November 7, 2015 by trs

Sick, Abroad

I am writing this post from the comfort, or, er, sometimes discomfort, of my Medevac (Medical Evacuation) to Washington, DC. This post however is NOT about my Medevac.

Someday, I might be able to write about this, after I have put some distance between myself and this whole crazy, stressful, yet, I hope and believe, ultimately positive experience.

To keep my mind off the current situation my mind has turned to some of my past experiences when I have found myself a bit more than just under the weather while overseas. The pre-Foreign Service, pre-Medevacs times.

There have been those days when I just did not feel right. You know those days, they happen to everyone. But when you are traveling or living solo in a foreign country those days may feel all the more bewildering and lonely.

So there was that time I had my appendix out in Japan.

In January 2000, a few days after returning to my teaching job after a lovely Christmas and New Year’s getaway to Australia, I came down with an excruciating stomach pain. It started an hour or so after eating, the pain building by the hour. Eventually, convinced I had a terrible bout with food poisoning, I called my Japanese friend Tomomi who called the local ambulance to collect me.

I lived in the small town of Kogushi, which in Japanese means “little stick,” (which I found rather appropriate) located on the famous San-In coastline of Yamaguchi prefecture. I was half way through my third and final year of teaching English at the local high school. I not only taught at the school up the street but once a week, on Thursdays, at another high school in the next county over, and alternating on Tuesdays a school for the deaf located about 45 minutes away, and the local hospital school. The hospital school was adjacent to the small county hospital, and this is where the ambulance took me.

Tomomi, a student in my three times a month adult class, who had become a close friend, however met me at the hospital to assist. Though I had thought it to be a very bad case of food poisoning it turned out to be appendicitis; I was scheduled for emergency surgery the following morning.

I learned a lot from my time in Japanese hospital. I quickly learned the Japanese words for IV, pain, nurse, doctor, and all manner of hospital-ese. I have forgotten them all except for “appendix.” Pronounced “moe-cho” I thought it sounded like “mo-jo” and I like to say I had my mo-jo removed in Japan. I also learned how amazing a health care system can work. The ambulance, albeit in a small town, arrived quickly, and was also free. My whole bill came to about $800. This included the operation, my two days in a private room, and four days in a shared room, everything. As an employee through the Japanese Ministry of Education, I was enrolled in the Japanese national health care system. Because my bill was less than $1000 I had to pay upfront, and then seek for reimbursement. To do so I filled out two pages, front and back, of simple paperwork – my name, address, date and type of illness, the procedures, the hospital information, and then the information of my post office savings account. Within ONE WEEK the entire amount was reimbursed directly into my account. I am still in awe of this efficiency all these years later.

Then there was that time (or rather the two times) I came down with food poisoning in Nepal.

On my next to last day in the country my two travel companions, A&P, and myself decided to celebrate with dinner at a recommended Western-food restaurant. P and I ordered the same delicious chicken dish. It was scrumptious. Then the next morning, around 6 am, my stomach cramped up. Bad. It was race to the restroom time. Again and again. Thankfully I had one of those wonderful backpacker rooms with the tiny bathrooms, which allows one to uh, excuse me, well, you might know where I am going with this. (If you have been a sick backpacker abroad with one of those closet sized rooms then I am sure you and I are on the same page).

After hours of this I walked, or rather crawled, up a flight or two to A&P’s room to discover that P too had had a disagreement with dinner. I had planned for a final day of sightseeing before heading to the airport the following day, but the most I did was walk really, really slowly to a place where I could buy beverages to keep me alive curled up in my room. A&P stayed on another few days and A took P to the doctor who confirmed food poisoning.

That was in the Spring of 2001. Fast forward to Fall 2002 and I find myself back in Kathmandu for a week. I planned to finally take the trip out to UNESCO World Heritage Site Boudhanath Stupa and then Pashupatinath, Nepal’s most important Hindu temple. These were the same sites I had missed the previous visit and to celebrate my plan I went to the same restaurant and also had the chicken. Was it really so shocking that in the middle of the night, around 1 am, I woke up with a familiar and unfortunate feeling? I tempted fate and it came back and bit me.

Yet I was determined. Though up most of the night with my, uh, issues, I dragged my weak, dehydrated self out to Boudhanath and then for extra measure walked the 2+ kilometer walk to Pashupatinath. The walk revived me some and my initial impressions of the temple were positive; it was colorful and the cultural importance and the comings and goings fascinating. However, then the smoke from the funeral pyres started to get to me, my stomach reminded me of its’ earlier malcontent, and I unfortunately caught site of a body part in a pyre alongside the river and I knew I had to get out of there.

I suppose getting food poisoning twice by the same restaurant in Kathmandu trumped the time I came down with a terrible bout of stomach issues following a cooking class in Thailand. I did not know whether to blame the green papaya or chicken from the wet market or my preparation of said items.

And then there was the time I came down with the mumps as an adult…

Yes, you read that right. And yes I did in fact receive the MMR vaccination as a child.

After I returned from that second bought of Nepalese food poisoning, I had a weeks of finals in Singapore, and then I flew to Bangkok to begin approximately seven weeks of backpacking in Thailand, Laos, and Burma for winter vacation (oh, I miss graduate school). In Bangkok my jaw started to ache, in a way it had never ached before. The following morning before I flew to Chiang Rai I had a lump on my jaw and felt queasy. By the time the plane landed I could hardly stand and my jaw had swollen even more. I made it to a guesthouse, checked in, got my pack to my room, and then stumbled down to the front desk area to ask if there were a clinic nearby. When I explained I could not walk to one even 500 meters away, a man in the lobby jumped to his feet and declared he would take me on his motorbike. He not only took me to the clinic, but he also waited with me and during my appointment, took me to the pharmacy, and then back to the guesthouse. When I tried to offer him payment he stated he was a Thai policeman and that is job was to help people. Awesome.

The doctor had told me that I had “mume.”which seemed a mysterious illness indeed. I put on a hoodie to cover my misshapen face and then secreted out to an Internet café where I used one of those online medical sites to input my symptoms and voila – mumps. I made sure to purchase a fair amount of beverages so that once again I could sequester myself to my room. I also bought a packet of pumpkin seeds – one of my favorite backpacker snacks – and after eating maybe three of them that caused my jaw to throb for hours afterward I was very, very sorry.

I read my Paul Theroux book and played many, many hands of solitaire with the deck of cards I used to always carry in my pack. After a week I felt well enough to move on – to the Thailand/Laos border to continue my trip, including a two day slow boat down the Mekong River.

Besides these rather unforgettable experiences I have had a few other opportunities to experience medical care overseas – I had my first sigmoidscopy in Tunisia, an emergency doctor visit in Singapore when my fever spiked and my hotel implemented their SARS protocol (I was SARS-free), my first pregnancy ultrasound in Jakarta, and a fun emergency room trip in Tasmania the night before a half marathon.

Thinking over all of these experiences reminded me that while I did feel pretty awful at the time, I did recover. And I shall recover from this too (the procedure was successful and I am on the mend). And maybe someday I will be able to write about it.

October 17, 2015 by trs

What China is This?

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.

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.

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.

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:

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:

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.

But 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.

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.

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.

October 4, 2015 by trs

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Another sunrise.

July 25, 2015 by trs

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.

May 8, 2015 by trs

5 Pros and Cons on Being Posted to Ciudad Juarez

I enjoyed the exercise of writing up the pros and cons of living in Shanghai so much I thought I will go ahead and do one for my previous post Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

PROS
1. Proximity to the US: Goods & Services. It is a little odd to find oneself posted “abroad” or “overseas” and yet be able to drive to the US in as little as ten minutes, with no seas whatsoever to go over. In this aspect I found Ciudad Juarez actually to be a post that could spoil a US diplomat. I arrived in Juarez with a six month old baby and did not once need to consider what size diapers or how many containers of formula or any kind of configuration for a consumables shipment. I did no massive shopping splurge before the departure to squirrel away US toiletries or medicines or laundry detergents or any number of hard to find US goodies into my Household Effects (HHE) shipment. There was no need. I knew I could drive to the US every weekend if I wanted. Heck, I could drive over after work.

You will pass this sign many, many, many times.

Worried about what car to buy when considering what kind of service or parts you may find in country X? Well, I just drove my car over to El Paso for gas and servicing most of the time. Need a doctor? I found a great pediatric office in El Paso for my daughter that even had evening and weekend hours! I had several medical procedures done across the border. I could be back the same day, taking only a half day of leave. And my cell phone service – I not only kept the same US phone and AT&T plan (though with a US-Mexico addition), but in certain corners of my Juarez home I had a signal!

2. Proximity to the US: Travel. Unfortunately, most of the State of Chihuahua is off limits due to insecurity, but a posting to Juarez presents the opportunity to explore the US Southwest.

Catch a game at the Chihuahuas Southwest University Park

Texas. El Paso itself is actually a pretty nice city. Enjoy minor league baseball at the stadium of the El Paso Chihuahuas, spend a day at the zoo, hiking or biking or running or taking the cable car in the Franklin Mountains, see a movie at the canyon or dance in the plaza. Visit the mysterious lights and past movie celebrity of Marfa or the National Historic Site and a Star Party at McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis. Explore the beauty of west Texas national parks like Guadalupe Mountains or Big Bend.

New Mexico. Search for aliens in Roswell, soak in the mineral baths of the game-show named Truth or Consequences, discover the excellent Pancho Villa State Park and museum in almost forgotten Colombus, wander in artistic and historic Santa Fe, trek and sled across the otherworldly dunes of White Sands National Monument, and ooh and aah the colorful ascension at Albuquerque during the world’s largest hot air balloon festival. Or explore Carlsbad Caverns National Park, ski at Ruidoso or Cloudcroft, or if you are into the final frontier follow New Mexico’s Space Trail, among many, many pursuits.

Dawn ascension at the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Festival

Further Afield. Travel around the US is within easy reach. The El Paso airport, though small, has a fairly good network of flights plus a bargain $5 a day long term parking, from which you can walk to the terminal. There are few places where you will be posted in the Foreign Service where you can fly to visit family or friends in the US for the weekend, without needing to take any leave.

3. The People. Despite all the violence and heartache the people of the city have been through, the Juarences are warm and friendly. My neighbors were kind and helpful (except that guy on the corner with the two mean free-roaming Chihuahuas who had the early morning mariachi party – see CONS). My nanny, a tough independent minded grandmother, had a heart of gold. And the local staff at the Consulate is absolutely wonderful. There is a reason that not only do we all leave Juarez with local friends but that probably more officers than any other post in the world marry Juarences.

4. Climate. Hot and dry. If you like that then you are in for a treat. The morning temperature is usually 20 to 30 degrees cooler than the high around 3 pm. This may mean a cold 30 degree morning in January that could warm up to 50 or 60 in the afternoon! Of course in summer this may mean 70 in the morning and a blazing 100 by afternoon but the humidity is low. Neighboring El Paso, TX, is nicknamed “Sun City” for its 302 days of sunshine a year. Weather-wise, what goes for El Paso, goes for Juarez. And the dazzling blue sky of the Chihuahua desert is truly one of the highlights of a tour in Juarez. Those skies and the incredible sunsets they produced. Here in high-rise, low air quality Shanghai, I miss them deeply.

Sunset over my Juarez neighborhood. One of the many, many beautiful sunsets Juarez gifted to me.

5. Dental/Medical Care. During a Mexican expat panel discussion in DC, an overriding theme emerged – Mexicans like to go back to Mexico for dental care. Why? They are well trained, often in the US, and they offer excellent work at excellent prices. I took advantage of this and had cleanings and several fillings replaced. My daughter had her first dental experience in Juarez. Besides the friendly and professional care we received, the dentist’s hours were a huge plus. She was open Mon-Fri from 10 am to 2 pm and again 4 pm to 8 pm, also Sat 10 to 2. How convenient! I also took my daughter to a pediatrician at the local hospital, within walking distance of both my home and the Consulate, open 4 pm to 8 pm in the evenings with appointment. Just feeling a bit under the weather? Head to a nearby pharmacy where doctors have consultation hours and charge less than US$20. Plus our Consulate also had a really fantastic nurse. We were not sick often in Juarez, but I was glad we had so many great options when we were.

CONS
1. Violence. Earning the epithet “Murder Capital of the World” just a few years ago, Juarez is a danger pay post and for good reason. Although the situation has been improving, and this improvement has been featured in articles in the New York and LA Times and even an International Crisis Group report, murders, disappearances, extortion, carjackings and other violent crimes are still common in the city and throughout the state of Chihuahua. The murder rate dropped from over 2,000 in 2011 to almost 600 in 2013, which is still higher than the murder rate of any US city.

A stark reminder. At the memorial recognizing the hundreds of Juarez feminicides.

Although I never felt personally unsafe or concerned about the safety of my daughter, there were times when the atmosphere of violence closed in. Over the course of the two years there were three armed events at the nice mall across the street from the Consulate (and within walking distance of my house) including the shooting of a fitness center receptionist. A policeman was shot two blocks from my house, on my running route. A quadruple homicide occurred in a garage that I had run by a few times, another happened in a popular Italian restaurant frequented by Consulate workers. I heard gunshots more than once. Also, sadly, one of our own local staff members was shot and killed in front of his family.

I did not think I would have need for this service in the desert, but yes, mosquitoes are also a problem.

2. Wildlife. The first time I found a scorpion in the house some five weeks after our arrival I was a bit dumbfounded. I found it on the second floor of the house and I spent a long time wondering how it had found its way there. Had it crawled along the wall? Through some ducts? Up the stairs? The second time I noticed the cats playing with something on top of my baby’s play mat. The nanny came over, looked at it, and pronounced alacran in the same way one might say, “Oh look, it’s a puppy!” She declared it dead. But as I went to scoop it up in a cup, it scampered away. The nanny shrugged, “At least it is not a tarantula.”

Another day playing outside with my daughter a friendly, English-speaking neighbor came over to tell me, “You should be careful around those rocks, because, um, I cannot remember the word in English, because, because…” She conferred with a friend in Spanish. “Oh, yes, the black widow spiders, yes, they like to hide in there.”

3. Dust. It is everywhere. Juarez and its sprawling 1.5 million population is an island in the Chihuahuan desert, the largest desert in North America. Beyond the city limits there are miles and miles and miles of sand. During wind storms, often in the early part of the year, the wind lifts all that sand and blows it everywhere. Imagine that sand on your clothes, on your car, in your garage, your house, your lungs…

4. Cost. This might come as a bit of a surprise, but you are so close to the border many things cost the same as in the US. This will include your child care. I did not pay as much as I would in DC, but I paid almost as much in Juarez as I do in Shanghai. Some things actually cost less in the US, like baby/child supplies and toys, as evidenced by the hundreds, if not thousands, of Juarences who cross the border daily for shopping. For other things be prepared to shell out money double time. Driving to the US (except on the Free bridge) will cost a toll of $2.50 and $3.00 on the way back. You will need both US and Mexican car insurance. You will also need to apply for the SENTRI card to access the express lane for the US and of course the Mexican equivalent on the other side. You may need two phone plans or at least a special US-Mexico plan.

5. Middle of the night Mariachi/Norteño band parties. Like ones that start at 2 am, early on a Wednesday morning, without warning, at your neighbor’s house, and continues until 3 or 4 or…

May 3, 2015 by trs

5 Pros and Cons on Being Posted to Shanghai

Several other Foreign Service bloggers are putting forth posts on the five pros and cons of their city/country. This might be a post better written with more time under my belt, but what the heck, here it is:

PROS
1. Things to do. There is no shortage of things to do in your spare time in Shanghai. Are you into museums? Shanghai reportedly has over 70 museums with something for everybody. These include large world-class spaces such as the China Art Museum, the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, the Shanghai Museum, and the newly reopened, refurbished Shanghai Natural History Museum. Yet you can also find lesser known museums such as the Shanghai Post Museum, the Shanghai Museum of Glass, the Shanghai Museum of Public Security, and the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center, which is so much cooler and fascinating than its title leads one to believe. There are also the little one or two room gems such as the Propaganda Poster Museum or the Shanghai Chopsticks Museum.

Are you interested in history? Although Shanghai cannot compete with the 600+ year history of Beijing, its history is nonetheless fascinating. Stroll through tree lined streets of the former International Settlement or French Concession area to see beautiful homes from the 1920s and 1930s during Shanghai’s celebrated and turbulent coming of age. Or stroll along the iconic Bund on a sunny day and contemplate the historic waterfront, then turn to look across the Huangpu River at the modern high rises of Pudong.

Do you like hills and nature? You might not believe it but Shanghai’s highest peak, Sheshan Hill, is surrounded by Sheshan National Forest Park and the 10 acre Chenshan Botanical Garden, one of the largest in the world, is nearby. You can also find restored Shikumen, a type of residential neighborhood popularized in Shanghai in the early 20th century, with winding narrow lanes filled with boutique stores and restaurants. The most famous are Xintiandi and TianziFang. Within Shanghai limits you can visit several ancient water towns, think Venice with a Chinese flair. There is a zoo and an aquarium and a wild animal park. If you like amusement parks Shanghai has several with the Shanghai Disneyland set to open in early 2016.

Of course there are also restaurants and bars galore serving all manner of cuisines and atmosphere. For kids there are indoor play areas, parks, and summer camps. If you like to watch sports you might be interested in Shanghai’s Formula One or the Rolex Masters. If you like to participate there is anything from tai chi in the park to the international marathon. There are even several vertical marathons, given Shanghai also boasts some of the highest buildings in the world. There are world-class stages where you may to see such performances as Chinese Opera or Katy Perry.

It is quite obvious I could go on and on and on. Yet I do not have the space and unfortunately even if you stayed here more than one tour, you would be hard pressed to see and do it all.

Don’t hate me because my apartment is beautiful.

2. Housing. You will not be disappointed with your home in Shanghai. A common complaint in the Foreign Service is the Drexel Heritage furniture that you find wherever you go, whether posted to Jakarta or Juarez or Tbilisi or Timbuktu, but here in Shanghai you get a break from Drexel (or DrexHell as some lovingly call it) as all the housing is furnished in house. All are serviced apartments or villas with at least twice weekly housecleaning service. The amenities and conveniences in each of the housing options are numerous. Whatever your day brings you, your home in Shanghai is nice to return to.

3. Travel. Even with the incredible number of things to do in Shanghai you do occasionally need to get out of town. No problem. Shanghai has four main rail stations that will take you to famous nearby destinations such as Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing. The high speed rail will whisk you to Beijing in only five hours. Or head to one of Shanghai’s two international airports and head off to Chengdu to see pandas or Hainan Island for beaches or any number of incredible Chinese destinations. Or if you are tired of China, flights out of Pudong head to over 70 international destinations, with frequent flights to Southeast Asia.

4. Energy. There is a spirit and energy in Shanghai that is infectious. Although entrepreneurship is not easy in China, and sometimes the local government runs afoul of Beijing, people in Shanghai are making things happen. There is a buzz and hum to the streets. Seeing some of the tallest buildings in the world rise up to the sky and beautiful feats of architecture and innovation in the form of incredible new museums is astounding. When I first visited Shanghai in 2002 there were three metro lines with a total of 35 stations, today there fourteen lines with a total of 337 stations. People in Shanghai are literally moving and shaking! There are most certainly many wealthy people in the city (see the cons) and a certain amount of capital is required to make projects move, but it is the everyday people, both foreign and local, that are shaping the future of this city and beyond. It makes you want to do more yourself!

5. Work. There are plenty of pundits which define the U.S. – China bilateral relationship as one of the most important in the world. Of course all diplomatic work matters, but diplomatic work done in China is most definitely on the radar in Washington and Beijing. In whichever city you work, in whatever section you work, your contribution to the team effort is important. As part of the massive U.S. Consular effort in China, know that each tourist you approve to visit the U.S. spends an average of $5,400 during their trip. Every sixteen Chinese tourists to the U.S. supports one U.S. job. Last year that meant 1.8 million Chinese tourists spent over 2.1 billion dollars in the U.S. That number is expected to grow in 2015.

Pollution mask or no pollution mask? That is the question.

CONS
1. Poor Air Quality. It is very unfortunate with all the wonderful things that Shanghai has to offer that the pollution levels are at times too bad to spend much time outdoors. You will quickly bookmark the Consulate’s Air Quality Monitor link and even if a quick look out your window tells you the air is bad, you still check the AQM to find out just how bad.

2. Internet Access. You have probably heard by now that the Chinese government tightly controls access to the Internet and/or rather certain sites on the Internet. Over 2,700 sites actually. All you want to do is read the news on BBC, or get on to Facebook to post your latest photos from another day out in fabulous Shanghai, or send an email from your Gmail account, or watch a video on YouTube, or post to your WordPress blog, but every single one of these sites is inaccessible through the domestic Internet. In order to access such sites one must employ a Virtual Private Network (VPN) and it is a constant (and frustrating) cat and mouse game.

3. Costs. In 2014 Forbes ranked Shanghai the 10th most expensive city in the world. I talked about the high prices of many items in my post Lap of Luxury. There is a good reason that Foreign Service officers receive a 50% Cost of Living Adjustment here. Still I wonder who buys all of these luxury goods? Who can afford 200 RMB (US$32) for half a pound of cherries? The millionaires of course! Shanghai also ranks in the top ten cities with the most number of millionaires, over 166,000. There are also over 1000 multimillionaires and approximately 23 billionaires. If you have preschool aged children and want to send them to an international preschool (State Department does NOT cover this) get ready to fork out the dough. The average cost is US$24,000 a year. For preschool!

4. Crowded/Lack of Privacy. There are over 14 million people living in Shanghai so it is a pretty good assumption you will never, ever be alone. If you make the mistake of heading to IKEA or the Science and Technology museum on a rainy Saturday (guilty on both counts) be prepared for the deafening crowds. If you attempt to stop to look at a display it is very likely you will be carried away with the flow. I have had bags ripped from my hands on the subway as people jostled to get on and off the train. Once I even nearly lost hold of my three year old in a similar crowd and it was a terrifying moment. And speaking of adorable blonde three year old cherubs; if you happen to have one or two, cameras will constantly be pointed at your child. A quick stop to check a map and I can look up to find we are surrounded by cell phone camera wielding Chinese. If you look anything other than Chinese, then when out and about, it can feel a bit like living in a fishbowl.

5. Work. You will be busy. Very, very busy. As awesome as it is to be part of something as significant as the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, it is also important to have some downtime to enjoy some of Shanghai’s numerous diversions. There are many days when I simply do not have the energy to leave the apartment again once home. (good thing for #2 in the Pros)

EDIT: Honorable Mention PRO: I have already received a few messages letting me know I have been remiss in not mentioning two very fabulous aspects of any Shanghai/China tour. One would be massages. I hear ya. There is a massage place on just about every other block and if you can get off the main drag they are more than reasonably priced. Another is shopping. This country is the manufacturer of the world after all. Yet I am not talking about clothes and knock off electronics. Of course you can buy lovely chopstick sets, hand painted perfume bottles, and have your name carved into a Chinese chop. There are also furniture shops and pearl markets. So when the cons start to get you down have a massage to melt the stress away or indulge in a little retail therapy.

May 1, 2015 by trs

Three Months in Shanghai: The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Disgusting

Three months. Wow. I can hardly believe it. Here we are now one-eighth of the way through my two year tour. All of my Household Effects (HHE) have been delivered. The apartment is set up. C is in swim lessons. The nanny is working out great. I got the visa interviewing thing down.

When I started to think about this post, I wanted to write about all the great things C and I have seen and done since our arrival. Shanghai is a city chock full of things to do, places to visit, activities to experience.

Then it happened, that magical time in the cultural adaptation cycle when the honeymoon is over and you start to kinda, sorta, really, really, become bothered by little things. Sometimes Every. Little. Thing. Culture Shock.

Yeah, there I am, right there in that trough.

Early this week I was walking to work the “short cut” way. It is not really a short cut in the true sense of the word. It is basically the same number of blocks, just less traffic on the “back way” allows for opportunities to jaywalk and thus arrive at one’s destination faster.

Anyway, I am walking along that road and get to this section of sidewalk that is just so disgustingly dirty that sometimes when I walk on it I slide. This section of sidewalk is only for half a block. It is caked with filth and for whatever reason a bulldozer is parked on one part of it. That morning I saw another person approaching me on the road rather than the grimy segment, and I too decided I would prefer the street.Of course I do not believe the street any cleaner however I do not expect a street to be clean and the sidewalk is an affront to my sense of order.

I thought to myself: I have been here for three whole months and no one has even attempted to clean this sidewalk. It is in a nice section of town and there it sits all mucky. Someone should power wash this sidewalk! I generally dislike power washing sidewalks because it seems like such a waste of water, but this here sludgy, slimy sidewalk screams “power wash me!” And I will probably walk this way on my last day to work in two years and it will STILL be sickening slick and revolting. It will never, ever, ever be cleaned.

I hate that sidewalk.

And the “work in progress” site that is directly in front of the Cartier store that has been in progress for three whole months without any visible work being done EVER.

Art installation or social experiment maybe, but certainly not a work in progress.

And then while buying a salad in the swank Isetan department store the cashier, before giving me my change, turned back from the register, cleared her throat in the classic Chinese style, and hocked a loogie into the trashcan in front of me. Nice one lady. That sound may haunt me for weeks.

And there is the pollution. It makes me crazy that my top used bookmark for Shanghai is the Consulate’s Air Quality Monitor. Is it a face mask worthy day? Or a just don’t bother going outside at all kind of day?

Hey, wanna play outside? Hang on, let me just get my air pollution mask with exhale valve.

And those people who ride the elevator in in our work building. Those ones, who even when they see you coming or even that you are right behind them, start pushing the door close button as soon as they can; I got hit with the doors pretty hard on Monday. Thanks a million lady. I hope one day you need a visa and you happen to get in my line… (I know, I know, undiplomatic thoughts, bad)

And as I predicted in my post Lap of Luxury, I have grown irritated running the luxury brand gauntlet to and from work. Or basically whenever I leave my apartment. After three months of passing a window display of a sweet pair of Ferragamo shoes on my daily commute, I finally went in to ask the price. Big mistake.

See that lovely pale blue shoe on the left? Only 7,200 RMB or $1150. I hope it comes with a second one for free.

So, this is actually a really, really, really good time to remind myself of the many good things we have already experienced

I have a long list of things I want to see and do in Shanghai and I have most certainly not been remiss is getting out and about. In the category of temples we have visited touristy Jing’An Temple and the quiet, reserved Temple of the Jade Buddha.

Temple of the Jade Buddha

We went to the top of the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower and even sauntered out on the glass bottom walkway. Especially for C we visited the Shanghai Aquarium and M&Ms World.

C and her stuffed cat contemplate Shanghai from the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower.

I have also dragged her to the Shanghai City Museum, the Shanghai Municipal History Museum, the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, the Shanghai Postal Museum, and the Propaganda Poster Museum. To C’s credit she usually promptly drops off to sleep to give me time to enjoy the exhibits.

The incredible scale model of the city at the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum.

I have been through the culture shock rigmarole quite a few times and I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That sidewalk might bother me for awhile (especially if it is never, ever cleaned and/or that bulldozer never, ever moved) but the bright side is we have sidewalks, right? Not every place does. Just trying to keep things in perspective.

April 5, 2015 by trs

Hanging in Hangzhou

“Above there is Heaven, below there is Suzhou and Hangzhou” ~ really old Chinese saying

Well, I wouldn’t go THAT far, but it turned out better than expected given the weather.

Murphy’s Law: The day before, even the day of, our departure to Hangzhou was lovely. Then once we were on our way it wasn’t. Our first trip outside of Shanghai since we arrived 9 weeks ago and the weather was terrible. I cannot be exactly sure, but it may have begun to rain the minute our high-speed train departed Hongqiao Station.

And it kept raining.

Through the train journey. Through the ride in the taxi to our Hangzhou hotel. Through the night. And through our first day.

I had wanted for years to visit Hangzhou and had certainly been looking forward to this trip (almost desperately) for weeks and now…

Queen Elsa and Princess Elsa seem as disappointed as I contemplating the poor weather.

We had breakfast in our room and I poured over the Hangzhou tourist brochure looking for something, almost anything, that we could do on a rainy day. But even the tea museum had an outdoor component. So I gave in.

I decided our first day would just be a relaxing day at the hotel. Just C and I. And I looked at the bright side.

I managed our first trip in China. Getting C and I to the train station on the metro and then to Hangzhou with the two of us sharing a single seat on the one hour journey. I managed, with the help of my little spitfire, to get us from the Hangzhou train station to our hotel. Surrounded by taxi touts refusing en masse to use their meters and tossing out crazy, inflated numbers. As I walked away and they followed, C yelled at them “Leave my mommy alone. BU KEYI!” Yes, in Chinese she told them to basically buzz off. (Well, she said “Cannot!” but I know what she meant.”) I negotiated from 80 RMB ($12.80) to 50 RMB ($8). (Though of course, as I learned later, the real meter cost is 12 RMB or $1.92).

We had a lovely lunch at the hotel and then we went to get a foot massage. Or rather I did while C enjoyed the adjacent chair – in our private room! – with her iPad and then fell asleep for her nap. This is the first massage I have had since a post-partum one within a month of C’s birth. I also read a book. Gasp!

We enjoyed an hour swim together in the hotel pool and then dinner. The hotel had a Tex-Mex promotion and did not do half bad. Sure, I had never before had Mexican Lasagna, but it was very tasty.

When I threw open the curtains on day two to find another overcast, grey day however, I felt a bit defeated. I debated just cutting our loses and heading back to Shanghai whether I received a refund on the third night at the hotel or not. I did not know however if I could get a ticket back on the train. It was a holiday weekend after all. And then, through the clouds, I saw a little glint of sunlight hit a nearby building. So I threw some clothes on C and myself and we headed out.

I thought I would first thing get a taxi to Hangzhou’s famed West Lake. But down in the lobby I thought to the glimpse of greenery, a park perhaps?, I had seen across the street with what looked like a traditional Chinese bridge. We would head there first to see and then back to the hotel for a taxi.

We did find not only a park but a canal filled with upgraded traditional dugout canal boats. In a little exercise park by the canal, friendly grandmas and grandpas getting in some workouts and moms and their kids out for a stroll, came over to check us out and chat us up. They were curious and sweet, testing my Chinese and practicing their English. One woman told us rather than head back to our hotel, why didn’t we head to the little canal boat dock on the other side of the bridge, and head down river a ways?

So we checked out the bridge, where we again became the subject of much kind interest and then over to the boat dock. Turns out the boats are canal taxis. They are fitted with mechanical transport card readers. I did not have a card of course and asked how much. I did not get far as a kind older woman motioned to me and C as she scanned her card three times. It was on the house. (I think it cost 3 RMB, or 48 cents, for a ride)

What a fantastic little trip! We meandered along the canal (or a river with incredibly tamed banks) for at least half an hour. I honestly lost track of time. Our canal trip benefactor took the opportunity to snap some pictures of C enjoying the boat (as did I) and since she had been so nice we both acquiesced to a photo with C on her lap and giving her a hug (because no one gets a photo like this unless C agrees). The canal was lined on both sides with a tree lined walking paths and periodically with covered Chinese gazebos where old people rested and watched the water, did exercise or played Chinese musical instruments. People walked their dogs. Moms and dads walked with their babies and children. The low clouds created a mist that only made it more inviting.

Just some of the beautiful scenes along the boat trip.

We were let off at the terminus where pretty little white houses with grey roofs and red lanterns lined the canal. We walked back a little along the canal path, underneath willows and plum trees in bloom. C ran and laughed. Geez, it was lovely.

Then we made our way on foot several blocks to West Lake. We stopped for lunch and unfortunately the skies opened up and buckets fell. Thankfully it started after we entered the restaurant and by lingering a bit longer it ended before we left. A few blocks more and we found the lake.

The weather was still overcast. Clouds hung low and the opposite bank, even boats on the water, could barely be seen through the mist. Still it was beautiful and, judging by the crowds, we were not the only ones longing for a stroll by the lake.

We walked for hours. C alternated between the stroller and running excitedly ahead. When it drizzled, we found refuge under the trees or in one of the lakeside gazebos or even once in a temple. King Qian’s Temple was a wonderful respite from the buzz of the Chinese crowds. It cost 15 RMB to get in and I was a bit hesitant at first, but I am so glad we took the time to visit. Just off the main path around the lake it was as if we were suddenly transported a long way away. The crowds were gone, only a handful of other people were inside, and it was so incredibly quiet.

Enjoying the tranquility of King Qian’s temple.

I did not make it all the way around the lake. I had no such anticipation when I started as it is expected to take approximately FIVE HOURS to do so. Yet I did not even make it to Leifeng Pagoda. C conked out in her stroller and I too became tired. So I made the decision to head back to the hotel but told myself that Hangzhou is worth another trip, soon.

About as close to the Leifeng Pagoda as we got. Not a bad view, despite the clouds.

I think C enjoyed the trip. The one part though that seemed to disappoint her is that we never did find “Joe.” Seems every time I mentioned going to “Hangzhou” she heard something about “Joe” (zhou in Chinese is pronounced quite similar to the name Joe). Even just now as I write this, while looking over the pictures of our trip, she said, “Next time let’s visit Joe.”

So there is likely to be a next time.

March 12, 2015 by trs

The Lap of Luxury

I work on the eighth floor of a posh mall on Shanghai’s most extravagant commercial street in the heart of China’s wealthiest city. As I walk to work I pass such stores as Cartier, Dolce & Gabbana, Chloé, Mont Blanc, Tiffany & Company, Fendi, Rolex… Inside the mall where I work are high-class stores such as the up-scale Japanese department store Isetan, Godiva (the chocolatier), Ermenegildo Zegna, Cerrutti 1881, Versace, Coach, and Burberry. Our applicants reflect this environment, some dressed to the nines and I have seen some of the most stylish nails around while fingerprinting (though I admit it, I have also seen some of the most hideous nails one could imagine).

My apartment is in one of the towers of the Shanghai Centre, part of Shanghai’s Portman Ritz Carlton hotel complex. This year Shanghai Centre is celebrating its 25th anniversary as Shanghai’s first multi-purpose building, and was once the tallest building in the city. Within the complex are offices, including several Consulates (like that for Ireland), restaurants, a supermarket, clinic, pharmacy, and theater (home to the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe, the oldest such troupe in Shanghai). Amongst the retailers at the Shanghai Centre are Salvatore Ferragamo, Christian Louboutin, Miu Miu, and Paul & Shark.

Inside my apartment, from where I sometimes have a breathtaking view across the city towards Pudong (when it is not obscured by a pollution haze), where I can make out half of the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower, there are wooden floors, marble countertops, and leather closet doors. (LEATHER CLOSET DOORS! Who in the world needs leather closet doors? Certainly not a woman with two cats with sharp claws!!) It is bright and inviting place to come home.

The supermarket is full of imports. The cheese selection is incredible. Twenty years ago there was imported cheese at a few upscale supermarkets, but the quality and quantity were far less. In 1994, as a student in China, I recall heading down to Sanlitun with several of my classmates. This was the area for the international stores, the Beijing World Trade Center, and Embassies. After more than a month traveling around China, even the more adventurous eaters amongst us were craving some goodies from home. I found a large block of cheddar cheese for US$10. I circled the store three, four times before I gave in and bought it. (My friends bought ice cream. Imagine four foreigners sitting on a city curb in the sweltering July heat; three eating ice cream, one gnawing on a block of cheese.)

Nowadays in the Shanghai Centre City Shop supermarket you can buy just about all you might want. Though a bag of Tostitos will cost you $7.80, a pack of shredded mozzarella for $7.60, a 250g package of light butter for $6.99, a 16 fluid oz jar of baby kosher dill pickles for $7.20, approximately $10 for a box of regular sized box of cereal, and the most expensive thing I have bought thus far was the 6.2 fluid oz of maple syrup for $19!! Shanghai is amongst the most expensive cities in the world, and for prices like these State Department employees do receive a 42% cost of living allowance (COLA). This is not an additional 42% of salary, but rather percentage of spendable income, calculated by the portion of salary expected to be used to purchase goods and services included in a market basket. It sure helps, because pancake Sunday with my daughter is not nearly so great without the maple syrup.

Walking back from the supermarket through the garage today, I passed multiple Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, BMW, Lexus, Jaguar, Land Rover, Audi, and Cadillacs. Yesterday, on a walk around the neighborhood I passed a Lamborghini. I feel rather relieved I decided to leave my classic, dependable, non-descript silver Honda Civic at home. Not just because I would have been a nervous wreck driving around Shanghai, but also as it would have stood out like a sore thumb.

There is one place that appears to stand out – the McDonald’s. It is located in the CITIC Square mall adjacent to our mall. Inside you will find such shops as Armani Collezioni, Lancel Paris, Max Mara, Givenchy, and Pandora. On the lower ground level you will find McDonald’s, across from Starbucks and Wagas, an upscale sandwich and salad shop, and cattycorner to Armani Jeans. Still this is a McCafe, with all the usual McDonald’s fare, but also quality coffee, delicate macaroons, and petit cakes. There are no wait staff or white table cloths, but it is not as incongruous as one might expect. The diners are generally dressed smarter than in the average U.S. McDonald’s.

It is not a bad place to be, this area where I work and live. It is an area of high fashion and low crime, short hemlines and high boots. It is smart and clean and bright, even after the sun sets. The sidewalks are broad and perfect for a stroll. But I am so conscious of the conspicuous commercialism, of the lavish affluence. The billboards, with their airbrushed models dressed in stylish clothing and shoes and handbags, stare down at me as I pass beneath them. I have once or twice eyed a smart handbag or chic dress, even stopping for a moment to look, before I snap back to reality and realize these ensembles would set me back a good chunk of a paycheck, if not the whole thing. I have only once owned an Armani dress, something a friend passed on to me before she moved abroad. You will also find some nice Nine West or Anne Klein shoes in my closet, as a sweet pair of high heels is one of the few things on which I will splurge. But mostly I am a recovering backpacker and though I love the clean lines of a beautiful well-made dress, I am most comfortable in an old, comfortable pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and flip-flops.

I can write about this now because although I am aware, it is not yet bothering me. Yet, I know there will be days when all of this lavishness is going to get to me. It will make me sad. It will make me angry. I know there are days when I am going to feel like a chump for spending what I do on a box of cereal or a small bottle of maple syrup. And it will occur to me that the cost of those items would probably feed a family of four for a week in some countries. Or that the cost of a single pair of deliciously gorgeous but ridiculously expensive Christian Louboutin shoes is about the equivalent of a plane ticket back to the US. I will feel small and powerless at times thinking about the global economy and the intersecting lines of wealth and poverty.

I know because I felt it acutely at some particularly low moments while living in Jakarta, as I slid up the escalator from the basement supermarket, hands full of groceries, in yet another designer mall, filled with wealthy well-coiffed Jakarta women with their Prada bags and Gucci watches and Chanel something or other, followed by two charmingly dressed children who were themselves each followed by plain-clothed, plain-faced minders. There are days it would make me feel so unimportant and unattractive and other days it just made the world feel ugly.

Thankfully, I know I can feel this way and knowing is half the battle, right? I have already found that even here on Nanjing Lu, behind the high fashion façade there are everyday people doing everyday things. Just a block or two away, you will find the fruit seller where you can buy blueberries and oranges and strawberries for a fraction of the cost of the Shanghai Centre City Shop. You can find supermarkets and beauty salons with more reasonable prices. You will see the colorful laundry hung out to dry from hundreds of windows of more common apartment buildings. And there are still Shanghaiese who travel on foot or via the metro or by motorbike or on bicycle instead of luxury car. I hope I can stave off the lows by regularly stepping off Nanjing Lu and exploring the streets behind the glitzy veneer. Nanjing Lu is Shanghai’s most well-known road, but it is not all there is to Shanghai.

February 20, 2015 by trs

Christmas in Bangladesh, December 1998

As part of my blog I am adding edited excerpts of stories I wrote on/of past travels.

This trip occurred several months before I started my first Internet account, so few if any of even my friends and family know of this story. I wrote part of this story on a few pieces of paper, which I happened to come across while unpacking my belongings in Shanghai! I will supplement with bits from my most-likely-faulty memories.

Last winter vacation I had planned to meet a friend of mine for a week in Thailand. This arrangement left me a week on my own before meeting her. I considered my options. I considered them a long time. By the time I called a travel agent my options were limited. “Where do you want to go?” the agent asked me (after informing me that many places no longer had flights available). “I don’t know. Anywhere. Bangladesh?”

She heard “Bangladesh” and phoned me a week later to confirm she had reserved my ticket. It hit me. I am going to Bangladesh. What in the world am I going to do there?
My destination of “choice” was met by mixed reactions with those I shared the news. My supervisor laughed and asked “Why do you always go to dirty places?” The Vice Principal laughed and waited for the punch line. Another teacher nervously told me I just should not go. Another asked if it were too late for me to cancel? The more people appeared to try to dissuade me to go, the more determined I became to have myself a fantastic time . Doing what, I was not sure, but I was going to have a grand time doing it in Bangladesh!

The first time through the Lonely Planet guidebook still left me wondering. It was a slim volume and easily half of it seemed to be taken up by the “Dangers and Annoyances” chapter. The things that stuck most in my mind were the deadly floods, cyclones, tigers, snakes, crocodiles and diseases. The second time through though I realized one week was not nearly enough time to scratch the surface of the country.

Bangladesh is hardly a tourist destination. The country has roughly the amount of tourists in a year that Thailand receives in an average week. The former tourism slogan was “See Bangladesh before the Tourists Do.” The country is one-fifth the size of Japan with approximately the same population. It has the highest population density of any country, with the exception of a few small city states. (and remains so today). Crisscrossing the country are three major rivers, the Padma (Ganges), the Jamuna, and the Meghna, which divide the country into four parts. Every year the heavy rains and the melting snow from the Himalayas inundate the rivers until they overflow their banks, making many places resemble a messy Asian Venice.

The country however also boasts the longest beach in the world, “shark-free” to boot (how they manage to keep the sharks away, I am not sure); and about two-thirds of the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to the last Royal Bengal Tigers, is located in Bangladesh. There are cooler hill areas dotted with tea plantations, the most famous being in Syllet. Around the country there are numerous sites of Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist ruins as well as the crumbling rajbaris, the elegant homes of former British rulers.

Bangladesh has a lot to offer. Unfortunately, I barely made it out of Dhaka. Having flown a very early morning flight out of Osaka, with a five hour layover in Bangkok, I did not arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as originally intended. My first good view of Bangladesh was Zia International Airport, all four gates, with a fifth a crumbling mess of concrete and steel. I could not tell if it was being knocked down or put up. Then I was robbed at immigration when informed my visa would cost US$45 instead of the US$21 I had expected. (The Chinese tourists in front of me paid US$10 each).

I dislike arriving in a new country late in the afternoon. The crush of people waiting outside the arrivals area was both exciting and intimidating. The taxi driver insisted I could not stay in a hostel in Dhaka, they are only for men. I had read much the same, and at dusk I am too tired to argue. He insists he will take me to a nice place. His brother’s place. Or the place owned by a friend of his brother. Or just a place of a guy he knows he calls his “brother.” I am not sure. I give in. He drives me to the nicer part of town, to a multi-story home converted to a guesthouse, gated and with an armed guard. Maybe this is better than a hostel… It is nice to have my own room and even a television to watch all the best Bengali programming.

Welcome to Dhaka indeed. Almost makes you want to just stay in the airport.

Much of the rest of my trip I remember in bits and pieces.

What I remember most is it was Ramadan. At least in December the days were mild and the evenings cool. Yet in a country with such a high poverty rate, it felt particularly brutal to have no food or drink all day. I was not fasting of course, but I felt very subconscious when eating. I went to a local fast food chain called Wimpy for lunch and I was the only person in the restaurant. I felt strange even ordering given the staff were likely fasting as well.

One evening I shared the breaking of fast meal with the owners of the guesthouse. I saw a main part of the meal included puffed rice, like Rice Krispies. So another evening I waited around the market until it was dusk, the time to break fast, and bought a large bag (a several gallon sized bag) of puffed rice to give to a group of hungry kids. I thought it would be a nice gesture, but it turned into a feeding frenzy with children and adults grabbing the bag and pulling until it burst and much of the rice fell on the ground. Still, people were scooping it up off the dirt road. Instead of feeling good, I felt horrible. One small, hopeful boy followed me all the way back to the guesthouse, where I gave him some coins for his trouble. My heart hurt.

One day I decided to try to have lunch at the American Club so I would not be sitting alone in an empty restaurant feeling shameful. I had a bicycle rickshaw drop me off at the gate. I recall it being blue, but cannot be sure. There was a small sliding opening in the solid gate, which made me think of the main gate to the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz. I must have knocked or rung a doorbell as a woman came to open the slit and asked me what I wanted. “I just want to have lunch”. Much to my surprise I was told no. I said, “But I’m an American,” and showed her my passport. The woman told me, “I can bring you a menu and you can order off of it and take it to eat elsewhere, but you cannot eat here.” So much for my first experience at the American Club. I will never forget being turned away.

Another day, returning from a tour along a busy, dusty road into Dhaka, I noted at a stop that there were no sellers in the road. At first I thought this so strange. Every other developing country I had been had roadside sellers who wander through traffic selling gum, snacks, water, single cigarettes, and the like. Then I remembered it was Ramadan. It was then that I could swear I saw the dead body of a woman lying by the side of the road, her bright sari wrapped around her very thin body. People walked around her as if she were not there. We drove on.

I recall I wanted to get out and see a market to buy something “Bangladeshi.” The guesthouse owner flagged down and spoke firmly with a passing auto-rickshaw driver. The owner assured me this driver knew where we were going. About 30 minutes later, it was clear to me that the driver had NO IDEA where we were going. He had driven onto a very narrow road, which barely fit two auto rickshaws side by side. He could speak no English and I no Bengali. I hopelessly blah-blah-blahed the name of the market to to him as he stared at me blankly. Suddenly, a young man approached us, a university student, who spoke English. He spoke with both of us and we were soon on our way to the market. Once there the driver apparently wanted more money than had been initially agreed upon at the guesthouse (where the owner had counseled me to pay a certain amount and NO MORE). I tried to give him the agreed upon price and he refused. He shouted and gestured at me. I blah-blah-blahed back. I put the money on the driver’s seat as he would not take it from my hands. He kept yelling at me as I started to back away. A group of five girls swept up to the vehicle, chattering in broken English, “Miss, Miss, you shopping?” and whisked me away with them. The market was a wash as there were no Bangladeshi handicrafts to speak of and the stall the girls took me to was full of t-shirts sporting Titanic and Michael Jordan themes. But I remember the girls.

My rescuers at the market.

In Dhaka I visited a beautiful old mosque surrounded by a large bathing pool. The only visitors to this mosque, besides me, were men. Walking down the street to the mosque I was surrounded by a shuffling circle of men. They kept a respectful distance from me; the circle started three to four feet out from me, but moved as I moved. I also visited Ahsan Manzil, a former palace and now the National Museum. Though I do remember there were informative English displays inside, it was sitting out on the grass by the banks of the river and chatting with a local family that really sticks in my mind. At the beautiful Lalbagh fort, which made me think of the Taj Mahal (before I visited the real thing), I remember the incredibly beautiful saris of the strolling women and being stalked by a University student “practicing English,” who insisted that at my age I should be married and that he just might be the right guy for me. I searched everywhere for what I think was the Baldha Garden, listed in my guide as a beautiful, hidden must see gem. After probably an hour with an auto rickshaw, and about to give up, I finally located it, only to be rather disappointed. The buildings around the park had built up roughshod above the walls, with laundry and other detritus of life hanging unsightly through the trees. A film of dust lay on all the plants, muting the green. Young Bangladeshi couples giggled amongst the foliage and a mongoose scampered along the path. The mongoose though was worth the trip.

Cleansing outside a beautiful mosque somewhere in Dhaka.

Lalbagh Fort, where I met the love of my life (only I didn’t know it)

To get outside of Dhaka I found a travel group to take me on three trips: Sonargaon, the medieval capital of Eastern Bengal, a tour upriver to see jute production and a former Zamindar’s palace now a university, and also a half day river cruise on the Padma.
Though the buildings of Sonargaon were crumbling, which did make me feel melancholy because such a cultural and historic place should be preserved and cherished, I remember the colors so vibrantly and how good it felt to get out of the capital. The university at Murapara did not much impress me, though I liked the goats I found wandering across the campus. Far more interesting was the tour of the jute mill. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest producer of jute, a vegetable fiber, which, like cotton and hemp, can be spun and woven, and in the 19th century, many British made their fortunes as jute barons in Bengal. On the Padma river cruise I remember most that my travel companions were a Foreign Service family, husband, wife, and young son and that we did get to see two of the Gangetic pink river dolphins.

A stroll in Sonargaon

Bangladesh was an unexpected vacation, yet it lingers in my mind as one that delivered more than anticipated. There were some clear hardships for most of the local people that were impossible to ignore and which made my heart ache, and yet the vast majority of the people I came across greeted me with kindness and brilliant smiles. I would like to visit again and see more of the country.

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