my speaking abilities, be it ever so minimal. I have found the Chinese people to be very gracious and a little effort goes a long way with them. We are certainly getting used to talking with strangers on a regular basis and doing a lot of laughing over our inability to communicate, not to mention our use of charades. :) I truly believe that without my kids it would be a different story, they are totally drawn to these little blondies and then initiate conversation.

I would love to learn more Chinese and become proficient at it, mostly to eavesdrop and surprise those who don't think I understand, but sadly, it is not high enough on my priority list these days to accomplish. So I will continue with what I've got and hope to pick up a bit more along the way.

Written by Brenda

A Trip to the Northern Capital

Hello everyone, I have not been very diligent keeping the blog current so I will try to fill you all in on what has been happening with us lately starting with our trip to Beijing this spring. "Bei" in Mandarin means north while "jing" translates to capital. Historically, Nanjing, a city not too far from Shanghai (translated as "south capital" - get it??) was the capital of China for 6 different dynasties since 3 A.D. From 1279 onward Beijing ruled (for the most part) as the capital over all of China.

Traveling to Beijing was on the list of "places to go while we live in China" so during Joe's week long holiday at the end of April we decided to make the trek north. I spent hours researching the places we should go and the things we should see, so for the 4 days we were there, we packed in a lot of sightseeing, adventures and memories. We took a bullet train and traveled around 1300km in about 4.5 hours time, going approx 300kmph.

Yummy

First of all, our hotel was located on a pedestrian street that is really touristy, in fact, right outside the front door was a "night market" which opened up around 4pm and lasted who knows how long into the night. Here there was a long row of food vendors selling everything from traditional Chinese dumplings, fruit skewers and curly fries to non-traditional/novelty skewers of snakes, scorpions, seahorses, silkworms and locusts. Talk about interesting. What was really creepy was seeing the legs of the scorpions still moving... sorry if I lost some of you there... sad but true. Needless to say, it was a happening place. Having had bad experiences with street food, we played it as safe as possible.

For our first outing we went to see a Kung Fu show which we all really enjoyed. It had a lot of action and followed a good story. Since then Lachlan has regularly asked to "dress like a Kung Fu guy" which means, going shirtless. :)

Gate of Heavenly Peace

The next morning we got up early to make our way to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (currently known as The Palace Museum). I like to still call it the Forbidden City - sounds more interesting and mysterious. ;)                                                                           They were walking distance from our hotel and easy to find. Being a Sunday, you can imagine the crowds. Walking through Tiananmen Square brought quite a bit of emotion; amazement of its sheer size and terrifying recent history.

At the Hall of Supreme Harmony

You can see the hill we later climbed behind us here.

From there we followed the crowd to the "Gate of Heavenly Peace" which leads us to the Forbidden City, which is where the Emperors of China traditionally lived. Upon entering, we were approached by a young man who offered to be our guide through the Forbidden City. We were a little wary and asked a number of times about his fee and finally agreed to let him be our guide. Bruce was his name :) Chinese people often give themselves an English name and he had named himself after his hero - Bruce Lee. Having Bruce lead us through the buildings and show us important features was truly a blessing. We gained a lot of insight we would not have known on our own, we probably would have gotten ourselves lost and wandered for hours in there, plus his English was very good (better than some other "guides" we passed). It was such a neat experience being somewhere so old and that holds so much historical significance. I told Joe that I have never been on such "royal" ground before. It is surrounded by a moat, high walls and was off-limits to the majority of society for hundreds of years. Also, it has what would have been the tallest building in the city before modern times - the Hall of Supreme Harmony - which housed the Emperor's throne.  It stands taller than the other buildings which has, unfortunately given it a lightning rod effect. It has been destroyed by fire 7 times.

The view of the Forbidden City!!

After spending nearly 2 hours in the Forbidden City we entered a park on the north side of it and climbed a small hill for a view overlooking the Forbidden City. Now, Beijing is known for being even smoggier than Shanghai, but we were fortunate to have blue skies and a clear view.

The Great Wall of China!!

So. Many. Stairs.

The next day was our trip to the Great Wall of China. We hired a private car/driver to take us to a restored section of the Great Wall called Mutianyu. Again, we had a beautiful, sunny morning and spent a couple of hours climbing stairs, marveling at this work of man and enjoying the view (and the fresh air!!). What surprised me was how short the length of refinished wall was - it didn't take us long to reach the end. Here we saw an opening to where the unfinished wall continued and after talking with some of the other tourists who had "illegally" gone down that path, we decided to venture out as well!! This was a highlight. This was a true hike.  Bushes were growing on the path, parts of it had crumbled away and we needed to climb nearly vertically in areas. Looking back, this may not have been the wisest with a 6 and 3 year old in tow, but they were troopers and thoroughly enjoyed the adventure. To get to the top of the Wall, we needed to ride a lift, like a ski-lift, and the trip down was another highlight - a bobsled-like slide that wound its way down the mountain. Joe and Autumn went flying at top speed whereas Lachlan and I were a little more cautious - to the point of backing up the line behind us, haha. Still, it was a blast.

On the original Wall

Closely following the path

Lama Temple

Lachlan meeting a Buddhist monk

On our final day, we went to the Lama Temple. No, it did not have llamas, it belongs to a Tibetan sect of Buddhism. Think Dalai Lama. The significance of this temple is that it was given imperial status and though temple roofs are traditionally made of turquoise tiles, its were given yellow - reserved only for the Emperor and seen only in the Forbidden City. Another point of interest is that it houses a 26m tall statue of the Maitreya Buddha carved from a single piece of White Sandalwood.

We did notice some differences between Beijing and Shanghai. Beijing seems more westernized. We saw more people who were overweight in an average day than we do here. People tend to be a bit more aggressive farther north, so we've been told and we did have to do our fair share of bargaining. I always felt a surge of victory after successfully completing a negotiation with street merchants. They expected this fair-haired foreigner to be an easy target. ;) In both Beijing and Shanghai they speak Mandarin, and without being a student of the language I could definitely hear a different accent. Shanghai seems like the more sophisticated of the two in our opinion. Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit and would love to have spent more time at the Great Wall.

 Written by Brenda