dating shanghai

i've realized that trying to make a decision to stay or leave shanghai is like deciding whether to break up with someone or marry them.

in the midst of decision, every insignificant characteristic is magnified ... each a check on a never resolving list of pros and cons:

- nearly getting run off the road on my bike by mopeds who want to play chicken: go

- sharing a meal w/ amazing women from all over the world in my cooking class: stay

- getting hit in the face w/ random liquid while walking in the street: go

- meeting the smiling eyes of a worn and knowing local face: stay

- watching a woman ignored after a moped accident: go

- cheap and perfect pedi: stay

- fleas and water: go

- feeling helpless under the wrath of my mandarin teacher: go

- understanding a conversation in mandarin: stay

- opportunity for travel: stay

- longing for health and cleanliness: go

and so it goes ... and i've not even touched the career implications for both of us.

it's tiring, this place of swinging. do i commit to her ... with all her beauty and flaws? or do i go my own way ... knowing my life is more rich having known her?

grace

my chinese teacher, marina, got canned. at least i prefer to think so, but it is entirely possible that after my "assessment" she decided i wasn't teachable. perhaps there was a conversation about the incorrigible "mei guo ren" (american), and they drew straws; and the new girl lost. perhaps they had to come up with an english name for the new girl because they knew the american could not pronounce her chinese name, and so they picked GRACE. fitting? i think so.

except for the fact that grace, is not so gracious. i think she is very sweet on the inside, but her lack of english eloquence tests my confidence and patience each time i go to class.

for example, (which she says all the time before giving an example that isn't an example) ... "it's like the "b" and "p" in the english alphabet ... they sound the same, but they are different letters." right. thanks, that cleared it all up for me, except b and p don't at all sound the same. they LOOK the same, if you are an upside down dyslexic.

she says things like "i told you!" or "we learn this!" (which means we learnED this) ... and reminds me continuously, that she has apparently taught me something already. if i answer a question wrong, she says "NO!!!" after a string of no's last week, my fist inadvertently slammed the table in response to her scolding. today while practicing the pronunciation of sentences, she said "NO! pay attention to the tones!!!" i was thinking of all the things she should pay attention to.

this kind of lost in translation abuse has a tendency to run the "system save" program in my brain, which includes releasing messages such as: "you were a GOOD student. your mom and dad do NOT think you are dumb. you are old, and losing your mind is normal. you LOOK a lot younger than you are. and so on ..."

my favorite part of chinese class is that she ends each session with, "so much for today." she means, "that was a lot to learn for one day" ... but that doesn't change my desire to punch her face each time she says it.

a few weeks ago, i had a particularly good lesson. at the end she said, "time is up."

yes, grace, it is. i think it may be time to find out who drew the second shortest straw.

alliteration

somewhat surprising sights seen on a suffocating sauna of a saturday in shanghai ...

1. "showers" - an older woman wearing a disposable shower cap to keep her hair looking fine.

2. "sitting" - a husky sized dog on a moped w/ a guy.

3. "slides" - 2 moped accidents where all hesitate to help b/c they could be blamed.

and most shocking of all? a man who was cab-competing with me in the rain, stood back, and let me have it.

"xie xie (shea shea) chivalrous sir."

observing the sabbath

a friend who has lived in shanghai for 9 years told me last week that every now and then, you have to spend a day in your apartment, watch movies, and do nothing. he said it is necessary for survival to have a day where "everything works." i told him that i wasn't sure i could afford any more tv series addictions, but that he made me feel very justified in my previous weekend activities.

we had different expectations of this weekend, and spent saturday riding everywhere our bikes would take us (more later on my bike, because it is my favorite chinese possession). we had a greasy american breakfast at a greasy american bar. we sat outside in the now gorgeous weather, to have coffee and eat some more. and ... we had a 2 hour massage. b/c really, for $15, why wouldn't you?

maybe because massage has a way of bringing out all the bad things lingering in your system ... and despite drinking a case of sparkling water, those "things" caught up to us. on sunday, we had plans to go to the rock climbing gym, but we took a nap instead. instead of exploring the city, we explored recipes on the internet. and at the end of the day, it was pizza we wanted. so we made one. i don't know if it was the withdrawal after 4 months without it, or the satisfaction of achieving gourmet goodness with half of the ingredients and tools required ... but it was the BEST pizza we have ever had. and yes, entirely gluten free.

c: this is the best pizza ever.

b: i burned the roof of my mouth off, and it was worth it.

c: you are a chinese gluten free gourmet chef.

b: YOU are an italian, gluten free, organic, free range, gourmet chef.

c: let's open wine and pretend we are in tuscany.

b: i love the sabbath in tuscany.

shock and vent

they say that "culture shock" has waves of ups and downs. in the beginning, differences are endearing and the experience of everything is a new and exciting adventure. with some settling, you begin to notice the inconveniences a bit more clearly, and lament the fact that this is your life. welcome.

then things get easier, and you find yourself wishing that this part of your story had a few more chapters ... the beauty and experience don't shield the difficulty, but they make it worthwhile.

and then there was THIS week. it may have been a valley in the culture shock terrain, but i was pouty and missing home.

chad was in seattle. he went to be with our close friends on their wedding day (congrats ben and taryn) :). many of our dearest friends and family were in there at the same time for the celebration. despite getting more than my fair share of vacation this year, i was fully dedicated to playing my role as the victim ... after all, i had nothing to do w/ our decision to come to china and had NO idea the sacrifices we would have to make as a result of being kidnapped and taken away... "shanghai'd" i think they call it.

being alone in china reminds me how far away i am. you are sleeping while i'm awake, and i go to sleep when most of you are too groggy to talk. if you aren't too groggy to talk, you are a morning person, and we probably don't have that much to talk about. the lack of fluid english conversation starts to erode my vocabulary and leaves me speaking in incorrect sentences. i think they are incorrect anyway, no tell anymore i can't. when i'm at work, i imagine all the things i will do with my time off. and when the weekend comes, i struggle to muster the energy to brave the logistics of it all. needless to say, i embraced the counterfeit dvd culture this week ... i am now officially addicted to 24.

this week we had a storm like nothing i've ever experienced. deafening thunder echoed from another universe behind the sky, and lightening cracked through clouds and trees and anything else it found along the way. the rains came as though heaven had been saving water for a drought, and our streets turned into rivers. on monday morning, i stayed home from work. i posted a note on twitter about needing a boat to get to the office, and you can see from the picture above, i was only exaggerating a little.

that night, i was about to go to bed and pulled back the covers on our bed to discover that the colony of tiny fleas that had been around the edges of our room had now found a home much more cozy. they seemed to be having a great time, and apparently, i had interrupted them. i promptly took my pity party to the spare bedroom.

the next morning i awoke to water pouring through our bathroom ceiling. i'm unclear as to whether or not it was from the storm, or from new neighbors staying in the apartment above ours. either way, i had to laugh at this point. "dear God, it's me, rebecca. now done can we be?"

this weekend some of my favorite girls got together for a weekend on the lake. a lake in michigan ... a lake like the ones i spent so much time on during summers growing up. they called to say hi, and it was so good to hear their voices. then my little bro texted me w/ plans for me to come to seattle. tomorrow. their wedding reception in seattle is this weekend.

i distracted the ache w/ some more 24.

we are in the midst of trying to make a decision to stay in china for an additional 6mos. there are many great opportunities and reasons to do so. there are a lot of great reasons to come home too.

"so God, are the mini plagues a message? or ... is there a mountain up ahead?"

i guess time will tell ... and chad coming home tonight will help too. in the meantime, i'll put on my big girl skirt and get back to work. someone has to save the digital world.

the human race

this morning i joined runners across the world in the largest race ever. nike puts on a good event, and the human race was no exception. however, i saw some things in china that i bet you didn't see in your cities:

1. shoes of the NON-running variety. everything from converse to basketball high tops, to dunks ... you name it, they ran 6.2 miles in it.
2. jeans.
3. skirts: tiered ruffle and tennis alike.
3. couples holding hands while running.
4. umbrellas.
5. backpacks.

and this was not an anomaly. these sightings were consistent throughout the race.

despite not training ... at ALL ... it was good to be running again. it's amazing how the cross country girl in me comes out as soon as the gun signals the start. it's also slightly frightening. my self preserving mind laughs at the boys that sprint out of the gate, eager to lead the pack. inwardly, i tell them that i'll be seeing them again, and although my body has nothing on theirs, my psyche will roll them up and send them back to the starting line with the next pass. i hear my coach in my head ... "drop your shoulders ... lengthen the stride ... pick em off, one by one..."

it hurt a lot more than it used to, and just when i was cursing myself for not training and scolding my condescending and prematurely cocky mind ... i passed vans kid who had run out of steam ... and then trouser socks ... and then guy that doesn't want to get passed by a girl (who sprinted valiantly for another second before accepting his defeat).

i didn't race well. it didn't feel good. afterwards, our team looked like we escaped from the very senior citizens home. but those few small victories were all i needed ... i left with my pride in tact, and happy to know that this granny's still got (a little) game.

eight

it's not what i expected.

somehow i thought that the whole of beijing would be walking just a few inches off the ground ... eyes filled with wonder ... hearts open to embracing the new and the different ... "it's a small world after all" would be played on loud speakers while we held hands and rode a mini bus around the city. i imagined that anticipation and excitement would bubble and pass between shiny happy people who need no language outside of sport to be united.

well, it was sort of like that. it just took some work to find it.

beijing is looking its best. with a new fleet of cabs (some of them even pulled out the seatbelts), lush green adorning every empty space, clean streets, fresh paint, and some clear government mandates when it comes to "normal behavior" (i.e. spitting, crack crazy driving, pjs in public, etc.). the city has contradicted all of my expectations.

we learned quickly that tickets are hard to come by. scalping is apparently, a full time and lucrative business in china, and the prices were outrageous on the streets outside of the olympic park. chad and i got there early on the morning of phelp's quest for number 8. if there was ever a time we had to pull out all of our best negotiation skills, this was it. we are typically a good team, but after 2.5 hours and only a glimmer of one ticket (before it was snatched away in return for more money than we were offering), we were within minutes of the race, and beginning to accept our destiny. we were going to have to sacrifice our system of values to get it done.

that's when chris and lynn of california stepped out of a cab. chad casually asked them if they had extra tickets. they said they had 2. he made them a quick offer and shoved money into their hands as the curious crowd closed in around us. an hour had passed since the event start, and we RAN. in sweaty disbelief, we settled into the best possible seats alongside family members of many of the athletes. the sweetest little lady sat next to me giving me the run down of her "boys" from the states. "oh, aaron peirsol, he's my favorite. he did it the other night, and he'll do it again. don't you worry."

she talked ... and i watched dara win 2 silver medals at age 41. she talked some more, and i watched michael phelps make history. i'm a sucker for sports moments, and it doesn't take much to bring tears, but this was beyond my expectation. there was magic in the water cube.

i still have a lump in my throat.