Foreign Service

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The First R&R (Shanghai)

Ah, R&R. Good ole Rest and Recuperation.  Or Rest and Relaxation.  That time when the State Department pays for you and your family to get out of dodge, er post, on holiday.

The Foreign Affairs Handbook (3 FAH-1 H-3721.2) defines the need for R&R as Conditions of life at the post present distinct and significant difficulties of sufficient severity to justify temporary relief for an employee and employee’s eligible family members during a period of assignment.

That sounds pretty dull actually.  I searched and searched for something in the FAH that had a bit more pizzazz but to no avail.   Some might not think Shanghai is the kind of place that would justify temporary relief.  I will be the first to tell you that we have things pretty good here.  Our apartment and apartment complex is amazing.  The city is full of great things to see and do.  The supermarkets usually have a good selection of fresh produce and restaurants are plentiful.  However the poor air quality, the internet restrictions, the crowds, the language, the pace of work can get to a person.  I will tell you I feel a palpable sense of lightening when I am outside of China.

This was actually my first R&R with the State Department.  Yeah, that is right; Ciudad Juarez had no R&R because well, it was literally five miles from the US.  None of the Mexican border posts had R&R although interior Mexican posts did.  I will refrain from my personal opinion on this but suffice to say that some of my colleagues were not too pleased that the dusty desert border city with 15% danger pay was a no but culturally rich and exciting Mexico City was a yes.

I am just grateful to have an R&R, even if I have to work on the resting and recuperating.

Part One: Virginia

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Jet lag?  What’s that?

We landed at 5:40 am at Dulles International Airport.  My father loaned me one of his cars for the duration of our time in Virginia, so I drove him home (my parents live only ten minutes from the airport) and then to the hotel.  The hotel management was really awesome to let us check in at 7 am.   All the luggage into the room, a shower, and then we were off to our first activity.

 

My daughter loves horses.  I mean LOVES horses.  At 4 she is a bit young for horse riding lessons but there is a wonderful stable in Aldie, Virginia called Stonelea Farm that has a Hello Pony program for kids ages 2-5.  They get to groom a horse, ride it twice several times around an arena, feed the horse snacks and receive a horse shoe souvenir.   The program is only on Saturdays and we only had the one in Virginia…so fresh off a plane, jet lagged and all I took my little girl to see a horse.  Afterwards we headed to a restaurant to meet my parents, my aunt, and my sister, brother in law, niece and nephew for lunch.  We made it to 5pm before falling asleep.

On our second day we met a friend of mine who had recently relocated from New York to DC.  And we went to PetSmart because we like an entire store dedicated to animals where people bring their pets to shop.  And then we went to Target because I love that store with a special kind of love from deep within my core.  You never know what things mean to you until they are gone.  Target is my happy place when I come back to the US.

We spent the third day in historic Manassas, Virginia.  It being a Monday the museum was unfortunately closed and we did not have the time to visit the battlefield, but we did enjoy a stroll around the historic section.  After lunch we drove to the home of an A-100 colleague.  A-100 is the 6 week course that all new Foreign Service Officers take.  Your A-100 class is like a freshman dorm or hall – it is your identifying mark, your built in network.  Although this colleague has left the Service she still remains in touch and had offered my daughter an opportunity to meet her beautiful horse and I was finally taking advantage.

On Tuesday I went into “Main State,” the Department of State’s headquarters on C Street in Washington, DC.  Why pray tell did I use up a day of my vacation to do that?  Believe you me; the day before and morning of I too was wondering the same thing.  Later this year I will go through the mid-level bidding process for the first time.  “Bidding is a wonderful experience,” said no one ever.  From what I understand bidding appears to be a special long-drawn out form of torture we put Foreign Service Officers through again and again and again.  We may have a career but we need to make a huge effort to get each job.

Flags Flown At Half Staff At The State Department After Ambassador Killed In Libya

Not the usual R&R destination

With this in mind my mentor had suggested I consider taking part of my R&R in or around Washington and make my way through the halls of the Harry S Truman (HST) building to meet with people.   I embraced this idea wholeheartedly and managed to score four meetings with desk officers working in countries where I have a strong interest in serving (and which at this time are projected to have a vacancy in a political job at the time I transfer from Shanghai) and also a meeting with my mid-level Career Development Officer.  I had lunch with two friends who are currently desk officers.

Yet that morning I really was feeling resentful.  This was my vacation.  I wanted to be vacationing, not networking.  Once inside the building though I felt different.  First, I was immensely pleased that I managed to get from the front door to the cafeteria to buy a snack and to my first appointment on time.  I may have been lost for only 20 minutes.  For me, Main State is akin to the Winchester Mystery House.  I have actually not been to the haunted home in San Jose, California, but I read about it in a ghost book when in elementary school.  I was fascinated with the idea of a crazy house with stairs that lead to the ceiling, doors that open to nowhere, and secret passageways.  HST has corridors cut in half, stairways that lead to doors outside but will take you nowhere else in the building, and hallways that are labeled the same number but are not connected.  Second, I felt connected to the greater work of the State Department in a way I do not feel at post doing visas.  Visas are a big part of Consular Affairs but there is so much more going on.  It seems obvious but it felt like a revelation nonetheless.  My meetings went well; I have no idea if it will help in any way come bidding time, but I learned a lot.

Phase Two: Kentucky

IMG_2307Off we flew to Louisville.  I was there for a few reasons.  One, I had never been to Louisville, which is generally, in my opinion, a good enough reason to go somewhere.  Second, I was signed up to run the Derby Half Marathon.  Of course.   Few R&Rs are complete without running a long distance that one is not well-prepared for.  Third, my daughter would spend two days and two nights with her dad – the first time she would visit with him without me.

The first day was for my daughter and me to get out on the town.   It was just 10 days before the Derby so it felt essential to start our visit at the Kentucky Derby Museum at the famous Churchill Downs.  The museum has the right mix of the modern and historic, and exhibits for adults and children.  The admission price included a tour of the racecourse, and we were there at an early enough time in the morning to see several horses being put through their paces.  It is hard to say which my daughter loved more—the real horses on the track or the pretend Derby race in the museum.  I really hope someday to take her to see the real thing.

ANext we visited the Louisville Slugger Museum, which was a lot of fun.  C seemed a bit hesitant at first, until she saw the Captain America statue out front.  She was more impressed with that than the 120-foot tall baseball bat.  I really enjoyed the factory tour and C tolerated it enough to let me get through the whole thing without incident.

The following day we met her dad and his new wife for lunch and then the two of them drove off with C to the zoo.  (Just for clarification I was never the old wife.  Someday I might address our particular situation, or not.  But suffice to say we get along and he loves C).

What to do with myself though?  Now that I was on the town on a Friday night without my child?  With the half marathon the following day?  Well, the weather was predicted to be less than ideal, with the rain set to begin around 2 am.  And my training had not been particularly inspiring.  Once again, I just wanted to get out on the road and run.  So, I went to the Jim Beam Stillhouse.  Because bourbon was the best thing I could think of.

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This seemed the appropriate way to celebrate both before and after a half marathon in Kentucky.

The next day I was up early.  The rain had not started in the early am.  Even at 5 am the skies were cloudy but dry.  A little before 7 I walked over to the start line.  Just before the race was to start at 7:30 my heel began to hurt.  So, that was a great sign.  At the one mile mark my chest started to tighten and I began to wheeze.  It felt like the start of asthma.  It had stopped bothering me by the 3rd mile.  I stopped at a port-a-potty at mile 5 but the line didn’t move after five minutes so I just started running again.  Around mile 5.5 it began to rain, lightly but steadily.  At 6 I stopped to put on the one-time-use rain jacket I had bought at Target the day before.  (See?  Target.)  At mile 8 we entered Churchill Downs.  There are no spectators allowed inside, but I had heard on the TV that morning a reporter say she would be there and to stop at her tent, covered from the rain, to say hello.  So I did.  We chatted.  We did an interview.  I told her my goal was a personal worst and I looked to be on track.  The rain became harder.  I was getting tired.  But I kept going.  I’ll tell you it was not easy to clinch that slowest time.  Even with all those stops and the bourbon I barely beat my next slowest time.  I really had fun though.  What a great course  Good support throughout.  I celebrated with lunch at the Hard Rock and a visit to the Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse for some more tastings on 4th Street Live.

The following day I took a drove to pick up my daughter.  Her face was glowing. She had had a really wonderful time.   She had so much to tell me.  Her favorite thing about her dad?  His wife!  Given how happy she made my kid she gets super high marks in my book too.

Part Three: Virginia, again

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A girl, a dog, and a cabin in the woods.  This is R&R.  This is America.

This time we landed around 4 pm.  The jet lag had nearly worn off anyway.  We drove out to Winchester, Virginia to stay with my aunt.  We spent two nights at her home there and one at her cabin at Stone Mountain, West Virginia.  I had visited the cabin with her before.  Heck, my sister got married there.  C had even been there before for a July 4th celebration.  But something about this time felt like it was where I was meant to be on R&R.  That perhaps this is where, if I were really after rest and recuperation, I should have spent the whole vacation.  There is no television.  Internet service is extremely weak, mostly non-existent. The cabin is a studio with a loft.  When it rains the pitter-patter on the corrugated roof is about the only sound you hear.  The activities?  Setting and up swinging in the hammock.  Sitting on the porch and looking out at the field.  A walk down to the river. Maybe a conversation with a neighbor that stops by to tell you of a rare orchid he finds in the woods.  Then a search through the woods for said orchid.   A hike up Stone Mountain.  More conversation.

We departed my aunt’s on Thursday late morning.  There was another day and a half left.  We spent some more time at Target, of course, another meal with a friend, a pizza and movie night at my sister’s house.  Then it was time to return to Shanghai.

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I made it to the top of Stone Mountain and the view is so worth it.

 

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The Paparazzi – With my Blond Daughter in Shanghai

I expected it would happen–that my daughter might draw attention when we went out in Shanghai.  It happened a little when we were in Ciudad Juarez.  But then, for obvious reasons, like narco-trafficking gangs and a dearth of sightseeing spots, we did not go out all that much in Juarez.  And given Juarez’s border location, many residents spend quite a bit of time in the U.S., so a blonde-haired child is really not that out of the ordinary.  Plenty of Juarenses are blonde themselves.

In the China of 1994 I was the subject of some curiosity on the train from Beijing to Chengdu; a wedding party in Qingdao-which one of these people does not belong?

China is different though.  I knew that.  When I was in Beijing as a student in 1994 I had my fair share of “oh my gosh it’s a foreigner!” experiences.  I was aggressively stared at, grabbed, photographed, and petted.  A woman once, in a terrifying display of jungle cat reflexes, vaulted over her store counter to grab hold of my hair.   When I stopped to admire some footwear at an underground shoe store, I was soon surrounded by a group of curious onlookers.  In one holiday weekend in Qingdao, my friends and I were asked to stand alongside no less than 20 bridal parties for photos.

Twenty two years later China is not the same place.  In 1994 there were around 26,000 foreigners studying across China (1,257 of them were from the US according to the Institute of International Education), while today there are over 300,000.  Currently, there are some 170,000 non-Chinese (i.e. not from Macao, Hong Kong, or Taiwan) residing in Shanghai alone.  No doubt that is a drop in the bucket of the over 14 million Chinese residents, but it is far more than the approximate 6,000 registered foreigners in the city in 1994.  And the Chinese in the big cities like Shanghai are sophisticated, educated, international-minded people.  They travel overseas.  They study overseas.  They work in multi-national companies. They speak foreign languages.  These days no one in the big cities is interested in having their picture taken with me.  I do not cause a stir going about my daily business.  Thank goodness.

However, that does not appear to apply to children.

On the right is what happened when I stopped to consult my map while we visited Pudong during Chinese New Year week in February 2015.  What was particularly interesting to me was not only the crowd wanting photos of my daughter, but they wanted photos with my daughter.  Even the grown man on the bottom right in the brown leather jacket. On the left we stop along the walkway around West Lake in Hangzhou in April 2015.  Some girls had stopped to ask if they could take a photo of C and I said they could – the rest of the crowd took advantage.

From our first day out, my blonde, curly haired, fair skinned child has been the subject of interest.  A LOT of interest.  The kind of in-your-face, pushy, camera-wielding-hordes-type interest, akin to celebrity paparazzi.  Some people are respectful and will approach me and tell me in Chinese, broken English, or excellent English that my daughter is very cute and ask if they can take her picture.  Some try to take the pictures on the sly, which is easy enough to do with camera phones, but they are giggling so much and/or talking loudly in Chinese about my daughter and their secret photo taking, not realizing I can understand.  Others are bold in their complete disregard of how either I or my daughter might feel about their photo taking.  They may touch my daughter’s hair, her arms, her cheeks.

I get it.  Soon after arriving in Juarez I took my then 8 month old child on a tour that included a market in the historic downtown.   Our guide warned me that people may stop to admire my child and in so doing would be compelled to touch her – not doing so would bring about the “Mal de Ojo” or Evil Eye and unfortunate consequences for the child.  I do not know of a similar superstition in China, but that does not mean there is not one.   Or that such touching is not simply a function of a different sense of personal space or of cultural mores not extending to foreigners (because physical contact and affection between even people you know, much less strangers, is not a Chinese tradition)?  Or maybe cute children are simply irresistible?  I too am guilty of taking pictures of beautiful children on my travels.

This seems completely normal, right?  Just a day out in the city and people whip out their cell phone cameras or their telephoto lenses to capture your child sitting in her stroller sucking her fingers or sporting a new hat you just bought her from the street-side hat seller just to my left out of the frame.  

I will admit it; I also find it flattering that people admire my child.  I am her mom and I naturally think she is quite special.  But there are times when the attention is terribly intrusive.  For instance, when we took the train back to Shanghai from Hangzhou.  Thirty minutes into the journey a man boarded the train and sat in the seats in front of us.  He showed great interest in my daughter and he turned around and snapped a picture of her.  I happened to notice him scrolling through the photos on his phone and saw he had not one, but two photos of my daughter.  In one of those photos my daughter is wearing a different outfit – it was from another day!  That bordered on disturbing.

My daughter has come to really dislike the attention.  In the beginning when people approached me to ask to photograph her I generally agreed.  However I noticed that C became irritated rather quickly by the attention.  (It was very hard not to notice) She would hide her face, slump down in her stroller, turn around her face could not be seen, or make faces at the camera.  But the requests kept coming every time we were out and about, and I began to feel less and less good about allowing these strangers to take a photograph despite C’s obvious discomfort.  So then I began to tell people if they would like a photo they have to ask my daughter and they may do so in English or Chinese.    With the ball in her court, my daughter usually consents to a few photos and then retreats.  Her stroller now has a canopy that she pulls down as low as it will go and those who attempt to pull it back often receive an unwelcome surprise – my daughter hisses at them like an angry cat!

My daughter actually agreed to these photos!

All of this attention raises two big questions in my mind.  The first is how will this affect my child as she grows?  Will this make her self-centered?  Will she become less and less inclined to go out?  Will she become withdrawn?  I do not have the answer but I do not want us to stay inside our apartment complex all the time when there are so many things to see and do in Shanghai.  I do not want my child to feel fear or frustration from the attention but rather learn to handle it and positively express herself (we have to get beyond the cat growling and hissing).

The second is what in the world are all those people doing with photos of my child?

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Americana: A Californian Chinese New Year

I have heard the time around the Spring Festival, as the Chinese call it, referred to as the largest annual human migration in the world.  It is not only all the Chinese traveling to be with their families, but also the foreigners in China taking advantage of the long holiday to get away.

When we first arrived in China it was just three weeks before Chinese New Year.  I knew having just moved to China that 1. I would not have the energy to take a trip that soon, and 2. Even if I had wanted to, it was far too late to book a trip.

It was good to stay in Shanghai that first Chinese New Year.  My household effects (HHE) were delivered just the day before the holiday started so I could spend it putting my apartment in order. The streets were quiet and I had a week to get to know my new city.  But I told myself there was no way I would stay in Shanghai the following Lunar New Year.

The way the holiday shook out is February 6-10 (Saturday – Wednesday) were the Chinese national days off.  The following Monday, February 15 was President’s Day.  So I could take just two days of annual leave and have ten full days off.  I thought of going to Kenya or Jordan or Thailand.  Somewhere exotic.  That is what I used to do when I had a long holiday – take a long trip to someplace unexpected.  But what I really wanted to do was be in the US drinking in America.

A Huntington Half Marathon

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C gets in some pony riding in her Elsa dress and pink cowgirl boots.  Because that is how she rolls.

We started our holiday in the Newport / Huntington Beach area, about an hour south of Los Angeles.  Back in August I had signed up for the Surf City Half Marathon.  The heart issues had started but I positive that I could still train for and complete the half.  It was before the Medevac to Singapore and then Washington, DC.  It was before I had the heart procedure.  By November 11 I was back in Shanghai and determined to train.  My plan was a 5K before the end of November, then a 10K before the end of December and finally 15K by the end of January and then just try my luck.

I did the 10K by the end of December but it was really, really, really slow.  I had some serious doubts.  But my virtual group of runners trying to hit the roads and trails all around the world encouraged me to still try – that the time would not matter.  And a very good friend currently posted to Washington, DC said she would fly out to run with me.

Before the half C and I just sampled the joys of being back in the US.  Our first day in the States involved landing, renting a car, and then driving down the coast in Friday afternoon Orange County traffic.  So it was pretty great.

For our first full day I took my pony-loving daughter to Irvine Regional Park for pony rides and a visit to the zoo.  We had hot dogs and French Fries and sat outside in the glorious Southern California sunshine.  Such a change from the cold, overcast, smoggy skies of a Shanghai winter.

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I got me some race bling. And some running zen.

The morning of the half the sitter arrived from Mollycoddlers, an Orange County sitter and nanny service.  (I am sure lots of people have wondered how I do these half marathons in different parts of the country as a single mom.  The answer is a hotel babysitting service!).  I met my friend in the lobby of our Huntington Beach hotel for the race shuttle to Newport Beach.  We had a lot of time on the shuttle and at least an hour at the race hotel before the start to catch up.  It was important because although we have run several races together, we do not actually run side by side as her pace is a good two minutes per mile faster than mine.

I had no idea how the half would go.  My training had been haphazard.  I was jet lagged.

The temperatures were unseasonably warm.  Yet it was a good course.  Flat.  I did not care about my time.  I ran a half for the first time in a long time without a running watch (it had been in the unfortunately misappropriated bag lost to the taxi driver in December).  I walked through each water stop.  I had fun.  I told myself I could finish in three hours if I needed to.  But I didn’t.  It wasn’t even my slowest half.

I realize that many people might be shaking their heads – why in the world would anyone run a half marathon on their vacation?  For me though, when I run, when I was running, I was not a mom, I was not a visa adjudicator, it was just me running in the sunshine on a course with a bunch of other strangers – all of who have their own reasons and goals for running.  It’s liberating.

Afterwards, it being Superbowl Sunday, C, my friend, her boyfriend, and I sat in the hotel bar, watched part of the game and the half time show, and ate and drank.  If that isn’t Americana, then I don’t know what is.

Friends, Family, and Disney

When I was 11 years old my mom took my sisters and I to LA. I begged to go to the La Brea Tar Pits, but we didn’t. I had to close the circle.

After Newport Beach we headed south to Carlsbad to stay with my mother’s cousin who I had not seen since I was twelve years old.  Now I am….much older.  Yet despite the years, when I reached out to her she responded immediately to my email and invited C and I to stay with her.  We had such a wonderful time and her husband and their therapy dog.  We also drove down to San Diego to meet up with a friend from my Jakarta book club days and on another day we met a grad school friend at the La Brea Tar Pits.

Back in my pre-State, pre-mom days my vacation modus operandi was generally to fly solo to another country or another continent but rarely to visit home. Maybe it is age or being a mother or this particular career, but I have a strong desire to spend more time reacquainting myself not only with friends and family but also with my country.

I felt such incredible joy driving a car down US highways, listening to Top 40 radio stations, or lying awake jet lagged watching American television programming featuring tiny houses.  Even billboards featuring Serta mattresses make me deliriously happy.  There were several times when apropos of nothing I simply stretched out my arms and yelled “I love you America!”

But I am familiar with America.  For me a trip home is celebration of the things I love and miss (or even had no idea I missed) and want to revisit and carry back in me.  For my daughter though, it is not a place she knows well.  In her four years of life she has lived only a quarter of it in the States.

A few weeks before traveling to the US I read an online parenting article aimed at American parents and their propensity to take their kids to Disney on vacation.  The author’s goal is to encourage parents to broaden their children’s horizons, which is certainly admirable.  But there is nothing wrong with taking your kids to Disney.  Disney is the quintessential Americana.  And I very much want to give my child those kinds of experiences.  She may not always or even ever just be able to get on a bicycle and ride around a neighborhood.  So if I can give her Disney and quality zoos and snow cones and ballpark hot dogs on occasion, I will.

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This happy face needs no caption.

After nine days in beautiful Southern California it was time to head back to Shanghai.  I am not sure that I did this, but I hope I took a sufficiently long deep breath of the good air quality air and closed my eyes and savored the warm feel of the SoCal sun on my face.

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From Sheep to Monkey: Shanghai Year One in Review

New Year decorations Feb 1 2015 (1)

Soon after we arrived in Shanghai we welcomed in the Year of the Sheep/Goat/Ram.

I have marked one year in Shanghai.  I had a hard time sussing out when I felt I had truly hit the one year mark.  Sure, there is the one year anniversary of when we arrived here on January 28, 2015. That is a good place to start. Or maybe my first day in the office, February 2? Or the first time I picked up a case in Shanghai – on February 5? Or the first time I interviewed on the line, which due to a fluke of training and the arrival of Chinese New Year was not until February 26?

Now I can safely call the one year mark, but I have been struggling to find the right words to characterize my year.  The easiest way it seems is to boil it down to the visas since they occupy such a huge part of my existence.

In one year I fingerprinted 5,760 people and adjudicated 24,075 visa cases.  It’s mind-boggling.  I do not know how many people I fingerprint verified in Ciudad Juarez (verification just requires one hand print to verify prints collected at an off-site location; fingerprinting requires taking ten prints, i.e. the four fingers on both hands and then both thumbs), but in my two years I adjudicated a total of 15,112 visas.  And I managed over 24,000 in Shanghai in a year even with a month-long Medevac.

I wanted to hit 25,000.  I had seen another colleague reached 50,000 after two years in Shanghai and I decided, before even arriving, that I too wanted that number.  Just because.  I know it is a crazy, maybe even a completely pointless and meaningless goal, but we set some goal like this here to help us get through the hours, days, and weeks of interviewing.

Fingerprint scanner

“Left hand four fingers.  Right hand.  Two thumbs.  OK. Next!”  I dare you to say that, and only that, over 100 times in an hour.  I triple dog dare you to do it in Chinese.

Still to put my number into perspective a colleague of mine hit over 27,500 in a year of adjudication and another colleague 31,000 in a year.  So as amazing as my number might sound, though it is a lot, I am by no means one of the fastest.  And the fingerprinting number…it is a pittance!  We had a temporary duty (TDY) colleague here for three weeks over the winter to help us during the busier season and in that time she alone fingerprinted 6,001 people!

One day after fingerprinting over 430 people over the course of 3 3/4 hours I came to a number of conclusions.  One is that a surprising number of people appear to be missing digits or parts of digits.  And it makes me wonder how it is that person came to lose them.  Or when the prints seem to be particularly bad, how it is those prints came to be worn?  So many stories exist just in people’s hands.  Another is that you can never judge a person’s fingerprints by their appearance.  Some young people have terrible prints, some old people have wonderful prints.  And finally, really clear, excellent prints are a beautiful thing to behold.  I never thought the image of the lovely whirls of a truly great print would be the thing to blow my hair back, but life is a funny, funny thing.

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Hundreds of average Chinese line up outside for a chance at a US visa

It can be hard to see the amazing activities colleagues around the world are doing while you are busy doing hundreds and then thousands and then tens of thousands of visas.  In the past few months colleagues have posted about meeting Colin Firth and Meryl Streep, having a conversation with a Thai princess, meeting Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, or flying on the Air Force jet with Secretary John Kerry.  Meanwhile today I interviewed over a hundred completely ordinary Chinese people.  And it was a slow day.

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We marked the beginning of our second year with the arrival of the Year of the Monkey.  According to some birth tourists, the Chinese love monkeys, so much so that the hospitals in China will have a bumper crops of babies and just be too busy.  I’ll just leave it at that.

But everyday people can be pretty cool too.  I will admit that I do suffer from interviewing fatigue.  Everyone does.  It is not easy to do this day in and day out for two years or four.  But there are days when it is, dare I admit it, fun.  Each morning or afternoon, depending on the shift, I sit or stand, depending on the adjudication window, and take a deep breath before I pull up the blinds and face the first of so many applicants.  There are times there is a sense of, not dread, but well an acute sense of opportunity cost – that by being there doing the interviews there are so many other great things I am not doing.  But other times there is a quick sense of anticipation, and even excitement.  I cannot speak for everyone of course, but there are many things to like about interviewing.  And even in the short time I have to talk to each applicant you can see a glimpse of a story.  The retired sisters giddy with excitement to take an 18 day group tour to America.  The students nervous and hopeful for a chance to study in America.  The completely unqualified applicant stammering out answers, knowing it is a long-shot, but still dreaming you might give them a visa anyway.

However, just because I think it is fun and interesting work sometimes does not mean I do not struggle with it.  I do.  A lot.  And it has been harder these past few weeks to write and post this because although I have crossed the one year threshold I cannot say that I have only one year to go because I extended until April 2017, which moved me from a winter bidding cycle to the summer. Because I have no idea how the bidding for the next tour will go – bidding that will not begin until late this summer – it is possible that I leave earlier than April 2017 and it is possible I leave later. Yet right now I just do not know how much longer I have, when I will even reach the one year to go mark.  So right now I feel I am in a sort of limbo.

Shanghai bulldozer on sidewalk 2

A symbol of stagnation.  Over 13 months after my arrival and it is still @#$&ing there.

And in this limbo I find it harder to do the visas.  Harder to face the rising numbers of applicants that characterizes our summer season.  Harder to shrug off the cars and buses and motorbikes that run red lights.  Harder to deal with the pushing and the shoving that comes with being in any public place in the largest city in the world’s most populous country.  If you look back at my one my early posts from Shanghai, there was a bulldozer parked unattended, unused in the middle of a sidewalk on my way to work.  It sat on the footpath blocking any pedestrian use, just after a particularly greasy, grimy stretch of sidewalk.  It is still there.  And I did not think it would be possible, but that sidewalk is even more caked, mucky, and encrusted with slime than before.

Yet there has been so much more over this past year than the work.  In Shanghai we have been to so many museums and sightseeing spots from the Oriental Pearl Tower, the Propaganda Poster Museum, and the Science and Technology Museum, to Dishui Lake, the Shanghai Zoo, and the Jing’An Sculpture Park.  Within China we have traveled to Hangzhou, Nanjing, Sanya, and Hong Kong.  We have also been back to the US three times, including my unexpected Medevac, which certainly livened up the year, and to Singapore (another Medevac) and the Dominican Republic.

Shanghai has been an extraordinary place to live.  My daughter and I not only have a nice life here, but we have fun here.  C has especially thrived here.  It is amazing to watch my three-now-four-year old speaking Chinese.  To hear that she refers to China as where we live and America as where we are from.  To have her making friends with children with diverse backgrounds who all find themselves here.  She loves Shanghai, so I love Shanghai.

I am not sure how to end this but I suppose it isn’t necessary because I am not done with Shanghai.  I have a year and then some left.  More visas and more fun still to come.

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And no matter the day, whether it is a love visa or hate visa day, I never grow tired of the view from my apartment

 

 

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Christmastime in Shanghai

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The Christmas Tree Light display in front of Plaza 66 mall

Full disclosure: I do not have a history of celebrating Christmas. In fact, I have generally escaped from partaking in Christmas revelry. In the twenty-one Christmases from 1995 to 2015 I have spent only four in the United States, three of those four are since I joined the State Department in July of 2011 (two because I was in training at the Foreign Service Institute where there is a general no-leave policy and once when we flew back from Mexico). There were only five of those Christmases I did not travel somewhere. I have spent Christmases in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Australia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Curacao, Antigua, Sri Lanka, Batam Island, and Mexico. You may notice the warm weather locale theme.

I have not changed the plan this year either! The morning of Christmas Eve has us heading south to escape the cold and dreary Shanghai winter – at least for a few days.

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The Christmas decor section at the supermarket – not too shabby

But Christmas in Shanghai, just like in the US, is not really just one day. There have been decorations up for quite some time. Case in point: C and I headed over to the Kerry Centre mall across the street on Thanksgiving Day to purchase some wine to bring to my colleague’s home. There was tinsel and ornaments and wreaths and piped in Christmas tunes. The basement supermarket had a section of holiday items at the base of the escalator – front and center. It was so authentic – for C at least – that when she woke up the following day and learned Thanksgiving was over, she cried because she thought she had missed Santa. It took some convincing to get across that Christmas and Thanksgiving were in fact two different holidays.

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The lights in the trees lining Nanjing West road for blocks on end

C and I have not been out and about very much lately. The weather has been less than lovely (cold, wet, grey) and work has been busy. Yet we live at one of Shanghai’s premier addresses on the major thoroughfare of Old Shanghai. Here the Christmas decorations have been out in force. And I do mean Christmas – there is not much of the Happy Holidays sentiment that has some Americans upset about the ‘War on Christmas’ (except the Starbucks in my complex did have the red cups). Though it is very much a commercial holiday here, and one that caters to expats. It is largely the fancy malls that have the displays – walk just a block or two off the main street and there is almost zero sign of the season other than it being cold.

The Shanghai Centre, the complex where I live, hosted a holiday party for the residents and this included a buffet, live band, and of course a visit from Santa for the kids. The Portman Ritz Carlton hotel, which is a part of the same complex, set up a Christmas market selling gifts, sweets, warm beverages (Gluhwein!), and live trees. They also had a Swedish choir perform holiday songs, a tree lighting ceremony, and a very large gingerbread house on display in the lobby.

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After seeing this gingerbread house I realize it is of no use to ever try to build one of my own.  Portman Ritz-Carlton lobby

This is the first Christmas though that my daughter is old enough to sort of understand what is going on. I say sort of because we celebrated Christmas on Saturday, December 19 since we would be out of town on the 25th and C has no idea it was not the actual Christmas Day. Still, through various DVDs including My Little Pony and Paw Patrol she knows some Christmas traditions that I was unable to recreate.

For one, she expected snow. Despite her very limited exposure to the cold, white stuff (one time in Juarez and a few days last winter in Virginia) she talked about it. That on Christmas there would most certainly be some snow. I tried to explain that the climate in Shanghai is generally too warm for snow but that doesn’t make much sense to her as it is not warm outside at all. We have our coats and covered shoes on each day after all.

She also seemed particularly upset about the lack of a star on the top of our Christmas tree. I did buy a tree, a small plastic tree about two and a half feet high. It was not a purchase I had planned to make but C made a comment about wanting one. The giddy delight with which she greeted that miniature fake tree (“Oh mommy, mommy it is the most beautiful tree in the whole world! It is Awesome!), however made it so worth it. At the supermarket I also found the string of lights for our window and the small red and gold ornamental balls, tinsel, and candy for the tree. However, there were no tree-topping stars and no time to find one.

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Our first Christmas tree.  Small, and hopefully one that travels well for this lifestyle.

It made me realize that there were all these traditions from the US that I wanted to share with my daughter – candy canes, driving through neighborhoods full of beautifully (or crazily) lit homes, singing along to Christmas songs on the radio or listening to carolers, watching the Night Before Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer on television. Even just running out to a store to pick up those last minute Christmas needs – like a Christmas tree star or egg nog.

Just after I returned from my Medevac in mid-November we received email notification from the DPO (Diplomatic Post Office) that in order to guarantee delivery before Christmas orders would need to be at the DPO facility in California by November 22. I placed an order for all of my daughter’s presents before that date so they did all arrive. But the two rolls of wrapping paper I purchased were barely enough to cover three presents so the rest were wrapped up in a Frankenstein-style hobbled together from random paper bags I found under my sink.

Luckily my daughter is so young that traditions are ours to be made. There are times we will be back in the US at Christmas and be able to take advantage of those special traditions, but more likely we will be overseas and there is no telling what may or may not be available on the local market or how the holidays may or may not be celebrated. This turned out to be the most excited I have been about Christmas since I was a child and though I realized a bit too late in the game I still put on a pretty wonderful Christmas morning. Though I still don’t want to be cold on Christmas.

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The not yet finished (at the time of the photo) Christmas decor in front of Westgate Mall, where the Shanghai US Consulate Visa Section is located

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What China is This?

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I stand above the Yangtze River for the Three Gorges cruise – the river and the gorges are not now what they once were.

I first came to China in 1994 as a student at Beijing Normal University as a part of the College of William & Mary’s study abroad program.

It was an eye-opening experience for me. On our second day in country we were served fried scorpions at lunch. Even more surprising to me is that 14 out of 16 of the students in our group ate them. I refused. (I then ordered a bowl of chicken soup only to find as I stirred it an eye ball popped to the surface – and this is how I kept my girlish figure while in China, by surviving on white rice with soy sauce and peanuts and garlic stir fried broccoli.) I had my first experience with a squatting toilet – something again I refused to use. I even held “it” one day during a 12 hour bus trip from Changsha to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, steadfast in my determination as each rest stop only presented “traditional” facilities. A delayed flight and Mother Nature eventually forced my hand and it turned out not to be so bad.

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In my Beijing Normal U dorm room. I cannot believe how great my hair looks.

We stayed in the international dorm – each of us assigned a Japanese roommate to encourage our Chinese language acquisition even first thing in the morning and just before bed. I had a room on the fifth floor of the dorm – no elevator of course. We had only one telephone per floor located at one end. Hot water in our showers was available from 5 PM. It was supposed to last until eight, but if you waited too long you were generally in for major disappointment – and a very brisk bathe.  We also had two hot plates per floor for cooking. I used it perhaps twice in six months – not a surprise at all as my good friends know that is only a little less than I use my kitchen now.

I rented a shelf in a mini fridge of an enterprising Korean student. There I kept my few prized refrigerated items like cheese and Tang. Each of us was issued a large thermos. Most evenings I would make my way down the five flights and to a small brick building across from the dorm where there stood a very large coal furnace constantly heating water. I would pop off the corked top of the thermos and fill it with scalding water and then carry it back up to my room. I would leave the top off overnight to cool the water and then in the morning fill my smaller bottles with the water, mix in the Tang, and then switch the new bottles for the cool ones in the rented fridge.

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The old hot water furnace and my super chic thermos. I thought it would look even older in Sepia; I was right.

I had an old bicycle that two thoughtful classmates acquired for me. As I understand it they staked out an area in the massive student bicycle parking area and monitored activity. They identified a weather-beaten green one that, according to them, had been left neglected for weeks. So they liberated it and gave it to me. I did not ask too many more questions. I took it to an on-campus bicycle repair shop to get it into riding shape and I joined the (hundreds) of thousands of Beijing cyclists that took to the roads daily.

I rode to class each morning, with my glass bottle of drinkable yogurt in my basket (the bottles were returned to the dorm café to get a few jiao back), and across town to the little Uygur village behind the Minority University where I would go to the last shed where I bought the most fabulous tudou qiu (potato balls) with a soy sauce and cilantro dipping sauce. Once while riding to my English teaching job of two Korean boys who lived in the Asian Games Village, all the spokes on my wheel dropped off one by one in a spectacular fashion. I simply coasted a few hundred feet to a roadside bicycle repair guy, who for a handful of kuai had me on the road again in no time.

Twenty years later I find myself once again living in China. Although I am in a different city I feel as though my life has circled back around. Amongst the modernity there are glimmers of the past and I experience the occasional sense of déjà vu that transports me back to the China I first knew.

Shanghai is so incredibly modern and glitzy now (as is Beijing and other major Chinese cities) that I imagine few students here would know what to do with the giant furnace I once had to use. And only one phone per hall would be cause for most students these days to walk out in protest.

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A glimpse into our hard seat train compartment.

There are so many things that have changed. No longer are bicycles the chief transportation method. Gone are the bicycle lanes that rivaled those for cars and parking areas where they sat by the thousands awaiting their riders. There are still some intrepid cyclists, but they have been mostly replaced with fancy cars, mopeds, and even electric bicycles.

Train travel too is not what it used to be. The trains now, at least those I have had the pleasure of taking lately, are ultramodern and sleek. Comfortable reclining chairs with tray tables in clean and efficiently serviced non-smoking compartments. This is so far removed from the two day train ride in hard class chairs that my friends and I took between Beijing and Qingdao. On the return trip I remember an old man in front of us smoking beneath the no-smoking sign. When my friend and I asked him to put out the cigarette and pointed out the sign he took a deep draw and turned and blew all the smoke in our faces. The hard seats were just that – hard benches with unforgiving straight backs. Bleary-eyed and desperate for sleep I asked for and received the newspaper another man had finished. I took it and spread it down in the aisle and it was there where I went to sleep for a few hours. I was awoken in the morning at 6 am by the snack cart coming through – I was surrounded by apple cores and banana peels and other debris. And the time we took the two day hard sleeper from Beijing to Chongqing. We were the top of three bunks, maybe a foot and a half from our sleeper, i.e. hard fake leather slab, and the ceiling. A small electric fan by my head kept shorting out and when I tapped it sparks flew and it made a few more revolutions. THAT is train travel my friends, the kind that you never forget.

Advertising is also a bit different. Gone are the unimaginative roadside billboards extolling government policies like this one:

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Hooray for the one child policy!

And instead they have been replaced by sleek advertisements for just about everything including luxury goods, international brands, and world-class performances on stage at first-class theaters. Even commercials that remind the Chinese to be good citizens of the world, such as this one, which might surprise many people outside of China:

IMG_6699 (2)And probably one of the most surprising things of all is the number of signs everywhere directing Chinese to behave in public. No smoking. No spitting. No littering. No this. No that. People get into lines. I can hardly believe it myself. Gone are the days at a fast food restaurant where those who were served first were those who fought their way to the counter best. Or like when I stood in line at the Forbidden City in Beijing and many people behind me chose to pay those in the front of the line to buy their tickets too. There are still those would-be line jumpers but these days the Chinese around them will usually give them a good scolding and maybe even rough them up.

090But there are still glimpses of the past. Off the main glitzy streets, I mean just one block off, you can find clothes still hanging out to dry from apartment windows – even twenty or thirty stories up. Also many women still wear pantyhose in inappropriate lengths – knee highs with thigh high skirts or even thigh highs with short shorts. This really takes me back. People still squat down on their haunches on the street – today I passed a young woman doing this on West Nanjing Road, old Shanghai’s premier street. She was reading text on her smart phone.

The parks on mornings and weekends are still full of groups of old and young doing tai chi or ballroom dance. Nowadays you can also find the occasional belly dancing or hip hop group, sometimes right next to one another, their music and routines in side-by-side competition.

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Taken in 1994 but except for the fashions (or even including the fashions) you could see this in most parks in China today.

I am especially tickled to see that correct English spelling and translation remains elusive. Despite the rise in the number of Chinese who speak English fluently, you can still find some fun signs about town.

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The country is modernizing so quickly and leaving traditions behind; there are times when I do not feel I am living in China, but rather somewhere else. Somewhere with some Chinese characteristics but not quite China. Sort of like Singapore, but not exactly. It can be a challenge to live here – as an international student or a foreign diplomat – but it offers every visitor and expat, at the very least, some interesting experiences and never ceases to surprise. More than twenty years on and I am still trying to find my place in China.

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Decompressing in the DR

I really, really, really needed this vacation with my daughter in the Dominican Republic.

Yeah, I said the Dominican Republic.

Usually when I mentioned that we were headed for the DR for the combination holiday of Mid-Autumn festival and the multi-day National Day together called Golden Week I heard: Why?

Well, why not?

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The Occidental Grand Punta Cana Resort. This will do.

I am aware it is nowhere near Shanghai. That is sort of the point. I have a history of traveling places nowhere near where I am living. When I lived in Jakarta I vacationed in Moldova, the south of France and South Africa. And when we lived in Juarez we visited places such as Panama, the United Arab Emirates, and the Isle of Man.

Do I have friends in the DR? Did family meet us? No and no. I just had a few criteria for this trip: warm weather, a beach, small child-friendly hotel, in a new-to-me country, and fairly far away. The DR met them all. Check. Check. Check.

It might seem a bit crazy to travel 27 hours and 45 minutes or so with a small child to get to a vacation destination. Maybe.

The population of Shanghai is approximately 24 million people squeezed into an area of 2,445 square miles. It is almost impossible to ever be alone in Shanghai (and as I have a small child any chance to be alone is already infinitesimally small). The DR on the other hand has a population of 10.7 million in an area many times larger than that of Shanghai. Even with the near constant music in the DR – the wonderful tipico band that greets arrivals at the Punta Cana airport and the Merengue or top 40 hits playing in the restaurants or during the nightly resort entertainment – it felt quieter than most any day in China. That most of the sounds were the soft roll of ocean waves and the rustle of the wind through palm fronds and laughter did not hurt either.

I also did not run into a single Chinese tourist. Not one.

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Sunrise. Not a Chinese visa applicant in sight.

I very much enjoyed hearing and speaking Spanish again. Granted I would be very hard-pressed to score above a 1+ (if even) on a Foreign Service Institute test in Spanish at this point, having forgotten terribly important words like nuclear non-proliferation or labor union. Yet I remembered the word for bacon so though FSI might not agree with me, I feel I am winning that balance sheet.

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Sunrise.

This was not my usual vacation. Any of my previous travel stories will tell you that much. I am not generally the stay in one place and do little kind of traveler. But strange times (adjudicating 16,000 visas and counting let’s say) call for strange measures, which to me is an all-inclusive resort with nine restaurants, three swimming pools, a Kids’ Club, nightly entertainment, tennis courts, archery, spa, gym, “Punta Cana’s best nightclub” and a bunch of other amenities. I’ll tell you I was so downright lazy that we went to only two swimming pools, ate in only four restaurants, and managed to do little else.

Most of my days went like this:
Wake up (and this started around 1 am due to jet lag and then gradually managed to move closer to 5:45). See sunrise. Eat breakfast. Laze around room. Laze around pool. Eat lunch. Laze around. Walk on beach. Eat dinner (though this was only once the jet lagged had eased and we did not fall asleep before sunset) . Sleep. It was magical. Once I had passed the half way point of my vacation I even began to wish I had booked two weeks of this instead of eight days.

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The oldest cathedral in the Americas

We did make it off the resort twice. The first time was for an all day tour to Santo Domingo. As a self-declared history buff, if there was anything I was going to do while in the Dominican Republic other than little-to-nothing at the hotel it was to see Colonial Santo Domingo, the first permanent settlement in the New World. Only the fourth day in of a twelve hour time difference, I was not sure how C or I would fair with the jet lag, but the trip went off without a hitch. Well, okay C woke up at 2:30 am and vomited for an hour or so, but hey that is just travel with kids, right? Right?? She fell back asleep, and then woke demanding bananas; 2.5 bananas later she was ready for our 2 ½ hour bus trip to Santo Domingo. We slept most of the way there and back and enjoyed all the sites for the day. They crammed a whole lot in and yet it did not feel particularly rushed. I would have liked more time at some places and to see others that were only drive-bys, but overall I was quite pleased with the trip. And C was not the only child on the trip. Another couple brought their one year old and there was also a two year old boy. All the kids did really well. Hooray for parents traveling and sightseeing with their kids!

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Our first view of Santo Domingo

Our second off-resort trip was to Manati Park so that C could see some animals. We were the first picked up in what C referred to as the “Rainbow Bus,” the colorful US-school-bus-like transport painted in the full pallet blasting energetic Merengue music as it made its way from resort to resort and then through a torrential downpour before arriving at the park. Four other similar buses disgorged their passengers at the same time and a brief flood of people poured in. It is not a particularly large park and not particularly awesome, but it is a good place to take a small child who loves animals and is too small to take part in other outings like swimming with dolphins or snorkeling or caving. And she got to not only ride some ponies (a lifelong dream even at age 3) but the staff even let her help them as they brushed and washed a pony. The guy even gave her the lead so C could take the pony back to his stall.

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At the Taino Village in Manati Park

It wasn’t a perfect vacation mind you. There was bored, beer-guzzling Bob from Chicago who took a little too much of an interest in my daughter and I, or maybe just in my mini-bar beer. On the evening of the lunar eclipse, I popped just outside my room for a look-see while C snoozed. It was just before 11 pm. The man I will call Bob appeared to be heading out but then stopped to comment on the moon. We got to chatting for a bit. He seemed friendly enough. He was headed to the all night pizzeria for a snack and, after I had mentioned I do not drink, he said he would come back to get my neglected mini-bar beers. Given the time, I expected he would head up to get pizza and then be back before 11:30 pm for the beers. He knocked on my door at 2:30 AM! And then asked if I would wake him for sunrise the next morning when we headed to the beach. It seemed harmless enough though he was drunk enough to be swaying dangerously as we made our way to the beach. And except that then he just kept stopping by at odd hours. Odd because it is an all-inclusive resort that includes free alcohol with most meals and at any of the seven bars open from as early as 9 am until 1 am. And odd because at no time did I say, hey Bob, my daughter and I would love to have you randomly insinuate yourself into our holiday.

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I was pleased as punch to not only see the lunar eclipse but to actually get a decent photo with my point and shoot. But beware those you meet under the lunar eclipse.

I suspect Bob is just a lonely guy who got his signals crossed (or is so numbed by alcohol he is unable to read them) but nonetheless I requested a room change. Thankfully it was granted. We still saw Bob around the resort at least once a day, but at least I did not have to keep sitting in my room pretending I did not hear the knocks on our hotel room door.

There was also Jorge who came to my room to check my air conditioning unit. He was only in the room for maybe five minutes before his pointed questions revealed I am a single mom and we live in China. Jorge graciously offered to move to Shanghai to take care of me and give C a father. As romantic a proposal from an overweight only-Spanish-speaking hotel maintenance guy I had just met sounds, I turned him down.

Our final day was my birthday. I spent it, in very uncharacteristic fashion, doing almost nothing. I even took my very fair-freckled self to the beach for over three hours. After several hours of play my daughter wrapped herself up in a towel, lay on a beach chair and watched the ocean. She then turned to me and said, “Mom, let’s go home.” “To the hotel room?” I asked. “No mom, to Shanghai.” I told her the following day we would head home (via a little overnight stop in Newark).

Traveling to the Dominican Republic reminded me why I love to travel and see new places. It reminded me how much I love tropical countries and beaches. And it gave me the opportunity to relax and spend quality time with my child.

Oh, and not a single Chinese tourist.

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Another sunrise.

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Ode to Nanjing

Nanjing (南京), it means “south capital” but to me in the traditional Chinese fashion of associating long-winded English translations to a few characters it means “long weekend getaway from the sinking morass of endless visa adjudications.”

It had been 14 weeks since returning from my two-week May getaway. Fourteen weeks through a historically-busy, record-breaking crazy visa application summer. I needed a break.

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View of Nanjing from the 45th floor of the Zifeng Tower

I know this falls into the realm of a “first world problem” and that even at home there might be quite a few people who would roll their eyes at my whines regarding lack of vacation time, but to me I really and truly had reached a breaking point.

“Capture of Nanking Rain and a windstorm rage blue and yellow over Chung the bell mountain as a million peerless troops cross the Great River. The peak is a coiled dragon, the city a crouching tiger more dazzling than before. The sky is spinning and the earth upside down. We are elated yet we must use our courage to chase the hopeless enemy. We must not stoop to fame like the overlord Hsiang Yu. If heaven has feeling it will grow old and watch our seas turn into mulberry fields.” ~Mao Ze Dong, April 1949

I could not find a pretty quote about Nanjing. Despite its significant role in Chinese history it is its more recent history, the brutal subjugation of the city in 1937, that it is perhaps most famous for. The weekend might also have been an odd choice of destination considering it immediately followed China’s newest national holiday – “Victory Day” – marking the 70th anniversary of victory in WWII. Although it was announced by the Chinese government in May it did not occur to me as I was buying the train tickets in early August that perhaps the location of one of the greatest atrocities inflicted on the Chinese as part of the larger WWII conflict happened in Nanjing. I wondered why some of the trains were already booked full (though it could have as much to do with a multi-day holiday as anything else, most people were given both Thursday September 3 and Friday September 4 off).

Regardless, our mini holiday in Nanjing became my reward, my focus, my mantra.

Nanjing! Nanjing! Nanjing!

And the trip finally arrived – and I remembered how I love to travel and learn about new places, the history, the culture, and especially to see another place in the country where I serve. I also was reminded how it can be a wee bit challenging to travel with a toddler especially when I insist on trying to do things certain ways.

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The Zifeng Tower. Our room was waaaaaaaaaaay near the top

Like taking public transport. But I packed light and we were able to use not only the Shanghai metro line to reach the Hongqiao Railway station, get ourselves onto the bullet train to Nanjing (less than 2 hours – 300 kilometers or about 186 1/2 miles), then we easily maneuvered our way through the Nanjing metro system. Well, as easy as one can with a duffel bag, stroller with one malfunctioning wheel, and a preschooler. But then they made it easy for us – touch screens, choice of English, plenty of easy to read maps, and a direct 10 stop trip from Nanjing South Station to Gulou, our stop.

I booked us a room at the Intercontinental Nanjing, which occupies the lobby and floors 45-81 of Zifeng Tower, the tallest building in the city (at 1,480 feet tall). Regular guest rooms are on floors 49 to 71 and through a series of events we found ourselves with a room on the 71st floor! As we rode up the elevator, beginning on the 45th floor I thought that we were already well above the 19th floor I live on in Shanghai, which already seemed rather high up.

It was a bit of a cloudy day and our view was sometimes very nearly obscured during our visit – because sometimes we were inside a cloud.

After settling in we headed to the very old Jiming (Rooster Crowing) temple, one of the oldest in Nanjing. It was within walking distance of the hotel and I figured a worthy first stop. Because 3 ½ kids love old, historic Buddhist temples, right? She might have liked it more if we had not had to pass the Paleontology Museum on the way. Posters of cool-looking cartoon dinosaurs and a nearly full glass wall revealing some equally cool dinosaur skeletons just had to be on display. Any interest C might have had in Chinese/Nanjing/Buddhist history was quickly gone (I give my kid the benefit of the doubt). Then I had to keep hearing about the dinosaurs, the dinosaurs, the dinosaurs for the rest of the block.

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Entrance gate to Jiming Temple, with a view of the Zifeng Tower in the background.

Thank goodness the temple included three large incense sticks in their ticket entrance price. C took these to be drum sticks, specifically her drum sticks and the temple as her castle and was placated for a little while. She was even okay with climbing up all the stairs. Particularly as once on the third or so level she could look down and yell at her subjects. “Hey, all you all down there! This is C! This is my castle. I am the police! Please listen to me! Stop what you are doing!” When I asked her why she kept yelling she said it was because no one was listening. I pointed out she was yelling in English and that most, if not all, of the people coming in to the temple were Chinese. So she switched to yelling random Chinese words of her choosing. Good thing the Chinese generally like little kids.

At the top level, just below the pagoda, we enjoyed some time joining the crowd throwing coins into the large Chinese urn for good luck. C likes this kind of activity. Then I showed her where everyone was placing their incense sticks and demonstrated how we would do the same. She seemed completely on board until we actually lit them and placed them standing with the other incense. Then she lost it. As luck would have it (perhaps the temple gods were smiling down on us?) we turned a corner as she sobbed and found three perfectly nice incense sticks lying on a temple step. The day was saved!

We headed back down and then on to Ming Dynasty City Walls, apparently one of the largest city walls ever constructed in China and still with large portions intact. C was not impressed. She made it clear that she did not want to see any walls but instead wanted to see dinosaurs! It started to rain. It was around 4 pm and we were just up the street from the Paleontology Museum and so made the correct mom decision to return to the dinosaurs.

C skipped up the steps happily right into the arms of a museum curator who informed us the museum closed at 4. What? Who closes a museum at 4? Smart little C immediately broke into huge sobs accompanied by the word dinosaur in both English and Chinese. As the door was wide open and other kids and their parents were still in the museum, he relented and said we could just visit the dinos in the foyer. C perked up immediately – though this was short lived when she learned after ten minutes it was time to go and she walked out, lip pouted, shoulders hunched, dragging her feet. The curator told us to come back that weekend – open 9 am to 4 pm Saturday and Sunday!

An hour at the hotel pool and another 30 minutes in our awesome tub and C forgot all about dinosaurs.

The following morning we took the metro to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. Yeah, I sure do know how to pick the family friendly locations. But C is a good traveler and she was very good here as well.

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Outside the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall.

It was a Saturday and the one after the new Victory Day holiday, so there was a long line, but with the exception of a few line jumpers it was managed very orderly and well. I have long wanted to visit Nanjing and I knew that when I did I would visit this memorial hall. This is a sobering place and is on par to visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC or a concentration camp like Auschwitz or the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park or the Killing Fields of Cambodia – all of which I have visited. It is a hard place to visit yet also a “must-see” to understand a time in history and serve as witness to the horrors humans are capable of committing, appreciate the resiliency of survivors, and resolve in your heart to never allow this again.

We spent most of our time in the park area and not in the museum, though we did have some thirty or forty-five minutes inside. In theory I could have spent longer there – the displays are well-done and informative – but given the subject matter our total hour and a half at the memorial hall was all we could take. C demanded lunch and then either dinosaurs or elephants.

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Elephants, even stone ones at a Ming Dynasty mausoleum, are cool.

After consulting C elephants it was. And those elephants would be the large stone ones, along with several other stone animals, flanking the Sacred Way to the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, located at the foot of Purple Mountain. Thank goodness for those animals and the lovely shaded walk – C approved! She also did not mind the other walk with large stone soldiers flanking the way and climbing through some large gateways. She did show some rebellion at the Golden Water Bridge. The carved dragons, though I pointed out they looked like a bit like dinosaurs, did not impress her in the least. Arms folded, she delivered me a few pointed raspberries in my direction, but agreed to soldier on.
The Mausoleum is huge. We passed through archways and walked through or around memorial halls finally to the large palace-like building at the end and we climbed up all those steps too. Little C bounded up them like a champ.

Although there might have still been time to make it over to the Sun Yatsen Mausoleum, had I still been a single woman, I called it day. C agreed this was an excellent decision. We still had to make our way all the way back from the tomb and find a way back to the hotel. This proved to be much more difficult than I expected as every single taxi driver I saw refused to stop. Finally we found a bus stop that took us to the metro and we were back to the hotel for the evening.

On Sunday morning I did try to reward C with a trip to the Paleontology Museum, after all she deserved it for being such a good sport the day before. But wouldn’t you know it we arrive at the museum around 9:30 am and they tell me it is closed all day. Poor little C. She was disappointed. I owe her some dinosaurs for sure.

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View towards Xuanwu Lake and Purple Mountain from the Nanjing City Wall.

We continued on to the Nanjing City Walls. C made it quite clear she did not want to see the “stupid walls.” She’s 3 and did not really use the word “stupid” but it was so implied in her huffy attitude. I insisted and she plodded alongside me, heavily sighing, shoulders hunched. It became warm – our hottest day so far and we were exposed up on the wall. And I began to think that maybe seeing the walls was okay but walking along them just might have been “stupid.” Sometimes mommy is wrong.

We did eventually make our way to the next gate, Xuanwu gate, from where we could descend from the walls and found ourselves in the middle of Nanjing’s Sunday matchmaking market. There are few things that matchmaking grannies and grandpas like to see more than a 3 year old, curly-blonde haired girl. C handled it pretty well.

Back at the hotel enjoying our welcome (farewell?) drink at the café while a hostess played peek-a-boo with C seemed a good way to end the trip. We successfully navigated ourselves back to the train station with the metro and onto the bullet train to Shanghai. Nanjing has a lot to offer and I think we will back. Maybe next time we will finally see the dinosaurs.

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The Foreign Service and the Single Parent – Further Thoughts

After I had put up my previous post, an essay written for the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW) upcoming book on “Raising Children in the Foreign Service,” I thought more about what it means to be a single parent in the US Foreign Service. I realized I had more I wanted to share and reflect on regarding this topic.

I recently celebrated my four year Foreign Service anniversary. When I joined the State Department I was eleven weeks pregnant, so my daughter has been part of my Foreign Service experience from the beginning. She and this job are forever intertwined, like fraternal twins. It was because I was pregnant that I bid on Ciudad Juarez, Mexico—where I could easily bring a car and drive over the border for baby formula and diapers at Target—rather than bidding on the places like Kathmandu, Nepal or Rangoon, Burma, that quickly caught my fancy until I remembered that I was no longer bidding for one.

In the past I had not really thought of myself as a Single Parent in the Foreign Service. I was a single parent AND I was in the Foreign Service. When people, usually colleagues, asked how I managed I often shrugged and gave some answer like “I have always been a single parent, so I do not know how to be otherwise.” That is true, but now I feel the response is too flippant – it plays down the challenges that myself and other single parents face in this career.

Writing the AAFSW article made me realize I have had far more “Single Parent in the FS related episodes” than I had previous thought and more are to come.

It was me who sat in the Basic Consular Course and heard the instructor use the word that starts with “b” and rhymes with “mastered.” Though it was meant to be a light hearted comment on a law that appeared to favor single American mothers over single American fathers, it could have been quite hurtful. I did not know then how much it might still resonate with me now and I am glad I made the effort to speak with the instructor.

Yet before I even made it to the Consular course, early in my Spanish studies, I had an experience that still makes me go “hmmm.” Given the Ciudad Juarez is a danger-pay post and one in which a lot of new officers bid low but are assigned anyway, Mission Mexico made an effort to reach out those newly assigned officers early. As I knew I would be a single parent once arriving at post my number one concern was child care. Unless they were going to let me papoose my infant to my back and conduct visa interviews that way, I was going to need a full time nanny, and quickly. I reached out to the Community Liaison Officer (CLO), a person a post that fulfills a lot of roles but one is helping officers with issues such as this. My email was short, but detailed, indicating I was a soon-to-be single mother and I could use some assistance with sorting out child care at post. The CLO responded with a spreadsheet of housekeepers that could do part time babysitting.

Several months before arriving at my second post I again reached out to the CLO to ask for information on the child care situation in Shanghai. I emailed multiple times with no response. Finally, about two weeks before my arrival I heard back – and the response was not to worry, that I would have plenty of time to find someone after I arrived. Granted at the time my mother had planned to come for the first five weeks to provide me a buffer time to search for full time help, but still I found it off-putting. Also, in the end my mother was unable to come with me and I made a mad scramble for child care immediately after arrival. (see Not the Beginning I Expected)

In both cases things worked out, as they generally do. And in neither case did the CLO intend to do anything other than help, even if it was not actually helpful.

Here in Shanghai recently our American Employee Association sent out the following email: “AEA is looking for a few good men and women to support our fellow married Americans! We will be throwing a “Parents Night Out” movie night and am looking for volunteers willing to help chaperone a few cute children with us during a Pixar/Disney movie night.”

I do not recall noticing the “s” attached to “parent” right away, but it was not long before this incredibly awesome response was sent out (not by me): “I’m willing to help out on any of those dates. Let me know when I’m needed. Also, it should be noted that not all parents are married (I was raised by a single mother in need of a night off) and may feel as though they are not included in this.”

Again, the originator of the message meant no ill-will and in fact several people pointed out that the initial message implored people to help out their married colleagues and yet not all married couples have children. The writer owned up right away, apologized for any offense and sent out an updated and all-inclusive email. In speaking with the person later, s/he told me that actually the email had been cleared by four other AEA members before being sent out and none had caught the mistake.

It was these experiences that prompted me to include in my essay’s practical thoughts/advice list a gentle reminder that in many cases people are well-meaning but just unfamiliar with what it is like to be a single parent. I certainly need to remind myself of that and give people the benefit of the doubt.

Then there was this recent experience: A few weeks ago I was serving as a representative of the US Consulate at the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) 4th of July event. I brought my daughter with me so after my two hour shift we could check out some of the activities. At the AmCham booth a smiling Chinese woman greeted me and told me in English I could scan their “We Chat” code and chose a free gift. Though I had been in country already five months, I had yet to buy myself a local smart phone. I kept thinking about doing so, but the Consulate had given us all a “dumb” phone and it basically served my needs. So I had to admit to this woman that I did not have a phone to scan their code. She thought for a moment, then with an ah-ha moment happily suggested “go get your husband.” Without thinking much about it, standing there with my daughter at my side, I replied, “I don’t have one of those either.”

This happens fairly regularly – most still make the assumption that if you have a child, you have a spouse. But I was unprepared for the woman’s response. Her face immediately crumpled. She quickly said “Oh my god, I am so sorry,” hugged me, grabbed a small box from the table, slipping her business card into the side, handed it to me continuing, “please take this gift and here is my card if you ever need anything.”

I blinked. I was speechless. I have had people upset and apologize for making the assumption, but no one before had appeared quite so horrified at the prospect of my having a child without a husband. I have no idea what her assumption may have been – that I was divorced, widowed, or otherwise. I will never know (unless of course I contacted her from her card, which I have no intention of doing).

This did lead me to do some thinking. When I wrote my essay I was thinking about US stereotypes of single parents, not those we might face in other countries. Yet as Foreign Service Officers we have to face them in both realms. It was not that long ago that women after marriage were strongly encouraged to leave the US diplomatic service. (read here) Of course single moms are by nature generally not married, yet I doubt such women were any more welcome, and most likely less so.

Just a simple Google search to see if there were any articles on that topic led me to Careers at State Q&A forums with women asking if single moms are even hired into the Foreign Service. These questions were asked not twenty or thirty years ago, but rather in 2011, 2012 and 2014. I found myself surprised and saddened. When I started in 2011, pregnant and single, it never even occurred to me that I would be unwelcome or unable to serve as a single parent, yet clearly some US women are concerned that is the case. I suppose when you hear from some US politicians that you are destroying the fabric of American society and breeding criminals, (like here), it can make you feel you are undesirable as a representative of your country abroad. I wish that too were something from the distant past, except only recently a bill that would allow some companies the right to fire an unmarried pregnant woman surfaced.  (see here)

Yet it was the response of the AmCham woman that prompted me to look into how single mothers are treated in China, and what I found was unpleasant. Though it would seem that attitudes may be changing, the Chinese marriage and birth registration system and traditional values still create an environment where single mothers are shunned and subjected to social stigma and their children are treated as second class citizens. (see here) Given these government and societal attitudes it is highly unlikely that the Chinese government or Diplomatic Corps includes any single mothers.

Yet China is not alone in its approach toward single mothers. Google “single mothers in _______” and finish it with Korea, Japan, UAE, India, Jamaica, etc, and you find articles that indicate that there remain social constraints and stereotypes amidst a rise in numbers. Another member of my Single Parent in the FS group shared with me that when she lived in Israel a woman once snarled “no wonder your husband left you” when she asked for five more minutes for her daughters to play in the shared garden. This forced me to realize that there may be times when my statement that I am a single mother may be met not with embarrassment or pity but even with hostility.

I am not sure what I will do then, but I am trying to be prepared now. I want to do more in this area in the future; my current job as visa interviewer extraordinaire however does not give me much time or opportunity to work on other things. Until then I just want to continue to be a good Foreign Service Officer and mother and hope that by doing so, and sharing my status with others, it makes a difference somehow.

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The Foreign Service and the Single Parent

In May while I was on leave an organizer of the new Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW) book on “Raising Kids in the Foreign Service” contacted me to ask if I would be open to writing a chapter / essay from the single parent perspective. I was thrilled to be selected though in truth, the organizer admitted, I was the only single parent in the FS she knew. No matter, I was excited about the prospect of writing such an article; in January I had, with another FS single mom, just launched a Facebook page for single parents in the FS and this was another opportunity to get the word out that there are single parent diplomats. With the organizer’s blessing I am sharing most of my article here. It was written in conjunction with feedback from members of our new Facebook group.

She stared at the email. It was in response to a housing issue at her upcoming post. Did it really say what she thought it said? “We are sorry about this but there is no way we could have anticipated this. We have never had this kind of situation.”

Situation? The Single Parent situation? You would have thought she had asked how to import a unicorn. That’s us, the single parents, the unicorns of the Foreign Service.

I am not going to lie: being a single parent in the Foreign Service is no cake walk. But that is not news, right? Because just being in the Foreign Service is a challenge and so is being a single parent. Put them together and you have yourself a recipe for some demanding but exciting times.

The Challenges

The PCS. We hear the laments of our single Foreign Service Officer brethren; it sure is hard to manage a pack out all by yourself. Then throw in a wee one or two and, if you have truly lost your mind, a pet. Nothing says fun like managing your suitcases, carry-ons, a stroller, a child, and a pet on a two leg 24-hour international journey all by yourself. It is extra fun when, as one single parent recently shared with me, your elementary-school aged child breaks his arm ten days before. Because as they grow older you kinda expect them to pitch in, right?

Setting up child care/school. We hear you tandem parents. Needing to take off work immediately after arriving at post in order to interview and hire a nanny or register your child for school might call for some of those diplomatic skills. After all, post wanted you yesterday. This is especially the case of the single parent, because, well, the person taking off work is you or you. Most places seem to frown upon children registering themselves.

And it doesn’t just stop with enrolling them in school. There are teacher-parent meetings, special events, times when you need to head in to the school and again it is you, the single parent, that needs to take the time to take care of it. And you hope that your supervisor and colleagues understand. We face many of the same challenges that single/working parents in the US face, with the additional challenge of being far from familial and other support systems.

The “helpful” colleague/supervisor. It is super awesome when co-workers or supervisors decide that you really can have it all and that of course you would love some more time away from the kids. After all you joined the Foreign Service! For instance your post has some opportunities for some 2-4 week TDYs. You are interested but cannot realistically work out the child care (you would after all have to buy the plane ticket for your child and the nanny). That is ok, says your colleague, just leave your child behind with the nanny. Problem solved! Except your child is under five.

Or when facing the very real possibility of a post evacuation (that did not in the end materialize) your supervisor suggests you ship your children to someone so that you can concentrate on your job. Or the opposite is the overly accommodating supervisor who, as one single parent mentioned, bend so far over backwards to be understanding that you miss opportunities, like TDY assignments.

Stereotypes. Single parents are divorced. Single parents have contentious relationships with the other parent. Single parents are female. Single parents are unlikely to be in the Foreign Service. And these categorizations extend to our children – our kids have discipline problems and trouble adjusting. It is all over the Internet, so it must be true!

I do not often think on these stereotypes, after all, I have never been married, have a good relationship with my daughter’s father, and we are, in general, rocking the FS life. We come to be single parents in so many ways, sometimes through divorce or separation, sometimes due to the death of a spouse, sometimes by choice, by natural birth or adoption. So when these stereotypes come to the fore it can be surprising and upsetting. We may face uncomfortable questions. We sometimes feel excluded – we are not the singles without kids, we are not the married without kids, we are not the married with kids. And worst of all, our children might be teased or bullied.

The Benefits

Affordable help. This is HUGE. Granted it is not as inexpensive as one may think (as one particularly unenlightened defense colleague said to me before heading to Indonesia – “you can hire a maid for like one cent a day!” No buddy, you cannot). I paid US$800/month in Mexico and US$900/month in China, not including overtime or bonuses, for a live-out nanny. Even when the children no longer need a nanny, our ability to afford household help in many (but not all) posts overseas gives us more time to spend with our children. As one single parent told me, “When you are home, you aren’t just washing and cooking and cleaning – you can pay attention to the kids!”

Community Support. Most of us have found support in our Embassy/Consulate communities around the world, both amongst our colleagues and local staff, as well as other expats and host nation friends. “[My] biggest surprise was how supportive my little communities are (other friends – male and female, and parents – moms and dads – single and otherwise) to help me fill in the gaps.”

At this very moment, as I am trying to piecemeal the final draft of this essay, I am serving as duty officer and the duty phone has been ringing off the hook. A colleague contacted me and asked if she could take my daughter for a few hours to give me some time to handle the duty calls. She even brought me food! We all are grateful to such colleagues who understand the demands of the FS and are willing to lend a hand when we need it.

Teachable Moments. Although approximately thirty percent of US children grow up in single parent households, single parent families are underrepresented in the FS. Like any member of the Foreign Service, we are the face of the US while serving overseas. We may not always want to be the representative of a group, and this may seem an odd thing to consider a benefit, but this is an opportunity to show people in our host country, and sometimes even our colleagues, that single parents are more than stereotypes.

When in the Basic Consular Course at FSI we study about citizenship. In general an unmarried citizen mother with a non-citizen father has fewer requirements to transmit citizenship. During my course, the instructor made a joke about unmarried mothers and their offspring using a word that starts with “b” and rhymes with “mastered.” At the time my daughter was five months old and it had not yet occurred to me this word would ever be used to describe her. I did not know how I felt about it. So afterwards I approached the instructor and let him know I was a single mother and he may want to consider his audience. The instructor immediately apologized, said the context had not occurred to him, and that from thereon forward he would not use that joke.

Other Benefits. Many single parents reported to me that the material and cultural benefits are a major advantage, and a reason why they stay in for the long haul. The free housing and generous educational allowances that allow our children to attend some pretty amazing international and/or boarding schools are significant. Add in the month-long R&Rs and home leave, and children of separated parent travel, and the very un-American four weeks of vacation, and the perks of the FS shine through.

The Bottom Line

In a survey of FS single parents to sum up their experience in the FS lifestyle, I initially received nothing. Zero. Nada. Seriously, single parents in the Foreign Service have no time to answer informal surveys!

On round two of my informal survey the overwhelming response was that despite the difficulties, being a single parent in the Foreign Service is not only rewarding for both the parent and the children, but is also by and large considered easier than being a single parent in the US. Here are just some of the comments I received:

“The amazing cultural and educational opportunities for the kids.”

“The Foreign Service has given me the opportunity to bring my girls all over the world, introducing them to all sorts of cultures where women have large roles.”

“We are a family that is extraordinarily lucky, blessed beyond words, because I have her, she has me, and we live a very diverse, culturally rich, and extremely privileged life.”

“Even if I leave before mandatory retirement age I will not regret the career choice and tours I’ve had because they’ve all shaped me personally and helped all of us grow as citizens of a fascinating world.”

We may require a little bit of lead time to make child care arrangements, but once done, we dedicate ourselves to our jobs like any other officer. We are Foreign Service Officers. Not that we don’t sometimes second guess ourselves or some days find ourselves exhausted by the challenges. Not that we do not sometimes wonder why in the world we are doing this, dragging our kid(s) around the world away from our home country and family. But overall the benefits outweigh the challenges. You can not only survive in the Foreign Service but thrive and so will your kids. Single parents are represented in every level of the Foreign Service from the entry level officer to Ambassadors. We are specialists and generalists and in all of the Foreign Affairs Agencies: State Department, USAID, Foreign Commercial Services, and the Foreign Agricultural Services.

Oh, and our kids? Our kids are awesome.

Practical Thoughts/Advice

• Accept help (even if you have to pay for it). When traveling, instead of torturing yourself by lugging all your suitcases and kids on your own, pay the money for the luggage cart or porter service. There are even door-to-door delivery services! Believe you me, staged movement of the luggage and child at 50 foot visible intervals across the airport is no decent way to travel. Not that I have ever done that. You will be amazed at the kindness of others. Children are cherished in almost every country around the world and in my experience people will step in and help. In China not only do people hold my daughter’s hand on the escalator, lift her on or off transportation, or open doors for me with the stroller, but they are giddy with excitement for having helped. And those at post who offer to watch your child/children? Take advantage! I found myself reluctant to accept, after all, surely they were offering in jest to spend hours with a child completely unrelated to them. But look, if they did not want to help they would not have offered to help, right? Also, be sure to reciprocate – host their kids for a play date, take care of their pets while they are on vacation, buy them lunch, etc.

• Be realistic with yourself and upfront with post/ supervisor. You are not Super Single Parent, even if it sometimes feels that way. No need to volunteer for every extra job under the sun to prove yourself-your colleagues are generally not doing this, why should you? Have a straightforward conversation with your supervisor about your situation and what you can and cannot do. Manage expectations. And if circumstances change – you can take on more or you need to step back a little – have that conversation again.

• Remember that most people really do not understand the demands of being a single parent. The vast majority of suggestions and comments you encounter that seem unthinking are coming from a well-meaning place. You are likely just as unfamiliar with their personal experiences, right? If the time is appropriate gently bring them into the circle of trust, otherwise do as Queen Elsa and my toddler often sing and “Let it Go.”

• Although many of us single parents likely remember our Consular training on passports, it does not hurt to remind you that children under 16 require both parents to sign for their passport. In many instances you will need a notarized Form DS-3053: Statement of Consent. Also when traveling many countries may require a notarized letter consenting travel without the other parent. If you are the only parent noted on the birth certificate, then the birth certificate is good for passport and travel. http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/passports/under-16.html

• Have a plan. An emergency could be an authorized or ordered departure, or a medical emergency that leaves you indisposed, or should something happen to your child while you are on TDY, etc. Designate a family member in the US, create a power of attorney for one or two Americans at post, and when your child is old enough, talk to them about the plan and what to do in an emergency.