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Holy Chicken and Broccoli, Is My Test THIS Week?

Countdown: Less than two weeks until departure. Whoa, how did that happen? How did 19 weeks of training get past me? The Chinese test is the end of this week.

If all goes well, then yes, I will be departing on time. I know, saying “if” in the same breath as my Chinese test is against my Positivity Plan Code of Conduct. I am supposed to say, “After I pass my test this Friday,” or “When I totally ROCK my Chinese test on Friday…” and so on and so forth.

I am trying. I continue to say positive things to myself every day. Things such as “我是一个汉语的女王” or “I am a Chinese [language] queen.” I repeat that kind of thing to myself in the car. And power pose.

I am really starting to believe my amazing Chinese teachers are going to pull this off (with my help of course), that I will blow away the testers and that the recording of my test will be used for years to come as an example of how someone with AWESOME Chinese takes the end of training test.

That does not mean I will not be bringing all my various talismans. I am not really a superstitious person. I do the “knock on wood” or “knock on [insert random material, like plastic, here]” on occasions, but that is it. This is except, of course, when I am in an FSI exam. Then I am armed to the teeth. I will wear my positive mantra bracelets, carry my daughter’s smiling daycare center photo, and even bring in a ridiculously cute string doll that purports to help the owner “kick start your life, give you courage and confidence to get things done.” I am sure it was marketed for teenage girls, but I do not care. Whatever works, right? If I had lucky undies and a bullet proof amulet, I would wear those too.

This however has been my best training week yet. I do not have to do much homework to prep for class because my reading class is “cold” reading (first time seeing the material) and my speaking class is “impromptu” discussion of topics or presentations with very little prep time – all of which simulate the test. Previously, I felt so frustrated in class after spending hours studying and still not understanding SO much. Now, I feel elated because I understand SO much without needing much preparation time.

This week I have been thinking of my language test as a half marathon. (of course, what is a runner supposed to do?) Generally, I take between 2 hours and 15 minutes and 2 hours and a half to complete a half marathon. The language test also takes roughly the same amount of time. Running a half marathon is exhausting. So is sitting in a room having a conversation or reading an authentic three to four paragraph news article in a foreign language in which you are not fluent, especially if you are being graded on that language. Also, if your language test happens at lunch time, but that is whole other issue.

In the months leading up to a half marathon, I do a lot of training. Some days I have great runs. Some days I have terrible runs. Sometimes I cannot drag myself out to run at all. But over the course of the three to six months, my long runs get longer, I grow stronger, and I am better prepared for the big day. Still, on race day I never really know how it might go. I could wake up feeling off. A few miles in I might feel an odd twinge in my knee, which may or may not cause me problems. I may need to walk through the water stops to give myself just the break I need to push through.

I think back to this fall as I dropped out of my October half marathon down to a 10K and then later dropped 10Ks to 5Ks. I thought I was out of training. But I have been training for another kind of half – my language test. Nineteen weeks of training in fact. As I sit down to begin my test, I will neither know my outcome nor what hurdles might be thrown my way. I may need to slow down, check my pace, and correct my stride.

At the very least I want to finish strong. I want to know at the end of the test that I gave my best with whatever I was given. Even better if I hit a PR (scoring above the required language score can result in incentive bonus pay), though that would just be icing on the cake, not a goal.

There are no medals at the end of this race, just plane tickets and a new position waiting in Shanghai.

Race Day: Friday, high noon.

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The Resolution

In late 2013 my sister mentioned for one of her 2014 New Year’s Resolutions she planned to run 750 miles. I thought hey, now that is an idea, a mileage goal for the year. However, I knew I did not have 750 miles in me. I needed a challenge, but I needed something obtainable. As a single parent in the Foreign Service at the time serving at a US-Mexico border post, I really had to take a hard look at what mileage might really be within my reach.

In 2013 I ran a total of six half marathons (El Paso, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Boston, Massachusetts, Juarez, Mexico, and Las Vegas, Nevada). I also ran a 5K, a 10K, and a 10K as part of a duathlon in El Paso. Yet even with all those organized races I only ran a total of 200 to 220 miles the whole year. I supplemented my running with Zumba and spinning classes at my gym and the occasional stationary bike ride or exercise DVD at home.

I did a few calculations and decided on 400 miles for 2014. That came out to an average of 7.7 miles a week. It sounded completely possible.

I think it might have been the next day I screwed up my plantar fascia at the tail end of a 5K. While sprinting in to the end I felt the excruciating tear in the bottom of my foot. Holy Mother $#&@! I hobbled back to the car and for much of the rest of my Christmas and New Year’s holiday. This did not make an auspicious start.

My first run of 2014 did not come about until January 9 and I could only manage one mile. One, quite slow mile on a very tender foot. Over the course of the month I did work up to three miles, but I basically kept the mileage low, ending the month with only 20 miles in total. So there I was starting the year already down ten miles after the first month.

With a half marathon coming up in April, I needed to step things up. Yet the dust storms in Ciudad Juarez came early and I started having asthma attacks while running. I would not even be a mile into a run and I would have to turn back. It was so frustrating. I had secured a sitter for my daughter – either the nanny would stay a little later or a friend would come over. At the very least I wanted to run a 5K, but I would find myself turning back much sooner. I had to move almost all of my running indoors to the treadmill at my little gym.

28.5 miles for February.
29.7 miles for March.
All below the 33 miles and some change I needed to average per month.

Finally in April I managed 40.7 miles for the month, helped in a large part by my Salt Lake City half marathon.

The plus side was my speed increased. I think because I underwent the (&$%@ painful) bilateral vein stripping the November before, my legs no longer felt so heavy when standing or running. I had become a 10:30 or 11 minute miler after the birth of my daughter and had accepted that. Before that I was a 10 minute miler. Suddenly in 2014 I was running 9:45 then 9:30 and then even 9 minute miles.

35.4 miles for May. It did not hurt I ran a half marathon in Cincinnati.
40.7 miles for June.

I had managed to overcome the plantar fasciitis and the asthma and the child care challenges to bring my mid-year total to 195 miles. I was five shy of my goal but felt fairly confident it was still within the realm of the possibility.

You know, if I had a normal life.

I departed from Ciudad Juarez on July 1 to begin nine weeks of travel from post and home leave. I would drive through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia with two cats and my 2 ½ year old daughter. I would spend a week in Hawaii and a week in North Carolina. With creative childcare finds (thank you $50 an hour Japanese daycare, with 2 hour minimum, in the Sheraton in Hawaii and the much less expensive $6 an hour drop in daycare in New Bern) I did manage 30 miles in July. Hi-five for me.

In August we continued our travel to San Francisco, South Dakota and New York. Day care options became a bit more complicated. My parents watched my daughter one afternoon I was in Virginia in between trips to I could get a 3.5 mile run in. My friend watched my daughter in San Francisco so I could get in one hilly run. My aunt and uncle watched C in South Dakota so I could get in a few training runs and my Leading Ladies half marathon through the beautiful Spearfish Canyon. A few more runs in hotel gyms while C sat “quietly” (for a 2 year old) with her iPad and I managed total of 35 miles for the month.

At the end of August we moved into our temporary quarters in an extended stay hotel while I attended full time Mandarin Chinese training. At 260 miles with 140 to go, I was still on track. I figured the fall would be a piece of cake given I was back in Northern Virginia with its perfect fall running weather and numerous running trails. I envisioned myself on long seven or eight or even ten mile runs, jogging blissfully and easily, unencumbered and happy.

Someone must have slipped me something.

I soon found my 50 minute (one way) commute and Chinese study took over my life. I needed to take my daughter in to daycare as soon as I could in the morning so I could drive in to study before class. Trying to study Chinese while your 2 year old plays nearby is a recipe for learning zero Chinese. Oh, and daycare… My daughter had not attended before, so she was the perfect host for every toddler illness known to man. She happily shared them with me. We had cold after infection after cold after infection. We were even so lucky to contract the flu even after we had received our shots.

Still I put up the miles.
40 miles for September.
42.1 miles for October.

I was halfway through November and still not entirely sure I would make my goal. The longer I spent in training, the shorter my runs became. I dropped down to a 10K from the half in October and from a 10 miler to a 10K at the beginning of November. The constant colds and my training schedule were taking their toll.

Then my two online running groups both announced end of year challenges simultaneously. My local group announced a challenge to run 60 miles the last 6 weeks of the year, averaging 10 miles a week. My global running group threw up the Runner’s World end of year streak, running the 36 days from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day, a minimum of 1 mile per day.

I dismissed both out of hand. There was my child care issue. My catching everything that passed through daycare issue. I was too tired.

But a funny thing happened. I ran the next day. And the next. And the next. I had never before run more than three days consecutively, yet, here I was managing it. Could I do it?

45 miles for November.
52.9 miles for December.

No sh*t. I did it. I not only met the 60 mile challenge for the local group AND the streaking challenge (with a total of 44 days in a row because I misunderstood the start day), but I also not only met my 400 miles for the year, but surpassed it for a total of 440 miles!

Hot diggity dog. Most of that running was on the treadmills of Juarez, Mexico or Northern Virginia, but I also ran in Utah, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, New York, South Dakota, California, North Carolina, and Hawaii. I am not sure I will ever have another year like that.

I learned a lot from this year of running.
I learned I like to do vary my exercise beyond running. In 2013, although I ran far fewer miles, I was in better shape. The cross training I did by participating in spinning, Zumba, and other classes made me stronger. I like running, but there were days when it felt like a chore. When I was not streaking, I might have only two or three days a week I could get to the gym. Because I had weekly, monthly, and the yearly mileage goals, I needed to run just about all of those days. Some days I would have very much liked to have done something else. Some days, ANYTHING else.

I learned though I can be pretty resourceful if I want to get a run in. Also, that, at least in the United States, that there are places to help the single parent out, particularly if they are willing to pay. There are many licensed agencies that provide in-room hotel child care; excellent community centers which include child care; even drop-in daycare centers.

The streak showed me that just a single mile most often can lift my spirits. The adage that just 10 minutes a day of exercise can boost energy and mood proved true for me. I also continued to push my speed and hill work. It was easier to do so when I knew I only had to run one mile. I also found my daughter will in fact sit or play quietly for at least 10-20 minutes in a hotel gym, unless of course the Wi-Fi cuts out and the My Little Pony video halts in the middle of playing… Knowing she will do this means that even if I do not have a sitter, a short workout is not out of the question.

I learned that when people tell you someone almost always feels better after a run than before it, they are really not blowing smoke up your skirt. Even with a bad cold or a throat infection or the flu a ten minute run did in fact make me feel better.

I do not yet know what 2015 has in store for me for running. Most likely I will be dialing back the miles and diversifying my exercise again, though I will incorporate the hill and speed work.  My next streak will be to study Chinese every day until my test, in just 15 days. It is time to buckle down and get to China. Once we are settled in Shanghai I will be able to consider the next challenge. The challenge other than running the Buffalo half marathon in May, which I am already signed up for…

Happy New Year and happy running!

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The Positivity Plan

I do not see myself as a particularly pessimistic person. I’m not a super optimist either; I will grant you that, but I have my moments. However through this fall, despite all the great things we have had the opportunity to do, I would say my overall feeling has not been upbeat. It is the language training.

Please, do not get me wrong. I really do know that the chance to be PAID to learn a language is an amazing benefit. I do in fact have fun in class and the Chinese department gets high marks from me; I have had wonderful teachers. Yet at the end of the training is a test and I will admit to having some rather strong test anxiety.

I know. Who likes tests? Every time I try to explain my anxiety I am told that no one likes tests, everyone gets nervous. I did not find this particularly helpful. Then a colleague mentioned that she had attended a test taking brown bag and a woman from the Language Consultation Services section spoke about just such a strategy. The strategy of knowing it’s normal to be nervous.

Apparently some study was conducted in which before an exam half of the students were given a card to read and half were not. On this card are simply a few sentences saying that test anxiety is a normal feeling and that some sense of nervousness can actually improve performance. After the exam those who had read the card felt both more calm and performed better.

I did not know if it were a true study or not but I was intrigued, and desperate, enough to soon after make a visit to the Language Consultation Services in search of this calming card. I made it clear I just wanted the magic before-the-test-card, but the consultant had me sit down while she looked for the cards amidst the candy-gram bags she was in the process of making and which littered her desk. As she searched I continued to explain I just needed this card and I would be on my way as the problem was not so much me as the test. Twenty minutes later I am armed with the card, several sheets of paper with strategies for test anxiety, and a suggestion to view a TED talk on YouTube.

A fellow diplomat posted a link to some beautiful bracelets with positive/affirmation messages. I loved the idea of the bracelets and considered their test charm effectiveness a plus. I had already decided that during my test I would carry in a photo of my daughter to both remind me that there are bigger and more important things in my life and also that, hell, if I can give birth then I can get through a two hour language test. Now I would also wear bracelets that would remind me to “enjoy the journey”, to “believe” and that I am “fearless.” I have done a lot of tough things in my life – such as the world’s second highest paragliding jump in Turkey, a six day trek in Nepal’s Annapurna mountains, and a two day slow boat ride down the Mekong River, as well as about a dozen half marathons-I have even taken the language test at FSI before, THREE times before. I wish I felt it had become easier, but I don’t. I would rather run a half marathon.

Now I was literally armed with some positive messages; I decided to watch the TED Talk. The talk is by Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist, who talks on how body language, particularly how one poses one’s body, can affect not only how other’s perceive us but also how we perceive ourselves. She posits that “power posing,” or standing or sitting in a manner that exudes confidence, for even two minutes a day can actually improve our chances for success. Pretty crazy, huh? Yet a few days after watching the video I found myself in my kitchen, with the microwave timer on two minutes, standing with my legs apart, hands on hips, head up, chin up, imagining myself to be doing my best impression of Wonder Woman.

At first I thought, “This is nuts!” Then I thought, “I am glad no one can see me.” Then I thought, “two minutes can seem like a long time…” Then the timer went off, I packed up my things, woke my daughter up and got her ready for daycare, and headed out the door. Just another day.

Except it wasn’t.

I found myself power posing in the car too. Sitting up straighter, holding my head higher. By the time I had arrived at the training institute I had decided that my daughter and I were in fact departing for Shanghai in five weeks. We just were. In other words I would stop saying we “might” depart, heavily caveated my words with the “IF I pass my language test.” Instead, I would pass my test and we would depart on time.

I posted this change to Facebook and launched my hashtag #positivityplan. Each day I have posted something fun concluding I “have awesome Chinese,” which will see me through and including my hashtag. For example, I posted the following a few days ago:

           I had a hair trim yesterday and the stylist found my first grey hair. Yikes! But with age comes wisdom, and for some, awesome Chinese. ‪#‎positivityplan‬

Also, although a month ago the FSI travel agent cautioned me that “Chinese is a difficult language and there are many who buy their tickets and have to change their travel date when they do not pass the first test…” I purchased my mother’s plane ticket. I made reservations for the cats to travel. I paid the difference for my daughter’s and my tickets so we could fly our preferred airline and the State Department would go ahead and pay the rest, this securing our tickets. I am moving forward because this is going to happen.

I expect this may all sound hokey to some. I wish I could say I am now 100% positive I will pass my exam and I am no longer nervous, but that would be an outright lie. Just tonight I started to again have some fairly strong doubts. I have what it takes to pass and I hope my positivity campaign pays off to help mitigate the nerves and demonstrate what I need to in order to pass. After all, I have awesome Chinese.

#positivityplan

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The Last Oil Change

My love affair with my Honda Civic is about to come to a screeching halt. China is coming between us.

This week I had the oil in my car changed, for what is likely the last time. At least it will be the last time for me and this car. It could also be quite some time before I take another car in for an oil change. I am not even sure when I will next have a car.

I feel really torn. The Honda is only the second car I have ever owned. For most of my Foreign Service career I have had this car as I bought it primarily because I would be heading to a Mexico border post. I also bought it because I was pregnant and becoming ever more so and the logistics of getting myself to and from my doctor’s appointments without a car presented a challenge. (The one time I walked from the Foreign Service Institute to my OB-GYN’s office 2.5 miles away at the Virginia Hospital Center while experiencing “morning sickness” was a wake-up call)

So I have driven this car to and from Mexico – 2,000 miles each way – and traveling to/through twelve U.S. states. This is the car I brought C home from the hospital in. The car she has thrown up in several times… on the way back from Fort Davis, Texas, on the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, once while waiting on the bridge to return to Mexico, and once while I was taking her to the pediatrician in El Paso. (Do not tell CarMax).

I have enjoyed the freedom of getting behind the wheel of my own car. So much so that although I dislike the time suck of my current 50 minute one-way commute, I do not mind the drive.

Most of my adult life has been spent without my own car. While living in Decatur (Georgia), Beijing, Seoul, Manila, rural western Japan, Singapore, Jakarta, Honolulu, Monterey (California), Hyattsville (Maryland), and Washington, D.C. I had no car (though in the spirit of full disclosure I did have a motorbike my last two years in Japan). I had to figure how to get around without my own wheels by train, bus, taxi, subway, a car sharing network, bicycle, my own two feet… Sometimes it was annoying, sometimes it took a tremendous amount of time, but it was almost always an adventure.

Therefore a part of me quite excited to get back to living without my own car. Most certainly I will be happy to say goodbye to the costs and responsibility of owning a vehicle. Goodbye to car insurance, registration, taxes, parking, toll, gas, upkeep and so on and so forth. Including my monthly car payment, I figure that selling my car rather than taking it to Shanghai is akin to gifting myself a $500 a month raise. Thanks me, I’ll take it!

Shanghai is a huge city of some 23 million people; I considered taking my car for approximately a nanosecond. The thought of driving a car around the city, well, it does not fill me with happy thoughts. I imagine myself hunched over my steering wheel, eyes darting right to left, wiping my brow of sweat attempting to navigate the streets with signs and traffic laws I do not understand. Power to those people up for the challenge, but I am opting out. I know me, and subjecting C and I to that added stress is just not worth it.
This selling the car and adjusting to life again without one is but a small part of this whole adventure. It just feels like a big thing right now.

Less than seven weeks to go.

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The Problem with Christmas

I do not know what to do about Christmas.

Christmas should be fairly straightforward. Millions of Americans manage to do the traditional holiday thing every year. I checked. According to statistics some 94 million households (79%) will display a Christmas tree in their homes this year. This was in a survey conducted on behalf of the American Christmas Tree Association. (Yeah, there is an association for Christmas trees in the United States.)

I also found online a number indicating that an estimated 20 million households will decorate their homes with Christmas lights. I have no idea how many people hang wreaths and stockings and put out Christmas cookies, but I would expect it to be a lot. Likely millions.

I have never purchased or set up a Christmas tree. I have never purchased nor decorated with Christmas lights. I have never owned a Christmas wreath. To my knowledge I have never independently (i.e. not “helping” my mom) made cookies.

Does that seem weird? Probably. Especially as I serve overseas as a U.S. diplomat, one that could possibly be called upon to present or discuss U.S. traditions, especially at times of major holidays.

Then again the Internet also told me that more than 99 million Americans regularly drink beer while 100 million Americans regularly drink coffee. I drink neither. So, I guess that means I am not exactly the average American.

Until this past week I had never purchased Christmas stockings. Now C and I have a set of matching stockings – hers is white with a red C on it, mine is red with a white T on it. They both have pom poms.

I am not sure where I will hang them. We are still living in a hotel. There is no fireplace. I think I will hang them from the TV console in the living room. Yeah, I guess that will work.
But we will have no Christmas tree. On Christmas morning we will likely head to my sister’s home. That afternoon we will fly to Florida to visit my aunt and uncle. We crash Christmas.

I do not have a track record of celebrating Christmas as an adult. I have spent many years overseas and even when in South Korea or Japan, I chose to travel elsewhere for Christmas. I liked to be on the road, most preferably somewhere very warm. I have spent Christmas in places Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Myanmar. You know, those really Christmas-y places.

Then I had C. The first Christmas in Mexico we stayed put. I had my duty week starting the day after Christmas through New Year’s Day. Both C and I were sick as dogs with horrendous colds and ears, nose and throat infections. The second year we traveled to my sister’s in Virginia for Christmas and Florida with my aunt and uncle for New Year’s. We also came down with horrendous colds and ENT infections. I hope that will not become our holiday tradition!

So I am challenged first with my own lack of experience. Then there is also C’s birthday, which falls just 3 weeks after Christmas. I know for those who have birthdays even closer to Christmas that this can be challenge. As a parent, I feel this concentrates the gifts a bit too much for C. Last year I made an attempt to buy her only five gifts for Christmas and five for her birthday and I gave them to her just once a week. Along with the concentration of family gifts to her around Christmas, and given I also celebrate the Lunar New Year (and I have since I was a child—a tradition my mother started), this led to approximately 15 weeks of presents.

I thought it a great way to celebrate the season and not overwhelm my young daughter. My sister thought it was really weird. Or at the very least there is something rather wrong with me.

Yet, I wanted to do the same thing this year. Like at Halloween, C is starting to understand the idea of Christmas. She knows words like “Santa” and “reindeer” and “Christmas tree.” But it is not cemented in her brain. If her reaction at the mall Santa photo display is any indication, she is not particularly fond of the man in the red suit. Not even the Frozen theme complete with fake falling snow and a plush Olaf picture just before meeting the big man could convince C that Santa was benevolent enough to sit near. So it is still my advantage to start my own holiday/birthday traditions, whatever those might be.

Except this year I am also challenged by our impending move to Shanghai, which occurs 4.5 weeks after Christmas and 1.5 weeks after C’s birthday. Our actual pack out dates will fall just a few days after C turns the big THREE. By then I have to have decided what all is going in the suitcases that arrive with us, the Unaccompanied Baggage (UAB) that will arrive anywhere from the same day to a few weeks after our arrival or our Household Effects (HHE) that will be delivered to us China 4-12 weeks after our arrival. The HHE will be packed up and shipped with our items packed up in Mexico. Yes, they will be united with those items that have been sitting in a warehouse somewhere since July.

So I gave C one Christmas present already, in mid-November. Her father sent her a scooter and helmet that arrived this past week. We agreed that earlier was fine so she would have a chance to practice riding it before it would be packed up. She is super excited to have the scooter, especially as Penny, the little girl in the Disney movie Bolt, has a scooter. I am happy because I heard that just about every kid in Shanghai has a scooter.

The plan is for C to receive presents from other family members on Christmas along with a stocking with little goodies from me. The other three gifts I have for her will be given before or after Christmas, when I feel like it. We will celebrate her birthday before departure but the gifts will be opened in Shanghai. It may not be the best solution, but it’s what I’m going to do.

Maybe two years from now, as we prepare to depart Shanghai in January 2017, I will have figured out something better? Maybe.

At least we have our Vogmasks for Shanghai. Merry Christmas to us!

At least we have our Vogmasks for Shanghai. Merry Christmas to us!

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Of Visas, Vaccinations, Our Villa, and Vogmasks (or A Wee Bit More than Halfway to China)

I know I am a Foreign Service Officer and moving is part of the job.

I knew I was headed to Shanghai in January 2015 to work before I even arrived in Juarez.

Yet each move still feels strange and crazy and unreal until it happens. I just have to keep moving forward with the preparations.

Just a few hours after I pushed “publish” on my last I received a phone call from the Special Issuance Agency to let me know our Chinese diplomatic visas were ready for pick-up. Whoa, that was fast! It took only two weeks. My classmate’s visa application took a month and I figured, given my own experience working on visas, that with the holidays approaching it might take longer. Nope.

I drove to pick up the visas, my fingers crossed on the steering wheel, willing there to be no mistakes on the visas. And wouldn’t you know it, they were just right! Hooray! Visas, check!

On Wednesday, I also heard from the training center clinic that C and I are up-to-date on all our required vaccinations for China. There are some ones we do not have which are recommended but we can get those at the Consulate clinic after our arrival in Shanghai. For example, C is recommended for the rabies shot, but as it is a 3 stage vaccination that needs to be administered within specific time sequences, I do not feel like coordinating her transport to and from the FSI or State Department clinics and home while trying to balance my language schedule. Doing so might be enough to drive me over the edge. Required vaccinations, check!

Just before I departed FSI to pick up the visas I thought, hey, I should check my official email and see if by chance my housing has been assigned. And there was the email, letting me know I had been assigned my first choice!

Housing is such a big issue. Wherever you are, you want your home to be a place where you feel comfortable and safe. When overseas, housing can take on even greater importance. It is a refuge from all the unknowns outside the door and can be your slice of the home HOME (reminders of the U.S.A. and family) wherever you might be. Whether you are in a place where physical security is a daily preoccupation or you just need the occasional break from the barrage of cultural differences, our housing can sometimes make or break an assignment.

I have been pretty lucky with my housing so far. In both Jakarta and Juarez I lived within walking distance of work. Now that I am a 50-minute one-way commuter, this means even more to me. Both places were spacious and had good storage space. In Jakarta I looked out large windows from my third floor walk-up onto a big, beautiful mango tree. Pineapples grew in the shrubbery. My two-story, two car-garage single- family home in Juarez was also very welcoming. That does not mean I did not sometimes suffer “housing envy” when visiting others. I admit it; I did, especially in Jakarta. The “grass is always greener” complex can be strong when it comes to housing.

In Shanghai, we will be living in a “premium” high-rise apartment complex just a 10 minute walk from my workplace. In fact, according to the website the place was the “winner best overall serviced apartment in 2013.” There is an on-site health club, a pool, pre-school, kid’s club, and Shanghai’s largest bouncing castle. It is hard for me not to feel crazy giddy about living here, especially as I expect to spend a bit more time at home due to C’s age and the air quality. Place to call home, check.

Speaking of the air quality, I also made an important purchase yesterday: C and I will soon be the proud owners of our very own Vogmasks! (plus two for guests – if you did not find our housing assignment enough of a temptation to visit then surely an opportunity to wear one of these hot little numbers will tip the scale!). According to the website “Vogmask is the first stylish, high efficiency, well-fitting, comfortable and reusable filtering face mask in the world.” It also comes in a lot of fab colors and patterns. Whoo-hoo! Check them out here: http://www.vogmask.com/collections/all. (We need the ones with the air filters) I was just thinking the other day I needed some kind of ornamentation for my face to really feel hip these days.

OK, I am trying to make light of the fact that these masks are necessary for living in Shanghai. When a contact emailed me the link and told me to get at least one for myself and for my daughter, I admit, I thought these were overkill. That was until another friend in Shanghai also sent me a private message urging me to make the purchase. I bought Lapis, Sahara, Slate Grey in adult size and Dragon print for C. We are going to rock these Vogmasks. Air filter face masks for crappy Shanghai air, check!

This move to Shanghai thing just got a bit more real.

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Halfway to Shanghai

Let me clarify, I am not literally halfway to Shanghai. I am not writing this somewhere above the Pacific Ocean. I am however halfway through my scheduled time at the Foreign Service Institute, 74 days into training and 74 days out from the day we fly to China.

Halfway! Holy smokes!

I am surprised myself. I feel as though we have been here longer than that and the departure date is much closer. Probably because with each Friday I simultaneously exhale a sigh of relief as I look forward to a Chinese-free weekend (because I’m a bad student that generally does little or no study on the weekend) and take a gulp of panic as I realize I am one week closer to that Chinese exam. It’s that exam that determines whether or not right now is really the halfway point to an on-time here-we-come China departure or merely an ETD, heavy emphasis on the estimated.

Just more of that baited breath unknown that keeps life in the Foreign Service going ’round.

I have had a shift in priorities as my “To-do in Northern Virginia” list grows shorter and the “Prepare for China” list takes over.

Our Chinese diplomatic visa applications are complete and with the Chinese Embassy; I am just awaiting the call to pick them up. I am crossing my fingers they are correct the first time around. Two and a half years ago I went to pick up our visas with a Spanish classmate. Alas, the visas for her two daughters had been switched – the visa for the older daughter placed in the younger daughter’s passport and vice versa. They had to be redone. I would prefer not to have to do that.

Two boxes of things as well as my jogging stroller headed to Goodwill today. Saying farewell to the jogging stroller was a little harder than I expected. I know, I know, it’s a stroller. It is just that it had been C’s primary stroller, until I had to pack it up in the UAB. I spent the summer Home Leave extravaganza solely with the cheap-o, but surprisingly durable, umbrella stroller. No, I do not jog with the umbrella stroller, but then I do not jog with C anymore. As we are heading for Shanghai, a city of nearly 24 million where the Consulate has it’s own air quality monitor with daily updates…I do not see myself doing a lot of jogging out of doors.

The hoarding of additions for my Household Effects (HHE) shipment to China has also begun. As we get up to 7,000 pounds and I only have about 3,000 pounds of personal effects sitting in a warehouse in Maryland awaiting our departure to China, I have a little extra space to throw in a few more things. Things like three bottles of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and three bottles of Grapeseed Oil. I had two people already in Shanghai email me this might be something to include in my shipment. I have also stocked up on toothpaste for myself and C. Yeah. I know they have toothpaste in China, but some of it is unsafe. Not only did one of my Chinese teachers inform my classmate and I of this, but I also found several new stories reporting this online.

I have begun my stockpile of two years worth of tampons. I wish I were kidding. Unfortunately, I also heard from someone in China that some of these Chinese products are not the real deal. Online I found a link to the following news headline “China-wide fake sanitary napkin ring busted.” You did in fact read that correctly. It is not like they weight much of anything, and so into the shipment they go.

Hello Kitty, My Little Pony, and Doc McStuffins Band-Aids are also hot ticket items. Not that C has a lot of accidents requiring bandages —she does not—but she loves to wear them as decorative skin ornamentation.

Certainly I will be able to buy many, many wonderful products in China. I will also, of course, have mail service, including access to a Diplomatic Post Office or DPO, which generally has fewer restrictions and faster shipping times than the State Department mail or the “pouch.” (Hello Netgrocer, my friend, it has been a few years.) But hey, if I have the space in my shipment, I might as well stock up on some of my favorite products, right?

We all do it. We generally have something, some favorite brand of something that will just make some of those hard days overseas feel a little bit better. A few less shopping trips for days the thought of going to the grocery store in a foreign country seems the equivalent difficulty as splitting the atom.

I also need to begin preparing my cats Kucing and Tikus (Indonesian for “cat” and “mouse”) ready for another overseas trip. Yes, even my cats have been to three countries already and we are set to make it a fourth. They flew special cargo via Amsterdam out of Indonesia (I flew via Tokyo) and I was lucky to be able to drive them into and out of Mexico. This go around the kitties should be on the same flight. Laugh if you will, but I will likely be throwing in at least six months worth of kitty litter into the HHE shipment.

I have 74 days to prepare these and more. Well, I hope. Sixty four days until the Chinese test that will say yeah or nay on the departure.

The countdown has begun.

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A REAL Halloween

All week I had been excited about the prospect of trick or treating with C on Halloween night. I had had her costume picked out since early September. She loves all things horse and cowboy/cowgirl related. The bonus was that as Halloween approached, she actually started talking about the holiday. The week of she actually began talking about trick or treating – and it was not because I introduced it. I have, for the most part, learned not to discuss future events with C because she has little or no concept of time and believes everything I talk about in the future is about to happen! Indeed, that morning she sat bolt upright and asked first thing to go trick or treating. I forgot my own rule and told her we would go trick or treating later, after school. Wouldn’t you know it, thirty minutes later I drive up to her school to drop her off and she bursts out crying because she does not want to go to school, she wants to trick or treat!

Realizing that C had a concept of Halloween for the first time and that it coincided with us actually being in the U.S.  filled me with a lot of unexpected happiness. In this Foreign Service life I cannot be sure when we will be in the U.S. at Halloween again. Sure, Halloween is celebrated in other places and even more places co-opt it as a special foreign event, popular in schools, expat community housing, and bars, but there really is no place that celebrates quite like the U.S. I mean that neither negatively nor positively; the U.S. celebration of Halloween is just unique.

In Ciudad Juarez they celebrate Halloween for instance. In fact it seems there along the border it is celebrated more vibrantly than the Day of the Dead. Many children in Juarez attend school in the U.S. (as did their parents) and people appear to enjoy this U.S. tradition. There is trick or treating and the handing out of candy. And yet, it is still, even so close to the U.S., not like in the U.S. In Juarez the children, instead of saying “trick or treat” roam the neighborhoods chanting “Queremos Halloween! Queremos Halloween!” (W e want Halloween! We want Halloween!). The candy generally handed out is of the hard candy variety. The kids seem happy enough with their spoils but having been fairly keen on trick or treating as a child, I know that in the U.S. the hard candy (those Dum Dums and Jolly Ranchers) that some people insist on giving out are more often relegated to the “last to eat” or the “give to mom and dad” pile.

It has been great to be here at this time. The leaves have turned gorgeous fall colors and most trees had shed about half their leaves. Pumpkin season seemed especially good. Although the weather hit a balmy 80 degrees the Tuesday before Halloween, the day of the weather had cooled considerably. It was chilly, around 50 degrees, overcast and windy. Yet this created just the right conditions for a “real” Halloween (except some children, like C, had to wear jackets over their costumes to keep warm, which usually bums some kids out). The fallen leaves were swirling. The crescent moon appeared hazy through the clouds. The air was cool and crisp. It was perfect.

I had initially considered trick or treating with my sister, niece, and nephew, but they were heading out from 5:30 and as I am on the late language schedule at FSI, that is my finish time. I would not get home until 6:30. I decided instead we would trick or treat in the neighborhood behind the hotel. First, I figured the neighborhood backs onto an elementary school so there are likely to be plenty of children living there. Secondly, as it is townhouses, we could cover more ground, more homes, with less walking. I guesstimated a minimum of ten houses and a maximum of twenty.

As we walked over to the neighborhood with grandma, I noticed it seemed very quiet. Few of the homes facing the street had lights on and those with lights gave no indication they would be participating in trick or treating. I saw no children knocking on those doors. I did not even hear any children, which seemed a particularly bad sign.

As we turned on to the first street a house was decorated and had a porch light on with a bowl of candy sitting on the step. No person anywhere to be seen. I directed C to take a piece and she happily did so, dropping it in her pumpkin bucket (yes, the ubiquitous plastic pumpkin bucket). The next few houses were dark. Then another two houses again had only a bowl of candy left outside in front of the door. C went up and knocked on the door anyway, she was so excited. But no one came. Hmmm…this was really strange. I thought first this neighborhood must be filled with some of the most honest kids in America. A great sign for sure, though nowhere near as interesting as actually knocking and saying “Trick or Treat!” Then I wondered if actually this is what trick or treating had become in America. It had been awhile…

Finally we saw not only other children in costume but also a door with a real live occupant handing out candy. Thank goodness! I had begun to feel disappointed that C was not going to get her Halloween experience (nor would I!). After this house there was another and another. We turned at the end of the street and behold there many homes decorated for the holiday, with carved pumpkins on the steps, fake spider webs on the bushes, silhouettes of skeletons and witches in the windows. C began jumping up and down with delight, especially as there were several groups of other children out running from door to door.

Halloween was saved!

All was good until C tripped on a step that activated a motion sensor sound machine that emitted a scary sound and the occupant of the house, dressed in costume, stepped forward to offer C some assistance and give her some candy. C burst out in sobs and begged to go home. And thus ended our first trick or treating experience in the U.S. It could be our last for awhile.

At least we got a small candy haul (certainly plenty for a toddler under 3) and this morning I still got to deny her candy for breakfast, which is a time-honored tradition of American parents in the days and weeks after Halloween.

It was perfect. A real American Halloween.

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Shanghai, September 2002, Part Four

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of emails I sent on past travels.
As I prepare for C’s and my move to Shanghai in January 2015, it seems particularly apt to take a look at when I last visited Shanghai. It’s funny, but I keep thinking that I was in Shanghai “fairly recently,” but 2002 is not recently at all! I visited Shanghai for one week during a break in my graduate classes in Singapore.

I enjoyed re-reading about my adventure to Zhouzhang. I had forgotten how I had met the young woman I went with. Unfortunately, the following year I did not get back to China. SARS hit the headlines, causing panic and insecurity in mainland China, Singapore, and several other countries, almost like Ebola today.  I am hoping to visit Zhouzhang, or a water town like it, when my mom is with us in Shanghai.  

Yesterday I returned to YuYuan Bazaar, this time actually entering the gardens. They are very lovely and peaceful. I wrote in my journal and read a little in my book while in the gardens sitting by a carp pond. I heard a tour guide telling some tourists that a small pavilion situated on top of a man-made hill used to have a view of the whole city and the river. Now it has views of high rises. Sometimes progress isn’t so great. It is too bad that view could not have been preserved. I also did a little shopping at the bazaar, bought a few nice things. Then I went to dinner. While there a young Chinese woman was brave enough to talk to me. She first came to sit at the table beside me. I could see her looking at me and trying to make up her mind whether to talk to me or not. She finally gathered her courage, took a deep breath, then asked if she could sit with me. I told her okay. Then she asked me what book I was reading. So we talked awhile (though not an easy feat as her English is not so good, and neither is my Chinese) and she asked if she could come with me to the Bund. I said sure. Then we proceeded to get very lost walking around. We stumbled upon an outdoor modeling show, wore out our feet, and gave in to take a taxi. We sat down at the Bund to talk. She is also new in Shanghai, having just come from Zhejiang Province to study at Fudan University, which is one of China’s best universities. She is a very sweet girl who to me looks like Gong Li, the famous Chinese actress (of Farewell My Concubine, Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad, and To Live fame). So we made a plan today to go to Zhouzhuang, a water town outside of Shanghai municipality region.

I met Can Can this morning. We tried to catch a cab out to the bus station, but unfortunately neither of us knew WHICH bus station. It turned out there are about five. So we just asked the taxi driver who took us to a station near the stadium. It was a long taxi ride and we arrived after 10:30, when I had heard the bus departed, but it turned out to be the wrong station anyway (guess there are probably several stadiums in Shanghai too!) So Can Can suggested we try to find out how much a taxi to Zhouzhuang would cost, but none of the taxis would tell us and just tried to drive away when we asked them. So we decided that maybe if we found the right bus station we could catch the noon bus. So we jumped in another taxi and endured horrible traffic and several close calls to arrive at a bus station at the train station. There we were told once again we were at the WRONG station. Can Can asked the guy how much a taxi would be to Zhouzhuang, and he said it would be 400 kuai round trip. It seemed a lot, but then again it was just about $45. And time was of the essence, so we took him up on it.

Zhouzhuang is really cool! It is a beautiful little town and a UNESCO world heritage site. Rather like a Chinese Venice. It has canals choked with slim boats and tourists, and lots of old buildings. Apparently about 60 % of the villagers still live in the houses that line the canals. There are graceful weeping willows lining the canal, and small high arching bridges crossing the canal at intervals. The houses are whitewashed with dark wood paneling and Chinese red lanterns. The restaurants along the canal have wood deck-type chairs to sit in and enjoy the view. The boat steerers are mostly women, who wear traditional blue cotton clothes, some also wear straw cone shaped hats, and they sing traditional Chinese songs as they pole along the canal. It almost seemed too perfect, as though it were created for tourists, but it wasn’t. It is not as famous a place as Suzhou or Hangzhou, and does not get as many visitors. But that is part of its charm. Iit seems an oasis in China, Chinese and yet can transport one to a more traditional time. Not that the town is not chock full of souvenir shops and old women following you with trinkets and postcards. It is. Last year apparently Jiang Zemin visited and had tea there. I guess that makes it a legitimate tourist attraction.

Our taxi driver followed us around the whole time. Apparently if two women from out of town hire a taxi driver for a long trip, it is like renting a dad. When I ordered a coke at lunch and it was very dirty on top and was flat right after I opened it, he argued with the proprietors to take it off the bill, and eventually they did! When we had told enough people we didn’t want their postcards and they didn’t go away, he shooed them away. He stayed just in front or just behind us, sort of like a chaperone. We even took him on our canal boat trip with us! I thought he would just wait in the car. Maybe he was afraid we would dump him and take the bus back to Shanghai and stiff him the fare. More probable than the friendly father figure, but I would like to think the former rather than latter, that he was watching out for us.

Traffic was slow on the way back and we were pretty tired. It was a good trip though and I am very happy I made the trip. See I was thinking I would come back next year, because I am planning on traveling a few weeks in China next summer, and will probably come in from Shanghai again, see Hangzhou and Nanjing, and swing over to Anhui to see my friend Jill who has just started teaching at a University there. So I think I could pass through Zhouzhuang again next year.

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Shanghai, September 2002, Part Three

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of emails I sent on past travels.
As I prepare for C’s and my move to Shanghai in January 2015, it seems particularly apt to take a look at when I last visited Shanghai. It’s funny, but I keep thinking that I was in Shanghai “fairly recently,” but 2002 is not recently at all! I visited Shanghai for one week during a break in my graduate classes in Singapore.

This is one of my favorite excerpts. I actually love the idea of people dressing identically, particularly in pajamas while out in public. In fact, I sort of plan to have C and I dress in pajamas, perhaps identical ones, and have a public outing at least once in Shanghai. I remember well the chair/clothes incident. I cannot say my Chinese has much improved. I hope the cruise has as it is again on my “must-do” list. I also remember Suzhou fondly and look forward to taking my mom there as I think she will love the gardens and C will love the carp. I should plan on finding the Garden for Lingering In first.

Here in China it is just adventure, adventure, adventure. Though I may have been a bit premature in saying how much I loved it. Yesterday some things started to get on my nerves, or at least I noticed things that would get on my nerves eventually. Or maybe I would love/hate them? They are part of what makes this China. There are a few silly things, like the amazing number of people who like to walk around together dressed identically! It is not just children, but couples, friends, old, young. This also goes for the propensity for women to wear panty hose that only goes to their ankles or below the knee when their skirts are above the knee. What really bothers me are the spitting, the smoking, the street arguments, the maniac taxi drivers, and the complete disrespect for the environment. Honestly crossing the streets is like taking your life into your hands each time. It doesn’t matter if you are at a crosswalk and the little walking man is green, taxis and scooters will run you over! I have had many close calls already. When I am in the offending taxi I just want to sink into the back seat so no one thinks I am some foreigner bent on taking out Chinese in the streets! And the arguments, ugh, you see a good one just about every day. Yesterday I saw some women with children screaming at each other at the top of their lungs while the kids cried. I couldn’t understand what it was about, but it seemed serious. Then again last night I was involved in my own little argument…..

I decided to take a night cruise on the Huangpu River. This is interesting for about the first 10 minutes, and then it just isn’t. The guide book says that the night tour is best unless one has a fascination for loading cranes. Well, in the evening you get to see the loading cranes in silhouette against the night, beautifully backlit, simply breathtaking! So I bought my ticket and boarded the boat 20 minutes before its departure, and it was packed. Not a spare chair to be found. Well, that’s not true. I saw some spare chairs around some specially set aside tables, and they had Sprite and watermelon!! I really wanted some watermelon, but I knew it wasn’t mine, but I did take a chair. No one was sitting in it, and I had a ticket just like everyone else. Of course as soon as I started to drag the chair away some guy comes after me, “Xiaojie, Xiaojie” (Miss, Miss) but I ignore him. Then he comes up to me and tells me to give the chair back (in Chinese). I try first for the dumb foreigner tack, I ask him why? In English. I have a ticket, why don’t I have a chair? He just points to the chair and grabs the back of it. I won’t give it up. The people next to me are on my side telling the guy to leave me alone and let me have the chair. Ha, success! The guy next to me asks me how long I have lived in China because my Chinese is good. I tell him “Bu gang dang” (No it’s not, don’t flatter me) the right thing to say. Of course I know my Chinese needs lots of work. But he tells me I argue very well. 🙂 Well, I don’t know about that. Maybe they didn’t notice because when I wanted to say “I bought a ticket too, so why don’t I have a chair (yizi)?” I ACTUALLY said “I bought a ticket too, so why don’t I have any clothes (yifu)?” Ha, ha, ha. Good thing I mumbled that last syllable because I wasn’t sure I was remembering the right word. I was just so flustered and speaking quickly. However, the chair guy came back when some more people showed up looking for those chairs. I saw him coming and held onto my chair tightly. He asked me to give it to him, and I just said “Bu, Bu, Bu!” (no, no, no!). My new best friends sided with me again right away, especially as the guy had tried to steal some of their chairs too. So I got to have a chair with a great view of the shadowy dock cranes.

Today, I took a trip out to Suzhou, about an hour from Shanghai by train. Suzhou used to be the premier spot in China for silk. Suzhou became very famous during the Ming dynasty. And there was some saying about heaven in the sky, but on earth there is Hangzhou and Suzhou. So it was considered a pretty nice place to live back then, and many rich people built beautiful gardens there. The gardens are the THING to see in Suzhou, along with a few pagodas. So I rented a bicycle (also a relic of the Ming dynasty) and headed off to see these amazing spaces of tranquility. Now the thing in China is that nice places like this, or well even plain old rocks that people want to put a sign on, have to have super spectacular names. So today I was to visit the Humble Administrator’s Garden, the Lion’s Grove Garden, the Master of the Nets Garden, and finally the Garden for Lingering In.

I headed first to the Humble Admit guy’s garden. And judging from the size and care put into it, I doubt he was really humble. It was a really nice garden and I wondered what it would be like to have it as one’s very own private garden. I spent nearly an hour there and was surprised by how quickly the time flew by.

I headed then to the Lion’s garden and found it smaller, more intimate. There was a little sun breaking through the clouds (or was it pollution?) and it was warmer there.
Then there was a harrowing ride around the town to get to the next garden, the Master of the Nets. There I was distracted by the sounds of a nearby school and school children repeating a silly dialogue about one’s mother and a missing bag in English. I had an insane idea to find the school and break into the class and give the kids a real English lesson, but after going around to the front of the school I lost my courage and just biked to the next sightseeing spot, a pagoda and one of the city’s original city gates, all in kind of a complex. This was a pretty cool spot. The pagoda was really magnificent. But the best part was a huge pond with many carp in it. I saw some people near the pond and fish thrashing around. All sizes and shapes and colors (okay, not blue or purple- but all kinds of golds and oranges and reds) jumping on top of each other to get the food, so much that some were on top of the water and then began to thrash about trying to get back into the water.
By this time it was almost 5 pm and I was getting tired and wasn’t sure I wanted to see a garden that would cause me to linger in it. Then again as I bought a ticket that included this garden, I set off to find it. For being the largest garden in the whole town it sure is hard to find and no one seems to know where it is. After searching for 20 minutes or so, after another life endangering 20 minute bike ride across town, I gave up and decided the only place I wanted to linger in was the train back to Shanghai.

I also wanted to share a few more humorous things from today, such as the names of various places inside the gardens. For example, The Listening to the Sound of the Rain Pavilion, the Hall of Drifting Fragrance, the Pavilion in the Lotus Breeze, the Watching Pines and Appreciating Paintings Studio, the Chamber for Reclining on the Cloud, and the Pavilion for Asking the Plum (ask it what??). Then there were those that were translated but I still couldn’t figure out what they were: The Cymbidium Goeingii Hall, the Prunus Mume Pavilion, and (my favorite) the Malus Spectabilis Court. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?
There was also a list of Points of Attention posted at each garden:

1. Travelers must buy tickets before they enter the garden. They should be civilized and polite and conscientiously observe the social morality and public order.
2. No firearms, bullets, explosives or other dangerous articles are allowed to be brought into the garden.
3. Protect the world cultural heritage. Cutting, climbing, or damaging the construction and facilities is strictly forbidden. Flowers and trees should not be injured and no trespassing on the lawns is permitted. No entrance into the fence, climbing on banisters or picture shooting is allowed.
4. Defend public hygiene conscientiously. No spitting, urinating or dispersing of peels or rinds or skins of fruit and scraps of paper. Smoking is not allowed in the garden except in places where it is otherwise stipulated. (I then watched a group of six men enter and light up immediately!!)
5. Travelers are forbidden to sell articles and to conduct any business or charging activities in the garden. (But I suppose locals could?)

These are great!  Ah, China.